The Bucket List

Do you have a “Bucket List”?  My boss, a suburban Chicago lawyer, does.  And one of the things on it had to do with his love of horses.  My boss has been drawn into my love of Amish Indiana over the years; he met some of my Amish friends when he brought them from Indiana to Illinois for my wedding and they stayed at his home.  One day he said to me, “I’ve always dreamed of driving a six-horse team of Belgian workhorses, and I mentioned that to [your Amish friend] Glenn.  Do you think you could make that happen?”

So Glenn and I talked about it…  A few conversations later, a plan was in place.  The following spring, some time between the beginning of spring field preparation in April and my Amish friends’ daughter’s wedding in mid-June, my boss and his wife and I would drive to Indiana for three days of fun on the farm.

The time finally arrived, in May of 2012.  We arrived at the farm on a Monday afternoon—four of us—my boss, his wife, their visiting friend Olivia (a story for another day), and me.  My boss immediately headed off to the fields with Glenn, where he spent most of the next three days doing farm work.  My boss’ wife and Olivia helped Glenn’s wife around the house and visited the local Amish-Mennonite history center.  I—who am domestically challenged—spent my time driving one of their daughters around, completing various preparations for her upcoming wedding.  I had known this daughter since she was eleven years old, so it was a pleasure to spend so much time talking to her and helping her get things done.  We visited the florist, the glass engraver, and lots of other places.

Meanwhile, my boss was having the time of his life.  I took this picture of him one afternoon... 

On the second afternoon of our visit, I was out and about doing wedding errands when I got a text from my boss.  It was a desperate plea: “Please—bring Diet Coke.”  So I picked up a few bottles on the way back to the farm, and after arriving, one of the girls said, “I’ll ride my horse out and bring it to him.”  My boss told me later that it was quite a surreal moment, to pause from his farm work to see a young Amish woman riding a horse across the fields to bring him a bottle of Diet Coke!

It was a wonderful three days for us all, and I’m glad I was able to help a friend cross an item off his Bucket List.