Post-Tornado Rainbow

Yesterday I thought it was just a typical windy Autumn morning while I was sitting in the Middletown Starbucks. What I didn't know was that most of Kentucky was on a tornado watch, that a tornado had been spotted just over the river in Indiana, and another one had overturned a semi-truck on the Watterson.

Meanwhile, in Scott County, a forming funnel cloud was caught on video, and in Hopkinsville, one tore the roof off a storage building. That may or may not be the same one witnessed by National Weather Service spotters near Pembroke, and then in Dunmor in Muhlenberg County. An enormous tree in Berea toppled in the storm, narrowly missing an entire apartment complex. In Middlesboro, the mall was damaged and the power was knocked out.

To my surprise, one of the baristas came to the center of the room and announced, "uh, everybody, your attention please, we've just been informed that funnel clouds have been seen in Anchorage, so I'm going to have to ask you all to move away from the glass windows and to the rear of the building, for your safety."

And so we all migrated to the back, everyone suddenly intently tapping at their laptops and handhelds, and within seconds, we were all sharing info with each other that we'd gleaned. One guy instantly had a real-time animation from the NWS on his laptop full-screen, and was showing us how it was estimated to be moving at 80MPH and thus would be past us very quickly. It wasn't that long ago that we'd all be huddled around a radio, listening for the latest wire-service news update from the DJ, but now, every citizen with wi-fi internet access is instantly better informed than even that radio DJ of yesteryear.

Though the tornadic front did indeed swiftly pass, the rainstorm on its coattails continued for hours more. But when it was over and blue sky began to peek out from the cloud cover, I caught an odd rainbow that only existed over a portion of very specific clouds - when those clouds shifted, so did the rainbow, and when that cloud system rolled away, the rainbow was gone. Though my eye saw an evenly ordered full spectrum in it, my camera surprisingly did not - at least, not as clearly.

Kentucky = Detroit

Kentucky and the auto industry aren't exactly thought of in the same breath. But even without taking into consideration that Kentucky is the home of the Corvette, perhaps it's time people recognize:

The Toyota Camry (pictured above) is the best selling car in the United States. It's manufactured in Georgetown, KY.

The Ford F-series (pictured below) is the best selling truck in the United States. It's manufactured in Louisville, Kentucky.

Edward Troye

The grave of Kentucky artist Edward Troye, spotted in Georgetown Cemetery.

Troye was born July 12, 1808 in Switzerland and died July 25, 1874 in Georgetown, KY. Primarily known as a painter of Kentucky racehorses, Troye also did many religious paintings inspired by a visit to the Holy Land, as well as portraits of people such as Rev. Joseph C. Stiles and General Winfield Scott (the latter portrait currently hangs in the U.S. Capitol Building).

Georgetown Home with Mosaic

Love the folk-art mosaic work way up at the top of this house in Georgetown.

"Gone Home by a Shorter Way"

Another Georgetown Cemetery grave with an interesting epitaph, source unknown:

We stood at the place of parting,
And the clouds were leaden gray
That hid from our sight our darling,
Gone home by a shorter way.

Abandoned House in Scott County

On Friday I was driving on some road - can't remember which - that leads out of Georgetown, and somewhere I took a wrong turn. The paved road transformed into a muddy gravel one, and then that road forked off into two, one of which had monster-truck tire gouges in the mud, so deep that no ordinary vehicle could traverse it without scraping its underbelly.


I found myself in a remote dense forested area surrounded by old dumpsites of household garbage, appliances, portions of automobiles, etc. I ventured into the woods to check out what turned out to be a portion of either a very old fireplace or some sort of outdoor furnace. It looks like it's actually been used relatively recently for burning something. Some sort of cult pyre, or merely an outdoor grill for hobos?




From there, I spied the remains of an old house and took a few pics. Some kids have already discovered the place, as kids always do, and added some touches of graffiti.








For some reason, two different Georgetown street signs are stashed out here, to the side of the house. Probably acts of vandalism from those aforementioned clever rugrats.

"Blessed are the Dead"

The epitaph on this grave in Georgetown Cemetery may seem a bit macabre (well hey, what do you expect from a rock that's sitting on top of a dead person in a box underneath the soil?) but it's actually from Revelations 14-13:

"And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them."

Then again, the Bible also says "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the Earth".

Then again again, Stiv Bators said "Meek inherits Earth six feet deep".

Q.E.D.

Thin Red Line

So there I was, in the men's room in an office building in Georgetown, and there was a red line taped down to the floor in front of the urinal. I spent a long time pondering this. Days later, I'm still pondering it. Was it a snide hint from the janitor that people need to stand closer? Doubt it, because it's actually too far away from the urinal to be a proper free-throw line.

Bi-Water Farm

Photos of the Halloween decor around Bi-Water Farm, just outside of Georgetown.



There's an interesting teepee on the far edge of the property too. I'm not sure what that's about, or if it's supposed to be part of the farm.

Bull Durham Ghost Sign

One of Georgetown's Ghost Signs that hasn't been repainted and touched up: since there are two different Bull Durham Tobacco painted signs superimposed upon one another here, presumably they couldn't decide which one to preserve. I like it just as it is, seeing simultaneous flickers of two different time periods, like the timespace channel-surfing of Star Trek's Guardian of Forever or Douglas Adams' Total Perspective Vortex.

Dairy Freeze

The term "Dairy Freeze" has become a generic name-brand these days, with most shops independently owned and many of them never having been part of the original Ohio franchise to begin with. The variations seem endless - some are still the classic roadside cone stand, while others have morphed into actual sit-down restaurants and even barbecue joints.

Above: East Main Dairy Freeze, Lebanon, KY. Below: Dairy Freeze, Georgetown, KY.



Below: Middleburg Dairy Freeze, Middleburg, KY. According to Lady of the Woods, the elephant statue in their yard was a frequent victim of "elephant tipping" from local teens, and so is now mounted to a concrete base.





Previously here, we've also reported on two now-defunct Kentucky Dairy Freezes: Red River Dairy Freeze in Clay City, and the Cree-Mee Drive-in Dairy Freeze in Stanford.

Street Bat

And finally, from my recent visit to Georgetown, a flattened dead bat I encountered on N. Hamilton. He may or may not be part of the massive bat die-off going on in the USA, but he doesn't appear to have the white-nose fungus we've reported on here previously.

Ghost Signs of Georgetown

Some places cover up and destroy their Ghost Signs in the name of modern seemliness; others just leave 'em alone as a silent tribute to their old-old-school charm.

The folks in Georgetown have taken yet a third tack: they touch them back up with paint, restoring them to their original appearance.


I'm of two minds on the matter. Part of me is very intrigued by the idea, and I enjoyed the feeling of being on a movie set, or in some sort of time warp, walking in downtown Georgetown. But I also cringe slightly at the notion of "improving" the Ghost Signs. The signs probably should, as with any antiques, be left alone in their current state and not monkeyed around with.

Pete the Talking Crow

Georgetown, KY is the final resting place of a most unlikely legend: Pete the Talking Crow, who is said to be buried in a coffin with no grave marker somewhere on the campus of Georgetown College.

Details are sketchy on wherefore Pete and his owner, one Dave Adams, came to be in Scott County, but we do know that Adams ran a hat shop in downtown Georgetown and that his trained bird Pete was a constant companion around town. According to one account, such reknown was Pete's that he was permitted to enter restaurants on Adams' shoulder. According to another, Adams taught Pete to yell "Go!" as a practical joke at small racetracks, confusing the horses and causing races to start prematurely.

In 1832, Pete was shot and killed by some idiot kid with a rifle. But Pete's memory lives on today, in the form of a Japanese animatronic robot currently on display in the Georgetown & Scott County Museum.