paducah: a retrospective (cue flowery music…)
it’s hard to believe, but we’ve been gone from paducah for almost a year now. we love everything about little rock, but we really do still miss paducah. for being the weird little small town that it is, it was a good place to live. for the first time since leaving, we were able to go back and visit. i thought i would offer some highlights and insights from the weekend.
1. paducah is still named paducah. yeah, we know…
2. we stayed with our good friends jon and michelle (thanks for the free digs!). we had a great time catching up with them and it felt very full-circlish because the first time we ever came to paducah, we stayed at their house (where jon first demonstrated the hilarity of an ebay-purchased fake terd…).
3. lucy found a friend in jon and michelle’s dog, titan, and their 7-foot boa, hercules (hopefully a picture is on the way…). i think they’re going to be pen pals… (and she learned to make a snake noise…)
4. travel tip: if your fuel light comes on at anytime past 9 p.m. while on the way to paducah, get gas before crossing over to kentucky. the combination of gas fumes and intense prayers are the only things that got us to a gas station in paducah…
5. much to people’s surprise, paducah is a pretty diverse city, broken into basically three groups: the arts district, the ghetto and the redneck-i’ve-got-some-cars-on-blocks-and-mulitple-stray-animals-in-my-front-yard-and-an-oversized-rebel-flag-hanging-proudly-in-my-living-room-window section of town. within the redneck group generally falls the fundamentalist christian sect and they were representing well this weekend.
not 20 yards away from where these pictures were shot was this:
it’s good to see the fundamentalists and the hoes coming together on a common street, thus shattering any barriers that might exist in creating a christian-ho coalition of world peace and unity. (by the way, this photo was amazingly taken on my iphone camera…nice…)
6. we got to see several of our old youth group kids, which was exciting. it always makes a youth pastor feel all warm and fuzzy to get an update on the students he used to teach about following christ. here are a few of the highlights from the life updates:
- “sally” is knocked up by some random guy that i believe she met once at a party…
- “johnny” introduced me to his half-naked girlfriend with whom he is getting ready to move in with…
- “billy” is apparently strung out on drugs…
- “jenny” likes to post constant myspace bulletins with a title to the effect of, “i’m tired of you “f*#@kers who won’t reply to my messages…”
ahh….i’m all warm and fuzzy now…
7. we drove past our old house (that we loved) and let’s just say there was some weeping and gnashing of teeth by a certain wife of mine, which was somewhat induced by crazy pregnant hormones but also just the good memories of lucy’s first home and the good times we had there.
8. favorites update:
- local restaurant: flamingo row. still had tacky décor, menus created by a blind graphic designer and tables that are too low for my knees to fit under …but the food was just as amazing as ever. (my recommendation: the outrigger burger…amazingly huge slab of meat, caramelized onions and their homemade barbecue sauce.)
- store: world market. CLOSED. apparently the large redneck contingency couldn’t support the products that are manufactured post-1987 and have nothing embroidered on them that say something about sticking a boot up someone’s ass or colors that don’t run…
- area of town: downtown. still about as dead as usual, but still with the same usual charm and same usual smell of dead fish from the river, funk of antique stores and the occasional paper mill waft from wickliffe.
- street: jefferson. still amazingly charming historic-ish homes…with a lot of for sale signs…good thing we are happy in little rock…
- antique store: antiques, cards & collectibles. still the same 4 rickety floors stuffed full of crap that maybe once didn’t smell like old stuff 75 years ago when it was made.
9. someone opened a segway…um, dealership (?) in paducah. apparently this someone doesn’t understand the 3 categories of people that i previously outlined. can we say “misunderstanding the consumer base”…
10. i played wii fit for the first time. the good: one leg balancing, spot-on fitness age; the bad: bmi, yoga breathing; the ugly: hula hoop… (pictures deleted…)
and finally…
11. we returned home to an amazingly clean home thanks to my amazing sister-in-law, andrea. christen has been really tired and overwhelmed here lately in her state of pregnancy and i’ve just been really busy, so andrea volunteered to come clean our entire house this weekend while we were gone to surprise christen. christen definitely busted a tear when we got home tonight and saw it… (this picture doesn’t do justice, but i just wanted to show our bedroom, which is always the most ridiculously messy room in our house…)
