My friend Kim asked me a question about our college years. It wasn’t a casual question; it was one with purpose. She really wanted to understand how everything fits together.

What was it about our time at college that was so important to who we are today?

Most of us, whether we went to college or not, can look back on our early years of adulthood and see how certain events and particular people shaped us—and how their influence stays with us, even decades later.

Kim and I don’t see each other often, but we swap emails from time to time, and when we attend our college reunions, we make it a point to check in with each other. Kim also keeps up with me on Facebook and by reading the essays I publish online. In a recent email, Kim mentioned she had long wished I would write about our time together in college, at Transylvania University in Lexington. The lifelong impact of her college years had been on her mind.

“All of my important relationships came from Transy,” Kim said when we finally talked on the phone. “It’s where I met my husband. It’s where I found the people who are my best friends to this day. Transy gave me all that, and I don’t know how. What is it about Transy that gave us what we have today … who we are today?

I can’t answer big questions, so I asked Kim if I could narrow it down. She and I shared a group of friends and a memorable semester—the spring of 1980 at Transylvania University—so, would it be OK if I focused on those few months? Maybe I could find answers about that short time that she could apply to a lifetime.

She agreed and we started talking about that long-ago semester. After that, I reached out to the other people who were there with us.

The thing that started a fantastic group of friends was a relationship that ended. Kim returned to Transy in January 1980 after splitting up with her fiancé over Christmas break. The guy, also a Transy student, was in a fraternity, and Kim’s entire social life at college had revolved around that group. She was left, then, with some friends in her dorm. Kim was sorority sisters with Paula, who lived across the hall from her, and with Joanie, a few doors down. Their roommates, Debbie and Deb, were in a different sorority, but no matter. That group of five became Kim’s new network.

Transylvania didn’t have fraternity houses; the four fraternities at our small college each had a chapter room in the basement of the men’s dorm complex. Kim couldn’t go to the parties she used to attend—her ex-fiancé would be there—so her group started frequenting a different fraternity’s chapter room for their weekend entertainment. It was mine, of course.

Those girls were exceedingly cute, and my friends and I were … guys, so it’s not surprising that my buddies—John, Ted, Mac, Ren, and Mark—connected with Kim and her friends. We drank, we danced, we laughed. Not all of us all the time, but many of us most of the time.

Joanie remembered this origin story: “I think it was Paula’s interest in John that pulled us into your chapter room, and honestly, once we were there, we just genuinely liked you guys.”

What I’ve described so far is not unusual. More than half the students at Transylvania belonged to a Greek organization, and much of the campus’s socializing—for Greeks and independents alike—took place at fraternity parties every weekend. What was unusual was the strong bond our group formed. It was a time we all remember.

“I have great memories of all my years at Transy, but that one semester is the one I remember the most,” Kim said. “We were all outgoing, and we just had a big time. We were part of the disco era, and it was just a fun time.”

A song can transport you to the past, and the memories of our music still thump in our collective ears. When I asked, friends cited “Boogie Wonderland (Earth, Wind & Fire), Boz Scaggs, and songs from “Saturday Night Fever,” but the true soundtrack of the semester was Michael Jackson’s “Off the Wall” album. Lyrics in the title track told the tale of our time together:

’Cause we’re the party people night and day
Livin’ crazy, that’s the only way

I’m certain we went to class; we all graduated, after all. I don’t recall the details of my academic days, but I remember a robust rotation of nighttime revelry: Green Lantern on Mondays (beer was sold in pint bottles), 803 South Broadway on Tuesdays (“quarter night” for draft beer), and a variety of other bars, dorm rooms, or an off-campus apartment the rest of the week, with chapter room parties on Friday or Saturday.

“You guys had senioritis,” Kim said. “You had a ‘throw it all to the wind’ attitude that semester.”

I’m not proud of the drinking I did, and alcohol plays a role in our diminished and fragmented memories. That and time: nearly five decades now.

Every friend I spoke or corresponded with cited their failing memory as a disclaimer, and in fact, many of the snippets they gave me don’t match. Other memories got muddled with similar experiences. Spring break, 1980, is a prime example.

I gathered recollections of that Florida trip from seven members of the group and, with mine, ended up with eight different stories. We agree that groups of us went to different coasts: The girls (plus Bonita), Ted, and Mac all went to Pompano Beach on the Atlantic side. John, Ren, Mark, and I went to Naples on the gulf side. Kim and her hometown friend, Teresa, had to fly home midweek when Teresa’s dad suffered a heart attack. The rest of the East Coast crew, though, journeyed west and rendezvoused with my group.

The vehicle that transported us to Naples’s only disco was the one the girls had driven from campus: a conversion van that Paula’s dad entrusted to her. It was during spring break that, because of the affection we had for each other, we started calling our ride the Love Van. Or maybe it was prior to Florida, when Paula had the van on campus in preparation for spring break. Or maybe it was named after spring break. It’s one of many messy memories.

Asking old friends to examine the distant past has taught me something: Memory doesn’t preserve facts—it preserves feelings. What people remember most clearly isn’t always what happened exactly. We preserve the sense of a moment, but not necessarily the details that framed it.

Joanie put it this way: “Accurate dates, times, and places have dimmed, but the way I feel about all of you will never be dim,” she said. “I can’t pinpoint the exact moment we became ‘us,’ but I’m pretty sure it happened because we were all just live‑out‑loud fun, and it felt natural to fall into step together.”

I should speak to the nature of our relationships. After all, with all this talk about young people and “livin’ crazy” and a Love Van … you must be curious about just how friendly we were.

There was romance, for sure. Two couples started dating relationships that lasted for several months, and sparks flew here and there among the rest of us. While we might have occasionally slept in beds together, that’s (mostly) what it was—sleeping in proximity to one another.

“This is when I learned about platonic relationships,” Kim said. “We didn’t have romantic connections, and we all just stayed together.”

John described it this way: “At the end of the day, we were all gentlemen trying to do the right thing. There really were no egos, and we all had each other’s backs.”

Inside the Love Van, then, was something else that Michael Jackson sang about in the best song on that album:

Lovely is the feeling now
I won’t be complaining
The force is … love power
Keep on, with the force, don’t stop
Don’t stop ’til you get enough

By understanding more about the lifelong friends Kim gained at college, we’re getting to the heart of her question. But how did those friends literally shape her life—my life, too … and all our lives?

I’m convinced it wasn’t only the who, but it was also the when that impacted us so profoundly. I know from reading and from experience that college students can experience enormous changes in their lives when they move from their parents’ home to a college campus. And at that age, when an inner circle of friends forms in a closed living environment, the bonding is intensified.

“Transy was home away from home for all of us,” Debbie said. “A campus that small allowed us to eat together, walk to class together, party together, and vacation together.”

College was, for me, a time to shape and refine my identity as I moved toward adulthood, and the bonds I developed in my final semester at Transy played a key role. It was the same for Joanie. “Those friendships were formed at a time when we were all growing into who we would become,” she said, “and they’ve stayed with me ever since.”

One memory stands out. I was a psychology major in an informal pre-law program, and as the semester drew to a close, I was lucky to be accepted into the University of Kentucky Law School. To celebrate, the Love Van girls put together a party that was as bizarre as its name.

“Bob’s Pre-Love Formal,” Kim remembered. “We had T-shirts made, and we got rooms at the Embers Inn on New Circle Road. It was the sleaziest place we could find.”

This party exemplifies what I said earlier: Emotions preserve the sense of a moment if not the details. All of us are fuzzy on exactly what transpired—Joanie termed it legendary—but what I hold on to is the feeling I had that weekend. My name was on the T-shirt, but we weren’t really celebrating me … we were celebrating us. The us we had become.

I graduated in June 1980, along with John and Mac. The others remained at Transy to finish their degrees, but the Love Van crew didn’t roll together again.

“I remember so clearly how everything changed after you all graduated,” Joanie said. “The spark on campus dimmed, and life suddenly felt a little more serious.”

Kim told me that nothing pushed us apart; we all just drifted away from each other. But in the years since 1980, Kim and the girls—often joined by Gina—have gathered many times, either at someone’s house or at a beach somewhere. And more recently, Kim also joined an insanely active friend group with an entirely different set of Transy alums—people she didn’t know well at all when she was in college.

My group of guys vacationed together for a while, but then family and work intervened, and our get-togethers now are typically confined to a night out during Derby week. I’ve seen the Love Van girls only a handful of times over the years. We did come together during a Transy reunion in 2022, and though our conversation was brief, the photo (top) is epic. As you look at that picture, sing these lines from Michael Jackson’s “Rock With You”:

And when the groove is dead and gone
You know that love survives
So we can rock forever

The notion of “forever” brings me back down to Earth … and the reason I pulled this piece together. I write this for my friend Kim, who needed to understand how past and present fit together: What is it about Transy that gave us what we have today … who we are today?

My only answer is that, in the spring of 1980, we somehow found each other. And when we did, we each found ourselves.

That’s how it fits together. Who we became then is who we are today.

I’ll be putting on my September pants again. I’m going out shortly.

It’s an odd term, I guess, and not entirely accurate. I mean, my September pants are a whole lot like my August pants … and my May, June, and July pants. They’re possibly even the same pair of pants.

It’ll be different come October, though.

OK, I’ll go ahead and tell you. I call them my September pants (or June or July pants) because of how long I wear them. When the weather is warm, I don’t often wear pants. That’s fun to say, but it’s nothing scandalous. I just prefer to wear shorts while I’m at home or running errands. When I go to meetings or events, though, I feel obligated to put on pants. Because I wear the pants for only a couple of hours, I’ll hang them up and change back into shorts when I get home. They’re not dirty—and any creases smooth out on the hanger— so I’ll wear the same pair of pants the next time I go to a meeting. I can usually go a whole month with the same pair of pants. This month, they’re my September pants.

Like most people who abandoned the office during COVID and started working at home, I have a dual wardrobe for my nine-to-five. I always wear a collared shirt. (I mean, it’s usually a fishing shirt, so it’s definitely not dressy, but it’s always collared.) This way, when I have a meeting via Zoom, I look somewhat professional. From the waist down, though, I’m super casual in my shorts. You’ve seen maybe a million memes depicting this once-comical notion, but for me, it’s no joke. I’m going to wear shorts every day of the week.

The shorts/pants question is kind of a throwback to centuries past, when shorts were worn only by males of a certain age. After a boy reached puberty, he would set his shorts aside and don pants—and there was no going back. Maybe that’s why we still admonish people to “put on your big-boy pants” when it’s time to deal with a situation in a grown-up way.

I don’t think I have Peter Pan Syndrome, and I sure don’t mean to shirk adult responsibilities. I just really like wearing shorts when it’s warm outside. They’re cooler and less constricting. I realize I’m lucky to have that type of freedom in my work situation, and by golly, I’m taking advantage of it.

Summer’s over today, though. And while warm days will continue long into October, they’ll become less regular … and then vanish altogether. Autumn breezes turn into winter winds, thermometers peak at lower and lower points, and shorts become impractical.

It’s not that big of a deal to wear pants, of course, yet I’ll miss my shorts and the summer-break feeling they inspire. Once the warmth is gone, I’ll pull on my big-boy pants—some of them lined with fleece. But hey, spring is always around the corner. And as the days heat up, I’ll be back in shorts. I’ll return to wearing long pants only as many hours as needed, and then they’ll go back on the hanger. Before you know it, I’ll be talking about my April pants.

The first time I went to the Hancock home, my new friend Don pointed a rifle at me and started firing.

Technically, he was shooting at his twin brother, Ben—and I think it was just BBs—but I was standing with Ben, so I had to take cover, too. I had only recently become friends with the twins, even though we were all from the same little town. The Hancocks were in one sixth-grade class at Midway Elementary School, and I was in the other. And until that year, I went to the Presbyterian church, and they went to Midway Christian. That’s how people in tiny towns settle into groups.

But in 1969, I started attending CYF youth group meetings at the Christian Church, led by a young minister, Bill McDonald. They were doing fun stuff, while everything at my family’s Presbyterian church was a bit sleepy. And let me tell you: A lot of the fun stuff centered on the Hancock twins.

In one way, they were like the Hungarian pillbugs in “A Bug’s Life.” Where the cartoon twins were tumblers, though, the real-life twins were talkers. Ben was a charmer, and Don could rationalize anything. But what the Hancocks had in common with Tuck and Roll, the pillbugs, was that they would start fighting at the drop of a hat: fisticuffs, wrestling, or even riflery.

I don’t know what set Don off when I went home with them after school that day in ’69. I think he was mad because I had sort of paired off with Ben, and in his third-wheel anger he grabbed a BB gun and started shooting. Ben and I hopped behind a wall at the bottom of the driveway. There were no cars there because neither parent was home, which made the Hancock house that much more fun.

Throughout the next decade, I spent a lot of time out at the Hancock place. Even when the parents were home, we did things I couldn’t dream of getting away with at my house. The twins had a big brother, Tilton, who hated his brothers but tolerated their friends: Billy Haynes, Jonathan Clifton, sometimes Mac McCauley, and me.

Don was a lot like the skyrockets we often launched. The boy had a short fuse on his brain’s amygdala, which led to trouble in the classroom and fights outside. Something caused that anger, but I’ll never know exactly what went on in that house of his when his friends weren’t there. When I was young, I didn’t know to ask. When I became older, I didn’t want to know.

I do know that Don demanded to be noticed. When you were in the room with Don, you could count on weathering a nonstop series of pranks, pratfalls, and preposterous statements, all aimed at getting your attention. He was a relentless pest, and you seldom heard his name said aloud without “damn” in front of it and “stop” after it.

Damn, Don—stop!

While it was often hard to like Don, it was impossible to hate him. The boy was soft-hearted, inquisitive, generous, and kind. He would perform any favor you asked. And he was loyal.

“I never had to wonder if Don was going to be present for Sunday CYF meetings or other activities. Of course he would be there,” says Bill McDonald. “He was the consummate CYF member—dedicated to the group, dependable, faithful … and energetic about the concept.”

Don’s church involvement didn’t stop when we graduated from the youth group. We both joined the church choir. What Don lacked in musical talent, he made up for in consistency. Don never missed choir practice, and we would usually go together. He’d pick me up, we’d attend practice, and then we’d ride around and drink beer.

Riding with Don was a new act of a familiar play. Our group had long been dedicated to cruising, piling into a car with Tilton before we could drive and in one vehicle or another after Tilton departed for college. During those six or so years, we’d drive over to Versailles most nights. Midway had no stores open past five and, more important, no possibility of romance. The limited number of Midway girls our age had long since lost interest in us, so we did our cruising in Versailles. Honestly, the girls there weren’t any more interested in us, but at least there were fast food restaurants and convenience stores in the larger town.

The twins were given a Chevy Vega on their sixteenth birthday, and that was our cruising car for a while. And then at some point, maybe when we were seventeen or so, Don started collecting automobiles.

I don’t mean to say he ever had a collection; it was just one car at a time. He first cajoled some money from his grandfather and purchased a used car, which he wrecked in short order. From there, he went through cars like most people go through a tube of toothpaste, getting a new one every few months.

Some cars he wrecked, some he sold, and some he swapped. He’d use insurance money, earned money, or borrowed money. Billy Haynes remembers that one car was torn apart by a pair of Frankfort policemen only a few hours after Don had acquired it. Whatever they were looking for, they failed to find. I checked with Billy and other friends and family members, and none of us can say just how many cars Don used and abused. I would guess he went through two dozen by the time he turned twenty.

I remember only two of Don’s automobiles well, and they were at opposite extremes of the eye test. The ugliest car Don ever drove was a Volkswagen Beetle. It was already souped up (ruined, really) when he bought it. It had three sets of headlights and an orange, red, and brown paint job that established the VW Bug as the most hideous vehicle on the road. Dirty shag carpet covered nearly all of the interior, but a sunroof helped offset what was otherwise a smelly experience. I’m not sure how long Don had that car or what happened to it, but I’m sure it wasn’t stolen. People laughed out loud when he drove by.

If the Bug was the beast of Don’s automotive acquisitions, the beauty was the car I remember best: a 1972 Ford LTD convertible, white, with burgundy leather interior. I’m guessing at the year of the car and when he had it, but I think it was the summer of ’77. I was sort of between friends at that time. Our once tight group had mostly drifted apart after high school. I was home from my one year of attending college out of state (Auburn), and I had not yet started at nearby Transylvania, where, beginning that fall, I would compile a new set of friends.

That summer, though, I rode with Don.

Being out of high school, I felt a little like John Milner in American Graffiti, the guy who should have moved on from cruising when his high school days were over. I don’t remember very much from the many nights we cruised Versailles during those months. We had a route we’d drive, stopping to talk with any girls who weren’t fast enough to run inside when they saw us coming.

I do remember that on some nights as we were leaving Versailles to drive back to Midway, we’d stop to put the top up, raising the lid on the convertible and closing the book on another night of aimless driving. Don would soon be driving a hundred miles an hour on Midway Road, so raising the roof seemed sensible.

Other nights, though, we’d keep the top down. I still remember those rides home, hurtling along the narrow road past dark pastures and corn fields, the wind buffeting my face and chilling my body, even in the middle of summer. I couldn’t hear the car engine, of course, and I couldn’t see anything outside of the headlight beams. It felt like we were flying.

That summer was the most time I’d ever spent alone with Don. I sometimes did things with the other Hancock brothers and our friends, but nobody else rode around with Don and me. Don could be erratic, as I’ve explained, but he was normal enough on our nights together. I suppose Don was doing drugs, but he didn’t do them around me. We did drink a beer or two. Or three.

We also talked a good bit. Like all of us—especially at that age—Don was searching for a place in the world. He always had big dreams that were interrupted by reality … and grand plans that never got off the ground. In the years ahead, Don had a checkered work career that included a short stint in the Army. Eventually, he ended up where he started, on the family farm.

I lost touch with Don after I finished college and grad school and remained in Lexington, where I married and started a family. I never stopped being a Midway boy with hometown connections, though, and I heard a lot about Don through the years. None of it was good, as his demons and addictions took control, smothering much of the goodness in his heart.

But not all of it.

Don died in 2009, soon after he turned fifty. On the funeral home website, there were three comments on Don’s page, and one of them described his generous spirit. A fellow I don’t know wrote that whenever Don would come into some money, he would go to a little grocery near the farm and “buy beer and food for everyone in the store.”

The last time I saw Don was after I returned home to Woodford County. It was 2004(ish), and I was outside with my son Steele, who, at seven or eight years old, was riding his bike on our driveway. A small man on a big motorcycle came roaring up the driveway, and I walked out to intercept him. It was Don. I hadn’t seen him for several years. He was older, as was I, of course, but the years had weighed harder on Don.

We talked about our respective jobs and wives. Don said he didn’t have any kids, and I told him about my two sons. I did not call Steele over to meet Don. I did not invite Don into my house. I did not ask for his phone number, because I did not intend to connect with him again. And maybe Don was fine with that. Perhaps he was simply riding past my house and stopped by when he saw me outside.

But maybe he wasn’t fine with it. It’s possible that Don wanted to relive the memories of our time in youth group, talk about the friends we made at church camp, and revive the good talks we shared on the road in his white convertible.

I didn’t, though. I just … couldn’t. I feared that Don’s troubled life would bring trouble to my family, and I let him ride away with no plans for us to get together. We never talked again. He had been the most loyal friend of my youth, and I failed to return that loyalty.

It makes me sad.

I can’t stay sad when I think of Don, though, just as I couldn’t stay mad when he said or did the most irritating things imaginable. Even that first time I went to the Hancock home, we all started playing together after he, you know, stopped shooting. And I can’t be sad about the many miles our group covered together on Woodford County roads.

In my fifty years of driving, I haven’t owned as many vehicles as Don did in one year during his late teens. All the cars and pickups I’ve owned were practical and reliable. But there will always be that one flashy car—and that one fast summer—I shared with Don. And in my mind, the top will always be down … and we’ll always be flying.

In late October I walked through Woodford County High School during a farewell tour. The building was destined to become “the old high school” at the end of 2024, and “the new high school” would open in January.

I am fond of that old building. My dad was on the school board when the Midway and Versailles, Kentucky, high schools were consolidated; the building opened in 1964. I’m a graduate; my wife, Mary Beth, taught there for eighteen years; and our sons, Steele and Clay, are graduates, too. As a student in the building, I experienced success and humiliation, love and rejection, laughter and … more laughter. Whenever I was there as an adult—as a father and a husband—I experienced pride, always pride.

As you might guess, Woodford County High School didn’t look exactly the same in 2024 as when I graduated in 1976. The space that had been the library—my homeroom for four years—was transformed into classrooms decades ago. Renovations had similarly rendered other old haunts—Mrs. Vaughn’s classroom and the band room—recognizable, but not the same.

What did look the same were two large spaces: the cafeteria and the gym. Both of them play prominently in my memories.

I ate a school lunch in the cafeteria every single day; I never brought my lunch, and I never skipped school. That same cafeteria was also the site of every school dance: Homecoming, Christmas, Sadie Hawkins, and the prom. And with a stage at the non-cooking end, the cafeteria also served as the school theater. My acting career started and ended during my senior year, when I bluffed my way through roles in two productions on that stage.

After 1976, I never ate lunch, danced (badly), or acted (even worse) again in the cafeteria, but the gym was different, as it was prominent in my life for another forty years. During my school days, I was no athlete, but I attended many a wrestling match and a ton of basketball games. (I was a real playuh, but in the pep band.) Also, I didn’t win any awards to speak of, but I was in the gym for several honors nights through the years, and I was in the bleachers when the community celebrated the 2012 state champion baseball team, which Steele was on.    

I was also in the gym for a few graduation ceremonies, including my two sisters’ and my own. I remember nothing from Amy’s ceremony in 1974 and little from my own diploma grab in 1976, but I certainly recall June 5, 1972, when I was there to watch my oldest sister, Kay, graduate.

At fourteen, I was embarrassed of my family. That’s hard to understand now. My very normal parents were solid citizens and contributed to the community. Heck, Dad’s name was on a plaque at the entryway of the high school. Both of my sisters were well-liked and successful: Amy was a varsity athlete and Kay was the co-valedictorian of her graduating class. But I was an insecure teenager, and even though my family was not cringe-worthy, I cringed nonetheless.

I’m sure Mom, Dad, Amy, and I sat together during Kay’s graduation ceremony, but I only remember being beside Dad. See, I was hyperaware of my father’s clapping. He had a way of cupping his hands that made his slow, methodical claps rather loud. That was fine in a crowd, but the thing was, he clapped too long.

During the ’72 ceremony, whenever there was a round of applause for a pronouncement or introduction—and there were many—my father continued to clap after everyone else had stopped. Over and over, he performed a solo of sorts: a solitary clap (or two, even!) after the general applause had fallen silent. Although I didn’t actually see anybody scan the audience to look for the long clapper, I was sure everyone was asking the same question.

“Who is that person clapping an extra clap?” they had to be wondering. That person was my father, and I would be forever known as the son of the long clapper.

Each graduating senior’s name was called as they strode across a temporary stage, followed by applause … which was in turn followed by my father’s lone-wolf clap. And after the diplomas came the speeches.

Honestly, I can’t tell you anything about the speeches. I feel certain there were inspiring words from the principal or the superintendent—maybe both—and the guest speaker was a titan of local industry. I am also certain that the other co-valedictorian and the salutatorian delivered a speech. I don’t remember a single word from those addresses, though.

What I do remember is that my sister … sang.

As the class co-valedictorian, Kay tied for the highest GPA in a class of two hundredish, which is a heck of an accomplishment. It earned Kay a spot on the podium with the opportunity to address her classmates, her teachers, and the entire gathering. She could have talked about collective aspirations, shared values, or hopes for the future. She could have regaled the audience with school day memories of good old Woodford High. Instead, she sang a song.

It was a perfect song; I’ll give her that. “Friends with You” was released as a single in the fall of Kay’s senior year. John Denver—in his oh-so clear voice—sang the verses in haunting minor chords before swinging into a major key for the chorus:

Friends, I will remember you,
Think of you, pray for you.
And when another day is through,
I’ll still be friends with you.

Kay, too, sang with a nice, steady voice, and she had learned to play the guitar as an accompaniment. Expressing herself through a song rather than a speech must have come as a welcome relief to her classmates, her teachers, and every person in the audience.

Except her brother. I had already been red-faced for an hour or so because my father, you know, clapped his hands, and then my sister went and did something so … unconventional.

I ask you to think back to your own teenage days—to your embarrassing family—and try to imagine how I handled that situation. You’ll have to imagine it, and I will, too, because I can’t tell you how I handled it. I guess I went into a trance.

I don’t know what I was worried about, really. I bet none of my friends were there that day. And if there had been a classmate of mine in the crowd—dragged to the gym because they, too, had a graduating sibling—I feel safe in saying they did not connect the singing senior with the nerd in their eighth-grade science class (me). But still, I felt the weight of the world’s eyeballs. And they were rolling—hard. I would be starting high school myself in three months, and I was already nervous about fitting in. I’m sure my blanking out was a means of self-preservation.

I can’t tell you if Kay’s classmates were smiling, nodding, and tapping their feet. Perhaps they were even singing along. Maybe the whole crowd was singing along. Who knows? Not me.

What I can tell you is that fifty-two years later, during a farewell tour of the Woodford County High School building I’d known most of my life, I found myself standing at the end of the gym floor where they used to set up chairs, a lectern, and a microphone for graduation ceremonies. I was standing, purely by chance, in about the same spot where Kay stood in front of her entire world, strummed a guitar, and sang to her friends.

I know something now I didn’t know then: If you want your message to get through, you need to step out of the box. You have to differentiate your delivery to cut through the clutter and get your point across. I’m guessing that, prior to Kay Coleman Rouse, every valedictorian in Woodford County history had made a mushy speech that blended in with the rest of the graduation jabber. Kay could have given a speech. She could have told her classmates she loves them and she’ll always remember them. But instead, she sang those words … sending her message straight into the hearts of her friends.

Convention is safe and reliable. But it’s also predictable, and words delivered in conventional ways—in stale orations—can wash right past listeners. Kay delivered words with meaning in a style all her own.  

What a gutsy chick.

As I stood there in 2024, I looked up to the spot in the bleachers where I sat with my family on a June evening in 1972. Because of the memory hole that opened shortly after Kay started singing, I can’t say how the rest of her performance went. My next memory of that evening is the applause from the crowd when Kay finished. Everyone was clapping. They seemed to appreciate Kay’s music—her courage—and they clapped for a long time. And then they stopped.

Well, most of them stopped. Into the silence, my dad shot a single, final clap.

If I’m wrong, I’ll admit it. And in regard to my “grandfather name,” I was wrong. When Nora was born a couple of years ago, I said I would decide what she calls me. I would not—and I was firm—let a toddler botch my name and saddle me with an awkward, embarrassing moniker for the rest of my life. I—and I alone—knew the answer. After much deliberation, I settled on GrandBob—henceforth and forever. “Learn it, live it,” I instructed Nora the infant.

I announced this in a Facebook post, explaining my position to friends in a truly horrible rap. I didn’t say my name would be GrandBob in that farcicle post. I was going for ridiculous … and achieved it. It ended this way:
And the name that she will call me
Really fits me to a T.
Not Gramps. Not Pappy.
’Cause my name is Heavy B
(“Heavy B,” he said …
His name is Heavy B
Not your father’s Grandfather
’Cause he’s Heavy B instead)

Rap nightmares aside, our family agreed that my grandfather name was GrandBob. When anyone speaking to Nora referred to me, they used “GrandBob.” It was a sensible yet appealing name. I was set for life.

And then … she started talking. In her sweet, soft, little-kid voice, she began to assign meaning to her vocalisms. She expresses ideas, wants, and feelings with words that often make sense … and just as often do not. But they’re her words. And she’s her own person: a beautiful, wondrous child. When she says my name—when she instructs GrandBob and Nana where to sit or says, “Here you go, GrandBob,” it doesn’t come out as GrandBob. At 2, she simply can’t pronounce that name. But what she says is her name for me: It’s her expression of who I am. She says it in that little-kid voice—and she is firm—and I wouldn’t think of correcting her … because she isn’t wrong.

So as it turns out, I’m not GrandBob. And I was wrong to insist I was. Now I know the answer: I. Am. Jobba.

I was 22 years old and 30 days out of college. Set to start law school in eight weeks, I was pursuing my dreams of service, justice, and eventually, judicial robes. But at that moment, those dreams were giving way to another career I was imagining: lawn guy. Mowing lawns, trimming hedges, planting flowers, and tending shrubs. Hooking up irrigators and hauling off palm fronds. Pruning, clipping, raking.

I was vacationing in Naples, Florida, where I envisioned a life in lawn care.

There were four of us in Naples that July in 1980, staying in my grandmother Honeywood’s cottage, close to the beach, close to the iconic pier. College friends, we were celebrating our page-turning moment, leaving undergrad and stepping into adulthood. John was going to the sales department of a major corporation, Ben was set to be a national rep for our fraternity, and Mac had a desk at his family business. I had a seat waiting for me at the University of Kentucky Law School … and I didn’t want to go.

I did go, but I didn’t stay. I lasted all of one semester. Even though my grades were OK, I wasn’t. Looking back, I’ve long thought I was simply tired of school. After blazing through 16 years of grade school, middle school, high school, and college, I needed a break. A gap year, I guess. And it didn’t have to be a year of backpacking across Europe or digging village wells in Africa. It could have been a year of mowing Bermuda grass in Naples.

And maybe it would have been more than a year. In lieu of paying rent to Honeywood, I could have stayed there free in return for taking care of the cottage and yard. Or I could have fixed up the little guest house and lived there. But I did none of that. Instead, I enrolled—and soon disenrolled—from law school.

I’ve been to Naples many times since that final trip with my college buddies, and it’s not the same town. The area’s population has swelled from 6,000 in 1980 to around 472,000 today. I have to think that any lawn care company I opened in 1980—with a mower, a trimmer, and an assortment of clippers, ladders, loppers, and shovels in the back of a pickup—could have grown with the town. With more people and more lawns, I would have added more mowers and loppers—and employees—and amassed a fleet of pickups and trailers.

I would be the overlord of lawn care in Naples.

And if not lawn care, then some other line of work. Lots of businesses a young guy launched in 1980 Naples could have grown into an empire over the last four decades, as the quiet beach town boomed into a sun-drenched paradise for the wealthy. Start small and grow with the population. I could have painted parking lot lines or detailed golf carts or delivered live bait all over town. I could have managed the rental of Honeywood’s cottage while I lived in the guest house—or the other way around. Then I might have helped a neighbor prep his house for rent … I might have bought it myself and flipped it. And then flipped another house.

I could have made a fortune as a young man in Old Naples.  

During my most recent visit—now an old man—I saw one more business I could have started in little-bitty Naples back in 1980: Bob’s Barricades. That name was on the back of an orange SLOW sign on Highway 41. Think of it: When I was 22, I could have bought a few road-construction signs and built some sawhorses, and then rented them out for one project after another. With the profits, I could buy more signs and sawhorses … maybe some smudge pots, those flaming cannon balls of road work.

Over the years, Naples added roads as fast as it added snowbirds. If my company had grown with Naples, I’d be the duke of DETOUR, the magnate of MERGE LEFT, the ruler of ROAD CLOSED. I would have been the Bob of Bob’s Barricades.

So what stopped me? What kept me, back in the summer of 1980, from letting my friends go north to their jobs while I stayed in Naples? What held me back? What was Bob’s barricade?

Oh sure, ditching law school in favor of lawn care would have raised a few eyebrows, but it wasn’t an insane idea. I could have explained to my family and friends that I was taking a non-backpack gap year, a detour, if you will, on the road to a legal career. And then I’d see how it went. I would not have lacked for company, as my Kentucky friends—and Honeywood—would have certainly visited, and I would have made new friends right there in Naples.

I could have made that bold move. I had a place to stay, a willingness to work, and an almost-developed plan. What I lacked, I guess, was guts. I feared I would take a bold step and fall flat on my face. The idea of returning home with an empty bank account and a back seat full of SLOW signs must have seemed too great of a risk.

I was afraid I’d fail.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’ve had a wonderful life in Kentucky, marrying a fantastic woman and helping her raise two tremendous sons. I worked several jobs before settling into association management, writing magazine articles and marketing pieces for a packaged travel association. I live just outside my hometown of Midway and could not be happier.

But there is one thing—one unscratched itch. I have a novel inside me that’s been trying to get out for decades. I’ve mapped the plot, created the characters, and collected detailed information to capture the story’s 1980 setting … in Naples. It’ll be a great book, but I can’t seem to write it.

I’ve written plenty of other things and even published books of my own. I turned an annual tradition of writing Midway-based Christmas stories into a collection of short stories. I recently published a series of essays on my family’s connection to a particular house in Midway, now a famous restaurant. I even published a collection of poems I wrote during the emotionally jagged days of 2020.

But I can’t seem to write that novel. I’ve read up on writing techniques to help me tell the very best story. I’ve tweaked the plot and fine-tuned the characters, I’ve started Chapter 1 several times … and stopped every time. One minute I’m confident I can plow through the whole first draft in a month or two, and the next moment I put on the brakes, thinking I don’t yet have it exactly right. Bob’s barricade in writing a novel is pretty much the same thing that stopped me from taking a risk and remaining in South Florida forty-four years ago: fear of failure.

It’s an enhanced fear, though. See, I believe the story I’ve envisioned is possibly the best idea I’ll ever have. And if I blow it—if I write a novel that doesn’t match its potential—then I’m screwed. I will have frittered away my best idea—blown my big chance. I will have wasted my shot at writing the Great American Novel … that gets translated into thirty-five languages … and made into a movie.

That’s what halts me in my tracks: fear of epic failure.

When I was in Naples last month, I found a new barricade—a literal one. An important setting in my story, the Naples pier was wrecked by Hurricane Ian, and I couldn’t even walk out on the planked promenade like I’ve done a thousand times. Today’s stub of a pier no longer matches the murder scene of my ’80s-set story.

So I’m still tapping the breaks on my novel, and I can’t get over the hump. Maybe that’s a normal thing; I don’t know. Maybe everybody has one barricade or another, blocking them from stretching higher … from reaching a goal. Do you?

My novel isn’t ready for the junk pile. In the same way they’ll build the pier back, I can reassemble my cast of characters and reconstruct the tale they get caught up in. The pier, the people, and the Naples of my past remain very much alive in my mind. I’ve still got all the notes I took from my research on how to strengthen plot, characters, and dialogue. Plus, I’ve been thinking that instead of writing in third person, I could introduce another character who could narrate the story.

I missed my chance to hit it big as the lawn care king of Naples; hundreds of guys filled the void I didn’t dare enter. But I can still write. And there’s a laptop sitting right in front of me, waiting for me to type word after word of my story. I can still get it done. Hey, I’m only 65 years old—just 15,925 days out of college.