LJ Archive: The Paradox State (Geographically speaking)

(march 2006; adapted from 2003 letter)

The Paradox State (Geographically Speaking)

So, What's Kentucky like, "really"?

You know as I started to answer this, it got me thinking: I've never fully digested what I've observed since moving here. I guess that’s because I've mainly been stuck talking to locals, few of whom are really interested in an outsider’s point of view. So forgive me if this goes on, but, young grasshopper, you are very fortunate: for I have obtained much wisdom through years of objective observation, fleshed out by asking "Just what in the hell’s a goin’ on here?" So without further ado, here is my treatise on the state with the 2nd-dumbest quarter (behind Louisiana):

Kentucky, from the Indian word meaning "Land of Tomorrow"; popularly known as "The Bluegrass State"; one of four states to consider itself a commonwealth (whatever that means, since police cruisers are stenciled STATE police, go figure), would be better served by the idiom "The Paradox State" (from the Spamhead Dictionary's "Land of we still be a workin’ on thach, ya'll").

To wit: today's society of whitewashed political correctness frowns on stereotypes, but the fact remains: stereotypes are cast in truth. That said, most Kentuckians are some of the nicest people you’d ever be fortunate to meet; unfortunately, others will leave you scratching your head if not outright watching your back. Kentucky is a place where nothing happens quickly; where every other county is dry and wet ballots are contentious news statewide; it's a state that singularly revolves around college basketball; a state that makes Chicago politics look like elementary student council campaigning. It's a state where the outdoors were extreme long before marketers made them "X-treme”. I'll give it this credit though: the roads, while twisty enough to make your head snap in places, don't have the Beirut-inspired texture that made Illinois roads infamous.

It‘s a state speckled with small towns and courthouse squares; of antique malls and ghost railroads; a state whose best times seem forever frozen in limbo. It’s a state where churches abound on every corner, the Southern Baptist convention both Gospel and Law, and a land where more preachin' is heard daily ‘round the water-cooler than in the whole of recorded Vatican history. Yet its top three industries are governed the trifecta of vice: gambling (thoroughbred racing), drugs (burley tobacco) and alcohol (bourbon whiskey). A paradox indeed: casino gambling was banned for being immoral, and you can’t buy alcohol on Sundays, but the Kentucky Derby still packs 'em in each year, and the social racial/caste chasm is the largest of anyplace I’ve been.

Kentucky suffers an eternal identity crisis. Since much of it is latitudinally higher than parts of Illinois, Indiana and Ohio, it can't be considered purely southern - yet it's too far south to welcome the influx of "damn northern yankees" with open arms. I've heard the phrase "Bootstrap of the North, Top Hat of the South" applied, and it works. There is more than casual interest in the Civil War, as whole and parts of native families and their neighbors fought on both and opposing sides.

Ever notice how if Tennessee is a parallelogram, Michigan is a mitten (except for its bastard child in Wisconsin), and Illinois is a lumpy potato, then Kentucky is almost a lazy triangle? Well, like the three sides of a triangle, there are three sections of Kentucky, each with its own distinct aura.

Western KY, defined by this author as the I-65 corridor and all parts west, is a national treasure. Mammoth Cave is truly the Eighth Wonder of the World, and nearby attractions like Guntown Mountain and Kentucky Down Under harken back to our nation's family-wagon road-trip ethic of 40 years ago. The River City, Louisville, still exudes a sense of moxie, class, and blue-collar sleeve-rolling where it counts. The geography is beautiful and often displays a rugged, forested look similar to the Western US. This section of the state is growing gradually- after a tumultuous two decades Louisville itself is on the rebound, while cities like Bowling Green and Elizabethtown expand at a more measured pace.

Central Kentucky, the area bordered by I-65 to the west and I-75 to the east (with Frankfort near smack in the middle), is revered far and wide as God's country. Acres of lush, fertile farmland divvied by quaint stone and wood fences; gentle rolling hills, vast prairies of wildflowers, and great enclaves of soldierly old oak trees soak the landscape. The Kentucky River cuts a wide jagged swath right through the middle, giving Frankfort the aura of a canyon town; the rest of the riverbank is peppered with amazing feats of natural beauty and human ingenuity. This area of the state is where most of the money is: political antics in the capital notwithstanding, the limestone base has made the land incredibly ripe for horse breeding with hundreds of millions of dollars exchanged and displated every day. The northern fringe across the river from Cincinnati is going through a boom time of its own, despite the ramshackle and forlorn past that still drips from places like Covington. The droughts of the past few years, the tree blights of last summer and the devastating ice storm [of 2003] have taken their toll - perhaps the Baptists’ God is striking the idolators of the horse - but Central KY remains far and away one of the most beautiful places I've ever been, and have the fortune to call home.

Eastern Kentucky is the springboard of stereotypes that still sadly ring true. Despite its geographic location, Lexington ostracizes all points east and schizophrenically trumpets the term "Central Kentucky" more than I care to hear; I consider it on the border between the two, at best. The polarization of income levels is hideously pronounced. "Old Money" and "Horse Money" (often one and the same) flies around Lexington, in stark contrast to the folks on the north side of town and in eastern KY whose life goals are to either draw (as in "Dur-aww, from the guv-ern-mant") or move up a rung to merely destitute. A good many of the agrarian locals don't lack for ingenuity, but rightly feel slighted by their urban neighbors to the west. Geographically the region is blessed and cursed: from the foothills well into the Appalachians, great awe is cultivated by the constant struggle to eke an existence. Nowhere is this more evidenced than by the great coal fields near West Virginia: the very same embattled industry that provides respectable wealth and purpose to people, arguably does so at the cost of health and lives.

Ah, Lexington. The Suburb of Nothing; a place where civil engineering remains an undiscovered art. Imagine that 150 years ago, someone took every snot-nosed yuppie-ass big-shot northsider from Chicago, inflated their ego tenfold, then built them a gated community with nary half as much to brag about. These self-glorified blowhards would go on endlessly trading and trumpeting their money and status amongst themselves, while being ignorant to the world around them. The whole city is very insular and pompous, and while outsiders are generally treated cordially, they aren't exactly welcomed either. Economic polarization is near extreme here too: You're either a doctor, a lawyer, or an old-money aristocrat, or else a burger jockey, retail drone, or other service-industry wage-slave. A pervasive sense of racism is still displayed by the bluebloods: the only good blacks play for the UK Basketball team, and its embattled black coach has endured far too much fair-weather-fanning head-calls. Every sanitized chain restaurant/ store/ trend-themed business you can think of is here, bulldozing the old local bourgeois flavor. Don't take those mom-and-pop grease pits, restaurants and storefronts in Chicago for granted: much of the few that do remain here are overwrought tourist traps.

When I used to merely visit Anna in Lexington, it seemed like a wonderful place. But in a desperate play for acceptance to the metropolitan club, it's changed too much. The neighborhood where her apartment (in which we lived in until 2002) lay was awesome: lots with small, post-war houses near the UK campus, filled with old-timers gushing with stories and respectable college kids earning their future. But one by one, the old-timers passed and their heirs decided cash their fortune by attaching huge pre-fab tracts to the once-humble homes. It became a circus show, but instead of packing red-shoed Bozos into a VW beetle, it shoehorned red-nozed boozer clods into vinyl boxes while charging $600+ a month. The whole neighborhood went to Hell inside of five years. It's sad and awful.

There are great treasures in Lexington that I adore: the grand old Gothic and Victorian houses downtown; the original businesses of New Circle Road with their quirky charms; the older downtrodden neighborhoods that exude a defiant stance. But as Lexington sprawls ever outward as developers snap up old family homesteads, blazing in new subdivisions and mega malls to suck the money from eastern Kentucky, it only gets worse. It's a great place to visit, but unless you forsake your roots, forget where you came from, and lie to yourself about who you are, it will suck the life out of you. The majority of young people are spoiled UK students, there are more emphysemic geriatrics than in Florida, there's a car wreck every 15 seconds, and this place is sitting on a huge credit bubble that's going to make the dot-bomb crash seem like a misfired watergun when it finally goes.

It's no wonder at all then, that our new license plates have a nice crack-head smiley face on them... I'm going to turn mine into a solar eclipse.

Hah, and you thought you were just gonna get a few smarmy sentences about the weather (it's really not much different from Chicago except for the tornadoes and ice), and hillbillies (Tarnation! They exist!). Sorry about that! Seriously though, I miss the "big city" and Chicago with all my heart, but I truly do love it here, even more so since we finally left Lexington last year. I can stretch out and be myself again [in Frankfort], and it's a wonderful thing. It's a great place to live and I can see raising a family here someday. I don't know where I'll end up permanently yet; our jobs are still tenuous enough that I'm afraid to commit to a lifetime of mortgage debt until I'm sure of where we'll be for a while. Moving here was at times hard to pinpoint as either the best or worst decision I ever made, but in my heart I feel it will work out in the long run.