Derby Day

I have a college friend, Bob Wisener, who is an acclaimed sports writer in Arkansas. Early yesterday, I saw on his Facebook page several posts from Louisville where he was covering the 144th Run For The Roses, better known as the Kentucky Derby. (SPOILER ALERT: Justify won if you didn't already know.) I'm not a racing fan myself. Two times cutting class and chapel at Harding University and consequently losing all the money I was carrying cured me of the gambling fever! Still, Bob's reminder of the biggest sporting event of the day brought back racing nostalgia but not the kind you might expect. It triggered a pleasant stroll down my musical memory lane.

While at Harding, due to the influences of those in my orbit of friends, I developed a liking for the music of Jerry Jeff Walker, probably best known for writing Mr. Bojangles and getting a shoutout in the chorus of Waylon Jenning's Luckenbach, Texas. One of my favorite Jerry Jeff compositions was Derby Day, a love song written to his wife, Susan. In the spoken introduction to the song,  Walker tells us that, "This here is Derby Day, written on the day pf the Kentucky Derby when Foolish Pleasure lost..." I really liked the song since the day I heard it at Harding. Some thought this morning hit me to google Foolish Pleasure, who I had heard of, and find out why his loss was included in a song all those years ago. Surely, I reasoned, it must have been a major upset. Here's what I discovered when I did a little bit of digging. Foolish Pleasure actually did not lose the 1975 Kentucky Derby. Instead, he came from behind to defeat Avatar and Diablo with a time of 2:02.00. The rider that day was Jacinto Vasquez and Foolish Pleasure was trained by LeRoy Jolley. I found all that on the Internet.

Here's my thought for the day. I was wrong for decades about the winner of the major race in our country simply due to a few words on a forty year old album. The funny thing is the mistake doesn't even show up on the lyrics posted on the web- you have to hear them on the ninth track of the album, A Man Must Carry On. I have no idea why Jerry Jeff made the mistake that day. It was a live recording and perhaps it was such a good cut, they left it in. Maybe it was an inside joke. Maybe all of the musicians in the recording process believed Foolish Pleasure had lost. It doesn't matter. And it doesn't matter that I've been mistaken all these years. But it does bother me to think it might not be an isolated incident. From the time we're little, we take in information from all kind of sources and usually take it to be true. We're taught to trust parents, teachers, and adults in general, at least the ones our folks know. As we get older, some of the blinders come off and we begin to question some of the things presented to us. I've told outlandish things to classes and they accept it without blinking an eye. (I tell them the truth afterwards!) When we take quizzes, I challenge them to challenge me on what the scripture they just read says. I don't lose many of those but I want them to know they have to think for themselves and not be afraid to use the incredibly complex minds the Lord gave them. Keep reading, keep studying, and keep questioning. And maybe I just need to find a more reliable source to feed my sports' trivia addiction!

Applicable quote of the day:

"This is the day for anyone involved with horse. The dream is to win the Kentucky Derby, because there's nothing like it."
Billy Turner

To listen to Derby Day, copy/paste or click the link below!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-P5HpEItG4

God bless,
Steve
Luke 18:1
www.hawleybooks.com
E-mail me at steve@hawleybooks.com