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National Geographic : 1974 May
Contents
The Hunt-Morgan House, like many other historic houses in Lexington, faces Gratz Park, a jewel box with the stately buildings of Transylvania University at one end and the mellow houses of the old aristocracy sewn along its gray sidewalks like badges of rank on the tunic of one of Lee's lieutenants. Unwelcome Glory at Welcome Hall We drove into the country, where the De Camps introduced me to Mrs. Louise Graddy, owner of Welcome Hall, in Woodford County near Versailles. Mrs. Graddy showed us the flawless dimensions of the old limestone house, and from its windows we glimpsed the gardens for which she is envied and admired. "Welcome Hall was begun in the 1790's, before Kentucky was a state," said Mrs. Graddy, "and it has been a perfect home for many generations of our family-well, almost perfect. There's an old southern porch that shouldn't be there, but in 1828 there was a bride, and brides always like to glorify things!" We stopped on the way back to Lexington at Hurricane Hall, so named at the end of the 18th century because it was inhabited by a family with many rambunctious children. Mrs. Stanley D. Petter, Jr., who lives in this splendid Federal house with her husband and their children, winced at the clatter of young feet on the grand staircase and allowed that the house was still earning its name. Later in the day, spellbound by her stories, I followed Mrs. Sarah Buckner, widow of a relative of Confederate Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner, through a delightful array of family keepsakes. Mrs. Buckner is mistress of Rose Hill (page 643), a great white man sion on Lexington's North Limestone Street, and though she lives there alone, her words filled the empty rooms with the dancing couples of her youth. Mrs. Buckner showed me musical instruments and faded fans, medals for valor and portraits of beautiful brides in beautiful gowns. Fresh-killed Shoat and Burgoo, Too John Hunt Morgan, who would have sad dled a cannonball and kept his hat on, would have enjoyed the eighth annual race meet ing of the High Hope Steeplechase, held at a farm near Versailles on the Sunday before the Derby. This day of amateur racing may be unmatched outside Afghanistan for the bravado of its horsemanship. Before the meet I encountered almost everyone I'd met in the Bluegrass, and most of them put a mint julep or a piece of fried chicken in my hand. The cuisine of the Bluegrass is, on the whole, nobler than the deep-fried drumstick. Mrs. Fauntleroy Pursley, famous among friends as a cook, gave me leg of fresh-killed shoat, sweet-potato fritters, and a dessert composed of lemon and a springtime zephyr during an evening at Cool Spring Farm that is as memorable for the Pursleys' hospitality as it is for Mrs. Pursley's culinary genius. At Keeneland Race Course, and in many other places, I encountered the state dish, Kentucky burgoo, a stew made from chick en, beef, veal, onions, celery, parsley, carrots, turnips, tomatoes, okra, potatoes, cabbage, butter, black pepper, corn, and claret. Keene land's clubhouse waiter assured me that bur goo "has got to be made for a hundred folks - and et by maybe twenty-five." As to the mint julep, it is made with fresh mint, crushed ice, carefully dissolved sugar, and bourbon. The julep is absorbed, rather than drunk, from a foggy silver cup. Bad Day at the Brush Jump I had not been long at the High Hope Steeplechase before I came across Fauntleroy Pursley. He offered me a julep and put me into the care of his blond daughter, Mrs. Joan Mayer. We bounced over the infield in Mrs. Mayer's pickup truck, and took up our sta tion near a murderous brush jump on the far turn of the two-mile course, where National Geographic's Bruce Baumann unlimbered his cameras. The six races that followed were a photographer's dream, and an orthopedist's nightmare. On the first lap of the second race, six horses hit the jump like a volley of artillery shells. My widened eye registered a bay mare performing a lazy somersault in the noontime brilliance, with her rider-a slim youth in blue silks, his long blond hair blown by the wind of his fall-flying before her with the reins still gripped in his hands. Two more horses fell, sending their jockeys through the air like jackstraws. The bay mare landed on her back and skidded over the grass, all four hooves in the air, as the surviving horses landed all around her at an unbroken gallop. The blond rider uttered a loud "oof!" as a hoof daggered his ribs. The horses larruped on toward the shrieks of the crowd, half a mile away in the grandstand. Bruce and I helped Joan Mayer repair the Heart of the Bluegrass 651
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