The Mountain Eagle
WHITESBURG WEATHER

Reunions fun even for non-family

Points East



Woww! What an amazingly fantastic and overwhelming weekend Loretta and I just had!

Invited to two different family reunions, neither of which we can claim even distant kinship to a soul, we decided to go to both and we are now fattened for the winter.

And there is no way I can write about both of them in one column so I flipped a coin and decided that the Browns, here in Paint Lick, go first because I need to call up new friends Ricky and Virgina Bullock and Totsie and all the people who were in Hysinger Holler there in Rockcastle County last Saturday to get that story straight.

So bear with me, Totsie and Virgina. I will be in touch with you this week and we will have the news from Hysinger Holler a week from now.

In the meantime, according to Stephanie Brown Newton, “Betty and her boyfriend had a big fight and Betty’s gonna be bad tonight!” Rock and roll!!!

People in their 80s were twisting in their chairs and the rest of us were dying to dance but only one little fellow about four years old actually had the nerve to show his stuff and we got our emotions out just watching him.

Then, slow it down a bit —

“Grandpa — take me back to yesterday, tell me ’bout the good ole days, when the line between right and wrong didn’t seem so hazy”— in which case I closed my eyes and Stephanie put more feeling and vocal quality into the song than the Judds ever thought about and I was nearly brought to my knees.

Our family has known Joe and Connie Brown ever since we moved to Paint Lick. Our kids have gone to school together and we have joined forces on numerous school and civic functions but we have never really socialized.

Joe has been the banker of Paint Lick for at least the last 25 years until his recent retirement and Connie has taught our children and even taught alongside our daughter, Jennifer, who was once her student .

And somewhere along the line, when she was young I must have heard Joe and Connie’s daughter, Stephanie, sing at school or in church but nothing really comes to mind. I’m convinced now that it’s only because I have never been a good listener but that I’m getting better in my old age when my hearing is rapidly going out of whack and I’m meant only to hear stuff worth the listening.

Because Stephanie Brown Newton’s concert at the Layfayette Brown Reunion of Family and Friends last Sunday absolutely bowled me over. With a put-together at the last moment band consisting of a couple of local musicians and some guys from out of town she’d talked into coming to Paint Lick, Stephanie sounded like the best of Nashville. I’m not at all surprised that pro musicians follow Stephanie around, nor would you be if you ever have the opportunity to be in an audience. She will knock you down!

The Browns have worked since last winter to restore the massive old farmhouse next door to us and Joe and Kevin along with friends and family have spent the last eight months or so returning the house and the hundred or so acres back to the glory it might once have enjoyed. Joe asked us to look around and proclaimed that he doubted it had ever looked this good. I suspect that he is right. Pristine is the adjective I would have used on Sunday. No place in Kentucky was as beautiful or justifiably proud last Sunday as was my next door neighbors’.

Charlie Brown was the last of the family to live there, hence the name of our road and the pride we take in having known and associated with Mr. Charlie Brown.

The old house is easily better that it ever was in the best of its heyday — did I say pristine before? Our Kevin and his dad, our Joe, have spent countless hours and enlisted a who’s who of local and central Kentucky historians, design consultants, cabinetmakers, historic consultants, restoration experts and a vast array of specialty suppliers to make the old house most likely as proud as it’s ever been.

I know for sure that I am proud to be next door but I’m gonna have to find some way to finance the fixing up of my rock wall so that it sort of matches the job the Browns’ have done on theirs. It would be oh so pretty if they looked liked they adjoined.

Can somebody suggest some lottery numbers?

Email me: ikeadams@aol.com.


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