Listing Through Life

On my lunch break on Friday, I headed east on Main Street to visit a store I found on Roadside America. On the way, I passed a parking lot that had two unmarked statues tucked into the fence. The first was, I assume, Alice in Wonderland.

The store I was heading for is called Why Louisville. It’s filled with all sorts of bizarre stuff, some of it on sale and some of just for decoration. I bought an inflatable beard, mostly because the box said “Not a Toy” as if it could have any other purpose. Jae, the guy who checked me out, was very friendly and, when I asked, gave me permission to take pictures with the chair around the store.

He even agreed to get his own photo taken.

This statue of Colonel Sanders is wearing one of his actual custom-made suits.

This sign was on the sidewalk in front of the store.

Just a few doors down from Why Louisville, I passed Please & Thank  You, a cafe that advertised Louisville’s Best Chocolate-Chip Cookie. I rushed in and congratulated them and told them “good job.” No I didn’t, but I was thinking it. I did go in and buy a cookie.

It was very good and very gooey and messy. I can’t tell you if it was the best in Louisville until I’ve had all the others.

I didn’t have time to go inside Joe Ley Antiques, but I did anyway. It was filled with amazing stuff and I could have spent a couple hours browsing. Instead, I took perhaps 10 minutes. I made sure the guy at the desk saw my chair on the way in.

Louisville is famous for the “Hot Brown” sandwich — bread piled with turkey, bacon, tomatoes and cheese sauce. It is available all over town in a variety of ways, but I went to the place where it was invented, J. Graham’s Cafe in the Brown Hotel.

The host told me they were still serving breakfast but they could always make a Hot Brown. After a fifteen minute wait, I had my food. It was delicious and I don’t even like turkey. During the half hour I was there, I heard seven other people order food and every one of them ordered the Hot Brown.

J. Graham Brown was a businessman who lived in Louisville and owned the Brown Hotel (and a lot of other stuff). This statue of him stands outside J. Graham’s Cafe in the Brown Hotel. After I took this photo, I stepped up to take a picture of the plaque on the wall and saw my waiter from a few minutes before and his two customers watching me. They waved and I waved back. If you’re going to walk around with a toy chair, you’ve got to expect some weirdness.

I happened upon this statue across the street from the Brown Hotel. I couldn’t find a plaque or anything to identify the man, but he seemed friendly enough so I gave him the chair to hold.

The booth at the conference never shuts down, so I took an early lunch and walked a half mile or so up Fourth Street. My first objective was this clock. Unfortunately, it only runs at noon and six p.m., so I didn’t see it in motion. Here’s the deal.

And here’s the clock.

Fourth Street in front of the Louisville Clock was under construction. As I took the photo with the chair, a man named Gary, holding a “SLOW” sign was standing six feet away. When I picked up the chair, he asked me what it was for. I told him and then asked if I could get a photo of him holding it. It took me a couple seconds to convince him I wasn’t making fun of him and then …

Statues of horses with and without jockeys were scattered around Louisville. This one was on a plaza on Fourth Street in front of a Panera. The plaque at the base says it’s Alysheba. He won the 1987 Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes, then came in fourth in the Belmont Stakes.