Road Trip: Bowling Green

At a certain time in my life, I put many miles on my truck traveling to Bowling Green, Kentucky. I first went to Bowling Green to be part of a friend’s wedding in the mid-1980s. Little did I know then how one day in the not-so-distant future I would live there for a time.

Fast-forward a few years and a college friend (hi, Kelly!) was working in Bowling Green for a company that produced video yearbooks for schools. With her connections, I soon interviewed with that company. I was then hired to work there.

I moved to Bowling Green in the late spring. I had an apartment just outside the city limits of Bowling Green near the Chevrolet Corvette manufacturing facility. I worked evenings so I well remember looking outside my front window during the day spending time watching new Corvettes being test driven by my apartment.

For much of the rest of that calendar year, Kentucky became my home. I had a number of friends who lived nearby so it was good to see them on occasion. Nashville was an hour south and other friends lived there. I was often on the road visiting Music City, USA on weekends. A few times, friends visited me for a weekend in Bowling Green.

My day-to-day world then was in the town that is the home to Western Kentucky University, Houchen’s Grocery, the Greenwood Mall, and Beech Bend Park. One of the local radio stations was the Beaver, WBVR. Another friend (hi, Christi!) worked for them. It was always nice to turn on the radio and listen to her.

I also recall Kentucky had some incredible sunsets. I have lived most of my life where sunsets slide behind mountains. In Bowling Green, the land was flat, so experiencing the sun slip slowly toward the ground was a nice change of pace.

I remember during one friend’s visit from Nashville how we visited a restaurant named Quincy’s. It was a steakhouse and featured a salad bar. I don’t recall what we ate when we went. I do remember laughing so hard that my friend nearly choked on his food. I never went back to Quincy’s after that because I imagine they might have met me at the door to turn me away.

I was always amazed how when I drove outside Bowling Green into the countryside. Yes, there were cattle and farmland there, but there were also small oil derricks. It seems that section of Kentucky had oil underneath the ground in certain locations, so a few folks could have been considered Kentucky oil barons.

Later that calendar year, the company that employed me made drastic changes breaking promises they made to a number of us who worked there. It became time to move on for me. So, I packed back up and moved back to Georgia for a time.

That road from Bowling Green south then back north to Bowling Green was one I traveled frequently for a time years ago. On either side of Nashville, the drive was smooth and free from the congestion of Tennessee’s capital city. I have driven enough to think I could do it with my eyes closed.

Recently, we spent a few days in Kentucky. Jennifer has an aunt and uncle who live about an hour east of Bowling Green. We have been there through the years to spend part of the Thanksgiving holiday with many of her family. On this trip we ventured closer to Bowling Green but still stayed east of the town. One day we did drive to a dairy farm in Barren County. Getting that close to some old haunts made me a bit reminiscent of the time I spent there.

It made me remember one trip I made when I lived in Bowling Green. I stopped at a gas station in Nashville to fill up the tank. Inside, I spotted this giant black and gold mug with the WKDF logo on it. WKDF was one of the hotter radio stations in Nashville at the time. I bought that mug and still have it to this day. It is one of the few things that have survived the years from my short time in Bowling Green. That mug reminds me of my time in Kentucky. I no longer drink out of that mug. Instead, it holds dozens of pennies. Still, I can’t quite part with it as it seems connected to a time and place that remains a special time in my life, even if it was for a very short time.

Road Trip: Bowling Green playlist:
Kentucky Headhunters “Walk Softly On This Heart Of Mine”
John Prine (with Marty Stuart) “Paradise”
Vince Gill “When I Call Your Name”
Loretta Lynn “Blue Kentucky Girl”
The Allman Brother Band “Good Clean Fun”
Bill Monroe “Blue Moon of Kentucky”
MC Hammer “U Can’t Touch This”
The Black Crowes “Jealous Again”
ZZ Top “Doubleback”
Patty Loveless and Ricky Skaggs “Close By”
Kentucky Headhunters “Dumas Walker”
The Everly Brothers “Bowling Green”

Some Call Me Timmy

Ever notice how many names you are known by? I have thought some about this from time to time. When you become a parent, you get a new identity. Hannah knows me as “Daddy”. Of all the names I am known by, it is my favorite name by far. Now to Hannah’s friends I am “Hannah’s daddy”. That one is okay, too. As I become older, I sometimes hear some younger folks refer to me as “Mr. Dills”. While I may feel that title should refer to my late grandfather or to my father, I try to temper that urge so that in some way I acknowledge younger people who have been raised with some respect for those older than they are.

For the most part though, most everyone I know calls me ‘Tim”. It is a shortened version of my given name, “Timothy”. The name means “honoring God”. So many of our names reach back to some meaning tied to God.

Some have varied my name throughout my life in some way. You know “Tiny Tim” was one. I have long been confused with that one since it could be Tiny Tim from A Christmas Carol from Charles Dickens, but it could also mean the person calling me that really liked the falsetto-singing, ukulele-playing pop culture star Tiny Tim best known in the 1960s and 1970s. A few called me “Timbo” from time to time although that one never stuck for long.

During the earliest part of my life, I was known as “Timmy”. I have no idea who first called me that or why. I then was known by “Timmy” by family and friends. At some point, I suppose I thought “Timmy” sounded too much like a little kid’s name, so I worked hard to let folks know I preferred to be called “Tim”. I don’t really recall any specific event that made me determine this is how I should be identified but it caught on. Now most all who know me call me by that shortened version of my given first name.

Except some still call me “Timmy”. I noticed this when I was in college. I was home one summer and attended a family reunion. I saw aunts, uncles, and cousins I had not seen in years. For some of them, the last time they had seen me was when I was called “Timmy”. I noted then how some called me by that name on that day especially when some who used that name followed it by saying how they had not seen me since I was “little”. When I returned to school in the fall, I joked with some of my friends about being called “Timmy”. When I hosted a radio show on the college radio station, I then began calling myself “Little Timmy”.

At some point, my nieces and nephews, and maybe even a few cousins, caught on to it all. They started calling me “Timmy” as well. They relished this since they thought it got under my skin some. And, maybe, for a time, it did. Even now when we are together at some point, one of them will purposely, or otherwise, call me “Timmy”.

I don’t hear the name “Timmy” often these days. At a recent family funeral though I heard it a few times. With so many years behind me now, I don’t always recognize the name when I hear it. Maybe it is just so much a part of me now that it skips by me when someone uses that name. On this day though prior to the funeral service, a few family members had told me one of my cousins that I had not seen in years was there. I had not run across him though. As the family gathered to walk into the funeral home chapel, I saw my cousin across the room. I broke the line, walked to him, grabbed his hand then looked him in the eyes. Sure enough, he gripped my hand back, looked me in the eyes and without hesitation said, “Timmy.”

For me, that is enough reason to always answer to that name.

The Sun Always Rises

Over the course of the past year the day-to-day routine has seemed more like a grind than ever before. We have been told to cover our faces and stay away from others. While the short-term benefits of such may have been well-intentioned, the long-term impact is something I fear will be something some will never get over.

The past year had to gone on though. We learned to adapt to do things we had to do every day just so things could seem as normal as possible. It was all the same but in a different way. Despite moving on in the best way we could, looking back, some things seem lost.

In this last, lost year, we lost friends and family, and because of fear, we could not grieve them as we normally would. How hard will that piece of being mortal, just being human, be to get back? We lost some civility during the past year, didn't we? We already had greatly squandered this commodity, mostly on politics, so losing more of it was something we should have really considered. We tested friendships over whether or not to wear masks. Was it a loss of freedom to have to wear a mask? Some seemed more than willing to report some one to the authorities over not wearing a mask than they were to report an actual crime.

Now and then I would see something that reminded me that not all is lost.

Working from home one recent morning, my day started with helping Jennifer and Hannah get out the door for work and school. After the rush-rush of that hour finished, I stood at the living room window. A moment later, I saw Jennifer's car, with the two of them inside, pull up to our street to leave. As they turned out of our driveway, my eyes followed them, There as the car drove away from our house, I noticed they were driving into a spectacular sunrise.

With a right turn onto another street, they disappeared from my sight. I could only keep looking at the sky. I opened the front door stepping onto our porch just so I could get a better glimpse of the view before my eyes. Maybe, I was outside in an attempt to get a bit closer to the source.

No matter how the past year has unfolded, it unfolded as it always has in some ways. One day always followed another day. One distinct season always followed another distinct season. Each morning, sunrise came, whether hidden behind clouds or unobstructed in front of a blue sky. Each evening, sunset came, cloudy or otherwise.

In all the bickering, vitriol, anger, and confusion our world seems to sink deeper into each day, that sunrise, and it's continual presence serves as a reminder that life goes on despite these things that easily distract us. It speaks how life is more than arguing a point of view, no matter how "right" a body thinks they are. It is more than just the routine someone exercises each day to get from point A to point B. It more than supersedes any new normal any one can claim. It is a shame how sometimes it has to nudge us in a spectacular way even though it is there every day without fail.

Because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace."
~Luke 1: 78, 79