Freshen Up

If you know anything about me, my favorite group is the Beatles. My dream of seeing them in concert died in 1980 when John Lennon was murdered. I held out hope of a reunion with John’s son Julian in his place. That dream ended when George Harrison died of cancer in 2001. Since Paul McCartney was my favorite Beatle, I put seeing him on my “bucket list”. I finally got to see him in Louisville in 2014. I never thought he’d tour again given his age, but he did his Out There tour in 2016. He played at Busch Stadium and Jonathan and I went to see him there. I never thought I’d see him in concert again. He was seventy four at the time. I couldn’t imagine he’d tour again. Then, I got an email saying he would be touring again in 2019 with his “Freshen Up” tour. I looked at the dates and very happily noticed he’d be playing in Madison Wisconsin. Since my son Josh lives there, I could get tickets and we could see him there. I got on the Ticketmaster web site the moment tickets went on sale. However, all the good tickets sold out immediately. I was totally dejected and set myself to buying tickets on the secondary market later (this was in September of 2018 and the concert wasn’t til June of 2019).

Over the next few months, I continued to get emails about tour dates being added. I finally got one saying a date had been added at Lambeau Field in Green Bay Wisconsin. With that venue being much larger, I hoped to be able to get tickets this time. Green Bay is about a two hour drive from where Josh is so we could easily go. The day came for the tickets to go on sale. I again got in as fast as I could. This time I managed to get Silver VIP tickets which put us on the field itself!

The date finally rolled around for the concert. We left for the concert. We grabbed dinner on the way. I had gotten parking via ParkWhiz about half a mile away. My hope is with that we could dodge most of the traffic afterwards. We found our way with no problem and got in with no issues. We got our wristbands for the field seats and headed down. The seats were great! Since I’d made us leave early (as I always do) we had time to kill so we walked around. I was a bit surprised as to how new things looked there. I later found out the stadium had been recently renovated.

The concert was supposed to start at eight. It ended up not starting til about 8:20. The concert started with “A Hard Day’s Night”. Paul McCartney played a lot of the Beatles songs that he primarily wrote (Can’t Buy Me Love, Got To Get You Into My Life, I’ve Seen A Face plus a lot of others). He also played a lot of songs from his Wings days (Let ‘Em In, Band On The Run, Live and Let Die and a lot of others). He also played some of his more recent solo songs as well. He even laughingly said that he could tell when he played his newer songs because he wouldn’t see the lights of people filming them (he said it was like seeing a “black hole”).

Josh genuinely seemed to enjoy himself. He said this was as close as he’d ever sat for a concert and he’d known more of these songs than he had at any other concert. Turned out he knew a lot of the songs because the head of his company plays them at meetings where he works. I even found out his favorite Beatle song is “Eleanor Rigby” (which Paul played at the concert). The concert went for almost three hours. It’s still hard for me to see how an almost seventy seven year old man can play and sing for that long. Just like like the previous two times, the concert was fabulous. I knew that for his encore he’d play the closing song medley at the end of the Abbey Road album. We worked our towards the stairs as he ended the concert. We then literally ran back to where the car was parked and beat the crowd (and traffic) out. I slept most of the way back and we got back to his apartment about 1:45am.

Finally as part of the VIP package, we got special souvenir gifts. They were shipped to my address and I didn’t get the package til I got back to our home the following week. We both got a really nice “Freshen Up” duffel bag and beach towel.

Paul McCartney always ends his concerts with “We’ll see you next time!”. Based on his intervals of touring, he’ll be almost eighty. I’ll be SIXTY. Will I go see him again? Absolutely!

Jeanne Robertson

One thing I’ve tried to foster over the years is a sense of humor and especially to learn to laugh at myself. If you know me, I certainly do some very funny things. Someone recently asked me for advice for Donna and I staying married for so long (33 years). One of the things I mentioned was having a sense of humor about things and being able to laugh even at the goofy things we sometimes do.

The comedians I grew up with are still to me some of the funniest. When I was a teenager, I bought several albums that Steve Martin recorded. Who else could have a hit song based on an Egyptian King? I stayed up late to watch Monty Python’s Flying Circus on KET. A new show debuted as I started high school called Saturday Night Live with guys like Chevy Chase, Dan Akroyd and John Belushi. I have added a new favorite over the past couple of years. It is a lady named Jeanne Robertson.

She is not your classic comedian. She will even tell you she is not a comedian but a humorist who just tells funny stories about her life. I don’t remember precisely when I first heard of her. I think it was from some ladies at church who had gone to see her at the Carson Center a few years ago. She will tell you that she really became popular when she started posting clips to YouTube. The first one I remember is “Don’t Send A Man to the Grocery Store”. I’ve had some interesting adventures when Donna sends me to the grocery store, so I could identify. I listened to more of her clips on YouTube and even subscribed to her channel on Pandora. She is so funny telling stories of her life and family. For example, she calls her husband LB for Left Brain. Left brained people are analytical types. She will also tell you her husband is cheap. Do those two characteristics remind you of anyone you know 😊?

Anyway, I found out several months that she would doing another show at the Carson Center here in Paducah. I managed to get in on the presale and got great seats in the front row. I convinced Donna to come to the show with me. We went last Sunday afternoon. She calls this her “Rocking Chair” tour. Jeanne broke her femur a couple of years ago so now she does her show sitting in a rocking chair. She told all sorts of stories (several which I’d heard before) but they were all hilarious. She reminds me of somebody’s mom or granny just telling stories about their life. The best thing about her is all of her stores are clean with not even the hint of vulgarly or innuendo. They are all family friendly. Donna even enjoyed the show.

I love the advice Jeanne regularly gives – ”Look for the humor in stressful situations”. She also ends just about any interview I’ve heard with her with “Keep smiling!”. I think a lot of us would be better off if we just took that advice. Proverbs 17:22 - A merry heart doeth good like a medicine. I certainly need to take that advice to heart.

I’d certainly recommend that you take a look at some of her clips on YouTube and if you have the opportunity to see her live, do so. Her shows are very reasonably priced and I think you’ll really enjoy yourself.

Matt Bevin and The Burger Bar

Well, hi there. Have you missed me? I haven’t blogged in a very good long while. It’s really a combination of things. I’ve had a lot going on in the past months. But honestly, a lot of it is just plain laziness. However, I had something happen to me yesterday that I felt was so interesting and just plain cool that I had to blog about it. I’ll say to start that this is NOT a political discussion even though it involved our Kentucky governor.

While watching the news the other night, I saw Matt Bevin was going to do a community forum in the county where I live – Ballard County. The location was listed as 297 Event Center at 297 Kentucky Avenue in Kevil KY. I wasn’t sure where this was. I ran the address through Google Maps and I still wasn’t entirely sure where it was even though I had a general location. I could tell it was close to the old Red Plow restaurant used to be. It was also close to a place I love to get a burger from – The Burger Bar (more on that later).

Since this location was only five minutes from where I live, I just felt like I had to go. Donna would have loved to go, but she had prior commitments. So I made plans to go. After enjoying a lunch at Panera Bread with my friends Sam Hawkins and Ardell Nance, I headed for the location. I was able to find it with little trouble, it’s located in a building right next to the Burger Bar. As per my custom, I got there thirty minutes before the event was to start. I talked with Todd Cooper who used be the sheriff (and a really good one at that) for Ballard County and is now our Judge-Executive. What I most remember about him though was him being the head coach and me helping him with Josh’s 6th grade basketball team. I saw quite a few of Ballard County’s elected officials. I nodded at Casey Allen who was Josh’s Middle School principal (and a really good one) who is now the superintendent.

There were a lot of chairs arranged in front of a podium so I grabbed a seat near the front and settled in to wait. As with a lot of these affairs, it started late but the Governor finally made it. He asked for questions to start and when none were asked, he discussed various issues facing our state and his reasoning for positions on them. He then took questions from the crowd. This lasted for more than an hour. When it ended, I pushed my way up to talk to him and at least shake his hand and thank him for coming. He asked my name and when I told him, he asked “is that UA or EW”? It took me a second to realize what he meant. Turns out he has a brother with the same name as mine who spells it how it was meant to be spelled – STUART.

When we I had told Donna the day before that I would be there, she said “why don’t you grab supper from the Burger Bar since you’ll be right there?”. I didn’t have a problem with that. I’ve gotten food from there several times. They have a cheeseburger special on Thursday where you get a cheeseburger and fries for 5.00. They are hand patted burgers and they are excellent. Donna usually gets a chuckwagon and onion rings. They are good batter dipped onion rings. I made my order and settled down outside to wait (it’s a walk up type place with a few picnic tables scattered around). I watched people leaving the event center.

As I watched, I saw Matt Bevin come out to the car they came in. He opened its passenger door and removed his suit coat and put it inside. Then to my amazement, I saw him walking across the grass straight toward the Burger Bar! It turned out he wanted to talk to the two young men who own it and do a story on them about small business. I spoke to him again and told him we went there often and the food was great. He said he had another engagement that night with food to be served, but he would definitely get a milk shake. He pulled money out of his pocket to pay and even asked the people with him if anybody else wanted one.

I just had to make my move then. I asked him if he would mind taking a selfie with me. He readily agreed. Anybody who knows me knows I am terrible at this, so he offered to take my phone and do the honors. The picture above is what we got. I again thanked him for coming to our county. I told him my wife thought very highly of him and he laughed and said he certainly wasn’t worth all that praise. I finally left with my food. When I forwarded the selfie to Donna, she couldn’t believe it and wished so much she’d have been there.

I know he’s a polarizing figure in our state for some of the tough positions he’s taken. I respect him for the fact that he is a good family man. He has NINE kids. Four of them are children he and his wife adopted. He was a very down to earth kind of guy (unlike some politicians I’ve encountered) and he was just genuinely nice. I know he gave me a wonderful memory that I’ll certainly never forget.

I Don't Wanna Grow Up...

The announcement came out last week that Toys-R-Us would be closing all of its stores (instead of just of some of them) over the next few months. This made me a bit sad since Toys-R-Us has been a big fixture in our lives for many years. The store we frequented the most was the one over by Kentucky Oaks Mall. I think (if I remember right) it opened soon after the mall really got going well. We went there a lot when the boys were young.

• There would always be the latest video gaming consoles set up for kids who came in to play whatever new video game was available. I remember our sons playing on these many times when we went there. If someone was already playing a game on them, my sons would stand right behind them to encourage them to finish.
  
  
• Whenever you wanted a particular toy, the place you could guarantee would have it was Toys-R-Us. Wal-Mart might have it, but Toys-R-Us pretty much always had whatever you were looking for.
  
  
• When the Nintendo Wii came out, there were always massive lines to get one when each shipment arrived. I remember Josh going to wait there to get one and they ran out right as he got up to the head of the line. Amazingly, one more was produced “from the back” and he was able to get one.
  
  
• Whenever I went on travel for my company, I would always go to Toys-R-Us in the place I visited to get the boys something. It become a running joke with my co-workers that after dinner “Stuart has to go to Toys-R-Us”. I would buy the boys metal trains from the Thomas the Tank Engine series and they each developed quite a collection of these.
  
  
• “I don’t wanna grow up, I’m a Toys-R-Us kid”
  
  

My sister Melissa told me that as she was telling my nephew Brody that he needed to spend a Toys-R-Us gift card he had before the company went out of business, my niece Catherine overheard. She burst into tears and was inconsolable. My sister tried to explain to her that it wasn’t closing because people didn’t like the store but for other reasons. Catherine ended up making the sign below that she wanted to take to the store.

I didn’t burst into tears, but it makes me sad too.

Pick up...

I’ve run into several situations over the past few months where I have the capability to order something online and pick up at an actual brick and mortar storefront of some type. It’s proved interesting and I thought I’d relate how these worked.

The first is Wal-Mart. No doubt you’ve seen the orange signage by now designating where you go to pick up items that you’ve ordered online and requested for a particular Wal-Mart location. You submit your order on their website and indicate which Wal-Mart you will pick the item up at. You get an email when your item is ready to be picked up. I’ve found that Wal-Marts handle this differently based on the location. The Wal-Mart we regularly shop at (on Hinkleville Road) directs you to the back of the store to pick up an item. If you have the Wal-Mart app on your phone, you will begin to get a notification on your phone as you get closer asking if you are there to pick up your item. Indicating yes will alert them to go ahead and have the item retrieved. You simply then go to the back of the store, show them the email you received along with ID and get your item. Pretty easy.

My experience at the Southside Walmart was even better though. I had first stopped at the nearby Sonic (it was fifty cent corndog day). I began getting alerts from the Wal-mart app asking me if the item was ready for pickup. Once I finished eating, I said yes and entered the store. They have an actual pickup waiting area at the front of the store. There are several comfortable chairs to wait in as well as a status board to tell you if your order is on the way (you can also let them know you have arrived from that board if you did not from your phone). I had waited no more than a couple of minutes when a young lady arrived carrying my item. Even easier and more comfortable than the Hinkleville Road Wal-Mart.

I have been a member of the Panera Bread loyalty club for several months now. Two of the last three months, I have been given the reward of getting one free bagel each day. Since it is located near the above mentioned Hinkleville Road location of Wal-Mart, I took advantage of this multiple times. I used their app to arrange for “Rapid Pick Up” for my free bagel. You make the order, tell them of any customizations you want (I always want my bagel sliced for example), redeem your reward and make your order. There are several reserved parking spots at the front of the building for Rapid Pick Up. You park and head in and there is a designated area to pick up your order. You find the bag with your name on it and head out. Again, pretty easy. The only issue I ran into was that a couple of times, I found only a note that I should see someone at the cash register. Each time, it turned out they were out of the bagel I wanted, but they substituted another type for it. There appears to be a timing issue between their actual inventory and the app but I still would say this works well.

Finally, I needed a part for one of our cars. I got on the Auto Zone web site, put the in the Year, Make, Model and Engine Type and you are given the part you need to order. You specify that you want to pick it up at the store and make your order. You receive a confirmation email when it’s ready to be picked up. I ordered right before closing and first thing in the morning, I got my confirmation. Donna and I stopped there. I went in and gave my name. They looked up the order and brought me my part. Donna timed the whole process while I was inside and said it took less than two minutes. Again, pretty easy.

I’ll have to say I was pleasantly surprised at how this works. I didn’t run into issues anywhere except the minor one with having to get a different bagel than I ordered.

Killing Time in Wickliffe

I live in Ballard County Kentucky. However, I have very few dealings in the county. We go to church in McCracken County and do most of our shopping there. Two times a year I have to go to the courthouse In Wickliffe to pay taxes – our property taxes in November and car taxes in December. I headed there yesterday to pay our car taxes. When I reached the County Clerk’s office there was a note pinned to the door. It said that the office was closed so the staff could attend a ‘Courthouse Breakfast”. It did not list a time when the staff would return. It’s about a twenty minute drive to the courthouse, so I didn’t want to go back home and return later. So, I decided to hang around and kill time in Wickliffe.

If you’ve ever been to (or even through) Wickliffe, there isn’t a whole lot there. The population in the last Census was a little over 600. So, it’s not even the largest city in Ballard County (LaCenter holds that distinction with about 1,000). So, I first headed to the “Cross at the Confluence”. Wickliffe is pretty close to where the Ohio River empties into the Mississippi. Wickliffe itself is actually located on the Mississippi River. There is a ninety foot cross just a little bit south of Wickliffe. It’s on the site of the old Fort Jefferson which was set up by George Rogers Clark. Lewis and Clark are supposed to have camped there as well before starting their famous trip across the Louisiana Purchase. I drove to the site. The large cross is impressive and there is an excellent view of the Mississippi River. In the distance, you can see the "confluence”. There was a walking path there now and a Visitor’s Center. Unfortunately for me, it was closed.

So, I then headed down Highway 51 to the Verso Plant. I’d always known this plant as Westvaco, but it went through several name changes before it eventually ended up as Verso (similar to Union Carbide/Martin Marietta/Lockheed Martin/USEC/Centrus Energy). It opened in 1970 and provided hundreds of good jobs to people in the area. When the wind was right, you could smell the “pungent” odor the plant produced as the plant produced paper. Trucks hauling logs were a regular sight on the highways of Ballard County. However, the Verso plant was idled in late 2015 and ultimately shut down for good in 2016. I actually pulled into the pretty much empty parking lot just to look around. There were a very few cars close to the plant gates but that was it. The area took a large economic hit with it’s closing. There have been hopes of someone else buying the site to use it, but that has yet to come to fruition.

While driving around, I did note that that Wickliffe has THREE convenience stores. One of these is Pee Dee’s which is run by my friends Phil and Debbie Lawrence. You can get a great burger there if you are ever in the area. I decided to check out one of the others – the Indian Hills Trading Post. It’s located on Highway 60/51 as you head toward Cairo. I parked and went inside. Alas, it was pretty much your basic convenience mart. There was certainly nothing spectacular there. There is also a Dollar General Store in Wickliffe, so I went to check that out. It’s a pretty good one. They actually had a produce section plus an entire side wall (from front to back) of cold/frozen food. It looks bigger than the one I frequent in West Paducah.

This killed about an hour (yep, that’s all). I headed back to the courthouse and the office was now open! I quickly paid my taxes and got our new car tags (which hopefully I’ll remember to put on our cars before year’s end) and headed for home. I’ll admit I was a bit frustrated at first when the office was closed, but it certainly wasn’t the worst way to have spent an hour.

I Left My Heart in Ballard County (33 years Ago)...

In honor of the day, I am reposting this (updated a bit)

Friday September 15th is the 33rd anniversary of a day that set my life (happily) on a drastic change.

I was a fledgling programmer at what was called Martin Marietta then (now Centrus Energy) and living in an apartment in Forest Hills. I had gone over to my buddy Jeff Lawrence's trailer (known to this area as Dr. Jeff on WKYQ). He asked if I had plans for the next evening. I said no thinking we were going to have one of our regular marathon Trivial Pursuit matches. He says "Well, you've got a date". I was aghast. "I've set you up with someone I work with at Trader's Mart" (Trader's Mart is a long defunct want-ad kind of paper). He told me I had to go because I wouldn't be allowed to hang out at his place the next night so I reluctantly agreed.

The next day, I went with my friends Keith "Corky" Johnson and Jim Hill to Massac State Park. I sat on the bank of the Ohio River looking and thinking "What kind of idiot goes out with a girl he's never seen before?".

The hour approached and I headed out to meet her at Trader's Mart in my 1983 Trans-Am. All I knew is her name was Donna Woods and she'd be in a black Olds Cutlass.

I got there and the car was there. I watched the door open with apprehension. Out stepped the most beautiful brown haired brown-eyed girl I'd ever seen. I almost couldn't speak. I finally said "I'm Stuart, do you want to see my driver's license to prove it?". She actually laughed at my bad joke.

She wanted to go to McDonalds and eat so we did. She had a quarter pounder with cheese and I had a Big Mac. I saw some guys I knew and I think they were in shock when they saw me out with this beautiful girl.

She wanted to see Grandview USA at the Paducah Drive-In. I was glad to go there since I worked there for years each summer until I started working full-time at Martin Marietta. My boss Richard Phillips was at the ticket booth. I guess he was so shocked to see with such a pretty date that he let us in free. He also told me to go to the concession stand and get free drinks and popcorn. Donna told me later how impressed she was when I brought out drinks and a large brown bag full of buttered popcorn.

The whole date cost 5.00 (including gasoline). She even shared my frugality beliefs! I was enthralled...

The night went great and she even agreed to see me again.

The next morning as I was getting ready to go to church, my phone rang. The caller introduced himself as the "Ballard County Sheriff" and he needed to talk to me about an incident last night. The girl I had gone out with was from Ballard County. My main experiences with Ballard County were to go to the "Game Preserve" (as my Uncle James called it) to camp with my family and a visit to the "Green Palace" (which was really really Green) to watch Lone Oak play in a district basketball tournament. I remember all the kids there blew duck calls the whole game. Anyway, I thought "Oh man, she didn't make it home and now I am the last one to see her and the main suspect". It turned out that they had picked up a couple of guys I know as they came off the Wickliffe bridge and they wanted me to vouch for their identities.

For reasons I'll never understand, she kept going out with me. We've been married 30 years. She still laughs at my bad jokes. I worked at "Martin Marietta" for over 31 years before retiring. We drove that black Olds Cutlass til it wouldn't run any more. I've lived in Ballard County for 29 years now. I still order a Big Mac when I go to McDonalds. And I couldn't be happier....