Calling Bowling Green Home

There is something about the word home. For some people, home is the place where they were born. For others, it is where they grew up, where their parents still live, or where they spent their childhood summers. And then there are those of us who discover home somewhere along the way. For me, that place is Bowling Green, Kentucky. I came here nearly 40 years ago with my late wife, Patty, who was from Russellville. I was a young man who had grown up in Memphis, Tennessee, spent some of my formative years in Mississippi, and attended the University of Mississippi in Oxford. For a long time, I thought I would always miss those places. I missed Memphis. I missed Oxford. I missed Ole Miss—the people, the memories, the Southern atmosphere and the places that had shaped me. I still love those places, and I always will. But somewhere along the way, Bowling Green stopped being the place I had moved to and became the place I belonged. It became home.

After nearly four decades, I don't feel like I'm living somewhere temporarily. This is where my life happened. This is where I worked, made friends, built a marriage and a life with Patty, and watched a community grow and change. This is where I learned that home isn't necessarily where you started. Sometimes it's where you stayed. One of the things I've noticed over the years—particularly through my work at Walmart—is how many people I encounter who are new to Bowling Green. Some are visiting, some are passing through, and some have just moved here. I've talked with people from all over the country: California, Washington, New York, the Midwest and the Northeast. People who have lived in big cities and expensive metropolitan areas are sometimes looking for something different. Many tell me they like Bowling Green. They like the pace, the people and having room to breathe. Compared with some of the country's most expensive communities, they often find that their money goes farther here. That's not to say Bowling Green doesn't have its challenges. Every city does. But there is something appealing about a community that can still feel like a city without losing the character of a town. And perhaps even more remarkable is the fact that Bowling Green has become home to people who have traveled much farther than California or New York. Immigrants and refugees have arrived from countries and communities affected by war and political instability, carrying their languages, traditions, memories and stories with them. They came looking for safety, opportunity and a chance to build another chapter of their lives. They found a home here, too. That's one of the things I love about Bowling Green: home doesn't have to look the same for everybody. Working as a front-end cashier gives you an unusual perspective on a community. You see people—lots of people. You see those who have lived here all their lives. You see families who have just moved into town. You see travelers stopping for a few days. You see people buying groceries for their first apartment and people shopping for the home they've lived in for 50 years. And occasionally, you have a conversation that stays with you. Just yesterday, I met a couple from Seattle, Washington. The gentleman told me he was a trial attorney and was in Kentucky working on a case. We happened to get into a conversation about plastic bags and the amount of plastic such as water and soda bottles that eventually makes its way into the world's oceans. He jokingly asked me why someone from Kentucky would care about that. I told him I'm a journalist and a writer. I studied journalism at Ole Miss, worked for newspapers, and spent years observing people and communities and trying to understand the world around me. That's what writers do. We notice things. We ask questions. We look beyond our own front porch. Being from Kentucky doesn't mean you only care about Kentucky. The oceans belong to all of us. The environment belongs to all of us. The problems facing humanity don't stop at the state line. I've watched documentaries about the enormous amount of plastic entering the oceans—plastic bottles, containers, packaging, bags and countless other pieces of plastic. There are even technologies being developed to collect plastic from the ocean. It's a reminder that something as ordinary as a plastic bag can eventually become part of a much larger story. That's the way I tend to look at life. I observe. I think. I write. And I try to understand. Maybe that's why I understand the people who move to Bowling Green. Because I remember being the newcomer. I remember coming here nearly 40 years ago and having to build a life in a place that wasn't the place where I grew up. Eventually, the unfamiliar became familiar. The streets became recognizable. The faces became friends. The community became mine. And the city I once thought of as somewhere I had moved to became the city I couldn't imagine leaving. That's what happens sometimes. You don't necessarily choose home all at once. Home chooses you slowly. It happens through ordinary days, through jobs and friendships, through marriage and family, through loss and heartbreak, through the places where you celebrate and the places where you grieve. It happens through the grocery-store conversations, the people you see at church, the familiar streets, the restaurants you return to and the people who recognize you when you walk through the door. Eventually, you realize something: I'm home. Bowling Green isn't perfect. No place is. But perhaps perfection isn't what we're really looking for. Maybe we're looking for a place where we can build something—a place where a young couple can begin a life, where someone from California can find a community that feels more affordable and manageable, where someone from Seattle can pass through and have an unexpected conversation with a Kentucky cashier about the oceans, and where an immigrant or refugee fleeing a war-torn country can begin again. And maybe it's a place where somebody born in Memphis can arrive at 24 years old and, nearly 40 years later, realize that he doesn't miss home anymore—because he found another one. I still love Memphis. I still love Mississippi. And Ole Miss will always have a special room in my heart. I keep up with the Rebels, still follow the university, and still have friends and memories there. You never have to abandon where you came from to appreciate where you are. But today, when somebody asks me where home is, I don't have to think very long. I live in Bowling Green, Kentucky. I've lived here for almost 40 years. And after all those years, I can finally say it without hesitation: Bowling Green isn't just where I live. It's home.

The Weekend I Went Home: From Sigma Pi to the LSU-Ole Miss Grudge Match

In the fall of 1983, I made a decision that seemed insignificant at the time: I left Oxford just as a fraternity weekend was about to explode. Forty-three years later, with LSU coming to town and former Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin on the opposite sideline, I find myself if I lived in Oxford, Miss., now, I would make the same choice again. There are some weekends when you know you ought to be somewhere else. For me, the first came when I was a 21-year-old sophomore at the University of Mississippi, living in the old Sigma Pi house on Fraternity Row. Word had spread that another Sigma Pi chapter from Arkansas was planning a pledge walkout, with somewhere between 20 and 30 pledges expected in Oxford. Some college guys would have heard that and thought, This is going to be one hell of a weekend. I thought, I think I'll go home.

So I headed back to Hernando and my dad's lake house in Eudora, Mississippi, looking for peace and quiet. I wasn't interested in the partying or whatever fraternity circus was about to descend on Oxford. Apparently, I missed quite a weekend. When I returned Sunday night, I heard that the Arkansas chapter had packed a couple dozen pledges into the back of a U-Haul truck and headed for Oxford. Even now, I can't imagine that trip: 20-some people crowded into a dark, hot truck with little ventilation, no cell phones and no easy way to communicate with the drivers. I'm somewhat claustrophobic, and that would not have been my idea of a good time. But this was 1983. There were no smartphones, GPS devices or instant calls. You were simply along for the ride. Once the pledges arrived, the party was on. The two chapters joined forces, and Oxford became their playground. There were scavenger hunts, drinking, running around campus and, depending on whose story you believed, somewhere between 10 and 20 kegs consumed over the weekend. When I came back, I saw the evidence: Empty beer kegs were stacked behind the fraternity house. One of our brothers was a Stroh's beer representative and had gotten us old beer lights and neon signs for the fraternity-house windows. I had one myself, and I wish I still did. Those pieces of college memorabilia become more valuable with time—not because they're worth money, but because they carry memories. That beer light would take me right back to Fraternity Row, the old Sigma Pi house and the weekend I decided to go home. Forty-three years later. Now it's 2026. I'm 64, living in Bowling Green, Kentucky, and Ole Miss is preparing to play LSU in Oxford. This time, the commotion isn't coming from a fraternity house. It's coming from the football stadium, on campus and a small deep south college town of 28,000 citizens. Lane Kiffin left Ole Miss for LSU at the end of the previous season, just as Ole Miss was entering the College Football Playoff picture. He took a lucrative opportunity in Baton Rouge, and Ole Miss fans have had plenty to say about how he left. Some understand the decision. Others don't. For many, the wound is still fresh. I understand that feeling. Lane Kiffin was the coach of my alma mater, and he left at the most emotionally charged point imaginable. So when LSU comes into Oxford with Kiffin on the other sideline, it's easy to understand why the atmosphere will be intense. But I won't be there. I'll be in my comfortable living room in Bowling Green, with Mr. Jude nearby, a television, some popcorn and my memories. I'll have a front-row seat to the madness without being anywhere near it. Because I've learned something since 1983: Sometimes the smartest seat in the stadium is the one in your living room. I remember what it felt like. That is what connects this game to the old fraternity weekend. In 1983, I wasn't making a statement or afraid of anybody. I simply knew I didn't want to spend the weekend in a fraternity party that was likely to get out of hand. So I went home and returned to the stories: the kegs, scavenger hunts, trouble with campus police and everything else that happened while I was gone. I got the best part: The memories without the hangover. More than four decades later, I'm doing essentially the same thing. The difference is that I'm no longer a sophomore escaping a fraternity party. I'm a 64-year-old Ole Miss alumnus in Bowling Green, watching thousands of football fans descend on Oxford for one of the most emotionally charged games Ole Miss has played in years. I hope nobody gets hurt. I hope the rivalry stays a rivalry and doesn't turn ugly. I hope people remember it's a football game—and that nobody throws a bottle or anything else into a crowd. At my age, I have no desire to be the innocent person standing in the wrong place at the wrong time. I'll take my recliner, my television, Mr. Jude at my feet and my memories of Oxford—especially that Sunday night in 1983, when I walked into the Sigma Pi house and saw all those empty kegs stacked behind the building. I wasn't there when the party happened, but somehow I can still see it. Maybe that's what getting older does. You realize that the places you once thought you'd never leave become the places you remember most. Ole Miss was one of those places for me. So were Oxford and Fraternity Row. I went to Ole Miss as a young man and left with a journalism degree, lifelong memories, friendships and stories. Every once in a while, decades later, something takes me right back. So when the crowd roars this weekend, I'll raise a glass from Kentucky—to the young man I was, the university that shaped him and the places that taught me home is wherever memory, gratitude and love meet. Hotty Toddy. See less