We left Cincinnati to drive to Bowling Green, to visit friends and to see Mammoth Cave. Since Louisville was on the way, and since both Colonel Sanders and Muhammed Ali are buried in Louisville’s Cave Hill cemetery, we had to stop there.
Below Muhammed Ali’s grave is a stone set in the ground that reads “He took a few cups of love, he took one tablespoon of patience, one teaspoon of generosity, one pint of kindness. He took one quart of laughter, one pinch of concern, and then he mixed willingness with happiness, he added lots of faith and he stirred it up well. Then he spread it over a span of a lifetime and he served to each and every person he met.“
Theirs were not the only ornate memorials. This one, for local magician Harry Leon Collins, also caught our eye. His stone reads: “He comes to you with top hat donned. White gloves flash with a sleight of hand that stretches reality beyond. The twinkle in his eyes hides the secret he will never share. With awe, you feel your heart’s great thrill like none you can compare. What lies in the heart of this man? Drawn to him are the children of the land. They know that love flows in abundance, for his heart and soul are reflected in his smiling glance. And now gathered here, with tears in our eyes, grief in our hearts and stiff proper smiles, we honor this great loving man. Never again will we see the twinkle of his eye — the sleight of his hand that drew the children of the land.” That it took twice as long to eulogize local magician Harry Collins as it did to eulogize the Greatest was unexpected, but I subsequently learned from Wikipedia that Harry Collins was the official corporate magician for the Frito-Lay Corporation. “He promoted Frito-Lay products while doing magic tricks, and was known both as ‘Mr. Magic’ and as ‘The Frito-Lay Magician.'” Well, then.
Next, we visited the Hillerich & Bradsby Company factory. You don’t know the Hillerich & Bradsby Company? Of course you do: they make the Louisville Slugger.
The wood—birch, maple, or ash, from trees harvested from H&B’s tree farm in Pennsylvania—is shaped into billets. Some baseball players have a reserve of their own billets from which their personal bats are made. The billets are then shaped into baseball bats by machine and finished. The factory has some of the greats’ bats available for visitors to hold (but not swing).
Then, onto Bowling Green.
Next: what we saw in Bowling Green.