Our Walk

Charlene and I took advantage of the low humidity that blew into Louisville last Monday night and the next day walked our five mile walk, north, through our subdivision, across and to the other side of the rail tracks (as it were), through Anchorage, and back home. We've walked this route for years and this time I took a few pics along the way. We start out on St. Clair Drive. I looked up Saint Clair in Wikipedia and there are no Saints named Clair, however they did list a number of famous people with the name St. Clair, one of which was a porn actress by the name of Taylor Saint Clair. She's won numerous awards for her "acting." Ain't she cute?

St Clair ends and we make a left turn and walk on the edge of Old Henry Road for about one eighth mile, then turn right onto a gravel drive named Surrey Lane. We are officially in Anchorage now and you can almost feel the imperceptible shift to a more quiet, rarified snobbery in the atmosphere. The first house on the left is the childhood home of musician, Joan Osborne. Osborne was a Grammy nominee for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance in '96 for the song "Spiderweb". She didn't win.

Joan Osborne "Spiderweb."


You get the feeling that Surrey Lane is the red headed step-child of Anchorage as it's the only street in Anchorage that's not paved. I expect paving to start one day, but it never happens. We pass by the former home of Courtney Yartz, a guy I used to play tennis with. Across the street is a big honker of a house which was just recently built. Charlene and I followed it's progress while walking by it a couple of summers ago, from digging the foundation to the final landscaping. We turn right onto paved Glenbrook Avenue and we're more sure footed after the half mile of gravel. Columnist Bob Hill (who is retiring from the Courier Journal in August...sob...sniff) once said the tree ordinance in Anchorage is so strict that the leaves need permission to change color in the fall. You can't deny the beauty of the foliage though. Most of the trees are very old, very big, and you're rarely walking without a deep shade. Glenbrook has several streets that intersect with it; Lucas, Hazelwood, Spring Garden, ending with Osage Road. We turn left onto Osage and this marks the half way point of our walk. There are some immense, old houses on Osage, some of which are surrounded by five to ten acres of manicured park-like grounds shaded by trees up to 200 feet tall. At one point an ambulance comes speeding down Osage, lights and siren blazing. I tell Charlene a new resident must have received his first property tax bill. Anchorage has it's own school district and it's paid for by residents through their property tax, whether they have school aged children or not. If the mortgages in Anchorage won't give you a myocardial infarction, the property taxes might. There are some odd characters who live in Anchorage. I remember years ago, I worked for a lawn care company and I was spraying a lawn at a house on Osage. The resident, an elderly retired doctor, was hanging japanese beetle traps. He calls me over and asked if I knew how the bug traps worked. I said the trap attracts and traps the insects by the use of a chemically reproduced insect sex pheromone. He squinted at me and growled "yeah, bug pussy juice." I guess that might be one way to put it.
It's about a quarter mile down Osage, then a left turn onto North Evergreen Road and the business district of Anchorage. The buildings here are presently going through a major renovation and reconstruction, courtesy of none other than John Schnatter, who's footing the bill for all of it. Your pizza dollars at work. Whole buildings have been moved and new buildings have been built. It's slowly evolving into a Disney World Main Street. We're now walking on herringboned brick sidewalks, past buildings with tiled roofs, solid oak double doors, and huge palladium windows. Schnatter lives at the northern end of Anchorage in a "home" that was recently sited as the most expensive home in Jefferson County.


We walk south to Ridge Road which is the only road in Anchorage that has the breakneck speed limit of thirty five miles an hour! We turn left on Ridge and walk a short distance and turn right onto Log Cabin Lane. Log Cabin Lane was named for a log cabin which sits on the same street which was built over 200 years ago. Log Cabin Lane changes into Shady Lane which dead ends at a field which is in back of the private Catholic school of Little Angels Academy. Walking through the field we're back to Old Henry Road. We're now out of la la land and back in the real world of Middletown. We make a right onto Old Henry and a short distance to Evergreen. I remember when you could drive onto Evergreen from St. Clair and rarely have to stop for traffic. Now, at rush hour, the traffic is backed up on Evergreen. Middletown is not a small burg of Louisville anymore. We come back to the opposite end of St. Clair from where we started and we're in the home stretch and you become glad you went out to walk after all. It's similar to banging your head against a wall; It feels so good when you stop. Sometimes I feel like I could walk twenty miles and other times it's chore just to squeak out two.

We get home and we have chicken salad on home grown tomatoes, (thank-you Shirley and Jesse) sliced cucumbers and tall glass of iced lime-ade. After a shower I feel clean, sanctified and self righteous, at least for tonight, for tomorrow is another day and you're only as good as your last time exercising.