Endpiece

My Old Kentucky Home, Revisted
by John Ponsoll '99

I used to hate Kentucky. Moreover, I hated that I was from Kentucky.

So, not surprisingly, I re-evaluated this position only after leaving. Had I recalled my classes in Southern literature, I would have remembered that the South is peppered with expatriates who spent time elsewhere before fully appreciating their native land.

My revelation occurred in a most exotic locale. I found myself in the line at the New Jersey Department of Motor Vehicles when the sensation overwhelmed me. All DMVs are essentially the same, but the coup de grâce came as I fingered my New Jersey driver’s license and officially relinquished my Kentucky residency. New Jersey—miles away from Kentucky, both in cultural iconography and in actual distance—was now my home. Perhaps this divergence highlighted the nuances unseen or unappreciated when living in Kentucky.

Growing up, I exuded a Compsonesque disdain. I couldn’t wait to get out of Danville and out of Kentucky. So, when the time came for college, naturally I went to Centre. All the while, however,I plotted for my impending departure into the seductive and glamorous world out there. My home was tarnished by the promise of a better place. I wasn’t sure then what this “better place” was supposed to be, but I was pretty sure it wasn’t The Garden State.

When someone from Jersey discovers that I’m an outsider, there usually follows an austere pause, as if the listener isn’t quite sure of the reality of my confession. Then, invariable questions are raised:

“Do you drink Jack Daniels?”

“Have you ever been to the Kentucky Derby?”

Initially, my answers were boring. “No,” I would answer to the former (I have only recently begun to acquire the acumen for Northeastern rudeness permitting me to point out that Jack Daniels is whiskey and, for that matter, from Tennessee), and “Yes, this past May,” to the latter.

Most frequently, however, I’m asked: “Is the grass really blue?”

Coyly, I answer: “It depends.”

You must understand, for people who recognize four geographic areas in the United States—New York Metro, Florida, the West Coast, and a vast expanse in between known simply as “The Midwest”—this is a surprisingly large body of knowledge. Quickly, though, approbation becomes admonishment as they continue. I learned that the rural, coal-mining, eastern portion of Pennsylvania is referred to derogatively as “Pennsyl-tucky.” One person thought Kentucky was near Texas, while more often than not, it is clumped with the square states.

Perhaps initially triggered by a defensive posture, I tried to amend such thinking. And then the inevitable occurred. As I pressed others to place a value on Kentucky, I placed a greater value on it myself.

And the strains of country music and the spirits of the South soon lured me. Like Odysseus and the Sirens, I could not help but bend my ear and muse on my old Kentucky home. Proustian flashes of my childhood filled my thoughts. I found Kentucky amidst mundane occurrences and the slightest allusions.

I eventually grasped that the “better place” for which I yearned was not entirely geographic. It also took an emotional maturity to accept Kentucky’s realities. I now recognize that the grass is only truly blue when you have the sublime vision to see its blueness. Otherwise, it is just grass. Simply put: It depends on your state of mind.

Kentucky, I now understand, is the kind of place that the Reverend Lewis Craig likened Heaven to, and Faulkner in The Sound and the Fury noted for the character of its people. God, Faulkner wrote, was a gentleman and a sport, “but he must also be a Kentuckian too.” It’s not simply the rolling knobs and horse farms, but its subtle features that make Kentucky a very un commonwealth.

The axiom perhaps is true. In absence, my heart has grown fonder. Yet, somehow I think it more profound than that trite proverb. Looking back years later on Tintern Abbey, Wordsworth eulogized pastoral Britain and drew larger, universal conclusions. His intimations focused his understanding of place in the world. So, too, have mine.

I may not live in Kentucky any longer, but the Bluegrass State will always be my home. I have observed from afar its transformation into an idyllic place where God-like creatures dwell . . .

. . . And the grass is most definitely blue.

John Ponsoll ’99 lives in Morristown, N.J., where he directs the business development office of Symbiotix Inc., a Danville-based pharmaceutical and medical marketing and communications firm.

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