Rambling over Kentucky

[pengolodh_sc at yahoo.no]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at y..., Meredith Wilson 
<aviationoutreachcoord at m...> wrote:
> This whole conversation just keeps making me smile. :)  It's fun to
> find people with a similar background, or at least those who know
> about Ale-8-one!
> 
[snip]
> I keep trying to explain the church phenomenon in Kentucky.  A 
> street next to my mom's house has 15 churches in a less than 3-mile 
> stretch.  I feel that's excessive.  Not that I think church is a 
> bad thing, I'm episcopalian and I go to church fairly often (every 
> Sunday right now because my husband is being paid to be their 
> resident tenor, but I probably wouldn't if that wasn't the case), 
> but it's crazy in Kentucky.  And I don't think I went to church 
> once in Danville.  I would occasionally drive to my church from 
> when I lived in Lexington (It was right near Halls on the River and 
> we would go through Lancaster to get there from Danville) but my 
> heart goes out to you for sitting through a rural Kentucky 
> Disciples of Christ service - no offense meant to those of you who 
> might attend a rural Kentucky Disciples of Christ service, just not 
> my cup of tea.

My teacher in English III also noted the church-phenomenon, and she 
said that Garrard County was more excessive in that respect than most 
of Kentucky.  Is the Episcopal church the same as the Anglican 
Church?  It would be rather more similar to the Church of Norway then.

In general I noted that USA seems to have a tradition towards rather 
small churches with small differences in beliefs and anmes - you'd 
have Church of God, First Church of God, United Church of God, First 
United Church of God, etc. - quite strange to someone coming from a 
country where 85% belong to Church of Norway.

[snip]
> 
> I definitely had teachers who were more like that than your typical 
> US teacher.  I had a few that I hung out with on occasion, but it 
> certainly isn't the norm.  

Well, in Garrard County it would not work.  The principal there was 
probably a typical 'Good Ole Boy'.  He was also rumoured to (a) have 
an affair with his secretary; (b) being brutal to his wife; and (c) 
being brutal towards some students.  The then acting assistant 
principal was much nicer, and much more popular.   The fact that he 
also brought the girls' basketball team to the state playoffs (first 
team ever from that school to do so in any sport) certainly did not 
hurt. 

The Norwegian school is in general more liberal in what it teaches, 
as well, even if church and state are not separate in Norway (we have 
religion-classes in school up to 10th form, and then again in 13th 
form).  Also, we do not have rules for how many buttons may be 
unbuttoned in your shirt, or how long your shorts must be.  I was on 
the academic team of my school, and one school we visited, had such 
rules (the distance between the knee and the lower edge of the shorts 
should not exceed three inches).

Norwegian school is also rather more fond of forcing students to 
write on tests and exams rather than choose option (a), (b), (c) or 
(d) for each question.  In Norwegian (the subject) and English, we 
must write essays on our exams from 7th form on, at least five pages 
long (A4 or letter format).  Multiple Choice is almost unheard of - 
we just write and write and write...

[snip] 
> >> We have earthquakes instead!

Well, we have earthquakes in Norway too, but they rarely go beyond 
3.5 - I don't know if any have ever reached 4.  It is with some 
interest I noted that people in the central Mississippi Valley and on 
the North Carolina coast should probably be much more nervous about 
earth-quakes than they are.    I recall seeing figures for 90% 
probablitiy for a 6.5+ there within the next 50 years.

[snip]
> Too bad you missed out on a settlement!  Actually, the one time I 
> went there, I had a similar complaint from a different coaster.  
> The starchaser either wasn't there or was closed when I was there, 
> though I remember hearing about it.
> 
> >There was this lawyer with real tacky commercials on 
> >the Kentucky networks...  
> 
> Melbourne Mills Jr? *laughs*

I think that's the one - he had one where he exits a court-house, and 
a T-Rex come thundering down the street, until he uses a remote (I 
think) to shrink the T-Rex into something that would have trouble 
taking on a chihuahua.

[snip]
> That's too bad because the coasters are what makes King's Island 
> great.  Boy I miss the Beast and the Vortex!  I adore roller 
> coasters, but I can understand why you might not!

Well, after my experience with the Starchaser, I have not been 
particularly keen on rollercoasters.  The Starchaser was my first 
experience with a rollercoaster, and looks destined to be my last as 
well.  Is the vortext the one were you hang from the rails rather 
than sit in cars on teh rails?

> [snip]
> 
> >Have you, btw, any recollection of Ale-8-One?  Just had to ask!
> 
> What good Kentucky girl wouldn't know about Ale-8-One?!  Personally 
> I'm not wild about it... we used to call it Winchester Swamp Water, 
> but now that I don't live there I get it sometimes when I'm home.  
> My friend's dad writes the advertising jingles for them.
> 
> >One thing I noted in USA was the size of supermarkets - they were 
> >large.  Wal-Mart and K-Mart particularly are a phenomenon not seen 
in 
> >Norway.  The biggest store I saw, however, was a Meyer-store.  It 
> >dwarfed even the largest K-/Walmart-stores - 36 cashregisters, I 
> >believe, all of them busy.  The food-section dwarfed the large 
> >grocery-stores in Danville, for certain.
> 
> Yeah, and this isn't nearly as much the case here.  There are a few 
> places like that, but I miss the Wal-Mart or Meyer stores that are 
> open all night.  You could get anything you wanted anytime you 
> wanted.  And get your exercise too!  Of course that was about all 
> there was to do, besides going to Mr. Gatti's for pizza and video 
> games.  And the video store.  Actually, the Lexington area is a 
> mecca for shopping, and I've heard a major US test market for 
> stores and products. Here in Seattle you just order your groceries 
> online and have them delivered to you!

I recall S'Barro's - they had this closed pizza that I was really 
fond of.  I did not shop particularly much in Lexington, and when I 
was there, I was mostly at Fayette Mall.  Lancaster had a socalled 
antique-store (where I bought a used copy of "Airport" by Arthur 
Hailey, and a US Army Aricraft Recognition Handbook I was probably 
not allowed to own), a dime-store, a post-office, a clothing-store, 
two independent burger-places, a Dairy-Queen, a Lee's, a country 
diner, two grocery-stores (one with bizarre trolleys) and two gas-
stations.  If we wanted to do something, we had to go to Danville, 
Richmond or Lexington.

Do not get me wrong - I had a very nice time in Kentucky (apart from 
the infections), but there were so many oddities to note.  I also 
noted that many exchange-students in the region apparently like to 
use the "i'm foreign - I don't understand"-line to worm their way out 
of trouble - that annoyed me so incredibly much!