Brian's Tales from the West Coast: Kentucky and Tennessee

From the title of this post, you can tell that I strayed a bit from my new home on the West Coast. In mid-March, I returned to my native region to attend my grandfather’s funeral outside of Fort Knox, Kentucky. Several portions of his Army career were spent in the Armored Divisions; Fort Knox is home to the U.S. Army Armor School and Armor Center. This was the first military funeral that I’d attended, and the twenty-one gun salute, taps, and flag folding ceremonies were very moving in person. Bagpipes were played at the end, and that was the most emotional part for me. It was altogether a nice memorial. After the services, my family went to a restaurant to eat and socialize. Unexpectedly, the bagpiper stopped by and played a couple of festive tunes. That’s the first, and probably will be the last, time that I’ve heard bagpipes in a Mexican restaurant.

My immediate family stayed overnight in Kentucky, and we stopped by Mammoth Cave National Park the next day on the way back toward Tennessee. It’s a pretty neat place to see—billed as the longest cave system in the world. No one that we wanted to keep got lost in the dark; so we resumed our journey home. The last stop was to pick up some pulled pork barbeque, cuisine that I’ve missed living outside the Southeast.

I spent a couple of days at my parents’ place before returning to California. The weather was pretty cooperative, and mom went with me one day to visit Fort Pillow State Park. The Confederates built a fort in our county to help control the Mississippi River during the Civil War. We used to have school and church outings at the park regularly when I was growing up, but I hadn’t been there in 12-13 years. We hiked a bit and defended the fort against a few invaders before retiring to the house. After a couple days of eating large quantities of mom’s home cooking, it was time to return to the land of high gas prices. On the way to drop me off at the airport, we drove through the towns of Frog Jump and Green Frog. Where else can you get that but Tennessee?