Olde Delaney's Country Ham Store

Call Directions Website

Olde Delaney's Country Ham Store Country Hams, Fresh made Sausage, Bacon, Jams, Jellies, Preserves, Pickled Products, Gift Boxes. Indulge in the Irresistible Delights of Olde Delaney's!
(344)

At Olde Delaney's, we bring you a medley of mouthwatering treats,
From country ham to fresh sausage, bacon, jams, and preserves that can't be beat. Savor the flavors of the countryside, crafted with love and care,
Each bite a celebration of tradition and flavors rare. Let's start with our Country Ham, cured to perfection,
A time-honored recipe that'll leave you with pure satisfaction. Its rich, smoky flavor will transport you to days of old,
Where meals were savored, and stories were told. For breakfast lovers, our fresh sausage will be a true delight,
Made from premium cuts, seasoned just right. Each juicy bite bursts with savory goodness, a true morning feast,
Pair it with eggs and toast for a breakfast that can't be beat. Now, let's not forget the star of the morning spread,
Olde Delaney's bacon, crispy and full of flavor, it's truly widespread. Whether it's classic strips or thick-cut perfection you crave,
Our bacon will elevate every dish you brave. To add a touch of sweetness to your culinary journey,
Try our selection of jams and preserves, bursting with fruity glory. From tangy berry blends to luscious peach and fig,
Spread them on toast or pair them with cheese for a delightful gig. At Olde Delaney's, we take pride in quality and taste,
Sourcing the finest ingredients, never a moment to waste. With each bite, you'll savor the care and passion we bestow,
Because at Olde Delaney's, only the best will ever show. So come and explore our enticing range of flavors divine,
Olde Delaney's, where tradition and taste intertwine. Discover the joy of hearty meats, delectable jams, and preserves,
An experience that your taste buds and senses truly deserve. Visit us today and let Olde Delaney's be your go-to,
For country ham, fresh sausage, bacon, jams, and more that will woo. Treat yourself to a culinary adventure, a flavor-filled ride,
Because at Olde Delaney's, we're here to satisfy your foodie side!

We’ve got a NEW MEAT MAN in town, and he’s just dying to meet our customers!He’s got a killer smile, a sharp personality...
10/17/2026

We’ve got a NEW MEAT MAN in town, and he’s just dying to meet our customers!

He’s got a killer smile, a sharp personality, and a butcher knife that means business! 😂

We hired him to help with our famous COUNTRY HAMS and DELI MEATS, but we’re beginning to wonder if he takes his job a little TOO seriously!

We told him our customers expect the best cuts of meat at great prices.

He smiled and said, “Don’t worry, I know how to make the CUT!” 🔪😂

We’re still working on his customer service skills, but one thing’s for sure…

💀 PEOPLE ARE JUST DYING TO MEAT HIM! 💀

Stop in and check out our delicious country hams and selection of deli meats!

OLDE DELANEY’S COUNTRY HAM STORE

Our meats are delicious, our prices are killer, and our new meat man is CUTTING UP! 😂🔪

10/13/2026

I Just Kept Going

My Story of Hard Times, Hard Work, Family, and Never Giving Up

Chapter Thirty-Nine

When Generosity Becomes an Expectation

One thing I’ve learned after 36 years of running Olde Delaney’s is that owning a small business is about a whole lot more than buying merchandise and selling it for a profit.

It’s about people.

Over the years, I’ve met some wonderful people. Customers who have supported us through good times and bad, people who have become friends, and families who have been shopping with us for generations.

I’ve also learned that no matter how much you do for some people, sometimes it never seems to be enough.

Barbara and I have always believed in giving back to our community. We’ve supported local organizations, donated merchandise, helped families who were struggling, and contributed to fundraisers and other worthwhile causes.

A lot of those things we’ve done quietly. We didn’t need our names in the newspaper or somebody patting us on the back.

We did it because we wanted to help.

But somewhere along the way, I began noticing something that bothered me.

There were people who would come through the door asking for donations, and it seemed like every time I turned around, some of those same people were back asking for something else.

Then there were customers who wanted to negotiate the price of merchandise every time they purchased something.

It didn’t matter how reasonable the price already was. They still wanted it cheaper.

Now, I’ve never had a problem helping somebody who genuinely needed help. I’ve been on the other side of that situation myself. I know what it’s like to struggle, to wonder where your next dollar is coming from, and to have somebody extend a helping hand when you need it most.

I’ve never forgotten those days.

Maybe that’s one reason I’ve always tried to help others when I could.

But there’s a difference between somebody needing help and somebody simply expecting you to give them something.

And after all these years, that difference has become a little easier for me to recognize.

What some people don’t understand is that just because you own a business doesn’t mean you have money to give away.

Every piece of merchandise sitting on those shelves costs us money.

The electric company doesn’t give us a discount because we made a donation. The insurance company doesn’t lower our premium because we helped somebody. Property taxes still have to be paid. Employees still expect their paychecks.

And the distributors certainly don’t ask me what I feel like paying when they send me an invoice.

I’ve spent years trying to find better suppliers, negotiating with distributors, watching expenses, and finding ways to keep our prices reasonable for our customers.

So when someone walks through the door and expects another discount, sometimes I wonder whether they realize what it took to get that merchandise on the shelf in the first place.

There have been plenty of mornings when I got out of bed and went to work whether I felt like it or not.

There have been holidays, weekends, family gatherings, and opportunities I’ve missed because somebody had to keep that store running.

Barbara and I have made sacrifices that most people will never know about.

And I wouldn’t trade the life we’ve built.

But I also don’t think we should have to apologize for expecting to make an honest living.

Something else I’ve learned is that the people who appreciate your kindness the most aren’t always the ones asking for the most.

Some people will thank you for the smallest favor and remember it for years.

Others can receive one favor after another and still seem disappointed when you finally tell them no.

That’s probably been one of the hardest lessons for me to learn.

You can have a good heart and still have to draw the line.

For a long time, I worried about disappointing people. I didn’t want somebody leaving the store upset because I couldn’t help them or wouldn’t lower a price.

But I’ve come to understand that saying no doesn’t make me selfish, and it certainly doesn’t erase all the times I’ve said yes.

I think sometimes people forget that small businesses need support, too.

We’re the people they come to when the school needs something, when a fundraiser needs a donation, when a family needs help, or when somebody is trying to raise money for a good cause.

And I’m proud we’ve been able to be part of those things.

But generosity has to work both ways.

You can’t continually expect a small business to support everybody else without recognizing that the business needs customers who support it.

I’ve never asked anybody to shop at Olde Delaney’s out of sympathy.

I’ve always believed that if we offered good merchandise, treated people fairly, and worked hard enough, customers would have a reason to come back.

And for 36 years, that’s what we’ve tried to do.

Looking back, I realize that learning when to say no has been just as important as learning when to say yes.

I still believe in helping people. I still believe in giving somebody a chance. And I still believe that when you’re fortunate enough to have something, you ought to remember those who have less.

But I also believe there’s nothing wrong with protecting what you’ve spent a lifetime building.

Because every dollar that comes through that cash register represents more than a sale.

It represents years of hard work, sacrifices, responsibilities, and the determination to keep going when things weren’t easy.

I didn’t come from money. Nobody handed me a successful business. Everything Barbara and I have built came from taking chances, working hard, making mistakes, learning from them, and refusing to give up.

And after all these years, I think I’ve earned the right to say no without feeling guilty about it.

I’ll never regret the people I’ve helped. But I’ve learned that I can’t help everybody, and I can’t allow somebody else’s expectations to determine how I run my business.

That’s another lesson life has taught me.

You can be generous without being taken advantage of.

You can be kind without agreeing to everything.

And you can say no while still being a good person.

After 36 years, I guess I’m still learning.

And through it all, I’ve tried not to lose the part of me that remembers what it feels like to have nothing.

Because that part of my life is what made me who I am today.

I just kept going.

To be continued….

🎃🎃 UPDATE — ALL PUMPKINS ARE GONE! 🎃🎃11 BINS OF PUMPKINS — ALL GONE!I want to say a big THANK YOU to everyone who showed...
10/11/2026

🎃🎃 UPDATE — ALL PUMPKINS ARE GONE! 🎃🎃

11 BINS OF PUMPKINS — ALL GONE!

I want to say a big THANK YOU to everyone who showed up today and helped us find homes for all those pumpkins!

I hope everyone gets a lot of enjoyment out of them, whether you’re decorating, carving, baking, or just putting a smile on a child’s face.

It makes me happy knowing those pumpkins are going to be enjoyed instead of going to waste.

We are truly thankful for everyone who came out and for the support you continue to show our little country store.

From all of us at Olde Delaney’s, THANK YOU! ❤️

🎃 11 bins later, not a pumpkin left!

Olde Delaney’s Country Store
Bardstown, Kentucky

UPDATE ALL PUMPKINS WERE GONE WITHIN TWO HOURS🎃 ATTENTION TEACHERS & SCHOOLS — A DISAPPOINTING SITUATION 🎃I want to sta...
10/11/2026

UPDATE ALL PUMPKINS WERE GONE WITHIN TWO HOURS

🎃 ATTENTION TEACHERS & SCHOOLS — A DISAPPOINTING SITUATION 🎃

I want to start by thanking the teachers who took the time to come and pick up their free pumpkins for their classrooms. I truly hope the children enjoyed them.

But I also want to share something that has left me very disappointed.

When we first decided to give away pumpkins to classrooms, we started with 750 pumpkins. The response was far greater than I ever expected. Teachers were requesting pumpkins for their classrooms, and I didn’t want to turn anyone away.

So we went back and purchased another 1,400 pumpkins, bringing our total to 2,150 pumpkins, just so we could fulfill everyone’s requests.

We went to that extra expense because we made a commitment, and I believe when you give someone your word, you do your best to follow through.

Unfortunately, a disappointing number of teachers who requested pumpkins never showed up to pick them up.

I’m not going to sugarcoat it. That really bothers me.

We spent our time, money, and effort making sure those pumpkins were available because we believed people were going to follow through on their requests.

I understand that things come up and plans change. But a simple phone call or text letting us know you no longer needed them would have been the considerate thing to do.

What disappoints me the most isn’t the money we spent. It’s the lack of consideration for the effort that went into trying to do something good for our community.

We’re a small, locally owned business. We don’t have a big corporation behind us paying for these giveaways. When we do something like this, it comes out of our own pocket.

We weren’t trying to sell anything. We weren’t looking for publicity or recognition. We simply wanted to give children an opportunity to enjoy a pumpkin, use their imagination, and have a little fun in their classrooms.

We kept our end of the commitment. I just wish everyone who made a request had done the same.

🎃 WE NOW HAVE OVER 1500 FREE PUMPKINS REMAINING! 🎃They are available to any anyone on a first-come, first-served basis, we will not take request, while supplies last.

I don’t regret trying to do something good for the children. But I would be less than truthful if I said this experience hasn’t been discouraging.

To the teachers who followed through, thank you. Your consideration means more than you know.

And to those who requested pumpkins but never came to get them, I hope you’ll remember that behind every act of generosity, there’s someone giving their time, effort, and hard-earned money to make it happen.

A little appreciation and consideration go a long way.

Olde Delaney’s
📍 1467 N. 3rd St., Bardstown, KY
📞 502-348-8565

🎃 We did this for the children, and I still want to see those pumpkins get into their hands.

I Just Kept GoingMy Story of Hard Times, Hard Work, Family, and Never Giving UpChapter Thirty-EightThings were really st...
10/10/2026

I Just Kept Going

My Story of Hard Times, Hard Work, Family, and Never Giving Up

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Things were really starting to change at Olde Delaney’s.

We had come through the COVID-19 pandemic, dealt with shortages, rising prices, and difficulty obtaining merchandise. But somehow, through all of it, we kept growing.

We reached another milestone in our lives. For the first time, the store exceeded one million dollars in annual sales.

That was something we never would have imagined when we bought that little country store back in 1990.

But growth brought its own problems.

We were running out of room. We replaced all the gondola shelving and added another sixty-eight feet of display space so we could carry more merchandise. We were constantly looking for new distributors, new products, and different ways to improve the business.

We had also expanded our relationships with Amish and Mennonite family farmers. What had started with a few vegetables had grown into a part of our business that customers looked forward to.

We were proud of what we had accomplished, but we were also getting older.

For years, we had worked long hours, seven days a week. There was always something that needed to be done. If we weren’t working at the store, we were taking care of rental property, picking up merchandise, or planning the next improvement.

We had spent most of our lives building things.

We bought one property, paid for it, and moved on to another. We took chances that other people might not have taken. Some worked out better than we expected, while others taught us lessons we never forgot.

Then, just when we thought we had things moving in the right direction, the telephone rang.

Dollar General was interested in purchasing the property.

That certainly got our attention.

After all those years of building up the business, someone was now interested in buying the very property where we had spent so much of our lives.

We talked with Dollar General, and they made us an offer. After thinking it over, we politely turned it down.

They came back with another proposal. This time, they were interested in purchasing the lot behind the store property. We considered that offer as well, but we turned it down too.

Another company also made an offer. Once again, we decided not to sell.

We had worked too hard and too long to make a decision without thinking it through. The offers were tempting, but we knew that selling was not the right choice for us.

This wasn’t just another piece of real estate.

This was where we had spent thousands of hours working, where our family had stood beside us, and where we had built a business that helped provide for our future.

We had watched the neighborhood change. We had watched businesses come and go. We had survived recessions, competition, lawsuits, and even a worldwide pandemic.

And now, after all those years, other companies were interested in what we had built.

But we weren’t ready to give it up.

We had learned a long time ago that opportunities don’t always come when you’re looking for them. Sometimes they show up when you least expect them.

But we also knew that every opportunity wasn’t necessarily the right one.

The offers reminded us that Olde Delaney’s had become something valuable. But value is not always measured by the amount of money someone is willing to pay. Sometimes it is measured by the years of work, the memories, the people, and the pride invested in building something of your own.

For the time being, we decided to keep going.

We had another decision to make, but this time the answer was clear. We weren’t ready to walk away from the store or the property. There was still more work to do, more customers to serve, and more life left in the business we had built.

Still, the inquiries made us think about what would happen if one of us passed away. We had a will, but we began to realize that we needed something more to protect everything we had worked for.

So we went to work on a plan.

We created a trust that would help avoid probate and give the trustee more time to manage everything properly. We also established a fund for the trust so it could continue moving forward until the time came for the next steps to be taken.

It was not easy to think about a time when one of us would no longer be here. But planning for the future was another responsibility we could not ignore.

We had spent our lives preparing for the unexpected. We had built businesses, purchased property, survived difficult times, and found ways to keep moving forward.

Now we needed to make sure that the things we had built would be protected and cared for, no matter what happened. We wanted the surviving spouse to have financial security and enough time to make careful decisions. We also wanted to protect our assets from anyone who might try to take advantage of the surviving spouse or deceive them.

Creating the trust gave us some peace of mind. It was another way of maintaining control of our future and making sure that our hard work would not be lost because we had failed to plan.

We had always believed that you should not wait until a problem happens before you start looking for an answer.

So we planned ahead.

This was another step in our journey, and we were still moving forward—just as we always had.

I just kept going.

To be continued…

I Just Kept GoingMy Story of Hard Times, Hard Work, Family, and Never Giving Up Chapter Thirty-SevenGrowing Pains and Ne...
10/09/2026

I Just Kept Going

My Story of Hard Times, Hard Work, Family, and Never Giving Up

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Growing Pains and New Opportunities

The COVID pandemic had changed just about everything in the grocery business. We were still dealing with shortages, suppliers having trouble getting merchandise, and prices going up.

But through all of it, Olde Delaney’s kept growing.

And then I reached another milestone.

For the first time, we hit a million dollars in sales in one year.

That was something I was proud of. When I thought back to buying that little country store in 1990, I never imagined what it would grow into.

But reaching a million dollars in sales didn’t mean things were getting any easier.

In fact, we were having growing pains.

We were running out of room. Merchandise was coming in, and I was constantly trying to figure out where to put everything. We needed more space to display products, and I knew if we were going to continue growing, something had to change.

So I made another investment in the store.

I ended up replacing all the gondola shelving and adding another 68 feet of display shelving for new merchandise.

I started hooking up with new distributors, looking for different products, and expanding our selection.

At the same time, I continued building relationships with Amish and Mennonite family farmers.

Those families were an important part of what Olde Delaney’s had become. They worked hard raising their produce and making their products, and I enjoyed doing business with them. It helped them support their families, and it gave our customers something different from what they could find in the big chain stores.

The business was changing, and I was changing with it.

I had never been one to sit back and be satisfied with what I had accomplished. Even after reaching a million dollars in sales, I was already thinking about what we could do next.

Because one thing I had learned over the years was that if you wanted a business to survive, you couldn’t stand still.

And I certainly wasn’t planning on standing still.

But then the telephone rang.

It was about the property.

Dollar General was interested, and they weren’t the only ones. There were several others who wanted the property as well.

Now, after all those years of working, investing money, remodeling, expanding, and building Olde Delaney’s into what it had become, people were interested in the ground it was sitting on.

I had spent years trying to figure out how to make the business grow. Now I was faced with something I hadn’t been planning on.

Someone else wanted the property.

And that phone call was about to give me something else to think about.

I’d been through enough in my life to know that sometimes an opportunity comes along when you least expect it.

But I also knew that every opportunity wasn’t necessarily the right one.

I had worked too hard and come too far to make a decision without thinking it through.

I didn’t know where all this interest in my property was going to lead, but one thing was certain.

Another chapter of my life was beginning, whether I was ready for it or not.

And just like I had done so many times before,

I just kept going.

To be continued….

I Just Kept GoingMy Story of Hard Times, Hard Work, Family, and Never Giving UpChapter Thirty-SixWhen Everything Changed...
10/08/2026

I Just Kept Going

My Story of Hard Times, Hard Work, Family, and Never Giving Up

Chapter Thirty-Six

When Everything Changed

By the time March 2020 rolled around, I thought I had seen just about everything a person could see in the grocery business.

I’d been through some hard times over the years. I’d watched businesses come and go, grocery stores close, and the way people shopped change. I’d dealt with shortages, rising prices, and just about every problem you could imagine.

But nothing could have prepared me for what was about to happen.

COVID-19 hit, and before we knew it, the whole country was being turned upside down.

At first, nobody really knew what we were facing. Every time you turned on the television, there was something else being reported. People were getting sick, people were dying, businesses were closing, schools were shutting down, and everybody was being told to stay home.

Then a national emergency was declared.

People started wearing masks, staying away from one another, and worrying about what tomorrow might bring. Some folks were scared to even leave their houses.

It was something I had never witnessed in all my years.

But we had a store to operate, and people still needed groceries.

Since grocery stores were considered essential businesses, we were allowed to remain open. So Barbara and I kept reporting to the store every day, just like we’d always done.

We followed the health and safety recommendations as best we could. We kept everything clean and sanitized, took the recommended precautions, and did everything we could to protect our customers and ourselves.

I wasn’t going to close the doors unless somebody made me.

Those customers had supported us for years, and I felt we had a responsibility to be there for them when they needed us.

You could watch the news and see what looked like chaos in different parts of the country. People were arguing, supplies were disappearing from store shelves, and everybody seemed worried about what was going to happen next.

But something was different at our little store.

People came in, got what they needed, visited for a little while, and went on about their business. We didn’t have the arguments or the commotion you were seeing on television.

Everybody seemed to understand the situation.

We stayed busy, and in a strange way, things around our place seemed almost normal.

I believe a lot of that had to do with the relationship we’d built with our customers over the years. They knew us, and we knew them. We weren’t just some big grocery chain where nobody knew anybody.

We were a little country store where people had been coming for years.

And even with everything going on in the world, they continued to come.

As the months went by, things started settling down a little. People were getting used to the masks and all the changes. Nobody knew how long it was going to last, but we just kept doing what we had to do.

Then November came around, and things started getting worse again. Businesses all across the country were having trouble finding enough employees to keep operating.

Factories were short on help. Warehouses were short on help. Trucking companies and delivery services were having problems, too.

And something else was happening that most customers didn’t understand.

The backstock was disappearing.

When the pandemic first started in March, people were staying home, cooking more meals, and buying more groceries. Products were moving off the shelves faster than companies could replace them.

At first, manufacturers and distributors were able to keep up by using inventory they already had stored away.

But you can only do that for so long.

Month after month, that extra inventory kept getting smaller.

By the time Thanksgiving rolled around, the problems were beginning to show up everywhere.

We had our country hams to ship out for Thanksgiving, just like we’d done for years.

Those hams were important to our customers. Some had been ordering from us for years, and they counted on receiving their hams in time for their family Thanksgiving dinners.

We got the orders ready and shipped them out.

Then, all of a sudden, UPS started having delivery problems.

They didn’t have enough employees, and their shipping system was overloaded. Packages were getting delayed, and things weren’t moving the way they were supposed to.

Now, when you’re shipping a country ham to somebody for Thanksgiving, you can’t just tell them it’ll get there sometime after the holiday.

People were counting on those hams.

And there we were, having done our part, with no control over what happened once those packages left our store.

It was frustrating.

I had spent years building that business, trying to take care of my customers and making sure they got what they ordered. Now we were dealing with problems that were completely out of our hands.

And Thanksgiving was only part of it.

Christmas was coming, and a ham shortage was developing.

Some people don’t realize what goes into preparing a country ham.

You don’t just take a fresh ham one day and have a finished country ham ready to sell the next morning.

It takes time.

You’re looking at a minimum of around four months to get a country ham ready. That’s not something you can rush just because demand suddenly increases.

And that was exactly what was happening.

Ever since March, products had been selling almost as fast as they could be produced. The warehouses had been using up their backstock, and now there wasn’t enough inventory left to meet the demand.

When the Christmas orders started coming in, there simply weren’t enough country hams available.

It didn’t matter how badly somebody wanted one or how much a store was willing to pay. We ended up putting a five-pound limit on country ham so we could serve more customers.

Our suppliers were also limiting how much we could purchase.

If the hams weren’t ready, they weren’t ready.

And I could see something else coming.

This wasn’t a problem that was going to disappear when the calendar turned to January.

It was going to carry right on into the next year.

Once that backstock was gone, the companies couldn’t just replace it overnight. They needed enough workers, enough supplies, and enough time to produce new inventory.

And everything they were making was selling just as fast as it came out.

I’d been in the grocery business long enough to understand what that meant.

We were going to be dealing with shortages for quite some time. Prices on fresh pork doubled and tripled at times, and it seemed like the cost of everything went through the roof.

I had always tried to stay ahead of things. I believed in planning, keeping inventory on hand, and thinking about what might happen six months or a year down the road.

But this was different.

You couldn’t plan for something when nobody knew what was going to happen next.

All you could do was make the best decisions you could with what you had available.

Looking back, I think about how much changed during those months.

The whole country was dealing with something none of us had ever experienced before. Families were worried about their health, their jobs, and what the future might hold.

And there we were, still opening the doors at Olde Delaney’s, still waiting on customers, and still trying to keep enough merchandise on the shelves.

We didn’t know what the next year was going to bring.

But one thing hadn’t changed.

I still had a business to run, a family to look after, and people depending on me.

And just like I’d done so many times before in my life, I kept getting up every morning and doing what needed to be done.

I just kept going.

To be continued…

10/06/2026

I Just Kept Going

My Story of Hard Times, Hard Work, Family, and Never Giving Up

Chapter Thirty-Five

Giving Them Opportunities

By this point, Olde Delaney’s had changed a lot from the little country store I first bought years earlier.

We had changed with the times. We had learned what worked, what did not work, what people wanted, and what kept them coming back. The store had become more than a place to buy something. It had become part of the community.

The truth is, the business I was operating by then was totally different from what Olde Delaney’s had been years before. About the only thing the two businesses had in common was the name.

The building itself had been there for 88 years. There had been several owners before me, and I was the sixth owner. By then, I had been operating the business for 36 years, longer than any of the previous owners.

That meant something to me.

I had watched the store change over the years, and I had changed right along with it.

I probably would have changed the name too, but by that time it would have cost too much to change everything. People were already used to the Olde Delaney’s name. It was on the signs, the advertising, the products, and everything else connected with the store.

So the name stayed.

The business had changed, but people had gotten used to the name, and it had become part of who we were.

But one thing about me had never changed.

I was always looking ahead.

Even when things were going good, I was thinking about what might be next. I never wanted to get too comfortable, because I had learned a long time ago that life can change in a hurry.

One of the biggest things on our minds was our family.

We wanted to give our children opportunities we never had.

Over the years, we had learned that education mattered. What you knew, what you learned, and how you used it could make a big difference in your life. We wanted them to understand that hard work was important, but we also wanted them to learn how to work smart.

By that time, I felt like we had become financially stable. I had done what I needed to do to help get us there. I worked hard, and I enjoyed what I was doing, but we always tried to make time for our family.

The children helped at the store, and when they worked, we made sure they got paid.

That money was theirs.

They could spend it however they wanted, but there was a lesson that went along with it. We wanted them to understand that money did not just appear. You worked for it. You had to make choices with it. If you spent it all, it was gone. If you saved some of it, you would have something later.

We wanted to give them the tools to be successful, not just hand everything to them.

We did the same thing with school.

We told them we would pay them for their report cards. If they made an A, we would give them $20. If they made a B, they would get $10.

To me, if you got a C, that meant you understood some of it.

But if you got a D or an F, that told me you really did not understand the material and needed more help.

It was not really about the money. The money was just something to encourage them and give them a reason to work toward doing their best.

We wanted them to take school seriously.

We also wanted them to understand that hard work had to mean something.

If one child worked hard and earned the reward, we were not going to give the same reward to the other one just to make everything even.

The one who put in the work deserved to be rewarded for it.

That did not mean we loved one child more than the other. It meant we wanted them to understand that rewards come from effort.

If one of them did well, the other one could look at that and know, if I want the same reward, I have to work for it too.

That was a lesson we wanted them to learn early in life.

You do not always get rewarded just because somebody else does.

Sometimes you have to work harder, improve, and earn it for yourself.

We wanted them to understand that if you put the effort into something, sooner or later you were going to see the results.

Maria took that seriously.

She worked hard in school and graduated from high school with a 3.99 GPA.

She kept going with her education. She finished her undergraduate work at the University of Louisville and graduated with three majors. After that, she was accepted into medical school.

Faith took a different path.

She enrolled at Paul Mitchell and made it almost all the way through the program. About a month before graduation, she decided that was not what she wanted to do with her life.

We did not look at that as failure.

Sometimes finding out what you do not want to do is part of figuring out what you do want to do.

By then, they were adults.

Barbara and I had done what we could to give them opportunities, teach them responsibility, and help them get started. From that point on, it was up to them to succeed in whatever field they chose.

We were still there for them.

If they needed advice, we would give it.

If they needed help, we would help whenever we could.

But their lives were theirs to live.

As parents, there comes a time when you have to trust that the lessons you tried to teach will stay with them and let them make their own choices.

That was where Barbara and I were.

We had given them the tools.

Now it was their turn to use them and

I just kept going.

To be continued….

Address

1467 N 3rd Street
Bardstown, KY
40004

Opening Hours

Monday 8am - 1pm
Tuesday 8am - 1pm
Wednesday 8am - 1pm
Thursday 8am - 1pm
Friday 8am - 1pm
Saturday 8am - 1pm

Telephone

+15023488565

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Olde Delaney's Country Ham Store posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Share

Category