Benjamin Nathan Tuggle: Adventurer

Now, I’m not saying I’m a time traveler or nothing like that. I just have this strange thing I do that takes me back in history to places right when things are happening. Confused? Well, think how I felt my first time. I’m just a farm boy from eastern Kentucky. I’ve never been out of the state, much less out of my place in time. Oh, there may be others who can do the same. You may be one of ‘em yourself, but we can talk about that later. I’m just talking to you about me right now. Who am I? Why, I’m Benjamin Nathan Tuggle, of course, time traveler and adventurer. I live on a small farm with my mom and dad outside Irvine, Kentucky. Oh, you’ve heard of Irvine. It sits on the Kentucky River right where the Appalachian Mountains meet the Bluegrass. My dad likes to say it’s the best of two worlds, the beauty of the mountains and the fertile flatlands. Did I mention my older brother, Blake? I didn’t! Well, we’ll just leave it that way. Why ruin a friendly conversation, I like to say. You should have already seen my self-portrait, a pencil representation, if you will, of yours truly, drawn by me, a-standing next to my Grandpa’s pick-up truck. I like to say I got my pa’s good looks, my mom’s intelligence and my granddad’s pleasant personality. I’ve always fancied myself as quite an artist. Some of my friends say the pictures I draw of Mr. Polk, our principal at middle school, are the funniest drawings found in any public school classroom in Estill County. My reputation as an artist has grown to the point that every time someone puts a mark on a bathroom wall, yours truly is blamed: “Ben Tuggle, report to Principal Polk’s office, Ben Tuggle, report to the Principal’s office — Immediately.” As a true artisan, I don’t work in public bathrooms, but that hasn’t kept me from being accused of such. On more than one occasion Ms. Miller, my art teacher, saved my hide by telling Mr. Polk that the drawings on the bathroom stalls were just too childish to be the work of Ben Tuggle. You gotta like that Mrs. Miller. Back to the point of my story, I’m Ben Tuggle, adventurer. Did I say that? All I have to do is hold something old in my hands or something made by a person who lived and died years before I was born, and suddenly, Zippity-Do-Da, I’m there at that time in history, standing next to General George Washington at Valley Forge, or running alongside Harriet Tubman on the Underground Railroad, or taking council with the Cherokee chiefs long before our ancestors ever stepped foot on the North American continent. I’m there, visiting places I’ve read about in the history books. I thought I was dreaming the first time it happened, but I found out real quick that I was awake. One hundred, two hundred, even three hundred years ago, there I am right in the middle of whatever was happening. I’ve never tried to push the limit on how far back I can go. I guess I could go back a far piece if I chose to. I could take hold of a dinosaur bone and go back to the days before man, but I’d probably get eaten by one of those big meat eaters and then there I would be, dinosaur poo in some swamp, making oil for Mom’s station wagon, or Mr. Orbey’s school bus. No sir, time traveling is serious business. I like to think I have control, but the fact is I don’t plan my little trips, they just happen in a spontaneous kind of way. Mom says I’ve been a spontaneous kind of guy since the day I was born — I just happened. What! You don’t believe me. Let me remind you that some things in life require a little faith. Like the faith that I have that in spite of myself, my parents like me… most of the time. Well, that’s not really a good example. How about the faith that my grandparents love me no matter how goofy I act? That’s the kind I’m talking about, the faith that I have when I leave the here and now and travel back… back to the there and then, the faith that I will survive all that history and get back to my time. I’ve met some real interesting folks on my adventures, some nice and some not so nice. It’s always a hoot and I bring a lot of learning back with me. I can see you have doubts, so sit back and listen. Let me tell you about my first adventure, my very first trip back in time. It happened last summer, the day after I turned twelve years old. The family was spending a long weekend at Grandma and Grandpa’s farm in a little community called Redhouse, just outside the big city of Richmond, Kentucky. I was standing out in Grandpa’s field, down by the spring and my older brother was being his usual rude self. You could say my first trip back in history was a field trip. Mrs. Dabney, my sixth grade teacher, says I got a way with words — field trip. I amaze myself.