Lexington, KY - Any teenager growing up in a small town knows what's expected of them when their parents go out of town for the weekend. You use that nice home for a rowdy, unsupervised house party.
My parents' house was, and still is, right outside of Flatwoods proper in Greenup County, on a quiet county road with a big yard. Which meant, when it was my turn to host a night of underage debauchery, there was ample parking available on the street and lots of room outside for the heathens to play -
so I had hopes the majority of the property damage would be restricted outside; deep down I was still a good, respecting kid.
Moreover, since their house was somewhat secluded, the possibility of upsetting neighbors or, worse, attracting the attention of the local fuzz was slanted in our favor. This was important. Small-town cops and small-town teens have a lot in common -
they have nothing to do except look for trouble. If the cops made an appearance, it would be more than a cameo.
This was before the age of social media, and sometimes I entertain the notion that had I been able to use Facebook or Twitter, I could've reached more people. Nonetheless, everybody under the age of 21 in the greater-Ashland area was there, and as the revelry progressed, the Greenup County Sheriff and about a dozen of his finest men in blue were even on the scene.
But that's not what I came to tell you about. The town of Flatwoods has one main drag, Diederich Boulevard. One of the scions of this small community is country music and television star Billy Ray Cyrus -
Miley's dad, Mr. Achy Breaky Heart himself. And while the entertainer's career choices through the years are arguable, in the early- and mid-'90s, he was hot stuff, especially in Flatwoods. They had a ceremony renaming Diederich Boulevard, with its two traffic lights, Billy Ray Cyrus Boulevard, and five small road signs were installed along the road.
The night after the ceremony, some friends and I got the idea that one of these signs would be a valuable keepsake one day, and that the ground would still be loose. With the courage and disregard only teenagers can muster, we shanghaied the easiest target. Two days later, when the incident made the front page of the local paper, we hid the evidence deep in the woods behind my parents' house.
There it remained, rusting among the overgrowth through the years, until I summoned the bravado to resurrect the roadside tribute to Flatwood's native son. I thought it would make a nice piece of decoration for my party.
I was right, it was a party favorite and everybody had something to say about the sign, which was re-erected in the middle of my parents' yard -
especially the party-crashing police officers. Suddenly they weren't very interested in corralling all the kids who had absconded into the woods to avoid a run-in with the law. One of the biggest cold cases in Flatwoods' history had just been cracked, and a fair amount of back-patting was going around.
Rest assured, this isn't the type of party we are promoting in our Entertaining section of this magazine. In this issue, we tapped some local professionals for tips on making your next soiree unique, elegant and memorable -
not the kind that results in court-ordered community service.