A post to honor a special person, Jeanne Penn Lane of Gravel Switch, Kentucky.

Last year I was invited by a friend to ride out to Penn’s Store in Gravel Switch, Kentucky, to meet with Jeanne Penn Lane, owner and operator of what is possibly the oldest, still operational country store in the U.S. A family of Labradors met me as I stepped up on the same planks that the talented Chet Atkins had once stepped upon as if he were visiting a cousin. Inside, dry goods lined shelves, t-shirts hung on the walls, an old cooler full of ‘cold drinks’ sat near the door and Jeanne Penn Lane came from behind the tall wooden counter to greet me as if I were somebody special.

That’s just Jeanne’s way. She makes everybody feel special. She has stood on the stage with greats in country music and bluegrass. She has hugged renowned artists, poets and novelists. Still, Jeanne has a humility and grace that baffles the mind and makes you love her right off the bat. And, I suppose it’s the thing that causes me to feel indebted to Jeanne, she believes in Kentucky’s artists, writers and musicians. She believes in us so much that each year she hosts a marvelous event called Kentucky Writer’s Day where we all take turns sharing the poems we’ve written, singing the songs we’ve composed or reading from that novel we’re working on. I have met some of the most wonderful people at Kentucky Writer’s Day, people who remain my friends via facebook and email, all through the year and not just in April when the annual event is held, kind people, good people, like Sarah Elizabeth Burkey, whose music is more haunting that mist filled knobs surrounding Penn Store. I could mention so many fabulous songwriters who attend, like Dawn Osborne. Her voice is powerful and amazing.

And then there are notables and greats such as Ed McClanahan and Dr. H.R. Stoneback who always hails from New York with the Elizabeth Maddox Roberts Society of Poets.
Last year, May 2010, Penn Store suffered severe damage from a flood. We all despaired that the end of Penn Store and Kentucky Writer’s Day might be at hand, but Dr. Stoneback and his society of poets joined forces with writers from around the country and around the world. They compiled a book of poetry about Penn’s Store. All proceeds from this book go to the restoration of Penn’s Store.

If you ever happen to be passing through Danville, Kentucky or Lebanon or Liberty, stop and ask someone how to get to Old Penn Store in Gravel Switch. And while you’re there, drop a few coins in the jar to support Jeanne’s ongoing efforts to give creative Kentuckians a platform to share their works and their hearts. And if you happen to be passing through in April, maybe you’ll just join us, sit on the porch and pick a tune with us, or maybe read that poem you’ve been hiding for the past ten years.

I heard this song performed this weekend and I was so touched by it. I know it’s been around awhile, but it’s message is still as clear today as ever. This earth is our RESPONSIBILITY and has been since the first time Adam stuck his big toe in the mud:)

To Listen, click the title 🙂

PARADISE by John Prine
C F C
When I was a child my family would travel
C G C
Down to Western Kentucky where my parents were born
C F C
And there’s a backwards old town that’s often remembered
C G C
So many times that my memories are worn.

C F C
And daddy won’t you take me back to Muhlenberg County
C G C
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay
C F C
Well, I’m sorry my son, but you’re too late in asking
C G C
Mister Peabody’s coal train has hauled it away

Well sometimes we’d travel right down the Green River
To the abandoned old prison down by Adrie Hill
Where the air smelled like snakes and we’d shoot with our pistols
But empty pop bottles was all we would kill.

And daddy won’t you take me back to Muhlenberg County
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay
Well, I’m sorry my son, but you’re too late in asking
Mister Peabody’s coal train has hauled it away

Then the coal company came with the world’s largest shovel
And they tortured the timber and stripped all the land
Well, they dug for their coal till the land was forsaken
Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man.

And daddy won’t you take me back to Muhlenberg County
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay
Well, I’m sorry my son, but you’re too late in asking
Mister Peabody’s coal train has hauled it away

When I die let my ashes float down the Green River
Let my soul roll on up to the Rochester dam
I’ll be halfway to Heaven with Paradise waiting
Just five miles away from wherever I am.

And daddy won’t you take me back to Muhlenberg County
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay
Well, I’m sorry my son, but you’re too late in asking
Mister Peabody’s coal train has hauled it away

Just one more, in honor of my dad. He could play this like nobody else. It was his favorite “non-gospel” song, reserved for family get-togethers and other kinds of shindigs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENS4nD0vRKI&feature=related

For Daddy:

For over a year my daddy has battled lung cancer and liver cancer. He has been brave and forgiving and kind throughout the whole ordeal. Thursday morning he departed from this world. I had the blessing of being with him during his final moments, as did my brothers and sisters. I have so many thing I want to say about him, that I want the world to know. So, I post this in honor of my dad and I hope that everyone who reads will identify and remember someone who loved you and made a difference in your life.

Quotes from my dad.

“It don’t matter if you got money or things. What matters is that you got family and that you stick together. That you love each other. Without love, the rest is a big fat zero.”
— William Henry Franklin

“I’m gonna tell you something. People say a lot of things. It don’t matter what people say. It just matters what God says.”
—William Henry Franklin

A Verse He Loved:

1 John 5:13 (King James Version)
13These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.
My dad and I read and discussed this Bible verses many times over the past year. It was probably his favorite verse, proving that his favorite story, that of the Prodigal Son, was a reality. John also says in another place, “He that hath the Son hath life…” my daddy knew this and it was his desire that everyone else know it, too.

My dad took me on my first fishing trip. He took me to the doctor when I had the measles and Momma had to stay home with the other kids, because there were so many of us. He sat with me for over an hour in the doctor’s office and held my hair when I vomited on the waiting room floor. I was five.

My dad took me to school on my first day of first grade. He walked me to the gym and told me everything would be okay. He held my hand, and I didn’t want to let go of him. I didn’t want to enter that strange new world.

My dad came and rescued me from a 4-H meeting when I was ten. He found me sitting in the corner, a poor little outcast, while the other kids who were members of a “click” totally ignored me. He said, “Sis, you’re not coming back. They’re not treating you right. You’re too good for that.” He believed in me, more than my peers, more than my teachers. And I wanted to throw my arms around him and tell him that he was my hero, but he was driving us home, so I couldn’t.

My dad taught me that the only safe place in the face of a tornado was in the arms of Jesus. I remember watching him pray when the weather forecast said a storm was coming and our basement was full of water. He prayed and I knew God heard him.

My dad taught me that family sticks up for each other when he confronted the school bus driver who refused to come all the way up to the house and get us in the midst of winter due to ‘legalities’. When my dad was done with the bus driver, those legalities were negotiable.

My dad taught me that you can’t get to heaven holding a grudge when he forgave someone who had clearly wronged and hurt him.

You may have known my dad for his humor, of which he had plenty, but I knew him as an embodiment of honor and integrity. If he made you a promise, there was no contract needed. He would perform what he had said. He believed in family and said some bonds are forever. He knew he loved my momma from the moment he saw her. He was willing to go to the ends of life itself to prove it. His greatest wish was that all of his children and grandchildren, brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, cousins, aunts and uncles would come to know Jesus and his last words before he left this temporal realm were, “Love God”.

My father taught me that life isn’t about what you get, but rather what you give. Success isn’t a number in your bank account, but rather it’s the number of lives you’ve blessed, souls you’ve touched. He told me countless times that hearses are not accompanied by u-halls and that the only thing a man takes out of this world is what he brings into it. He brought love and light into it. He brought forgiveness and compassion. He found a reason to see the good in people no one else could see the good in. He believed that Jesus meant it when he said that God is love and we should love one another.

When I told him that I wanted to give away all the money from the sales of my book to fighting cancer and that I wanted to do it in his name, he said that he was honored. There are a lot of people who live their lives worried over the amount of land, houses and money they can acquire, but I say that a life not measured int he things given away, is a life of loneliness and bitterness. My dad was the most successful man I know and he left this world richer than all the kings of this world throughtout all of the ages combined.

He said to me when I was just a little girl, “Sis, money and things don’t mean nothing if you ain’t got love. Love and family. That’s what counts.”