I only actually lived there for one summer, but I visit during the summer a lot. There’s humidity. There’s heat you would not expect so far north. And there’s bugs. Giant, screaming, B-52-bomber bugs. Off, Deet, citronella, whatever you think might work against these bugs … think again. They are of horror-movie proportions, and just as hell-bent on world domination.
Some things I dig about Kentucky:
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The first KFC – a roadside restaurant where “Colonel” Harlan Sander’s conceived of the eleven herbs and spices – is in Kentucky. As a side note, the first restaurant to be called “Kentucky Fried Chicken” was, until recently, in Utah, and was recently destroyed to make way for a museum.
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I’m not sure exactly where, but Kentucky is home to one of the best Fire and Arson Forensic degree programs in the nation. Want to learn how to catch an arsonist? No? …then do you want to learn how not to get caught?
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As you drive south from Cincinnati Ohio on I-75, you pass Big Bone Lick state park. Never fails to elicit a giggle.
And an interesting fact that I don’t exactly “dig” but which is good to have in your hip pocket:
- Paducah, KY – though not as famous as Columbine – was home to one of the first school shootings. I remember the town name because I was reading Stephen King’s Rage when it happened.
When I passed that sign (and the giant water tower that says FLORENCE Y’ALL – which my friend blames on Ohio), I laughed so hard I almost drove off the road, and spent the rest of the ride to Louisville wondering why it was named that. I’m pretty sure my friend told me some story about cannibalism and Daniel Boone, but I didn’t really listen, and I can’t decide if it was funnier before or after cannibalism entered into it.
The Florence Y’all water tower originally read Florence Mall, which is right next door. People got up in arms about a water tower being used as an ad, so they just painted over part of the m, and added the '. For most of my childhood, the Y looked really odd. They made it look like a proper Y a few years ago.
Funniest thing about Big Bone Lick state park(it’s a fossil excavation, btw)? Right down the road is Beaver Lick, KY.
You’re also close to Rabbit Hash. Downstate is Paint Lick. And Gravel Switch.
December 1, 1997. Mom calls me at school at like, 9am and tells me “someone got shot at Heath.” Figuring she meant that maybe some kid got hit in the leg or something, I went back to sleep.
(Heath High School was my old high school’s rival.)
I lost all respect for the media during that week. Nothing but vultures. No class.
We also have Monkey’s Eyebrow and Possum Trot.
Beaver Dam, too.
What, all you Kentuckians and Kentuck-lovers responding and no one mentions the caves?
I’ve toured Kentucky twice, and loved both my trips there. First time I saw Churchill Downs (the only horse-race betting I’ve ever done…lost, what a surprise), the Whiskey Museum in Bardstown and the Corvette Museum in Bowling Green. Second time, we visited a candy factory in Frankfort, the Louisville Slugger factory, a Thomas Edison residence (also in Louisville) and Kentucky Down Under, a cavern and Australia-themed zoo (I petted a kangaroo!) in Horse Cave. Also went to Newport Aquarium, which is in a Kentucky suburb of Cincinnati.
I hope to make more trips there still, my list of things to see includes Mammoth Cave and the actual Corvette Assembly plant.
The people were all very nice and friendly. The grass, though, was green rather than blue. (On both sides of any fence.)
Alright, I told y’all about my Kentucky-raised mom and sent her the link to the thread; here’s her response :
"I liked reading this…tried to add but I’m not a member. Was going to say, being one of 10 children, we had plenty to eat because we grew our own food, had hand-me-down clothes so we took good care of the clothes we had so they could continue being handed down, and spent most of our days outside in fresh air and sunshine working in the garden and fields so we were extremely healthy. Didn’t know we were poor since everyone we knew was in the same boat! Childhood memories are of lilacs, freshly cut hay, fresh strawberries, Sunday afternoon softball games in the cow pasture, and Mom’s real Kentucky fried chicken! Were taught to respect others and to find value in everyone, especially family members. Willingness to help others selflessly was encouraged. Use of language is deceiving; if one bothers to look, the native intelligence is quite impressive. Most travelers just “pass through” and miss out on a glimpse of “the good life”.
I had a happy childhood despite my being burned and our lack of money. We had the necessities and each other.
Thanks for sending this site to me; I enjoyed reading the contributions.
It always chokes me up a little to hear my mom talk about her childhood, it was very different from mine. To explain the bit about being burned - a couple weeks before her 6th birthday, my mom was burned over much of her body when the dres she was wearing caught fire in the kitchen. One of her family members put her out, but the damage was so extensive that even now, 53 years later, she has some scars that show all the way through to her muscles. It was a long and painful road back, and she had sometimes to use a cane until her early teens because of the damage to her leg muscles. She’s the toughest person I know.
Tell that to my childhood. It thinks I lived on a dirt road!
My favorite person in the world is from Kentucky: my husband. So I’m inclined to like the place.
And then I remember my in-laws and all the good feelings go away.
Louisville is hot, humid, and oppressive in the summer. I’ve managed to visit during horrible floods and terrible ice storms. Kentuckians, beware, lest I visit again!
Was the whiskey museum the Maker’s Mark distillery(sp, I’m sure)? Cause that’s in Bardstown. And the cave are nice, but they make it a pain to build in Bowing Green. Basically the entire city is on top of a cave system.
Blue grass is just a type. 
Cincinnati suburb? Grrr.
Mammoth cave is pretty neat. I took the historic tour there and enjoyed it quite a bit. I learned what real dark is and my brother learned to look forward while he was walking so as not to whack his head on low points in the ceiling. I enjoyed that bit.
My grandfather did carpentry, among other things, and he worked on the Maker’s Mark distillery. My mother always liked to tell people that he used to walk on narrow beams high in the air with perfect balance. The only thing he ever fell off of was the chicken coop, ten feet up.
For other touristy attractions Elizabethtown has a Coca-cola museum, the Brown-Pusey (what a name) House-a former stagecoach inn and headquarters for George Armstrong Custer, and a cabin out by the lake (moved there) built by Abe Lincoln’s father. Plus a civil war cannonball stuck in the wall of a building down on the town square. Little souvenir from Morgan’s gang.
That’s Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond. My friend Crystal is a graduate of the Veterinary Technology program at Morehead State University, which is up in the Appalachians near the Ohio and West Virginia state lines. She’s from Bardstown, which is also known for My Old Kentucky Home State Park and other Stephen Foster-related sites. Spend a few minutes with Crystal and y’all would know what a Kentucky gal sounds lahk! 
The sign announcing that park was one of the few things my brother Mark liked about his Kentucky experience. He moved from Ohio to Louisville with a friend, but was back in the Cleveland area within a year. My mom was born in Alexandria (Campbell County) but only lived there for a few months before her father (a Protestant minister) was transferred to a church near Dayton, Ohio.
I’ve been through Kentucky a few times, but only spent one night in the state. Last visit was en route to and from a Tennessee farm for a goat-buying* expedition – pleasant (if cold) weather on the way down, but a visibility-sapping ice storm on the return to Indiana.
- [SIZE=1]honestly – not for one of the goats all SDMB initiates are subjected … um, treated to, though![/SIZE
diku:
I don’t think so, it seemed to be in a university exhibit hall or some such.
?? I hope it didn’t sound like I was implying that all of Kentucky is a Cincinnati suburb. Of course not. But Newport, where that aquarium is, is…isn’t it? Is that considered insulting?
Never mind…I just reviewed the thread and saw what you said in that first post of yours about the Kentuckians who live closest to Cincinnati.