Derby Day Observations

As I mentioned yesterday, I don't particularly care for the Derby.  Please note that I did not use the word "hate" in my first sentence.  But I did have a very meaningful incident yesterday on Derby Eve that I would like to share. 

I was on my way back home yesterday afternoon, after having an awesome lunch celebrating the birthday of The First Lady Of Country Music, Miss Tammy Wynette, with Diva Stacy at one of our favorite restaurants, the Bristol.  I was about 20 minutes from home, and was within a half mile of Churchill Downs when I was stopped at a red light.  To my right was a former Payless Shoes store that was closed.  People were standing in front of it under the overhang waiting for the bus.  It had just begun to pour down rain and was extremely windy.  Along with the people waiting for the bus was a family of four - the parents and two elementary school aged kids.  Spread out on the ground in front of the closed shoe store, they had a blanket along with a cooler, small charcoal grill and a couple of plastic grocery store bags with various food and other items in it.  In the two minutes that I was stopped at the light, it dawned on me that this was probably as close as this family would ever get to the big hoopla that surrounds the Derby. 

I'm not ashamed to say that I got weepy when I saw them.  It had begun to rain, and the extreme wind was driving the rain in every direction.  The father was trying to secure the bags and cooler, and the mother was trying to secure the blanket and the bags while the kids just tried to shield themselves from the blowing rain. 

People in this city just go absolutely crazy over the Derby, and here this small family was trying to have a little picnic probably as close to historic Churchill Downs as they could get.  At that same time, people had paid major bucks to get into Churchill Downs and were getting absolutely soaked, and others had paid even more money to get into the more prestigious parts of the track, and this small family was trying to keep their grill, blanket and kids from getting wet in the driving rain.  Scenes like that kinda put things into perspective.