Kentucky
Psycho Blue Boots in the 3rd
Travels with Aunt Renie
Aunt Renie came to Louisville, Kentucky for a visit. It was in the spring of the year and nearing Derby Day, so I decided to take her out to Churchill Downs to watch the horses run.
We drove to south Louisville where the track is located and parked the car a few blocks away and walked the remaining distance to the track entrance. Aunt Renie is pretty spry for an old lady.
We were both able to get in for the admission price of only $1.00 as we were both senior citizens. Louisville likes to encourage its seniors to go to the track. We made our way through the throng of horseracing fans to a booth where they sell racing forms. I bought one and stuck it in my pocket. Then we walked out to the track and sat in the sun on hard benches and studied the form to make our picks.
We studied the racing form and saw that there was a field of eight horses for the next race. Aunt Renie had never been to a racetrack before so I had to teach her how to handicap the race. I am not an expert myself but here’s how I do it. The first thing I do is to study the form for the information listed about the horses for that particular race. First of all, I look for names I like. Something that clicks. Then, I look at the stats on that horse. Who is the trainer, who is the jockey, how much weight does the horse carry, how many races did the horse win this year, and last, what are the odds?
I take all these things into consideration and make a selection. I picked what looked like a winner: Psycho Blue Boots, the number 5 horse in the 3rd race. I suggested to Aunt Renie that we bet $10.00 to win on the 5 horse. If it won, we would split the winnings. She agreed.
I pushed my way through the crowd to the parimutuel window and placed my bet.
“$10.00 to win on the 5 horse in the 3rd race,” I said. The teller smiled, took my money, and punched my ticket.
The race was about to begin as was indicated by the trumpet call to the gate. I hurried back to where Aunt Renie was sitting and showed her our ticket. Just then the announcer announced, “They’re off!” And the race began.
“On the lead was Solient Green, on the outside Golden Band. On the rail was Shiftless Joe followed by Psycho Blue Boots. Royal Pain was moving up to fourth place, Psycho Blue Boots makes a sudden move…They are in the turn, Royal Pain is in third. Psycho Blue Boots moving up on the outside…now moving in…in the stretch Psycho Blue Boots takes the lead…at the wire…Psycho Blue Boots wins by nose!”
The crowd goes wild. I go wild Aunt Renie goes wild. We are winners!
We won enough on the race we were able to celebrate at one of Louisville’s most prestigious steak houses, Jack Fry’s. We had quite a day at the races and a nice meal to boot.
The next morning, I took Aunt Renie to the airport where she resumed her travels.
Next stop, Amsterdam!
Driving to Berea
Road Trip
Maureen and I recently went on road trip to Berea, Kentucky. We took Miss Scarlett, our newly acquired 1984 Porshe 994.
I said, “Maureen, why do you call your car, Miss Scarlett?”
“Because, I don’t give a damn, is why!”
Well, ask a foolish question…
Berea is a small Kentucky town known for it’s arts and crafts, it’s beautiful trail ways, and of course Berea College.
Berea College is tuition free, but the students have to work to earn their tuition. The hotel where we stayed is completely run and staffed by students. As a matter of fact, my own father attended Berea College when he was a young man and he too worked at the historic Boone Tavern and Hotel.
We visited the artisan village, walked around the college campus and one day I hiked the pinnacles while Maureen stayed behind and went shopping.
A very enjoyable stay only three hours from Louisville. We would definitely go back!
All photos by the author.
Fork in the Road
Celestial Tip of the Day
Celestial tip of the day: when hiking on the orange Trail in Jefferson Memorial Forest, when you first start out, if the Sun is over your left shoulder when coming back be sure that the sun is over your right shoulder, that way when you come to the fork in the road you will take the right one. That is all.
Red River Gorge
Natural Bridge State Resort Park
Natural Bridge State Resort Park is in Kentucky along the Middle Fork of the Red River, next to the Red River Gorge in the middle of the Daniel Boone National Forest. The Natural bridge is the centerpiece of the park.
I had occasion recently to hike the original trail from the Hemlock Lodge to the summit of the bridge. I made two ascents. One on the afternoon I arrived and one early the next morning. What a difference a day makes.
Here are some of the pictures I took:
Exploring the Possibilities
Exploring the forest today
covering new ground
I wouldn’t say I got lost
but I was surprised by my destination.
The Submarine Races
Johnny Applegate grew up in the sleepy little river town of Louisville, Kentucky, the gateway to the south. Louisville is primarily known for Churchill Downs and Bourbon, but it had its fair share of pretty girls too.
When he was eighteen-year-old, Johnny bought his first car. He ventured downtown to a dealership by the name of Broadway Motors. His salesman was a guy name of Grundy Hayes. Grundy was a flashy dresser. He wore a green sharkskin suit and sported brown pork pie straw. He always wore a wide smile to greet the customers that lit up his face.
The car Johnny picked out was a 1959 two tone Chevy Bel Air, white over green. It had a manual transmission with a three-speed shift lever on the column. The car had huge tail fins that flattened over like the fin of a great white whale. Johnny paid $800 dollars cash for the car. He had been saving up the money for months. Grundy was only too happy to accommodate and they struck a deal and Johnny drove the car home that day.
Now the car was fine, the only thing it lacked was a radio. So, one day when he had saved up a little more money, Johnny went down to the local junk shop and bought a radio for the car. He had to go out on the lot and find another wrecked Chevy like his so he could harvest the radio and put it in his car. He was in luck and found the one he was looking for. It took him about an hour to uninstall the radio from the wrecked Chevy. When he got it out, he took it up to the front office and made his purchase then went home to install the radio in his own car. While he was at it, he installed two speakers in the rear of the car and surrounded the speakers with a colorful bright orange cloth. Now he was cooking!
Johnny was very happy with the car. He would wash it and polish it in his drive way every Saturday morning. On Saturday night he would pick up his girlfriend, Lynn and some of their other friends and drive out to Cox’s park down on the river. There they had a little party. It was sort of a precursor to the tailgate parties you see today.
Cox’s park was located down along the banks of the Ohio River. In the summertime the grass was of a vivid blue green color and on this particular hot summer night they could smell the fragrance of the freshly mown lawn. It delighted the senses. Johnny parked the car in the spacious parking lot under the spreading leaves a large chestnut tree. From there you could watch the river roll by and the sun go down as the day turned to twilight. Johnny popped the trunk of the car and played the radio real loud. The sound came booming from the rear mounted speakers. Johnny and his friends drank beer and danced in the parking lot. They whooped and hollered and howled at the moon while they were listening to the tunes broadcast from WAKY, a local AM radio station. Bill Bailey, who billed himself the King Kong of the Kilocycles, was the DJ. He played such tunes as Born to be Wild, Dance to the Music, and Those Were the Days. Later, after it got dark, they climbed back into the car and watched the submarine races.
Fall Guy
Cumberland Falls
On the last day of my hiking trip, I tripped over some vines and fell to the ground. I had been hiking in the Cumberland Falls area for a few days taking pictures. When I fell, I had a tripod in one hand and a camera in the other. Trying to protect the camera I fell hard on my left side jamming my left hand into the dirt as I let the tripod go flying. On my drive home my hand and wrist grew more painful and swelled. I thought I’d better see a doctor. I called my private doctor on my cell phone and made an emergency appointment.
I arrived at his office about an hour later. After a thorough examination he said he didn’t think it was broken, but badly sprained and that it would heal up on its own. Not so lucky with the camera. I had to take it to the shop to be repaired, set me back $200.
This is where I tripped
Wild River (Cumberland River)
Cumberland River
Cumberland Falls is located on the Cumberland River in the Daniel Boone National Forest in Southeastern Kentucky.
Sunrise over Dog Hill
Haiku for you:
Watching the sun rise
over Dog Hill I feel dizzy
by the turning earth.
Blues before sunrise
Here comes the sun
Alone again, naturally
Star Chamber
Sun Ra
Temple Of the Golden Pavilion
House of the Rising Sun
The Curious Case of Dr. Benjamin Franklin Woolery
Doctor, Mother and Baby in Childbirth Case All Die
Dateline Louisville, Kentucky, Friday, November 3, 1944
815 Cecil Avenue
Physician Falls Dead at Bedside of Woman
A childbirth case ended in a triple tragedy here yesterday. While attending 36-year-old Bessie Ford, Dr. Benjamin Franklin Woolery, age 64, of 815 Cecil Avenue, a general practitioner here for thirty-five years, was stricken by a heart attack and found slumped over the woman’s body at 2:30 pm at her home at 3130 New High St. She was under general anesthesia at the time. She died a few minutes after her ninth child was born dead.
Neighbors Were There!
The mother, Mrs. Bessie Ford, died at 8:10 pm at St. Joseph Infirmary, where she was taken after Dr. Woolery’s death.
Jess Ford, Bessie’s husband, was an employee of Armour Creameries here in Louisville. He said Dr. Woolery had been attending his wife since 1:00 pm. His wife was under the influence of anesthetic and knew nothing of the physician’s death until effects of the anesthesia wore off, he said. He and several neighbor women were in the room at the time.
Husband Calls Police!
“After the doctor died, I was running around so much I don’t know just what I did,” Ford said later at the hospital. He explained that he rushed to a nearby grocery store and telephoned in quick succession City police, General Hospital, St. Joseph Infirmary, and the Ambulance Service Company in an effort to obtain proper medical treatment for his wife.
Making the run to the Ford home in four minutes, ambulance driver William Rakestraw, formerly with the Police Emergency Squad, had Mrs. Ford at the hospital within less than an hour after the physician’s death.
A score of children, including some of the Ford family, crowded around the small frame cottage, and in the dusty dirt road near the doorway as police cars and the ambulance jolted up the drive way to the Ford home.
Native of Indiana
Dr. Woolery, a native of Bedford Indiana, was a graduate of the University of Louisville School of Medicine and worked as a medical examiner at the Goodyear Engineering Corporation, Charlestown, Indiana.
Met Son at Station
Mrs. Emma Woolery said her husband was called to the Ford home immediately after he had met his son at the station, Musician 2nd Class Ernest Woolery, 27, US Coast Guard, who was home on furlough.
He is also survived by two other sons, Private Orville Woolery, and Carrol C. Woolery; a sister, Mrs. Alice Forbe, of Mitchell, Indiana; a brother, Marshall Woolery of Bedford, Indiana, and six grandchildren.
Funeral services for Dr. Woolery will be held at Lee Cralle’s, 1330 S. Third Street.
In Other News of the Day
Bus driver kills wife and self in Richmond, Kentucky. He shot her then turned the gun on himself. She filed for divorce and was planning on moving out of the house today. Man, 70, robbed and burned in a cabin in Beattyville, Kentucky. Fire destroys hotel in Morehead. James Park, Republican nominee for the US Senate, warned of disunity is Roosevelt is reelected. Three negro women attack a City police officer in an incident at a local factory in Portland. Instigator fined.
News from Around the World
Auschwitz begins gassing inmates. Roosevelt re-elected November 7, 1944. US bombers on Saipan begin first attack on Tokyo November 24, 1944. First open-heart surgery performed November 29, 1944 at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. Battle of the Bulge rages on. Nazis surrender February – May 1945. Japan surrenders June – September 1945.
That is all. Goodnight and good luck!
Note: This is a true story based on an article from the Louisville Courier Journal published November 3, 1944. Dr. Benjamin Franklin Woolery was my Great Grandfather and namesake.
Ghost Dog 