I Beat the Breakup Belt Curse.

The Breakup Belt.

Any girl who attended a Lexington-area college in the past 30 years or so knows exactly what I'm talking about.  Those belts that you see all over town -- at ball games, frat houses and country clubs.  The ubiquitous leather-bound needlepoint belts that nearly every Central Kentucky man owns.  Lexington is a preppy little town, and nothing conveys that style more than a needlepoint belt.  They proudly display the wearer's fraternity affiliation or favorite hobbies or profession.  They present elaborate scenes of horse racing, sporting events or even bourbon labels. They're the product of long hours of tedious needlework, lovingly stitched by mothers, wifes, and dedicated girlfriends. 

I tempted fate -- and lived to tell the story.

Now, the girlfriend part is where it gets tricky.  Campus lore at Transylvania and UK alike held that, as soon as you make a needlepoint belt for your beau, he'll break up with you.  And, let me tell you, those things aren't cheap; they're a major investment of time and money.  You spend hours picking out just the perfect belt.  You peruse the huge selection of pre-painted canvases at

M's

, or you order a customized monogram-and-favorite hobbies canvas from

The Eye of the Needle

. You spend all your free time stitching the design.  You obsess about getting it just the right size. (If memory serves me correctly, your finished canvas should be four inches less than the desired belt size... or maybe it's two...) You realize you have to learn the finishing stitch -- the complex braided pattern that binds off the top and bottom and creates a surface onto which the leather backing will be stitched.   Then, when your work is finally finished, you send it off to be leathered.  And you wait.  Finally, when you're utterly exhausted with the project, you give the belt to its intended recipient.  And you hope he doesn't dump you after all that work.

Now, I made plenty of needlepoint belts when I was in college and graduate school.   I made them for myself, my parents, and my brother.  I even designed a custom collar for my beloved dog, Molly.   I was well known as the designated "finisher" of other people's belts.  If a sorority sister was stuck on her boyfriend's belt pattern, I finished it up in a day or two.  If a cousin needed to learn the finishing stitch, I whipped it up for her. But, I stayed far away from making a breakup belt for a boy of my own.   I'm a sports fan and, as such, am as superstitious as a medieval villager.  You don't laugh in the face of a curse -- just ask a Red Sox fan how that works out.  Anyway, I figured that I'd let those cousins, sorority sisters, and other friends tempt fate for me. I'd show those girls the stitches, take them to my favorite leather shop, and hope that I wasn't assisting in a jinx.

Just over seven years ago, I found myself looking for a very special present for a new beau.  We'd only been dating a few weeks, but I knew he was The One. 

Did I dare start things off in such a foolhardy fashion?

Was a hand-stitched UK belt the worst Christmas present ever?

I deliberated for quite a while.  And then, I remembered my aunt saying that she'd made my uncle a Doctor-themed belt during his medical residency -- twenty years later, they were happy as ever and had just welcomed their first grandson.  Maybe the curse had more to do with relationships that weren't meant to be.  Maybe girls just shouldn't be belt 'hos, and throw a bunch of time and money into making elaborate presents for guys they aren't too sure about. 

Seven years later and my then-new beau is now my fiancé.  We've been through three surgeries, three cities, two dogs, and an intensive graduate program. And R's belt -- a UK basketball pattern -- still looks great.  It seems that a piece of thread, canvas and leather doesn't really hold much of a curse.

Kentucky Places: Old Morrison

Old Morrison is the centerpiece of Transylvania's campus. Over its storied past it has been a Civil War hospital, a crypt, been consumed by fire TWICE, and housed administrators for the college.

It is one of my favorite places in Kentucky but not because of its amazing history. I love it because it has served as the backdrop for so much of mine.

Turning into its driveway on my first campus visit, my friend and I were involved in a car wreck because we confused North Broadway for a two way street...it is not.

Running around its front on Bid Day, I joined my sorority and gained friends I will have for life.

Two years later, I ran down its steps to rejoin that sorority after spending a long (long) couple weeks as a  Rho Chi.

Laying on its lawn for class after class over four years, I learned that nature really is the best classroom...and distractor.

Sitting in its shadow on graduation day, I ended the best four years of my life and faced a life full of possibility.

In the spring of 2001, I sat on its portico and took this picture. I sat there in tears and looked at those impossibly beautiful trees. My college boyfriend had just told me he had been accepted to law school at Duke. He was moving away and it seemed like the end of my world. I was trying to decide if I really wanted to stick with it and be in a long distance relationship for two years. I came to Old Morrison to get some peace and hopefully some wisdom.

Ultimately, I decided to stick it out and I'm glad I did. That college boyfriend is now my husband of eight years and the father of my two children. I can't say Old Morrison made that decision for me but its presence in the background - solid and strong - made it a little bit easier.

~ Sarah Stewart Holland

In Photos: Winter in Gratz Park

Tranylvania University/ Gratz Park, Downtown Lexington, Winter 2010.

The Battle on Broadway

Two colleges located nearly within walking distance of each other in a notoriously basketball-mad state.  An elite private school and the state's flagship research university.  One projected to be its conference champion.  One projected to win it all.  Meeting early in the season to revive an old rivalry.

It may sound like I'm describing a Duke-UNC game, but it's actually far closer to home for many Kentuckians.  Unlike the kind of powerhouse conference competition those prickly ACC folks would bring us, tonight's match-up is an exhibition game between a driving force in college basketball and a small Division III program.

Now, as y'all know,Transy is my undergraduate alma mater, and I earned a graduate degree at UK.  I was thrilled last spring when word started to leak out that the hundred year gap since the schools' last meeting would finally draw to a close.  There would be a fantastic reminder that the University of Kentucky itself was once part of Transy. There would be shout-outs to the fact that legendary UK Athletic Director C.M. Newton got his start at TU.  There would even be reminders that the two teams, in the very infancy of the sport of basketball, played fourteen times, started a series of games which has remained tied since 1911.  And, there was the potential for some fantastic press and fundraising for the Transy athletic department.

Coach Cal at the UK-Transy Kickoff Dinner.

 I don't expect tonight's game to be much of a nailbiter. Transylvania boasts a solid team this year, but UK's roster claims six McDonald's All-Americans.  Anthony Davis promises to be unstoppable, no matter who he's up against.  But, tonight is bound to be one of those "can't miss" Lexington moments, one  in which the city's collective love of basketball meets the rich history of its colleges.

Lexington is the epicenter of college basketball -- a place where a mere exhibition game is elevated to poetic heights rather than serving as a fancy practice session.  I can't wait to celebrate my schools, my favorite sport, and my very favorite city tonight.

I hope to see y'all at the game!

(Over at The Kentucky Girls today, I address a burning question: What Should I Wear to the Game?)

All photos via Transylvania University.

The Commonwealth's Spookiest College

Transylvania.  Is that a vampire college?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA

Ok, now we've got that out of the way.  Lexington's Transylvania University -- the two hundred thirty-one year-old private liberal arts college nestled in the oldest part of downtown -- is the alma mater of actor Ned Beatty , Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan, and  author James Lane Allen.  It's also where Sarah and I both earned our undergraduate degrees. 

Transylvania University was founded in 1780.  Kentucky was still part of Virginia, and Bram Stoker's legendary vampire novel wouldn't be written for another one hundred seventeen years.  Transylvania Seminary, as its earliest Boyle County incarnation was known, took its name from the short-lived Transylvania Colony.  Both the colony and the Romanian region derived their names from the Latin for "across the woods."

When I was selecting a college, I chose Transy for its small class size and its remarkably high acceptance rates to professional schools.  As a Transy student, I was less than amused by all the vampire crap.  Puns and cheesy jokes have never really been my thing.  The only problem  is that the college itself has embraced its spooky ties.  Transylvania -- the one on North Broadway -- does Halloween remarkably well.

The Curse plays a big role in Transy's connection to the macabre. Professor Constantine Samuel Rafinesque, who taught at Transy from 1819-26, was widely regarded as both a genius and a trouble-maker.  Teaching Italian and French as well as his field of expertise, Botany, Rafinesque was responsible for the discovery of thousands of genera of plants and hundreds of Native American sites.  He even briefly served as the University's librarian.  By all accounts, though, he was an erratic and arrogant lecturer.  He seldom showed up for class, and he argued with his colleagues constantly. And he may or may not have had a fling with the University President's wife.  When he was finally let go from the University faculty in 1826, the last words he uttered were "Damn thee and thy school as I place a curse upon you."

A professor is legit buried in here, y'all.

Now, my twenty year-old self may not have wanted to admit it, but that's some creepy stuff.  Even creepier is the fact that Rafinesque was originally buried in a pauper's grave, but a century later,  his remains were  moved to the basement of Old Morrison, Transylvania's administration building.  That's right.  You meet with the Dean and register for classes right over a tomb. As if meeting with the Dean and registering for classes aren't already scary enough.

Over the years, Transy has played up the Rafinesque stuff quite a bit.  Every year, a group of Freshmen are selected to spend the night in Raf's Tomb.  Even the campus grill is cleverly known as the Rafskeller. (Best hangover food ever, y'all. Or so I've been told...)

Transy Kids take Halloween seriously.

When your college shares a name with the ancestral home of the vampires and just happens to be cursed , then I suppose it's only natural that you go ahead and turn Halloween into an event.  Sarah reminded me of the annual costume contest in the Transy cafeteria, as seen in the photo at right.  This year, Transylvania is taking it one step further, hosting a Pumpkin Mania event  this weekend in which an anticipated 1,000 Jack-o'-lanterns will illuminate the steps of Old Morrison.



I guess Transylvania's history is a little bit spooky, given the tombs and curses.  And, it'll certainly have the Halloween spirit going when Pumpkin Mania lights up Gratz Park.  Still, as an alumna whose interest in the school spans nearly two decades, I've never once seen a vampire there.