by Wendy
It’s been many years since I was in Louisville on the first Saturday of May, otherwise known as Kentucky Derby Day. But I celebrate the event every year.
You’ve no doubt seen the pomp and pageantry on the news. Southern belles with glamorous hats on head and mint juleps in hand, gents in seersucker and sunglasses, dignified horses striding sometimes proudly sometimes flippantly toward their post position. This is fabulous, but there are other Derby Day experiences. I don’t need to eat a slice of Derby pie or drink bourbon to vividly recall times past, but it certainly doesn’t hurt either.
The lamest Derby Day was the first spent away from Kentucky. I was a student living at the International House in Chicago. Usually residents were up for anything decadent and depraved, as the writer and raconteur Hunter S. Thompson, Louisville native, described Derby in a notorious 1970 article. Yet Saturday afternoons were prime hours for schoolwork, and there was a lot to do before the term ended in June. I walked downstairs to the large communal television set a few minutes before the race, only to discover others watching Animal House. I ran back up to my room listen to the most exciting two minutes in sports on my radio and sip bourbon from my personal stash before hitting the books again, homesick.
The weirdest Derby Day was in high school, when I went to the Churchill Downs infield with my sister April and some friends – a rite of passage for many Kentucky youth. Crowds pour through an underground tunnel to the open-air center of the track, lugging chairs and blankets and umbrellas and possibly beer smuggled beneath potato salad. It’s a rowdy festival that can deteriorate at any moment and you do your best to stay out of trouble. As the humid sun turned to rain, people danced and rolled around in the mud. Walking demanded concentration to avoid litter, lurching drunks, teens scamming mint juleps or stealing ice cream from vendors. Our pal with the nervous stomach retreated under a plastic tarp with the Pepto-Bismo bottle she always carried in her purse – while a tipsy guy stood nearby chanting “Pepto! Pepto! Pepto!” I found out later another friend of mine was arrested for throwing a strawberry…that hit a policeman.
The best Derby Days were spent as a child at my Great-Grandparents’ house not far from Churchill Downs. My Italian Great-Grandfather was a former jockey, small in stature and with the kindest smile. He and my Great-Grandmother threw an annual Derby party for the family with lots of food and jackpot drawings for the winning horse. I loved playing kickball in the small backyard with my sisters and cousins – careful not to run through Paw Paw’s garden and appointing the giant Virgin Mary statue as home base. As evening approached we’d visit a neighbor’s lawn with a prime view of the street theatre that is Derby Day traffic. We ate popsicles on the grass and watched cars full of passengers driving home. Some were jubilant with the day’s good fortune, others dejected and sometimes belligerent from bad luck, bad choices or both.
An unexpected place to enjoy Derby Day has been New Jersey, during visits with my parents-in-law. Kentucky and New Jersey should form an alliance. Both love horses and farms. Both have distinct accents. Both battle unfair stereotypes. I feel a kinship with New Jersey. So if we’re there the first Saturday of May, Jack and I watch the Run for the Roses with family and friends who are enthusiastic about the sport. We prefer these gatherings to the time we were in Atlantic City and had to explain why we wanted to see a horse race to an accomodating but clueless bartender. My mother-in-law asked for a mint julep. The bartender replied, “A what?” We chose a different drink. Mint juleps must be made correctly, wherever you find yourself on Derby Day.