Bourbon

Cincinnati. Wow, what a city! Who knew? Well, nobody, judging by a straw poll of dim and dozy friends, most of whom didn’t even know where it was. One was genuinely convinced that Cincinnati was in either Sardinia or Sicily but couldn’t confidently say which. Another vaguely recollected that trash TV host Jerry Springer had once been its mayor and that Cincinnati was most definitely in Ohio: ‘You know, down by Georgia, Alabama and, um, Nevada.’ A third had heard that Vice-President J.D. Vance lives in the city, and that abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe once had. All Simon knew was that it was home to consumer goods firm Procter & Gamble.

My wife Amber and I returned home, to the heart of where it all began for me – the Bluegrass. A day at the races at Keeneland felt like stepping into a painting: the autumn sun catching the coats of the Thoroughbreds, the crowd humming with excitement. The next night, we watched on as the Kentucky Wildcats nearly toppled Texas under the lights at Kroger Field, the air electric with hope. But it was afterward, on the backroads, that Kentucky spoke loudest. Horses grazed behind old stone fences; the sweet, yeasty scent of mash rolled out of the distilleries that dot the countryside. In those quiet miles, I remembered how deeply I love this place and how fiercely I’ll defend her bounty, both her people and her goods.

The Indians, as we innocently called them in the days of my youth, put their name to it: “Indian Corn.” Somehow, “Native American” or “First Peoples Corn” just doesn’t do it, so here let us observe this now-verboten usage. Technically, Indian Corn (known as calico or dent corn too, for its coloration and dents in the kernels) is one variety of maize, first cultivated, they say, in Mexico thousands of years ago. Columbus, who called the natives “Indians” because he was looking for India, brought back seeds to Europe in the 1490s; they did not take. The Plymouth colonists in the 1620s, from whose early travails the American feast of Thanksgiving emerged, grew Indian corn courtesy of the local Wampanoag tribe. It no doubt helped them survive when the English peas ran out.

Each July, the American Motorcyclist Association — the policy advocacy organization for motorcycle riders — holds Vintage Motorcycle Days, a weekend-long celebration of old bikes. My father and I attend in whichever years the work and family commitments of summer allow for a momentary escape. Vintage Days is indeed an escape from all of these things, and in many ways, from the normalcy of polite society. This is because the AMA, an organization which normally stresses safe and courteous riding, allows Vintage Days attendees to cut loose. The event is held at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, a race track with a large campus that allows for a swap meet, seminars, campgrounds, bike shows and all disciplines of dirt and road racing. Those are only the organized activities, however.