Okay. Technically this is straw, but hang with me, because “straw day” just doesn’t work. Besides, straw and hay both look the same, and you wouldn’t have known the difference if I hadn’t told you. At any rate, the word “heyday” is a great word that not many of us can relate to. It means “the stage or period of greatest vigor, strength, or success” and it’s not used as much as it once was. (On a side note, I think it’s a shame that our culture lets some words slip out of usage. Words like aquabib, jobler, and tussicate come to mind.)
Most of us read the definition of “heyday” and recognize right away that we’ve not had one of those yet. Our “period of greatest vigor?” Umm, I’m not even sure how we’d know, since labeling a portion of our lives as the greatest seems to imply that it all goes downhill from there, doesn’t it? And yet, there are a number of success stories written about people who experienced their heyday very late in life. Harland Sanders is the perfect example.
I’ve thought a lot about Harland, or the Colonel as most people know him, over the past week as I’ve looked out my window and seen the hay, um, straw, in my front yard. I’ve thought about the hay days that have to take place before we can ever have a real heyday, and his story has reminded me that the real hay days are long and full of nothing…visible.
The B99 (some of you are new readers on The Blog Channel and may not know that the B99 is Wendy, my “better 99%”) and I just got finished totally taking out our front yard. It required quite a bit of time, some money, and a lot of work to get the old out and make room for the new. Of course, now that we’ve done all this, it has started making me wonder about what happens if nothing grows, and that’s made me think about the Colonel.
His dad died when he was 6, and at that age he started cooking for the family. He ran away from home when his mother remarried because his step-father beat him, and later, held all kinds of odd jobs. As an adult, he lost a son to an early death, and cooked for people out of his home because he didn’t have a restaurant. He was 50 when he opened his first one, which failed when he was 65, and the entire KFC franchise that you and I know didn’t happen until after then.
That is a lot of hay. A lot of glances out the window looking for any sign of little green tops shooting up from the hay. A lot of planting, trying, watering, hoping. And all the time, he was cooking and perfecting the secret recipe that would eventually lead to his heyday.
Your heyday may not have happened yet. I’m not sure if mine has, either. But I know what’s happening right now. Right now you and I are in the real hay days. We’ve done the work and planted the seed. We’re watering, watering, and watering some more. We’re checking the hourly forecast and praying for rain. We’re keenly aware of whether or not there is any new green mixed in with the yellow in our yards, and we’re trusting that if we’re patient and persistent, another heyday is on the horizon.
A day when the invisible becomes visible. A day when we step into the period of our greatest vigor, strength, and success.
The heyday after the hay days.
So hang on. The waiting will soon be worth it all.
