I had to see it first hand…
More than a year after my old, home-away-from-home Mayfield, Kentucky was all but wiped off of the map I got around to going there last week to relive my earliest days in business. That, and to witness first hand how badly the infamous December 2021 tornado had ravaged my tiny former town.
The second anniversary’s coming up in four months, but in general, around 1,300 “homes, businesses and places of worship” had been destroyed in Mayfield. Including most of the quaint, all-brick downtown where I worked, shopped, learned how to drink moonshine and eat delicacies such as country ham and “brains and eggs” – in the “dry county” of my lost youth.
The news reporters were long gone, and the remaining rubble was mostly under control. However, arriving late at night I got totally lost searching for a town that was no longer there. My hotel, the Wingfield Inn had plenty of rooms available, and its pool was open, despite that half of its giant sign was still missing – the half that faced the entrance I drove in on – and it still had funky-looking padlocks hanging on the doors of its lobby entrance.
Mayfield Milling – the grain elevator I learned how to grade grain at and hang with farmers is still standing – but closed – with workers busy removing the twisted remains of giant grain bins that bit the dust in the storm,
There really wasn’t that much left to see, so back I went to the quaint Mayfield Country Club – where I’d encountered my first “beer machine” in the early 1970s – to find out first hand what had happened from locals.
Turns out the club had totally dodged the tornado bullet, and was not only going strong but had replaced its beer machine with a fancy bar and added an “olympic sized” swimming pool and tennis courts. Although, the bar sported a large sign that read, “No Profanity.”
“We’re not dry anymore, but we have quite a few children and that takes car of that,” says Mark Greenslit, a transplanted Californian, the club’s general manger.
In his four years in Mayfield, Greenslit has seen a lot, including an influx of what used to be called illegal aliens – “the chicken plant takes care of them,” he says – while he takes care of the 250 club members who choke out around $175 a month in membership dues or $477 for a summer pool membership.
And what happened to the residents who survived after being blown away by the tornado?
“All those people took the money and ran with it,” Greenslit says.
As in, they left for greener pastures.
However, the nearby annual picnic in Fancy Farm, Kentucky is still going strong.
“I’d say they had about 15,000 people that came to it. They had this long, long pit and put wood under it and pigs on top of it and covered them with spices. It’s a happening event.”
It was amazing how many different organizations came to Mayfield to help with the tornado recovery, Greenslit says, but most of them are now long gone.
What Greenslit really likes about Mayfield is the “quiet lifestyle.”
“I remember when the court house was still here and you’d walk into someone’s office and get your license,” he says. “There was no traffic, no lines. In California it was a nightmare.”
For Mayfield the “nightmare” of losing 74 Kentuckians is in the rearview mirror…for now…and the ultra quaint Carr’s Barn restaurant has been rebuilt. It was uninsured and completely destroyed, but its country ham breakfast and lunches are now going strong again – for under 10 bucks, no less.
Lots of folks have up and gone, and while I couldn’t scare up any of that good, old-moonshine from the days gone by, I did stumble onto something kinda cool…
Did you know Cracker Jacks has come out with Cracker Jill?
Started a year back, and while I haven’t seen it in KC, you can proudly purchase it in politically correct Mayfield.
Great article. Sorry we missed you. Can’t believe it
has been so long since you were here the first time.
Well, time does fly by at times like these…
I remember us all washing our cars at that trailer park – very classy – including the former Mayfield Messenger editor Big Jim!
I get ya’ on the magnetic field of small towns Hearne. Once you’ve lived in one the powerful invisible force will eventually pull you back, for one day or two.
I grew up in a small town almost the exact same size as Mayfield, albeit in middle MO instead of KY. pop 12,134. that’s pretty sparse population but the towns nearby were miniscule in comparison. Higbee, Macon, Huntsville, heck we were a megalopolis compared to those tiny towns. I’ll never forget the tears the day we left one moderately cold Jan day in 78. Went back 3 or 4 times, but it was always a short visit, usually just a few hours. My last visit 23 years ago it was just me. I had the whole town to myself, went east, went north, went south, went to town center, and finally to the west side where I grew up.
You’d think there’s no way the payphone on the corner would still be there but it was. Drove by our old house, west park, the old ballfield. Ten minutes later I was miles out of town, heading back to KC on old route 24.
Well, happily your small town was still there…
Mine kinda took a bullet, but your point is well taken. In this case I passed thru Mayfield almost annually until the past three years when I was holed up in Arizona.
Didn’t see any pay phones though. Come to think of it, don’t remember ever seeing one there. Just the beer machine and that was fleeting at best. Plus most of the farmers and folk were older than me and other than checking out that one funeral plot, I did little to nothing in the way of trying to, uh, dig anybody up.
yeah, my old town is still intact, every summer we’d get tornado watches/warnings but it didn’t get hit hard while I was there(69-78), but after I left(like almost every other Midwest town) it eventually did get shellacked.
I have to be honest, I have a huge hole in my heart for my home town. No, it was not quaint, idyllic, or perfect in any sense. In fact, it was largely rundown, lot’s of trash, lot’s of cross the railroad tracks racism. Half the teachers really didn’t seem qualified, that really bugged me.
But man, the fleeting memories..mostly related to the severe Midwest weather..running through my neighborhood on those cool late October nights? It’d just be me and the boogeyman, snaking the secret shortcut between houses, cross the alley, across the unfenced yard.. the wind in the trees, the stockpile of leaves rustling about. or the late sunny afternoon winter days, long shadows, the iced up snow, every step crunching a new hole, not one other sound to be heard.
So yeah, other than the wild, wild weather the thing I probably miss the most is my best friends older brother throwing me perfect spirals on a leave sprinkled yard in Oct 77. A lefty no less. What an arm.
What a refreshing, touching, quaint memory…
I’ve got some catching up to do and I’m going to try and lob some spirals – column wise – your way, starting ASAP!
Cool story…and why I still go back to Carthage to see childhood friends who remained or the ones who come back to meet up. I don’t want to live there, but it’s a comforting feeling of nostalgia.
More of THIS, less on the Star, which we all realize is in hospice care…
thanks for the advice and compliment!
You are correct, there not much point to rubbing the Star’s nose in anything.
Have lots of other ideas now that I’m back.
Stay tuned!