The ABC’s of Me

K

Kentucky

 

I bet you thought I had fallen off the blog wagon again, didn't you?  I got stuck again, and then it was Daryl's birthday and Father's Day and well, time just got away from me.  And while I'm handing out excuses, I will just say that I have no idea why, when published, part of this is in one font, and then part is in another.  It doesn't look like that as I type it!  Anyways....onward....

 

My parents are both from Kentucky, and as a child, all of my grandparents lived in Kentucky.  Every Thanksgiving, and once during the summer, we would pile in the station wagon (back when you didn't have to have car seats and seat belts and you could lay the back down, line it with sleeping bags and toys and enjoy your ride....also back when there weren't TVs in cars!) and make the 8-9 hour trip to Louisville, KY.  Although I get carsick, and in general hate car trips, just reflecting on these trips brought back so many good memories.  So good, that I spent four hours trying to find pictures of my grandparents' houses on Google, and in the process got a little teary.  My grandparents all live in heaven now, but the memories remain.

 

To me, everyone in Kentucky is old.  I know they really aren't in my head, but in my 9 year old kid brain, they were.  We spent the entire time in the company of people 80 and older--in various stuffy apartments, old houses, nursing homes.  Other than old people, though, other images come to mind.

 

Singing Debby Boone's "You Light Up My Life" with my grandmother, along with her album, played on her turntable.

 

The Kentucky Derby.  Even though we never went, my parents had, and still have, a Derby Party every year on Derby Day.  I have such fond memories of those parties and all of my parents' friends in the house.

 Riding past vast green fields with horses grazing.  This is not a sight we would see on the way there, as we always traveled there by night and traveled home during the day.  My grandmother lived on a very small farm, and I remember knowing we were there when we drove over the bumpy spot on her drive meant to keep the cows from crossing.

 Houses like this.  This isn't my grandmother's home, but it, to me, will always be a "Kentucky house."  It faced Hillcrest Avenue, a busy road, and we used to play in the front yard. (Why we didn't play in the back yard, that was fenced and flat, I don't know)  I remember the formal furniture, the squeaky real hardwood floors, the smell of cheese grits, and my great grandmother uncoiling her long white hair in front of the mirror.  So many more good memories (all in black and white in my head), too many to list.

 And at the end of our trip, almost as if to show us that young people do live there, there was our annual trip to the mall for "one new outfit" and a picture with Santa, followed by meeting Dad at Shoney's.  I'd always order the spaghetti and never eat it all.

 

I could go on and on about these trips, and maybe someday I will.  I need to, want to remember these precious parts of my life.