Kentucky by Heart: Gift provides warm remembrance of beloved brother; preparing for ‘War and Peace’ in 2025

By Steve Flairty
NKyTribune columnist

Moving into the upcoming year of 2025, I’ll look back at the just completed holiday season and use a bit of it as inspiration going forward. As odd as it might sound, this particular bit of inspiration comes from something I drink heartily for breakfast every morning — orange juice.

Let me explain.

It was 2018 and nearing the first Christmas after Mike, my brother, died. He passed away in October, a victim of pancreatic cancer. I previously devoted time to his memory in this column. Watching him waste away from a husky, vibrant individual earning his family a good living as a truck driver — then diminishing to an almost unrecognizable sight of bones and soft flesh — was heartbreaking. The holiday season in the aftermath that year would be hard to navigate.

A week or two before Christmas Day arrived, though, I received a UPS package at my Versailles home. Large and heavy, I quizzically opened it and found a complete case of bottles of orange juice. Along with the juice, a note from one of my two nephews, either Evan or Matt, Mike’s only sons, tenderly explained the gift as “continuing the tradition.” I knew exactly what was meant by the short message.

Always near the end when gifts were exchanged at the Flairty holiday celebration, my brother would quietly disappear for a few minutes and walk out to his refrigerated truck in the driveway. He’d come back and unceremoniously present me with an orange juice supply that would last about six weeks. As caring a person as he was, he wasn’t the type to spend long hours in the shopping mall getting “just the right” present for his loved ones. He showed his love — and lots of it — in other ways, of which I have previously written. But orange juice became the perfect Christmas gift for me from my brother, and annually since Mike’s death, Matt, who lives in California, and Evan, a resident of Ft. Thomas, make sure that I continue to receive it.

Knowing that the gesture is important to Matt and Evan and knowing that it is so much a sweet memory of my brother, the back part of 2024 invigorates my embracing of the new part of 2025.

For this, I am blessed, and I hope heartfelt traditions are important for invigorating the mood for your New Year, also.

Though I mostly write about the subject of Kentucky or Kentucky authors, I plan — no, I WILL — read and complete Tolstoy’s epic masterpiece, War and Peace, in 2025. I’d only THOUGHT about doing so in the past, but it’s been on my long-time bucket list; this guy isn’t getting any younger.

The book is often said to be daunting to tackle with its some 1300 pages and a storyline that took place over 200 years ago. But I also have heard that to patently absorb the novel is good medicine, a mind-stretching and enriching activity that gives exposure to the work of a truly gifted writer who vividly portrayed the human condition.

I started it in early December and have read about 60 of its over 361 chapters. I’d be lying if I told you I’ve enjoyed every minute of the reading. In fact, parts are boring, especially the scenes happening in the war zone, where the French, led by the power-hungry General Napoleon Bonaparte, attack and attempt to acquire Russian territory. I much prefer the scenes involving the interactions of the Russian aristocracy taking place in St. Petersburg and Moscow. It seems the more I get to know characters, the more they seem like me or people I meet every day in modern times. Human nature hasn’t changed a whole lot over the centuries, and War and Peace demonstrates such.

I hope that by sharing this 2025 literary resolution, others will share some tips on how to navigate this reading challenge. Here are some things I’m doing. Along with reading the text, which I’m doing online at the Project Gutenberg eBook of War and Peace, I write down what I read every day, usually two chapters or more. I watched the PBS six-part TV series on the story and plan to watch other similar presentations. Please understand that some may not follow the book with complete accuracy.

I am using SparkNotes as a commentary, also online, and YouTube also has a lot of reading helps for War and Peace, with some excellent and a few are quite mediocre.

And though I have a long way to go, I’m starting to look forward to my time with Mr. Tolstoy every day. That said, this seems like a good time to finish this week’s column. I have some reading to do… lots of it.

Steve Flairty is a teacher, public speaker and an author of seven books: a biography of Kentucky Afield host Tim Farmer and six in the Kentucky’s Everyday Heroes series, including a kids’ version. Steve’s “Kentucky’s Everyday Heroes #5,” was released in 2019. Steve is a senior correspondent for Kentucky Monthly, a weekly NKyTribune columnist and a former member of the Kentucky Humanities Council Speakers Bureau. Contact him at [email protected] or visit his Facebook page, “Kentucky in Common: Word Sketches in Tribute.” (Steve’s photo by Connie McDonald)