Kentucky My Old Kentucy Home

May 2005

Rolling hills, green green grasses, and fragrant meadows of jasmine.  South Central Kentucky is rural with many family farms on acres and acres of land.  There is a vastness to this land that is populated by few. 

There is a Mennonite community around the countryside of Bailey's Point where we RVd for two weeks.  These folks do not use mechanized machinery and can be seen in horse and buggy as they get around the roads.  They farm with horse or mule to do the work that tractors do.  These are friendly folks who wave to you as you drive by.  At the local Wal-Mart, we saw a horse and buggy tied outside in the parking lot.  The men wear wide brim straw hats, long sleeved shirts and slacks or coveralls usually in brown or black.  The women where bonnets with full length dresses in brown or black with a white apron over the front of the dress.  Most of the men have long beards and the women long hair. 

There is a town called Scottsville that is a reminder of the 1950's.  The town is built around a town center square or plaza where parking is facing into the sidewalks.  Folks stop and talked to each other, and you see very few foreign cars anywhere in the area.  The public library has seven parking spaces in its parking lot.  There is still the old fashioned barber shop and shoe repair place.  They have a Sonic drive-in diner where each parking slot has a menu and you order your meal from the car and they bring it out on a tray for you to eat at your vehicle.

Our visit to this part of Kentucky has been very peaceful and a reminder of how America used to be.

 

tg

 

 

 

Tarpon Springs Florida

April 2005

 

Tarpon Springs is amazing.  It is just north of Tampa-St. Petersburg,but is a quaint town with much character.

My brother Frank lives there and on a visit with him and Mary, they took us downtown.  Downtown is a Greek town with wonderful bakeries and restaurants.  One side of Main Street is a waterway with sponge and fishing boats docked.  It is a working person's town with interesting shops for the tourists.

We had the greatest Greek food there.  Driving around, there are homes that are small and charming and then largest expensive homes all with lovely Live Oak trees galore.  There is beach access and lovely parks.

The most amazing thing we saw was a low income neighborhood that had been going quickly downhill as folks had jobs, but low income, unable to make repairs among probably many other things they needed, but had to forego for lack of money even though they have jobs and are working.  Tarpon Springs was able to get a grant from the government--prior to Bush--and this neighborhood is well along to being refurbished.  The houses that have been worked on have renovations that make them cozy homes with pastel painted outside, nice lawns and an overall sense of pride as the neighborhood moves towards being the kind of neighborhood everyone wants to have themselves. 

 

tg

 

Bailey's Point Recreational Area - Kentucky

May 2005

It feels like the 1950s.  Five loops of about 32 campsites around each loop makes for an intimate setting. The sites are arranged around a circle by a paved road with campsites on either side of the road.  The center of the circle is a grassy meadow with maples, oaks, black walnuts, and other hardwoods.

We are on a peninsula so Barren River Lake can be seen everywhere you go.  This is a U.S. Army Corp of Engineers project built in the 1960s to control flooding in the area.  The lake is 10,052 acres but from every vista looks like a large lake--not the massive waterway of 10,052 acres.  You can see across to the other shore which is covered by trees and coves.  Each of these coves leads to another section of the lake that cannot be seen from the shore you stand on.  When I look out at the lake, I immediately am reminded of the movie On Golden Pond.

Monday through Friday, there are only 6 or 8 of us on Loop A.  We become quite friendly and spend time each day talking to each other.  Two of the folks are farmers in the area.  One goes to hay his fields a couple of day s this past week and the other has a dairy farm.  The farmer who went to hay his field, told us he used to have a dairy farm and came quite close to being gored to death by his bull.  The bull had gotten loose and he went to secure him, but the bull charged him immediately.  He tried to make a run for it, but slipped in the mud being gored repeatedly in his upper legs.  With every ounce of strength he had, he hauled himself over the fence and that saved his life.

Another neighbor had the Cochlear implant which is a new device that actually restores hearing.  It is implanted on the scalp behind one ear with a battery pack attached to your belt like a cell phone.  This man had been completely deaf for a number of years and with the Cochlear implant, he has his hearing restored.  

Friday through Sunday the campground it full and it is quite wonderful.  This reminds me of my childhood in the 50s when neighborhoods were full of people outside their homes--sitting on front porches and talking to neighbors as they were on evening strolls.  Here families come on weekends.  Usually three or four sites are reserved by families and relatives--Grandma and grandpa, mom and dad, uncles and aunts, and many children and dogs.   Walking through the campground, we see folks sitting outside conversing, children playing outside, riding bikes, playing on the shores of the river.  Folks are cooking and eating outside.  At the end of the day, there are towels hanging out to dry from swimming or boating and folks sitting around the campfire.

I remember neighborhoods I lived in where Walter and I would go for walks and there would be no sign of life in the neighborhood.  There were houses and lawns, but seldom did we meet anyone on our walks.  So many of the houses in the neighborhood housed families that we had never ever seen or met in all the time we lived there.

Here there are people every where and very friendly--not just hello, but how are you, nice day, have you done this or have you done that.  It feels like a community should feel. 

tg