Brian D Mains

After a period of isolation I am packing my small green suitcase tonight and taking a road trip.

After work tomorrow, around 3 p.m., I am getting into my car, rolling out of the parking lot, and heading south to Bowling Green, Kentucky. Each year Western Kentucky University’s journalism department hosts a breakfast and homecoming event for program alum. It’s been ten years since I graduated from Western and the first time I’ll be attending this event as an alum instead of a student.

I hadn’t planned on going but a friend on Facebook e-mailed me and asked if I was attending. He’s lived in St. Petersburg for the past decade and was one of those people who saw me make an ass out of myself on many occasions while at Western.

I did see Bowling Green and Western’s campus about a year and a half ago when I attended a conference there. I walked the campus by myself and was surprised by how much of it changed in a decade.

It’s been three years since I saw my friend who contacted me on Facebook, Dan, at another friend’s wedding reception. Seeing Dan and his wife again will be nice. And a couple other people I either emailed or talk to sporadically over the past decade will be there as well. It’ll be interesting hanging out with that group of people in the same place none of us have been together at in 10 years.

It’ll be nice to shake the dust off the suitcase and just drive for a few hours down a route I routinely drove for five years again.

I cannot wait to find out.