589. Slow Getting Started

As some of you know, I have that map on my wall - the one of Kentucky -with counties outlined in red or green or black indicating my visits to a county in a given year. The 2009 map still hangs, as-yet-unreplaced by a 2010 map. Until last night, on the 15th of the month, I had not made it out of Jefferson County. Shame!

Fortunately, I had scheduled to have dinner with Chris Hartman last night. When making those plans, it was my intention to do so at Third Avenue Cafe in Old Louisville. However, he was in Frankfort (and remains so today) organizing a summit for people interested in the ACLU, the (Louisville) Fairness Campaign, the Kentucky Fairness Alliance, the Lexington Fairness group, and the Human Relations Commission of Kentucky. They are meeting today, with approximately 100 registrants thus far, at the Paul Sawyier Library - actually the new Paul Sawyier Library - on Wapping Street in Frankfort. So I agreed to meet in Frankfort. Frankfort is one of my favorite places on the planet.

So, we were going to meet for a glass of wine at Capital Cellars, a wine bar/retail store at Broadway and Lewis Street. I've been meaning to go in there for some time as it is just a few doors over from my favorite Frankfort coffeeshop, the Kentucky Coffeetree Coffeeshop. Alas, the wine bar was packed in all corners and Chris had informed me he was bringing five friends to our little dinner.

We wandered across Broadway, which involves also crossing an R. J. Corman railroad line, the old line connecting Frankfort to Louisville and Lexington. Across the street is Gibby's, a bustling family restaurant which specializes in Italian food among other things. It, too, was packed, but we - the six of us - managed to squeeze into a booth designed for four. Well, five of them did. Being the oldest, I pulled rank and sat in a chair provided at the end of the booth.

After an hour and half dinner of spaghetti or chili or hotbrowns or the Fort Hill sandwich, we proceded over to the motel where most of the registrants for the summit appeared to be staying and put together informational booklets for today's session, something I'm not attending.

The point here is I finally got out of Jefferson County. Albeit, I only travelled the fifty-five miles up and down I-64, something I do on a very regular basis. But still it was liberating to get out of the home county for the first time in a new year. So, sometime next week I'll affix a new calendar to the wall in my office and file away the old one with all the others. And in a heavy line I will outline the counties of Jefferson, Shelby, and Franklin, thus beginning the 32nd year of such records.

Thanks Be To God.