Connie’S Message—Smile!: Hope for the 21St Century

By Jack B. Blount

I wrote this book for two reasons, both of which are tightly intertwined. First is the fact that my daughter Connie and I discussed writing this book together while she was a freshman at the University of Kentucky. After her death, I needed to accomplish that goal we had set together, to share our faith in God with others who were not fortunate to have been brought up in a Christian home. Second is the fact that I know Satan was controlling the drunk driver who was responsible for Connies death. Therefore, I want to honor God by sharing my faith that Connie is in heaven. Satan took Connies life in this world, but God gave Connie eternal life in heaven. Through faith in Jesus Christ, we will someday be in heaven together again.

The Bible is the most published book in the world by far, at over nine billion copies. Yet I acknowledge that the Bible is not the easiest place for someone new to Christian theology to begin a journey with God in our modern, science-dominated, politically correct culture. Therefore, I have captured a lifetime of study and discussions about the Bible and shared it with you in this book, in the hopes it will make you aware of what God offers everyone.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: May 3, 2018
• ISBN: 9781973616405

Jack B. Blount

Jack is an executive in the computer industry who has spent most of his life developing, marketing, selling, and supporting software solutions around the world. He has been married to his wife for 44 years and has three children and two dogs. His father was a Methodist minister. He has four beautiful grandchildren. He spent his life as a student of Christian theology and has an intense passion for Gods Word.

Book preview

Connie’s Message

—Smile!

Hope for the 21st Century

Jack B. Blount

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Copyright © 2018 Jack B. Blount.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

ASV: Taken from the American Standard Version of the Bible.

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright ©1996, 2004, 2007, 2013, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations are from Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1946, 1952, and 1971 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

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Bloomington, IN 47403

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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ISBN: 978-1-9736-1639-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-1638-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-1640-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018903893

WestBow Press rev. date: 05/02/2018

Contents

Chapter 1: Connie’s Life

Chapter 2: Limitations of Science

Understanding Science

Charles Darwin and His Theory of Evolution

Microevolution vs. Macroevolution

Chapter 3: The Bible

Why a Book on the Bible?

Understanding the Bible

The Bible and Its Infallibility

The Old Testament

39 Books of the Old Testament

The New Testament

27 Books of the New Testament

Chapter 4: The God of the Bible

God, the Father

The Names of God, the Father

Trinity, Triune, Godhead

Chapter 5: Jesus, The Son of God

Jesus, The Son of God

Jesus Ministry and Miracles

The Names of Jesus, Son of God

Chapter 6: The Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit

The Names of the Holy Spirit

What Is Unique About the God of the Bible?

A Personal Relationship with God

Chapter 7: Faith

Pistein

Hebrews 11

Matthew 8

Chapter 8: Angels

Number of Angels

Angel of the Lord

Characteristics of Angels

Chapter 9: Prayer

What is Prayer?

What, When and How Should We Pray?

How Do We Know Prayer Works?

Chapter 10: Heaven and Hell

Chapter 11: Satan

Satan: A Spirit, a Person, a King

Satan’s Agenda

Satan: Know Him By His Names

Satan’s Weapons, Methods, Power and Army

Satan’s Three Temptations of Jesus

Satan Attacks God’s Children

Chapter 12: Numbers

Number 1:

Number 2:

Number 3:

Number 4:

Number 5:

Number 6:

Number 7:

Number 8:

Numbers, Order, the Opposite of Chaos:

Chapter 13: End of Times

Five Key Events of the End of Times

The Rapture

Tribulation Period

Second Coming of Christ

Millennial Rule of Christ

Final Judgement

Chapter 14: Salvation

Guaranteed Salvation for All

The Theology of Salvation

Man’s Path to Salvation

Closing Message

About the Author

Chapter 1

Connie’s Life

Connie was born at 5:00 pm, April 27th, 1989 in Austin, Texas. She was a beautiful, healthy baby weighing 7 pounds, the smallest by far of our three children at birth. My wife and I struggled with naming each one of our children and each therefore has a unique story. With Connie we had decided that we wanted her initials to match my wife’s initials CMB, (interestingly these were my wife’s initials both before and after marriage). Somehow, I really don’t remember how, but we had both decided that we wanted her middle name to be Michelle. I think it was heavily influenced by how much I liked the Beatles as a teenager and their love song, Michelle. We tried to agree on a first name but kept coming up miles apart. Once a child is born you feel the pressure of making a decision of what to tell the hospital to put on the birth certificate and we ended up under that pressure. My wife said she kept thinking about how many times I had said, I have never known a Connie I did not like! and so she agreed to Connie Michelle Blount. Later in life Connie challenged me on a regular basis as to why I had named her Connie, which she referred to as an old name, instead of something cool like Elle, since she felt her brother had a cool name, Thor.

Connie was immediately loved by everyone. Her three and a half-year-old brother, Thor and her eleven-year-old sister, Kelley both just adored her, so tiny, so cute. One of the most precious pictures I have is Thor standing up holding Connie, just days old, in his arms looking at the camera with the proudest, almost defiant, this is my sister look. It was a very good thing that Kelley and Thor were excited to have a baby sister because she had colic for nine weeks. If you are not familiar with colic just think about a baby that won’t stop crying. We all did our part of walking her, singing to her, loving her and praying that whatever was hurting her would pass and she would be a happy baby. Well, God answered our prayers but nine weeks seemed like He was not listening for sure. After that, she was the perfect baby, healthy, happy, and beautiful. Being the third child she was on the go all the time. It is interesting to hear everyone’s thoughts on child one, two and three, but ours were pretty typical in some ways. Kelley was our first, and as a result she was cautious, and still is today. This was true also in my family my older brother being the oldest in our family was also very cautious, and Cindy being the oldest in her family, also cautious. Thor, our second was fearless and on the go constantly. I too was a second child so I could not blame Thor for sometimes being challenging. The third child then has two role models and therefore it is harder to peg their personality, but in our case, Connie seemed up to keeping up with Thor from about the age of two on. She was truly fearless, and always the energizer bunny. She adored her brother and sister but she was closer in age to Thor and attempted to prove she could do anything he could do. I will never forget the Christmas we got Thor a Little Tikes Jeep. It had room for two kids and Thor took Connie almost everywhere he went in his new electric jeep. But Connie was not happy just riding; she wanted to drive like her brother. Well at two years and nine months she was not big enough to reach the accelerator while sitting in the seat so Thor showed her how to lay down on the floor of the Jeep and push on the pedal to go while reaching up and holding on to the bottom of the steering wheel so she thought she was steering. Of course, she could not see lying on the floor so Thor would set in the passenger seat and steer for her. Well it did not take long till she figured out how to drive without her brother helping her. She would go as fast as the jeep would go until she hit something stopping her, and then she would flip the switch to put it in reverse and go as fast as it would go until she hit something else, and then put it back in forward and go again. She would drive it lying on the floor just screaming with excitement. We would find Thor rolling in the grass laughing at what he had taught his sister to do. Fearless is what we always said about Connie. And believe me you have to be fearless to ride a thousand-pound horse and jump over 3 and 4 feet obstacles which is exactly what Connie fell in love with at the young age of seven, riding hunter jumper.

I had the amazing opportunity to be very close with Connie as she grew up. Many parents say they get to spend very little quality time with their kids because they share very little in common. I really never found that true of any of my kids and feel blessed to be very close with all three of them. We had fun together when they were kids and teenagers, and now that they are married we still enjoy time together, water skiing, snow skiing, hiking, shopping, going to church, watching a movie or just visiting. With Connie I had an even closer relationship because Connie and I shared her love of horses. For those of you who have never trained and competed in equestrian events like hunter jumper, which I realize is most people; you probably do not realize the incredible amount of time that is required. As a young child this also means an incredible amount of a parent’s time driving to and from the training barn, which my wife did during the week when I was at work, so I got weekends driving to competitions trailering her horse. Connie began competing at the young age of seven and I was blessed with the opportunity to spend weekends with her, most of her life, pulling the trailer, hauling horses to competitions, watching her train and compete. And if we weren’t at an equestrian event then we probably were together pulling the boat with the truck full of kids to go water skiing.

Even after Connie turned sixteen and not only got her license, but became extremely talented at driving our Ford F350, crew cab, long bed, turbo-diesel truck pulling a 12,000 lb., thirty-five foot, four stall, straight load, horse trailer without my assistance. We still went to weekend shows together but I let her do most of the driving. While she was capable on her own we enjoyed sharing our love of horses, and being a bit of a typical, protective Dad, I did not feel she should be at these events without a parent around. There was nothing more fun than to watch her ride her 1200 lb., 17 hands tall horse Samson (74 inches at the withers, height point between the shoulder blades) and jump three feet six inch barriers with grace and confidence. Well maybe seeing the look on people’s faces when she would pull into a huge parking lot at a major equestrian event and maneuver her rig through tight quarters and then back the trailer into a narrow parking space. Everyone watching the amazing and challenging maneuvering, probably assuming that behind the tinted windows there was a professional truck driver at the wheel. Then to see their faces as she opened the driver’s door and stepped out onto the running board, blonde hair blowing in the wind as her 5’2", 105 lb. stature then disappear as she stepped down, being shorter than the hood of the huge truck she had so efficiently parked.

In addition to her horses, one of the things that became a core part of our relationship was filtering questions from teenagers that Connie knew, or at least had met, around the topic of the Bible. Connie, having grown up in a Christian household with many Bibles and theology books around the house, regularly attending church and Sunday school, and having a grandfather who was a minister, took for granted that most people were familiar with the Bible, God, Jesus and salvation, until she got into high school. In high school her sphere of friends was extensive because Connie never locked into a small group of friends like most kids, instead she worked to know everyone in high school, freshmen through seniors. She would regularly find kids who had never been to church, did not have a Bible in their homes, and knew virtually nothing of these life-changing topics. Furthermore, she found that what most kids thought they knew about Christianity was wrong! While Connie was often capable of dealing with these questions on her own she would always come to Dad with any questions she was not able to address, so we shared in our growth of Christianity by sharing it with others.

When Connie when off to the University of Kentucky she had the usual concerns of a new city, new environment, new people, not knowing for sure what it would be like. However, after our visit to the University of Kentucky, during a six-university tour from New York to California we both had left UK a few weeks earlier feeling like it was a very friendly campus environment in the heartland of America with various denominations of churches all around town. The only thing that seemed to surprise her about college life once school started was the number of students she met that said they had never seen a Bible, much less read it or gone to church. Connie was concerned with this new awareness that many teenagers were completely unaware of the teachings of the Bible. And yes, as a Christian you immediately think about how can they accept God and receive salvation through His grace, if they don’t know Him. Connie and I had envisioned that over her next few years of university life that together we would collaborate on a book about life, a book about the Bible, a book about why and how to form a personal relationship with God. We felt the book should be both introductory for the new reader and yet not be insulting to their college level of education. We felt the book should answer the questions students were asking, and prepare them to deal with the secular world without being distracted and corrupted by it.

Connie was not perfect by any means. She did not always get A’s in school, and in fact she did not share Kelley’s, Thor’s, and my love for math at all. Connie had to get help from Kelley to get through high school algebra. She got a couple of speeding tickets like her Dad, and she did not always go to church on Sunday because of horse tournaments. But she was a sweet, outgoing, hard working, passionate, young girl who had a big heart and had accepted Jesus as her Lord and Savior when she was eleven. She and her mother, as a chaperon, had gone to a Christian youth revival, along with most of the kids from our church. It was called South Florida 2001, Prepare The Way of The Lord. It was at this conference that she accepted the Alter Call and went forward to accept Jesus as her Lord and Savior. She was a wonderful daughter and sister who was always happy and lived life to its fullest. By the time Connie graduated from high school she had won well over one hundred ribbons competing in hunter jumper events in Colorado and Utah.

Connie went to the University of Kentucky after an extensive tour of several private and public universities across the country from New York to California. I traveled with her from city to city, airport to airport, and campus to campus as we researched and investigated universities. I will never forget those two weeks and dozen or more flights. It was a wonderful time with my daughter. We talked about her future. We talked about how exciting going to college is. We talked about making new friends. We shared her dreams together.

Our first stop was a smaller, private equestrian college in the northeast and before we even got out of the car, Connie said, Well Dad this is one of the best equestrian colleges in America but it is not anything like the Internet represented. This place is smaller than my high school. I could never go here. I would know everyone on campus by the second day. She was right. It was small and she would have known everyone on campus in a day, knowing Connie, maybe by lunch. We took the initial tour since it was scheduled, but we left early and headed on our way. We had planned two days and had barely spent a half-day, so we thought about changing flights and trying to change other campus tours but we realized it was going to be difficult to move all the appointments around. I also realized that Connie had never been to New York City, so I asked her if she wanted to drive down to New York for a quick visit and stay on our current schedule. She jumped at the idea and we had dinner in New York that day, then we found a hotel and walked around Times Square making our plans for the next day. The next morning, we had breakfast and headed on our tour. The site of the 9/11 Twin Towers tragedy was our first stop. We both got pretty emotional visiting the site. From there we went up in the Empire State Building. We stopped for a quick slice of New York sidewalk pizza, and then we took a tour through a few of the famous New York shopping districts fashion department stores. A boat ride out to the Statue of Liberty was mandatory and then back for a little more shopping and dinner. The day was so much fun. Connie took pictures like crazy. She never stopped talking and asking questions. She bought a picture of the skyline of New York with the Twin Towers in it and said it was going on her college room wall.

We caught a plane early the next morning for Dallas, Texas to continue her college tour. There were things she really liked about SMU, my alma mater. She liked the campus especially. It is beautiful. She liked the fact that she had lots of friends in Dallas, since she had spent many years growing up there. She liked the warm weather, but most of all I think the liked the idea of going to the same college I went to, because she was very proud of how much she was like her Dad. But in the end, her love for horses appeared challenging in Dallas. The equestrian facility was 40 miles away from campus through Dallas traffic. She knew she would be out there every day so she would be driving 80 miles a day in horrible traffic which would take easily two hours a day driving, then two-three hours riding and grooming her horses and the team horses, and that just did not seem like an environment that she or I supported. The tour continued—more planes, more rental cars, and more campuses.

When we arrived at the Cincinnati Airport it was a beautiful, sunny day. We got our rental car and started our drive to Lexington. In no time at all, we began to see sprawling horse ranches with their long white rail fences and their herds of beautiful thoroughbreds. She was taking pictures, one after the other, and we were both talking like kids about the great feelings we were getting. About an hour later we were approaching Lexington, and a pickup truck with three college boys pulled up beside us and began waving to Connie and taking pictures of her. They were nice looking boys and even though they were Connie trying to flirt with Connie, they were being respectful, probably because Dad was in the car. Connie was laughing and the good feelings continued to build. We went straight to campus even though our tour was not until the next morning; we wanted to just walk around. It was summer and the campus was lightly populated compared to the fall, but when I looked over my shoulder I noticed that we had a group of about 15 boys following us, no joking 12-15 guys. I laughed and looked at Connie and said, You are just a one woman Saturday parade! She looked over her shoulder and began to laugh and said, Yeah, most of the time! Connie never lacked self-confidence. We both laughed but then she tried to say they were going someplace and not really following us. Well I was pretty sure they were going someplace, but that place sure seemed to be wherever Connie was going, so I made the next 90 degree turn that we came to in the sidewalk, and sure enough they followed. We made a few more random turns to prove my point, and for sure they followed us like they were on a leash. Finally, Connie, being Connie, just stopped and turned around to meet them, but like most boys they panicked and ran away. I am sure they would have stopped to talk had I not been standing with her. People say I can seem intimidating which I don’t deny, but in this case, I think it was Connie’s direct and obvious checking them out that really intimidated them. They took off running like they were still twelve. Connie caught back up to me and said, they’re all freshmen Dad and none of them is over 6 foot tall, you know that is a requirement! I remembered her high school boyfriend at 6’3" and realized she was probably serious. We just laughed and continued on our walk.

We loved the feel of the campus. The architecture and the massive trees added to the warm, friendly feeling of the campus. We went out that night to dinner at the local Longhorn Steakhouse. Connie and I are both Texans at heart. Connie was born in Texas and gets her love of Texas and steak honestly. I graduated from college in Texas and I had to develop my love for Texas, but not my love for steak.

We went to our hotel and checked in, agreeing to meet in the lobby for breakfast and a trip to Starbucks before going to our official campus tour appointment. We arrived on campus and had no problem parking and walking to the admissions office where we met up with about a dozen other students and their parents for the tour. We were given a very good education about what makes UK unique and its new focus on growth. We all walked around campus as we were told about various buildings and some of the history of UK.

One of our stops was at a dorm but they were already full for the fall semester so she had to find housing off campus. Besides, I was not sure how any girl could get by with those small closets. I remembered my dorm room as a freshmen and felt like the room was pretty much the same, but I probably had three pair of jeans, a half a dozen t-shirts and one suit for church I kept in my closet. Connie on the other hand had several wardrobes of clothes she would need. She had her barn clothes for everyday riding, which included layers and layers of clothes for cold days. Then she had her set of dress-up equestrian clothes for competitions. She had a dozen pair of fashion jeans, very different from her barn jeans, and all the casual shirts, blouses and sweaters that go with the jeans. Then she had all her summer clothes. There were also dresses for dances and other more fashionable occasions. She had her winter wardrobe for skiing and just staying warm as Connie hated to be cold. Connie was thinking walk-in closet with at least 20 to 30 feet of hanger bars, rather than the 3-foot closet in the dorms.

After the tour was over Connie and I were walking back to our rental car with one more campus still to go visit and Connie looked up at me and said, Dad if we can find a place for me to live since the dorms are full, this is where I want to go to college! If there is one thing for sure that Connie and I have in common is that we make decisions quickly and we stick to them!

I could not have been happier! I loved UK more than anyplace we had visited or any place I could think of to visit. I just smiled and said OK; let’s go find a place for you to live while we are in town. We went to lunch, picked up a newspaper and headed to our hotel to start calling all the ads in the paper for rooms for rent near campus. We quickly found there were only a few listed and most of the ones we called were already rented. It was already July and school started in August so most kids had taken care of this months earlier. We drove around looking at a few places and quickly could tell why they had not been rented—they were scary, more like animal house after a Friday night party. Then we headed in search of another Starbucks fix, thinking we remembered seeing a new one right near the parking garage on campus. We drove around and found the sign on South Upper Street, but we were disappointed to learn it was brand new and not yet open. We were two weeks early for that Starbucks opening. However, as luck would have it, we noticed that above the Starbucks were new condominiums and while they were still doing construction they looked almost ready for occupancy.

Connie and I were no strangers to touring unfinished homes and condos. We have moved many times in her life that new home tours were like checking out the movie section of the newspaper, a very regular occurrence. Connie had moved eight times in her life, probably part of the reason she was outgoing and knew how to make friends quickly. We found an open door that construction workers were using and began our unsanctioned tour. We made it through most of the building and had been in and out of several one bedroom and two bedroom units. Several construction workers looked at us strangely but did not say anything, however it was obvious they did not think we were supposed to be in there. We had made our way up to the third floor when a man came up and very politely asked if he could help us. His politeness did not shock us because we had found everybody in Lexington to be full of what I think of as Southern hospitality. We told the man we were in town getting Connie registered at UK and were looking for a place for her to live, and that we really liked the condos. We asked him if he knew when they would be ready for occupancy, and whom we could talk to about buying one. The man was again very nice. He took us down to his truck, got us a business card for the realtor who was selling the condos, and assured us she would be glad to help. He told us that they were about 90% pre-sold but he knew there were two one-bedroom units and one two-bedroom unit still for sale. We thanked him for his help and I dialed the realtor from my cell phone. She was also very polite and suggested that she could meet us the next morning to show us the available units and get us pricing information. However, I told her I understood there was only one two-bedroom condo available and she confirmed that information was correct. I explained to her why we were in town and that we were scheduled to leave early the next morning. I then told her I wanted to get the unit under contract today! Realtors don’t turn down a buyer so she immediately said that she was about thirty minutes away. She said she would stop by her office, pick up a contract, and meet us at the property in an hour.

Connie and I headed downtown still in need of a Starbucks. We were still looking for our Caramel Macchiato, extra caramel energy rush and found it on Main Street. We walked around downtown and then headed back to meet the realtor. She took us in the building and showed us the only two-bedroom unit still available, walked us through the contract, which I signed and gave her a deposit check. Connie was beaming from ear to ear!

Connie and I like to get things done and we were on fire at that point. We went out to dinner and Connie became worried about the fact that I had just signed a contract on a condo, and we did not know for sure if she would even get accepted in late registration at UK. I told her not to worry and to leave that to her sometimes-ornery Dad. She tried to protest, knowing Mom was probably going to shoot both of us for buying the condo without talking to her. I assured her that Mom was going to be as happy as we were.

Back in Utah we only had a few weeks to get organized and make plans for Kentucky. After talking through things, we decided that we would drive out with a trailer and all her furniture and clothes to move her in to her new home and get her ready for college. That meant we would have to leave her two thoroughbreds at home for a couple of weeks since we could not pull a large trailer full of furniture and a 35-foot horse trailer. She thought it would be good to have a couple of weeks to get settled and it would give me another chance to come back out and see her.

Connie, her mother, and I drove both her Passat and my Ford F350 truck pulling a large trailer with Connie’s furniture for her new home in Lexington. It is a long drive from Park City, Utah to Lexington, Kentucky about 1650 miles. We made the drive in just two days, spending only one night in a hotel partially because we had taken our two dogs with us for the trip—a Saint Bernard, Molly, and a black Labrador, Julie.

Connie, her brother Thor, and her Mom are serious dog people. A few years earlier, Thor had found a Chesapeake Bay Retriever puppy at a breeder in southern Missouri, and Thor had driven out from Utah to pick up the eight-week-old puppy he named Duke. Thor and Connie had never lived in a home without dogs, since we have had at least two dogs ever since we got married. Two years earlier Thor had been making plans to move to Georgia for college, taking Duke with him and had decided that his Mom and sister could not be without a dog, and because of the death of Snowball our 12-year-old Great Pyrenees, we were down to only one dog for the first time in thirty years.

Thor quickly took care of that and decided that Connie and Mom needed a Saint Bernard. He did some Internet research to find a reputable breeder. While I was out of town on business, Connie, Thor, and Mom drove to Wendover, Utah and purchased a Saint Bernard puppy, and together came up with the name Molly, from the song Good Golly Miss Molly. Connie and Mom were crazy about the new puppy. They would take turns having the puppy sleep with them, while I protested trying to explain to them that Molly would grow up thinking she always got to sleep in their beds, and at one hundred and forty-five pounds it would be crowded. I also pointed out that St. Bernard’s have a propensity to shed hundreds if not thousands of hairs a night. Even more challenging would be that ever-famous drool everyone laughs about when they watch the movie Beethoven, but that her drool would not be funny in their beds. Trust me, as she grew up, I was proven right, and now nobody laughs about the drool that ends up slung all over the house when she shakes her head. Not so funny when it is on your suit as you head out the door at 6am for work, or on your dinner table when you sit down to eat.

Then before Thor could leave for college he read about a black lab puppy on the Internet at a city dog pound that was running out of time before it was to be euthanized. Once again, without Dad’s knowledge, Thor, Connie, and Mom drove up to Logan, Utah and picked up the 6-month-old puppy that was known at the shelter as Houdini, because she had a magical ability to escape from any kennel they put her in. Twice she had climbed straight up an eight-foot chain-link fence to crawl over the top and jump or fall eight feet to the ground and run away.

As you can guess, Thor and Connie fell in love with the puppy before they even got home with her. Once again, I came home from a business trip to the surprise of a new houseguest. This time I was told the magical stories of Houdini’s escapes and how Thor had just taken her on consignment while he found a home for her. Of course, truth be known, Thor had already found a home for her, our home! I am not sure to this day where the name Julie came from but we kept it, and dropped the Houdini. Connie loved Julie, and again, like Molly, Julie spent many nights sleeping in Connie’s bed. The reason I was given by Connie is that Julie had been traumatized being abandoned as a puppy, and therefore needed extra love and attention to end her anxiety.

Well, now it was time for Connie to go off to college, and Julie and Molly went along for the trip. Connie’s hope was that Julie could stay with her in the condo as her roommate even though the condo had a pet size limit of just thirty pounds and Julie was more like 60 pounds. Well after we got Connie moved in, I took the truck, trailer, and Molly back to Utah. Mom stayed behind to help Connie buy pots and pans, hang curtains and just get settled for a week. As usual Connie had talked her Dad into getting what she wanted, Julie as her roommate. However, it became obvious to Connie that Julie was not the kind of dog that could be left alone in the condo for many hours without resorting back to her anxiety attacks. Connie loved Julie too much to keep her and made the decision to send Julie home when her mother flew home so Julie could be with Molly.

College started off great. Connie was meeting new friends every day and quickly became very busy between school, the equestrian team, classes and friends. It was time to bring out Connie’s horses so I drove the truck and horse trailer out to Lexington. When I got there, I stayed a few days and did some painting to personalize the condo, as Connie quickly became challenged by all white walls. A mix of coffee brown and taupe became the new décor. When it was time to drive back Connie had convinced me that she needed to keep the truck and trailer, since she had the horses and wanted to be able to drive to horse competitions outside of college. That left me no choice but to fly back home to Utah.

Connie had gotten settled into college life and had found a great stable and trainer to board her thoroughbreds, her boys as she referred to them. One, a former racehorse was a registered thoroughbred, Luke, and the other one, Sampson, who she called Sam, is a registered American Warmblood, which means he is half thoroughbred and half Dutch Warmblood. His great-grandfather was Secretariat, and other than being a bit larger, he looked like Secretariat. You had to love horses and respect Connie’s commitment and talent riding to have a prayer of a long term, serious relationship with her. Since the age of seven Connie had dedicated her life to her love for horses. While other kids were out playing or home watching TV, Connie would be at the barn, riding, grooming and training. Two hours most days and 4-8 hours on a Saturday, and all weekend during competitions. As every parent of a horse lover knows, this is an expensive and demanding hobby, which can become a professional sport and even a business. When Connie started riding it was a hobby, but with hundreds of hours committed and well over one hundred ribbons and trophies from competitions it was clear it had moved from hobby to a serious sport. One of the last things Connie and I had talked about was her idea for turning her love for horses and her college education in equestrian science into a life-long profitable business.

Connie was quite the enterprising entrepreneur. Connie wanted to buy a ranch to board and retrain horses she would buy after their racing careers ended. She felt they