Rainy Trip to Guthrie

All In The Family... Life in Christian County, Kentucky...

After a night of heavy rain

It pays to have connections, or I should say, "A friend in need is a friend indeed."

A friend from church brought out a comfy old recliner one day this week for Dennis to use. I don't know if it's a loaner or a keeper, but we're grateful for it. It gives Dennis another place where he can stretch out and rest, and he can get up from it without assistance.

Meanwhile, a friend who works at the newspaper called to say she had taken an ad for a recliner. I called the owner, a Mr. Covington, and made arrangements to look at it this morning.

On the drive over to Guthrie, Kentucky, I saw lots of evidence of the heavy rain and wind we received during the night. I guess we're having an equinox storm. I couldn't find any evidence on the weather maps that we're in the fringe area of any tropical depressions or such.

Wind-blown leaves and small branches are scattered across the smaller roadways. Weeds and tall grass along the ditches are still bent from the torrent of water that washed over them in the night. In Elkton, a little stream is completely out of its banks. I drove through occasional showers all the way over to Guthrie.

I found Mr. Covington's house easily, using the directions he gave me: "Go to the pink elephant and...". The pink elephant at the junction of Highways 79 and 41, the Pachyderm of Tinytown, is a well-known landmark in this part of the state.

Mr. Harry Covington is an interesting gentleman. He's about 75 or 80 years old, and he lives in a brick ranch home with a circle drive that he built 40 years ago.

On the wall of his office, he has an old photograph of a horse-drawn milk wagon. When Mr. Covington was a boy. his father and mother and the nine Covington children milked 30 Jersey cows and delivered milk in glass bottles all around Guthrie. Mr. Covington pointed out that Guthrie was a boom-town in those days because two major railways intersected there.

I asked him if he remembered Robert Penn Warren who was born and raised at Guthrie, and Mr. Covington described how the poet used to stroll down the sidewalks in town, wearing long stockings and old-fashioned pants that ended just below his knees.

When this old white-haired gentleman heard that my husband had just come home from Iraq, he told me that he prayed every night for peace on earth, and he had done so ever since he came home from World War II. He said he had been a Marine at Iwo Jima, and he'd never forgotten what he saw there.

On the walls of his office, Mr. Covington has pictures of his children, many newspaper clippings with stories about himself, various awards, and his Kentucky Colonel appointments from two different governors. His business card says that he is the chairman of the Guthrie Industrial Development Commission, Inc.

But back to the recliner. It's a small, sturdy recliner that sits very nicely. Mr. Covington is going to take it over to Clarksville to a shop that steam-cleans upholstery, and I will pick it up there next week.

On the way home, I stopped at the Country Pantry, an Amish bulk food store located between Guthrie and Elkton. Half a dozen automobiles were parked outside, and their "English" owners were in the store. I bought flour, yeast, flaxseed and a pound of Amish sausage.

Some things at the Amish store are amazingly cheap (like spices and yeast), while other things are surprisingly expensive They offer a larger variety of flours than any other store I know of. I always enjoy looking around there, and I'll have another excuse to stop in when I drive over to Clarksville to pick up the recliner.

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Guthrie, KY
Elkton, KY
Harry Covington
rain