The Exciting Visit To MY Town’s “Little Louisville” And The Collections That Resulted From It
Part One: The Bad News
It is with great embarrassment that I must start this post with a couple of confessions. First, my bike trip to “Little Louisville” wasn’t nearly as exciting as I made it sound in the title. Second, there IS no “Little Louisville” in MY Town.
I guess I got too caught up in bragging about how MY Town had neighborhoods representing the homeland of every Cycle365-er. I’m ashamed to admit it but, unlike all the REAL places in my last six posts, I was going to totally MAKE UP a visit to “Little Louisville.” It would have been a total whopper of “alternative facts” worthy of an accomplished liar such as . . . well, you probably know who I’m referring to.
Therefore, I apologize to the entire Cycle-365 community, and especially to Laura. Of course, Laura would have seen right through my attempts at fakery anyway because she knows that no sane Kentuckian would ever relocate to cold Minnesota.
Part Two: The Good News
Even though MY Town doesn’t have a Louisvillian community, that doesn’t mean I don’t know a whole lot of stuff about that great city. So I’m going to use the rest of this post to share a few personal stories related to Louisville. (Oh yeah, and also to show some pictures of collections for the December Challenge.)
STORY #1: One of the things I’ve always known about Louisville is that Mohammed Ali (see featured photo) grew up there. He was my favorite boxer of all time. In fact, he was the only boxer that I ever cared one iota over whether he won or lost a fight. I watched several of his boxing matches in their entirety, including the “Thrilla in Manilla.” He was one cool cool guy who I admired for reasons beyond his boxing skill. Has any boxer — or any athlete at all — come up with a better line than “I float like a butterfly, sting like a bee?”
STORY #2: The Kentucky Derby takes place every year in Louisville. Horse racing, like boxing, has never been one of my favorite sports, but one year, for whatever reason, I remember paying quite a bit of attention to it. I watched hour after hour of pre-race coverage. Horse owners and jockeys and oddsmakers were interviewed. The individual horses were analyzed ad nauseum. It was like the Superbowl. It was like a presidential election. It was nuts. Then the start of the big race finally came. Three minutes later, it was over.
STORY #3: In my college days I immersed myself in reading the classics of literature because I saw too many lists of “great books one should read before you die.” I enjoyed many of them, and others were just plain tedious. But none of the classics were as fun to read as the works of Louisville’s own Hunter S. Thompson. He was, and still is, one of my favorite writers. I might add, his story called “The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved” is one of the craziest and funniest things I’ve ever read.
Part Three: A Few December Collections
Once again, I apologize for the non-Louisville transgression and for the messiness of the entire post. Next time I will try to redeem myself with a visit to MY Town’s Baltimore-Washington, DC corridor.
gregblood
Hi. My name is Greg and I ride my bike a lot. That is to say, I ride my bike almost every day. I go on long rides and short rides. Sunny rides, cloudy rides, and rainy rides. I like commuting, errand-running, day-tripping, overnighting, and touring on my bike. I ride on city streets, highways, gravel, single track, and snow with equal enthusiasm. Sometimes I ride fast and sometimes I ride slow. I try to keep my feet on the pedals at stop lights and I do not dismount when I hop up on a curb. I have a roadie bike, a mountain bike and a touring bike. I try to accept any challenge a bike ride can throw at me without complaint. But I don't like bugs.
9 response to "The Exciting Visit To MY Town’s “Little Louisville” And The Collections That Resulted From It"
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Great post Greg, never seen boats shrink wrapped before, very impressive.
Great collection of anecdotes and photos — the magpie sitting back there in the Wannabe photo ready to attack is skeeery!
Judging by the pile of leaves, you guys have had some winds up your way too.
I had to go back and look at that picture to see what the heck you were talking about. I can’t believe you spotted the bald magpie back there. Hilarious!
Your experience watching the derby reminds me of ours watching a stage of the Tour de France. Same story – 2 hours of foreplay, and then the pellets flashed by in a nanosecond and it was all over.
Great collection of collections! I think you’ve about got the universe of things covered: chairs, boats, boulders, people, ducks, Hunter Thompson books. That about covers it. Hardly leaves room for anyone else, so maybe we should just shut the challenge down.
Greg, of course, I loved your post. (Get ready to be impressed!)
#1 The house I grew up in was only 1.4 miles from the first house Ali bought in Louisville. He stayed there occasionally, but he bought the very ordinary house for his mother. Google map it…7311 Verona Way, Louisville, KY. His mother and wife #2 shopped at the drug store I worked at. We hosted German bicyclists a few years ago and all the guy wanted to see in town was Ali places. I drove him by the last home Ali owned, dropped them off at the Ali museum, and drove them to his grave site.
#2 I worked at Churchill Downs two days a year for a long, long time. Along with many teachers in the city, I sold and cashed bets on Oaks and Derby Days.
#3 I’ve never read a Hunter Thompson book, but my husband is a fan. I know he committed suicide and Johnny Depp paid $3 million to shoot Thompson’s ashes out of a cannon.
I’ll give you a tour of MY TOWN, if you’re ever in the area.
WOW! I am SUPER-impressed! Those are all great stories, but I especially liked the one about the German visitor only wanting to visit Mohammed Ali sites. I looked at 7311 Verona Way – – a pretty modest house for the “Greatest Heavyweight Champion of the World.”
I knew about the shooting the ashes out of the cannon thing. It was one of Thompson’s last wishes. Leave it to Depp to turn it into a huge spectacle, which is actually a pretty appropriate sendoff for such a larger-than-life character.
That is an amazing story about Johnny Depp and Thompson’s ashes. And inspiring. I think I’ll start saving up all the dues from the Cycle365 site and use set them aside for my own stylish send off someday.
Thompson wannabe – best selfie so far.
There’s a short slide show of the home he owned here when he died. https://www.courier-journal.com/story/sports/boxing/muhammad-ali/2018/05/13/muhammad-ali-louisville-mansion-sale-again/606135002/. Hope it will open for you.