Ripley (Believe It or Not)

           

          My first trip to Ripley was in 1986. Fresh out of college and game for anything, some friends and I thought it would be great fun to be a part of the human chain experiment called “Hands Across America”. Although hailing from DeKalb County, TN, our assigned location for this hand-holding hook-up was a place called Ripley, which we had to look up on a map.

            We loaded my dad’s van with everybody’s kids and tooled our way across the state with coolers and picnic baskets full of fun. I don’t so much remember the hand-holding part as being anything special, but I do remember the trip—the picnic we had at the roadside park …the songs we sang to keep the kids happy. (Keep in mind there were no iPods, iPads or iPhones in those days. Back then you only had creativity to guide you.) Little did I know when encountering this place, what an impact it would someday have on my life.

            Fast forward a decade and I’m again going to Ripley…Only this time with a friend over a holiday weekend where unbeknownst to me, I’d make lifetime friends and spot a little country church that would change my life forever.

            As we approached the family farm I was given the cook’s tour along the backroads of Nutbush.  "Home of Tina Turner" as it's known, they’ve finally given up keeping a Nutbush City Limit sign in place—(Dern things just keep getting stolen.)

            I was moved by the cotton fields and cotton gins and the flatness of a place so different from the rolling hills where I come from, when slowing down to take a turn …there she was! The kind of church I’d been dreaming of (only in my dreams she was closer to home). But this one had the look. What’s more, she had a brand new church right next to her, which told me the falling down version was not long for this world.

            “Could you pull over?” I was gripped. Grabbing journal and camera I climbed through a broken window… It was love at first sight. Where others saw old, I saw only new. Where some saw rotting beams, all I saw was home.

            It took 3 years to figure it all out. There were committees to meet, deconsecrations to conduct. There were work crews both on the take down end and the build back end to coordinate and plan. But by turn of the millennium, this 1917 church was a newly constructed home crafted from a loving combination of old beams and timbers and modern conveniences (like lofts for bedrooms and working baths).

            It was my first trip back since moving her…The friends I made then had helped christen my home, but then life got busy as life will do. But thanks now to another holiday weekend, and a little stepped up planning, an overnight get-away was doable and I was happy to head back for the birthday of a dear friend.

            As I pulled off the highway named for Tina Turner, my senses came alive again. The routes were the same. A few new houses here and there, but the cotton and soy fields were just as I remembered. I rounded the bend where my church once stood and slowed to a stop. They'd expanded the cotton gin next door, but other than that, the place felt the same. The new church, now standing alone, shows a little wear same as mine.

            The reunion was sweetly sentimental. Good times. Old friends. We toasted birthdays, yes, but we also made time to visit the grave of the man whose farm I first visited, and paid a visit to another now living his days in hospice.

I knew driving back things would never be the same, but then again, I always feel like this when leaving Ripley. Who could know that such a small town would someday have such a big hold on my heart? But what strikes me as even more amazing yet, is to think it all started with a simple country drive on a holiday weekend.