Carlisle

Please, do yourself a favor and read this story from the Lexington Herald-Leader. The characters from Carlisle, Kentucky seem to have leaped straight out of an abandoned Coen Brothers script. If you're feeling engorged from this past weekend's festivities and too sloth-like to actually click the link and read the story, I'll paraphrase for you:

• Frances Barton needed to move her trailer.
• She hires a guy named "Pancake" 200 dollars to move her trailer — with a farm tractor.
• The trailer breaks down on the Highway, blocking the road for several hours
• Sheriff Dick Garrett gets involved and tries fruitlessly to move the single-wide off the road — at first.
• A determined Garrett orders two farmers to tip Barton's trailer into the side ditch.
• Barton's Trailer disintegrates.
• Barton's family, "a mishmash of real kin and unofficially adopted kids, teens and young adults" along with a mess of pets are left with no home to spend Thanksgiving.

If you still haven't read the story, well, you're missing out on priceless tidbits like: The Sheriff's campaign slogan in 2006 was "More Dick." Seriously.

Before you go thinkin' that I'm a heartless jerk getting some sick pleasure from Frances' Thanksgiving from hell... the story has a happy ending. A billionaire heard her story and bought her a new house on wheels.

Contributing to my fascination with this story is that I have my own Carlisle, Kentucky story.

Carlisle, as my father-in-law says, is on the way to Nowhere. I disagree with him only slightly. For me, Carlisle was on the way (in an out-of-the-way kind of way) to Morehead, Kentucky where I was to visit Sarah in her home for the first time.

Sarah and I had been dating for a short while when it came time for one of the early important courtship steps — meeting her parents.

My parents' MR2 (it looked something like this) was my chosen and only method of transportation at the time. I affectionately knew that car as Mister Two.

My trip didn't take place before MapQuest, but it was before I had fully adopted its use into my traveling methodology. BMQ (Before MapQuest (I love me some acronyms)(...and parentheses)), I would rely on directions the old-fashioned way; someone would tell me how to get from here to over yonder. I preferred the landmark method. "Take a left at the Suds Car Wash and then a right after you pass the house with the yellow shutters" worked for me. There's a couple problems with this: 1) the landmark method is problematic in the dark (are those yellow or brown shutters?); 2) The person giving the landmark-based directions really needs to be a landmark person too.

I would be driving at night, and I'm pretty sure it was under a new moon. And, Sarah's Dad sure don't need no stinking landmarks to get from here to there. When he gave me directions, the macho in me couldn't bear to ask if there happened to be a Skyline Chili, or at least a uniquely shaped boulder, when I turn onto KY11. So, I took my notes, and off I went.

I was doing well, by my standards. I made it out of Anderson, down to 74, meandered around Cincinnati, to the Double A Highway. I drove past my first turn, but caught myself; I whipped a U-wee and made my turn at KY11; no harm done. Feeling good. On to KY 32...

Here's where the trip went from care-free to precarious. I was approaching an intersection where the postings said that whether I went left, right, or straight I would still be on 32. I knew didn't want to go west, which was a left turn. But, still I had two options. My left brain, which I use sparingly, told me, "Ryan, the opposite of west is east. West is left, east must be Right." So wrong.

The MR2 handled the midnight-dark serpentine road with aplomb. There were several curvy road signs, none quite as descriptive as the one to the left, but there should have been. For 45 minutes there was nothing but me and the 10 yard halo of the headlights. No landmarks, ner nuthin'. After those 45 minutes, hope beamed in the distance. Had I finally made it to Morehead? Nope. A Shell station, which that night resembled Grand Central.

As lost as I was feeling, a Shell station sighting was a welcome one. You see, BMQ was also BMP (Before Mobile Phone) for me. I might have been the last baby boomer's kid to get a cell phone.

Okay, I swear to you, there were 50 pickup trucks in that Shell station parking lot, every one of them Ford F150s; all were equipped with gigantic muddin' tires, naked lady silhouette mudflaps, gun rack, one of these, and I'm fairly certain a 12 point buck antler mounted on the grill. Mister Two could have fit comfortably in the bed of any one of the beasts. As intimidating as this V8 Convention was, the people in attendance were more frightening; after all, I could only assume they knew how to use the guns on those racks.

I parked in the only spot not occupied by an F150 — in the little gap between an actual parking space and the dumpster. I slinked over to the walkway that hugged the outside walls of the convenience store. Opposite the storefront was a lineup of gentlemen sitting on tailgates. I tried not to look in their direction, but I think I'm safe in saying they all were wearing sleeveless flannel shirts, Wrangler jeans, trucker caps and belt buckles the size of Mister Two's hubcaps.

I made it to the pay phone, conveniently positioned at center stage. I was one banjo string pluck away from running for my life. There was no banjo music, so I dropped my coins in and started dialing.

Sarah answered, "Hello, are you lost?" No sense in denying it. "Here's my Dad."

Sarah's Dad asked me where I was. I had no idea, so I said, "I have no idea."

He replied, "Well, can you ask someone?"

Apparently, he had never been to this Shell station. But the macho in me won again, "Okay."

I turned around and asked anyone that would listen, "where am I?"

Appearing completely put off, the guy directly in front of me slurred, "Caw-laawl." I turned back to the pay phone and told my future Father-In-Law, "The guy told me that I'm in Caw-laawl." I was pretty sure Caw-laawl was a level of Hell. Why didn't I pay more attention to Dante's Inferno in high school?

Sarah's Pop: "What?"

"He said, Caw-laawl."

"Can you ask him again?"

I found out that my macho definitely has limits. I told him that there was no way I was asking again. Thankfully, he had a map of Kentucky handy and perused the neighboring counties for a town that, with the proper Kentucky accent, might sound like "Caw-laawl."

"Carlisle!," he sounded. He went on to tell me exactly how to get from here to over yonder.

It's fitting that Sarah's Dad, now Simeon's Granddad, told me about the trailer debacle story in the Lexington Herald-Leader. After we were done laughing about that one, I got to tell my "Caw-laawl" story again as if neither of us had ever heard it. That's what makes a good personal story, isn't it?

My hope for Ms. Barton is that in the comfort of her new home, she'll be able to one day laugh about the Sheriff who ordered two farmers to tip her single-wide into a ditch and threatened to fine her for the mess he had just made.