4th Street Downtown Louisville
Cherokee Park in the Snow
Kentucky Bluegrass
-
SHS Memories povided 10/05/2017
- Where to start!? So many memories, sights, sounds & smells. Catching the streetcar from the turn-around on Portland Ave with a Market St transfer for 4th St. The overhead pantograph & grinding noise the streetcar's trucks made as it moved along the rails; fare maybe 5/10 cents. SAT crowds that flowed along 4th St. The March of Dimes donation tables. Eating lunch at the Blue Boar Cafeteria & the best Spaghetti/Meatballs at an Italian Restaurant (Potts ?). My first White Castle from the original location on E. Market St. The little castle's steamed windows & the smell/taste of those sliders! Kingfish at the bottom of 4th St & unforgettable fish sandwiches. Freshly ground horse radish in a paper bag from the old open air market. The stockyard's slightly obnoxious odor carried by the wind. The stores: Stewart's, Bacon's, JC Penney, SS Kresge's 5 & 10... Going to the movies: Mary Anderson, Rialto & Lowe's: Blackboard Jungle; Rebel Without a Cause; Rocket Ship XM... The roar the big trains made passing over the Bank St viaduct. Pulling into a service station & hearing the bell's sharp clang as the tires ran over an air hose. The smell of creosote from the RR tie factory across the tracks. The heady scent that drifted on the summer breeze from the distillery/warehouses on the back side of the K&I RR yards. Fountain Fairy Park's blue chlorine-laced pool on a scorching summer afternoon. Jumping off the high dive... and surviving; the Whip, Merry-Go-Round music and the sawdust shavings that covered the park's ground. Stopping by the Dairy Queen for a malt or sundae. Frisch's Big Boy on Cane Run Rd, oh so good hamburgers & the consequences of allowing one's little finger to get caught in the restaurant's pneumatic front door. Listenting on a little transistor radio to WAKY playing the "Purple People Eater" song for 3 straight days. Hops & dances in a church's basement over off Broadway. Asking old men to buy a couple of quarts of Oertel's 92/Falls City. The first bitter but intoxicating taste of beer. Kool cigs -- hack, hack. The pregnant fertile smell of the river while fishing from a johnboat along the bear traps below the hydro. Listening for the siren that signaled the turbines were about to start up. Lastly... I try to watch the Derby every year. Some curiosity about the horses/jockeys but mostly just to hear the crowd sing "My Old Kentucky Home". Somewhere in my heart or soul or somewhere in between there is and will always be a patch of Bluegrass.