Item From the Past: The Chilly Kentucky Derby

Good thing the Kentucky Derby was on May 1 this year rather than yesterday, which saw a high of only 63° F. for that city. Not too bad, but a little chilly for that kind of event. The last time I went to the Derby, however, it was even colder than that.

May 1989

This year I drove to Louisville on the morning of the race. The night before I'd stayed out with friends eating hot Indian food. It was something of a trick to fall asleep after midnight, my system still processing a jiggerful of spices, and wake at 4:30 am and pack and get on the road.

It was cold in Chicago. Later I learned that it snowed in Chicago that day, dusting the May blooms in cold white. I had heard that it had been colder than usual all week in Louisville, but I set out optimistic anyway. Not optimism anchored by good omens or agreeable weather reports, but simply that kind that whispers in your ear, "It can't be that cold in Louisville in May."

During the drive down I periodically put my hand against the windshield to check the temperature. Down through northwest Indiana, it was cold to the touch. Into and out of Indianapolis, still cold. South toward Louisville, into the home stretch along I-65 on which Indiana state troopers prowl in force to ticket the unwary -- still cold. The airwaves offered no hopeful weather reports.

I got to Churchill Downs just before the fourth race, about the same time as last year and the year before. It was about 45° F. in the infield, a mean little wind blew now and then, and the clouds looked pregnant. The climate had driven the shorts, bathing suits and bare flesh under sweaters, coats, hats and umbrellas, and so the crowd looked ready for a November football game, not acting decadent or depraved. Garbage bags were a popular item on the infield that day, either as improvised body wraps or one of the building blocks of jerrybuilt tents in which to huddle. In more ordinary Derby temps, infield cops destroy anything remotely like a tent.

MA and her party were, as usual, near the Kentucky flagpole, and I found them without too much difficultly... just before the seventh race, she and some of the others went to their box seats. I decided to take a walk by myself, and before long discovered the warmest spot available to the infield crowd, maybe even in all of the track, under the grandstands. There were hot-air blowers at work under there, and hordes of people giving off heat.

I looked at the odds tables for the Derby -- always the eighth race -- and made a snap decision. The favorite, at nearly even odds, was too much of a favorite. The next horse in the standings was No. 10 at 3-1. That was my horse. I stood in line a long time and bet him $5 to win and $5 to place. Then I found spot to watch the race on a monitor, since I was growing fond of the relatively warmth under the grandstands. The countdown to the race was delayed by some loser of a nag that threw a shoe, but at last they were off. For all of two minutes the crowd was of one mind, absorbed in the event. People who ask, "All this hoopla for a two-minute race?" don't get the quality of the moment, which make the quantity irrelevant.

My horse won. Sunday Silence came from behind. It was worth a $28 payoff to me, which I spent about 28 minutes in line to collect.

Between the Rivers

On June 19, I overnighted at the Piney Campground of Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area. For years, I've been intrigued by the green splotch on U.S. maps between Tennessee and Kentucky usually just called Land Between the Lakes, but not intrigued enough to visit. Or even learn that much about it. Just one of those things involving inertia; it would have been an easy trip from Nashville when I lived there, but I never made it.

Interesting story, the creation of Land Between the Lakes. Entirely too interesting, if you ask the people who were kicked off their land in the 1960s by the TVA to create the recreation area after the damming of the Cumberland River that created Lake Barkley. (The damming of the Tennessee River had occurred in the '40s to create Kentucky Lake -- and why wasn't it called Lake Kentucky, which sounds better?) I'm not an expert on the incident, but my impression is that the people who once lived in the area -- Between the Rivers, they called it -- were evicted as ignominiously as Indians, except that they weren't required to live together somewhere else.

Still, the lakes are pretty, and they clearly offer a lot of recreation to a lot of people. This is Kentucky Lake, from the shore of the Piney Campground.

A few reminders of the former occupants remain. One, south of Golden Pond on the Trace, the main road through the recreation area, was impossible to miss from the road.

This is what remains of the Great Western Furnace, in Tennessee, built in the 1854 for smelting iron ore. You'd think such a facility would have been a target for attack during the Civil War, but no. "It closed in 1856," the historical market says, "due to lack of ore and to a slave insurrection by the furnace crew."

Whatever it did to the living residents, the federal government could not bring itself to destroy Between the Rivers cemeteries, of which there are many. I visited one north of Golden Pond, in Kentucky, though I've misplaced my notes about the name of the cemetery. It was a quiet, good-looking rural cemetery.

One Levi Brown, who passed in 1931, is presumably at rest under this homemade stone. It was probably all his relatives could afford, but it seems to have held up well.

The Sun Shines Bright on My Old Kentucky Capitol

I've been inside roughly half of the state capitol buildings in this country, and seen maybe a dozen more from the outside, either because the building was closed, or I was driving by and didn't have time to stop. Some capitols are closer than others to where I live in northeastern Illinois, and I've seen most of the relatively close ones. But for some reason, I'd never made it to Frankfort, Ky., until early this month, even though it's not that far off a well-beaten track of mine, the run between Chicago and Nashville.

I always thought it odd that the commonwealth's capital is where it is. As a capital, Frankfort doesn't get much recognition. The following trick question, which I've heard asked, illustrates the point: How do you pronounce the capital of Kentucky, LOUIE-ville or Lou-AH-ville?

A day was enough time to get acquainted with Frankfort, a pleasant town on the Kentucky River that happens to sport this handsome beaux-arts capitol, landscaped by no less than Fredrick Law Olmstead:

It pretty much has everything you want in a state capitol: a lot of marble, statues and plaques and paintings, some grand staircases and a sweeping rotunda. There are also details you might not expect, such as the use of fasces, which are featured in a number of architectural details around the building. Above the north entrance is a pediment chock full o' allegorical figures, including Kentucky herself, History, Plenty, Law, Art and Labor. The guide pamphlet adds: "To the right are two Indians suggestive of earlier times in Kentucky, which were described in 1910 by the Capitol building's first superintendent, C.M. Fleenor, as 'crouching in fear' as they watched the inevitable approach of settlers and civilization." They do indeed seem crowded out by all those other allegories.

This interior shot, on the second floor, came out better than expected:

Barely visible is the top of the Abraham Lincoln statue, which is on the first floor of the rotunda, exactly in the center. Illinois is merely where he made his living. By contrast he did his rail splitin' and other honest-Abe boyhood-type activities in Kentucky, though Indiana has a claim on the adolescent Lincoln. Four other statues stand against the walls facing Lincoln: Jefferson Davis, Henry Clay, Alben Barkley and Ephraim McDowell.

McDowell, an early Kentucky doctor, was the only one I didn't recognize. Among other things, he performed the first successful ovariotomy in this country, and also removed a bladder stone from James K. Polk before Polk was president.

There's a TV series to be created from old Doc McDowell, I think: Ephraim McDowell, Frontier Surgeon. Why not? It seems that there's already been a show about doctoring in the days before medicine was informed by much empiricism -- Dr. Quinn, Anachronistic Woman. That means that McDowell could likewise be updated, say to reflect his hatred of slavery. Of course, maybe he did hate slavery, but no need to actually look into the matter.

They weren't many people visiting the capitol on the morning of July 5, so even the noise that Lilly and Ann made from time to time didn't seem to bother anyone. At one point, we went into the House gallery, and found it completely empty. That is, until a couple of security guards came to ask us to leave, since the gallery door was supposed to be locked, they said.

Just before we left, I noticed that I'd missed seeing one very important memorial in the Kentucky capitol -- one perhaps unique in all the capitols in all the states of the union. While everyone else relaxed on a bench, I dashed off to the west entrance of the building to look for it. I found it:

Yes indeed, it's a bust of Col. Harland Sanders. Plenty of capitols have official recognition of pioneers, but how many fast-food pioneers are thus enshrined? Ray Kroc was from Chicago, but I don't think we'll be seeing a bust of him at City Hall anytime soon. Of course, it helps that the Colonel didn't call his restaurant Sanders Fried Chicken or the like. The name of Kentucky has traveled the world with his fried chicken, so much so that if you say "Kentucky" to a Japanese, odds are he will think of the chicken brand, since there's little other reason he would have heard of the state, any more than most Americans would know, say, Aomori Prefecture. (Known for apples, not chicken.)

The fame of Col. Sanders is so enduring, in fact, that he has been able to curse a Japanese baseball team whose fans apparently displeased him. This blogger is not making the curse up; I remember it quite well from when I lived in Japan.

Two More Boneyards of Note

On the grounds of the capitol in Raleigh, NC, there's a curious statue depicting three US presidents -- Andrew Jackson, James K. Polk and Andrew Johnson (see "Three Presidents" at this site). Are not these three closely associated with Tennessee during their adult lives and political careers? Are they not presidents from Tennessee? They are, but North Carolina claims them too, since they were all born in North Carolina (unless Jackson was actually born in South Carolina, which is another story).

I saw the Three Presidents back in the mid-90s, not this trip, since we didn't make it to Raleigh. We did, however, drop by Andrew Johnson's hometown: Greeneville, Tennessee. I believe it's a good time to recall the life and career of the 17th President of the United States, since 2008 is the bicentennial of his birth -- a fact noted by lamppost banners flying in Greeneville. He was born in late December 1808, in fact, making him about six weeks older than Abraham Lincoln.

The Andrew Johnson National Historic Site features a replica of his log-cabin tailor shop (behind glass), the modest house he owned as a tailor and local politician, and, a few blocks away, the larger residence he bought as he succeeded in antebellum Tennessee politics. There's also a small museum that includes a short simplified version of his life and time in office in the form of a video, ready for viewing on demand. Former Sen. Fred Thompson voiced Johnson's parts, whenever his public statements or papers were quoted. That's probably as close as Thompson's getting to the presidency.

A few other people were there on the Fourth of July when we visited, but Johnson isn't a top-draw president. At the Andrew Johnson National Cemetery, not far from his houses, no one else was there that afternoon. A hilltop obelisk topped by an eagle marks the grave of the president and his wife Eliza. His place is marked:

ANDREW JOHNSON
Seventeenth President of the United States
His Faith in the People Never Wavered

Maybe, but he must have had bitter doubts about their elected representatives in Congress. Other Johnson family members are buried elsewhere on the hilltop, and on the slope of the hill, scores of servicemen rest, not just those of the Civil War era, but some down to our time.

At Mammoth Cave National Park, on the surface not far from what's called the Historic Entrance -- where people touring the cave in the 19th century would have entered, and where those taking the "Historic Tour" still do -- is the Old Guide's Cemetery. While waiting for that very tour, I took the short walk to the cemetery. It's a tumbledown, weedy place with many broken headstones, and others worn beyond reading.

Steven Bishop, a famed Mammoth Cave explorer and guide before the Civil War, reposes there. He's credited with exploring miles of the cave, discovering many passages and features -- truly going where no man had gone before. He had no flashlights nor acetylene gas lamps, which is remarkable enough, but the astonishing thing about Bishop is that he did all that discovery, and was famed as a guide, while he was someone else's property, for he was a mulatto slave owned by the cave's owner.

The cemetery is fenced, and Bishop's stone is toward the back. Just legible, it says:

STEPHEN BISHOP
First Guide & Explorer of the Mammoth Cave
Died June 15, 1859
Aged 37 Years

Actually, he died in 1857, having been freed the year before. More about Steven Bishop here.

The Rippin'est, Roarin'est, Fightin'est Man the Frontier Ever Knew

In the spring of 2004, I went seeking Daniel Boone's grave in Missouri, but was thwarted by poor signage and the fact that I had to be back in St. Louis to catch a plane (see April 6, 2004 of BTST). This year on July 5, toward the end of our day in Frankfort, Ky., I sought out Daniel Boone's other grave. I wasn't going to miss it a second time in a second place. The rest of my family, not nearly as enthusiastic about cemetery tourism as I am, stayed at the motel to rest.

Luckily, the Frankfort Cemetery, which rings a bluff overlooking Kentucky River, downtown, and the commonwealth's capitol building, was easy to find. A fine cemetery it is, too, with an assortment of stones and trees to go along with that overlook. Moreover, signs point the way to the BOONE MEMORIAL all along the cemetery's small roads, so that Daniel and Rebecca are also easy to find. It's as if to say, he's here, dammit. Missouri has no claim on him.

Unless, of course, Boone really is in Missouri. Both states claim him, and I'm in no position to judge authoritatively. Neither is anyone else (see "Who's Buried in Daniel Boone's Grave?"). Maybe DNA could settle the question, but as far as I know, no one's seriously proposed testing old Daniel's putative bones in either place.

The light wasn't ideal for a photo of the stone, which is sizable and handsome. However, this fellow took some shots that capture the site very well. While I didn't get a good image of the Boone memorial, I did think the light was right to record an image of one of Boone's neighbors, mere steps away -- one A. James Higgs Jr., a much more recent resident. Living hands had recently adorned his stone with a hat.

Acknowledge the famous, but don't ignore the obscure.

Southland

I have a large wad of receipts in my wallet right now. Tomorrow, if I have time, I might remove them and distill the gas station receipts from the rest, to add up the amount we've spent on gasoline since June 27. That morning we backed out of our driveway and headed generally south and east, leaving Illinois and passing through Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee and North Carolina. We got as far away as Asheville, NC.

All together, by the time we returned to our driveway late this afternoon, we'd traveled 2060 miles -- not actually that far when compared, say, to driving to Alberta and back two years ago (4,800+ miles). So maybe that was our response to high energy costs: cut out a couple of thousand miles.

Actually, no. If we'd had a few more days, we'd have also gone to Atlanta or Charleston, SC, or both. Easily another thousand miles. Travel requires three basic resources, namely money, time and the will to go. Each of those can be, and always is, a limiting factor. Time was a little more constraining this time around than money.

Limited the trip might have been, but it still offered us the cool dampness of Mammoth Cave, the familiar charms of Nashville (including a 42-foot statue of a goddess), intense lush greenery, views that confirmed the accuracy of calling them the Smokies, distant roads with alarming mountain switchbacks, the highest point in Tennessee, and Gatlinburg, which probably has more tourist traps per square foot than anywhere else.

We saw the extraordinary Biltmore, an estate with few peers in North America. We sought out biscuits and gravy, milkshakes from a diner unchanged since ca. 1940, and chocolate balls infused with bourbon. The trip included a visit to a presidential home and a presidential grave site; there were houses along the way at which presidents had stayed; and a place at which FDR came to speak. Besides the presidential grave, I saw slave graves and the picturesque place where Daniel Boone is thought to lie. We pitched our tent (five nights) and also stayed in inexpensive motels (four nights). The girls swam at every opportunity in pools, and found boulder-choked creeks to play in as well. I heard dialects that I haven't heard in years, charming even when spoken by a probable con woman in a parking lot.

To judge by the crowds in some places, and the traffic, and the conversations I had with clerks, waitresses and a park service employee, people aren't letting an average of $4/gal. put them off completely from pleasure trips. I know our trip was, on the whole, a pleasure.