LOUISVILLE, KY.—The rewards of travel are found in a warm light.
Last summer while driving back from Nashville, Tn., I stopped in Kentucky to see a minor league Louisville Bats baseball game. Around the third inning, an African woman in a bright yellow cotton kitenge (sarong) walked down my aisle. She was selling homemade cookies from a Kibo basket that she balanced on the top of her head. This was pretty great. She was effusive, smiling, and stopped for a photo with every fan.
I learned that Elizabeth Kizito was “The Cookie Lady.”
When this season’s Bats schedule was announced, my Louisville based friend John Hughes sent me a notice [...]
Photo courtesy of the National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum
MILWAUKEE–Phil Sklar once had a successful career in corporate finance.
He was assistant finance director for the $500 million Engineered Solutions Segment at Actuant Corporation in Menomonee Falls, Wis. One day he quit his job to become co-founder and CEO of the National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum, which opened February 1 in Milwaukee.
I bet heads spun at that exit interview.
Sklar, 35, and museum co-founder Brad Novak, also 35, have known each other since middle school in Rockford, Ill. Another huge bobblehead collector, [...]
WHITING, IN.—-Life is like a mascot.
You have to look beneath the surface.
The new Mascot Hall of Fame, 1851 Front St, in Whiting is ripe with punchlines. Right off the bat, it’s a mascot museum for North American professional and collegiate sports, with more than a hundred items.
And it is on the industrial shores of Lake Michigan in Whiting (pop. 4, 900), two miles from the south side of Chicago. Whiting hosts an annual Pierogi Fest at the end of July. Local ladies parade around in babushkas and housecoats and there are mascots Mr. Pierogi and Miss Paczki.
The museum’s executive director is Orestes Hernandez. His parents fled [...]
Winter in North Mississippi.
NESBIT, Ms.—The best rock n’ roll is dangerous so the tip off you are on the best rock museum tour ever is the dozens of knife marks on the inside bedroom door of the Jerry Lee Lewis Ranch in rural Nesbit, about 20 miles south of Memphis.
And then there are the brass bullet casings on the back porch of the two-story brick house. I’m part of a mid-January tour group with two other Lewis fans so there are enough casings to grab for souvenirs.
The 45-minute tour is led by Jerry Lee Lewis III. He doesn’t seem to mind us picking up the blasts from the past.
The small $45 private tours are by appointment [...]
