Bob Thompson - Hitchhiker: Stories from the Kentucky Homefront

Hitchhiker

HITCHHIKER

STORIES FROM THE KENTUCKY HOMEFRONT

BOB THOMPSON

FOREWORD BY

ROBERTA SIMPSON BROWN

Copyright 2017 by The University Press of Kentucky

Scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth,

serving Bellarmine University, Berea College, Centre College of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University, The Filson Historical Society, Georgetown College, Kentucky Historical Society, Kentucky State University, Morehead State University, Murray State University, Northern Kentucky University, Transylvania University, University of Kentucky, University of Louisville, and Western Kentucky University.

All rights reserved.

Editorial and Sales Offices: The University Press of Kentucky

663 South Limestone Street, Lexington, Kentucky 40508-4008

www.kentuckypress.com

Cataloging-in-Publication data available from the Library of Congress

ISBN 978-0-8131-7428-0 (hardcover : alk. paper)

ISBN 978-0-8131-7430-3 (epub)

ISBN 978-0-8131-7429-7 (pdf)

This book is printed on acid-free paper meeting the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence in Paper for Printed Library Materials.

Manufactured in the United States of America.

Member of the Association of American University Presses

Contents

Foreword

Except for the author, I am probably the person most excited about the publication of this book! Bob Thompson and I have been friends and coworkers at the Corn Island Storytelling Festival for many years. During that time, Bob wrote and told story after story at the festival and for the Kentucky Homefront radio show. It became obvious that this was a man who never ran out of stories. He did not have to tell other peoples stories, nor did he have to repeat his own.

He always had time to encourage and support the rest of us storytellers. He introduced me on a program once as The Queen of the Cold-Blooded Tales, a phrase my publisher liked so much that he used it as the title of my second book. Bobs creativity, even in introductions, shows no limit.

Bob has many professional titles of his own: engineer, storyteller, writer, event producer, Kentucky Colonel, self-appointed Commissioner of Kentucky Front Porches, and Resident Front Porch Philosopher on his weekly National Public Radio show.

His stories cover a wide range of subjects, including ghosts, humor, sadness, inspiration, and personal experiences, that paint a vivid picture of his Western Kentucky roots. I wonder if the nearby Ohio and Mississippi Rivers had some magical effect on him as he was growing up. His stories seem to flow endlessly like the rivers themselves.

Many of us Kentuckians can identify with Bobs childhood experiences, which often parallel our own. We remember working in the fields and visits to old country stores, where we listened with great interest to stories of the old folk who came as customers and stayed awhile to visit.

In most homes, after dinner was over and chores were done, family and neighbors gathered to share stories, often about ghosts. These were the times when the dead were remembered, or when they returned to bring a message or merely to say hello. Bob has taken special care to pass these stories on to future generations. Even if the reader doesnt believe in ghosts, these encounters will endure in the mind. Images are embedded in my memory of Bob hanging tobacco, helping with crop planting, and realizing that his long-dead grandfather was still watching over him. Bob makes his front porch ghosts as real as an ordinary visit from a friend.

Bob never writes ghost stories to shock or scare readers. His style is to tell the story in a matter-of-fact, believable manner. Using carefully chosen details, he pulls readers into the experience, allowing them to feel what the characters are feeling and then come to their own conclusions about what has happened. These stories can certainly send shivers surging through the body, but they can also touch the heart and open the mind to the presence of the supernatural. He doesnt tell you what to think or attempt to convince you to become a believer in ghosts if you dont believe already. His presentation makes his stories suitable for family reading and for people of all ages.

I began telling Bob he should write a book after hearing other people tell him the same thing, but he kept putting it off. I increased my urging after my husband Lonnie and I were repeatedly asked at our book signings if we had any stories about Western Kentucky. We had only a few that we had heard from relatives or neighbors, but I kept thinking about Bobs wealth of stories not yet in book form. What a shame it would be if those stories went unprinted and were lost to us forever!

I cranked my urging up to the level of nagging. I knew there was a market waiting for his Western Kentucky stories, but I also knew these same stories had universal appeal and power. These were stories for everybody.

Maybe he got tired of hearing nagging from me and others, or maybe the time was just right, but Bob finally decided to send a manuscript to the acquisitions editors at the University Press of Kentucky. At last, the right author met the right publisher, and Hitchhiker: Stories from the Kentucky Homefront became a reality. After all these years, the book I had hoped for is now in print.

What happens next? Hitchhiker offers something for everyone. It can be read for fun and excitement or used to study the way these stories reflect our culture and history. Readers will become a part of Kentuckys storytelling community and traditional heritage. This book is likely to make its way into folklore archives and give future readers a clear picture of some of our most treasured traditions.

This is a book that readers should buy, enjoy, and keep on a shelf for future use. Be sure to leave room for more books to come. Bob Thompson is not a one-book author and he is not limited to writing ghost stories. I expect there will soon be more delightful books by Bob on many aspects of life. We readers will be better for reading them. I know I am ready and waiting.

Roberta Simpson Brown
Author / Storyteller

Introduction

Our lives, all of them, are alluvial landscapes, shaped by the streams of energy flowing around and through us, eroding and replenishing.

This book is a fictional memoir, arranged in roughly chronological order, of the authors passage through time, which began in this iteration at Riverside Hospital in Paducah, Kentucky, on the banks of the Ohio, in the midst of currents flowing since before light and breath.

The perspective of this book is that our seemingly time-linear lives flow mostly on one side of a fragile, sometimes transparent veil, separating us from other dimensions, realities, and entities, all part of the same flow. These stories are meant as my witness to the conversations, artifacts, and energies flowing through that veil. From any single-dimensional perspective, these stories might seem beyond reality, and from that viewpoint, of course they are.

The first six stories of this book, and the last, are centered at my familys country grocery store, in the small rural community of Ragland, at the western edge of McCracken County, a mile from the Ballard County line, in the Ohio River floodplain of Kentuckys Jackson Purchase Region. They retrace my early wanderings along its roads, rivers, and lakes, often unconscious of the deep and rich spirit world that abounds there. All the stories and their characters have real connections to locations, artifacts, and familythe currents, objects, and personalities that flowed through my youth.