My sev­en­ty-fourth birth­day rolled by this month. I’ve been look­ing back since then and think­ing about turn­ing points. There are so many and they go way back. 

I almost failed the sec­ond grade. I was in love with Mrs. Halper, but her week­ly spelling tests broke my heart. She called out eight words. We scrawled the let­ters in cur­sive. She col­lect­ed the papers, cir­cled in red the ones we got wrong, and hand­ed them back to us. My paper was always the bot­tom score in the class. Almost all my words were cir­cled, test after test.

Half-way through the school year, Mrs. Halper told Mom she couldn’t pass me to the third grade unless I learned to spell. They set­tled on a plan. Mrs. Halper drew up a big list of words each week. She worked with me on it after school, then Mom sat with me at the kitchen table each night. She called out the words. I wrote them down. She cor­rect­ed them, and we did them again. And again.

I can’t pin­point the moment or explain how it hap­pened, but some­where along the line, I began to devel­op a feel for the art of orthog­ra­phy and its mad­den­ing incon­sis­ten­cies. I got four right on a test in Feb­ru­ary. Five the next week. Six a month lat­er. Mom cheered when I brought that one home.

The big moment came the week before East­er. Mrs. Halper called out the eight words. I wrote them down. Dur­ing nap time, I peeked through my fin­gers at Mrs. Halper as she grad­ed our tests. A few min­utes into it, she laid down her red pen, dabbed at her pret­ty blue eyes with a tis­sue, then smiled at me through tears. Lat­er that day, she thumb­tacked my paper to the bul­letin board, and when we went out to recess, she kissed me on the cheek. I almost fainted.

On my eleventh birth­day, my aunt and uncle from Rhode Island sent me a pack­age. I thought they were rich because their gifts nev­er came out of the Sears cat­a­log and they were always the best presents I got. I was crest­fall­en when I tore off the wrap­ping paper to find a book. I didn’t like to read. See Spot Run had turned me off ear­ly on. I’d nev­er even read a short sto­ry, much less a whole book. I noticed that this one at least had an inter­est­ing cov­er, an artist’s ren­der­ing of old coins, a map, glass of rum, and com­pass strewn across an oak­en table-top under the title: TREASURE ISLAND. Curi­ous, I turned to the first page. 

“I remem­ber him as if it were yes­ter­day, as he came plod­ding to the inn door, his sea-chest fol­low­ing behind him in a hand-bar­row — a tall, strong, heavy, nut-brown man, his tar­ry pig­tail falling over the shoul­der of his soiled blue coat, his hands ragged and scarred, with black, bro­ken nails, and the sabre cut across one cheek, a dirty, livid white. I remem­ber him look­ing round the cov­er and whistling to him­self as he did so, and then break­ing out in that old sea-song that he sang so often after­wards: Fif­teen men on the dead man’s chest —/Yo-ho-ho, and a bot­tle of rum!”

I could see Bil­ly Bones and hear him singing as clear­ly as if he’d walked into my bed­room. Mes­mer­ized, I read on for hours. Jim, Long John, and the pirates took me across the seas in search of buried trea­sure, and I nev­er returned. Trea­sure Island became the first leg of a life-long jour­ney borne on the wings of art­ful­ly told sto­ries, wend­ing my way through a thou­sand worlds to a B.A. in Eng­lish Lit­er­a­ture, through careers in teach­ing, law, and busi­ness, to come to rest in my sev­enth decade in Whip­poor­will Hollow. 

One of the worlds I vis­it­ed along the way was Denmark’s Elsi­nore Cas­tle in the Mid­dle Ages. When I was sev­en­teen, I walked on unsteady legs to the front of the room and stood before my class­mates, high school seniors, sit­ting in rows of desks, all look­ing at me, waiting.

Each of us had to recite from mem­o­ry the solil­o­quy from Act I, scene ii of Ham­let, 31 lines, 259 words. Pre­sent­ing it with­out fal­ter­ing would be enough to secure a good grade, but I want­ed to do more than that. Ham­let was a sad, con­flict­ed prince, plagued with self-doubt and self-loathing. Strug­gling with world-class ado­les­cent inse­cu­ri­ties, I felt Hamlet’s anguish and thought I could give his trou­bled heart a voice if I could find the courage to bare my soul in front of my friends, but courage wasn’t my strong suit. Up to that point, I’d nev­er tak­en cen­ter stage or done any­thing to set myself apart. I pre­ferred to hide in the shad­ows where it was safe, but that day, inspired by Shake­speare and a gift­ed teacher, Mr. Turn­er, I des­per­ate­ly want­ed to step for­ward into the light.

Feel­ing vul­ner­a­ble in front of my class­mates, I fixed my gaze on red­dish-gold spears of autumn sun­light com­ing through the back win­dows, then took a deep breath, and held my trem­bling hands up before me. “Oh that this too, too sol­id flesh would melt,/Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew.” My voice broke, then stead­ied as Hamlet’s sor­row swelled up inside me and took con­trol. “How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable/Seem to me all the uses of this world,” I said, mean­ing it.

The next 26 lines took me deep down inside myself to a place I’d nev­er been, where my inhi­bi­tions, doubts, and fears fell away. For one minute and fifty-five sec­onds, I melt­ed into poet­ry that seemed to have been writ­ten for me cen­turies before I was born. “But break my heart,” I said at the end, fight­ing back tears, “for I must hold my tongue.”

Dazed, I walked to my desk and sat down. Emerg­ing slow­ly from the mys­ti­cal spell of Shakespeare’s lyri­cal iambic pen­tame­ter, I real­ized every­one had turned toward me, some with big smiles, oth­ers with tears in their eyes. They were clap­ping, and the applause went on and on.

Over the fol­low­ing weeks, I pre­sent­ed oth­er scenes from Ham­let to good effect. For a daz­zling few months I had visions of becom­ing the next Richard Bur­ton, but I soon proved to be a one-trick pony, a rea­son­ably good Ham­let, but mediocre to painful­ly awful in every oth­er role, and my thes­pi­an aspi­ra­tions met a swift, mer­ci­ful death.

That per­for­mance stayed with me in a more impor­tant way, though. It became a small cor­ner­stone of con­fi­dence, the first stone set in the con­struc­tion of a long life.

I’d like to pre­tend here that I’m self-made, that hard work, sac­ri­fice, and tal­ent brought me to the good place where I find myself today, but look­ing back with a clear eye, I see a thou­sand turn­ing points where flat-out pure luck played the deci­sive role and a thou­sand more where I couldn’t have gone for­ward with­out the help of some­one who extend­ed a hand to me gra­tu­itous­ly and unbidden.

A few years ago, a guy I hadn’t seen in fifty years tracked me down to thank me for talk­ing him out of quit­ting our col­lege fra­ter­ni­ty when he was a pledge. He said I saved him from mak­ing a life-alter­ing mis­take. I appre­ci­at­ed his thanks, but won­dered why he went to so much trou­ble. It was such a small thing that hap­pened so long ago.

He died the fol­low­ing year, and I learned he’d been fight­ing can­cer for a long time. I under­stood then. I was one of many on a long list. 

Mrs. Halper, Mom, my aunt and uncle, Mr. Turn­er, and so many of those who helped me are gone now. I thanked some of them before they left. I wish I had a sec­ond chance with the others.

Many are still here. My list is long, too, but I’m for­tu­nate. I have time. 

Post Script: Suzie Glass and I were the last two kids stand­ing in the sev­enth-grade spelling bee when the proc­tor called out the word “medieval.” It sat me down and Suzie won. To this day, that word aggra­vates me. Say it out loud, then explain to me why in hell it’s spelled like that. 

On its final approach to the Win­nipeg Air­port, Safeway’s com­pa­ny jet glid­ed through the air smooth­ly, as always. I sat in a plush leather buck­et-seat fac­ing for­ward. The CEO sat across the aisle to my left. A Senior Vice Pres­i­dent sat direct­ly behind the cock­pit, fac­ing us. The cock­pit door was open with a cur­tain drawn across it. We couldn’t see the pilot and co-pilot, but we heard the drone of their con­ver­sa­tion with air traf­fic control.

The three of us from Safe­way were chat­ting ami­ably when some­thing hit us mid-air. There was a loud thud; the plane shud­dered; and the pilot screamed.

I flinched and clenched the arms of my chair. The exec­u­tive fac­ing me looked like she’d been punched in the gut, and the CEO let out a muf­fled cry. The plane dipped for­ward. The engines sput­tered, skipped a few beats, then caught hold again, and the jet lev­eled off, resum­ing its grad­ual descent. The entire inci­dent con­sumed only a few sec­onds, just long enough for my life to pass before me. 

“Every­thing all right?” the CEO said to the cock­pit, his voice shaking.

“We’re good,” the co-pilot said.

“Valerie?” the CEO said.

“Sor­ry for the out­burst.” Her voice was calm, reas­sur­ing. “We hit a goose. Bloody mess on Greg’s wind­shield, but we’re fine. We’ll touch down safe­ly in a few moments.”

The CEO didn’t look con­vinced. I wasn’t either, but the pilot was true to her word. In less than a minute, we were coast­ing to the terminal. 

Stand­ing on the tar­mac, I looked up at the face of the jet. A bas­ket­ball-sized gash dent­ed the nosecone. Blood, entrails, and feath­ers cov­ered the co-pilot’s wind­shield. Win­nipeg is the cap­i­tal of Man­i­to­ba, the Cana­di­an province known as the land of a hun­dred thou­sand lakes. Thou­sands of geese flock to the lakes in the sum­mer and pose a flight risk to air­craft on approach to the air­port. The pilot said we were lucky. On one of her flights, a goose blew out the wind­shield and splat­tered innards all over the cockpit.

Prac­tic­ing law and serv­ing as a Safe­way exec­u­tive, I was a pas­sen­ger on scores of pri­vate jet flights. Oth­er than the goose col­li­sion, they were all seri­ous mood-enhancers. No crowds to fight. No lines. A car dri­ves you right up to the plane. It takes off when you’re ready. The cab­ins are spa­cious, lux­u­ri­ous, and com­fort­able. A stew­ard serves Caber­net Sauvi­gnon in crys­tal glass­ware and gourmet meals on fine china.

I’ve also flown more than three hun­dred com­mer­cial flights. When I worked at Safe­way, I flew on South­west Air­lines cat­tle cars so often South­west named me Bur­bank Air­port pas­sen­ger of the year three years in a row. All South­west seats are coach class with pas­sen­gers packed in like sar­dines. No reserved seat­ing; first come, first served. More often than not, I was trapped in a mid­dle seat, includ­ing an unfor­get­table adven­ture sit­ting between a three hun­dred pound guy spilling over my arm­rest and a young moth­er with a scream­ing baby in her lap. No gourmet meals on South­west. I was lucky to get a Diet Coke in a plas­tic cup, and if the flight atten­dant liked me, two bags of fif­teen peanuts each instead of the stan­dard one bag per pas­sen­ger. Giv­en a choice, any sane per­son would choose to fly on a pri­vate jet rather than a South­west 737 or any oth­er com­mer­cial plane.

Unless that per­son is con­cerned about CO2 emis­sions. Pri­vate jets are big-time pol­luters on a pas­sen­ger per capi­ta basis. Because of the low pas­sen­ger load, a pri­vate jet pas­sen­ger gen­er­ates some­where between twen­ty and forty times the car­bon emis­sions of a com­mer­cial passenger.

Based on that data, you would expect envi­ron­men­tal­ists to scream to high heav­en for the abo­li­tion of pri­vate jet trav­el. There are some loud voic­es com­ing from less­er-known advo­cates, but most high-pro­file cli­mate change reform­ers are wealthy pri­vate jet fre­quent-fliers. Liv­ing in glass man­sions, they don’t throw stones.

Pres­i­dent Biden’s cli­mate czar, John Ker­ry, recent­ly flew to Ice­land on a pri­vate jet to accept an award for his work on cli­mate change. The irony of his trans­porta­tion mode was lost on him. “(I)t’s the only choice for some­body like me who is trav­el­ing the world to win this bat­tle,” he said. “I believe, the time it takes me to get some­where, I can’t sail across the ocean. I have to fly, meet with peo­ple, and get things done.” His expla­na­tion telling­ly ignores com­mer­cial flights, as though that option doesn’t exist for “some­body like me.”

The Unit­ed Nations recent­ly reap­point­ed Michael Bloomberg as its cli­mate envoy. Bloomberg will ful­fill his duties by trav­el­ing the world on his fleet of pri­vate jets. He does not see this as incon­sis­tent with cli­mate change reform. As a Bloomberg pub­li­ca­tion explains, “For many peo­ple, pri­vate jets seem like an extrav­a­gance. But for busy exec­u­tives and celebri­ties, the time sav­ings, con­ve­nience, and extra secu­ri­ty they offer make them more of a neces­si­ty.” From 2016 to 2020, Bloomberg flew more than 1,700 such nec­es­sary flights, emit­ting more than 10,000 tons of carbon. 

Bill Gates funds many wor­thy clean ener­gy projects. He owns four jets, which he refers to as his “guilty plea­sure.” In 2017, they spewed more than 1600 tons of car­bon into the atmosphere.

In 2019, the world’s A‑list of cli­mate change lumi­nar­ies flew 114 pri­vate jets to Italy to attend a sum­mit on glob­al warm­ing orga­nized by Google.  Google exec­u­tives own ten pri­vate jets, two Boe­ing air­lin­ers, and a fight­er jet.

Some wealthy cli­mate change advo­cates claim they off­set pri­vate jet emis­sions by pur­chas­ing car­bon cred­its. A Bloomberg arti­cle sug­gests con­ve­nient ways to do this. “You can off­set a ton of CO2 by donat­ing $18 to a refor­esta­tion effort in East Tim­or or by giv­ing $15 to a pro­gram that pro­vides fuel-effi­cient stoves for women in North Darfur.” 

The account­ing looks fishy, but even if it’s cor­rect, you’d need to stack stoves ten high in every needy North Dar­fur kitchen to off­set Bloomberg’s emis­sions alone. Besides, you would expect com­mit­ted envi­ron­men­tal­ists to advo­cate accom­plish­ing both goals simul­ta­ne­ous­ly – fund­ing the reduc­tion of car­bon emis­sions in poor nations while also great­ly reduc­ing air trav­el pol­lu­tion by fly­ing com­mer­cial. And yet, in research­ing this post, I found no wealthy envi­ron­men­tal­ist who set such an example.

This is not because fly­ing pri­vate is a neces­si­ty for busy exec­u­tives and celebri­ties, as Ker­ry and Bloomberg sug­gest. At Safe­way, exec­u­tives flew com­mer­cial before the com­pa­ny pur­chased the Gulf­stream. It took more time; some­times we had to bring along secu­ri­ty per­son­nel; and it was dif­fi­cult to match our trav­el demands with com­mer­cial flight sched­ules. But we man­aged to work around the dis­ad­van­tages and still achieve our goals. 

Fly­ing pri­vate is a will­ful choice based on con­ve­nience and com­fort. Busy exec­u­tives, celebri­ties, and wealthy envi­ron­men­tal­ists don’t want to fight their way through crowd­ed air­ports, suf­fer indef­i­nite­ly delayed take-offs, sit on planes with three hun­dred pound guys and scream­ing babies, miss con­nect­ing flights, and lose their luggage. 

As some­one who has flown too many miles on com­mer­cial flights, I get that. What I don’t get is the wealthy envi­ron­men­tal­ists’ pre­sump­tion that they can lead the charge against glob­al warm­ing from a pri­vate jet’s plush leather seat while sip­ping Caber­net Sauvi­gnon. Appar­ent­ly, they think they can per­suade the mass­es to make painful lifestyle changes while refus­ing to forego a lux­u­ri­ous “guilty plea­sure” that pro­duces car­bon foot­prints thou­sands of times greater than that of the aver­age person.

I don’t think so.

“Lead by exam­ple” is a time-worn max­im for a rea­son. If they want to change the world, park the jets.

Post Script: As South­west Air­lines Bur­bank Air­port Pas­sen­ger of the Year, my major award was a free South­west flight to Chica­go to an open-bar par­ty. I couldn’t face yet anoth­er com­mer­cial flight even for free booze. I declined all three years.

In 1975, a small­ish bay foal with a weak blood­line and a slight­ly back­ward arc at his knees was born at a thor­ough­bred breed­ing farm in Lex­ing­ton, Ken­tucky. Months lat­er, in Jan­u­ary 1976, my son was born in Los Angeles.

On my son’s fifth birth­day, his stom­ach was dis­tend­ed and he com­plained of nau­sea. Our pedi­a­tri­cian mis­di­ag­nosed it as a diges­tive prob­lem. When the swelling spread to his face, arms, and legs, a team of doc­tors iden­ti­fied his ill­ness as a rare con­di­tion where the kid­neys strip pro­tein from the sys­tem. With­out pro­tein, water seeps from the blood­stream into tis­sue and organs, caus­ing swelling, which can lead to infec­tions, blood clots, and kid­ney failure.

By the time they diag­nosed his dis­ease cor­rect­ly, his sur­vival was in ques­tion. After two mis­car­riages, Cindy was four months preg­nant. To con­trol the strain on her as best we could, I took the lead with my son’s crisis.

I dropped every­thing and he and I moved into the Children’s Hos­pi­tal of Los Ange­les. The first night, his eyes swelled shut. I held him in my arms and tried to calm his fears. At dawn, diuret­ics mer­ci­ful­ly flushed the water from his swollen face and he could see again, but the process didn’t stop there. The excre­tion of water con­tin­ued for hours, relent­less­ly shrink­ing him down to a skele­ton wrapped in pale gray skin as he screamed in pain from con­tin­u­ous mus­cle cramps.

When they’d purged all the stag­nant water, the doc­tors built him up with injec­tions of albu­min. He would cry each time the doc­tor unveiled the nee­dle. We tried to turn it into a game. “How long can you hold out before you cry? Bet you can’t make it all the way through the shot?” On day five, the doc­tor and I cheered when he took the injec­tion with­out flinching.

His improve­ment allowed him to sleep, so I wan­dered down the hall. I still can’t talk about the par­ents and kids I met, and with this post I’ve learned I can’t write about them either. The mem­o­ries are too painful to con­front. Survivor’s guilt plays a role, too. My son recov­ered. Many did not.

On the six­teenth day, they cleared my son to go home. In the dis­charge con­fer­ence, the doc­tor said we still had a long way to go. His con­di­tion was chron­ic. Relaps­es are vir­tu­al­ly inevitable. The steroid, pred­nisone, would help his kid­neys func­tion prop­er­ly, but because of its harsh side effects, he could only take it in six-week inter­vals. After each cycle, his kid­neys would per­form nor­mal­ly for an indef­i­nite time, then break down again. I was to test his urine dai­ly. When he relapsed, we would resume the prednisone.

“How long will this last?” I asked the doctor.

“Most chil­dren car­ry the dis­ease into their late teens, some into young adult­hood. You must be vig­i­lant. An unde­tect­ed relapse can be as seri­ous as the first episode.”

Back at home, I gave my son the pred­nisone. It changed the shape of his face to resem­ble a cab­bage patch doll with flushed chip­munk cheeks; he got chub­bier; and he was moody and uncom­fort­able. After six weeks, we stopped the drug and his appear­ance and mood nor­mal­ized. I test­ed his kid­neys dai­ly, dip­ping a plas­tic yel­low stick in a urine sam­ple. If it turned green, he was in trou­ble. Each day I was relieved when the stick stayed yel­low, then imme­di­ate­ly began wor­ry­ing about the next one. I came to hate those sticks.

At the hos­pi­tal, I’d learned a hard les­son. Time with my son was pre­cious and irre­place­able. I vowed not to squan­der the sec­ond chance I’d been giv­en. I vol­un­teered to coach his soc­cer and T‑ball teams, signed up for Dodger sea­son tick­ets, and planned week­end activ­i­ties for us to share. On one of our out­ings that spring, we went to San­ta Ani­ta Park, a beau­ti­ful race­course with man­i­cured dirt and turf tracks and a grass infield. My son picked the hors­es; I placed our two-dol­lar bets; and we played catch on the grass between races.

In the eighth race, he picked num­ber three. We went to the pad­dock where you can see the hors­es up close. Num­ber three didn’t look like much. Sweat­ing and foam­ing at the mouth, the under­sized five-year-old bay geld­ing seemed ner­vous and unruly. We can kiss that two bucks good­bye, I thought.

From the bleach­ers, we watched three come from way back in the pack to pull ahead in the stretch and win by a half-length. We hugged and cheered, and for a short while, I for­got about the dark cloud hang­ing over us.

The fol­low­ing Mon­day, the stick turned gold; lime green the next day; then hunter green. We resumed the pred­nisone dos­es. The cab­bage patch face, weight gain, and mood­i­ness returned. Six weeks passed, and we stopped the drug again.

Cindy gave birth to our first daugh­ter in June, and she became a sec­ond source of love and joy.

Anoth­er relapse came in July, fol­lowed by anoth­er round of prednisone.

The sticks were still yel­low in Novem­ber when my son and I returned to the race­track. To my sur­prise, the bay geld­ing was entered in a major stakes race. He still didn’t look like much to me, but the bet­ting crowd made him the pro­hib­i­tive favorite and my son picked him again.

He start­ed the race bad­ly, falling ten lengths behind and stay­ing there all the way down the back­stretch. Sev­en lengths off the lead going into the last turn with­out much track to go, he seemed sure to lose.

We stood on the rail about fifty feet from the fin­ish line. I looked down the track and got a head-on view of him com­ing up the final stretch. I’ll nev­er for­get that snap­shot image, forelegs pound­ing the turf like pis­tons, clods fly­ing up behind him, wide glossy chest rip­pling with mus­cle, ears laid back, nos­trils flared, head and neck pump­ing pow­er­ful­ly with each stride.

The track announcer’s bass voice boomed, “Here … Comes … John … Hen­ry!” The crowd roared, and a chill went up my spine. He pulled ahead by a nose as he thun­dered by us and he buried the field by two lengths at the wire.

The gallery went wild. My son and I did, too. It was one of the most thrilling moments we’d ever shared.

Days passed into weeks, then months, and the sticks remained yel­low. In August 1982, we reached the one-year mark with­out a failed test.

Com­pla­cen­cy is your ene­my, I told myself. Relaps­es are inevitable. You must be vigilant.

That fall we went to the track to watch John Hen­ry run again. By that time, he was famous and even infre­quent race­track patrons like me knew his rags to rich­es sto­ry. With no pedi­gree, under­sized, ill-tem­pered, and back at the knees, John Hen­ry ran poor­ly as a young horse. A series of knowl­edge­able own­ers sold him for a song until Sam Rubin, a rac­ing novice, bought him for $25000 sight unseen against a veterinarian’s neg­a­tive rec­om­men­da­tion. Frus­trat­ed with John Henry’s lack­lus­ter per­for­mances, Rubin fired his train­er, moved him to Cal­i­for­nia, and placed him with Ron McAnally.

Known for his affec­tion for his hors­es, McAnal­ly and his staff bond­ed with the frac­tious bay geld­ing, train­ing him with car­rots, apples, and ten­der lov­ing care. It worked.

In 1981, McAnal­ly put John Hen­ry up against the best hors­es in the world, and he won six major stakes races, includ­ing the two my son and I watched.

When my son and I returned to the track in the fall of 1982, he was sev­en years old, long in the tooth for a race­horse, but he hadn’t lost a step. He won that race with his patent­ed, heart-pound­ing, come-from-behind charge, and my wor­ries again fell away for at least a few moments as we joined the crowd’s fren­zied cheer­ing for The People’s Champion.

By the time the sum­mer of 1983 rolled around, John Hen­ry was still win­ning races, and my son kept test­ing yel­low. In August, short­ly after we passed the sec­ond anniver­sary of the last green stick, the doc­tor called me.

“No child has ever relapsed after two years of nor­mal kid­ney func­tion,” he said. “Very few chil­dren out­grow the dis­ease before their teen years. Con­grat­u­la­tions. Your son is now one of them.”

It took me a few moments to find my voice. “Thank you for everything.”

My son grew up to be strong and healthy. A suc­cess­ful busi­ness­man today, he’s mar­ried with two chil­dren and his kid­ney dis­ease is a dis­tant mem­o­ry of a cri­sis that forged an iron bond between us.

After set­ting the life­time purse-earn­ings record of $6,597,947 and win­ning every sig­nif­i­cant award in horse rac­ing, John Hen­ry retired at ten years old. A news­pa­per arti­cle cel­e­brat­ing his improb­a­ble suc­cess against all odds said he lift­ed the spir­its and touched the lives of thou­sands of peo­ple. My son and I were two of them. He brought us thrills and joy when we need­ed them most, and his deter­mined charges down the final stretch, run­ning on pure heart and guts, refus­ing to give up, inspired me to per­se­vere and gave me hope.

John Hen­ry lived in the Hall of Cham­pi­ons at Lexington’s Ken­tucky Horse Park until his death in 2007 at age 32. It seems a touch­ing twist of fate that the cause of death was kid­ney failure.