Hunker Down with Kes: Talk About Truly Hunkering Down

I remember August 14, 1965, very well. The problem was, I hadn’t prepared a lick for it. I clearly didn’t understand the significance of the entire situation until I got out of the car…and watched Mom drive away.

I was eighteen years old. And thought I knew a lot more than I did. That changed in a heartbeat when I saw the taillights of our 1960 Chevrolet disappear around the corner of the University of the South’s bookstore.

The air suddenly seemed like it had been sucked out of the cosmos. Time, space, reason, life itself came to a halt. I stood in abject silence, between our family suitcase and a borrowed duffle bag, containing most of my worldly possessions, and tried to make some sense of it all.

There was one thing that was abundantly clear. The world as I knew it had just taken a drastic turn. Somehow in my little heart, I knew there could be no going back. No matter what!

I felt so alone. And when I finally managed to get a little air back into one lung, and breathing again, I realized that was because I WAS alone. For the first time in my life!

Standing on that sidewalk in front of Gailor Hall, a few tears slid silently down my cheeks, but I can guarantee you, the majority of them were flooding across my poor desolate soul.

Back home, we’d been talking about going off to college for a year and a half. The consensus in the back booth at Frank’s Dairy Bar was it would be a blessing. I can remember Larry Ridinger distinctly saying, “Anyplace would be better than here.”

Our town was kinda small. You could take the grand tour in six minutes. We knew everyone, and everyone knew us. All things moved (to us) at a relatively slow pace. Life was church, baseball, school, summer work, the county fair in October, and “be home by supper.”

We all celebrated when a birth was announced, and we mourned together when an older trailblazer went on to Glory. We gathered at the Park Theatre and watched “Destry Rides Again” as one. We celebrated the Fourth of July like no other place on earth. I went to school from the first grade till graduation with basically the same people.

In my Pollyanna mindset I thought college would be just more of the same. And I began to buy into the “get out of town” motif. Without putting one whit of thought into it!

Mrs. Mary E. Warren, our guidance counselor, started steering us to a college if you could spell your name correctly and pass Miss Barbara Clark’s sophomore English class. We all agreed politely and looked at the various school catalogs she had. But there was football practice, night rides out to the clay pits, gosh awful chemistry elements to memorize, and girls that I’d known all my life were transforming right before my eyes.

Yeah, I talked about college. Dad was high on me going. I looked at a few brochures. I joined in some of the discussions at Frank’s. But the problem was, I never actually spent any time THINKING about college.

I never seriously entertained the downside about leaving home. The dramatic change. The upheaval it would create. I stood between the suitcase and duffle bag as my only link to the only life I’d ever known drove off and realized, “I obviously wasn’t smart enough yet to go off to college!”

Doug and David Paschall, who were attending the University of the South, stopped by the service station where I was working. “Kes, it is a great school. Small. You will get to know everyone there. You can play ball with us. It is the perfect place for you.”

I said, “OK,” and never considered anywhere else.

Mom helped me pack. Folks in town had wished me well. Dad was so proud. There was no parade down Main Street to see me off.

Reality can be a hard teacher. I kicked at the duffle bag and figured I was stuck here whether I liked it or not. Maybe for the first time in my life, I realized that Larry Ridinger, and the rest of us, might not have gotten everything just right about the little town we had grown up in.

It looked almighty good from 212 miles away on this late August afternoon.

I wasn’t sure I could do this on my own. I wasn’t sure I wanted to….

History records that I did make it. I found my way to class. I survived. With a great deal of help from some very special (now lifelong) friends.

I appreciate the education. I cherish those classmates to this day.

But when August rolls around every year, I don’t think so much of triumph, and overcoming, and college degrees.

I think about a lonely, lost, scared little boy who wasn’t sure he was cut out to make it in this world. Moments like that will keep you humble. Forever.

And I do not consider that as a bad thing.

Respectfully,

Kes

kesley45@aol.com