Louisville Magazine is Louisville's city magazine, covering Louisville people, lifestyles, politics, sports, restaurants, entertainment and homes. Includes a monthly calendar of events.
Issue link: https://loumag.epubxp.com/i/453014
LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 2.15 17 CIT Y sentence . in a HAIKU REVIEW FLASH BACK Kids are up at 5 a.m., watching the news ticker, fngers crossed, praying for: "JEFFERSON COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS: CLOSED." HALF-STAFF In the early '90s my grandparents were visiting, and my family celebrated at Vincenzo's downtown. After the meal, my four-year-old self did what most adults physically want to do but socially won't do and fell asleep in one of the large curved booths. The server, Levert Bizzle, draped a white, laundered tablecloth over me. It's 20 years later, and I'm enjoying an Italian dinner and Champagne with my honey at Vincenzo's. That's when I spot Bizzle. Now his 'do is more mini-'fro, less Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction. The 47-year-old has worked at Vincenzo's since not long after it opened in the mid-'80s. "Not too many kids fall asleep in the restaurant," Bizzle says. "You were the frst one." I ask him what he loves about his job, and without having to think about it he says, "Meeting new people like yourself." — Mary Chellis Austin derbydinner.com WE L OVE Louisville Magazine Vol. 52/No. 2 February 2001 On the cover: JCPS assistant director of pupil personnel Connie Usher didn't like the title "truant offcer." Sounded too aggressive. We dubbed her "kid-catcher," which sounds either playful or creepy. Inside: We followed Usher on her hunt for hooky players: knocking on doors, peeking through windows, encouraging apathetic 15-year-olds to attend class. Usher's job could be dangerous. One time, a group of young men wielding broken bottles surrounded her at a home visit. They left when they noticed Usher's teenage son in her car. We shared our shame in a piece titled "True Confessions." Publisher Dan Crutcher couldn't shake newspaper comic strips, not even the "worst comic panel in the known universe": "Marmaduke." Jack Welch found his dark side, watching ants drink Terro, a sugary syrup laced with boric acid. "I don't know, something wicked came over me, seeing them gorging themselves like pigs at a trough," he wrote. Five local leaders shared stories about their mentors. Former governor John Y. Brown Jr. taught Brown-Forman executive Lois Mateus to "let them see the sizzle, not the steak." Tori Murden McClure, the frst American and woman to row solo across the Atlantic Ocean, credited her determination to Helen Longley, her Louisville Collegiate School history teacher. Preparing for her voyage, McClure "could hear Mrs. Longley saying there was no excuse for mediocrity." Mystery writer Sue Grafton talked about her father Chip, a lawyer who wrote mysteries in his spare time. She was unsentimental: "If he were alive today, he would be writing, and I would be kicking his butt." Outside: The FBI arrested one of its own agents, Robert Hanssen, and charged him with espionage for providing classifed national security information to the former Soviet Union and then Russia. Hanssen was sentenced to 15 consecutive life sentences. Nature published the frst complete draft of the human genome. Dale Earnhardt died in a crash at the Daytona 500. Steely Dan won the album of the year Grammy for Two Against Nature, beating out Radiohead's Kid A, Eminem's The Marshall Mathers LP and others. After a long day at the General Assembly A janitor mops bipartisan's sloppy fops off committee foor. Jan. 15, 11 a.m. Mayor Greg Fischer asks for a moment of silence. Black-clad politicians and admirers of the late Metro Council President Jim King attempt quiet in the downtown noise outside City Hall. Pull by slow pull, two police offcers lower the fag to half-staff. Red-eyed people talk. Legislative aide Wanda Mitchell-Smith tells me about a food on her street: "Jim came out to my home, and he brought a Shop-Vac." Councilman David Tandy tells me King loved Disney World and recommended guided tours. "That just goes more to show how he loved family," Tandy says. Councilman Kelly Downard looks at the crowd. He says, "That was probably his strongest point: his ability to pull people together." — Dylon Jones