Blue Moon of Kentucky

Last night was said to be, according to those who say such things, a "blue moon". Whatever that means. There are at least four different competing memes for just what constitutes this "blue moon" they speak of, and none of them are particularly satisfying to me. Apparently much of the misconceptions about it go back to a 1946 article in Sky & Telescope that was utterly, completely wrong - which just goes to show you can't always trust the "experts".


I've already mused on this blog about the various weirdnesses involving blue moons, blue people, aliens, and Elvis, but this latest spate of media attention to the "blue moon" concept has my coffee-oiled gears turning again regarding Kentucky's peculiar obsession with blueness. Of course, what comes to mind first are those ubiquitous Kentucky Wildcats of the University of Kentucky, with their slogans like "Go Big Blue!" and "I Bleed Blue". And much of our state's blue fetish is actually about misplaced blueness - blue moons aren't really blue, and neither is bluegrass.

Blue people seem to be on the rise, culturally, what with Blue Man Group and Avatar. But for over a billion people on Earth, it's nothing new: Krishna has been predominantly portrayed as blue-skinned in the Hindu religion.


But it's the idea of blue light that interests me most, as far as our discussions about Kentucky go. Reported nocturnal sightings of eerie blue lights - sometimes called "ghost lights" - in the Kentucky mountains have been shrugged off mostly as "swamp gas" (what would skeptics do without this crutch?) but on the other hand, it is possible that in earlier times, the many burning springs and natural gas vents dotting our state's landscape burned with a blue flame.

Kentucky's curiously-named "Moonshine" also burns with a blue flame.

Many of the UFOs seen around here are blue in color, such as in this report of blue lights in the sky above Fort Campbell (although the testimony doesn't make a whole lot of sense). Coincidentally, Fort Campbell was once home to an elite corps of secret Special Forces known as Blue Light.

Then there's two different "Lady in Blue" haunting legends - one is said to haunt the Seelbach Hotel in Louisville, and a similar one dwells in the Keen Johnson Ballroom at Eastern Kentucky University (Consult your copy of Weird Kentucky for more info on both). And maybe the "Gray Lady" of Liberty Hall is actually a very pale blue. Perhaps blue just happens to be the basic color of mystical energy, or "life force", or whatever you want to call it if you believe in that sort of thing.


Interestingly, although blue has an extremely short wavelength, the receptors in the human eye are specially geared to detect blue to a greater degree.

Frankfort Cemetery Desecrates Its Own Graves

Many families with loved ones buried at Frankfort Cemetery were recently horrified to find that trinkets, mementos, sentimental items, crosses, religious icons, and plastic flowers have all been removed and tossed in a giant junk heap.

Superintendent Coleman Kincaid is the man responsible for this travesty, and he makes no apologies about what he's done.

"There are so many ways that objects near and around graves make it hard for us to do the maintenance that this cemetery requires. We have 20,000 graves here." Kincaid said to the State-Journal. "The rules have always been here. It’s just in the past they were loosely observed and I am the one now charged with enforcing them."

However, there are glaring problems with Kincaid's "rules are rules" excuse. For one, real flowers are permitted while plastic ones are not, so it doesn't make sense to say that it's just about the maintenance men having difficulty mowing and weed-eating. It's just as hard to mow around a real flower than a plastic one.

Let's just be honest here, Mr. Kincaid, and say what this is really about: aesthetics. Even in death, it seems, snooty and nosey people try to tell tackier people what they can't do in their own yard.

Some people think decorated graves are tacky, while others (like me) say that people who paid a fortune for an exorbitantly price-gouged funeral, headstone and cemetery plot should be able to leave trinkets at that grave without some Mrs. Drysdale-voiced society lady complaining about how gauche it is.

I don't know whether Cemetery Board Member Dorothy Wilson talks like Mrs. Drysdale, but it would be appropriate. From the State-Journal:

Cemetery Board Member Dorothy Wilson supports Kincaid and thinks the recent cleaning enhances the property’s beauty and serenity.

“I think Coleman and the men who work here have done a nice job and definitely think it looks better,” Wilson said.

She too has received complaints, and many who called were very angry, she said.

“We (the board) began discussing the condition of the cemetery two or three years ago and the fact that there was a policy and it is on every contract, but had not been enforced,” said Wilson, the board member.

“When Coleman came on as superintendent last summer, we explained to him that the cemetery needed to be cleaned up.”

Although it may be true that stipulations about trinkets on graves are indeed buried deep in the fine print of the cemetery's contract (and who reads such contracts closely when they're wracked with grief for a loved one?), Wilson has, by her own admission, acknowledged that the policy had not been enforced. This means that a prospective customer, looking around and seeing graves festooned with bric-a-brac, naturally and logically would assume such things were permitted - because, in fact, they were.

The Frankfort Cemetery Board - consisting of seven people selected every five years - needs to overcome their obsession with aesthetically "cleaning up" other people's graves. The State-Journal notes that many people are furious with the Board, and say those who sit on the board are insensitive to their grief.

But that's not the only problem on their hands.

In someone's zeal to "clean up" the place, actual grave markers have been removed from the baby section of the cemetery. From the State-Journal again:

Pat Woods, of Frankfort, is among those upset by the policy.

“They even removed things that were sitting on tombstones and just threw them in a pile,” Woods said. “What respect have they shown for us or our loved ones?”

Woods is especially distraught that markers are gone in a section many refer to as the baby cemetery. “When my brother and sister died in the 40s, my parents could not afford tombstones,” Woods said. “I recently purchased new markers and replaced the old ones. They are gone.” A wooden cross that marked one child’s grave is no longer there, she added.

Kentucky May Drop Reference to Dueling in Oath

From the Washington Post:

When you take the oath of office in Kentucky, you have to swear that you haven't taken part in a duel with deadly weapons. The promise usually elicits laughter, and state Rep. Darryl Owens has proposed amending the Kentucky Constitution to do away with the archaic language. The Democrat's proposal cleared a House committee Tuesday.

According to Carl Chelf (chuh-elf), a retired political science professor at Western Kentucky University, the language comes from Kentucky's frontier days, when the state was a hotbed for dueling. Chelf says the framers of the state constitution wanted to clean up Kentucky's reputation as a haven where people came to fight duels.

If the proposal passes the House and Senate, voters would be asked in November whether they want to take the language out.

The Labrot Family Plot

I only took photographs of these graves in Frankfort Cemetery because I thought their names were interesting, as well as their connection to Ardeche, France.


When I got home and Googled him, I realized Leopold Labrot was the Labrot in Labrot & Graham, the historic whiskey distillery whose name still appears on one of my favorite bourbons in the whole universe - Woodford Reserve. The distillery itself has been in operation since it was the Pepper Distillery in 1812. It was purchased by French wine merchant Leopold Labrot and Kentucky banker James Graham in 1878, who operated it until 1941. Brown-Forman purchased the distillery and then sold it in 1971, only to re-buy it years later.

Cannon Doorknocker

Walking down the street in Frankfort, at first glance I thought this was supposed to be a submarine, or a submarine's periscope. But upon closer inspection, this unusual old metal doorknocker turned out to be a miniature simulacra of an antique cannon. It's on the door to the ticket office at Frankfort's Grand Theatre. A nice Steampunk-retro touch.

Kentucky State Capitol

The best place to get a good photo of the Kentucky State Capitol is not actually at the building, but from a considerable distance from it in the mountains that surround it. There's a lookout point along U.S. 60, where I took these, and Frankfort Cemetery also provides an excellent view.


Kentucky hasn't had good luck with capitol buildings. Between 1792 and 1830, Kentucky had two buildings serve as the capitol, and both of them burned down. Then from 1830 to 1810, we had a third one that was discontinued a few years after Governor William Goebel was assassinated in front of it. In 1910 the current capitol building was completed, with a dome patterned after Napoleon's tomb in Paris.

Miss Elizabeth

Miss Elizabeth, aka Elizabeth Ann Hulette from Frankfort, KY, was well known to wrestling fans during the 1980s and 1990s as the manager to "Macho Man" Randy Savage. She frequently appeared in the onstage shenanigans, including a bit where George "The Animal" Steele fell in love with her, which made Savage jealous and led to a series of grudge matches in a well-publicized feud over her.

In 1989, during a tag-team match, Savage was thrown onto Miss Elizabeth and she was knocked unconscious. Hulk Hogan rescued her and carried her backstage area to the medics. Savage was indignant that Hogan abandoned the match, and seemed more concerned about this than the safety of his manager. This began a "bad guy" period for Savage, during which he had a different manager.

In 1991, Savage proposed to Miss Elizabeth in the ring, and their wedding was also broadcast live in the ring at SummerSlam 1991. Jake "The Snake" Roberts and The Undertaker crashed the wedding reception and hid a live cobra in their pile of wedding presents. When the cobra failed to bite anyone, Roberts held it directly up to Savage's arm and forced it to bite.


By 1996, she'd divorced Savage and joined up with Ric Flair, who bragged in the ring that she'd given all her divorce-settlement money to him. Her alliance with Flair was short-lived, however, and though for a time she was side by side with Savage on the nWo, she ended up spending the rest of the 90s as arm candy for people like Eric Bischoff and Lex Luger. In 1999 she called the police on Bill Goldberg, claiming he was stalking her. After he was taken into custody, Miss Elizabeth revealed that she had lied about the whole thing so that Goldberg would miss a crucial match with Kevin Nash.


In 2000, Miss Elizabeth began a full-fledged pro wrestler career of her own, rather being a drama-generating sidekick character for the men to fight over. She wrestled, among others,
Shannon "Daffney" Spruill, Rhonda Sing, and Debra "Madusa" Miceli, the Monster Truck drivin' wrestler.


Everything I've said so far happened in the parallel universe of wrestling, and may or may not have really happened, depending on your interpretation of many-worlds quantum decoherence. But in 2000 the WCW terminated their contract with Miss Elizabeth for reasons unknown, and it wasn't just a fictional angle. By the following summer, she was working the front desk at a Main Event Fitness Center in Marietta, GA. On April 19, 2003, Cobb County police were called to her home after Lex Luger (to whom she was now engaged), allegedly assaulted her, leaving her with a bump on her head, a cut lip, and two black eyes.

A week later, Luger called 911 to report that Elizabeth was not breathing. She was pronounced dead on arrival when paramedics got her to the hospital. A police search of their home turned up Vicodin, anabolic steroids, OxyContin, synthetic growth hormone, testosterone, Xanax, and more. The coroner's autopsy report on Miss Elizabeth determined she had died from a combination of alcohol and multiple prescription drugs.

Miss Elizabeth is buried in Frankfort Cemetery.

Horse Industry Leaving KY?

I've received a scary booklet via snail-mail, from the Kentucky Equine Education Project. It says:

Due to expanded gaming, racetracks in Indiana, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Florida, Louisiana and other states have substantially increased their race purses. As a result, owners, trainers, horses and the jobs that are associated with them are leaving. It has left Kentucky's racing industry struggling for its life. Race days have been cancelled and Kentucky racetracks are on the verge of closing. Kentucky horse racing, the home of the Derby, is on the verge of meltdown.

Politicians in Frankfort have brushed this problem under the table for years, while jobs and tax dollars have left for other states. If Frankfort doesn't fix the problem soon, Kentucky will lose its signature industry.

Hyperbole? Maybe.

But maybe not. There's more than a handful of grains of truth to what they're saying, as evidenced by recent mainstream news stories about Turfway Park canceling some Monday cards, Recurring rumors of Ellis Park closing down, Churchill Downs struggling for entries, and thehorse.com's report about Keeneland's "downward spiral".

Old Governor's Mansion

The Old Governor's Mansion in Frankfort, historically the official residence of the Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky, has been empty since Steve Henry vacated it in 2003. Subsequent Lieutenant Governors have chosen to live elsewhere to be closer to their hometowns.

The Kentucky Historical Society has since taken it over, and have completed renovations for turning it into a guest house. The renovation project was spearheaded by first lady Jane Beshear, along with former first ladies Phyllis George Brown, Judy Patton, and Libby Jones. Former Governor Martha Layne Collins has also been active in the process.

But whoever stays at this guest house may get more than they bargained for. As with many old Frankfort buildings, numerous ghost legends have been attached to the Old Governor's Mansion in the two centuries since it was built.

According to the Frankfort State-Journal:

Stephen Collins, son of former Gov. Martha Layne Collins, said according to legend, the Old Governor's Mansion is haunted. Collins is also chairman of the Historic Properties Advisory Commission and its members have discussed the possibility of using the mansion as a guesthouse.

Collins lived in the mansion with his mother while she was lieutenant governor between 1979 and 1983. According to legend, Margaret Robinson Robertson, the mother-in-law of Gov. Robert Letcher who held office from 1840-1844, still haunts the mansion.

Robertson moved in with her son-in-law after she was injured in a buggy accident that also killed her husband. She lived in the dining room on the first floor and Collins said she pledged to return after Letcher left office in 1844.

"They say if ever evil is about to befall the walls of the mansion, the ghost of Mrs. Robertson will return and the evil spirits will disappear," Collins said.

Gov. Christopher Greenup, who served from 1804-1808, held the first inaugural ball for his wife, Mary Catherine Pope Greenup. She died in 1807, and according to legend, her ghost walks the halls at night carrying a candle, Collins said.

The Dangerous Political Pull of Kentucky Bootleggers?

Justin Thompson has a scathing critique of Kentucky's bizarre new liquor tax increase in his essay "You Watch my Back and I’ll Stab Yours: How KY Lawmakers Have Started Another Whiskey Rebellion", printed in the currest edition of The Bourbon Review. An excerpt:

On April 1st of this year, the booming bourbon industry was delivered a low-blow by its lawmakers when Kentuckians were required to pay an additional 6% sales tax for the first time on alcohol. The tax was passed and quickly signed by Governor Steve Beshear in an attempt to cover the state’s 454 million dollar shortfall in the budget. So what’s the big deal you ask? Local, state and federal taxes gobble up an average of 53% of what is paid for a bottle of bourbon in the Bluegrass State which was the third-highest effective tax rate in the nation BEFORE the 6% sales tax was added according to the Kentucky Distillers Association. The timing of this tax could have not come at a worse time either. When small-business owners and retailers are doing everything they can to attract consumer traffic and stay in business, lawmakers have crippled the efforts of the 3,400+ liquor retail stores and countless restaurants and hotels who rely on liquor sales to pay bills. Not to mention the negative effect this will have on the Midwest’s largest growing tourist attraction, The Bourbon Trail, by threatening the 500,000 visitors who might not choose to visit as many distilleries because of the higher prices. There is also the competitive advantage that now has been lost to our border states who used to drive from Cincinnati or Southern Indiana into Kentucky to do their shopping for alcohol. Chances are those densely populated areas will see a reversal in business as more Kentuckians will go across the river for their booze to save a few dollars during these tough times.


Why would lawmakers make such a quick decision (it took only about a month to debate and pass the tax) even though several national and local economists believe raising taxes during a recession is a counter-productive move? First, you would have to examine the hypocrisy that is Kentucky politics. Kentucky is composed of 120 counties: 30 of which are wet and 90 that are dry. Those 30 counties include the most populated areas and enjoy the majority of the residents. Even so, there is a large portion of Kentucky that is dry and the vast majority of the lawmakers from these regions voted for the tax increase. Why are there so many dry counties in one of the largest alcohol producing states in the nation? One reason is bootleggers. In every single one of those 90 counties, bootleggers operate unbothered by the law, unregulated and untaxed. In most cases, they infiltrate the political circles and ensure that any talk of a county voting wet is squashed very fast. I grew up in one of those small dry counties and was shocked to find that alcohol was harder to score as an under-age freshman in college than it was as a freshman in high school. If you don’t believe that bootleggers have political-pull, then think about the last time the local news did a story about police busting a bootlegging operation in one of those rural counties. These dry counties do nothing to generate alcohol sales tax receipts, but they are more than happy to accept the tax-money that wet counties produce.

Did I read that wrong? Is the Bourbon Review actually stating what I think it's stating?

Kentucky Liquor Tax

A rant from myself and J.T. Dockery's Transylvania Gentlemen blog:

With the toll that the economy crunch is taking on American citizens, some cities and states are realizing that loosening restrictions on liquor is a good way to keep revenue flowing and boosting local economy.

Many cities are extending bar hours, and some places, like the entire state of Arkansas, are doing away with the "no liquor on Sunday" laws that should have never existed in the first place. According to Ben Jenkins, a spokesman for the Distilled Spirits Council, states that lift the ban on Sunday sales see a significant boost in sales annually.

Jenkins also notes, "Dozens of states consider alcohol taxes, and every year most of them fail because the legislators become educated as to the effects a tax increase on alcohol would have on the hospitality industry".

Unfortunately, given the choice between loosening or tightening Governmental grip on alcohol, between increasing citizen spending or suppressing it, guess which one Kentucky chose? Yep, you guessed it.

Several economists have noted that the key to getting ourselves out of this current economic toilet is to have money continually in motion, to get people spending, to keep bills circulating, by any means necessary. Splopping yet another malodorous tax on Kentuckians, many of whom are just barely getting by right now, is a sure-fire way to suppress spending, depress the morale of citizens, slow the economy down, and generally just screw things up for everybody.

A liquor tax during more affluent times, when the economy was booming and everyone was partying, would still have been a bad idea. But to do it at a time like this when people are struggling just to stay afloat... to tell the average Joe that he has to pay more for that bottle of cheap wine or that six pack of Miller High Life, which may or may not be the closest thing to a splurge, a luxury, or a treat they ever get in their existence... well, there's a word for people who would do that to Kentucky's citizens at a time like this. Several words, actually. None of which are printable here.

The not-inconsiderable Bourbon distillers of our fair state agree. They recently protested and poured bottles of bourbon on the statehouse steps in Frankfort. And there's been some rumblings about how some distilleries are even considering moving across the border to Ohio, Indiana or Tennessee. According to Jerry Rogers, owner of multiple liquor stores in Kentucky:

I simply cannot understand why the members of the Kentucky legislature voted into office by voters who live in "wet" counties would allow another increase in the tax on alcohol after a 22 percent increase just four years ago. This tax burden has been placed on only 50 percent of the population of Kentucky.

This is just fine for legislators from "dry" counties as there is no additional tax burden placed on their constituents, ensuring their re-election. The distillers have said that they may reevaluate their stake in the Bluegrass, and they very well may. Some distillers have already moved their aging operations out of Kentucky due to taxation. It doesn't have to be distilled here to be bourbon.

When this new 6 percent tax -- which is on top of a 11 percent wholesale tax, which is on top of an excise tax -- costs Kentucky its competitive edge, not only will Indiana and Ohio shoppers stay on their side of the river, but many Kentuckians will cross the river to do their shopping.

Kentucky to Insist on American-made Flags

After all these screwball anti-constitutional Kentucky laws I've had to report on lately, it does my heart good to see that Kentucky's finally pushing a new piece of legislation that I can really get behind.

Long-overdue new rule: no more American flags made in China.

WKYT says, "The bill has sailed through two legislative committees and the Senate without a single "no" vote. It now heads to the House floor where Speaker Greg Stumbo is predicting unanimous support. Gov. Steve Beshear also supports the measure. Beshear spokesman Jay Blanton said the governor plans to sign it into law when it arrives in his office."

What I find mind-boggling is that we never had set a standard about this in the first place. I mean, even without considering China's track record for horribly dangerous imports (toxic plastic toys, poisoned pet food, etc.), why on Earth would we as Americans have our flags manufactured anywhere else but here in the USA?

Court rejects Kentucky's attempt to seize web domains

From Online Casino Reports:

Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear will appeal a court ruling that stops the state seizing domain names used by Internet gambling sites.

In a 2-1 ruling last Tuesday, the Kentucky Court of Appeals said the state does not have the jurisdiction to seize online casinos' Internet domain names in an effort to keep them from operating in the state. The ruling also said a Franklin Circuit Court judge cannot hold further hearings on the issue.

141 domains had been shortlisted for seizure, including two bingo sites, the hugely popular poker room, Poker Stars, and some major sports betting sites were also slated to be targeted under the move.

Poker advocates welcomed the Court of Appeals' ruling, with Poker Players Alliance Executive Director John Pappas calling it "a tremendous victory for Internet freedom and the rights of Kentucky residents who enjoy playing online poker."

"The Court of Appeals has agreed with the PPA's position that Judge Wingate did not have jurisdiction to issue the order that he entered against these domains and that Secretary Brown had no legitimate right to deprive the citizens of Kentucky of the legal right to play poker online."

However, Kentucky's Secretary of Justice and Public Safety, J. Michael Brown, said that the state would continue to fight the ruling.

As previously reported here and here, this isn't a political blog nor do political matters interest me in the least. I don't really like online gambling, because I think it's strictly for fools. (But then again, I think the same thing about American Idol, and it's still a free country.)

What qualifies this whole issue for Unusual Kentucky is not to take a position in support of online gambling, nor to incite partisan arguments from Democrats, Republicans, or Independents. It's to observe Beshear and Wingate's utter cluelessness about how the internet works, which they are continuing to take to embarrassing extremes. The hypocrisy is further compounded by Beshear's own efforts to bring brick-and-mortar casinos to Kentucky.

It's making Kentucky look naive, stupid, and greedy in the eyes of the rest of the world, and speaking as one of the staunchest defenders of the integrity and value of our fair state, I for one take great offense to it.

Derby Pie

What is Derby Pie?

No really. What IS it? Well, it's basically a chocolate and walnut pie. Or sometimes pecans. Or sometimes other stuff, depending on whose recipe you use.

Sounds like nothing to write home about, right? And yet, this pie is often the center of raging legal controversies that continue to this very day.

Let's go back to the beginning. Here's what Wikipedia says:

The Derby Pie was created in 1950 by the Melrose Inn in Prospect, Kentucky as a specialty pastry. The restaurant's owners and Derby Pie creators were Walter and Leaudra Kern, who constantly researched the optimal recipe for their creation. They were assisted by their son George Kern. The name "Derby Pie" was chosen because the various family members each had a different name for the creation, so to resolve the naming quandary they put the various names in a hat, and pulled out the paper which said "Derby Pie".

Even after selling the Melrose Inn in 1960, the Kern family continued to make Derby Pie for select customers. In 1969 they trademarked the name Derby Pie to both the state government of Kentucky and the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Now, that may indeed be so, but in all promotional materials related to the pie, the nomenclature is actually "DERBY-PIE®" with a hyphen. Also note that the alleged creators spawned Derby Pie in 1950 but didn't trademark it until 1969, well after it had already become a huge success and generally passed into the common vernacular. Back in the day, everyone made "Derby Pies". Some were similar to the Kern family's and some were not. The grounds for belatedly trademarking the pie - which really is not a rocket-science recipe to begin with - could be said by some to be shaky, since it had huge popularity throughout the 50s and 60s as an independent meme unto itself. An open-source pie, if you will.

Who cares? Well, some folks sure seem to. Read this:

http://www.state-journal.com/news/article/3648621

According to this article, Rick Paul's White Light Diner, who'd already been in trouble with the Derby Pie people's lawyers once before, was selling something of Mr.Paul's own creation called "Kentucky Bourbon Pie". It's hard to make heads or tails of what Derby Pie's specific legal arguments were, but it seems to stem from a sort of "bait and switch" game Rick was allegedly playing, by offering Derby Pie on a sign but then serving his own "Kentucky Bourbon Pie" instead when you get inside. Is it sneaky? Yes. Is it devious? Yes. Is it ethical? That's debatable. But is it illegal? I would say certainly not.

The judge didn't see it that way, though. Behold:

http://www.state-journal.com/news/article/3784842

Rick Paul, owner of Rick's White Light Diner, was found in contempt of court Monday and must pay $1,000 to a charity of his choice, for again infringing on the Derby-Pie trademark.

Before U.S. District Judge Joseph Hood in a Lexington courtroom, Paul was found in contempt of court for violating a 1997 permanent injunction signed by Hood, ordering Paul not to infringe on Kern's Kitchen Inc.'s trademark Derby-Pie.

Paul also must pay Kern's Kitchen's attorney fees and costs.

"I am disappointed with the judge's ruling and I accept it," Paul said today. "Our proof was considerably different than Derby Pie's. The judge's ruling was, in part, based on me keeping the Derby Pie in the freezer. I failed because I did not tell the judge that I keep other pies in the freezer and then warm in a microwave prior to service."

I think if Mr. Paul had a better legal team, he could have fought this and won, and he still could if he'd chosen to appeal to a higher court or filed a suit of his own.

And for the record, I don't get the appeal of Derby Pie anyway. Blah. Give me my grandma's apple do-lollies any day.

White Light Diner

One of my favorite places to nosh in our state capitol is the White Light Diner (Thanks to dhecker2000 for the photo!), run by the famous/infamous Rick Paul, restauranteur extraordinaire. It's only open for breakfast and lunch, and it's a small place, so get there early and bring an appetite. Though the White Light Diner may be "only" a tiny old-school diner, Rick is a five-star Chef and knows his onions.

He used to have a cajun restaurant out on Highway 127 which was also great, but the location was kinda humdrum, near strip-mall kinda businesses. I'm glad he's kept the White Light going all these years and made it his primary culinary home base. I had a key lime pie there once and couldn't eat it because it was just too legit for me - I actually prefer the fake green-colored cheesecakey stuff to the real thing. When I told Rick this, he shook his head at me like I was king of the louts. (I am.)

Smitty's Trading Post

So it's late Summer 2007 and I'm way past deadline on the final draft of the Weird Kentucky manuscript and the editor still wants more material to choose from. I'm drivin' eastbound on Highway 60, thinking about heading to Frankfort to grab me some grub at the White Light Diner.

And then I screeched on the brakes and realized that one of Kentucky's greatest sights had not yet been written about in my book.

No, not the Red River Gorge, not Cumberland Gap, not Wigwam Village or even Penile.

Smitty's Trading Post.



It's an antiques emporium, flea market, or just plain junk store, depending on your choice of nomenclature. It could also be described as a public art installation similar to that of the Frankfort Avenue Art House (which is on the same road, but many miles away in a different county).



As I wrote feverishly in the book:

Taken individually, many of the items on open-air display out front may or may not dazzle you. But taken as a whole, each bit of bric-a-brac has a synergetic effect and forms a part of an exquisite mosaic, making this no ordinary flea market but rather, a cathedral of discarded Americana, a shrine to the human condition and all its follies and foibles.

It's also like a Rorschach test of aesthetic aptitude - just as William Blake said "The fool sees not the same tree the wise man sees", not everyone sees the same thing when they gaze at this secondary-market museum of Earthly effluvia that this elusive "Smitty" has nobly archived for the inspection of us all.

(And to think you thought it was just a yardful of rained-on furniture, rusty farm implements and fast food kids meal toys!)

It's over a year later, and half a year since the book has hit store shelves nationwide, and I still haven't been able to catch Mr. Smitty open for business so's I can hand him a copy of the book and proudly show him my personal tribute to his magnificent collection of crap. Apparently catching Smitty keeping business hours is something of a challenge. I didn't realize it at the time I wrote the book, but Smitty's Trading Post had already made an appearance in Blue Highways by William Least Heat Moon:

I came to a ramshackle place called Smitty's Trading Post. Smitty was a merchant of relics. He could sell you a Frankfort, Kentucky, city bus that made its last run down Shively Street, or an ice cream wagon made from a golf can, or a used bulldozer, or a bent horseshoe. I stopped to look. Lying flat as the ground, a piebald mongrel too tired to lift its head gave a one-eyed stare. I pulled on the locked door, peered through windows grimed like coalminers' goggles, but I couldn't find Smitty. A pickup rattled in. A man with a wen above his eye said, "Smitty ain't here."
"Where is he?" I was just making talk.
"You the feller wantin' the harness?"
"Already got one."
"What'd you come for then?"
"I don't know. Have to talk to Smitty to find out."
"That's one I ain't heard," he said.

James "Honest Dick" Tate

Like James Harrod, former Kentucky State Treasurer James "Honest Dick" Tate is another prominent Kentuckian who pulled a permanent vanishing act. But at least we know Tate's motive: he cleaned out the state's coffers he was entrusted to protect. After bilking Kentucky out of nearly a quarter of a million dollars, he fled and was never apprehended.

On March 14, 1888, Tate was seen filling two huge tobacco sacks with $100,000 in gold and silver coin. He departed for Louisville, instructing his staff via a note that he would return in two days. He never did.

During the subsequent investigation, it was learned that Tate had been using the state Treasury as his own personal piggy-bank for quite some time, having used the funds to pay his own debts and to make investments in real estate and mining ventures. All total, Tate had swindled the state out of $247,128.50.

It was later determined that Tate had gone to Cincinnati after leaving Louisville, and from there apparently traveled to Canada, San Francisco, Japan and China, according to the postmarks on letters he wrote his daughter while on the run. The letters stopped coming in December 1888, and what became of Tate after that is anyone's guess.

The Vest-Lindsey House

There's been reports that the Vest-Lindsey House, located at 401 Wapping Street in Frankfort, is haunted by the ghost of George Graham Vest.

I'm not sure how these ghostly identifications end up getting made. Did a ghost say, "hello, I'm George Vest"? Did an eyewitness recognize an apparition as resembling that of Vest's old photos? Or - more likely - did someone hear a weird noise late one night and decide that all of the people who occupied the home over the years, it must logically be the ghost of its most famous occupant, back to haunt his boyhood home for reasons known only to himself?

Of course, this whole area of Frankfort is filled with spooky old haunted historic homes, and I am not of the opinion that a ghost is required to stick to his own turf. I'm sure the area is crawling with spirits at any given time, but who knows whose they really are, where they're going, or what they're up to.

Vest himself was an interesting character, at any rate. As an attorney, he risked his life to defend a young African-American man from bogus murder charges. The man was acquitted, but a local lynch mob burned him at the stake anyway. Yet as a statesman, Vest sided with the Confederacy during the Civil War and became a Confederate State Senator for Missouri.

Today, Vest is most remembered for having coined the phrase "a dog is man's best friend" during the Burden v. Hornsby trial, defending a man whose hunting dog, "Old Drum", was shot and killed by a landowner on whose property the dog had trespassed.

"Ghosts of Frankfort" event

Received a notice about this event by email last night. Not sure what it's all about, really, but if it's at Liberty Hall then it's certain to be an interesting time.

Casino industry calls for Kentucky boycott

As previously reported here, Governor Steve Beshear is spearheading a drive to confiscate internet domain names from gambling websites (even ones in other countries) because it is claimed they violate Kentucky law.

This idea, to anyone who has even the most basic clue how the internet works, is barking mad. A Kentucky judge cannot take over a Costa Rican website for violating Kentucky gambling laws any more than an Iranian judge can hijack an American swimsuit site for violating Iranian modesty laws.

Predictably enough, people are not taking this lying down and are now unfortunately calling for a boycott of Kentucky products, especially relating to the racing industry. Needless to say, we at Unusual Kentucky do not support such a boycott, but I can certainly see why a lot of people are ticked off at our Governor right now. I saw this rant today on Online Casino Advisory site:

"We call upon our friends and competitors in the casino news industry to help us reach the public with this call to boycott. If the Poker Players Alliance can get its members to refuse Kentucky products, especially gambling ones, that will send a message to Beshear. If the PPA can get protesters to carry signs in front of Churchill Downs, that would be a public display of our united anger.

If you are a resident of Kentucky, buy your lottery tickets across state borders, or online from another state. If you attend Kentucky tracks, drive to Indiana or other states featuring full racinos. If you live near the state border, buy groceries and cigarettes outside Kentucky."

I don't wish to see our state's economy damaged or hampered in any way, and I call upon Gov. Beshear to please get help and seek the counsel of experts who understand Internet law. This insane scheme to censor websites and confiscate their domain names is doomed to fail, but in the meantime it's obviously going to hurt Kentucky's economy, which we especially don't need at this time when the nation's economy is at an all time low. I also call upon the Democratic Party of Kentucky to quietly take Mr. Beshear aside and attempt to talk some sense into him, before his massive mistake takes the entire party down.