163. From the hills of Clay County to Interstate 65

Last night at 5:30, the Left Bank of the Ohio River near Milepost 606 got a good thunder and lightning storm, with high winds and heavy rain. I watched it all from my back porch. I live about 1 and 1/4 miles due east of the Jefferson County Court House downtown on Jefferson Street, the building the Mayor of Louisville-Jefferson County Metro Government likes to call Metro Hall. There were quite a few lightning strikes which appeared to me to be right in the area of the Court House. I was secretly hoping the strikes were finding their ways to the two remaining Magnolia trees which have not yet been removed from the Court House lawn. Two Magnolias were removed earlier in the year as part of the overall renovation of the Court House exterior and grounds. Maybe they are waiting until the Heat Attack has passed. We are in a string of 15+ days where the official temperature has been 95 degrees or hotter. Yesterday the temperature rose to 105 degrees, a record for the day and just two degrees shy of Louisville's all time high record of 107 degrees, last reached in 1939.

But, upon later arrival downtown, the Magnolias were still there, adding a degree of Southern-ness to our Court House lawn, with leaves swaying and falling, but falling due to the heat rather than the storm. We have been fortunate that no lives have been lost to the heat, although in one recent death the heat is thought to have played a part.

In other news, the Democratic Party's slate of statewide candidates is scheduled to have a get-together this afternoon in Frankfort, with State Party members and County Chairs making up the crowd. I will be there. I am wondering if our candidate for Agriculture Commissioner will be there, or if he is still tied up in the bureaucratic red tape in Glasgow, where the City doesn't like the way he maintains his property. His is the one office we are most likely to lose, losing to the incumbent Richie Farmer, a guard for the University of Kentucky's 1988 to 1992 basketball teams, who hails from Manchester in Clay County, and who will celebrating his 38th birthday on the 25th. There have been rumors, started mostly by people who hope the rumors come to fruition, as opposed to have been started by anyone with any official knowledge of same, that Commissioner Farmer might switched parties and become a Democrat, so as to keep his electabilty on the positive side. If he were to do that, he would be in a certain minority at least back home, where he was once proclaimed Mr. Basketball for Kentucky in his senior year of high school. Clay County, which has twenty precincts, has 1,864 Democrats; 228 Independents; and 13,279 Republicans. Would the locals ever forgive him? "Cawood, will Richie play "D" tonight?" Of course if Richie is waiting like so many others for Congressman Hal Rogers to retire, then maybe he should keep his current Party ID. But, I digress - a little.

For the untravelled among you, not that you are interested, but simply that I like talking about Kentucky's cities and towns, and it is my blog, Manchester, the seat of government of Clay County, lies along US 421, on the Goose Creek Fork of the South Fork of the Kentucky River, just north of the US 421 intersection with the Hal Rogers Parkway, formerly the Daniel Boone Parkway.

There are still more than a few people who are upset with former Governor Paul Patton's decision to have the Daniel Boone Parkway renamed for Congressman Hal Rogers, who has served the southeastern part of Kentucky, through which the highway runs, since his election in 1980. The road used to be a toll-road, as many of Kentucky's early four-lanes were. Through the efforts of the congressman, the bonds which were used to finance the construction of the road were paid off by the Federal government at Rogers' insistence, and the tolls lifted. That, at least, is the official reason given for renaming the highway. It is similar to the argument that was made two decades ago in deciding to rename the Jefferson Freeway (KY 841/I-265) for then-Congressman Gene Snyder, as it ran through a populous part of his old Fourth Congressional District, and his efforts provided a great deal of the money to see it completed, along with those of former Highway Commissioner Frank Metts and former Governor John Young Brown, Jr.

While we are on the subject of naming highways, I noticed yesterday the new signage hanging over the southbounds lanes of I-65 as one enters Kentucky from the north proclaiming the road the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Expressway. I wrote earlier this year about the efforts the local Metro Council took to not do this, by passing the buck of what to name for the civil rights leader to others - anyone, and the people to whom it was passed was the General Assembly. The Metro Council breathed a sigh a relief when the legislature took up the cause. The assignment of Dr. King's name to I-65 only applies in Jefferson County. Upon leaving the Metro, much smaller signs (hopefully to be replaced) have been erected at each county line calling the raod the Abraham Lincoln Memorial Highway, an appropriate name given the interstate pretty much bisects the areas associated with Lincoln's family during their time in the Commonwealth.

That's all for now. Today's high temperature is expected to be a relatively cool 94 degrees.