Derby Countdown

We are all reving up for our trek to the track. Gregg even put a countdown "clock" on our home page. Louisville, at Derby time is alive with excitement. It is the most beautiful time of the year here, too. All of the azalias, dogwood trees,redbud trees, tulip trees and tulips, daffodils, pansys and numerous other flowers are in full bloom. The trees have their new leaves and they are such a fresh, clean green. Louisville's Operation Brightside has been out on the streets cleaning up the highways and by-ways getting ready for the big day. We are spiffing up for the more than 100,000 visitors that will come to admire our city, see our horse race, drink our mint juleps and boost our economy. Only in Louisville is there a horse race like the Kentucky Derby, run. Known all over the world.

The Fitzgerald family are reving up also. It is so much fun to plan and discuss and recall last year and the years before that. Looking back,thirty three years ago, our friends the Wilsons , Micky and Warner and their two kids, came to join us and Keith and Brian in the Infield for the hundreth derby. Karen and Paul and members of Paul's family from Akron came to join in the crazyness. We spent the whole day there and saw some unbelievable sights, ate Ky Fried Chicken, laughed at some of the "goings On" and were duly shocked at some of the "goings on", bet money on our favorites, drank a julep or two, sang "My Old Kentucky Home", (got teary eyed) welcomed the call to the post, went home at the end of the day, tired, dusty, hungry, happy and a wee bit dissapointed that we had not seen a horse!We still talk about our Day at the Races.

Since then, we've been to many more. The mystique is still there. We still love it, talk about it and look forward to it. One year, Linda, Larry and I sat in fantastic seats next to the winners circle,right under the twin spires and got to see Brian and Wayne Lucas greet their horse that had just run, and got to be upclose and personal with all of the other horses that won that day. We went to the paddock and watched the horses get their saddles on. Actually, the jockeys saddled them up. We saw a few of the rich and famous and whats more they got to see us!

Both those experiences were great but pale in comparison to what we have done in recent years. Brian works for Wayne Lucas and each year we have the privlege of setting up our space on the back side of the track and have the most fun of all.

We bring our food, chairs, tarps, coolers, and have our annual derby picnic. We see every horse in every race. They run right in front of us, we can hear the thunder of their hooves and feel the rumble of the ground when those thousands of pounds of horses race about ten feet in front of us with just the fence and some yards of grass between them and us. We can look over and see the 100,000 plus people in the boxes, grand stands, sky terrace, millionairs row and the thousands of people in the infield and know that there is no way that they can buy a ticket to the spot we are in.
To be continued.Two more days and counting! Rain, rain go away! I hope the weather men are as far off on the rain as they were on the snow all winner. However, we spent one day in torrents of rain at the track and had a great time. It dampened our clothes, tarp etc, but not our spirits.