"Are we not men?"

Terrifyingly, I am now certified (certifiable?) by the U.S. gov'ment to handle hazardous material emergencies. Feel safer, America?

KY: The Land of Castles & Coincidence

No matter how many times it happens to me, I can never quite get used to the idea that, in the state of Kentucky, everyone you ever meet and every experience you ever have will always (always always) find a way to resurface. In KY land everyone is connected to everyone and everything else by shockingly few degrees of association, like the Kevin Bacon game but with fewer levels of separation (like, usually 3 or 4 rather than 7). It's the place where, upon meeting a new person, the all-important question of where you went to high school will come up, and from there it's pretty easy to figure out how much you already really know that person (like you probably already know several of their friends, their 10th grade algebra teacher, their dentist, their mom and you frequent the same dive bar). Not that it's Mayberry, necessarily, but it has that same brand of everybody-knows-everybody-else-via-vicarious-relations kind of air--but it can be spookier than that sometimes:

Like the thing that set me off writing about this in the first place: I was browsing a recent Around the States in 90 Days post regarding an anonymous reader who had suggested he check out "the highway in Lexington through Kentucky." This unknown person mentions the scenic beauty of the area (I assume they are talking about the Bert T. Combs Mountain Parkway that begins near Lexington on I-64; because seriously? I-64 is pretty heinous), but they also say this:

"There is also a castle there I saw in the night that looked like something I would want to check out"

!! A castle? Near Lexington?? That is visible from the highway??? Say what, Willis???? Seriously, that sounds like something I would want to check out, anonymous poster!

So a quick Googling found the culprit (see above picture), and wow, there it is: an actual castle just off the mainline into Lexington. Crazy. But what really freaked me out was that the first website that I happened to find that mentions the mysterious castle in question, a Blogspot called Unusual Kentucky, is authored by JSH, a long-ago cohort of mine from Louisville! We rented studio space from the same 100-year-old woman who lived (and perhaps still lives) behind a former meat-packing plant (turned art space) near downtown (which is a whole 'nother wacky story in itself). So yet another crazy KY associate I never thought to hear about/from again pops up when least expected, a coincidence that connects us (in one level of separation, Bacon fans!) to a mysterious and hitherto-unknown Lexington Land castle. You could argue the internet does this for everyone now, sure, but would it have been related to ghostly former art cohort relationships and mysterious nighttime highway castles in the middle of thoroughbred country? Probably not.

Ski Soda, Regional Un-Cola Darling

It's become kind of an historic past time here at MM HQ to document the vestiges of (what must surely be) a dying breed: the regional soda pop (or, to use our brand-blind catch-all KY term, "coke"). So when I read a conversation regarding regional beverage "Ski" on my brother's Facebook page--which referred to it as a Kentucky-made drink--I was on alert. I'd never heard of this "Ski soda," the only other KY native brand of soft drink to my knowledge being the great and infamous Ale8One (the name referring to the drink's dangerously high caffeine content. And yes, take my word for it, down 2 or 3 of these and it will, indeed, be "a late one" for you).

Well, according to the FAQ page on Ski's official website:

Where did Ski originate?
Despite popular beliefs, Ski was created in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Many loyal Ski enthusiasts believe that the drink was created in Breese, Illinois or Greensburg, Kentucky, but these are simply locations of two long time Ski bottlers in historic Ski areas.

So, close, but no cigar--although having a bottling plant here within our borders is still noteworthy. It's charming to think these obscure regional beverages have "loyal enthusiasts," isn't it? In the modern geek era, everybody's an unabashedly huge fan of something, I guess.

So, I'm going to have to take my investigation further by actually tracking down some Ski. It sounds pretty good, actually; according to its Wikipedia page:

Ski is an orange and lemon flavored soft drink using actual orange and lemon concentrates manufactured by the Double Cola Company. Some have likened Ski’s unique citrus flavor to Mountain Dew, Mello Yello, Vault, or Squirt. One 12 oz. can of ski contains 69 mg of caffeine, for comparison, a can of Mountain Dew contains 54 mg.

Due to usage of real orange juice, and lemon concentrates, the Double Cola Company claims that Ski is one of the only all-natural sodas.^[1]

Okay, so a more natural Mountain Dew type of option--I could see that mixing really well into a refreshing summer rum cocktail of some sort (funny how, once you reach adulthood, you think of soft drinks in terms of how well they'd work as a hard drink. Well, I do anyway). Orange and lemon is pretty interesting--a nice departure from the usual lemon-lime combo--and holy moly: 69 mgs of caffeine! That would pack a wallop. Maybe I can convince Schreck's to order me a case...

Jerry's Kids

A crappy iphone pic from last year's Hike & Bike featuring my friend Ellanna and our new ex-mayor, Jerry. The Mayor's Hike & Bike happened twice a year during the long Abramson administration years, on labor day and memorial day. A city wide bike ride and walk that started downtown at the waterfront (over to Iroquois park and back), the H&B was a typical Jerry invention designed to trick fat KY families into getting active and spending time together (points for trying, Jer). He would always show up in his crazy spandex bike outfit and gamely pose for pictures with gawkers (see above).

Can we expect to see Mayor Fischer sporting a sleek Papa John's jersey and hot pants ensemble this year? Time will tell (and so will MM!)...

The End of the Jerry Era

Readers, today is the day: January 3rd marks the very first day of the new mayoral administration and the end of The Jerry Years here in Louisville, KY. You may or may not realize how important this man is/was to the identity of this city, so just take my word for it: Love him or hate him, Jerry was Louisville. He was the embodiment of the city (or the way we wish the city was) in a way that I can't imagine anyone else becoming.

I've personally never heard of a mayor that was so unselfconsciously gaga for his own jurisdiction. Jerry had crazy ideas that he would fight tooth-and-nail for--a new minor league baseball park that's much nicer (in my opinion) than many big league ones, a crazy skate park right next to the expressway that attracted the X Games to town one year, a massive bike trail that encircles the city--and he would make them happen while maintaining a maddeningly optimistic aint-we-the-greatest attitude that makes him seem like a boundless glass-half-full mental case sometimes. You see, Louisville is a weird breed of place: natives have a notoriously cynical streak because, deep down, we know we aren't a big city like Jerry keeps insisting we are. We are not like Chicago or even Cincinnati, but Jerry--god bless him--was always making that case anyway. We weren't large enough to compete with those other places, so Jerry merged the city and county together and created "America's newest top 20 city." His brand of constant upbeat insistence won over quite a few of us, convinced people to take serious pride in our hometown, somehow managing to inspire the type of fierce loyalty that can support entire businesses whose sole purpose is to sell Louisville-related clothing and merchandise. This, of course, is a good thing I think.

And even if Jerry tended to shoot himself in the foot sometimes (he totally fumbled an opportunity to convince the city to pass a tax referendum that would've supported the local public library system a few years back, all because he got a little overzealous in a campaign commercial, for instance. Long story.), he was the type of guy you knew would try to make good things happen for us. Enthusiastic to the point of lunacy about anything local, he was supportive of the arts and pretty much any other aspect of life in Louisville, he was OUR mayor and he showed up to EVERYTHING (one of my fondest memories of running the Derby Festival Mini-Marathon last year was when I was about to cross the start line to begin the race and looked over to see Jerry--wearing his goofy windbreaker, yelling encouragement and clapping for me/us like a madman. I was probably the 10,000th person to run by him, but he looked thrilled anyway--I think we made eye contact).

Now that he's out of office he'll be teaching some business class at my old college, and he's campaigning for next year's gubernatorial election--he'll be on the ticket with the current governor, running as his lieutenant (projections here at MM don't look good, though). So good luck, Jerry, it's already feeling very weird around here without you.

My Awesome Dream Business Plan

And when I say "dream" I mean literally--I dreamt that my husband and I started an awesome new business. Finally! My dream time is paying off (rather than digressing into nonsensical nightmare scenarios and quasi-Freudian non sequiturs). This business would fill a niche market that is not currently being taken advantage of: music purists who need personal documentation delivery and small appliance repairs. That's right, folks: we have a large and comprehensive collection of vinyl LPs, a value-added personal document delivery service (birth certificates! social security cards! credit report scores!), and, while you wait, my husband can repair or replace frayed power cables belonging to your well-used small home appliances (waffle irons! blenders! coffee grinders! ETC.!). A super-useful customer-oriented service provided by us for you, the consumer!

So come on down to Records Records & Re-Cords, LLC!

Please Stand By

We will return you to your irregularly scheduled programming soon(ish)

--MM Staff