So I’m back to my writing passion. I couldn’t stay away very long. Disappointment sat by my side for a day or two, but then I came to understand that I was much greater than my disappointment. No need to wallow in it, and so many loving beings in my life showed up offering me tremendous support. Including you, Dear Reader, with your encouraging comments to me. What else is a girl to do except get back up and count her blessings and enjoy life!

I think back on the past couple of weeks and how I have been enjoying my life. Spending time at Churchill Downs Racetrack with family and old friends, and hiking at Bernheim Forest with my darling Man, Alan, and meeting new friends. So much fun and laughter, too. A few photos that were shared by phone texting providing great memories, tickling one of the compartments of my brain, the Hippocampus, which plays a big part in memory retention.

Then on May 2, the day the Kentucky Oaks race was run for very talented three year old fillies, my phone tinged in a texted photo from my grandson Bryar. I was home. He was at the Oaks with three of his friends from his high school. And guess who else was in the photo? Former Green Bay Packers NFL players, Aaron Rodgers and Devante Adams! I couldn’t believe it! These young gentlemen were sitting with two former Packer football stars! You have to understand I have been a Packer fan since I was a little girl living in Wisconsin for two to three years, sixty years ago. And here these fifteen year young gentlemen not only sat with them for a few minutes, but got a fist bump from each of them!

So then my Hippocampus activated again, bringing to the forefront of my mind an old memory that did involve myself and an old famous Packer football star, Paul Hornung, also known as the “Golden Boy”. He played for the Packers from 1957, (the year I was born), till 1966. He was born in Louisville, Kentucky, and from the time I moved to Louisville at the age of seven I would occasionally hear his name. Much of my family remained Packer fans.

So in the year 2000 I was working here in Louisville at a local hospital, in Cardiac Cath Lab. Someone in Human Resources came up with the idea of ensuring less stress for hospital staff members by promoting more laughter. One of these ways was to take on a model created by Dr. Patch Adams, a physician who organized volunteers all over the world to dress as clowns and visit patients in hospitals. Cardiac Cath Lab was picked to carry out this philosophy because it was a specialty unit, an intensive care unit that took care of patients with heart issues. Daily we received patients presenting with chest pain, and quite often patients who were actually experiencing a Myocardial Infarction, or heart attack. Our business was as “serious as a heart attack”, so the thinking was our staff was perfect to experiment with, to help decrease stress with our medical roles of literally saving lives.

We did not have to wear a clown suit. But each of us was given the soft, red, foam nose a clown wears. And for a week we would wear our clown nose while we worked with our patients who were not actually presenting with a heart attack. Our patients loved it! And we did too. I think we did laugh and smile more, and tease one another, each with our own big, red nose on our faces.

We often had to take a wheelchair up to a unit upstairs that had patients waiting for the procedure known as a cardiac catheterization, where the cardiologist checks out the blood flow of the arteries in the heart. These patients usually had some type of heart issue, but were very stable. So on this one particular day, after receiving a report on my patient from his unit nurse, I grabbed a wheelchair, stuck my red, foam clown ball on my nose, and walked upstairs to transport P. Hornung. And it was him! The Golden Boy! He even had his Super Bowl ring with him for good luck, though of course he wasn’t allowed to wear it during the procedure. I was thrilled, and told him what a huge fan I was of the Green Bay Packers! He was a delightful man and very proud to have been a former NFL player.

So now, a few days after looking at that photo of Bryar and his friends at the Oaks, I am thinking my beloved Higher Power has a marvelous sense of humor. Here is Bryar, all dressed up as the fine young man he is, and receives fist bumps from former Packers, at the ripe old age of, umm, fifteen. What a dream come true! And then there is me, who had to wait till I was in my early forties. And not only that, I did not have on a pretty dress and a fabulous hat. No! I wore baggy blue scrubs and a red, foam clown nose on my face! I guess laughter really is the best medicine.

So I am back to writing, working towards my dreams. Life is Good, and I am moving forward into my future with lots of great memories to carry with me.

I do have a secret dream. That one day I will be on the sidelines of Lambeau Field and am absolutely thrilled as I stroll down the line of Packer NFL players and reach out to shake each one of those fine gentlemen’s hands. I am wearing a green and gold jersey with the big G in the middle, and I can actually feel those large hands shaking mine! And I am not, I repeat, NOT, wearing a soft, red, foam clown nose! :O)

c   Love, Joan