Sanders Kentucky At Last!

From the Pastor:    Sanders Kentucky At Last!    

       Following up on last week’s tale of adventure, my driving days continued through the mountains heading mostly northward. When I was finally getting close to the Hernandez’ house, I had just turned onto their road when Kevin called. “Great timing! I just turned onto Snort Wallow Road (or something equally strange),” I answered through the speaker as the phone automatically picked up for me. “Then you should be only a few minutes away. I’ll stay on the phone to guide you through,” came his reply. We chatted a bit and then he asked, “When you got to the fork in the road, did you stay to the left?” I didn’t recall coming to a fork in the road. “You should have seen it by now,” he said,“Are you sure you are on the right road?” Heck, I’ve never been there before. How would I know if I’m on the right road? I’m just blindly following the GPS. “I’m on Snort Wallow Road,” I replied, “How many of them could there be?” Of course, I was in Kentucky, so there could be a couple of dozen, for all I knew. “Have you seen the old cars sitting in front of a house up on the left?” or something like that, the conversation continued. But I wasn’t seeing anything of what he was describing, so he asked me to tell him what I was currently passing. Note that I was on a very narrow, twisty road winding through the wooded hills, not on a highway or anything like that, and it is supposed to be the road he lives on, so it would seem like he would know it pretty well after living there 8 months, but he was stumped as to where I was as I described a huge red barn on the left, followed by a shack on the right, and so forth. “You should be seeing thus and so,” he said, confused as to where I was, “and we don’t live that far off the road from where you turned. This isn’t making sense. I’m outside watching for you but you should have been here by now.” That wasn’t too comforting. After the GPS fiasco earlier in the trip, where it wouldn’t take me by the back roads, maybe it was now playing a joke on me by having me on the wrong little country road. When I told him I saw Punxsutawney Phil run across the road, the thought went through my mind that maybe I wasn’t even in Kentucky, for he replied, “I’ve never seen a groundhog out here,” Fortunately, at least that one woodchuck actually does live there, for soon afterward I saw Kevin by the road, his back to me, staring intently in the other direction. I was coming, not from the highway that any normal person would be coming from, but from the long way from nowhere! I got to see parts of his road that he had only been on a few times himself, for there was no reason for him to travel in the “wrong” direction to get anywhere!
       It was a good thing that he was standing out there, too, for the GPS pointed to the house next to the drive that actually took me to his house. And, even once on the proper drive, I would have stopped at his garage thinking that it was his house! You wouldn’t believe that garage/barn of his. The man who built it made it look like a little cottage rather than a garage and the disguise worked quite well. That building and the actual house stood at the top of a series of rolling hills, a beautiful sight to behold. Cheryl, of course, had a garden growing and the folks they bought the property from had planted apple, pear, and peach trees as well. Those, plus some hazelnut trees (I have never seen any of those before!) were all showing forth the great soil of the land. Of course, I was there to see Kevin and Cheryl, not the greenery, so I didn’t really pay much attention to all of that until later when they took me on a tour and showed me the various things growing right in front of the house. Later still we would walk their property. Down the hill. And over the next one. And around the bend. And past the creek. And through the woods. Oh, what a spectacular place!
       Over the next several days I did a lot of nothing with them. Cheryl wanted Kevin to take me out to do things, to entertain me. But I was content to go nowhere. In the morning I would sleep in (what a great thing all by itself!), celebrate Mass and pray the Breviary, then spend the rest of the day putting together a puzzle, talking, watching the deer consume their fruit and rabbits destroy their vegetables, and sitting on the cool, mosquito-less porch watching the sunset. I did go out to Salvator’s boarding school when they had an open house and I saw and blessed the Rosendale’s new fixer-upper house which is (coincidentally?) within sight of that same boarding school, although they would not arrive until a few days after I left. We also visited the Castle and Key distillery near Frankfort (there are a lot of distilleries in the area including Buffalo Trace, Woodford Reserve, Whiskey Thief, Heaven’s Door, Bulleit, Old Crow, Jim Beam Old Granddad, Four Roses, Wild Turkey, and too many others to list. Holy League field trip, anyone?).
       After a few days of much-needed rest at their place (and they said to tell everyone here they said “hello”) it was time to visit some friends I’ve known since before ordination. Northern Ohio, here I come!

With prayers for your holiness,
Rev. Fr. Edwin Palka

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