Today’s post isn’t about trying to unravel any life mysteries or solve any big problems. Today was more of a reflective day, as I found myself thinking about how things change and thinking back on some good times made with some good friends over the course of these near-50 years. (Names have been…somewhat altered…for no reason in particular)
December 4, 2021
The Drink: Gerst Amber Ale
Brewed in Nashville in honor or the original Gerst Brewery. This was my first time trying it, and I liked it quite a bit.
The Artist and The Song: Justin Peter Kenkel-Schuster – Headed South
“I know there’s only one way, to get us out this mess”
This song is just one great part of what is an incredible album (Constant Stranger). His writing is so emotional, and it captures the feel of the south in turns of phrase that are both familiar and hauntingly original. He is absolutely one of my favorites, and his music with his band Water Liars is equally amazing (If you check them out, start with the album Wyoming).
It was another nice day today, particularly for December, so we spent a lot of time outside working on Christmas-ing up our house. It wasn’t QUITE nice enough out there this evening to sit and enjoy a beer, but I picked up one I hadn’t tried before yesterday, so I decided I would give it a try anyway.
While we were outside working today, some young folks happened to walk by that we didn’t recognize, and when they came back up the street, we found out that they were our soon-to-be new neighbors. They were super nice and we enjoyed talking with them about their move and the town and such.
After they left, I found myself thinking about OUR arrival on Riverside and just how much has changed (and continues to change) on this little street over the past 12 years. Beck and I arrived here as the “new young couple”, but in a few weeks, WE will be one of the longest tenured Riverside residents…the new keepers of the flame…and it is kind of a strange feeling.
It is funny for me to think now about how I had a little bit of a connection to this house years before we ever dreamed of ending up here. The grandmother of one of my best friends lived here for a long, long time, and I’d actually been here a few times with him when we were younger.
One of those times was in March of 1993. March 12, to be exact. That date sound familiar? You’ll realize why here shortly.
Myself and two of my best friends had been planning a spring break trip for a while that year. Now, we weren’t headed to any of the normal college-kid spots. No, instead, our intention was to head south to Louisiana and spend several days camping on Grand Isle.
M did all of the planning. He was by far the most experienced camper among us, and he had most of the gear we would need. I provided the transportation in the form of a Jeep Cherokee Limited that my dad had just finished rebuilding for himself. I’m still not sure how I convinced him to let us take that vehicle.
Speaking of convincing, the only way J was able to go on the trip at all was by convincing his mom we were going to New Orleans, which I think she found unsettling enough, but we were pretty sure she would NOT have been ok with the idea of us camping on some remote island for a week. So…the story was told and permission was granted and we were ready to go.
I loaded all of my stuff, we grabbed J, and we headed to Riverside to the house where I now reside so that we could load all of M’s supplies. What I remember about packing that Cherokee is that we had SO much shit that not only was the inside packed so full that there was only half of the back seat available, but there was shit strapped on to the roof, as well…something that ended up becoming a trademark of almost every adventure with M I’ve ever been on…and there have been a few.
As we were about ready to go, we realized that we needed to head back to M’s house to grab something, which was a risky move, but it had to be done. We made it fine and thought we were home free when we met J’s dad coming the opposite direction down the road. He flashed his lights and waved us over, so we pulled over in the parking lot of Morgan Tire Center.
As J’s dad approached the vehicle, we knew we were busted. We just didn’t know what to expect. His dad came to the driver’s window, said that they had realized it might be a good idea to let us take his dad’s cell phone with us in case we had trouble (it was one of the old bag phones), so he had driven to Riverside to drop it off with us. M’s grandmother told him we’d already left but were headed back to M’s house to grab something before we left town.
He shook his head, handed us the phone, smiled, and told us we’d better get out of town before J’s mom saw us. We agreed, breathed a sigh of relief, rolled up the windows, and were headed south.
I can remember there were 2 things of note on that day that had me concerned. One was that UK was playing UT in the SEC Conference. The other was that the weather was forecasting a HELL of a winter storm headed northeast from the Gulf.
The basketball game ended up being of very little concern. UK beat UT by 61 points, which made it all the more satisfying as we crossed the state line into Tennessee.
The winter storm was still a little concerning. We were listening to the radio and hearing reports of snow starting up in places south of us…places we were probably going to have to drive through. Still, we were headed south, so we figured at worst, we’d meet the snow and be through it before the storm intensified as it headed on north towards Kentucky.
When we made it to Nashville around 10pm, it started snowing. Nothing too serious, but we made a note of it and kept on rolling.
Contrary to what we figured would happen, the further south we drove, the harder the snow fell. After making it a good ways south of Nashville, it was really coming down. Still, the roads weren’t that bad, and we continued to hope we’d drive on out of it. After a bit, we found ourselves behind a salt/plow truck, something I’m not even sure I knew they had that far south. We stayed behind him for a bit, but we finally decided to get on around him and get on down the road at a bit of a quicker pace.
It was not to be.
Not long after getting ahead of him, the roads started getting bad. Snow was falling hard and fast, and before long, there wasn’t much of a road left to even make out. Still, we kept on pushing. We had 4-wheel drive and a desire to camp on a beach. After a bit more time heading slowly south, we started to see cars on the side of the road…cars in the median…cars pointed every which way…and concern started to set in.
After continuing on for a bit longer, we decided to take an exit and see if we could get a room. There was an EconoLodge and the parking lot was packed with cars, many of them marked up with exclamations indicating that they too were headed south for spring break, but to places like Panama City…places where it made more sense to drive a convertible Camaro than a Jeep Cherokee.
We went in and inquired about a room, and I honestly cannot remember right now whether they didn’t HAVE a room or if the guy tried to charge us what amounted to a triple rate, but either way, we didn’t stay there and decided to get back on the Interstate and keep on trying to head south.
After we’d traveled a bit farther, we spotted a sign for a truck stop off an exit, so we figured we could at least head there, go in and get some food, and worst case scenario, we sleep in the vehicle overnight and head out the next morning.
We parked, made some phone calls on the bag phone to let folks know we were safe, and headed in to get something to eat. Inside, the place was packed with truckers and college kids. It really was quite a sight. We ate, talked to some of the folks inside, and headed back out to the vehicle to try and get some rest.
I don’t remember us getting much rest. We spent a lot of the night talking and trying to make a plan for the next day. What I DO remember about that night, though, was a discussion about having a cigarette, and me flat out refusing to allow it, since I was concerned my dad would know someone had smoked in his vehicle (although I’m sure he had smoked in there). M looked at me, and in all seriousness said, “Well, we’ve GOT to smoke SOMEWHERE, Dave!”…and J and I just lost it laughing.
The next morning, we were approached by a group of spring breakers. They came to our window to let us know that they were planning to all head out together in just a bit, and they wanted us to come with them. We sort of nodded and dismissed them. Of COURSE they wanted us to go with them. We were in a 4×4! Who better to have in your caravan than someone who can lead the way and make tracks and pull anyone out who had trouble? So, we headed inside to have breakfast and see if we could get some information.
The information we got was not good. The truckers were talking about how they had gotten 2 inches of snow in Mobile, Alabama. 2 inches of snow on the coast! And they said nobody there knew how in the world to deal with it. We also were able to gather that we were actually not that far from the state line, so we briefly thought about going ahead and trying to keep on heading towards our destination…until they let us know that troopers were turning people back at the state line because the Interstate was closed.
We let the kids outside know the situation, but they decided they were going to try it anyway. We didn’t work too hard to try and change their minds. We just made our way back to the Jeep, fired it up, and headed north.
It was miserable driving that day. We had to drive so slowly, it felt like it might take forever before we actually got anywhere, but we kept on driving and eventually found ourselves in Columbia, TN…home of James K. Polk…our 11th President. The roads were not totally terrible there, so we got some food and actually went to a theater and watched Groundhog Day.
The next morning, we continued our trek north. We didn’t have any intentions of trying to make it all the way home. We knew the roads were still closed all over Kentucky, so we set our sights on Nashville.
By the time we got there, the roads were actually in really good shape. The track of the storm had taken it east of Nashville, so we had easy access to pretty much anywhere we wanted to go…and where we decided we wanted to go was a German restaurant.
We walked in to a live Polka band and the guests doing the chicken dance and decided we’d made the right choice. It was about as festive a place as I’d ever seen.
M ordered pig knuckles, J tried to order a milk but was served a Miller, and we ate and had a good time. When it came time to go, we realized that we had lost track of M. We started looking all around for him, and then we spotted him…coming down the hallway where the restrooms were located…doing the chicken dance.
We gathered him up, had a laugh, walked out of the Gerst Haus and headed back to our hotel. By the end of the next day, we were back in Kentucky, parked on Riverside Drive and unloading all of M’s stuff at his grandmother’s (and now my) house.
When I saw this Gerst beer on the shelf at Kroger yesterday evening, I had to take a closer look to see if it had anything at all to do with that Nashville restaurant from my distant memory. Turns out the Yazoo Brewing Company in Nashville partnered with the family who had owned the Gerst Haus Restaurant to produce this amber ale, trying to remain as true as they could to the original recipe that was crafted by the Gerst Brewery before they had to shut down due to prohibition.
Reading that description immediately brought back the memories of that fateful journey in 1993, and being outside here today and thinking about the history of Riverside, it just seemed like the perfect thing to write about.
