I don’t know about you, but if I have one thing I want to attend on Saturdays, I have at least three or four others.

Such was the case for me this weekend.

On a Saturday when I wanted to participate in everything, I found myself having to make some big decisions. One was turning down the chance to see the president of the U.S., whom I swore I would see if he made a trip close to Winchester.

I had to take lifelong friendships over that visit. What you think you will do in life sometimes does not happen.

After I read in The Winchester Sun about Tami Dunn, who makes YouTube videos reviewing food, I had to show up for the Edwards Desserts pie giveaway for their first Town Takeover. I am so glad she does this.

I was sad the weather did not want to cooperate and Court Day in Mount Sterling was going on the same weekend. I know it made a big difference in the attendance for the takeover. I wished for the sun to shine but it stayed hidden.

It was up to us Winchester folks to show up for them and thank them for coming to our town. They were so lovely and their pie is delicious.

My friend Margaret and I enjoyed speaking to a lovely lady named Jessie Joslin who represents their company so well. I wanted to keep her as a Kentuckian, but it sounds like she has a job she loves with the Edwards company.

I am grateful to the Edwards and Schwans team who made it a fun afternoon for us. I had never tried the key lime pie and found it to be as delicious as all the others I have tried. All of their people were kind to us. They have a great team.

Next on my agenda was to go to Irene Woosley’s 100th birthday party. She had been in mine and Margaret’s lives for as long as we could ever remember.

From her close friends at Kiddville, she is the last link to them for us since the others have passed on. She told us, of all the days, she felt worse on Saturday than she has any other day.

She was a trooper though, and greeted and took pictures with all who came to her party. The long line waiting to greet her was proof of all the people she had touched in her lifetime. Irene is well known in any area of Clark County.

I remember Jim Bob Woosley as a teenager and when Donnie Ray was born. My ex-sister-in-law, Patsy Pace Darnell, went with Irene to bring him home from the hospital. She felt so important that day to have been the person to help bring him home.

It was fun seeing the people in the pictures from years ago, and it brought back many memories for me.

Her daughters-in-law and sons made the event a memorable one for her. She has been blessed to have them in her life.

We had to make a quick visit with her to get on to the next place on our list. We left there to go to Michelle McKinney’s wedding. I had let Trudy know we would be late the day before and explained to her why.

As we were pulling into the driveway, we met the bride and groom on a motorbike on the way out. It was a country wedding with the bride dressed in a beautiful wedding dress and boots. They said they were coming back. They had to retrieve Michelle’s puppy, which came back wearing a blue bow tie. We had a fun afternoon.

I first met Trudy when she and I were nominated to the Southern States Farm Home Advisory committee many years ago. We both won that night and became longtime friends since then.

I remember when Michelle was born. After having two sons, I remember how happy they were to have a little girl.

I will never forget the kindness Trudy and Ike have shown me. I was going through a hard time missing the country life and the people I had been around after a divorce many years ago. Their home became my home when I needed it. I love them.

My husband and I both think the world of them. They are hard-working, beautiful people and I was not going to miss this time in their daughter’s life. My husband had to take some students on a bus trip, or he would have gone with me.

By the time we ate pie at the Town Takeover, had birthday cake with Irene and all the other delicious goodies there, then went to Michelle’s wedding and ate more good food, we were full.

I can never pass up Trudy’s chocolate fudge; it is always different from most people’s to me. She makes it the old fashioned way, and it always turns out exactly right. I was on a sugar high.

I missed President Trump’s visit to Richmond. I had even gotten a ticket, but I was too tired to try to fight the crowd to get in to see him.

I did find out true friendship sometimes beats even going to see a president I like. After all, shouldn’t it be God, family, friends, country?

From the look of the crowd that attended, no one missed me. Maybe another day, another time, I will have my chance.

I have seen President George H.W. Bush twice. Once when he was in Lexington as vice-president and once when he jumped out of the helicopter on his 90th birthday in Kennebunkport, Maine. It was a day I will never forget, as I am sure it was for those who attended the rally Saturday for Trump or the people who went to Owingsville to see Joe Biden.

Never forget the friends who have been your true friends during good times and the bad.

A true friend is more precious than gold, and for me, it has proved to be true.

You have to be a friend to have friends.

Sue Staton is a Clark County native who grew up in the Kiddville area. She is a wife, mother and grandmother who is active in her church, First United Methodist Church, and her homemakers group, Towne and Country Homemakers.