Kindred spirits: Columnists reconnect to talk about writing, small-town living and life

I had a business appointment in Peoria, the old hometown, 180 miles down the road, and I thought, why not stop on the way and visit Dave Kindred?

You may recall Kindred from his many sports books or from the awards he’s won as a journalist, or maybe from having watched a “60 Minutes” episode in 2021 in which we learned the Hall of Fame sports scribe had moved to tiny Carlock, Illinois, and was covering the nearby Morton High School girls basketball team.

It was a sweet story — the man who’d traveled everywhere in the U.S. and much of the world ended up in Central Illinois, writing game stories for a high school website and Facebook. For free.

It seemed incongruous, even ludicrous. But it made complete sense.

Dave is from small-town Illinois. He’d had a 50-year career writing columns for the Sporting News, Washington Post, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Golf Digest and others. And though he was thought to be retired, as he’ll tell you with a shrug, “Writers write.”

Moreover, writing about the female Potters was a balm during some tough times, what with his grandson and mother dying within months of each other, and his wife and high school sweetheart, Cheryl, suffering a massive stroke that would eventually lead to her death in 2021. The girls team was a beacon for Kindred, a reason to go on.

“It saved me,” he will say.

He’s 82 now, and I just want to see Dave because he’s an old friend. Forget any hoo-ha. Fame, success, reputation — who cares? We have a hundred years of sportswriting — more like 110 years — between us. Some catching up. Some commiserating. Some looking around. Some laughs.

Straight south on I-55, then west on I-74 near Normal. If there’s a flatter place on Earth than here, I’d like to know about it.

Take the exit toward Carlock, then a two-lane highway for a few miles, turn down a country blacktop, then a smaller road, finally take a right up a gravel drive into a wooded area that actually has a hill and valley running through it.

This is Dave’s place, a wide, log-sided house that’s more like a lodge than a cabin, with a three-stall garage and 28 acres of pines, pasture land and fields.

As for my query, Kindred, mustachioed and spry as always, naturally has an answer. “Illinois is not the flattest state,” he says, ushering me into the living room with its huge stone fireplace rising up through two open stories. “Florida is.”

This is a rustic home, with a pond just down the hill. Dave tells me he and Cheryl once had 21 people sleeping in the house. A railing goes around the inside of the second floor, and a pine log spans the width of the room.

I notice a cat sleeping on a nearby couch. Dave had an old dog, Kayo, but he died not long after Cheryl did.

“I’ve always been a dog guy,” he says. “But this cat, almost a kitten then, showed up when I was alone. I took her in. For a day or two I couldn’t find her. Then out of the corner of my eye, I noticed she was up on that beam.”

It’s a gray day, late in the year, and there’s a melancholic beauty to the stillness, the sweep of brown grasses into the green of the pines. It’s mid-afternoon, but already the darkness of deep winter is beginning to seep through.

Dave lives here alone. His sister lives 18 miles away. He’s from Atlanta, Illinois, 40 miles down the pike, and this is where he feels at peace.

“There are 12 Atlantas in the U.S.,” he mentions. “My Atlanta is the third-largest.’’ Population 1,600. A good chuckle.

People ask him why he doesn’t move.

“Where would I go?” he’ll ask back. “I love it here.”

We sit in the great room on two comfortable chairs, with footstools, facing a big-screen TV tuned to MSNBC, sound off, the huge fireplace to our right, tall windows to the left.

Do you get lonely? I ask.

“During the day I do what I do [which includes working on a book about Stan Musial and the 1946 Cardinals],” he says. “Then it gets dark, and a time will come, and then I’ll look at that chair you’re sitting in ...” His voice falters a bit. A few seconds go by.

“And it’s empty,” he says.

We sit and chat and watch the wrens and chickadees on the birdfeeder outside, see the shadows lengthen. I have to go because I have to be in Peoria in 45 minutes.

I wish I could stay, but like so many of us, I have promises to keep.