PLAYING ON AN OLD SWING are Mia White and Walt and Lewis Clayton on a visit to their grandparents in Woodford County. (Photo by Scott White)
A wonderful Woodford week
By Scott White
Wooodford Sun Staff
Is there anything better than a staycation?
While a good portion of the county was lolling on beaches in Florida, or spending their children’s inheritance at Disney World or camping in the Smoky Mountains, I, along with many other Woodford Countians, stayed put last week.
We cheated a little, since we had our whole gang spend their spring break with us. My daughter brought her two boys (and husband) from St. Louis and my son brought his daughter and wife from Brooklyn for most of the week. And, we may have turned those kids into true Woodford Countians!
Thanks to a gorgeous weather week, we spent most of the time outdoors with the kids, wolfing down breakfast before dashing outside for what felt like the entire day. My wife often had to call them in from playing a variety of games like “Start-Go,” good old tag and any number of imaginative games using pool noodles and balls of all sizes, yet nothing involving a battery or electricity.
It was amazing what a 6-, 4- and 2-year-old could get up to with just their imagination. The television was never on because it was never wanted. Instead, after dinner and bedtimes, we spent the evening, often on the porch, just visiting and talking – with me drinking Ale 8s and everyone else enjoying wine.
One of the few times we resorted to the digital age was when my son-in-law used an app on his iPhone to help us spot Jupiter and arcane constellations in a remarkably dark night sky. It is easy to forget you don’t need to get too far outside of Versailles for the wonders of the night to just open up.
It felt like when I was a kid in the 1960s, spending weeks at my grandparents’ house with all my aunts, uncles and cousins in the tiny central Appalachian town of Grundy, Virginia, 35 miles from Pikeville.
Could it have been over 50 years ago that I was hunting frogs in a mountain creek or spending hours chasing each other through the woods?
To make my personal nostalgia trip I went on last week even more special, my daughter-in-law Joanna Chin, a lifelong New Yorker, gleefully spotted the first lightning bugs . . . in April!
We didn’t spend all of our time just hanging out. I took the grandkids twice to the newly renovated Big Spring Park, where we spent nearly two hours both times. My daughter, Caroline, a public park aficionado, couldn’t stop gushing over how it was maybe the best park she had taken the boys, remarking on how thoughtful the design was—from being fully fenced in, a variety of tactile and sensory pieces and plenty of room for kids to run in and make new friends.
Of course, Woodford County offers so much more. It was the first time my son took Joanna and daughter Mia to Keeneland, a 10-minute drive away. Since it was Lewis’ second birthday, we had delicious cupcakes and two specially made Pisgah Presbyterian Church cookies that Kristen, the owner of Kristen Creations, made for us. The cookies were for Caroline and her husband, Grant, who were married on the front porch of Pisgah Presby in the first months of the pandemic in 2020.
As Summer beckons, I can’t wait to get them all back. They are old enough now for a ride with Rail Explorers, a visit to a horse farm (while Nate and Joanna maybe get to visit the new Elkwood Farm Distillery in Midway), a couple of pool days at Falling Springs, a lunch of bologna and cheese sandwiches topped by an ice cream cone made by Felicia and Dixie at the Cornerstone Pharmacy, Sunday brunch at The Black Squirrel, and, hopefully, we will get a rainy day to hang out at the Woodford County Library’s extraordinary children’s area.
We are blessed to live in a place where we inhabit the milieu of small-town life, with all that lifestyle offers. A place, truly, where kids can still be kids, and grandfathers can remember nearly identical childhood experiences.
Yeah, I love a good staycation, so long as I’m staying in Woodford County.