Louisville Trip, Essay VII

At this point in narrating the story of my weeklong trip to Louisville, Lexingon, Nashville and Cincinnati, I feel like the author of Hebrews 11. He spent the first 31 verses of that chapter narrating the story of the Israelite heroes of faith but had, by verse 31, only gotten to the time of Joshua. Then, in compressed fashion, in the next 9 verses, he mentioned the names and sufferings of many subsequent worthies, with the rather sheepish comment that "time would fail to tell" of the exploits of all these heroes. In fact, the author of Hebrews, as well as I, ran out of interest and time. Other duties pressed him, as they press me. Stories could be told about each of the following nine topics, which occupied my interest on June 30-July 3, but only a mere mention will be made here. Other tasks call, and the full exposition of these subjects will have to await another time, when I likely meet with the author of Hebrews to hear his narrative about Samson, Barak and others. Then, after I listen patiently to his exploits, I will tell him about the trees of Bernheim, the making of bourbon and many other subjects...

The Nine Activities of June 30-July 3

1. We visited the Bernheim Arboretum, about 30 miles south of Louisville, on the morning of June 30. The day was unexpectedly pleasant (high 70s). It seems that America doesn't have a clear understanding of what an Arboretum is--is it a place to study trees, to ride bikes, to camp out with the kids or all of these things? I think that the trees often get neglected... The LEED Sustainability award for the Visitor Center reminded me of a similar award in my home town, Salem OR, for the new Pringle Creek development. Founded by German immigrant Issac Wolfe Bernheim (1848-1945), this 12,000 acre arboretum is one of the best I have seen. Check out the huge Bottlebrush Buckeye plants in several places near the Visitor Center.

2. Bernheim is at exit 112 off of I-65 in KY. I mention this because that exit is the beginning of one of KY's great future tourist investments: the Bourbon Trail. Because of the quality of the water in the Bardstown region, along this trail, the making of bourbon in the area has been a productive activity for more than 200 years. So, you just take the Bourbon Trail in an easterly direction and, if you don't want to stop in at Jim Beam's or Heaven Hill Distilleries, you can proceed to Maker's Mark Distillery in the tiny town of Loretto. In fact, we went there, and had, without question, the best tour of the trip. Conducted by a "y'all-speaking" cutesy young woman, the tour brought us into the process of making bourbon before offering us a swig of the real thing (as well as "moonshine") along with a bourbon-coated chocolate before dumping us in the visitor store. In that store you could buy bottles of bourbon with your personalized label, and you could even dip the top in their signature hot red wax. Quite the tourist attraction...and, they had enough sense to identify many of the trees and shrubs on the property. How do bourbon and the Bible belt hold together? I never got a straight answer to this question, but I presume that KY is not really in the buckle of the Bible belt. Only the Presbyterians are headquartered there (in Louisville); and they have no problem getting stuccoed these days.

3. We arrived in Lexington under the cover of darkness, ate at a semi-trendy restaurant near the University and then asked directions to a cultural phenomenon in that part of the country--Graeter's ice cream parlor. The chunks of chocolate are so thick and wide that you have to bite through them rather than try to ingest the chunk all at once. After eating one of their single-scoop cones, I think I understand how Adam and Eve must have felt when God confronted them after eating from the tree in the middle of the garden. I even checked to see if they could mail this ice cream to Oregon. Yes, they can--the rate is $120 for 12 pints of their ice cream. Maybe when I am very rich...and very skinny.

4. I would have loved to spend some time in Lexington to drive through the Lexington Cemetery, another example of a "rural cemetery movement" cemetery arising out of the 1850s (like Cave Hill in Louisville; Springhill in Cincinnati; or Mt. Olivet in Nashville. These were modeled after Mt. Auburn in Cambridge, MA. Do I hear a lot of hills and mountains in these names by chance?). Alternatively, I would have loved to visit the Mary Todd Lincoln home, on West Main near the cemetery. But time didn't allow that either. I had to content myself with another arboretum and botanical garden, at the University of KY. This one, located on Alumni Drive opposite the football stadium, seemed to be a favorite place for walkers, bikers, joggers and others to visit. The nearly two mile paved loop, which takes you through the seven or eight "regions" of KY (with respect to trees, bushes, etc.), is quite well-developed and marked. Especially noteworthy to me was the collection of oak trees that the arboretum is amassing. A brochure entitled "Kentucky Oaks" lists the locations of 18 species of oak currently represented there. Two that aren't there, the Northern Red Oak and Oregon Oak, are either native to or prevalent in my end of the country. I loved comparing the leaves of the oaks, from the narrow and sharp-lobed Pin Oak (Quercus palustris), to the "bird-shaped" leaf of the Post Oak (Quercus stellata), to the hugely lobed Bur Oak (Quercus macrocarpa) to the amazing Swamp White Oak (Quercus bicolor). I have since run into the Hungarian Oak (where was that, anyway?) with seemingly more lobes than all the ears in KY. You rarely will ever run into someone who holds a gun to your head and demands detailed knowledge of 18 oak species; but our interest in gaining knowledge of the natural world, I am convinced, is one of the small tests our Creator has given us to determine if we really are interested in developing sympathetic knowledge of each other--and other subjects seemingly "foreign" to us. The herb and flower gardens were also impressive here. I finally learned the name of the Love-Lies-Bleeding flower, which is also in the Willamette University botanical garden, and in specialty nursuries. One plant that we loved was the Rattlesnake Master, Eryngium yuccafolium, pictured here. This web site calls it a "rare" plant in Ohio; you would think it wouldn't be that much more prevalent in KY. Thus, I am glad to "know" it.

5. Well, more plants beckon, but not tonight. We hustled off to Nashville, TN in the afternoon of July 1, driving along Route 68 through rural regions of KY. Sites along the way made us regret we didn't bring a camera. Stopping in Campbellsville made me recall that this was the region where the 2nd Great Awakening, the frontier part of it, broke out in the first years of the 19th century. We passed Cumberland Presbyterian Churches, and I patiently explained to my girl-friend the controversy that led to the formation of that denomination when there were not enough trained clergy to serve Presbyterian churches in that area during this revival. But much more could be said about the Cane Ridge meetings, the nature of experiential religion on the frontier, the formation of "American" denominations, the way that revival may, indeed, "revive some religious folk but which generally has the effect of dividing churches....

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