674. "Come on out to William H. King's . . . . , and Hidden Location #10 revealed

Out at the Fairgrounds, except we officially don't call it that anymore, there is a show going on, a show most of us in Louisville have attended at one time or another in our lives. It is being advertised as the Louisville Boat, RV, and Sport Show, and there is a little jingle that was being played earlier on 103.5 FM - WAKY - or as we would say here along the Left Bank of the Ohio River near Milepost 606, Wa-Kee Ray-Dee-Oh! The trouble is I can't tell you how the jingle goes because it hasn't been around long enough. In fact, as soon as I heard it I started singing another jingle for the same event. If you are old enough, you know the real jingle for this show goes "Come on out to William H. King's Sport, Boat, and Vacation show, 'Cause it wont be long until it that time of year" Now I know that more than a few of you were singing along by the time you got to the end of that line.

If you are old enough to remember the William H. King jingle, you're probably old enough to have recognized the location in our most recent Hidden Location entry. Marty Meyer correctly identified it as the corner of S. Second Street at W. Florence Avenue. Indeed, that is exactly where it is. The picture is looking north along Second Street's southbound lanes. Back in the day, as people like to say nowadays when they are talking about something that happened a long time ago - I'm especially unnerved when I hear one of my 23 year old friends referring to back in the day and you find out they mean sometime around 2007. But, I've digressed.

At one time, this corner was an integral part of the Watterson Expressway's intersection with KY1020. The former exit sign read "2nd St - 3rd St - Southern Parkway" heading in either direction on the Watterson. If you were in the westbound lanes and you took this triply-defined exit, you made a 90 degree turn off the Watterson and up the little hill on 2nd Street to Florence. At that point you were directed 90 degrees to the left (westwardly) along Florence over to 3rd and even further, if you wanted, over to Southern Parkway. That hill was known to oldtimers as Bluebird Hill although I do not know exactly why.

Marty identified the intersection as part of Wilder Park and this is qualifiably correct, but qualifiably incorrect as well. While the old City of Louisville neighborhood boundary for Wilder Park extended this far south, the original development, which began in the very late 1880s extended no further south than Fairmont Avenue. It is possible that Fairmont is named for the little hill to the south that came to be known at some point as Bluebird Hill, while the valley between Fairmount and the eventual Florence was known as Bluebird Valley.

The original Wilder Park subdivision, built on land once occupied by the old Greenland Race Track, an early Churchill Downs comptetior, ran from Collins Court south to Fairmount, and from Third Street east over to the old L&N Railroad. It was developed by a real estate investor by the name of Angus Allmond - hence Allmond Avenue which eventually graced (loosely used) the far eastern edge of the far southern edge of the neighborhood. The property was owned by a woman named Wilder Collins. Most of the Wilder Park homes north of Fairmont, in Mrs. Collins original plat, were built in the period between 1890 and 1930. Homes south of there came along just before and just after World War Two.

2nd Street, the divided avenue in the center of the development, was originaly known as Wilder Boulevard. The east-west cross streets followed the pattern of those streets north of Churchill Downs, adopting letters as their street names. Wilder Park's letters ranged from P to V. The only Louisville streetname remaining from the configuration is M street, just north of Churchill Downs.

(Unrelated to this story is that of the City of Oakdale, which began up near The Granville Inn at what was then called A Street, and extended south to about where the Watterson Expressway is now, between the L&N on the east and Rodman Avenue on the west. An Oakdale neighborhood remains south of Churchill Downs.)

So, congratulations once again to Marty Meyer, now 7-1-1-1 in our little game. I'll find a new location tomorrow or Sunday.

Hidden Location #10

Let's see how the panel does. I have a second picture from the same intersection which I may post later if this one proves too difficult. Leave your comments below.

673. A Full Moon and a Hidden Location Winner

There a big beautiful pizza-pie style moon hanging out about 1/3 the way up in the sky somewhere over Fisherville or maybe even Finchville. It is a cold clear night like this which makes me wish I lived somewhere off KY44 or KY248 out by Taylorsville Lake, where I'm sure that moon is as bright as the sun.

*****

We have a (new) winner in the Hidden Location game. All the previous locations have been identified by Marty Meyer, with one exception to that rule, which was identified by Curtis Morrison.

But now we have a new player and winner, my friend Joanna Erny. She correctly identifed the snowy downtown location as 8th Street looking north toward Main.

On the left is the Louisville Slugger Bat Factory and on the right an old historic building recently occupied by the Louisville-Jefferson County Revenue Commission. For one term, from 1999 to 2002, I was a Louisville-Jefferson County Revenue Commissioner. It is also sometimes called the Louisville Opera Building. It is presently undergoing extensive renovation.

Across Main Street, on the northeast corner, you can see the Alexander Building, the top floor of which is a penthouse apartment where political shindigs are held now and then. In the background is the federal government's 1960s gift to Louisville's waterfront, Interstate 64, the "64" part of 86-64, a grassroots effort to rid the waterfront of its overhead expressway and create instead a parkway setting. Hope springs eternal for that.

We'll have a new Hidden Location soon for our seven faithful readers to work on.

Congratulations Joanna on your win.

672. Billy Joel, Alison Lundergan Grimes, and Hidden Location #10

Back on November 3, 1973, as I was beginning the 8th grade at Durrett High School, California singer Billy Joel released his ode to lounge-lizard listening, a song entitled Piano Man. It is one of several songs I learned to play a few years later under the guidance of Shera Baker, a young lady who was two years behind me in school. Her living room and its piano served as a launchpad for those of you who've since heard me play, for good or for bad.

The first line of the fourth verse of Piano Man is "It's a pretty good crowd for a Saturday, the manager gives me a smile ... " While today wasn't a Saturday, and there were no pianos involved, there was a pretty good crowd today at an event I attended after work, and the manager, so to speak, was all smiles.

If you are in Louisville, you know we've been threatened with four to six inches of snow, an accumulation which has probably fallen from the skies, but for one reason or another has not quite accumulated on Mother Earth below. Nonetheless, the city went into its usual "snow mode" letting school out early, closing businesses, and generally providing a sales boon to the local groceries. See the picture below for a snowy scene in downtown Louisville.


Despite the cold weather and heavy falling snow, a "pretty good crowd" gathered today on the second floor of Louisville's famed Glassworks facility at 9th and Market streets - technically 9th is still Roy Wilkins Avenue at that point, a name typically observed only in the breach. The event was the Louisville reception for my friend Alison Lundergan Grimes, a Lexington attorney who today filed her papers for the Democratic nomination for the office of Kentucky's Secretary of State. Earlier events were held in Lexington and Frankfort, and tomorrow there will be additional events culminating in Maysville, a small river city in northeastern Kentucky, and the hometown of Alison's father, former Kentucky Democratic Chairman Jerry Lundergan, the metaphorical smiling manager in Joel's song. I'm supporting Alison in her bid to this office in the election which will be decided this fall.

Alison addressed the "pretty good crowd" for this snowy afternoon with three important women in her life looking on from the front row of the room, her mother and her two grandmothers. Her mother, Charlotte Lundergan, and I serve together on the Kentucky Democratic Party State Central Executive Committee. She is also one of Kentucky's representatives on the National Democratic Committee. Alison was joined by other members of her family as well as a host of Democratic luminaries from across the state. The current and two former lieutenant governors were present, as well as Speaker of the Kentucky House of Representatives Greg Stumbo of Floyd County, who introduced the candidate. There were also a few members of the Jefferson County Democratic Executive Committee present, along with others of the general public. The press was represented by Joe Gerth, a writer for the Courier-Journal. Again, for a snowy late afternoon, it was a "pretty good crowd."

Below is a picture which, for lack of any others in hand, we'll use as Hidden Location #10. For those who live or work downtown, as I do, this one should be relatively easy. Leave any comments below.

Finally I'd be remiss if I didn't acknowledge today's 50th anniversary of the Inauguration and speech of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the first inaugural of my lifetime. It was on this date fifty years ago that the new president admonished and obliged the American people to "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." I grew up with that expression never too far removed from one's mind, an era when the American populace was more concerned with the collective "we" which comprises America, as opposed to the individualistic "I" which, since the presidency of Kennedy's later successor Ronald Wilson Reagan, has destroyed the fabric of American culture, a great loss to each other, our Republic, and the world. When "The Fall of the American Republic" is written, which it will be soon, perhaps in the next fifty years, one of the turning points will be when Ronald Reagan reported in his inaugural that "the government isn't the solution, but rather is the problem." How more different could the attitudes be between Kennedy and Reagan, the former telling us to be concerned about our country to the point of "doing" for it; the latter proclaiming that the government is the problem and should be abandoned. Sad!

Again, Hidden Location #10 is below.

671. Annual Accounting of Counties Visited

Each year about this time I take down a map of Kentucky hanging in my office and put up a new one. And on that new map, as I have done with a map every year since 1979, I will mark the counties I drive through, visit, spend time in, set foot upon, or as in the case of Jefferson, live in. For thirty-two years I've kept track of this, sparked by by visit in 1979 to all 120 of Kentucky's county, a feat only repeated in 1987.

The high number in recent years is 71 in 2004. Despite being ill for a third of 2005 I somehow made it to 59 counties that year, the highest since that time; last year was 45.

The number of counties visited in 2010 reached to 57. Making the list all 32 years are, logically, where I live and my home county's immediate neighbors, and from there up to where my grandparents are buried in Woodford. Besides Jefferson and Woodford, these are Bullitt, Franklin, Hardin, Oldham, and Shelby. Meade is the next most visited at 29 of the 32 years, followed by Nelson at 26.

At the bottom of the list, unchanged from last year, and in fact unchanged since 1987, are Elliott and Lawrence counties. I just can't seem to get there. Other than those two, Martin remains unvisited since 1990, the longest period unvisited of any counties other than Elliott and Lawrence. Lawrence borders these other two; all are off the beaten path, meaning away from I-64. For several years I've wanted to do a US23 run from Ashland south to Prestonsburg, which would at least take me through Louisa in Lawrence County. As a note, the Lawrence County Courthouse, obviously one of the newer ones in the state, is pictured below. I've, frankly, never seen it. With a little creativity, that US23 path could be amended to get into both Elliott and Martin. Given this is a statewide election year, as were 1979 and 1987 - the only other years I've been there, maybe this is the year all three will get revisited.

I'll be driving back up to Washington once or twice this year so I will get close as I trek across I-64 on the way. Also, I hope to make it to the Hillbilly Days event this year in Pike, as well as the traditional visit to Fancy Farm in August. As of today, other than my drive back from Lexington during the early morning hours of January 1st, I haven't left the county yet this year. With a long weekend coming up, that is very likely to change.

Happy Trails in the New Year.

Hidden Location #9 Revealed

Hidden Location #9 managed to stump the panel. The picture was taken in the 2100 block of Peabody Lane facing just east of due north. Marty and "Anonymous" were both correct on the assertion that it was in the former City of Louisville. Marty added it was outside the Watterson Expressway, which he euphemistically referred to as the "Circle of Love," an appellation conjured up by Louisville's 50th mayor, Greg Fischer, who was inaugurated on January 3. The giveaways for that are existing sidewalks along with street lights, a staple for subdivisions and streets in the old City where property owners pay two tax bills as opposed to one, as they do in unincorporated parts of Jefferson County, many of which are closeby on the other side of Bardstown Road in the areas around and including Seneca High School.

Peabody, or this section of Peabody, along with streets named Belmont, Palmer, Moulton, and Sumner, make up the subdivision originally known as Village Green. There are also houses fronting on what is now called Goldsmith Lane in the subdivision. It is the only subdivision I know of where nearly every house has extended, or much wider, eaves that is customary on the suburbs. Most of these homes were built with 1050 to 1150 square feet of space.

The subdivision was built along the south side of what was then known as Meyers Lane in the mid 1950s. The easiest way to describe it to many Louisvillians would be to say it is the area behind Toy Tiger. Of course, if you haven't been around for a while you may not know what that means, so a second definition would be the area behind the Showcase Cinemas. Oh wait, they're gone, too.

The extended eaves can be seen in the picture which would be a dead giveaway to anyone who is familiar with Louisville's suburbs.

I do not have a new location waiting to be identified. I'll get one soon.

670. I was seven years old in 1968; Reflections on January 8, 2011

I was seven years old in 1968. As such, I do not remember a lot of it. Unlike my little brother, who can cite incidents from memory with the accuracy of blue-ray technology, my memory is rather faded and shaded for a great number of my earliest years.

I began 1968 as a second grader at Blue Lick Elementary School in southern Jefferson County. My teacher was Miss Hoagland. I rode Bus #402 to and from school each day catching the bus at the foot of my street, where Whippoorwill empties into South Park. Afternoons in my neighborhood, that period after school and before supper, consisted of bike-riding, tree climbing, playing in the woods behind our house, or just hanging out.

There were a few places where the "just hanging out" took place. At the dead-end of Mason in front of the Rogers' house was a gum tree. I'm not sure exactly what kind of tree it was but it had a clear gooey substance oozing from various points in the tree. At the other end of Mason, in the Riddle's front yard, on the southwest corner with Walter Avenue (where Walter was (and remains) one lane wide) were two trees that, at the age one is in second grade, was about as far as I was suppose to travel away from home, about 750 feet from our side deck.

Eventually, every evening about six it was time to come in and eat. We ate breakfast and dinner, called supper, religiously at the breakfast bar in the kitchen. For the record, our dining room was a formal room in which, until my grandmother's passing in 1976, we rarely ate other than at Christmastime. At this kitchen breakfast bar on one side sat me and my grandmother; on the other was my grandfather, my brother, and my mother. Opposite the end of the bar was an oversized portable dishwasher on top of which sat a Zenith television set. That's what you called them back then, a television set.

And it was at the breakfast bar, after we had eaten, that we all five sat and watched the national news learning the events of the day from across the Republic and around the world. We watched NBC and its newscast, which I remember being called The World Tonight, but I wouldn't bet more than a nickel on that memory.

Whatever it was called, it was on that black-and-white TV that I watched most of 1968 pan out, a melodramatic year which, thankfully, has not been equalled during my fifty years on the planet. Of great interest was the War in Vietnam. I recall that I had older cousins and a few friends and neighbors who were serving in Vietnam. I learned of other places too, called Laos and Thailand and Cambodia. If there were comments on the war, I do not recall them. It was from that berth as well that I watched the news of the assasination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in Memphis, Tennessee. I honestly had no idea who Dr. King was although my grandparents found his assasination to be horrific. I was mostly interested because I had just a few summers before that been to Memphis and was anxious to see if I could remember any of the locations now being played and replayed on the television screen.

It wasn't that TV but another larger one, an old big brown box of the Motorola brand, in the living room that I do clearly recall the assasination of Senator Robert Kennedy, late in the night. Politics has always been an integral part of my family and Kennedy's ascension in the Democratic Party was being followed as he had spent time in eastern Kentucky making friends with people from our state. My uncle had supported Senator McCarthy and I do not remember if my grandparents were Kennedy people or not. I do know that after his death, we strongly supported Vice President Hubert Humphrey in his bid to become president.

It was only from stories in the years to come that I learned more and more about 1968. When I was 14, one of my first jobs was working in a men's clothing store in Okolona operated by Mr. Howard Klein. Mr. Howard, as he was known in the neighborhood, was a wonderful man, my first real boss. He had moved his store to the Silver Heights Shopping Center location in 1968. He formerly had operated a shop at 28th and Dumesnil in Parkland but his business succombed to the riots which took place in the city that summer. He told me stories of how that area basically ceased to exist as a business center during the summer of 1968.

I also learned about the 1968 Democratic National Convention from my Uncle Don and my grandmother Hockensmith, both of whom were Democratic operatives. Don was from the left side of the Party while my grandmother was more of a moderate to center-left person. I remember scenes from the convention from watching TV.

Many years later while in college, I learned even more of the summer of unrest for our country, the summer of 1968. I learned about a government and response to the government of acronyms from SNCC to the HUAC, which became the HCUA, as well as SCLC and SNCC. I learned about CORE, the NAACP, events at UC-Berkeley, and something called the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and the Lowndes County Freedom Organization, which many folks called the Black Panthers.

It seemed to me then, as a child living in a nearly-totally white suburban neighborhood, that most of the problems associated with 1968 were related to tension between whites and blacks. And as I became more educated, I learned that what I believed to be the truth was in fact the truth. A great number of Americans had not quite accepted the amagalmation of African-Americans into the general society, something that was in part a result of a civil war which had been fought in this country, and in my state, more than 100 years earlier.

Through my lifetime the tensions have seemed to either go away or just became more acceptable. Few people today work or shop or attend school in places that are solely white or solely black. The exception to that, as has been noted for many years, is during the worship hour on Sunday morning. In that place, we have remained quite largely segregated. Even in my rather liberal congregration of Episcopalians, I can think of only one African-American who attends on a regular basis.

But, on the whole, the blacks and whites of our country have lived more or less harmoniously for many years since the tensions of 1968. But that changed to an extent in 2008 with the election of a bi-racial president, Barack Obama. President Obama handily defeated the incumbent president winning states which Democrats had not carried in many years, perhaps since 1968. And that win began what has been seen as a strong decline in the civility between the races, a decline which can be heard most any day on AM radio.

And many ugly things which had never been said before were and are now being said regularly without much recrimination. Talk show hosts have all but called for a revolution. There has been a great rise in the number of hate groups springing up across the country. Places like the Knob Creek Gun Range in western Bullitt County have allowed their premises to be used to sell merchandise which could easily be described as racist and alarming.

Certain talk show hosts have been far more incendiary than others and no one who is listening cannot believe that these folks do not know that the words they are using can and will lead to violence.

The non-violent nature of our country, a nature fostered by Dr. King in the early 1960s before his assasination in 1968, was shattered today in Tucson, Arizona where a 22 year old gunman opened fire in a grocery store parking lot, killing six persons including a nine year old girl and a federal judge, and sending thirteen others to the hopsital, many with life-threatening wounds, among them a member of the United States Congress.

This was an assasination with great and grave results. I believe, unfortunately, that it is only the beginning. Our country is civilly broke. The confraternity of men and women which has sustained us for 235 years is no more. We have become a nation of I's - you's and me's - we've forgotten that we were a nations of we's. We've forgotten that the first and most important word of our Constitution is We, as in "We, the people."

I am a partisan person and I feel there is blame to be placed at the feet of certain individuals and certain political parties. I will not lay that blame here. At this point I will close, hoping that when America wakes up tomorrow morning we will reflect on the tragic events of January 8, 2011 and make a united effort at changing course. The alternative is civil war. This is where we are headed. And that is sad.

CIVIL WAR (1990)
Written by Axl Rose, Duff McKagan, and Slash.
Sung by Guns 'n' Roses

Look at your young men fighting
Look at your women crying
Look at your young men dying
The way they've always done before

Look at the hate we're breeding
Look at the fear we're feeding
Look at the lives we're leading
The way we've always done before

My hands are tied
The billions shift from side to side
And the wars go on with brainwashed pride
For the love of God and our human rights
And all these things are swept aside
By bloody hands time can't deny
And are washed away by your genocide
And history hides the lies of our civil wars

D'you wear a black armband
When they shot the man
Who said "Peace could last forever"
And in my first memories
They shot Kennedy
I went numb when I learned to see
So I never fell for Vietnam
We got the wall of D.C. to remind us all
That you can't trust freedom
When it's not in your hands
When everybody's fightin'
For their promised land
And

I don't need your civil war
It feeds the rich while it buries the poor
Your power hungry sellin' soldiers
In a human grocery store
Ain't that fresh
I don't need your civil war
Ow, oh no, no, no, no, no

Look at the shoes you're filling
Look at the blood we're spilling
Look at the world we're killing
The way we've always done before
Look in the doubt we've wallowed
Look at the leaders we've followed
Look at the lies we've swallowed
And I don't want to hear no more

My hands are tied
For all I've seen has changed my mind
But still the wars go on as the years go by
With no love of God or human rights
'Cause all these dreams are swept aside
By bloody hands of the hypnotized
Who carry the cross of homicide
And history bears the scars of our civil wars

"WE PRACTICE SELECTIVE ANNIHILATION OF MAYORS AND
GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS FOR EXAMPLE TO CREATE A VACUUM
THEN WE FILL THAT VACUUM AS POPULAR WAR ADVANTAGE
PEACE IS CLOSER" **

I don't need your civil war
It feeds the rich while it buries the poor
Your power hungry sellin' soldiers
In a human grocery store
Ain't that fresh
And I don't need your civil war
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no
I don't need your civil war
I don't need your civil war
Your power hungry sellin' soldiers
In a human grocery store
Ain't that fresh
I don't need your civil war
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no uh-oh-uh, no uh-oh, uh no
I don't need one more war

I don't need one more war
No, no, no, no uh-oh-uh, no uh-oh, uh no
WHAZ SO CIVIL 'BOUT WAR ANYWAY?

Hidden Location #9

Once again Marty Meyer correctly identified our hidden location, which was Cardinal Drive alongside Audubon Golf Course. This picture is taken in the 1400 block of Cardinal, a streetname which runs along the north and south sides of the Audubon Golf course but the two sides never meet. There is a right-of-way surrounding the golf course which on the map is identified as Cardinal. But the southern-most Cardinal, where our recent picture was taken, dead-ends a few block to the east. On the northside, Cardinal turns into Nightingale Drive at Eagle Pass. Technically, this isn't true as the Cardinal right-of-way proceeds around the property line between the Fincastle Heights apartments (actually a mutual ownership cooperative) and the new condos which face the golf course. You may also notice that a few of the houses on the southernmost Cardinal look more like those in Audubon Park than those in Camp Taylor. There is a reason. Before Camp Taylor the neighborhood was Camp Zachary Taylor the military installation, it was farmland largely owned by Sallie Durrett and her heirs. Some of it had been sold off into parcels. The entirety of what is now commonly known as the Camp Taylor neighborhood was in fact laid out as part of the Audubon Park subdivision with similarly rolling lanes and circles and small parks. But the Great War interfered and most of it was bought by Uncle Sam. The 1400 and 1500 blocks of Cardinal were already begun with homes similar to those across the fairway in what is now the City of Audubon Park. But they are all that were ever built on the southside. Eventually Camp Zachary Taylor closed, with most of its operations moved to the newer Camp Henry Knox, now Fort Knox. The subdivision which became the Camp Taylor neighborhood abandoned the plans of Audubon Park and used as its streets those created by the United States Army. A few new ones have been added - McKay, Grove and Orchard (where the Army maintained a fruit orchard), and some others, but for the most part the streets in use today in Camp Taylor are those created for service in World War I.

Below is a new hidden location. Good luck.

The new year

Today marks a blogaversary - the 4th birthday of The Left Bank of the Ohio River near Milepost 606. Our first entry, four years ago today, celebrated the 110th Congress and specifically the election of Congressman John Yarmuth and the then-incoming Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi.

In those four years the political landscape has gone from the newness of 2007 through the soaring heights of the election of Barack Obama as the Republic's 44th president, levelling off and slowing donw in 2009 during the president's first year, to a reversing-of-fortunes election in 2010 where the glory-fires of 2008 were doused by 2010's Tea. A brief progressive renaissance took place in the closing days of the anything-but lame duck session of the 111th Congress.

The 112th Congress will convene sometime this week with the Dark Side of the Aisle in charge being led by its orange-tinted barkeeper's son, John "Hell No" Boehner, the United States Representative from Ohio's 8th Congressional District, a collection of suburban and rural counties along southern Ohio's border with Indiana, just north of Cincinnati and west of Dayton.

Also convening this week, actually today, is the 2011 Kentucky General Assembly, led in the Democratic House by Speaker Greg Stumbo and in the Republican Senate by President David Williams, who is also a candidate for governor this year. I do not have any hope or expectation of an exceptional or even a successful Session. Our system of government in Frankfort needs an overhaul but that isn't likely to happen. Our filing dealine for members of the General Assembly - and all other offices in the Commonwealth - falls at the end of this month with the Primary a few short months later in mid-May.

This needs to change. While I disagree with nearly everything else promoted by Senator Williams, known as the Bully from Burkesville (in Cumberland County), he has for several Sessions now put forth the idea of moving the filing deadline to sometime in April and the Primary to sometime in August. As I have each time he has previously introduced such a measure, I lend my support to this effort. I believe it is in the best interests of the Commonwealth. Chances are good this measure will go nowhere, as it has in its previous iterations. Why would this year be any different?

In fact, because of the ongoing governor's race, this year will probably be far worse. Everything which is said and done will be couched in terms of who it will or will not help in the gubernatorial election this November. It is a hopeless course. The legislators and the Commonwealth would probably be better served if the two Houses convened and immediately adjourned so we could go ahead and run the governor's race without any interference with the need to actually govern. It is a sorry state of affairs.

There are other races on the ballot this year, all Constitutional offices with their operations in Frankfort. I'm participating in two of those - Adam Edelen's race for Auditor of Public Accounts and Allison Lundergan Grimes' race for Secretary of State. You will hear more about these in postings later in the political season.

Louisville inaugurated its new mayor Greg Fischer yesterday and will install a new Metro Council President this Thursday, fully expected to be 10th District Councilman Jim King, Mr. Fischer's opponent in last year's Democratic Primary. I expect the work of the Metro Council [where I should note I am employed] to be far more productive than either Kentucky's General Assembly or the Republic's 112th Congress and its ongoing Senate.

2011 does not promise to be a progessive year by anyone's imagination. So, in the meantime, I will make my postings - hopefully more than in the last year - and continue the ongoing life we all live, full of ups and downs and curves and straightways. Party on. Thanks Be To God.

Hidden Location #8

Once again Marty Meyer correctly identified the hidden location, the latest one being the 800 block of East Chestnut Street. I'm not sure how he got that one so quickly, but so he did, and he did so quickly enough for Curtis Morrison to accuse him of satellite-tracking me or something. For those not familiar with this block, it is best visited in late April when the dogwoods are in bloom. This is one of the prettiest blocks in downtown Louisville - actually in the Phoenix Hill neighborhood - when those pink blossoms show up. The old Ursuline Academy is partially pictured on the right. My Aunt Judy Whalen Noble was an Ursuline graduate.

Below is a new location. Not as difficult, I don't think, but then, apparently none of them have been too difficult.

2011

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress for all mankind.

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty night;
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring happy bells, across the snow.
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1850)

Happy New Year.