Two Zs
At the University of Kentucky, in 1988,
I enrolled in the Work Study Program
to help pay my tuition.
I staffed the desk
in the journalism reading room,
surrounded by newspapers from around the state,
the country,
the world.
“Where are you from?”
a co-worker asked.
I secretly loved his black-framed glasses
and marveled at the way he sat at the check-out desk,
writing love poems
on scraps of paper,
while I dutifully re-shelved resource materials.
“Hazard,” I told him,
(two hours away, Eastern Kentucky, my mountain home)
“Where the Dukes are from?” he asked.
“No, that’s two Zs,” I mumbled.
That old show was set in Hazzard County anyway,
I thought,
in Georgia.
He looked down, writing again,
romantic words for some other girl.
“But the Dukes come every year,” I said
with enthusiasm I did not feel.
It was weird but true.
“They come for the Black Gold Festival Parade:
Daisy, Boss Hogg, Luke and Bo, Cletus…
even Sherriff Rosco P. Coltrane.
They ride the General Lee right down Main Street!”
I was practically shouting.
He did not look up,
having lost interest
when I said two Zs.