Disclaimer: I don’t know Chris Gettelfinger all that well, so this comes from a collection of stories I’ve heard over the years. Like most good Kentucky stories, the details may have improved with age.
I first met Chris at a charity golf scramble.
Now, I’ll admit I was nervous standing on the first tee. My golf game is so bad that if I break 100, I tell people about it for a month. Chris showed up carrying a bag full of clubs that looked like they were handcrafted by NASA engineers. I figured I was about to make a fool of myself.
Turns out Chris had other plans.
His first drive took off like a rocket, made a hard right turn, and disappeared into a zip code that wasn’t even on our scorecard.
A guy from another fairway yelled, “FORE!”
Chris yelled back, “I know!”
A few holes later he hit a tree so squarely that the ball came back and landed closer to him than where he started.
Without missing a beat, Chris looked at the ball and said, “Well, at least it listens better than my kids.”
By the turn, nobody was keeping score anymore. We were just conducting a search-and-rescue operation for golf balls.
But what I remember most about Chris was his ability to laugh at just about anything.
One story he told me was about a major decision he had to make years ago. He had an opportunity he was seriously considering, so he scheduled a visit to check everything out before committing.
From the second he arrived, things went completely off the rails.
The plane was delayed.
His luggage disappeared.
The hotel reservation got messed up.
The weather was awful. Not regular bad weather either. This was Old Testament weather.
Cold rain.
Sideways wind.
The kind of weather that makes ducks question their life choices.
Chris said every time he opened a door, a gust of wind slapped him so hard he felt like God was personally trying to send him back home.
The entire weekend was one disaster after another.
By the time he got home, he was exhausted.
A friend asked him, “So, how’d the visit go?”
Chris said, “I think the Lord was trying to tell me something.”
His buddy nodded and said, “What do you think the message was?”
Chris replied, “Don’t go.”
A few days later the same friend saw him again and asked if he’d made a final decision.
Chris grinned and said, “Yep.”
“What’d you decide?”
“Well, I had two choices.”
“Which were?”
“I could listen to all those warning signs from Heaven…”
“Or?”
“I could buy a bottle of bourbon and see if Heaven changed its mind.”
His friend laughed and asked, “What happened?”
Chris said, “After about three glasses, the weather didn’t seem that bad, the hotel wasn’t that terrible, and suddenly every decision looked like a great idea.”
That’s when his buddy said, “Chris, that’s not called divine guidance.”
Chris replied, “Maybe not, but it was a lot easier to understand.”
And that, friends, is why bourbon has been winning arguments in Kentucky for generations.
I first met Chris at a charity golf scramble.
Now, I’ll admit I was nervous standing on the first tee. My golf game is so bad that if I break 100, I tell people about it for a month. Chris showed up carrying a bag full of clubs that looked like they were handcrafted by NASA engineers. I figured I was about to make a fool of myself.
Turns out Chris had other plans.
His first drive took off like a rocket, made a hard right turn, and disappeared into a zip code that wasn’t even on our scorecard.
A guy from another fairway yelled, “FORE!”
Chris yelled back, “I know!”
A few holes later he hit a tree so squarely that the ball came back and landed closer to him than where he started.
Without missing a beat, Chris looked at the ball and said, “Well, at least it listens better than my kids.”
By the turn, nobody was keeping score anymore. We were just conducting a search-and-rescue operation for golf balls.
But what I remember most about Chris was his ability to laugh at just about anything.
One story he told me was about a major decision he had to make years ago. He had an opportunity he was seriously considering, so he scheduled a visit to check everything out before committing.
From the second he arrived, things went completely off the rails.
The plane was delayed.
His luggage disappeared.
The hotel reservation got messed up.
The weather was awful. Not regular bad weather either. This was Old Testament weather.
Cold rain.
Sideways wind.
The kind of weather that makes ducks question their life choices.
Chris said every time he opened a door, a gust of wind slapped him so hard he felt like God was personally trying to send him back home.
The entire weekend was one disaster after another.
By the time he got home, he was exhausted.
A friend asked him, “So, how’d the visit go?”
Chris said, “I think the Lord was trying to tell me something.”
His buddy nodded and said, “What do you think the message was?”
Chris replied, “Don’t go.”
A few days later the same friend saw him again and asked if he’d made a final decision.
Chris grinned and said, “Yep.”
“What’d you decide?”
“Well, I had two choices.”
“Which were?”
“I could listen to all those warning signs from Heaven…”
“Or?”
“I could buy a bottle of bourbon and see if Heaven changed its mind.”
His friend laughed and asked, “What happened?”
Chris said, “After about three glasses, the weather didn’t seem that bad, the hotel wasn’t that terrible, and suddenly every decision looked like a great idea.”
That’s when his buddy said, “Chris, that’s not called divine guidance.”
Chris replied, “Maybe not, but it was a lot easier to understand.”
And that, friends, is why bourbon has been winning arguments in Kentucky for generations.
