By Steve Flairty
NKyTribune columnist
During my years teaching fourth grade, students knew that whatever social studies lessons I taught, I would make direct connections to the state of Kentucky. Not only did I see the practice as educationally sound, but it was also a good opportunity to indulge my Bluegrass passion.
When I taught a six-week unit on Kentucky, it often was the highlight of the year for, at least, me. Scrapbooks, Kentucky trivia contests, and requiring students to recite the words to “My Old Kentucky Home” (or sing them, if they felt comfortable doing so) were some of the featured learning activities.
At some point, I started calling small, disjointed informational items, or even short “slice of life” anecdotes about our state “Kentucky tidbits” after noticing that term used elsewhere. Students knew I was prone to share a tidbit at any free moment during the day, and the students would start sharing theirs, too. I even started giving extra credit on assignments when students added their own tidbits to the required work.
And so, you must be wondering where all this is headed. Actually, I’m hoping that in this week’s column, and others in the future, you’ll allow me to engage in a few tidbits about this, the 15th state, born in 1792 and originally a part of the commonwealth of Virginia. A few might be historical, a few collected stories, and a few, well…but all connect to my Kentucky by Heart sensibilities.
Thomas D. Clark, named “Kentucky Historian for Life” by the 1990 state General Assembly, was actually born in Louisville, Mississippi. He’s perhaps my all-time favorite Kentuckian (though Abe Lincoln is pretty close).
Thomas D. Clark, named “Kentucky Historian for Life” by the 1990 state General Assembly, was actually born in Louisville, Mississippi (Kentucky Archives Photo by Dr. Kenneth B. Colebank)
He authored and edited scores of books, spoke and lectured on the state’s history, and was a driving force in the Frankfort museum treasure, The Kentucky History Center, along with the book, The Kentucky Encyclopedia (University Press of Kentucky, 1992). That’s lightly skimming the surface. Books have been written about Clark.
The gentlemanly icon died at age 101 in 2005. I had a few brief but pleasant personal encounters with Dr. Clark, both involving my youngest step-son, Ramon Greene. Ramon was also a student in my fourth grade class and was working on a Kentucky trivia search assignment (Of course I assigned it!). While working with him on the questions at the Lexington Central Branch Kentucky Collection Room, I noticed Dr. Clark, dressed casually (always knew him to be in a suit and tie) was working on something at a table across the room. I decided to have some fun.
“Hey, Ramon,” I said. “Won’t you walk over to that man at the table and ask him to help you with the question about the bloodthirsty Kentucky murderers?” Not figuring out immediately why I made the suggestion but being a compliant child, he soldiered on over and nervously asked the historian.
Graciously, Dr. Clark read the question on the list, took his pen and wrote down “the Harpe brothers,” then made another remark or two about their sorry place in the state’s annals and smiled at us.
After explaining to Ramon the person he’d just consulted, I don’t think he immediately captured the significance of the moment, but about a year later, he probably did. It was the summer of 1992 and the Kentucky Encyclopedia was unveiled at the Old State Capital Building in Frankfort. Signing the book were the editors, including Thomas D. Clark: “To Raymond (sic).”
I still have the book today and intend to gift it back to Ramon. Funny, now he can always tell people that he called on Thomas D. Clark to help him get through Mr. Flairty’s social studies class.
According to Kentuckytourism.com, horses bring in the most farm income in the state, followed by broilers (chickens). If we might represent the horse industry by showing red steeples, such as at Calumet Farm, might we represent the broilers by pointing to the red and white KFC marquises?
When Irvington’s Dick Frymire died in 2013, his obituary recalled that he had been an owner/distributor for the Gulf Oil Company, and that he served as a judge and magistrate in Breckinridge County as well as being commonwealth railroad commissioner in 1975. He also participated in actively in his church along with a multitude of other community activities.
Dick will likely forever be most noted for something entirely different, however. He was known nationwide as a weather prognosticator and a folklorist. In the realm of weather predicting, his sources didn’t come from technical equipment, such as the advanced Doppler radar system. It came from signs he saw presented in everyday nature. He was folksy and knowledgeable, and he spoke to gatherings all over the United States. That included television appearances on the Johnny Carson, David Letterman, and Jay Leno late-night talk shows, in addition to other media venues such as CNN.
The Frymire family still sends out a winter weather forecast to the media based on his father’s model he developed over the years. That model developed based on the behavior of Dick’s maple tree, and an uncountable number of people look forward to seeing the annual forecast.
Dick also authored several books, available on Amazon.com, including The World According to Dick Frymire: Folk Medicine and Common Sense (volumes I and II), and Frymire Light: A Diet of Humor with Half the Calories.
We’re all familiar with the many uses of “duct tape,” and it has, in some ways, become a metaphor for fixing problems, albeit temporarily and cheaply. But did you know that the same thing might be said about “bailing wire,” a mainstay of rural life and farms, especially in Owen County in the northern part of Kentucky?
My friend and one of my favorite Kentucky writers, Georgia Green Stamper, shares a light-hearted essay on the subject of bailing wire, taken from her Owen County childhood. In her first book, You Can Go Anywhere: From the Crossroads of the World, Georgia explains that “the bailing wire that held the bales of hay together back when I was a kid was versatile and efficient, enduring and strong.
My grandfather, and later my dad, held our place together with baling wire.”
She described the wire as having pieced together machinery, held gates shut, and “occasionally even girdled a bale of hay as it was intended to do.” Her dad once saved the winter holidays for the family by attaching bailing wire to the ceiling in order to hold straight a crooked Christmas tree.
Bailing wire also served as a stick to roast hot dogs, fished objects out of cracks, pulled a small wagon, and was twisted into a homemade cradle to lift things.
Georgia wondered if bailing wire was unique to Kentucky and mused that “maybe, like the bones of our horses, baling wire absorbed strength from the limestone in our Bluegrass soil.” She closed her essay by noting that where she came from, “baling wire was as strong as the Kentucky farmers who worked with it.”
And that’s a pretty tough standard to match.
Steve Flairty is a teacher, public speaker and an author of six books: a biography of Kentucky Afield host Tim Farmer and five in the Kentucky’s Everyday Heroes series, including a kids’ version. Steve’s “Kentucky’s Everyday Heroes #4,” was released in 2015. Steve is a senior correspondent for Kentucky Monthly, a weekly NKyTribune columnist and a member of the Kentucky Humanities Council Speakers Bureau. Contact him at sflairty2001@yahoo.com or visit his Facebook page, “Kentucky in Common: Word Sketches in Tribute.” (Steve’s photo by Connie McDonald)
