Old Time Religion

Let me paint you a picture.

Just outside Isom, KY there is a section of bottom land that follows the Kentucky River for a half mile or so, before dividing in two were it meets a creak flowing in from the west.  Bottom land in a place like Appalachia is valuable and well used, and this one is no different.  It's just wide enough that you would probably blow out your elbow trying to hit the woods on the other side with a baseball.  But big enough to hold the river, a set of train tracks, Holcomb's Custard Stand(yes please!), a half dozen houses, a junk yard and a concrete slab.  That concrete is all that remains of the metal building were I used to work, and a safe, warm, and dry place for long wooden benches that were stored there every year by prisoners after the summer fun.  Oh yeah that bottom land also manages to shoe horn in enough space for the rodeo grounds, a stage, and a couple rows of long lean twos were folks sold crafts and cotton candy during the Isom Days Rodeo.  In the middle of all that there is a white cinder block church and a cemetery. Not unlike many churches in that part of the Bible Belt it has a tin roof and a marque out by the road that invites the passer by to Sunday School at 9:00 a.m.

Had you been looking for me on Good Friday evening in 2007 you would have found me slumped in a pea green padded pew in that very church.  The crowd was thin as it always is at Isom Presbyterian Church.  Maybe it was a little thicker that night it being as it was Good Friday but its hard to say.  At one point my butt got tired which prompted me to slouch forward with my elbows resting on my knees. It was then just as the preacher called for a moment of quiet reflection that one of the older ladies in the row just in front of me leaned in close to the ear of her pew mate and whispered "did you hear that we got a new coach?"

Next weekend baring a major injury or the rapture, the University of Kentucky Wildcats basketball team will win its ninth NCAA basketball championship.  This years team is un-beaten and fully stocked with future NBA stars.  They recently beat West Virginia so badly they blocked more shots(7) then the Mountneers made in the paint(6).  The Saturday night two point win against Notre Dame was a rare nail bitter for UK Nation, but they survived to advance to this years Final Four, their 17th appearance.  Since 1903 UK hoops as been the life blood pumping through the veins of the Bluegrass State. It's rare to meet someone who is not a card carrying member of the church that meets at Rupp Arena in Lexington.  Seemingly every car, house and human in the state is clad in the blue and white of the faithful. Sure occasionally you may see a camo hat adorning the head the of the guy in line ahead of you at Walmart.  But look more closely, its sure to bare the interlocking UK on its face.

Basketball in general in The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a akin to a religion, not unlike football in Alabama. Both states don't have professional teams(allegedly) to water down the zeal of sports fans. The university is the only game in town and it shows. Even three hours from Lexington in our rural mountain county everyone lives and breaths with the 'Cats.  So one night when as every TV and eyeball in Whitesburg was tuned in to see the game something happened that would have broken the internet; assuming that is that we all weren't still on dial up.  At one point during the break in the action the camera panned the crowd of worshipers at Rupp.  And there in the middle of it all sat our very own mayor, a man in his sixties. And beside him his twenty something girlfriend.  The shock wave that rolled through the bottoms and hollers was like a hundred year flood!  Needless to say, if you are going to have an affair make sure not to let it out of the bag at a 'Cats game.

It happens at a lower level as well.  When we lived there my wife worked in the school system during one of the toughest winters Eastern Kentucky had seen in a long time.  At one point schools were closed for something like 20 or more days in a row due to snow. When the hollers and Pine Mountain were finally safe enough for the school buses to run school was canceled because the high school girls team made it to the playoffs.  Priorities, priorities.

I get it.  Life for many in Eastern Kentucky is hard! Many of the systems there including sports are broken.  Living in a place were its seems even the sun has a hard time shinning is rough.  I left there because I could, but I also didn't join the 'Nation.  Maybe if I had I would still be there.  Next weekend I am going to be routing for UK.  Not because I am a fanatic, but because I know what life is like for so many who are in those deep dark hills of Eastern Kentucky.  Trust me, they deserve this!