72 Miles til Kentucky Nathan Jordan Vaughan

Every story needs a starting point. For years, my mother and I had been talking about how to tell our family’s story, and whether our experiences as a Jewish interfaith family would have value for anyone but us. First we imagined a blog, then a life-coaching business, a book, and even a cookbook. Then she was diagnosed with cancer, and suddenly the whole project seemed more important than ever. In January, 2020 we started recording content. In March we launched a crowd-funding campaign. ...

My family has a motto, “We are making memories.” It’s a motto that’s led us through life’s more chaotic moments. The secret to making memories, of course, is how you tell the story. And in my family we strive to tell, and retell, really good stories. And we’re not the only ones. Storytelling is a southern folk tradition, and I come from a long line of master storytellers, a tradition I’m proud to carry on, because some stories just need to be told. Of course, every story deserves some s...

Every interfaith family has at least two sides to its story. Mine features a poor white boy who was the odd duck in his devout Baptist family, and a Detroit Yankee who was raised in a tight-knit Jewish community until she rebelled and ran away to Kentucky. This episode also introduces the second of three families featured in 72 Miles, one that’s make-believe. Conjured from the imagination of I.J. Schwartz in an epic Yiddish poem titled New Earth, that follows the life of Josh, a Jewish blacks...

My family moved to Bowling Green in 1987, but we weren’t the first Jews to live there, far from it. Jews had been settling in Bowling Green for over 150 years, drawn by economic prosperity. Jewish merchants helped open up the American frontier, wherever they could a stream or railroad to follow. They learned to adapt their faith and traditions to a new place, one where there wasn’t a Jewish community to rely on. And when their children grew older, and fell in love, it was sometimes with...

My parents met at Walnut Street Baptist Church in 1979. My father was there for services, at his mother's request. My mother was there working, as a sign language interpreter. They were married not long after in a different Baptist church, by a group of friends, using an interfaith wedding ceremony they wrote themselves. As a young couple, my parents found their a home at Central Presbyterian Church, in downtown Louisville, where they met my godparents, and made lifelong friends. They ev...

My family moved to Bowling Green in 1989. My brother was turning six, and I was turning three. We rented a house in the country for a few months, then bought the red-brick home on Garrett Drive where we lived for 16 years. We joined the local Presbyterian Church, but didn’t quite fit in. It was too conservative, or maybe we were too liberal. My parents struggled to make friends, and my brother and I hated Sunday School. All of which fueled an identity crisis, and another poignant questi...