Welcome to KentuckyDear Kid,

Yesterday, we packed 3½ weeks’ worth of provisions, donned expedition gear, and crossed the border into Kentucky for the football game. We did not encounter any significantly vicious wildlife (other than a few mosquitoes), but we did fight the brutal Rush Hour Traffic Beast (we eventually won, but the RHTB captured a decade or two we’ll never see again). There was a truck accident on the highway and what should have been about a 50 minute drive to Union, KY became a 2 hour excursion in which we got to see the sites of far too many Small Towns in Kentucky. I think we passed through Rabbit Hash, but the mayor wasn’t around so it wasn’t as eventful as it might have been.

Meet the Mayor of Rabbit Hash, Ky
Lucy Lou is a red & white border collie who has lived her whole life in Rabbit Hash. She is in town every day and has appointed herself the town tour guide, meeting visitors and making sure they see all the sights. She won the mayoral election on the non-partisan canine ticket and supports feline and canine presence in the General Store.

We passed other notable sites including Big Bone Lick, Gun Powder Plaza (named after Gun Powder Creek), Turkeyfoot Road, and more than one McDonald’s.

There are (some) blue people in Kentucky. We didn’t see or meet any, but it’s an interesting story. The Fugates were an extended family living in an isolated hollow in Eastern Kentucky. Most members of the family had “hereditary methemoglobinemia,” an enzyme deficiency that causes a person’s blood to run vein blue as opposed to arterial red. Instead of being pink, these people are tinted blue or purple. The condition is based on a recessive gene which clan founder Martin Fugate and his wife both carried. They settled in Troublesome Creek (seriously—was the name not a sufficient clue that living somewhere else might be a better idea?) sometime in the mid-19th Century. Cousins marrying cousins was commonplace among isolated Appalachians, so by the time a doctor discovered the Fugates in the 1960s, there were several blue people living in the hills.

The football game was a smashing success if you measure such things by the scoreboard and percentage of PATs made. Since that’s my primary method of evaluating games, it was a smashing success: our heroes won 28-0 with Pi scoring 4 for 4 PATs. (Films today are unlikely to fall into the category A Fun Time For All. There were a lot of mistakes and a LOT of penalties. One suspects the coaches might have a Word or Two to share with the team.)

In other news, I will be working the concession stand for the JV game in a  little while. Then later Booker has his annual physical which he is very excited about. Well, he would be excited if he knew what I was talking about. He loves the unlimited supply of treats there, although he’s not a big fan of the poking and prodding and shot giving. Poor pooch.

Best of luck with the 5K row–we’ll be eager to hear about it.

Love, Mom

P.S.

I bow humbly to your proofreading skills….