Commonwealth of Temples...

Hey everybody, let's play this game. How many temples--sacred or profane, recognized as such or not--are close to your house? Here's a few you can visit when you come visit us.

Look at the picture on the upper left of this page. That's the shrine devoted to Lincoln's birthplace. I've thought this place was completely bizarre since my first school trip there probaby 25 years ago. It's a Greco-Roman revivalist temple in the middle of a farm in Larue County! And nobody thinks that's weird!

Go to this site and click on Creelsboro Arch, which is known locally in Adair and Russel Counties as Rockhouse Bottom, or the Rockhouse Church. They don't mention it, but the arch itself is consecrated as an Apostolic church. It's hard to tell from the picture, but the arch is huge, the "ceiling" is probably thirty feet from the ground. I know an easy way to the top but can't ever get anybody to go up there with me.

Back on the Dead Presidents theme, rising up out of the plains in Todd County along KY 68 is the Jefferson Davis Memorial, a 351 foot tall obelisk dedicated to the memory of the first and only President of the CSA. (Remember, at this nation's darkest hour, the people on both sides saw fit to put Kentuckians in charge of their destinies). People used to get up to some seriously weird and evil shit at the monument before the Commonwealth took it over--thankfully it's no longer the site of the annual Ms. White Kentucky Pageant. If it makes you feel any better, Todd County is also the birthplace of Robert Penn Warren, first Poet Laureate of the United States.