Defining Generation X: Malcolm-Jamal Warner

When The Cosby Show debuted in 1984 Malcolm-Jamal Warner was 14 years old and playing the Cosby's son Theodore Huxtable known as Theo.  It is hard, unless you were there, to know just what a big deal The Cosby Show was in 1984.  It ranked as the number 3 show in it's first season.  Would then be the number 1 show for 5 straight years before fading at the end.  During that time the audience got to watch Theo go from being a 14 year old to a young man in college.  What made Theo such a great character were two things.  Let's talk about that and how it has helped to define generation X.  

One of the things that made Theo such a great character was Malcolm-Jamal Warner himself.  He was a very talented actor creating a screen character that kids his age and adults could both relate to.  He was cocky and scared.  He was nervous but a braggart.  He was representing the idea of a black, upper middle class young man in NY in the 80's and into the 90's.  It was a tough time for our country and especially places like NY.  We hear today talk about crime rate, but in 1988 at the peak of The Cosby Show the crime rate was an actual problem in the country.  In 1988 the crime rate in New York City was 10,529.1 per 100,000.  In 2024 that number was 1,079.0 per 100,000.  See what I mean by real problem compared to what we hear today.  

Why is this important you ask?  Well because things weren't going too well in the country.  The rich were getting richer.  Crime rate had climbed to insane highs.  Drug addiction, racism, AIDS, there were a lot of things boiling up.  You had the growth of heavy metal and bands like Metallica.  You had the growth of hip hop and bands like Boogie Down Productions.  The world was changing quickly, in 1989 Do the Right Thing would be released.  In many ways Theo represented for the country what a young black man could be.  Yes he was privileged but that didn't matter as much because he didn't act privileged.  He acted like a young man trying to figure his way out.  

Some of this was obviously the writers of the show and their plan for Theo, but Malcolm-Jamal Warner pulled it off.  There is a reason he would have a long successful television career.  He could act and he could create relatable characters.  

OK we've touched on one aspect of why Theo's such a great character and we've hinted at the other, so let's talk about it in more detail and why it matters to defining generation X.  

Theo was a flawed character.  He wasn't good or bad.  He wasn't always right or always wrong.  He didn't become a punchline.  Theo was genuine.  He felt like somebody you could know and be friends with and talk to and he would listen.  He could get a joke and laugh along at something silly.  And as much as we all liked Theo and rooted for Theo he still struggled.  He struggled to be the kind of man he wanted to be.  He struggled to be honest and caring.  He struggled academically and athletically.  In many ways what Theo was, was just an average person trying to get along.  Again I don't think this is possible if not for Malcolm-Jamal Warner as he breathed that character.  

I was struck by how odd it felt to hear that Malcolm-Jamal Warner had died and realize I was really saddened by it in a way I hadn't expected.  Generation X is at an age now where we have lost friends and close family.  But there are those people in your life who hold a close place because they always seemed too nice and easy going and could enjoy life.  Those are the hard ones to lose because it feels like a bit of youth is taken away when they go.  We are not young and we have been witness to a lot and our youth is gone.   

Sly Stone

I never intended the Defining Generation X series to turn into a series of obituaries, but these are the moments when I feel like we need to write something about these important figures.  

Another member of the Silent Generation who had a huge influence on Generation X.  Sylvester Stewart, Sly Stone, died yesterday at age 82.  If you know much about his personal story it is hard to imagine he made it this long.  For the sake of this piece though I want to focus on not just Sly, but Sly & the Family Stone.  

Their first three albums are good, but if you don't know much about Sly & the Family Stone and you want to introduce yourself to them, start with Stand! their big breakout hit album from 1969.  This would be the start of a 3 album run that would establish them as one of the most influential bands in the history of popular music.  1971 they came out with There's a Riot Goin' On, then Fresh in 1973.   

There were critical bands in the 60's that would have a huge influence on Generation X.  If you wanted to break it down to just 3, ignoring country and folk I would say it was The Beatles, The Velvet Underground, and Sly & the Family Stone.  

You might think I'm crazy but their music would have a massive influence on early Gen X rap and the move to embed components of rap and funk into pop.  Of course they also hugely influenced artists like Prince, who would then be a major influence on many Gen X R&B artists.  Their ability to marry blues, funk, and gospel all in a pop wrapper is something that still today you hear from many young experimental R&B artists.  You can't listen to Willow experimenting with jazz and funk and not think about Sly & the Family Stone, or listen to an artist like XXXTENTACION and not think of Sly & the Family Stone and these are modern artists.  

So why did I match up Sly & the Family Stone with The Beatles and The Velvet Underground?  The Beatles are the basis of pretty much all modern rock forms.  They married the blues, rock, and R&B that so influenced them into a pop and rock package that really has been the basis of most rock music since.  They didn't invent rock or blues or R&B, but they packaged it in a way that became incredibly influential.  The Velvet Underground did something different.  They took their influences from jazz, folk, and R&B and merged them into something not quite rock and not quite pop, something uniquely it's own thing.  That creation would go on to be in many ways just as influential as The Beatles.  This then brings us to Sly.  Sly married R&B, blues, gospel, world music, and jazz together to create something again quite unique that again would go on to become hugely influential.  

If you want to know who is influencing the artist you are listening to, remember we aren't looking at country that would be a completely different conversation, then you really just have to go back to these three artists.  For hip hop, modern R&B, modern funk, funk jazz fusion, etc. you can look to Sly & the Family Stone.  If it is punk, experimental rock, rock jazz fusion, performance you can look to The Velvet Underground.  If it is based on traditional R&B, blues and rock then it's The Beatles.  

 The funny thing is I believe that people place The Beatles and The Velvet Underground up there, but not Sly & the Family Stone and they really should.  In fact I would argue that they music they hold the most influence over is the music currently dominating popular music.  

They had a short run, like many artists, but it was incredibly important and had a profound effect on Generation X, but also the generations that followed Gen X.  

 

 

Defining Generation X: Roberta Flack

Warning Explicit Content

Matthew knows I'm a Roberta Flack fan, and, so, he was nice enough to invite me to write this "Defining Generation X" entry when news broke last Monday that she had died at age 88. Thank you, Matthew.

I love her. Rest in peace, Roberta Cleopatra Flack (1937-2025).

I flipped for Roberta Flack several years ago when I was living in North Carolina. I always liked her hits, and then I ran across her first record in a thrift store ...

I quickly came to learn that Roberta Flack was (like Nina Simone) a western North Carolina native who was steeped as a girl (like Nina Simone) in classical piano and (like Nina Simone) African Methodist Episcopal church music. From those common origins, however, Roberta Flack's art and career developed quite differently than Nina Simone's. 

Nina Simone--I love her, too, by the way--appeared to me to have felt called to go deep and wide with her work as a commercial artist. She dredged a waterway through the often rooty and rocky subject matter which she claimed and which claimed her. She conceived and performed complex, brilliant songs about all manner of things heavy, and the listener was overpowered and sometimes even exhausted by Simone's profound talents (plural). Even Simone herself seemed exhausted--she spent about the last decade of her life in France and seemed in interviews to have been tossed this-a-way and that-a-way by the hard work and waters to which God had sent her.

Not Roberta Flack. She certainly could've gone deep and heavy with her work, too. (Sometimes she did.) She was obviously smart enough, talented enough and sensitive enough to drive whatever agenda she had chosen, and she never did stop caring or contributing. But specific to the product of her work as a commercial artist, Flack appeared to me to have discovered herself bobbing down a river of all sorts of fierce cultural currents--What does it mean to be Black or white in America? What does it mean to be woman, man, gay, straight, trans or otherwise? What does it mean to be or to have been made an American? Heck, what does it mean to be human? Or just plain alive?--and discerned her calling to ride atop that river. To swim and float and swim. And all sorts of beautiful and interesting driftwood washed ashore from her journey downstream.

Do you like driftwood? I love driftwood. 

By http://bois-flotte.net/bois_flotté.html - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

There are beautiful pieces of driftwood art that are bent and shaved into an artist's vision. There are beautiful pieces of driftwood art that are merely discovered and placed somewhere for me to look at and think about. And there are beautiful pieces of driftwood art that fall somewhere along that infinite and growing spectrum.

Driftwood makes for such valuable and evocative art because it demands that we stand in loving wonder with the original Artist. A piece of driftwood catches my eye, and, when I'm wise enough and faithful enough to go with the notion that it caught my eye because God meant for me to pay attention to it, I start thinking about elements and forces, and 30 minutes later I find myself still staring at it and feeling more loved and safer in the beautiful order of God's world.

Roberta Flack turned out driftwood art, and the element ... or force ... no, element and force at its core was her God-given voice. You hear it in fantastic, heavily crafted lyrics like "Killing Me Softly with His Love," of course. But I'll be darned if I don't think I love it even more in some of the simplest, less-adorned artifacts from her catalog. I'll give you one example.

For my money, you really can't beat the love-song chorus of this Thom Bell/Linda Creed composition made famous by this Stylistics: 

You are everything

And everything is you

Says it all, doesn't it? My word, it's a fortunate blessing to have ever been completely enveloped in that feeling of romantic love. Thank you, God, for giving us romantic love. 

Now I love the Stylistics' hit version of "You Are Everything," but get a load of this ...

We here at the HP don’t often go NC-17 with our posts, but, boys, when Roberta Flack sings the chorus on "You Are Everything," that is an adult woman making love. And it is a beautiful thing, thank God. Roberta Flack's "You Are Everything" should be a whole chapter in a textbook for pre-marriage counseling.

Indeed, Roberta Flack was just perfect for the most intimate of love songs. Her naked voice was straight out of the Garden of Eden, and time and time and time again she sang beautifully of her delight in God's gift of sex.

Beautifully and--here's the other key thing--without embarrassment and in the pop mainstream, no less. Roberta Flack wasn't some obscure jazz singer; she was on the radio in the car with our parents. There was nothing tawdry or dark about the best of Roberta Flack's performances of intimate love songs. Certainly, she didn't seem embarrassed about any of it, and why should she be? I had a creative-writing teacher at Western in the 1980s who challenged us to write a short story based in a world in which sex wasn't and never had been a taboo. Of course, I failed miserably. Almost all of us did. It was almost unimaginable.

But Roberta Flack imagined, kept clear-headed on her artistic intent and let it flow honestly. And that artistic confidence and satisfaction seemed to render her a totally disarming and unaffected character. Look how clearly Dick Cavett enjoyed talking with her ...

And look how clearly Johnny Carson enjoyed talking with her ...

And David Letterman enjoyed talking with her ...

And Oprah Winfrey enjoyed talking with her ...

And Rosie O'Donnell ...

Not much of this so far has been exactly about Generation X, but, to me, Roberta Flack's influence is obvious across our people and our time.

Even beyond Delilah and the FM "Quiet Storm" genre for which Roberta Flack is rightly hailed as a pioneer, I see far-flung and deeply embedded influence across so many of my favorite aspects of Generation X. There is the clear influence on art and artists important to me. (I’m pretty sure we don't get, for example, the absolute triumph of The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill without Roberta Flack, and I’m somewhat sure we don't get Lisa Bonet's challenging portrayal of Marie DeSalle in High Fidelity without Roberta Flack.) 

But there's something more about the confidence, openness and faith of Roberta Flack--evidenced inside and outside her art--that seems informative to my favorite things of Generation X. As much as I am a cherry-picking nostalgist, I am not desirous of the America or world before Roberta Flack rode down the river into our consciousness. I don't want to go back, and, in spite of current events, I (still) don't think most of us do or that we ultimately will.

Here's one last thing I want to say about Roberta Flack: Do you know where she lived most of her adult life? I didn't until reading the obituaries and tributes of the last week.

The answer is New York's Dakota apartment building, next door to Yoko Ono. She moved in before John Lennon was murdered outside in 1980, and she was such a close friend of his mom's that Sean Lennon referred to her as "Aunt Roberta." The kitchens of their apartments connected. Roberta Flack didn't move out of the Dakota until 2018, only five years before Yoko Ono did. 

Isn't that fact lovely and interesting to stare at? To think about for 30 minutes or so? Makes me feel good and rightly oriented to think about it.

Thank you, God, for Roberta Flack, and thank you, God, for old, loyal friends. 

Defining Generation X: David Lynch

 When we talk about generational influencers timing is everything.  Lynch came out with his first film in 1977.  Generation X was too young really for Eraserhead, but within a few years it would be playing across the country in dollar theaters in college towns as Gen X was heading to college.  By 1986 Gen X was well established in college and Blue Velvet hit the theaters.  It was an instant cult classic.  

Then of course there is Twin Peaks which ran for two seasons 1990-1991.  This came out at a time when Gen Xers were the driving force for the media market and again it became a cult classic and had a big influence.  I have heard people like Gen X director, Kevin Smith, talk about the influence Twin Peaks had on him, when he got his own chance to make a TV show, Reaper.  There is a reason that Smith chose Ray Wise, Leland from Twin Peaks, to play the Devil.  

Why you might ask was Lynch so important for Gen X?  

In film Lynch explored life in a very different way.  It is dark.  It is immoral.  It is frightening.  What we see on the surface is fake.  These aren't necessarily new ideas in film, but Lynch approached them in a way that felt so very different. 

Take the main character in Blue Velvet.  He's a nice guy, from a small town.  He's pitted against Frank who is definitely not a nice guys, abusive, crazy, and violent.  Dorothy meanwhile is this beautiful victim who seems scared and innocent and needs saving from Frank.  Then there is Sandy.  Sandy is young and innocent, but even she is drawn into the darkness of the world.  Her father is a cop and she's seems to be so aware of the violence and danger of the world and just accepts it as the world we live in.  She dreams of something better, dreams of a world where love saves the world.  

Of course the reality that Lynch shows us is that the differences between Jeffrey and Frank are not as great as they seem.  Dorothy is a victim, but certainly not innocent and someone who has become so corrupted by the violence from Frank that she craves it.  Sandy, well Sandy is Sandy.  And this is a theme that often runs through Lynch's work.  In this world we can be corrupted or we can believe in a greater thing, love.  That love is the only thing that can keep us safe.  

This is a very important message when it comes to Gen X.  This idea of people being so easily corrupted, the idea of how easily, even for someone like Sandy, they can look at this and just see it as part of the world we live in and nothing that can be changed, not until the Robins come.  

These are of course the main themes that run through Twin Peaks as well.  We find ourselves rooting for the innocents to escape this dark world, but it feels so hopeless.  Lynch does one thing in Twin Peaks that I don't know anyone has ever done better and that is to express just how scary real violence and real insanity are.  This is also another theme of Lynch's, but he never wants you to forget that murder is an awful and violent act.  Amazingly the clip below actually aired on television at a time when things were greatly censored.  

The violence is scary, insanity is frightening, we are all really just one small nudge away from falling down this rabbit hole of being controlled by Bob.  

This gets us to what may be the best move that Lynch ever made The Straight Story in 1999.  Yes Lynch was hired by Disney to make a rated G movie based on a real life story about a guy who road his lawn mower across Iowa to visit his sick brother.  

If you haven't seen it, watch it.  It is an incredibly powerful movie and Lynch forced to stay out of dream space deals with these same topics but in a way that is so rooted to reality it feels less scary and more sad.  

There is one scene in particular that I'll share below that really shows what an artistic master Lynch was.  From the shots, to the music, to the acting.  All of it is simply amazing. 

Thank God they hired Lynch to make this film.  What other director and writer would have looked at this story and decided this was the way to tell it.  The question Lynch is asking is why would a man ride his mower across Iowa rather than get a ride from someone or take the bus.  We get to know Alvin Straight along this journey and I think we understand exactly why he would ride his mower.  

But note in the scene I linked to here we are still dealing with some of these same themes.  The world is not a nice place.  Look at what happened to Rose.  She's a true innocent and look at what the world did to her.  

This is not a piece about Lynch and his work as a director, but it is about how he influence Gen X and to me his greatest contribution is the exposure of just how dark and dangerous our world can be, and just how close all are to walking down that path ourselves.  

I believe this is something that really hit home with a lot of Gen Xers and one reason why Lynch is an important artist in defining generation X.  

Rest In Peace, John W. Allen (1934 - 2018)

So when the Cuba Cubs won the Kentucky High School Athletic Association boys' basketball championship in 1952, they advanced to the state tournament by beating the Wickliffe Blue Tigers, 54-42, in the final of the First Region tournament at Murray College. Per (indispensable) Bob Mays, here were the scores leading up to that championship:

-- Symsonia Rough Riders 42, Brewers Redmen 38 (quarterfinals)
-- Cuba 74, Clinton Central Red Devils 39
-- Wickliffe 62, Bandana 47
-- Bardwell Indians 71, Sharpe Green Devils 58
-- Cuba 61, Symsonia 34 (semifinals)
-- Wickliffe 74, Bardwell 62

Wickliffe's first-round win over Bandana followed a 63-55 win over the same team in the District 2 tournament championship at Paducah Tilghman High. This was the "(l)ast year for Bandana, Barlow-Kevil, Ballard County, Blandville and Wickliffe (highs, as) they became known as Ballard Memorial the next year," per (again) (really, super) Bob Mays.

One of the players on the Bandana team was John W. Allen, a boy originally from Guthrie, all the way over in Todd County. And he must've been pretty good, because then he went on to play three seasons for the Paducah Junior College Indians (including one for future trail-blazing Vanderbilt University coach Roy Skinner). He completed his degree at East Texas State Teachers College, and then he moved back home to western Kentucky and coached the Ballard Memorial Bombers (it appears he might've been an assistant coach). 

By 1957, things were coming together for the consolidated Bombers of Ballard County. The team failed to win even a single Second District tournament game in its first four seasons of existence. In 1957, however, it played Tilghman to triple overtime before losing, 67-65, in the district final, and advanced to the semifinals in the First Region. Things were looking up in La Center.

But life happens. Back when he was in Texas, John W. Allen had met a woman, Wanda Boyd. In 1957, they married, and, that fall, John W. Allen began a 35-year career of coaching and teaching in Texas high schools. He never moved back. Mr. and Mrs. Allen had children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren in Texas, and he embraced the new teams of his adopted home--the Dallas Cowboys, launched in 1960, and Texas Rangers, arriving in 1971--while staying true to his old-standby University of Kentucky Wildcats.

Mr. Allen died a week ago today. He was 83. Rest in peace.

Oh, Kentucky

Rest in peace, Coach Noles, who once tripled as a 19-year-old member of the "KITTY" League Union City (Tennessee) Greyhounds, who went to spring training with the 1953 Washington Senators, who served in the U.S. Army in the aftermath of the Korean War, who taught civics and history at West Paducah Heath High School for more than 30 years and who coached the Lady Pirates to the 1980 Region 1 girls' basketball championship.

Oh, Kentucky

I had never seen this picture of Jim McDaniels with his Italian pro team, Snaidero Udine, in 1974-75. Once again, rest in peace, "Big Mac:" I worked with Jim at Jim Johnson Pontiac nearly 21 years ago. I was blessed with my first granddaughter while we worked together. He would bring all his customers to my office to see a picture of the new baby. Will always remember him holding her and his hand was bigger than her back. He called her "the baby" and we taught her to call him "Uncle Jim". Sweet memories. ... I was at Diddle area for a Murray game when he did the "illegal" dunk. Watched Big Mac beat UK. And almost watched a national champion. Great memories! ... Talk to Jim a lot when I worked at CDS drug store. He was always very nice he will be missed. ... Last time we talked he told me about nearly drowning on our Sr. Trip in a swimming pool somewhere we were. Said Coach Cline saved his life. I'd never known that story before. ... We grew up together, went to the same 3 room school, and later the same high school. I'll treasure those memories. May God give you peace in your grief. ... I will miss him coming to Wendy's getting he's food when I work there Going to miss you he was so nice when he came in we talk the longest on my break break b over prayers are with the family he was a Great friend ... When we were in school, he always sat behind me. Back then we had to set in abc order. He would have to put one leg on one side of my desk and the other on the other side. His feet was always in front of my desk. Every time I had to get out of my desk, he would have to stand up to let me out. That is if he thought I needed to get out. if not I had to set there. I left Scottsville after graduation but still kept up with his career. I was living in Florida and believe it was then that our 25th reunion came around. I was battling cancer and could not come. Somehow he found out and sent me a very nice letter and a picture of him and Jabar. Said I hear he is your favorite. After I moved back home I ran into him at Dumplings. Was surprised he knew me ( I don't look the same as high school). He gave me his number and told me to keep him informed when the group was getting together for one of our breakfast. I did and he and his lovely wife came. Was really happy to see how happy they were. ...

I really would like to know who donated a book to the Livingston County Historical Society and what the local education board's solar-panel plans are.

Guthrie Strong.

The Kentucky Emergency Management Association hails the Lewis County judge-executive for his work in getting that county "Storm Ready."

Graves County has mobilized its future workforce in the campaign to bring Mazda and Toyota manufacturing there.

Covington is incentivizing small businesses like crazy. I am particularly interested in the new restaurant named after Walt "Smoke" Justis of the 1913 Federal League Covington Blue Sox.

Larry Rowell in The Casey County News details the local food-insecurity situation.

Here's a pretty Maira Ansari feature for WAVE 3 on an Elizabethtown boy being made able to hear for the first time.

I enjoyed this Melinda J. Overstreet/Glasgow Daily Times piece on the local Kiwanians' 50 years of service, but I was hoping it would also have the date of the Glasgow Christmas parade.

Seen on C-SPAN2: U.S. Senate votes to table (kill) Senator @RandPaul's amendment to repeal AUMFs for Iraq & Afghanistan wars, 61-36. pic.twitter.com/cZFkyu4Ux0

— CSPAN (@cspan) September 13, 2017

Yes, we did have a 64-percent decline in the percentage of Kentucky's population without health insurance since 2013. (Gov. Bevin: Hold my beer.)

Alexandria is getting a new library!

Oldham County made The New York Times!

Paducah made Snopes!

Oh, Kentucky

Rest in peace, Jack E. Bradbury, Air Force lieutenant colonel who served with the Joint Chiefs, doctor of education who taught teachers in Florida after he retired the first time, Habitat for Humanity "Can Man" after he retired the second time and moved to Madisonville, husband of Virginia for 68 years until she died in 2011 and grand marshal of the 2007 Madisonville Kiwanis Christmas parade.

Adairville on Dec. 3 is planning to put on its FIRST Christmas parade! “Light up your car, wagon, truck, lawn mower, atv, boat, whatever and be a part of this … You don’t have to get elaborate, just festive.”

More Christmas parades: Owensboro (Messenger-Inquirer reports the cold didn't deter the crowd), Nov. 19; Ashland (3,500 participants in 10 divisions), Nov. 22; Sebree, Nov. 26; Bardstown, Dec. 1; Maysville, Monticello and Richmond, Dec. 2; Berea, Bowling Green, Glasgow, Harlan, Henderson, Madisonville, Paris, Somerset and Winchester, Dec. 3; Boyce, Owenton and Schochoh, Dec. 4, and Augusta (with fireworks), Cave City, Elkton, Hopkinsville and Pikeville, Dec. 10.

It's fun to imagine this German's trip to Hodgenville and Owensboro a couple of months before the Bicentennial (Kentucky for sale): 

Good jobs news from Hopkinsville.

Elizabethtown's Towne Mall McDonald's is on the comeback trail, and Culver's, Panda Express and Starbucks may be on their way.

Tim Hortons appears to be coming to Cold Spring and Erlanger.

Edmonson County's new senior food pantry is open, and it looks great!

The Kentucky Chamber of Commerce president is coming to Madisonville next month to preview the 2017 (real) legislature.

Elkton is planning to see off an 18-term/36-year city councilperson. "Light refreshments will be served."

Here (between Hector and Eriline, I think) is about where it apparently gets really bad:

There's a darkness on the edge of Bardstown. (Mister State Trooper ...)

Oh, Kentucky

I worked hard with Bill Ford to keep the Lincoln plant in Kentucky. I owed it to the great State of Kentucky for their confidence in me!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 18, 2016

You decide.

Good jobs news from London ("yet another") and Louisville.

The Middlesboro Daily News and Harlan Daily Enterprise have a new publisher, and he's "from the area." The Courier-Journal has a new executive editor, and he's from Wisconsin.

Christmas parades: Owensboro (here's the route), Nov. 19; Ashland, Nov. 22; Sebree, Nov. 26; Bardstown, Dec. 1; Maysville, Monticello and Richmond, Dec. 2; Berea, Bowling Green, Glasgow, Madisonville, Paris, Somerset and Winchester, Dec. 3; Boyce and Owenton, Dec. 4, and Cave City, Elkton, Hopkinsville and Pikeville, Dec. 10.

New life at First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Owensboro.

"In what ways do you currently connect with fellow feminist social change artists? (Check all that apply)."

Fifty years of the Kentucky Civil Rights Act (and the Bardstown/Nelson County human-rights ordinance).

Kentucky for sale: "Daniel Boone becomes a Colonel of Kentucky," courtesy of Vice President Barkley.

Remember "Grayson's Inn?" Or "Buckskin Bev's"? How about "Guys & Dolls" or "Reflections on the Lake?" Well, all of them are becoming a Cracker Barrel.

An alert Facebook user in New York tipped off the Bank of Edmonson County and The Edmonson Voice to unwitting role in a scam.

Rest in peace, Vonda Robinson, whose "dying words to me was to make sure we got the building checked out;" prayers for the employees of the Floyd County courthouse, and well done, Mary Meadows of the Floyd County Chronicle.

Rest in Peace, Leonard Cohen, Nina Simone and the Rest of Them

Oh, Kentucky

Rest in peace, Dennis Fradin (1945-2012), who was not from Kentucky and “whose works were lauded for both their meticulous research and accessibility to young readers, and he delved into subjects ranging from natural disasters (Earthquakes: Witness to Disaster) to the American Revolution (Samuel Adams: The Father of American Independence, The Boston Tea Party and Let It Begin Here! Lexington & Concord: First Battles of the American Revolution),” per the Chicago Tribune. 

Kentucky for sale.

The 7-1 Belfry High School Pirates, the three-time defending Class 3A Kentucky High School Athletic Association football champs, host Pike County Central tonight, and it'll be Game 3,001 (or so) for the school's stats guy of 38 years, Bennett West.

Tom T. Hall could come out of retirement and do an album called, "The Eggner's Ferry Bridge." Each song could be about some real or imagined event involving the bridge, and certainly this one, from 1940, would be the subject of one of the tunes.

A study indicates about half of Kentucky's kids have tooth problems.

Hardin County apparently can't get enough of Beef O'Brady's, and the feeling's mutual.

More Kentuckians than ever are registered to vote. More than 100,000 new voters--including 46,328 registering Republican and 44,712 registering Democrat--are now on the rolls.

The Sisters of Charity of Nazareth have been fasting and praying for peace Tuesdays through Election Day since the summer.

The state supreme court struck down Lexington's and Louisville's minimum-wage hikes.

Good jobs news from Louisville.

The state's first home for woman veterans is open, in Lexington.

Kentucky State University, Frankfort Independent Schools and a North Carolina foundation are working together to boost STEM participation among African-American boys.

Survey says ..., in Cadiz.

Debt-free, since 2014 in Lyon County.

Here are the stories that made our front page pic.twitter.com/likibCY82X

— Kentucky New Era (@KentuckyNewEra) October 21, 2016

The Freakin' (Labor Day) Weekend (1970)

Getting a late start on the holiday (1970) weekend. Just got back in from Scranton.

I would've been interested in getting out to see the first Friday night of high-school football, as Mount Sterling, Elizabethtown and Louisville Saint Xavier seek to defend their KHSAA titles.

Caldwell County, apparently, won't be challenging for a crown ...

There are rarely movies out these days that interest me, but here's one ...

There's plenty of other good stuff happening around this Labor Day weekend that I would typically be interested in getting out for ...

But, this weekend, I'll probably stick close to home, flip through the new Sports Illustrated, and read about my Dolphins ...

Tex Maule has a feature on our new coach ...

And the new team media guide arrived this week ...

I'm not going to trust any takeaways from tonight's exhibition, however ...

Sonny Jurgensen and the rest of the Redskins are going to be distracted. Right after the game, they're going to be flying back north for a funeral ...

Rest in Peace, Pat Summitt (1952-2016)

On the first day of practice for the 1999-2000 college-basketball season, I was in Knoxville, Tenn., to watch the University of Tennessee Lady Volunteers. The Lady Vols were coming off a season in which they had won 31 of the 34 games they played in, and you'd think that performance would be something to be happy about. But you'd be wrong about the 1999-2000 Lady Vols and especially their Hall of Fame coach, Pat Summitt, because Tennessee had won three national championships in a row before winning 31 or 34 but losing out in the previous tournament.

Practice has been going on for about 20 minutes, and a brand-new freshman Lady Vol passes the ball to one of her teammates. The teammate is on the run toward the basket, but she has to break stride to reach back and catch the pass.

"Erica! Erica! Erica!" Coach Summitt thunders, running onto the court from the sideline, yelling at the player who had passed the ball ("Erica" was not the real name of the freshman, who actually turned out to be a really, really great player, but I'm still not going to publicly call out the poor woman for a totally understandable lapse of concentration when she was 18 years old).

"Deliver the pass so that the receiver can be successful with the ball!”

Good advice in any job. Rest in peace, Coach Patricia Sue (Head) Summitt of Clarksville, Tennessee.

First, This

Recorded one week before he died ...

Rest in Peace, Mike Phillips

This is way late in being posted, but this is too sweet to let pass:

Pallbearers will be James Lee, Rick Robey, Jack Givens, Tripp Ramsey, Jay Shidler, Tim Stephens, and Fred Cowan. Honorary pallbearers will be Scott Courts, Truman Clayton, Lavon Williams, Jim Andrews, Mike Murphy, Toby Sosby, Kyle Macy, Chris Gettlefinger, Don Sullivan, Chuck Alexinas, Rob Bolton, Larry Johnson, Marion Haskins, and Duane Casey.

Rest in peace, Mike Phillips of Madisonville and our beloved 1978 national champions.

Rest In Peace, Coach Fox (1930-2015)

The "HOME OF THE 1967 KENTUCKY HIGH SCHOOL BASKETBALL CHAMPIONS" is mourning the passing in Wauchula, Fla, of Dr. Robert B. Fox, "often referred to as the Rick Pitino of the late 60's," coach of what Adolph Rupp called "the best high school press I've ever seen" and "a whirling dynamo on the bench."

"If you don’t believe it, watch the next time you see a Jacket game," Elmer Kelly once opined on WFMW AM 730 in Madisonville. "There’s not a boy on the floor who works harder. He is up and down, in and out, over and under every movement on the boards, and must be ready for a strait jacket when the final whistle is blown. Whatever it is that courses through Fox’s veins should be extracted and bottled. The vitamin industry would have its toughest competitor."

Rest in peace, Coach Fox, an Earlington native who in 1967 got the Yellowjackets a championship, got a car and got out. He will not be soon forgotten in his hometown.