"Only a Game": a response

I told myself that, whatever my fellow Her Kentucky contributors wrote in the "I Don't Get It" series, I would keep my mouth shut.  Everybody likes different things.  Besides, the whole point of the exercise was to explore Kentucky traditions from a fresh viewpoint.  We wanted to be a little edgy, a little irreverent.  To constantly post responses that argue the contrapositive would simply be a defense of the status quo.  And, you know, Kentucky Tourism already has its own website.

Today, though, I was reading Sarah's thought-provoking piece on Kentucky basketball.   She made some fantastic points-- regardless of the Lexington-in-March mindset, college basketball is just a game.  And, I suppose, there are other things one could be doing than constantly obsessing over lineups, opponents and recruiting news.  But, there was one sentence in Sarah's essay that has stuck with me all day.  In response to the Worst Game in College Basketball, she noted, "the fact that so many Kentuckians recall that game as if a loved one had received a tragic cancer diagnosis blows. my. mind."

 

I grew up in a huge, tight-knit family.  We just happen to also be obsessive Kentucky basketball fans.  Because we do have such a strong tradition of cheering on our Wildcats, I find that my family's timeline often intertwines with basketball events in our collective history.  I can remember my late grandfather getting too nervous to watch the end of close games -- a habit I've unwittingly picked up in recent years.  I can remember my little brother -- six years old at the time -- taking the '92 loss to Duke so personally.  And, I can remember times when the love of the game provided levity and comfort in otherwise difficult situations.

When I was in eighth grade, my father was diagnosed with a rare blood disease.  The kind that Dr. House's patients contract.  We honestly didn't know if he was going to ever leave Central Baptist.  During those horrible days, it just so happened that Kenny Walker was visiting a patient on the same CBH floor -- I think it was his girlfriend's mother, but that's largely irrelevant.  My mama, understandably exhausted and terrified, just happened to run into Kenny in the hallway one day.  She's a tiny little blonde lady, with no more than a passing interest in sports.   Kenny, whom we all know to be a bulky 6'8, was at the height of his career with the Knicks.  I can only imagine how odd their conversation must have looked, but the SkyWalker graciously obliged her request to briefly visit my dad, a basketball coach and Wildcats fanatic.  To this day, it's the only thing we discuss about those horrible weeks of illness. And, I have to admit, I'm still a bit starstruck when I see Kenny Walker at the mall or a game.

A decade or so later, I was in graduate school at Kentucky when a beloved aunt suffered a freak heart episode. She lay in a coma at the Med Center on the night that Kentucky played Utah in the '98 National Championships.  I took in the festivities at the corner of Lynaugh's and debauchery that night, then awoke the next morning to visit the hospital before class.  My aunt recovered and my team won.  That's what I consider a successful week.

The loss in 1992 is still heartbreaking nineteen years later.  It stings every time they replay that damn shot during March Madness.  This fall, a loved one of mine did receive a cancer diagnosis.  I have to say, it hurt a whole lot more than Laettner's stomp-shot maneuver.  In true Kentucky fashion, among the cards and well-wishes and prayer chain requests were a family friend's "get well gift" of  UK tickets.   They seemed most therapeutic. 

I Don't Get It: Kentucky Basketball

We are all Kentuckians. We all love the Bluegrass State in different ways and for different reasons. However, we do not all love the same things.

For example, I do not love Kentucky basketball. I don't even LIKE Kentucky basketball. And I certainly don't understand people's (Heather's) obsession with Kentucky basketball.

Now, in full disclosure, I don't really like sports generally. I was never involved in sports as a child (apart from my brilliant turn at T-ball). My family took me to the occasional baseball game, which I remember enjoying, and I attended a handful of high school football and basketball games. I think I might have even watched a soccer game. However, I was never EVER close to what you would call a fan.

Sports always seemed so superfluous. In my opinion, there are approximately a hundred other things I'd rather spend my time and money on (the list starts with Oprah and ends with gin rummy).

Now, that is not to say I'm immune to the entire UK basketball experience. It's sort of impossible to escape. I even remember the infamous 1992 Kentucky v. Duke game. When Christian Laettner made that shot, I even felt genuine disappointment that Kentucky had lost. I'm sure it even lasted ... until I got to my car that night. However, the fact that so many Kentuckians recall that game as if a loved one had received a tragic cancer diagnosis blows. my. mind.

It's not that I wish ill on the team. Every year I hope they win the championship - mainly so I don't have to hear my stepfather complain so dang much but still!

It's just - for this Kentuckian at least - it really is only a game.

Kentucky Places: The Lake

Not Kentucky Lake. Not Barkley Lake. Not even Land Between the Lakes.

Every summer my family goes to just "The Lake."

Going to The Lake for my mother meant spending her childhood at my great-grandparents' lake house. She and my father married on their sloping lawn in a simple ceremony during the heat of summer. My childhood memories weren't experienced from the shore but on the water itself. Every Fourth of July was celebrated on my great-uncle's house boat The Paper Doll. The waves would rock us back and forth until I could feel them laying in bed that same evening back on solid ground.

The house boat is long gone. Now, my family's headquarters is back on the shore. My grandmother and great-aunt and uncle have built another lake house. Again, just "the lake house" where we spend every major holiday until the house is shuttered up for the winter. We have a pontoon boat and spend the summer jumping off the rock quarry or docked on one of the small sandy beaches. We spend the evenings on the deck eating (and eating and eating), talking, or playing games.

My own children will now have memories of The Lake. (After being told we were going to Meema's lake house, he now just calls it "Meema's Lake.") I took a group of friends to the lake house for one weekend this summer. Between us, we had six kids ranging in ages from 4 months to 6 years. They spent all day swimming, riding on the boat, hunting frogs. One described it as the best day of his life. Another asked his mother if God would let him live there in heaven.

The Lake has that effect on people.

State Lines (or, I'm a Regional Stereotyper)

I love getting my fellow Her Kentucky contributor Sarah Holland all riled up, y'all.  I may not always agree with her, but Good Lord, she always makes me think.

Sarah's recent blog entries, in response to my musings on Appalachia and in defense of the oft-ignored WKY, were no exception. As I read Sarah's insight that "I'm not from that part of Kentucky" is an easy mindset for so many Central and Western Kentuckians, I cringed a little.  I've seen that attitude a million times, and I've often assumed that people were thinking it,  but I've never really read it put forth so nakedly.  It stung for a second*, even though that view was put forth in a passionate essay about solidarity and love of the Bluegrass State.  And then, it hit me.  I'm just as guilty of this kind of segmented thought.

Northern Kentucky is basically Cincinnati.  I really only stop there to use the restroom or hit up the Florence Y'all on my way to a ball game or a concert.  I know some good folks from that area, but they're pretty much Cincinnatians anyway.   Now, do we have time to go to Tiffany's between dinner and the show?

People from Southern/South Central Kentucky drink Ski and listen to the Kentucky Headhunters, right?  And I think they have a lot of Catholic yard art...

Live in the East End of Louisville if you want to avoid the U of L fans. 

Western Kentuckians make that weird mutton barbecue.  And they sure do get out the vote for Ed Whitfield.

At some point in my life I have participated in all of those conversations.  They were good-spirited and joking.  They weren't intended to be critical or hurtful.  They were just off-handed observations.  And yet, they kind of were stereotypes.  Not in the methhead, hillbilly vein.  But a broad and overreaching means of describing people nonetheless.  Some of it was shorthand, based on the folks I've known from those areas.  Some of it was based on my very limited personal experience with these areas.  And some of it was meant solely in jest.  But it's also a reminder that I need to keep a little perspective when all Appalachian Kentuckians are lumped together.  Sometimes, it is an act of overt derision.  Sometimes, it's out of limited information.  And sometimes, it's nothing more than an unthinking joke. 

How about y'all? What are your experiences with Kentucky stereotypes?  Anybody want to meet up in NKY and have an afternoon at Tiffany's?

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*Sarah sent me the most gracious string of emails regarding this project, and could not have been more thoughtful and lovely about the entire endeavor. No Interwebz drama here, y'all.

On Appalachia...from the other side of the state

Remember last week when I stuck up for my region of Kentucky? When I bemoaned the mistreatment of the western part of the state and sliced up my allegiance along geographical lines?

Well, I meant it...sort of. But I also want to say this.

We are all Kentuckians.

When some in our state succeed, we should all claim it proudly. The reverse is also true. When some in our state suffer, we should all claim and work to end that suffering.

I lived out of state for six years. I heard my fair share of hillbilly jokes and stereotypical judgments. Never once was I able to defend myself by explaining that I was from the OTHER side of the state.

No one cared.

As long as a a large segment of the state's population lives in abject poverty, we will all be judged by that standard. And to be honest, we deserve to be. We should ache for the suffering of our Appalachian brothers and sisters, not try desperately to disown them or distance ourselves.

Sixteen of the 100 poorest counties in the United States are in Kentucky. The only state with more is Texas.  And this is not new to any of us. It has been that way for decades. We blame it on culture. We blame it on industry. We blame it on the people themselves.

We should be ashamed all right. But not on the media's portrayal of our state.

We should be ashamed of ourselves.

On Appalachia

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People from both sides of my family were born, lived, and died here.  Neither of my grandfathers ever lived anywhere else.  In true mountain tradition, they both gave land to my parents to build their home.  When I was young, I couldn't wait to leave Kentucky.  Now, as I get older, I value every day when I return. -- Shelby Lee Adams, Salt and Truth.

Yesterday, The New York Times Sunday Review published a series of photographs entitled Of Kentucky, excerpted from the new book Salt and Truth by Shelby Lee Adams, a Hazard-born photographer.  As soon as I heard about the project, I immediately got my guard up. 

Here it goes again, I thought. Prepare to be embarrassed.

The black and white photos depicted sad-eyed children standing among coonskin hats.  Bad tattoos.  A freakish funeral.  I was immediately ashamed of the labels that I knew many would affix to the work:

Methhead. Skinhead. Inbred. Hillbilly. 

And yet, Mr. Adams, a 2010 Guggenheim Fellow, interspersed the photos with earnest statements proclaiming his love of returning to the mountains.

Every few years, it seems, Eastern Kentucky catches the eye of the national media.  In the wake of Bobby Kennedy's 1968 "poverty tour", it seems our plight is newsworthy in a very cyclical pattern. 

Documentaries, news specials, and even cheesy TV talent shows present the most backward hollers and the most extreme cases of poverty.  It's suddenly quite easy to believe that all Appalachians speak in an unintelligible patois, use outhouses and generally live the lives of 14th century peasants.

Predictably, the outcry from so many of my Eastern Kentucky friends and neighbors never changes:  "I'm proud to be from Eastern Kentucky," the bumper stickers read.  "My child is a doctor/teacher/lawyer/pharmacist. It's not like that at all."  Feelings are hurt and pride is bruised.  And, some very valid points about success and work ethics and the beauty of the area are raised.

The other Appalachian viewpoint I often hear is one of shame, disdain, and distance.  The folks who wanted nothing more than to get out forever.  Those who, when they stop to mention the area at all, are quick to note that Eastern Kentucky is a land of poverty, Mountain Dew teeth, and despair.

The thing is, I grew up near Hazard, KY. About 35 miles away, to be exact. My own Appalachian experience has been uniquely filled with culture, education and general celebration of the area.  Many of my ancestors were artsy and bookish, a proud array of writers, painters, and educators.  My great-grandfather was a high school calculus teacher-- an amazing degree of training in 1920s Appalachia.  Other relatives have overcome extreme poverty and hardships to succeed.  I grew up among educators; my cousins and I never questioned that we would attend college.  My own parents made sure that my brother and I saw more books and museums and battlefields as children than we could possibly count. And yet, that isn't the entirety of my Appalachian experience.

The very things that we've tried so hard to downplay -- the poverty, the drug abuse, the apathy, and the hopelessness -- are very much alive and kicking in the town where I was raised.  As much as I want to turn away from Mr. Adams's images, I see folks like his subjects every time I visit the Wal-Mart.  I've seen addiction and poverty and utter desperation.  I've seen childhood friends and classmates rendered nearly unrecognizable from a lifetime's worth of hard knocks.  And, yet, I've seen as just many flourish despite similar circumstances.

As I scan through the photos from Mr. Adams's work, I'm surprised to say that I don't feel shame or hurt.  I don't find the photos funny, or charming, or heartwarming.  There was a time when I would have been angry at the photographer for capturing and publishing the images, and even more angry at the subjects for consenting.

The truth is, these photos just are.

Clothes and Horses

Heather wrote previously about Lexington style. This stuff is serious, especially when you combine style with horse racing. Something about the "regality" of horse racing and the pride and tradition that it brings Kentucky.

This weekend, I am venturing to Churchill Downs for the first time. Thankfully, there will be no infield experience for me this time as I get to hang out at Millionaire's Row. Not that I'm a millionaire (but I'd be darling at it, per Dorothy Parker).

I understand Keeneland style. I've seen enough spring and fall meet outfits to know what is socially acceptable in each room and what isn't. Churchill Downs style? No idea.

Thankfully for my husband, the dress code is business casual, which does not require a tie. The Keeneland clubhouse, on the other hand, requires coat and tie at all times. No bueno for my scrub-wearing man.

My go-to rules for going to the race track:

• Oversized sunnies
• Comfortable, yet cute shoes (those crazies in their platform pumps look nutso when they teeter back to their cars with sore feet)
• Purse you won't accidentally forget at the betting window
• Your ID for bourbon
• A weather-appropriate outfit
• Something that makes you feel pretty

With those rules, I'm going to go for a 3/4 sleeve knit, knee length dress, brown leather knee high boots, a camel colored pashmina (or a statement necklace if it's warm), my Alesya bag, and oversized tortoise shell sunnies. I may or may not do boot socks out the tops of my boots.

Someone please tell me if this is a fashion mistake. And wish me luck at the track!