The Grapevine......

 Part 1

If I had any doubts at this point that Kelly Panowicz had been up to no good when she came to my farm, those were quickly obliterated by a phone call I received just a couple days after I began using the weight tape to establish the true condition of my herd of Arabian horses. The name on the caller ID was that of an old friend who should have had no knowledge of the current circumstances and yet, that is exactly why she called.

Our friendship goes back to my days as a groom before I ever bought Scandalous. All of these years we have stayed in touch despite the fact we went separate ways upon leaving that facility and we live a couple of counties apart. Phone calls, an ocassional lunch keep us up to date on our horses and lives. Those contacts are usually instigated by me so it is unusual for me to hear from her unless I have called.

My illness had left little energy for catching up before all this happened so when it did, I was sucked dry. There was nothing left for anything but survival so I wasn't calling anyone.  At a time I definitely needed to hear a friendly voice, this call came out of the blue.

Because of my condition and out lack of contact, there was no way I could have guessed the reason for her call. I was totally caught off guard when she told me the grapevine was abuzz with stories of my horses, living in deplorable conditions, neglected and starving.

 It took a while for her to relay all the details but is soon became clear that Kelly Panowicz upon leaving my farm had begun a smear campaign. To justify her actions taking a remarkable young horse from someone as sick as me, she turned me into the bad guy claiming my horses were starving, wormy and untrimmed well past the point of criminal neglect.   The grapevine being what it is, the story spread like wildfire.

Because the story has evolved to the point of including more than one of my friends, I am going to apply some code to distinguish each. From here forward I will refer to the friend who brought Kelly Panowicz here as EF for exploited riend and the woman who made this phone call as TF for true friend. The distinction used as how I see the role of each in this story, not as how I feel about each. EF was so afraid for me she was as easily exploited as I was. TF took the high road when confronted by these horrible rumors and stood by me when plenty others took the low road, some even joining the feeding frenzy.

TF heard the story from multiple sources and was deeply disturbed by the damage being done to my good name. Convinced by our history there was no validity to these claims, she wanted ammunition to silence the gossipers since standing up for me alone was not doing it.

She knew there must be something behind it but knew the real story was nothing like the garbage she was hearing. Just as I knew when EF brought Kelly Panowicz here had meant me no harm, this friend knew I would never allow harm to befall my beloved horses.
She wanted the facts so she could combat the rumors and I readily shared them with her since I am as convinced of her loyalty as I am of EF's.

Unlike me, TF did not share my belief that EG intended me no harm. The way Kelly was throwing EF's name around supported that she was totally behind Panowicz and not me. Despite my attempts to assure her, the response I got was TF's hope that EF deserved the faith I had in her.

None of this information changed my opinion of EF. I might not have understood yet how Kelly duped her, as she had me, but I knew EF would not condone nor support what Panowicz was doing to destroy my reputation so no one would question what she had done. I didn't know how I was going to broach this subject with EF but at least I now knew her game.........and about that vicious grapevine. How low could Kelly Panowicz go to cover her *ss?

To be continued........

More Eye Openers........

The horse in this picture is Andy, Scandalous Addiction