The last several hours have been very interesting. It all began yesterday afternoon with a private consultation with a man Yardhog many years ago dubbed in an article in the Louisville Times "the Guru of Bardstown Road," one Harold Maier, the owner and "OPEN EAR" of Twice Told Books.
Yardhog usually drops by his shop on Saturday afternoons when Maier is leading a circus of loquacious individuals in a roundabout of verbiage. This obviously isn't Yardhog's favorite environment considering his solipsistic nature so, he was more than pleased to have the Masters' full attention for over an hour.
This morning Yardhog was primed for his 11 mile Saturday bike ride to Cox's Park on River Road. When he arrived at the boat ramp he was shocked to see the river banks clogged with the detrius of last week's storms. Layers of driftwood competed with old tires and bottles, to clog the mighty Ohio. Weren't no speed boaters are bikini babes to be seen and the air had a distinct sour smell.
Yardhog parked his bike and stood for a while watching an intrepid fisherman with one of those heavy duty, salt water rod and reels designed to catch 300 pound Tarpon or Sail Fish, when all of a sudden a car pulls up and out pops a good natured looking middle-aged black man who moseys on down to where Yardhog is standing and says, "This is all a gift. People don't realize everybody doesn't have all this beauty."
Meanwhile the river is churning and looking very ugly hardly reflecting the beauty of the early summer sky.
"You see all that drift wood piled up out there. It's dead like we're all going to be one day, but it will be pounded into sand and clay by the river and come back. This was all given to us by God and we should appreciate it."
Yardhog realizing that this cat was on some kind of a roll began a extemporaneous interview. Almost immediately the man revealed that his name was Lester Goin and he was one of the first inter-racial graduates of Jefferson Community College in 1969. "My name and several others is on a plaque in the entrance hall of the College."
He was an only child born to a poor farmer in Tennessee, five miles outside of Middlesboro, Ky.
"Four states converge at that point of the country and I used to sit in my back yard and look out at the Blue Ridge Mountain range," he said wisely, ever now and then looking over at Yardhog's tattooed arm.
"There was a GreyHound Bus that used to pass on the Highway down there everyday and I said one day I'm going to be on that bus out of here. And I did it. I've been a lot of places in my life."
One of those places was Vietnam where he served a full term before being discharged and finding work as an electrician. "I learned a lot about people there. We are all alike just different."
Much of Goin's conversation concerned religion, so Yardhog asked him if he belonged to any certain denomination.
"No, I just read a lot. I read the Bible and Spinoza, Kant, a lot of the Philosophers."
Did that all begin in College? "No my family was religious we all went to church together and they encouraged me to read."
He paused and pointed out to the muddy river. "You know, there is a war going on out there. Nature isn't pacific.
Baby Boomers don't want to face death. They think they're going to live forever."
luv, yardhog
Yardhog usually drops by his shop on Saturday afternoons when Maier is leading a circus of loquacious individuals in a roundabout of verbiage. This obviously isn't Yardhog's favorite environment considering his solipsistic nature so, he was more than pleased to have the Masters' full attention for over an hour.
This morning Yardhog was primed for his 11 mile Saturday bike ride to Cox's Park on River Road. When he arrived at the boat ramp he was shocked to see the river banks clogged with the detrius of last week's storms. Layers of driftwood competed with old tires and bottles, to clog the mighty Ohio. Weren't no speed boaters are bikini babes to be seen and the air had a distinct sour smell.
Yardhog parked his bike and stood for a while watching an intrepid fisherman with one of those heavy duty, salt water rod and reels designed to catch 300 pound Tarpon or Sail Fish, when all of a sudden a car pulls up and out pops a good natured looking middle-aged black man who moseys on down to where Yardhog is standing and says, "This is all a gift. People don't realize everybody doesn't have all this beauty."
Meanwhile the river is churning and looking very ugly hardly reflecting the beauty of the early summer sky.
"You see all that drift wood piled up out there. It's dead like we're all going to be one day, but it will be pounded into sand and clay by the river and come back. This was all given to us by God and we should appreciate it."
Yardhog realizing that this cat was on some kind of a roll began a extemporaneous interview. Almost immediately the man revealed that his name was Lester Goin and he was one of the first inter-racial graduates of Jefferson Community College in 1969. "My name and several others is on a plaque in the entrance hall of the College."
He was an only child born to a poor farmer in Tennessee, five miles outside of Middlesboro, Ky.
"Four states converge at that point of the country and I used to sit in my back yard and look out at the Blue Ridge Mountain range," he said wisely, ever now and then looking over at Yardhog's tattooed arm.
"There was a GreyHound Bus that used to pass on the Highway down there everyday and I said one day I'm going to be on that bus out of here. And I did it. I've been a lot of places in my life."
One of those places was Vietnam where he served a full term before being discharged and finding work as an electrician. "I learned a lot about people there. We are all alike just different."
Much of Goin's conversation concerned religion, so Yardhog asked him if he belonged to any certain denomination.
"No, I just read a lot. I read the Bible and Spinoza, Kant, a lot of the Philosophers."
Did that all begin in College? "No my family was religious we all went to church together and they encouraged me to read."
He paused and pointed out to the muddy river. "You know, there is a war going on out there. Nature isn't pacific.
Baby Boomers don't want to face death. They think they're going to live forever."
luv, yardhog
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