Hey, y’all. I’m no longer in Texas having moved on to Lexington, Kentucky at the beginning of the week. I said a fond farewell to my friends in Fort Worth and to my (very) temporary flock at Handley and made the 130 minute flight east across a few states and one time zone. Yesterday I went to a funeral. This was unplanned – not in the sense that all funerals are unplanned – in that my hosts invited me to join them as they join other family members in bidding farewell to an elderly lady. There was much in the day that was familiar, as one might expect, but there were also a number of notable differences. The service was in a Funeral Home – what we would call the premises of a Funeral Director. The deceased lady was lying in an open coffin at the front as the guests came in to greet her husband and touch her hand or her cheek, before taking their seats. The proceedings from this point were much as we might expect, including the use of secular music to bookend the service – Andrea Bocelli to start and ‘You are my sunshine’ to close. The latter song, I found out, was written by Jimmy Davis, who was also the Governor of Louisiana. After the service a procession of vehicles drove 20 miles to the cemetery. Along the way, cars driving ion the opposite direction pulled to the side of the road as a mark of respect. A gazebo was erected over the grave with a number of chairs laid out for immediate family members to seat themselves. After a short prayer and reading the minister, Brother Cummings, shook hands with the family and the funeral director thanked the rest of us for coming. The coffin, now closed, remained on the trestles and it would not be lowered until we had all gone. One of the interesting things about Kentucky is that you don’t have to leave the state to see the world. The funeral service was in Bagdad and we drove passed Lebanon and near Paris to get there. On the way home we stopped in Versailles for a meal. Kentucky is also interesting because, while some times called the buckle on the Bible belt, its historic industries have been whisky, tobacco and horse racing. The tobacco crop is growing nicely at the moment and will be harvested in the next few weeks. It would be interesting to see if anyone would put a bottle of bourbon and a pack of 20 cigarettes in the harvest display. My time in the US is nearly over and this will be my last postcard. I have enjoyed writing them and I hope that you have enjoyed reading them. I expect that there will be a lot more to talk about when we meet again in St Albans. Love Simon