A Long Drive Home
by Charles E. Bolton ’68

A chilly Sunday morning, early spring, promises to be kept: a month after my mother’s death, I was to take my father to Pulaski County, to visit her grave, spend a night in their house in Somerset.

My companion and I were car-mad in those days, and over breakfast Dad suggested we take the Porsche, not the most comfortable alternative available for a three-hour drive. Dad had become addicted to the Porsche when he and Mother had first come up from Florida the previous October, for a month-long “try it on for size” stay, to see if they could stomach being constantly in our company. They could, and shortly after Christmas had come back for the duration. The duration would prove to be short. Mother was dead in weeks.

When I brought the car to the door, Dad was waiting, kitted out in the tweed jacket, pigskin cap, and cashmere scarf (Old Stewart tartan, to which he was entitled), that Rob and I had purchased in England for his Christmas. He’d grabbed a gold-headed cane from the batch we keep by the elevator door, and he looked remarkably like the Duke of Beaufort, whom we sometimes ran into at our local pub, in England.

As we pulled away, Dad allowed as how he thought it would be fun to take the old road (US 27). I obeyed speed limits through Cold Spring, then opened it up. Somewhere near Cynthiana, we encountered a state policeman, who flicked on his bubble light, then flicked it off again. Dad cackled. “Guess he thought twice about that,” he said.

Periodically, Dad would nudge me and ask me to slow down, so he could “take a look at something,” and twice he directed me down country lanes, for reasons he didn’t divulge. It dawned on me that he was saying goodbye to places that meant something to him. What they had meant, I didn’t know, but I blessed him for letting me be a part of the journey.

In Lancaster, another nudge and a nod toward the Danville road, and in Danville, a suggestion that we stretch our legs. We sat on the steps of Old Centre, not saying much (Dad never said much). Down the long slope, the few students about would cluster, part, pass Cowan aimlessly or at a purposeful lope—choreography by Twyla Tharp.

Dad had only a couple of years of one-room school education. By 12, he was working on coal barges on the Cumberland River, his father allowing him one-tenth of his meager earnings. Mother boarded in Somerset to go to high school, but the money ran out before she could graduate. They married young, within months of the ’29 crash, had six children in 12 years, and five years later a last child, me. Their early married life was Harlan County mining camps, company stores, hard scrabble. It got better, in time, but not much.

They were intelligent, ambitious people, driven to provide for their children the opportunities they had missed. Driven, they drove us. All of us could read by the time we were three, and our homes, however modest, were full of books and conversation about those books, full of music and puzzles and fierce competition. It was not merely expected that we would do well; it was required.

My eldest sister entered Lincoln Memorial University the year I was born, the first child on either side of the family to go to college. She would go on to graduate work at Tennessee and Duke and a distinguished academic career, setting the bar. My siblings followed, amassing a slew of degrees and honors.

Then it was my turn, and Dad pushed for Centre. I wasn’t keen on the idea—being in flat-out rebellion against my parents and Appalachian Kentucky and life in general—and had a notion of going far, far away, eager to reinvent myself: I was barely 16. I applied to Amherst and Bowdoin, Stanford and Claremont, and, as back-up, Centre. Then the scholarship offers came, and my decision was made for me.

Dad patted my thigh. “When I was seventeen, trying to save enough money to marry, I had a job with old Mr. Glore, here in Danville. I used to deliver coal to some of the college buildings, the fraternities. The way those guys talked, the things they knew, the clothes they wore.” He nodded ruefully. “They were always nice to me, friendly, but it was like they came from a different planet. I thought what a fine thing it would be to have a Centre education, what a difference it would make in life.”

He patted me again. “I was right,” he said. We made our way back to the Porsche at a stately pace, finding a knot of undergraduates had gathered to admire it. “Pretty darn nice, isn’t it,” Dad said. “It belongs to my boy, here. He’s a Centre grad.”

My father died exactly three weeks later. Losing him, I lost a friend it had taken four decades to find. I am finishing this piece on what would have been his 90th birthday, my way of saying thanks to him. And to Centre.

Charles E. Bolton ’68 is president of Federation Antiques Inc., in Cincinnati. In their spare time, he and his companion are restoring a 15th-century house in Guiting Power, England.


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