A belated but gratifying trip to Louisville

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A belated but gratifying trip to Louisville

May 23, 2022 by jimmycsays

We returned to Kansas City this evening after a busy, four-day visit to my hometown of Louisville, KY.

In past years, we’ve gone to Louisville during Derby Week, but this year, with the ticket and lodging prices having skyrocketed, Patty suggested we travel two weeks later and go to Churchill Downs the day of the second leg of the Triple Crown, the Preakness Stakes. That way, we could save money, see friends and relatives and also make it out to Churchill Downs.

We stayed in an Airbnb just a few blocks from where I lived until I left Louisville for a newspaper job in northern Kentucky in 1968. (I didn’t stay there long, winding up in KC in September 1969.)

The morning after we arrived in Louisville, I took a walk around my old neighborhood.

This is St. Agnes, Newburg Road and Speed Avenue, where I went to grade school.

Across Newburg Road from the school is Kaelin’s Restaurant, which claims to be “the home of the cheeseburger” and which may have had the first carryout window of any restaurant in the country. (The carryout window was in the recessed area behind the red umbrella.) Kaelin’s was also the first Louisville restaurant that sold **Col. Harlan Sanders’** Kentucky Fried Chicken.

As far as a I know, this landmark sign has been there since the restaurant was founded, which was before we moved to the neighborhood.

A couple of hundred yards from the school is St. Agnes Church, where I served many a 6:30 a.m. Mass and where I “confessed” to the parish priests to being besieged by “impure thoughts.” I can’t tell you how many “Our Fathers” and “Hail Marys” I said to try to atone for those terrible sins.

About a block from the church was our modest, two-bedroom home at 1632 Ruth Avenue. A big Chinese elm once graced the front yard, and my father affixed a basketball goal to the garage. Also back then, the driveway consisted of two narrow concrete paths — wide enough to accommodate the car tires — not the wide slab that’s there now.

This is looking down Ruth Avenue in the direction of Newburg Road and St. Agnes Church. When we moved to Ruth in about 1951, the section of the street you are looking at was a bed of rocks, not pavement. The pavement came a year or two after we arrived.

I also got in a round of golf…

That’s my dear, longtime friend Bill Russell at left and another longtime friend, Bernie Bell, at right.

We also visited cousins Sharron Hillbrecht (left) and Colleen Salazar. Sharron and Colleen are the oldest daughters of my father’s youngest brother.

On Saturday, we made it to the track…

Here the horses are coming out onto the track for one of 10 races that day. In the background, middle right, is the Winner’s Circle, where Rich Strike had the Bed of Roses tossed over his mane on Derby Day, May 7.

Before one of the races, my friend Bill, his wife Denise Carroll and Patty studied the program.

We stayed for about five races and decided to leave as storm clouds rolled in. Leaving when we did was a bad call: no sooner had we started for the car than the skies opened up, and pouring rain and howling wind laid waste to our small umbrellas. We went back to Bill and Denise’s downtown condo, borrowed outfits from them while our wet clothes took a spin in the drier, then settled down to bet the Preakness on the Twin Spires app.

If you’ll recall, my Derby pick was Zandon, on whom I bet $100 to win. He finished third, behind Rich Strike and Epicenter. On Preakness Day, though, it was a different story. Being a good Democrat, I felt sure that the No. 5 horse, Early Voting, was going to run well. In addition to fancying the name, I also like Early Voting’s trainer, Chad Brown, who trained Zandon and is regarded as the best trainer on the East Coast.

I stuck with Brown in the Preakness and was rewarded with a $187 profit, which made me a winner in the first two legs of the 2022 Triple Crown.

…It was a great trip to Louisville. Good to see the old neighborhood, spend time with friends and relatives and spend a few hours, once again, in the Churchill Downs grandstand under the Twin Spires.

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

2 Responses

on May 26, 2022 at 8:55 am Sally Frederick

What a pleasure to see your old neighborhood in Louisville. Also, thank you for continuing to give your honest observations about life in our city, state, and USA. Sally Frederick
- on May 26, 2022 at 9:09 am jimmycsays
  
  Thanks, Sally.

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JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC