A Life of Words

Day 4, New Year’s Eve, of my five-day post-Christmas solo journey began in Chillicothe, Ohio, which it turns out is bigger than I realized – population about 22,000.

I had spent the night with my sturdy 92-year-old cousin Gene Bowen and his dear 91-year-old wife Jo at their beautiful home on a hill on State Route 104 north of town. I’d arrived later the previous evening than planned after visiting some folks in Ironton, Ohio. That’s just across and down the Ohio River from Huntington, West Virginia, and is where my birth mother Betty and my three older siblings lived in a small apartment for several months in 1960 while single, 39-year-old Betty supported them by singing with a dance band at the historic Marting Hotel – and carried me inside her.

After waking at 5:45 a.m. and showering, I went in the kitchen to find Gene up and waiting for me. Jo, who’d asked the night before if I’d like her to make breakfast for me (I insisted she not), had left out a place setting with a loaf of bread, peanut butter and orange marmalade after I told her that most mornings, my breakfast consists of a PB&J sandwich. The Bowens’ hospitality touched my heart.

A bit of family backstory: Gene’s mother, Lolita Workman Bowen, was my paternal great-aunt, the youngest of seven children of my great-grandparents William and Virginia Belle “Jennie” Workman. Lolita’s older brother Orval was my grandfather, father of my birth father – whose name at birth was also Orval, although he wasn’t a junior. At some point in his childhood, my biological father changed his name to Robert/Bob, although we aren’t sure why. I’m guessing he didn’t like the name, and we know there was another relative named Robert/Bob whom he looked up to who was a musician/drunk/womanizer. My father ended up being two of those that we know of.

My great-grandmother Jennie Belle died tragically in December 1935 at home in Huntington when she was ironing clothes in front of an open gas stove and her dress caught fire. Her husband had died that May. Cousin Gene’s family had already suffered tragedy when he was just 18 months old in May 1933, when his father, Grover Cleveland Bowen, who fought in World War I, died of pneumonia at 38.

Gene, whose given name is Grover Eugene, is the youngest of Grover and Lolita’s six children. Even though he and my father Bob were first cousins, Gene says he’d never even heard of him before I found Gene 12 years ago. Bob was born in 1916, so he was 15 years older than Gene, but I still can’t figure out how they never knew each other, even though Gene knew several of his other Workman first cousins – including another named Bob who I also found a few years back but who’s since died.

I’ll write more about my visit with Gene and Jo in my Day 3 post. But after visiting briefly with Gene while I ate my PB&J, it was on to my next stop: Jeffersonville, Indiana. I left at 6:45 a.m. and drove three and a half hours to First Christian Church of Jeffersonville, arriving at 10:15, just in time for the 10:30 service.

Why had I woken up so early to hightail it down Interstate 71 through Cincinnati to Louisville, Kentucky and across the Ohio River to the neighboring suburb of Jeffersonville? Because Jeremy Skaggs, the former pastor of my church, The Welcome Table Christian Church, had moved away to lead that Indiana congregation last summer after eight memorable years in Arlington, and I decided I’d love to see him again, check out his new church and listen to him preach in person rather than by livestream.

For starters, I’d already planned to make my way to Indiana to visit my wonderful friend Loretta Wolske and her family in Columbus, which isn’t far north of Jeffersonville, so I figured I could head there after church and spend the night with her family. Loretta and I were sports writers at The Odessa American in West Texas, my first newspaper job after I graduated from Texas A&M in 1983, and I hadn’t seen her, husband Paul or son Joshua (now 33) since they left the Dallas area over 20 years ago.

Sadly, though, I didn’t get to see the Wolskes on this trip after all. Last Thursday morning as my flight landed in Columbus, Ohio, I opened a text from Loretta saying Paul had gotten very sick overnight. He showed all the signs of COVID-19, and it wasn’t long before she messaged that he did indeed have it. So we canceled my visit, and it was for the best, because two days later, Loretta texted that she also had COVID.

But since I’d already planned to visit Jeremy and the church, I sure wasn’t going to bypass Indiana. Plus, I really wanted to visit my maternal cousin Jeanne in Muncie and hoped to visit another friend I’d never met in Lafayette, Indiana (that ended up not happening either).

I loved seeing Jeremy’s awesome new church, his wife Laurie and Hayden and Libby, the two youngest of their four children who were home from college. Hayden, a junior at Eureka College in Illinois, is a miracle survivor of a horrific car accident in May. After months of recovery, therapy, rehab and using a wheelchair, he advanced to a walker after the fall semester began, then a cane in October and was walking Sunday as if nothing had ever happened. Hayden is an inspiration in the most sweeping sense of the word.

After church, Laurie invited me to lunch with the four of them and we ate at Taziki’s Mediterranean Café, which I’d never heard of. It was delicious. I didn’t think we had any in Texas, but now I see there are two and they’re in the D-FW area!

As we were leaving the restaurant and I told Jeremy and Laurie that COVID had ruined my plans to visit the Wolskes and I hadn’t figured out what to do with rest of my day (I was even considering driving to Muncie to visit Jeanne a day early and cutting my trip a day short), he brought up the Louisville Slugger Museum and Factory and said it was open on Sunday. Jeremy knows what a huge baseball fan I am, so I immediately thought, “OK, I’m doing this.” I checked what time it closed and it was 4 p.m., so I figured I could get there in time to make it worthwhile.

I didn’t arrive until about 2:30, but I still had plenty of time for the tour of the bat-making factory, to see the displays and visit the gift store (and spend some money). The only thing I didn’t do that I seriously considered (even with my bad back, shoulders and 62-year-old body) was take a few swings in the batting cage. 😊

It was stunning to learn that Hillerich & Bradsby, the company that makes Louisville Slugger bats, has been around since 1856 and learn – and actually see – how the whole process unfolds from forest to finished product. To learn that the factory churns out 4,000 bats a day was mind-blowing. I saw the wall of the 8,000 players who’ve signed contracts to have their signatures on Louisville Slugger bats, and of course I mostly looked for big names and those of my lifelong team, the Houston Astros. I was thrilled to easily find Astros Hall of Famers Craig Biggio and Jeff Bagwell.

As I was leaving the museum, I saw a display of the 2023 final regular-season MLB standings. I couldn’t help noticing that the American League West showed the Texas Rangers first and the Astros second, zero games behind, indicating a tie – which is accurate. But the Astros won the division on a tiebreaker after having won the season series between the teams 9-4, so they should’ve been ahead of the Rangers on the board.

I told a guy who worked there but didn’t look important enough for me to be bothering – and he gave me a half-smile, half-“are you kidding me” look and said that wasn’t his job. In one stop on the factory tour, there’s a display of the standings featuring miniature bats for each team – and at least there, the Astros are listed ahead of the Rangers!

That night, since it was New Year’s Eve and I was in need of a full night’s sleep after several days of driving, visiting folks and attending Dr. Gilbert Ratcliff’s funeral back in Huntington, what I wanted to do was find a hotel downtown, have a nice dinner somewhere and go to bed relatively early. Luckily, the first hotel I found, a combo Fairfield/SpringHill Suites, had rooms available.

After checking in and calling my wife Kay, I scoured my phone for downtown restaurants but couldn’t find much that seemed appetizing. So I went out walking around after dark to see what I could find. All I stumbled across in the cold were bars, and I wanted an actual restaurant. I finally ran into one I’d seen online, The Old Spaghetti Factory, which was in a cool building that looked to be about 100 years old. Although it felt a bit depressing and I wanted Kay to be with me so badly, I had a nice meal of chicken Marsala.

And as I looked for a drink to order, I knew when I spotted a Falls City pale ale on the menu, it was the one I had to have. That’s because my birth father Bob Workman, who was an alcoholic and whose affinity for booze can be blamed for his death by drowning in Tampa in July 1962, liked to drink Falls City beer, from what my oldest brother Crys has shared with me about the enigma he grew up with.

I’d never had Falls City beer. So in memory of the father I never laid eyes on, the man who met such a sad end at age 45 – homeless when he fell drunkenly into the Hillsborough River during a scuffle with another wasted vagrant who was almost 30 years older – I knew that was the drink meant for me on this New Year’s Eve. And it tasted really, really good.

Happy heavenly new year, Bob. ❤

Next up: Day 3