Louisville Magazine

JUL 2012

Louisville Magazine is Louisville's city magazine, covering Louisville people, lifestyles, politics, sports, restaurants, entertainment and homes. Includes a monthly calendar of events.

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"I've heard from quite a few people out- side of Louisville that believe that native Louisvillians tend to seem a little ignorant, narrow-minded and arrogant . . . putting Louisville too high up on a pedestal while at the same time being condescending to other areas." "Some folks, not naming names, seem to think that if you don't live within 40 or 50 miles of Louisville or Lexington you're just out of touch and likely married to your sister. Additionally, we're uneducated, over- religious, shack-dwelling inbreds and have only poor underachieving schools that only teach about Jesus. We're out of touch, out of date and out at Klan rallies." Wow, I thought. Is the divide that bad? Are we truly such arrogant jerks? Tus, my mission was born, launching me on a 2,500- mile journey, looking for answers from Pikeville in the east to the farthest western outpost of Madrid Bend. So I ask Ol' Blue Eyes this question: Why does the rest of the state hate us? He can't say. In fact, he's never been to Louisville. "I've been to the edge," he says. "Tere are good people and bad all over." Tis is discouraging. It's actually my second interview, and I'm just not finding the malice I hoped to dissect. A little ear- lier, I had stopped at Lying Lee's Used Cars in Morehead. A salesman in blue jeans wrapped up a conversation with a customer as I approached. "I'd really like to drive that Chevy," the customer said. I followed the salesman into the office, where he asked a woman if she could find the key. She fetched a plastic container made from the bottom of a gallon milk jug. It was full of unlabeled keys. In the parking lot, a guy in a black T-shirt whose blond hair stood straight up looked at cars with a cigarette clinging to his lower lip. I asked him what he thought of Louisville. "I hate it," the man said with enough venom to kill a champion steer. Tis could be good, I thought. I probed more deeply. "Why do you hate it? Why is it so bad?" "Te traffic," he said. "Too many people." hat there is some dislike between Louis- ville and the rest of the commonwealth seems established fact. Tere are per- sistent arguments about who hogs all the money from government — with Louisvil- lians citing 2003 data showing that the city gets back 59 cents for every dollar in taxes it sends to Frankfort while Glasgow scores $1.16 per dollar paid; Ashland, 87 cents; Mayfield, $1.35; and Frankfort — are you ready for this? — $4.92. Lexington gets 82 cents and the Cincinnati-area counties 64 cents. Te rest of the state sees things dif- ferently, pointing to Louisville exclusives: a multimillion-dollar bridge project, say, or T the Yum! Center. And then there is that other rivalry. I think it's about basketball. Add to this historical events, geography and disinterest, beyond even the natural inclination of people who live closer to, say, Nashville or St. Louis to forget Louisville exists. What does it mean when the makers of Justified, the FX televi- sion series set in Kentucky, have mentioned Louisville exactly two times by the end of season two? (Sorry, I'm behind.) Te biggest city in the state gets two mentions. In the minds of strangers and stragglers, it seems, Lexington looms larger. At the Shepherdsville Flea Market ("Te Most Awesome Flea Market"), a guy tells me that Lexington is the biggest city in the against electric-blue skies. If we kept driving on 60, we would end up in Virginia Beach. Instead, we take a side road, following the signs to Mamaw's Primitives in Squirrel Hol- low. Mamaw — Verlina Greenhill — comes out the front door to meet us. She makes homemade art — not unlike the country decor so popular a few years back. Hers is well-made, clever and bargain-priced, dis- played in a barn-shaped shed where lazy wasps drift in the stifling heat. What does she think of Louisville? She's never been there. "I've never been anywhere," she says. "Well, I went to Ohio a few times. But if it's a big town, I don't want anything to do with it. My boy works in Lexington, and it was "I've been to the edge (of Louisville). There are good people and bad all over." — Garrett DeHart owner of Bible & Tire in Morehead state. And he lives in Louisville. In fact, Louisville's population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, is just under 600,000; Lexington's is just under 300,000. What's confusing about this? Oh, a side note: Should you decide to visit the Shepherdsville market, shop inside as well as out. Tell me if they're still offer- ing six-packs of bras amid a display of Jesus T-shirts. I don't want any. I just want to know. T raveling Kentucky is like taking a coun- try-western quiz. Quick: Name three songs by Tom T. Hall. We're on the Tom T. Hall Highway, aka U.S. 60 between Morehead and Olive Hill, Hall's birthplace. Our Kentucky journeys will put us on not only the Tom T., but also the Kentucky Country Music Highway (U.S. 23) and the Blue Moon of Kentucky Highway (U.S. 62 in Ohio County). We will note the childhood homes or birthplac- es of Loretta Lynn, Crystal Gayle, Bill Mon- roe, Billy Ray Cyrus, Naomi and Wynonna Judd, Don and Phil Everly, Dwight Yoakam, and Patty Loveless. Oh, and Ricky Skaggs. Tat we miss many more is testimony to our ignorance of country music and occasional lack of attention. I can only remember two Tom T. Hall songs, the insipid "I Love" and "Harper Valley PTA," which anyone alive in 1968 has seared upon the brain. Now it's stuck in mine as we drive through the gaudiest of landscapes, with bright green and gold fields horrible busy. So much traffic! I was there three hours and I was ready to come back to Squirrel Holler." Back on U.S. 60, we stop at a business called JTR, where the sign says it sells used "Furinture" and "Appliance." I want to see this appliance, but the store is closed.We end up at the Boyd County Fair, only to learn that the eagerly anticipated lawn-mower rac- es are canceled due to a lack of contestants. So we opt for the wrestling matches, where a man in blue surgical scrubs, a grass skirt and patent-leather boots trades fake body slams with a grappler in a white mask, blond wig and muumuu. I cheer for the muumuu man. Who doesn't love a muumuu? Tis is a sweet little fair, slightly smaller than your average Louisville Catholic church carnival. On the midway I ask a group of teenagers about Louisville. Stunned silence. "Tere are too many drugs in Lexington," one teen finally tells me. (It's noisy. Maybe she didn't hear me.) "Wait! Wait!" a boy in- terrupts. "I know! Te Louisville Slugger! Tat's a baseball bat!" Finally, Betsy Lane decides she doesn't like Louisville because . . . "it's a city." J ames Gifford's dark brown hair falls across his brow probably the same way it did when he was a boy in Tennessee. Te historian directs the Jesse Stuart Foun- dation in Ashland and is author of a new biography of the writer. Jesse Stuart is important to our story. He lived in Greenup County, just up the road 7.12 LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE [67]

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