By Jonathan Gray
Another Kentucky Derby Festival is underway as the smoke clears from Saturday night’s Thunder Over Louisville.
The festival is a two week event that leads up to the most exciting two minutes in sports, the Kentucky Derby at Louisville’s own Churchill Downs.
Although Thunder Over Louisville gets its name from the the kick-off of the event, a spectacular fireworks show Saturday night, the day has much more to offer.
Throughout the entire day the waterfront is alive with activity of locals and out-of-towners alike. Mobile home residents from around the state gather to enjoy corn dogs, sausages, turkey legs and any number of other festival-style foods.
At least some 500 children and their parents gathered to run amok and splash passersby at the Waterfront Park fountain. These shirtless, toothless, out-of-control mongrels ignored all rules of law and order, leaving a trail of destruction and heartache in their paths. The children were also somewhat haphazard.
The masses also gathered along the waterfront to watch an airshow, the fourth largest of its kind, over the Ohio River. This included antique fighter planes flying at each other and moving at the last possible moment, a riveting experience for child and adult alike.
Another great feature of the day is camping on any available piece of grass in the city. These people are experiencing the great outdoors just as it should be, in an RV next to the Humana building. Next year I plan on having my little slice of nature at Waterfront Park between the drunken redneck and the other drunken redneck.
A sobering reminder of the times we live in came in the form of National Guardsmen walking throughout the streets. These noble crusaders protected Louisville from the al-Qaeda network of terrorists who would love to strike a death blow at the heart of American culture, Thunder Over Louisville. Without this, the city could have been vulnerable to an attack of the most heinous fashion, a crop duster slamming into the Aegon Tower, toppling the economic center of downtown Louisville.
This leads us to the most disgusting aspect of the entire day: patriotism. American flags were the item of the day and everyone at the festival seemed to love their nation, despite the fact most couldn’t name one quarter of the states in it. This sort of patriotism is as false as the tans on people who adhere to it, but is a necessity at any gathering of people who consider this the cultural experience of a lifetime.
The most exciting moment of the entire day was the fireworks extravaganza after sundown. I saw this perched from my lofty tower on top of Threlkeld Hall, but many braved the crowds to see the show up close. For those people, I pray that you packed your next dozen meals, because, with traffic, you won’t make it past St. Catherine’s until at least Wednesday afternoon.
Jonathan Gray is a freshman political science major and the assistant news editor of The Louisville Cardinal.
