It’s Kentucky Derby week, which reminds me, it’s time to get back to my plan — not to take over the world. Oh, no. I’m aiming to be crowned a Kentucky Colonel.

My quest began last year when this farm boy from northeast Ohio wandered into the bluegrass wilds of Kentucky.

“I’ll take you to Thurby,” said my friend Wendy, who lives in Louisville. “Thurby is the Thursday before the Kentucky Derby. It’s for the locals to enjoy before those hordes of foreigners from other states come crashing through.”

“So, Thurby is the day for ragamuffins like me to show up?”

“Oh, my goodness, no. You need proper dress. A pastel dress shirt, fancy bow tie and a classy straw hat ought to do it.”

Obviously, I was in a foreign land. But as a newly julep-minted Kentucky boy bucking for a colonelship, I figured a trip to Churchill Downs was in order.

Trepidation galloped a few laps around my brain. Wendy is gorgeous, intelligent and very at ease in a high-class crowd. And I… I am Burt.

Despite what kids’ picture books claim, we northeast Ohio farm kids did not sport straw hats. We wear baseball caps, usually with the logo of a tractor or seed company on the front. We bedazzled our headgear with baler grease, cobwebs and barn dust.

And while an eventual office job left me with dozens of neckties, not one of them is bowed. I tried tying one into a bow like a shoelace, but Wendy said it wouldn’t do.

I began the hunt for a mint shirt, a bow tie and a white, straw fedora.

Years ago, when Terry helped me pick out a tuxedo for our wedding, I showed her this marvelous purple tux lit up in shiny paisleys.

It came with a purple fedora.

“I hope your next fiancée likes it,” Terry growled, “because no groom is going to wear that THING in my wedding.”

At Churchill Downs, the tux my bride rejected would have been boringly normal. Guys strode the grounds in every crayon box color, especially in neon or pastel hues.

They strutted in suits that appeared to have been made with material meant for a 6-year-old’s pajamas.

I was among my people.

I discovered yet another reason that I wished that my sweet Terry was still among the living: I could show her that I finally found a place where I could wear that “outlandish” tuxedo.

Which still would have paled compared to the ladies and their hats. I’ve never seen so many oversized flowers, fluttery feathers, sprigs, twigs and who knows what else sprouting out of women’s heads. On purpose. It was a circus of elegance.

Instead of doubling over in laughter, I was awed by how stunningly well these women wore such imaginative creations.

There were Thurby races, so we settled into the famous Churchill grandstands to gander at the thoroughbreds — if we weren’t blinded by the fluorescent tuxedos and could get a line of sight between the gardens growing out of the hats.

I chose which horse to cheer by the highly scientific method of picking whatever names struck my fancy.

Racehorse names are like the ladies’ hats — colorful, amusing and entertaining. The program listed such horses as Fasta Lavista Baby, Melittlefrostgirl, Chasing Kitty and Emy. (“Emy” would be like the farmer’s baseball cap of horse names.)

Then I saw him — Brilliant Berti. A misspelling, for sure. If you’re going to name your horse after me, it should have been Brilliant Burtie.

The gates opened and the horses charged Berti pulled into fourth… then faded… back into fourth… third, no fourth again… homestretch… WOW! Burtie — er, Berti — won! Brilliant!

The experience had me thinking about coming back for the big show this year.

After all, a horse named Journalism is the favorite to win the Derby on Saturday, and since this Burtie was brilliant enough to choose journalism as a career…

Whoa! Hold your horses! Thurby packed more crowds, noise and exquisite refinement than this hayseed could handle. I don’t want to be anywhere close to Churchill Downs when the mob of fashionably sophisticated interlopers from all those foreign states show up.

My bow tie is jammed into the back of my sock drawer and the straw hat is lodged at the back of my coat closet. This northeast Ohio farm boy plans to be in jeans, T-shirt and baseball cap when he watches the derby on TV.

But if I have to go back someday, I’ll check to see if that purple tux is still in stock. Do Kentucky Colonels wear paisley?

Offer tips on track styles and horse names at burton.w.cole@gmail.com or on the Burton W. Cole page on Facebook.