When I was a little kid, I always wanted to know where my father was going every time he left home. I’d inquire, “Daddy, where are you going?” And if he didn’t want to tell me, he would respond, “I’m going to see a man about a horse.”
Now at this time in my life we lived in a townhouse in South Jersey. I was probably about six the first time he told me this, and that first time I actually believed him. In fact, I started to imagine what life was going to be like after he brought the horse home. Unfortunately, there was no horse.
So, the next occasion he had to go “see a man about a horse,” I wasn’t quite as believing. By the third or fourth time, even though I was only six years old, there was no doubt in my mind there was no man with a horse, and I just started getting annoyed with that response. Eventually, my Dad stopped using it.
I hope Governor Richardson that you can learn something from my trip down memory lane. It’s time you started being truthful about your reasons for leaving home. We might have believed you the first time that you were just “going to see a man about a horse,” but now it is becoming insulting. Especially, when we keep being confronted by the truth a day or so later.