Flowers & Plants

Nice Weather We're Having, Isn't It?

I'd hate to post something as trite as the weather but I feel I have too. After two weeks of almost constant rain, this week has been nothing short of spectacular. It's been sunny with nary a cloud in the sky and very low humidity. As soon as the sun slants towards the horizon there's a delicious coolness that almost imperceptively steals in. I relish it while I can, 'cause Summer's coming with the high temperatures and smothering humidity.

Wife and I have been doing alot of gardening work while it's still enjoyable to do. Next post will be pics of flowers, flowers, and more flowers for another fluffy post.

Harland Sanders

The man in the KFC logo was a real person. His name was Harland Sanders. His father died when he was five years old and since his mother worked, he was required to cook for his family. Jobs he had during his lifetime included a steamboat pilot, insurance salesman, and railroad fireman

When Sanders was forty he owned a service station in Corbin, Ky and would serve customers his fried chicken and after it grew in popularity, he bought a motel and restaurant that seated 142 people. Over the years he perfected his method of cooking his chicken which included the eleven secret herbs and spices.

He was given the honorary title of "Kentucky Colonel" in 1935 by Governor Ruby Laffoon (rhymes with buffoon). Anyone Kentuckian can become a Kentucky Colonel by request to the Governor's Office. My wife's a Kentucky Colonel. I have to give her the secret handshake whenever Colonel McClain dresses in her white suit, string tie, and fake goatee.

After the construction of Interstate 75 reduced his restaurant's customer traffic, Sanders took to franchising Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants, starting at age 65, using $105 from his first Social Security check to fund visits to potential franchisees. Sanders allegedly had 1,009 rejections when trying to establish his franchise, until he founded the now international restaurant chain KFC. You've got to admire the man's perserverance.

Sanders sold the Kentucky Fried Chicken corporation, in 1964, for $2,000,000 to a partnership of Kentucky businessmen headed by future Governor of Kentucky, John Y. Brown, Jr. Sanders stayed only as the spokesperson.Back in the 70's I made an acqaintance with the man who drove Colonel Sanders around to his various public relations jaunts. He said the Colonel cussed like a sailor and was always cranky.

In 1973 he sued Heublein Inc. (the KFC parent company at the time) over alleged misuse of his image in promoting products he had not helped develop. In 1975 Heublein Inc. unsuccessfully sued Sanders for libel after he publicly referred to their gravy as "sludge" with a "wallpaper taste".

Sanders later founded the Colonel Harland Sanders Trust and Colonel Harland Sanders Charitable Organization, which used the proceeds to aid charities and fund scholarships.

Sanders died in Louisville, Kentucky, of pneumonia on December 16, 1980. His body laid in state in the rotunda of the Kentucky State Capitol. His funeral was attended by more than 1,000 people. He's buried in his characteristic white suit and black string tie in Louisville's Cave Hill Cemetary.

Cassandra Wilson

Who said The Monkees can't sound good? They can when Cassandra Wilson sings "Last Train to Clarksville".

Justin McClain Johnson

This is my nephew. He cleans up pretty good, doesn't he?

The Surface of The Exterior

Wife and I went downtown to Charlie Wilson's Appliance & Electronics today to buy a TV. Charlie Wilson's has been on Market Street a very long time. Daniel Boone bought supplies there when on his way to explore the Falls of the Ohio, back when Charlie Wilson sold salt, traps, and flintlock rifles. You can't say that Charlie hasn't changed with the times.

Every city probably has a store similar to this. A store where you get very good personal service, the prices beat every store around, and beats shopping at all the mega-chain stores hands down.

When I was around thirteen years old my parents took me there to buy my first TV set with the money I earned delivering newspapers. It was a nineteen inch B&W Sylvania. I was thrilled. When we remodeled our kitchen a few years back, we bought all our new appliances there; fridge, microwave, oven, and dishwasher.

We came home with a thiry-two inch LCD flat panel to replace the TV on our back porch room. We practically stole the thing from old Charlie. He's so INSANE, he's practically giving them away! While taking it out of the box and assembling the swivel stand, I came across a square of pastel green cloth in a cellophane bag.

The instructions for use of this cloth read:
"Slightly wipe stained spot on the exterior only with the cleansing cloths for the product exterior if there is stain or fingerprint on surface of the exterior."

Our new TV is nice. I threw the cloth away.

Things That Cross My Mind

Gross National Product
Supply
Demand
Employment
Unemployment
Retirement
401k
Inflation
Deflation
Conflagrations
Tsunamis
Earthquakes
Milk shakes
Shake ‘n Bake
Easy Bake
Barbie & Ken
Yin & Yang
Elephants & Asses
Holy cow
Holy Grail
Holy Ghost
Fundamentalists
Evangelicals
Charismatics
New Age
Ice age
Stone Age
Emotional age
IQ
Artificial Intelligence
Active Directory replication
Dynamic hosting
Host names
Forward lookup
Reverse lookup
IP’s
Static IP’s
Password enabling
Password disabling
Network drop offs
Rogue laptops
Site spoofing
Ad-ware
Trojans
Computer viruses
Human viruses
Contaminants
Muscle mass
Muscle loss
Bone loss
Blood pressure
High Density Lipoproteins
Low Density Lipoproteins
Coronary arteries
Plavix
Slick 50
Lipitor
BP
Beta blockers
Blow holes
Blow hards
Rush Limbaugh
Limburger cheese
Bleu cheese
Blonde
Information leaks
DVR’s
DVD’s
CD’s
CIA
Cover ups
Cover alls
Paint
Plastic lattice
Wood lattice
4 x 4’s
2 x 4’s
Crown mold
Shoe mold
Mold
Miter saws
Chain saws
Laser levels
Cedar mulch
Hardwood mulch
Synthetic mulch
Irrigation leaks
Fescue
Bluegrass
Thatch
Weeds
Deeds
Child abuse
Drug abuse
Alcoholism
Pedophiles
Francophiles
WWI
WWII
Korean war
Vietnam war
Ho Chi Mien
Mao Tse Tung
General Tsao’s Chicken
Egg drop soup
Parachute drops
Desert Storm
Enduring Freedom
Afghanistan
Pakistan
Sandals
Hippies
Yippies
Yuppies
Generation X, Y & Z
Renaissance
Expressionist
Abstract Expressionist
Post Modern
Stream of consciousness
Southern gothic
Goth
Cults
Mental illness
Hypochondriacs
Hissy fits
Hysterics
Historic districts
….And the band played on.

I heard this song on the way home from work yesterday. It sounded so good. And it kinda goes with this post.

The Temptations "Ball of Confusion"

On Tour in America

Michelangelo's "David" brought to you by corporate sponsors McDonald's and Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Chris Isaak

The first time I heard this song on the radio I thought it was The Moody Blues.
"Wicked Game"

Crash Test Dummies

Some guy from work was playing this song today. I haven't heard it in a long time. It's a weird little tune but I always liked it.

Crash Test Dummies with "Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm" live.

Birthday & Baseball

I think something is wrong with my camera. It's someone's ninth birthday today and the pictures I took make the birthday girl look taller and there's a shadow of teenager peaking out from her face. I'll either have to get my camera repaired or put a brick on top of this birthday girl's head.












And the birthday girl's cousin played in his T-ball game.

Michael Franti & Spearhead

"Yell Fire"

Chris Whitley

Whitley was born in Houston, Texas. He spent the first decade of his career in Belgium, where he recorded several albums and saw moderate success.

Though relatively unknown to the mainstream, he worked with many top named musicians throughout his career. In 1991, U2/Peter Gabriel producer Daniel Lanois and his protégé, Malcolm Burn, recorded Whitley's Stateside debut album Living With the Law. Two of his singles charted in the United States on the Billboard Mainstream Rock charts: "Big Sky Country" and "Living with the Law" Others like Dave Matthews and Bruce Hornsby also appeared on 2001's Rocket House. Whitley played a brand of confessional acoustic and electric blues, mixed with modern rock. His lyrics often contained overt sexual references and sometimes bordered on the surreal. An avid fan of jazz legend John Coltrane, Whitley played the National/Dobro, made famous by many of the great Mississippi delta blues players of the 1930s.

In fall 2005 it was revealed that Whitley was terminally ill with lung cancer. He died on November 20, 2005; his brother, Dan, and daughter, Trixie, publicly announced his passing.

Although Whitley wasn't a mainstream act, his passing resonated throughout the music community and garnered coverage and press throughout the world, ranging from Time, the New York Times, and National Public Radio to a tribute mention at the 2006 Grammy Awards. His albums Living With The Law and Dirt Floor are regarded as classics, and passionate advocates abound for any of his dozen or so other releases, from the hard rock driven Din Of Ecstasy to the somewhat more experimental sound of Rocket House to the dark, jazzy minimalism of Hotel Vast Horizon. Bruce Springsteen, Bruce Hornsby, Tom Petty, Don Henley, Iggy Pop, Alanis Morissette, John Mayer, Gavin DeGraw, and Keith Richards all count themselves admirers of Whitley's music. Dave Matthews has said, "I feel more passion for his music than I do for my own.

Lost and the Digital Video Recorder

We were late getting to the TV to watch Lost last night. I told wife not to worry because I had it set to record on the fancy schmancy downstairs DVR. Our upstairs DVR can record two different shows that are on at the same time. It’s a dual recordable DVR. I didn’t know the downstairs DVR was not dual recordable, but I was about to find out because I had recorded another show on another channel, on at the same time as Lost. I pressed the “my DVR” button on the remote and Lost wasn’t on the list. WTF? We had missed the first twenty minutes. The show is confusing enough as it is.

Lost involves a lot of shifts in time, in real-time, flash-back’s and flash-forward’s. DVR’s have the same similarities, in pausing live TV, fast-forward, and fast-reverse. I found out last week that if you haven’t set Lost to record and you pause the show for, say twenty minutes while on the phone with some idiot who dares call you while “your” show is on, and then resume watching, you’re going to miss the last twenty minutes because when the show ends, it ends. I’ve had to go to abc.com a few times to watch parts of Lost that I had missed due to these mishaps.

I’ve gone to bed after watching the show, wondering if I was my past self or future self. Maybe if I enrolled in the advanced physics doctorate program at Oxford University, I’d be able to figure out the relativity between the present time, my DVR and Lost.

Rare White Deer

Germany's Got Talent

I've had occasions when I have to hammer in nails in hard to get to places. This guy's got it figured out.

My First Kentucky Derby

I don’t actually remember much about my first Derby experience. What I do remember is that it was the 100th running of the Derby. The year was 1975. It was a record setting crowd at Churchill Downs which still stands today. Oh…and I remember we were in the infield. Today wild thoroughbreds couldn’t drag me to the infield on Derby day.

My Old Kentucky Home

"My Old Kentucky Home", written by Stephen Foster, is sung annually at the Kentucky Derby with the accompaniment of the University of Louisville marching band. The tradition began sometime between 1921 and 1930, by which time it was established as the music played while the horses are led to the post.

According to folklore, Foster was inspired to write the song when, while traveling from his home in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to New Orleans, Louisiana, he stopped in Bardstown, Kentucky to visit his cousins, the Rowan family, and saw their magnificent Federal Hill mansion.

Some of his other well known songs are Camptown Races, Swanee River, and Jeannie With the Light Brown Hair.

Eighteen of Foster's compositions were recorded and released on the "Beautiful Dreamer: The Songs of Stephen Foster" collection. Among the artists that are featured on the album are John Prine, Alison Krauss, Yo Yo Ma, Roger McGuinn, Mavis Staples and Suzy Bogguss. The album won the Grammy for Best Traditional Folk Album in 2005.

Foster died a penniless alcoholic at Bellevue Hospital in New York City at age of 37.

The Mint Julep

The Mint Julep has been the traditional drink at the Kentucky Derby for over 100 years. Here is the recipe:

4 fresh mint sprigs
2 1/2 oz bourbon whiskey
1 tsp powdered sugar
2 tsp water

Muddle mint leaves, powdered sugar, and water in a collins glass. Fill the glass with shaved or crushed ice and add bourbon. Top with more ice and garnish with a mint sprig.

Take the Mint Julep and pour it down the drain. Think about it…bourbon, sugar, and mint? Ugh, who dreamed up this gross concoction?

Make yourself a bourbon & club soda instead.

Hunter Thompson at The Kentucky Derby

Louisville native, Hunter Thompson, covered the 1970 Kentucky Derby for Scanlon’s Monthly. Titled “The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved”, it was Thompson’s first article coined as “Gonzo Journalism”.

“Creeping Jesus, I thought. That screws the press credentials. I had a vision of some nerve-rattling geek all covered with matted hair and string-warts showing up in the press office and demanding 'Scanlan’s' press packet. Well…what the hell? We could always load up on acid and spend the day roaming around the clubhouse grounds with bit sketch pads, laughing hysterically at the natives and swilling mint julep so the cops wouldn’t think we’re abnormal…

“I took the expressway out to the track, driving very fast and jumping the monster car back and forth between lanes, driving with a beer in one hand and my mind so muddled that I almost crushed a Volkswagen full of nuns when I swerved to catch the right exit.”

It’s quite a departure from the style and substance of William Faulkner’s piece fifteen years earlier. Hunter Thompson could have just as well grown up to be a sociopath.

Faulkner at The Kentucky Derby

The 135th Kentucky Derby is held on the first Saturday in May which is nine days from today.

In 1955 Sports Illustrated was first published and, wanting their magazine to stand out from the rest of the sports oriented magazines, hired Nobel prize winner William Faulkner to come to Louisville to watch and write about the Derby. What better way was there to set Sports Illustrated apart from the rest of the sports rags?

Faulkner always painted scenes with a broad brush and opened his piece by writing about Daniel Boone’s exploration and opening of Kentucky to people wanting to settle here. He ended his narrative without bothering to mention the name of the horse who won the Derby that year.

“Only a little over two minutes: one simultaneous metallic clash as the gates spring. Though you do not really know what it was you hear: whether it was that metallic crash, or the simultaneous thunder of the hooves in that first leap or the massed voices, the gasp, the exhalation--whatever it was, the clump of horses indistinguishable yet, like a brown wave dotted with the bright silks of the riders like chips flowing toward us along the rail until, approaching, we can begin to distinguish individuals, streaming past us now as individual horses--horses which (including the rider) once stood about eight feet tall and 10 feet long, now look like arrows twice that length and less than half that thickness, shooting past and bunching again as perspective diminishes, then becoming individual horses once more about the turn into the backstretch, streaming on, to bunch for the last time into the homestretch itself, then again individuals, individual horses, the individual horse, the Horse: 2:01 4/5 minutes."

I love Faulkner.

I've Fallen and I Can't Get Up!

At work today we had a mandatory safety meeting. I chose to attend the second meeting at one o’clock which was a bad move on my part. I didn’t get much sleep the night before, the meeting was right after I ate lunch, and the room was warm.

The meeting was in the cavernous first floor conference room. I set up the wireless keyboard and mouse on the presenter’s laptop, plugged in the video cable in the floor jack and the back of the laptop, and turned the projector on. I signed into the meeting and took my seat towards the back of the room, which was filling up fast.

The lights were turned down low and the room was getting even warmer from the crowd. The presenter started the safety presentation and it didn’t take long for my lids to start south. I was struggling to stay conscious.

My head snapped up as I heard my snore snap shut. Everyone’s head turned towards me with half smiles on their faces. I feigned a scratch at my chin, checking for drool. It turned out that I was the entertainment portion of the meeting. Thankfully, there was no pop quiz afterward.

Weaponized Ice Cream

I had scooped out my small dish of ice cream wife brought home the other day and started scooping hers when I hit a depression and a hemisphere of ice cream sailed through the air and hit the floor. One thousand one…one thousand two… what the hell, I just vacuumed the house Saturday.

Guilt got the better of me and I took the corrupted ice cream myself, at least I think I picked the right dish. By the time I got downstairs I took my best guess. We were watching “24” and my mind was consumed with worry whether Jack Bauer was going to die from exposure to the bio-weapon. Surely the writers wouldn’t kill off Jack Bauer, would they? I handed wife the dish in my left hand, hoping it was the un-weaponized ice cream.

I like “24” but Kiefer Sutherland couldn’t act his way out of a wet paper bag. He can’t even get suffering right. If I had to act like I was infected with bio-weapon
goo, I’d like to think I’d do a better job; chew on furniture and foam at the mouth. Kiefer Sutherland just does his funny blink and sweats fake sweat.

I sneak a peek at wife after she had finished her ice cream. No sweat on her forehead or hand tremors. I guess I gave her the right ice cream. By the same token, there weren’t any floory notes on my palate. I guess we were going to be okay. The same can’t be said for Jack Bauer. At the end of “24” Jack Bauer was reduced to a bug eyed, sweating, and trembling mass of a man who still needs to save the United States of America from certain doom.

Kiefer Sutherland looked like he might have eaten some bad ice cream.

Two From Tom Waits

"I Don't Wanna Grow Up"


"Chocolate Jesus"

Imogen Heap

Thunder Over Louisville

This Saturday is Thunder Over Louisville which is a kick off for the Kentucky Derby festivities where there's not a whole lot of work being done in our fair city for two weeks before the The Horse Race itself. It's free and open to the public which is why you won't see me there. About 500,000 people will gather at the Ohio river on both sides of the shore to watch millions of dollars worth of fireworks go up in smoke. The Zambelli Brothers produce the show.

A few years ago, my wife and I went to the air show which precedes the fireworks. We vamoosed before the fireworks began. Before that, the only time I've seen so many drunk people in the same spot was the night before the Indianapolis 500. We always watch Thunder on TV and, if the wind is right, we can hear it too.

New Radicals

The New Radicals were led by Gregg Alexander who wrote and sang all the songs on their one and only album put out in 1998. When I first bought it I listened to almost nothing else. I think it's one of the best albums I've heard in a long time.

This is "Mother We Just Can't Get Enough".

Gomez

Gomez is a band from England who are very popular on both sides of the Atlantic. They're coming to Louisville in May. I might just have to go and see 'em. This is one of my favorites by Gomez titled "See The World".

Shawn Mullins

This song should've been all over the radio when it came out but top forty radio stations play nothing that's not at least twenty years old. This is "Beautiful Wreck" by Shawn Mullins.

Wheelchair

Last week Tristan was at my wife’s shop and there was an elderly woman in a wheelchair preparing to leave. Tristan walks up to her and starts asking questions.

“What you doin?”
The woman looks at Tristan but doesn’t answer.

“Where you going?”
“I’m going home.”
“A car will hit you!”

Tristan thought she was going to wheel her chair right out onto U.S. 60 to go home. This, of course, makes perfect sense to a three year old boy looking at a chair with wheels on it.

Thunderstruck

I never cared too much for heavy metal bands and although I heard AC/DC occasionally on the radio when they were hugely popular, I didn't care for them all that much either. During the heavy metal/head banger era I had practically given up popular music and turned to jazz.

I always thought AC/DC was a band from England but in fact they're from Sydney, Australia. AC/DC formed in 1973 and are still head banging today. The lead guitarist, Angus Young, still wears the school-boy uniform in concert as he always did since the band started. This is "Thunderstruck" from their 1990 album The Razor's Edge performed live in England.

Cult of Murray

I guess Abby was a sophomore at Murray State University when she brought home the cute puppy for us to see. She had named the little guy Murray. Little Murray was not well and we suspected the parvovirus. He wouldn’t eat or drink water and was very lethargic. I suspected he wouldn’t make it through the weekend.

The next morning Abby called me from her basement bedroom to look at him. His lifeless body was lying in the shoe box. Abby, with tears in her eyes, said she didn’t want to be around when I took care of the body.

I took the shoe box out to the edge of the backyard and laid it on the ground between the two wooden crosses supporting the clothes lines. The weird canine irony wasn’t lost on me and, as I recall, the next day was Easter Sunday.

I dug the shoebox size grave about four feet deep. Removing the shoe box coffin lid, I double checked to make sure Murray was indeed dead. I didn’t want to bury the poor thing alive. I put the lid back on and put Murray in his final resting place. Before I shoveled in the dirt I said a two word eulogy, “Sorry Murray.” I felt a little silly as I said it; after all, it’s just a dog, right?

I wonder, if in a far off future civilized incarnation of our world, while digging the foundation for a new building, they find the fossilized bones of a puppy between two fossilized wooden crosses. What would they think?

Yard Monkeys

I worked under the cloudless sky on our rock bordered landscape gardens. I was grateful for such a nice day after the crappy fall and winter we’ve been through. The night before, after the OJ made her wanna, the weatherman called for a high of seventy today. Hallelujah and pass the pruning shears.

The first order of business was cleaning out the narrow garden strips on either side of the backyard deck. I couldn’t use the rake as the hostas and ferns had their heads already poked up through the ground. Being careful where I stepped, I did the orangutan walk, picking up leaves and twigs as I lumbered along.

I came to this small weedy looking sapling that I had meant to dig out last August while I was putting up the new fence. I think it was a Rose of Sharon tree that had seeded itself there somehow. A Rose of Sharon by any other name would look as ugly. I retrieved from the shed my trusty irrigation shovel with the recently sharpened blade and struck it into the soil eight inches from the base. I could feel the blade hit the tap root and after the eighth strike I felt the root sever and despite hanging on for life I pulled the stubborn little yip out of the ground. The song birds cried my victory.

I heard my wife from the other side of the fence, “Look at all the hawks!” Looking up I saw seven hawks making wide lazy circles, their outstretched wings floating on the rising thermals. Over the past few years it seems there are more and more hawks making a living in our area. It’s a beautiful sight and makes you wish you could fly along with them.

I joined my wife pruning the burning bush next to the driveway. The bush had gotten so out of hand we used the ladder to trim the top part. There was one branch in the middle we couldn’t reach to cut. It looks as though the burning bush has an antenna for carbon dioxide reception. I mowed the lawn and then we cleared the gardens on the south side of the house.

It was a long day outside cleaning up from the very messy winter and everything looked a little better. The next thing is composting, mulching, and fine tuning the irrigation system which will take every bit of a three day weekend.

I woke up Sunday with a very sore back and it’s still sore today. Damn that Rose of Sharon. You’d think with the hours we spend at the gym I wouldn’t feel sore from gardening. Maybe I need to develop an aerobic routine with a shovel.

Watching the news I see that we're getting snow tonight with a low of 32 degrees. Is this rogue winter ever going to end?

The Orange Juice Made her Wanna

At the end of the evening "my" chair had slowly inched farther back until, while watching the 11:00 o'clock news, it was in full reclining position. I was going in and out of the late night sleepy twilight zone. Elf ear was lying very still on the couch. I thought she had fallen asleep.

A loud commercial opened my eyes and a woman, after drinking her orange juice, was flitting around her house cleaning her kitchen, choreographed to an idiot pop music background. My thick voice said "So stupid."

A faint sleepy voice from the couch said,
"The orange juice made her wanna."

NRBQ

Stands for New Rhythm and Blues Quartet. The band was started by Louisville natives Terry Adams and Steve Ferguson. I used to have their first album, simply titled "NRBQ" put out in 1969. I loved them then and now as they're still performing. Their music covers almost the whole spectrum of genres from Jazz, to pop, to rock, to rockabilly. Their lack of commercial success have led some to say NRBQ stands for No Records Bought in Quantity. They have legiones of fans world wide. This is "Dummy" from the same titled album of 2004.

April 3rd, 1974

I was in a Kroger picking something up, I can’t remember what. There had been tornado watches issued by the weather service earlier in the day. Coming out the skies had a leaden background with rags of clouds in the foreground moving rapidly westward. My eye followed the clouds west and that’s when I saw the top of the tornado, about five miles away, and the occasional electrical flash close to it. It was a very scary sight and I’ll never forget it. I never had dreams of tornados before that day and now I still have the occasional tornado dream.

The F4 tornado formed over Louisville’s airport and touched down at The Kentucky Fair and Exposition Center, and destroyed the horse barns at the center and part of Freedom Hall arena before it crossed I-65, scattering several vehicles. The tornado continued its 22-mile journey northeast destroying over 900 homes, and damaging thousands of others. Cherokee Park, a historic 409-acre municipal park designed by Frederic Law Olmstead had thousands of mature trees destroyed.

Today is the 35th anniversary of the “Super Outbreak” It is the largest tornado outbreak on record for a single 24-hour period. From April 3 to April 4, 1974, there were 148 tornados confirmed in 13 states, including Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, and New York; and the Canadian province of Ontario. It extensively damaged approximately 900 square miles along a total combined path length of 2,600 miles.

Bardstown Road

Last Saturday we drove to the Highland area of Bardstown Road to pick up a ceiling fan she had ordered awhile back. Bardstown Road has so many bars, cross streets, pizza parlors, tattoo parlors, coffee shops, antique shops, music stores, and book stores that it’s a unique yet confusing jumble of tossed together buildings snuggled together. The Bardstown Road area has always been the Haight-Ashbury of Louisville with left over hippies, gen-Xer’s, grunger’s and goths crowding the sidewalk and shops.


At last we saw the sign “Alcott & Bentley”. We had to park two blocks away. I love browsing this store. They sell mainly ceiling fans but also have chandeliers, Tiffany lamps, original paintings, sculptures and novelty items. An unseen radio is always tuned to WFPK as an added bonus.


I was looking at small table top sculptures at the front of the store, the large window in the background with a wide view of the sidewalk along Bardstown Road. I quit looking at the sculptures and was looking at the mostly young pedestrians and cyclists zigzagging to and fro in front of the shop.


There was a tipsy couple leaving a bar on the sunny-blurry side of the street. There were stoners with the red-rimmed chinese-eyes, looking down at their shoes as they walked. There was a man about my age with salt and pepper hair pulled back in a pony tail, faded jeans, and leather jacket. There was a slim long-legged woman with long strawberry blonde hair and painted on jeans. All the men took leisurely side long glances as she passed by.



I see the old Lentini’s restaurant across and down the street. Lentini’s went out of business not too long ago. Lentini’s is where I, along with my brother and sisters, had our first taste of wine. It was my older sister’s birthday as I recall our parents took all of us out to eat at Lentini’s and, I don’t know why, but dad ordered a large carafe of Chianti for all of us to partake. We thought it sophisticated and special to be drinking wine with our meal.


There is the Phoenix Hill Tavern, alive and still kicking. It’s still offers live music most every weekend. I’ve had some wild times there in the past. Wild times
that I prefer not to discuss in blog land.

I guess most every city has a street like Bardstown Road, a street lined with local businesses, local eateries, and unique, one-of-a-kind shops.

Daniel Boone

I finally finished reading "Boone" written by Robert Morgan and although Daniel Boone remains a shadowy figure of the frontier era in American history, you get a good sense of what made the man tick. Daniel Boone was famous in his own time and this generated stories about Boone that were half truths and outright fiction. The real story of Daniel Boone is complicated and far more interesting than the fictional accounts.

Boone never wore a coonskin hat. He thought they were uncouth, heavy, and uncomfortable. He preferred the beaver felt hat to protect himself from the sun and rain.

In Boone's own time he had detractors who accused him of everything from treason to fraud. He was court-martialed once, only to be exonerated of all charges.

In Boone's prime, he would be gone for months at a time, the longest being when he went on his first exploration of Kentucky for two years. When he arrived back home his wife didn't recognize him upon first sight.

Robert Morgan frequently refers to Boone's love of the wilderness in sexual allegories. Boone inspired writers such as Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman.

Daniel Boone was captured by a tribe of Shawnee Indians and became the honorary son of the chief, Black Fish. He escapes and returns to Boonesboro four months later to warn settlers of a pending attack by the British and Shawnees.

Towards the end of Boone's life in Missouri, people passing through would stop by to meet and talk with the famous pioneer. When he got wind of a visitor he would often disappear.


He lived to be eighty-five years old and was buried in Missouri. Boone and his wife, Rebecca, were later moved and are now buried in Frankfort, Kentucky.

Ball And Chain

"Ball and Chain" was written by Big Mama Thorton in the 50's and was one of her biggest hits. In the late sixties Janis Joplin covered the song and it was one of her biggest hits. This is Janis Joplin singing Ball And Chain at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967. In the video you can see Jimi Hendrix and Mama Cass Elliot watching the performance. Janis's back up band is Big Brother and the Holding Company who were a ho-hum band. Janis claimed she would sing with no one else. Nobody could sing the blues like Janis. If you're in the kind of mood I've been in lately, it's like musical therapy.

News That Makes Me Shudder

Below is part of a news story I grabbed from Yahoo news today. If the switch to Direct Lending passes, the corporation I work for will close it's doors and we'll all be unemployed.

"The House measure also backs Obama's plans to essentially eliminate the federal guaranteed student loan program, replacing such loans with direct loans made by the Department of Education. The proposal would be advanced on a fast-track under the plan, which the Congressional Budget Office estimates would save $92 billion over 10 years that could be used to fund other aid to students."

The savings of $92 billion is highly suspect. If the fed takes over higher education student loans do you really believe it will save money? I think not. Just this morning a local radio station played an ad for higher education student loans from the U.S. Dept. of Education. The budget plan hasn't even been passed yet and they're spending money on ads. I've heard that the biggest lender of student loans (Sallie Mae) has already been chosen to administer these direct lending loans and they're not doing it out of the goodness of their heart either.

I voted for the man and now I feel I was played for a fool. It's time to polish up the resume. Obama schnobama.

Jessica Lea Mayfield

This blog is one year old today. Whoop-dee-doo!

There is a musician by the name of Jessica Lea Mayfield who's been getting alot of airplay lately. She's a nineteen years old from Kent, Ohio and grew up singing in her family's band. She started writing songs and playing guitar when she was eleven years old.

This is "For Today" from her debut album Blasphemy so Heartfelt.

Hair Style at Mimi's

Valentine's Day

A Few Pics

Spring is right around the corner.

Charlene's white coconut cake.

Virginia's pineapple upside down cake.

The crocus's have come up.

John Mellencamp

"Check It Out" is from John Mellencamp's Lonesome Jubilee album, recorded in 1987. One of my favorite Mellencamp songs. Have a good weekend everybody.

Fire, Spring, Great, and Grand

Tonight's probably the last fire in the old Ben Franklin for the season. Even though it climbed to a mighty sixty degrees today, it seems the cold air gets pulled in from the walls that somehow store it up during winter. It's a bone chilling cold.

I'm tired of cold. I want Spring and I want it now. I want Bleeding Hearts bleeding, Forsythia on fire, and Red Buds that lavenderize all over themselves. The trunk of our Cusa Dogwood needs a couple of carriage bolts put through it to pull the split trunk back together. The ice storm's terrible handiwork. Everywhere in Louisville are piles of tree branches fronting every house. The city says they're going to speed up efforts at removing the debris. We'll see.

I have a niece who's baby is due on April Fools day. I have a question to ask anyone who wants to answer: Does that make me a Grand Uncle or Great Uncle? I say it's Grand but my wife thinks it's Great. The future of this argument is in your hands.

Mike Errico

In Like a Lion, Out Like a Lamb

Last night we were watching the weather and he predicted the morning low was to be seventeen degrees. He said March was coming in like a frozen leg of lamb. After I gained control of my hysterical laughter, I asked my wife if the old saying for March weather was indeed in like a lamb, out like a lion or vice versa.


"I don't know."
"It's got to be one or the other."
"I don't know, who cares?"
"I wonder when the saying was first coined, and who said it?"
"Only you would want to know something useless like that."
"I'll have to google it tomorrow."
"You do that...good-night, geek."

This is from the USA Today:

"For most locations, the average temperature at the end of the month is higher than at the beginning, so the proverb typically has some meteorological truth to it, but where did it come from?

The phrase apparently has its origins with the constellations Leo, the Lion, and Aries, the ram or lamb. It has to do with the relative positions of these constellations in the sky at the beginning and end of the month."

Duh

I recently went back to wearing contact lenses. I was sick of wearing glasses and, short of getting lasik surgery, contacts were my only choice.

The clock radio blares music too early and I make myself roll out of bed and stumble to the kitchen and put water on for coffee. The shower doesn't do much to wake me up. I've got to start getting to bed earlier. I have to hustle to make the van which leaves at 6:40 sharp. I brush my toofers, dress, and pop my contacts in. I pour coffee in the go cup and run out to my truck.

On my way to the parking lot, everything's a blur. I think I must have put my contacts in the wrong eyes. Sitting in my truck I reach up to tweak my contacts and I discover, by force of habit, I had put on my glasses. I take them off and everything becomes crystal clear.
Duh.