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Kentucky by Heart: Summers in Nebraska meant visiting the cousins, royal treatment — and adventure


By Steve Flairty
NKyTribune columnist

My love affair with Kentucky started as a child while growing up in southern Campbell County over a half century ago. I’ll never forget, however, the special trips our family made during those summers in the 1960s to Lincoln, Nebraska. I liked that place, too.

It didn’t matter that we had no air conditioning in our Ford Fairlane station wagon. It was the one we acquired after our Ford Galaxie burned in a 1963 fire in Claryville that destroyed our detached frame garage. (The fire also took out our Farmall Cub Cadet and my Johnny Reb Toy Cannon -— subject of a future column.)

It came down to this fact. Nebraska in the summer meant we were going to see my second cousins, the Stouts — Esther and her husband, Gordon. There, we would be treated royally…always.

Nebraska Capitol Building post card (Image from Pinterest)

Nebraska Capitol Building post card (Image from Pinterest)

Though the couple was likely in their 30s at the time, they seemed to me to be middle-aged and so much like generously kind grandparents. They took us out to restaurants and bought Mike and me hamburgers, onion rings, and chocolate shakes. At their home, Esther prepared scrumptious meals, and they listened respectfully to our immature babblings at the table while carrying on a conversation with Mom and Dad. We had no chores to do, either, and we enjoyed playing with their sons Jerry, Lanny, and Ronnie.

And oh, did we have some neat experiences on the little tours they gave us around Lincoln and surrounding areas. We took a tour of Boys Town over at Omaha, for one. I remember seeing the He ain’t heavy… he’s my brother signs and posters around the iconic institution as we walked and drove the campus. I had heard about kids who came from bad homes, and this brought an even bigger awareness into my sheltered existence. Interestingly, mental images from our visit there came back to me years later when the The Hollies and Neil Diamond made the slogan a big musical hit.

And while we’re talking about the Omaha area, it brings to mind this little tidbit connected with America’s history. Gordon took us to an intriguing place on a dairy farm where he was doing some company business. It especially resonates with me now, particularly as it occurred within the context of the Cold War existing between the United States and Soviet Union.

Gordon worked for the Surge Dairy Equipment Company, and he showed us -— and guided us into — a fallout shelter big enough for a significant number of dairy cattle to be “protected” from nuclear fallout in the event of a nuclear exchange. Not sure how much good the shelter would have done for the benefit of the cows and, consequently, humans, but it sure left an impression on little Stevie Flairty.

I recall two scary events happening to me during those Nebraska excursions. One wasn’t particularly dangerous, but the other was definitely so. It seems that on a trip to a local mall in Lincoln (I remember them being called “shopping centers” in Kentucky, but they were way smaller than this one), I disobeyed Dad and ended up paying a cost of natural consequences.

I can’t remember the name, so let’s call it “The Mall.” It was a huge place, with lots more people milling around than the activity at Schacks General Store in Claryville, where we lived in Kentucky. On this day, Dad, Gordon and Mike were with me, and Mike had to go to the restroom. For some reason, Dad left me in a department store with instructions to stay put “for a few minutes while the three of us find the restroom.” I could handle that, I figured.

Well, after what I thought was hours but probably only ten minutes, this pre-teen became a bit restless regarding the delay. Why are they not back? I thought. I’m here in Nebraska and what if I’m lost from being with my family? What if they’re lost?

As an 11-year-old, I was pretty keen about map reading, and I’d studied Dad’s Rand-McNally on the road trip to Nebraska. Leaving my stay put place to look for the three, I simultaneously began generating vague plans for hitch hiking back to Kentucky if I could not reconnect with my loved ones pretty soon. During those moments as I walked further away from my designated stay spot, people and stores and water fountains all began to look alike, and soon my stay spot, too, dissolved into the background. I realized I was lost -— and even more lost than I thought Dad, Gordon, and Mike were.

Fear hit me hard, and I had no immediate plan…except to cry, something I usually didn’t, or wouldn’t, do.

Steve Flairty grew up feeling good about Kentucky. He recalls childhood day trips (and sometimes overnight ones) orchestrated by his father, with the take-off points being in Campbell County. The people and places he encountered then help define his passion about the state now. After teaching 28 years, Steve spends much of his time today writing and reading about the state, and still enjoys doing those one dayers (and sometimes overnighters). “Kentucky by Heart” shares part and parcel of his joy. A little history, much contemporary life, intriguing places, personal experiences, special people, book reviews, quotes, and even a little humor will, hopefully, help readers connect with their own “inner Kentucky.”

But, I did cry, and I hoped hard that it would bring a resolution to my problem. Soon, it did. A woman with one of those store badges fastened with a pin came to my rescue rather quickly. I don’t remember what she looked like other than the badge, but she sat me on a counter close to a cash register, and she made one of those “will the parents of” announcements, and within a few more minutes, Gordon, Dad, and Mike were there to meet me. Dad, maybe because he was with Gordon, spared me the “stay put” lecture and now, some 50 years later, I have something to write about in my Kentucky by Heart column.

And, if Gordon wasn’t special enough, there was the memorable bicycle episode. Directly across the street from the Stouts’ driveway was a roadway that angled upward perhaps a quarter of a mile and ended in a court.

On this day, I rode the bike all the way to the court terminus, then pointed the bike back down the steep road at a kid-fast rate of speed and hung on. For whatever reason, whether bad brakes on the bike or a brain malfunction, I couldn’t get the speeding two-wheeler stopped. Two frightful images stick in my mind today.

First, a car barely missed hitting me as I approached the crossing street. A moment later, as I continued onto Gordon’s driveway and unable to stop, that good man turned around in the nick of time to catch me before I collided with his parked car.

There other things that happened there, too. Honestly, I remember them well.

I saw my first hippie up-close somewhere in downtown Lincoln. I became well-versed in the life of the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers football program, and I heard some of the most beautiful prayers of thankfulness for meals ever expressed by anyone…given by Gordon, of course.

Each summer as we drove back to Kentucky from this bread basket area of America, I knew, for sure, that I had experienced a week of the original “It doesn’t get any better than this.”

Esther and Gordon died over a decade ago, but they left me with riveting, mostly happy memories, and I am blessed.

This column was originally published on June 1, 2016

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steve-flairty

Steve Flairty is a teacher, public speaker and an author of six books: a biography of Kentucky Afield host Tim Farmer and five in the Kentucky’s Everyday Heroes series, including a kids’ version. Steve’s “Kentucky’s Everyday Heroes #4,” was released in 2015. Steve is a senior correspondent for Kentucky Monthly, a weekly NKyTribune columnist and a member of the Kentucky Humanities Council Speakers Bureau. Contact him at sflairty2001@yahoo.com or visit his Facebook page, “Kentucky in Common: Word Sketches in Tribute.” (Steve’s photo by Connie McDonald)


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