Absolutely nothing beats windshield time , a road trip and good conversation in the car . Welcome to another episode of Dan the Road Trip Guy , where we have entertaining conversations about cars and road trips , life lessons and maybe , every now and then , a little advice . I'm your host , dan Neal Road Trip Extraordinaire . And now buckle up and enjoy the show .
I am on my way home and I thought no better time to record a little solo road trip episode . If you're from the state of Kentucky or you follow college basketball and I mentioned Rupp Arena you probably think of the University of Kentucky Wildcats Basketball Program , or maybe you've been there for an event , a concert .
This week , the Rupp Arena is hosting the Kentucky High School Athletic Association Sweet 16 Basketball Tournament . I still find this to be one of the best tournaments in the country .
I don't know what other school systems do it like this , but in Kentucky there are 16 regions for basketball and this brings together the 16 best teams in the state , so you might find a small , tiny school going up against one of the powerhouses from maybe Louisville or Lexington or one of the other counties . That's the interesting thing , too about Kentucky .
Sometimes you're not from a city in Kentucky , you're from a county Myself I grew up in . Macquarie County Happens to be the youngest county in the state . There was a change in the Kentucky Constitution back in the 1800s that put restrictions on forming counties . State has 120 counties so Macquarie County was the last county after that restriction was put in place .
Anyway , this episode is a bit of a love story . That occurred at Rupp Arena , so that's my memory for Rupp Arena . It was probably in 1977-78, . Our home county , macquarie County , decided to consolidate the North to High Schools .
There were little elementary schools Pine-Knot , revello , stearns , smithtown , whitley City , eagle and those schools would go into two separate high schools Macquarie County High School and Pine-Knot High School . Pine-knot was in the south of the county and Macquarie High was in the north . All the elementary besides Pine-Knot attended Macquarie County High .
I myself I was from Pine-Knot so I went to Pine-Knot High School through the 11th grade . As I said , the school board had decided to consolidate the two high schools . Now there were people in town that thought this was a very bad idea because they loved their high school . People thought there would be fights and all sorts of ruckus .
I guess when the students all came together in this new high school my wife and I , linda , would be part of the first graduating class of that school . It's kind of cool to be the first , but it's also you miss out on some things , like the gymnasium wasn't even finished when we started . I was a basketball player , linda was a cheerleader .
We actually played our opening games at the Macquarie County High School because the gymnasium wasn't finished and we actually played in our warm-up uniform because our uniforms hadn't come in . But we finally got into our new gym and started playing there . Now we had high hopes .
Oh , back up , this would be 1979 , would be the first year that the high school basketball tournament would be played at Rupp Arena . It had been played for years in Louisville at Freedom Hall . Rupp Arena , I believe , had been built in 1976 . It's seen to 23,000 people . It's more in the center of the state .
So I think that seemed like it made sense to people . So it moved to Rupp Arena that year , of course we all thought , oh , our new little school , we can do this . We can end up in the state tournament and go to Rupp Arena . Well , it didn't quite work out that way . We tried our best but it didn't work out .
But the school decided they would send the senior ball players to the state tournament at Rupp Arena , which was . That was cool . There were four of us . Three of us were from Pinehawd High and one was from Macquarie High , so we headed out . I think we drove two cars , I don't remember . We stayed out on the east side of Lexington Settled in .
The games start on Wednesday and they go through Saturday . They still do . They're going on . This week Went to the Wednesday afternoon games , watched those and then probably got something to eat and settled in for the evening game .
Now , little did we know that on Wednesday at some point the school decided they would send the four senior cheerleaders to the tournament , so in they walked on that Wednesday evening .
Now , either I was blind or I just wasn't paying attention throughout the year as cheerleaders , but that evening I spotted this one which happens to be my wonderful wife , linda , of almost 42 years . So 45 years ago this month I met Linda and I was . I fell in love immediately .
Now I would say she did not fall in love immediately and I would spend the next two years chasing after her . I chased off some boyfriends . Maybe I don't know if I chased them off , maybe I did chase off the last one . It was two years , 1981 , we were at Eastern Kentucky University and Linda had to take accounting . She didn't really enjoy accounting .
I had had two years of accounting before I switched to technology . I said I will tutor you Now . Keep in mind her boyfriend was an accounting major and he was probably in his third , maybe fourth year of accounting , but I guess he chose not to tutor her for some reason .
So every Tuesday afternoon I would head to her dorm probably around two o'clock best I remember and I would stay until they threw me out . Now we had to sit in the lobby because this is 1981 and guys didn't go up to girls rooms back then Much different today , I suppose . So I would sit in the lobby with her and tutor her .
I could have probably sped it along , but looking back , I probably made it go as slow as possible and she did get an A in that class . For me a lot of things played out . What would have happened if the schools didn't consolidate ? What would have happened if the cheerleaders didn't go to Lexington to the state basketball tournament ?
Maybe I would have never met Linda . I don't believe in coincidences . I think this was all planned out by God . Still believe that . I know some people don't believe in soulmates . Well , they can stick to their belief and I'll stick to mine . I happen to believe Linda is my soulmate , anyway , 45 years . So I hope you have great stories .
I hope you have great memories . Remember to write them down . Record them . Well , that's about it for this short episode . I hope you've enjoyed it . It's a good memory for me . I just wanted to record it Until we meet up again . You can find me on the internet at dantheroadtripguycom .
I hope you will follow this podcast so that you don't miss any upcoming episodes , and share it with your family and friends so they can enjoy the stories of my guest also . Until we meet again on a future episode , keep having conversations with each other and keep driving .