Pete Light Springs restaurant. Near Cadiz, Trigg County, Kentucky When we were young and living in Lexington, Dad got the idea he wanted a houseboat. This was in the late 60s, long before the massive houseboats we see on Lake Cumberland coming out of the factories in Somerset were being built. He decided on Kentucky Lake in Western Kentucky. Getting there took about two hours more than getting to Lake Cumberland. Down in Western Kentucky they are all St. Louis Cardinals fans. You could never get a Cincinnati Reds score. But I digress.
Dad bought a small used Alumacraft houseboat with an old Evinrude 75 hp motor. We kept it at the boat dock at Kenlake State Park, the same place where we had our Fields family reunions. The owner of the dock was Jay Wilham from Murray, Kentucky. A real character. There was a Kentucky state policeman named Bridwell who hung around the dock and mainly drank coffee.
The west side of the lake was privately owned land, the east side was part of the Land between the Lakes and owned by the federal government. Wild area. We would head across the lake and anchor in a bay called Vickers. Before we learned to anchor behind a west facing spit of land, we would anchor right out in the middle of the cove. Facing straight out into the lake.
One night after what had been brutally hot day, we noticed to the west of us what was termed “heat lightning”. We thought little of it and went to bed. In about three hours, we awoke to what sounded like a freight train roaring about us. I stepped off the back of the boat just in time to see a jon boat with an outboard motor tied to the back of the houseboat picked up, lifted in the air, and flipped. The houseboat was swinging wildly, like a pendulum, because we had anchored to only one line. The anchor was also dragging and we were headed for the shore. We were being hit with 4-5 foot waves. Finally, Dad was able to start the houseboat motor, we pointed up into the wind, and basically idled the motor just enough to stop further slippage towards the bank. After about 30 minutes the wind died down, the thunderstorm moved on and we went back to bed. The next morning we got the jon boat started, miraculously, and went all over the cove retrieving things like life jackets that had blown off the boat.
Our way of going to Kentucky Lake was the Blue Grass Parkway to Elizabethtown then get on the Western Kentucky Parkway. This basically travels the route of US 62 without going through the small towns of Leitchfield, Beaver Dam, Greenville and Central City. Finally we got off the WK Parkway and proceeded to Princeton, then Cadiz. Cadiz is the home of Broadbent Hams.
When you are in Cadiz you’re at the entry way to Lake Barkley, the sister lake to Kentucky Lake. The road over Lake Barkley is KY 80, the same road that goes east to Manchester and Prestonsburg. Just before you cross Lake Barkley and enter the Land between the Lakes, there was a little restaurant on the left called Pete Light Spring. On the DeLorme map of Kentucky you can see that there is up behind the restaurant a spring called Pete Light. The fare in this restaurant was country ham, biscuits, fried catfish and vegetables. We stopped there once. All I can say is that the biscuits were as light and fluffy as what we were served at my grandmother’s house in Corinth. The country ham can be too salty, the fried catfish can be all cornmeal breading and no fish, but if the biscuits are perfect then the meal is memorable. But the country ham was really good as were the sides. This restaurant is but a memory now. Other country ham establishments that are now gone was a place in Cave City, KY right off Interstate 65, and a place in Lexington, VA that I can no longer remember. These are pieces of a culture that was long ago cancelled. It was innocent, but it was a key piece of the South, so it must be gone.
The big bridge that we crossed on Kentucky Lake to go over to the boat dock was hit by a barge a few years ago. It damaged the bridge to the extent that it had to be rebuilt. Our friend Don Mills had something to do with that as he did many bridges during his career.
As Dad made more money he exchanged the Alumacraft for a Burns Craft houseboat that was bigger and had twin engines. It was powerful enough to ski behind, which I did. The wake was massive. He got tired of making the trip to Kenlake so he moved it to Lake Cumberland. But still he never used it anymore, so he had it moved to the Cumberland River at Celina, TN where we took a five day trip back to Barkely. My brother and I were into bluegrass music at the time. As we went past Opryland we stood on top in blue shirts and played “Fox on the Run”. The people in the General Jackson thought we were part of the entertainment and rushed to the side of the boat to film us. Good thing they didn’t tip it over. I guess that was as close as we would get to performing at the Grand Old Opry.
I had some rough times growing up. Everybody does. But going to the houseboat was a blast. Dad got that real right.