The state of Kentucky

The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the USA that borders seven states, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north, West Virginia to the northeast, Virginia to the east, Tennessee to the south, and Missouri to the west. Its northern border is defined by the Ohio River, while the western border is the Mississippi River, and the Big Sandy River and Tug Fork are to the east. Kentucky has the second-most navigable miles of water among USA states, second only to Alaska. The capital is Frankfort and its most populous city is Louisville. As of 2024, the state’s population was approximately 4.6 million. Previously, Kentucky was part of colonial Virginia, but was admitted into the Union as the fifteenth state on June 1, 1792. This bluegrass state references its bluegrass, a species of grass introduced by European settlers, which has long supported the state’s thoroughbred horse industry. The fertile soil in the central and western parts of the state led to the development of large tobacco plantations, like those in Virginia and North Carolina, which utilized enslaved labor prior to the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment. Kentucky has historically been a major coal producer, but the industry has been in decline since 1980. Kentucky produces 95% of the world’s supply of bourbon whiskey. Kentucky ranks fifth nationally in goat farming, eighth in beef cattle production, and fourteenth in corn production. While Kentucky has been a long-standing center for the tobacco industry, its economy has diversified into non-agricultural sectors. Kentucky ranks fourth among USA states in the number of automobiles and trucks assembled. The precise etymology of the name is uncertain. Kentucky was a heavily divided slave state during the American Civil War. Kentucky was officially admitted into the Confederacy on December 10, 1861, as the 13th Confederate state with full recognition in Richmond. The epicenter of the 1811–12 New Madrid earthquakes was in Kentucky, causing the Mississippi River to flow backwards in some places. Lake Cumberland is the largest artificial American lake east of the Mississippi River by volume. Cumberland Gap was the chief passageway through the Appalachian Mountains in early American history. Cumberland Falls is the only place in the Western Hemisphere where a “moonbow” may be regularly seen, due to the spray of the falls. African-Americans today make up only 8% of the state’s total population, with a large 65% Protestant church presence. The Trappist Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani is in Bardstown, Kentucky. Author Thomas Merton had converted to Roman Catholicism as a young man, and became a Trappist monk at this monastery, where he lived and worked from 1941 until his death in 1968. Fort Knox, a United States Army post, is best known as the site of the USA Bullion Depository, which is used to house a large portion of the USA official gold reserves. Have you ever been to Kentucky?

Mammoth Cave, Kentucky

This cave system has formally been known as the Mammoth–Flint Ridge Cave System since 1972, when a connection was discovered between Mammoth Cave and the even longer system under Flint Ridge to the north. There are more than 426 miles of passageways that have been surveyed, over 1.5 times longer than the second-longest cave system in Mexico’s Sac Actun underwater cave. This park was established as a national park on July 1, 1941, and named a World Heritage Site on October 27, 1981, an international Biosphere Reserve on September 26, 1990, and an International Dark Sky Park on October 28, 2021. The purpose of Mammoth Cave National Park is to preserve, protect, interpret, and study the internationally recognized biological and geologic features and processes associated with the longest known cave system in the world. Mammoth Cave developed in thick Mississippian-aged limestone strata capped by a layer of sandstone, which has made the system remarkably stable. New discoveries and connections add several miles to this cave each year. Margaret, as a science teacher, was the most excited about this cave. I know we took a morning tour, but I do not know which one. I have three brochures and seven postcards from inside the caves. Human activity in Mammoth Cave can be traced back five thousand years. Throughout the 19th century, the fame of Mammoth Cave would grow so that the cave became an international sensation. Within the cave there are speleothems, derived from secondary deposits, concrete, lime, or mortar, from outside the cave environment. They have labeled the six most common types as flowstones, columns, drapery, stalagmites, stalactites, and straws. A speleothem is a geological formation made by mineral deposits that accumulate over time in natural caves. Speleothems most commonly form in calcareous caves due to carbonate dissolution reactions. They can take a variety of forms, depending on their depositional history and environment. Their chemical composition, gradual growth, and preservation in caves make them useful paleoclimatic proxies. More than 300 variations of cave mineral deposits have been identified. I never quite understood all the different varieties, but they looked spectacular. I had a hard time figuring out the stalagmites, from the stalactites. In the afternoon, we went to the Cave City Action Park, featuring the alpine slide that is still going today. Joy and Katie really enjoyed this. Then we finished our day with a swim in the hotel pool. Have you ever been to a large cave?

Cave City, Kentucky

Tuesday and Wednesday evening of June 9 and 10, 1987, we stayed at the Cave City Best Western, that still exists today. The impressive Mammoth Cave National Park has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, featuring the longest cave system in the world. The Mammoth-Flint Ridge Cave System features 400 miles of underground passageways accessed through gateways in Cave City and Bowling Green. Cave City, in Barren County, Kentucky, has a population of 2,356, within an area of 4.4 square miles off I-65, exit 53, with Louisville about 85 miles north. The Knob City Land Company surveyed and laid out the town with the main streets 80 feet wide. They began to sell lots about the same time as the Louisville & Nashville Railroad came through Barren County. The first train arrived in at Cave City in 1859. The town took its name from a cave within the town limits, not nearby Mammoth Cave. The Wigwam Village Motel, built in 1937, is one of Cave City’s unique attractions, in the Historic National Register as one of only three now in existence. Mammoth Cave National Park is a national park in south-central Kentucky, encompassing portions of Mammoth Cave, the longest known cave system in the world, 52,007 acres. The Green River runs through the park, with a tributary called the Nolin River feeding into the Green River just inside the park. Have you ever been to Cave City?

The birthplace of Abraham Lincoln

On Tuesday, June 9, 1987, we set out on our southeastern journey. This time, it was four of us, Margaret, my wife, Joy, my daughter, and her friend, Katie Fote, and me. We headed out east on I-80, then south on I-65 to see the farm lands of Indiana. Our first stop was in Indianapolis, Indiana, to have lunch at Union Station, right next to the Hoosier Dome. A few years later, we would come back to this Hoosier Dome to watch Joy march in the Grand Nationals Marching Band competition. Then, it was on to Kentucky to visit Hodgenville on Tuesday afternoon, in LaRue County, Kentucky, the county seat, along the North Fork of the Nolin River with a population of 3,206 in two square miles, 12 miles southeast of Elizabethtown via Kentucky Route 61. Why go to this small town? Robert Hodgen, a Pennsylvania native who moved to Virginia, purchased 10,000 acres of land in this area. In 1789, after the Revolutionary War, when settlers started moving west into Kentucky, he built a mill at this site. After his death, the community that developed around it was called Hodgenville based on the petition of his widow and children. The city was formally incorporated by the Kentucky state assembly in 1836. What makes this small-town special is that it has the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park. Abraham Lincoln was born in a small cabin on Sinking Spring Farm near Hodgenville on February 12, 1809, over two hundred years ago. About two years later, the family moved to another farm in the Hodgenville area. Despite claims made later, the original log cabin Lincoln was born in was likely destroyed by the time of his assassination, but they have a replica cabin, which was built thirty years after his death, the “Traditional Lincoln Birthplace Cabin.” Preservation of these two national sites allows visitors like us to see the landscape of the earliest period of Abraham Lincoln’s life. The Lincoln Museum is opened for visitors downtown, with two bronze Abraham Lincoln statues standing in the town square, one of Lincoln as a child, the other as an adult. Right now, I live less than a hundred yards from Lincoln Park in Chicago that has a standing statue of Abraham Lincoln. Margaret was surprised to see something about Lincoln that was not in Springfield, Illinois, since every year she brought the eighth-grade class to Springfield on a field trip. I have a couple of postcards from there. Have you ever been to Abraham Lincoln’s birthplace?

Happy Birthday -2026!

Yes, it is that time again. It is May 25, 2026, my birthday. Today I turn 87. During the last seven years I have tried to write about my life. In 1987, I was only 48 years old. Thus, in seven years of writing this blog, I have been able to cover approximately seven years each year. In seven more years, I will have covered by entire life and more. However, that assumes that I live to be 94 years old. I never expected to live to be 87, when I started this blog back in 2019. I always wanted to be 14 and in eighth grade, when I was in grade school. Then I wanted to be 18 and a senior in High School, when I was in high school. I thought that 21 seemed like a long time to live. Then I realized that I was over the hill at 30. I remember thinking that I was getting old at 50. Then I turned 60 and it did not seem that old. I blew by 65, and decided to retire at 74, because I did not think that I would make 80. At 70, I realized that the Required Minimum Distribution of my 401K was based on the premise that I would live to 100. That was encouraging. Now of all things, I am 87 today. No matter how you count, that really does seem old. Sometimes, I feel as good as I felt twenty or thirty years ago. I do walk slower and less often since my hip replacement operation on January 7, 2026, after I fell down and broke my hip at the Leaning Tower of Pisa, Italy. It has taken me a longer time to recover than I had expected. I do not like to lift heavy things, but then I never did like lifting heavy objects. I am not as agile as I once was. When I lay down or sit down, I feel like I am in my thirties or forties. I only remember how old I am when I try to get up out of my seat, as I find it harder to get out of a chair. However, people say that you are only as old as you feel. Sometimes, I feel like I have lost my younger feeling. However, it is a great blessing to have lived this long. So many people in this world, never get to appreciate their teenage years, their twenties, their thirties, their forties, their fifties, their sixties, their seventies, or their eighties. Thus, I lived all those years, trying to learn more about life as I went along. As one of my favorite songs says, “But I really don’t know life at all.” Every day is a new wonderful experience. I try to remember all the days of yester year. Some I have forgotten, while others I can still remember. This blog is my attempt to remember and write about some of my past experiences. They may seem dull to you, but for me they were exciting times. What do you remember about your life?

A Trip to the Southeast

Where should we go for our summer vacation? We had gone to California, the Northeast, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, DC, the Appalachians, and the Rocky Mountains. I thought that we should go the southeast, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, along the Atlantic seacoast. Thus, I planned a car trip through Indiana and Kentucky with a stop at Mammoth Cave. Then it would be on to Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Savannah, Georgia on the Atlantic Ocean. Heading north, we would visit the island of Fort Sumter, off Charlestown, South Carolina, where the American Civil War began. After a visit to Charlestown, there would be time to enjoy the South Carolina coast line at Myrtle Beach, and the Atlantic shore line with all its amusements. Then we would through North Carolina to Virginia’s Hampton Beach, as we would visit Yorktown and Jamestown. Of course, we were going to stop in Williamsburg, Virginia. Then it was on to Richmond, Virginia, and Annapolis, Maryland to see the Naval Academy there, since we had visited the Air Force Academy the year before. We finished up our trip with a visit to Washington, DC, before we made the fourteen-hour 700-mile one day trip back to Matteson, Illinois. Since Joy had graduated from grade school, we brought along her good friend, Katie Fote. Katie was surprised that we did not have air conditioning in our car. Other than that, she and Joy had a good time. Have you ever been to the southeastern Atlantic shore?

Tear Down this wall!

On June 12, 1987, at the Brandenburg Gate, then President Ronald Reagan delivered a speech commonly known by a key line from the middle part, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” Reagan called for the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to open the Berlin Wall, which had encircled West Berlin since 1961, 26 years. The following day, The New York Times carried Reagan’s picture on the front page, below the title “Reagan Calls on Gorbachev to Tear Down the Berlin Wall.” Its impact on the Kremlin became widely known after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. In the post-Cold War era, it was often seen as one of the most memorable performances of an American president in Berlin after John F. Kennedy’s 1963 speech “Ich bin ein Berliner.” This was not the first time Reagan had addressed the issue of the Berlin Wall. In a visit to West Berlin in June 1982, he stated, “I’d like to ask the Soviet leaders one question, “Why is the wall there?” In 1986, 25 years after the construction of the wall, in response to the West German newspaper Bild-Zeitung asking when he thought the wall could be removed, Reagan responded, “Today.” There was some dispute before the speech whether to include this remark in the speech. Arriving in Berlin on Friday, June 12, 1987, Reagan and his wife were taken to the Reichstag where they viewed the wall from a balcony. Reagan then gave his speech at the Brandenburg Gate at 2:00 PM, in front of two panes of bulletproof glass shielding him from East Berlin. Regan said, “We welcome change and openness. We believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace. There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace. General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” The speech received relatively little coverage from the media. This speech was not really elevated to its iconic status until 1989, after the wall came down. Former West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl said he would never forget standing near Reagan when he challenged Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall. In an interview, Reagan said that the East German police did not allow people to come close to the wall, which prevented the citizens from experiencing the speech at all. In November 2019, a bronze statue of Reagan was unveiled at the USA embassy, near the site of this speech. Have you ever heard about this speech?

Joy graduated from grade school

In June of 1987, Joy Finnegan and her twenty-five classmates graduated from St. Lawrence O’Toole grade school. We had a Mass on Saturday morning, as they wore white graduation gowns and hats. For some, this would be the last time in their lives that they would see each other. On the other hand, others would be classmates in high school. We took lots of pictures. Our friends were there, with Stephanie Rangel and her parents, Katie Fotie and her parents, and Brian Bailey and his parents. The valedictorian at the graduation Mass was Cindy Biachi. Margaret and her fellow teachers always picked the valedictorian based on their grades in their eight years they were there. Do you remember graduating from eighth grade?

The eighth-grade students versus faculty softball game

In late May, 1987, I agreed to umpire a softball game between the faculty of St. Lawrence O’Toole and the eighth-grade students. I thought that it would be easy, but boy was I wrong. I thought that the eighth graders would win easily, since the faculty had practically all women. Some of those boys in the eighth grade might be good baseball players. I called balls and strikes. I was surprised that the then nearly seventy-year-old faculty pitcher Father Sullivan was a really good softball pitcher. He had control and could fast pitch a softball. I knew that he was a good golfer. I never expected him to pitch a softball that well. Anyway, I called a lot of strikes and the eighth graders were getting mad. I don’t remember who won the game. Margaret reminded me that we never did finish the game, as the eight graders walked off the field after a couple of innings. They never had another eighth grade-faculty softball game again after this. My umpiring brought at end to that. Besides, Father Sullivan retired the following year in 1988. Have you ever tried to umpire a baseball game?

1987 – the year of Joy

1987 was a ho-hum year for me, but it was a great year for my daughter Joy. He became a teenager at the end of 1986, a thirteen-year-old. Suddenly, she went from being a little girl to a teenage girl. I know that it did not happen overnight, but I suddenly realized it. She was an eighth grader. I remembered being an eight grader and feeling like the most important person in the school, since all the other grades were below me. First, she had to take a test to get into Marian Catholic HS in December. Then, she got the results in January, with a positive yes. Then she continued with her eighth grade High School Algebra Class at Marian HS. In June, 1987, we had the big celebration of her eighth-grade graduation. I felt that she was leaving Margaret’s hands into mine. Margaret had been a teacher at O’Toole all the years that Joy was going there from first to eighth grade. Now, she would be Margaret free, as she started HS. She would be a high school teenager. In grade school, Joy started taking flute music lessons from a Marian music teacher once a week. Now she was ready to join the Marian HS Band. For the next four years, Joy would learn about the world of music and competition from the famous Mr. Greg Bimm, the music director at Marian Catholic HS. I never knew what commitment was until I saw what he expected from his students. They started practicing a month before high school started. They had a music class every school day. They had rehearsals before classes and after classes. Joy would become part of the Marian Catholic Marching Band. Then they went to competitions. One after another, they kept winning these Marching Band competitions. Margaret sat in the rain in Bloomington, Illinois, to watch them win the Illinois State Championship. I never even knew that there was a state High School Marching Band Championship. By November, I took some time off to watch my thirteen-year-old freshman daughter compete at the national level. I was just happy that they had made it out of the regionals and the sectionals. I gained a whole new respect for music and marching bands. Then to my surprise, she and the Marian Band won the National Championship, something that I had never dreamed about. My daughter at age 13, not quite 14, had won a national championship. All I could remember as a 17-year -old was getting my driver’s license, winning a New Jersey state championship in debating, and losing the New Jersey state championship mile race. This was not just a state championship. This was a national championship. I do not know how much prouder I could be. When the first semester rankings came out in January for the first semester, Joy was ranked second, probably the highest ranked of all the band members. Clearly, she had made the transition from grade school to high school easily. I knew that she was going to have a great life. Do you have a daughter that you are proud of?