Berea -- Ending Slavery Before it Was Cool

Berea, KY is a cool and artsy little college town. It was started by Cassius Clay and Reverend Fee in the 1850's, both ardent abolitionists. They built two churches and a tiny town in the midst of scattered farms, with the intent of building a community that would fight against slavery. From its inception, it has been a liberal bastion in a state mired in right winged closed minded politics. From opposing slavery in a slave state before the Civil War, to a thriving hippie college town in the middle of Bible belt Republican-or-die Kentucky. Berea is a free thinking breath of fresh air in a state with too many uneducated fundamentalists. In Berea, people actually know what Kombucha is and that Jesus was a Palestinian, not a blonde haired blue eyed Aryan. 

Berea Coffee and Tea

This is the only place I have ever encountered where all the college students get a full scholarship in exchange for work. Every single one of them. The students work in the town and get full tuition, room and board, and a little bit of spending money. We talked to several college students. They are upbeat, optimistic about the future, and eager to learn, eager to be thorough and conscientious in their responsibilities. Berea College is a beautiful campus. It has a wide range of degree options. It is a well respected and fully certified institution of higher learning.

 

 

When we booked a room at Boone Tavern, I pictured the hotel staff in coonskin hats, a bartender in denim and leather with his foot on a stool, resting his arm on his knee, chatting with a settler drinking beer out of an elk horn. I was really disappointed to arrive at an opulent hotel that looked like it was designed by the Astors, and managers in suits.  Boone Tavern has a rich feel of genuineness and history and offers the best imaginable service. It started as a guest house for the college president in 1909. The hotel is owned by the college, and mostly run by students. You cannot find friendlier service in a hotel. All of the services are modern and efficient, and the restaurant serves impeccable cuisine. They have complimentary bicycles and reserved parking for all-electric vehicles, with free charging.  There are shops all around the hotel, and you could easily spend a pleasant day never leaving the block it inhabits.

Boone Tavern

Boone Tavern

Boone Tavern

Boone Tavern

Boone Tavern

The town is adorable with tea shops, cafes, and gift shops that begged for perusing. Everywhere there was an atmosphere of hope and future. During summer, Berea has "First Friday" celebrations. First Friday is a lot of fun. We were fortunate to be there during a First Friday. During the first Friday of a summer month, you will sway and jive to live music performed by high quality local bands. You will find food trucks and entertainers, crafts and fun-loving crowds across several blocked off blocks and the park in the town square. The music was fantastic.  It was hard to sit still, and not just from my hemorrhoids; I couldn’t help but dance.  It was so good, I kept dancing for half an hour after they were done. Then in the morning, you can go to the farmer's market for home grown vegetables, local honey and handcrafted Kentucky country home goods, and home brewed Kombucha.

Festival

Finally, Berea is where we discovered Ale81. Ale81 (pronounces "a late one"… Hey, don't ask me. It's Kentucky.) is a locally produced soda pop, a family owned business. You will find Ale81 pervasively in shops throughout Kentucky. Personally, I stopped drinking soda pop years ago when I discovered Kombucha. I decided to substitute probiotics and my own brew for chemicals and global corporations. But being local and quirky, I had to try it. It was incredible. It is like a mix of Vernors (the best Ginger Ale in the world, says the Michigan Native about the pop that was once a local Detroit only Ginger Ale), and Mountain Dew. I quickly developed an addiction and was buying a six pack every other day, and smuggling two liters into work.

Berea is a fun, cute, intelligent little hippie city. It is on my list of places I must return to, especially on Friday nights. With or without Ale81, and in spite of Boone Tavern management not wearing leather chaps

Bardstown, Hauntingly Charming

Bardstown is a charming town and well worth the visit. It offers interesting historical tidbits, great restaurants, a rich religious heritage, a delicious and entertaining dinner train, and it is the capitol of the Bourbon world. It is also a fun town for the paranormal aficionado (also a nice place to visit if you happen to be a ghost … so if you are a ghost reading this post, I can recommend popular places for poltergeists). In fact, it has so much to offer, I am going to write three separate posts on it. It's like Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows; just too much to put into one movie and do it justice. 

I'm not a big paranormal fan, but then neither am I a fan of normal. If you are interested in ghost hunting, Bardstown has a lot to offer. Most of the paranormal activity is centered in two buildings that are right next to each other; the Old Talbott Inn and the old jailhouse (now the Jailer’s Inn). I did not personally see any paranormal activity, but I saw some normal activity at the train depot, and it made me very nervous. 

The Old Talbott is the oldest stagecoach stop in America (or so they claim. I did not see any stagecoaches stop while I was there), and thus many famous and influential people have stopped there, if at least for refreshment if not for a bed. It was built in 1779. The list of historical figures that have visited or stayed at the Talbott is worth a visit to the Inn. Abraham Lincoln stayed there when he was five. His parents were in a land dispute, and losing the case propelled them on to Illinois. Stephen Collins Foster spent time there. He was the song writer who wrote My Old Kentucky Home, Oh Suzanna, Camptown Races, Beautiful Dreamer, and Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair. John Fitch, inventor of the steamboat, hung out there often. King Louis Phillippe of France stayed there during his exile, along with his two brothers and other nobles of his court. Legend has it that his entourage painted some of the murals on the wall. A century and a half later, Jesse James holed up there because his cousin was the sheriff next door and helped hide him out. One night, Jesse was drunk and thought the birds in King Phillippe's mural were attacking him, and he shot several holes in the wall that are still there. There is plexiglass over the holes, so I could not stick my fingers in them. I asked, and they would not let me.  

Wall with Jesse James' bullet holes: (Painting was burned off in a fire)

Old Talbott has excellent food, and service, and the longest list of Bourbons I have ever seen. I don’t like bourbon myself, but if you do, you should go here. They have close to 100 different bourbons on the menu. If you aren't seeing ghosts before the list, you will be seeing them by the time you get to the ones that start with “C". 

Next door to Talbott's is the old Jailhouse ,which has since been converted into a bed and breakfast. That's right, you spend the night in jail. Which might happen anyway, when you are done with Talbott's bourbon list. Some of the doors still have the bars on them. I was not allowed to bang a tin cup on them and yell for breakfast. Between that and sticking my fingers in the Jesse James holes next door, I am actually not sure I am welcome back in Bardstown.  A few rooms have been preserved with the metal cots, and the staff gives a tour every evening, telling stories. The breakfast was delicious, and I am sure much better than what the prisoners had 100 years ago. The jail opened in 1819, and was in use as a jail until 1987. There is a drunk tank, and a wall outside, in the back where executions took place. The hanging wall is now a pleasant floral garden where they serve breakfast in conducive weather.  And they are very quick with the service; they do not leave you hanging. The chef executes a great egg casserole. 

The inner most room of the Jailer's Inn was a women's cell. There are no windows here, and no quick exits. Most guests can't sleep through the night in this room, and most report creepy noises at night in this room. Many people report seeing Jesse James, a lady in white, orbs of light moving about, unexplained noises throughout the night in many of the rooms, objects being moved, furniture visibly jumping up and down without reason, shadows with nothing casting them, among many other strange experiences. I was also seen running around with a white sheet over my head, with eye holes cut out. Again, I don’t know why they asked me not to come back.  

The pre-revolution Inn and the old retired jailhouse are, of course, natural set ups for ghost stories. I highly recommend a visit to these two places, as well as other Bardstown Highlights that I will be posting about soon. 

This is the back wall, in the back yard, where inmates broke stone with hammers, and where the hangings were held off that wall. 

This is the wood ceiling of our bedroom for the night, and the former high security room. The extra beams in the ceiling were to make breaking out harder. It was a second floor room, and they would remove the ladder at night, so there was no way down from the second floor. There were no stairs; only a ladder that would be placed as needed.

This is a nice courtyard in the back, where you can be served breakfast, with the view of the hanging wall and quaint courtyard and well. 

A couple photos of our lovely room. All the rooms are different, and all are equally appealing. 

Please visit the websites... and moreover visit them in person!  The Talbott Inn and Jailer's Inn:


Talbott Inn


Jailer's Inn

Sweet Indiana: Schrimpff's Candy

It turns out one great reason to visit Kentucky is in Indiana. The journey of my life has brought me to many unexpected places; geographically as well as spiritually and emotionally. I never would have thought that one of my favorite places in the second Louisville sojourn of my life would be a candy shop across the river. I am not even particularly fond of candy. I would rather spend my empty calories that lead to obesity on alcohol. If lemon drops were beer drops, then I would be more fond of candy.

If you are going to be in the Louisville area, I recommend a visit to Schimpff’s candy store in Jeffersonville Indiana as one of the coolest places to visit. The tour and demonstration turned out to be a surprisingly interesting education in 19th century candy making. The family business opened up in 1871. The candy shop has been making candy on site since 1891, and has been in the same family all that time. 

Getting to the candy store is a short walk across a pedestrian bridge from bustling and overgrown downtown Louisville to the sleepy mid 20th century time warp that is Jeffersonville, Indiana. Once over the river, it is just a few more blocks to the candy shop.

Walking across the bridge is worth the trip in and of itself. And old abandoned train bridge has been redesigned into a pleasant and popular pedestrian bridge to connect two alternate realities; Louisville vs. Jeffersonville. I remember when i was in medical school in the 90s, seeing this old train bridge in the middle of the river, with its connections to dry land removed on both sides. I always wondered why it was there, or why nothing better was ever done with it…or if not, then remove it. It had been disconnected from the river shores for decades, a mysterious section of a bridge that nearly spanned the river. During twenty years that I was gone from Louisville, someone had the foresight to make use of this bridge, converting it into what is now a very nice and quite popular pedestrian-only bridge.  

Once you make it over the river and through the quaint village of Jeffersonville, the candy destination is well worth it. Generations of candy makers run the store, descendants of the founders. They are charismatic, kind and jovial, and put on a good show as well as an education. They demonstrated the 19th century methods of making hard candy, and then gave us samples. They used tools that had been in the family business for over 100 years, heating sugar to deadly temperatures, stirring, cooling, forming into shapes, and finally sharing with the audience of the moment, all while entertaining and informing.  The event was such a convivial experience that I thought about shouting out that I had one of the golden tickets, in hopes they would take me back to the REAL secret factory, the secret world of “real” candy making. But then I saw  my reflection; wearing a blue shirt and twenty pounds overweight, I realized that I was the fat one that would be sucked up into a vat of chocolate. I could think of worse ways to die, but I was not ready to check out yet. 

I learned that the name “Lemon Drop” comes from the final step; the cook drops a just-cooled large sheet of hard candy onto a hard surface, allowing it to shatter into pieces. This is much better than if it had been named after the modern process, which would have given us “Impersonal Robotic Industrial Nutriontless Lemon Pellets” which would have been had to sell.  

Schimpff’s candy store is well worth the trip. They have a little 50’s style lunch counter, and a compelling candy museum. While their demonstrations are of hard candies; particularly lemon drops and red hots, they hand make all kinds of candies. There is plenty of chocolate for you chocolophiles. 

Visit their website, or better yet, visit them in person:

http://www.schimpffs.com