Amish Funeral Today

Thursday night, an Amish horse-drawn carriage overturned into a flash-flooded stream and four children drowned in Dublin, KY.

The funeral is today, and it is expected that over 1000 Amish will be in attendance. Cassie Hammonds, proprietor of Shamrock's Restaurant in nearby Mayfield, is organizing a donation campaign to help the family defray the costs of the funeral and of hosting their extended family.

Donations of food or money can be sent to Shamrock's at:

6237 state Route 339 S.
Mayfield, KY
42066

Checks should be made out to Emanuel Wagler, who is the father of
three of the children and uncle of the other one.

Knob Creek Church of Christ

For our purposes here, the Knob Creek Church of Christ in Graves County has three key points of interest going for it:

For one, it's located in Dukedom, Kentucky, which I've always thought is one of the greatest Kentucky place names. It's not a word that comes up in casual conversation unless you're an ardent anglophile or you're singing Gene Chandler's "Duke of Earl". Only by calling it "Fiefdom" could the community's founder have made a wackier move.

The church is historically important for being the first Restoration Movement church to use the name "Church of Christ" (even though Barton W. Stone's church is sometimes miscredited with this honor.)

But what's truly noteworthy to me about this place is the fact that the building itself literally straddles the KY-TN state border, and the dividing line runs between the pulpit and the pews. Therefore, the minister is delivering his sermons in Kentucky but his congregation is in Tennessee!

Cornbread Red

Walter Tevis isn't the only renowned billiards hustler from Kentucky; there's also Cornbread Red (1931-2004), born in Mayfield, KY to sharecroppers during the Great Depression.

According to the book Cornbread Red: Pool's Greatest Money Player, "in a fast, thrilling and sometimes dangerous culture, Red learned the "Rules of the Road" from hustlers, gamblers, con-men and champions."

Cornbread, whose real name was Billy Burge, went on to Las Vegas and Detroit and became one of the greatest money-earning players and proposition men of all time. According to Wikipedia, when someone asked Cornbread about the highest-stakes game he ever played in, he replied that it was a Race To Six for $100,000.

Not bad for a Kentucky farmboy.

Rand Paul Art Car

This text-laden art car (from someone with the Rand Paul campaign) is about as easy to read as a bottle of Dr. Bronner's. Spotted at Fancy Farm's 2009 Picnic.

World's Largest Picnic

Every year, people congregate to the tiny town of Fancy Farm in Graves County, for the Fancy Farm Picnic. The event, which began in 1880, is an informal and wacky political gathering and is usually attended by most Kentucky politicians.


As Wikipedia notes, "So many Kentucky politicians attend that it tends to only be news when a major politician decides not to make an appearance, such as senator Jim Bunning in 2007."


The Guinness Book of World Records has officially recognized the event as the "World's Largest Picnic".