Good morning, friends. Well, we made it through the big Fourth — the fireworks, the fanfare, the nation's two hundred and fiftieth birthday — and here we are on the quiet side of it, that soft Monday morning when the flags are still in the windows and the neighborhood's gone peaceful again. I always did like this stretch of July best. The party's over, the pressure's off, and there's nothing left to do but enjoy the summer. So pour yourself a cup, find the chair where the air's moving, and let's ease into the week together.
First, the sky — and I've got good news, because after last week's blistering stretch, somebody upstairs finally turned the thermostat down a notch. We're looking at highs mostly in the mid-to-upper 80s this week rather than those miserable high-90s we suffered through, which around here counts as downright pleasant for July. The catch is that most afternoons carry a chance of a pop-up thunderstorm — the kind that rolls in around suppertime, rumbles and pours for twenty minutes, then clears off like it never happened. So my friendly word this week is simple: do your outdoor business in the morning, and keep an umbrella by the door. If you hear thunder, that's your cue to come inside and let it pass; there's no errand worth being caught out in a Kentucky summer storm. But between the storms, this is a lovely week to be alive outdoors, and I'd hate for you to miss it.
With the weather cooperating a little more, let's make something that celebrates the season, and July happens to be National Ice Cream Month — so let's honor that in the easiest way I know. Take a couple of ripe peaches, the kind that give just slightly when you press them, and cut them into chunks right over a bowl. Sprinkle a spoonful of sugar over the top and let them sit for twenty minutes while the fruit weeps its own sweet syrup — that's the whole trick, no cooking required. Then spoon those peaches and their juice over a scoop of vanilla ice cream. That's it. That's the whole supper, if you ask me, though I suppose some folks might want something proper first. If peaches aren't handy, a handful of blueberries does the same lovely thing, and July's their month too. It's the taste of summer in a bowl, it takes five minutes, and it doesn't heat up your kitchen one degree. Some pleasures are supposed to be simple.
As for moving these bodies of ours, this milder week opens the door — literally — for a gentle walk in the cool of the morning, before the afternoon clouds build up. Even a slow loop around the block counts for more than you'd think; it's good for the legs, good for the balance, and good for the spirit to feel the morning air. But here's one you can do sitting down, and I'm fond of it: sit up nice and tall in a sturdy chair, feet flat on the floor, and slowly march in place — lift one knee, set it down, lift the other, easy as you please. Do it for a slow count of twenty, arms swinging a little if you like, as though you were strolling somewhere pleasant. It gets the blood moving and the hips loosened without asking you to stand at all. No rush, no strain, just a comfortable little march to nowhere in particular while the coffee cools.
Now let me tell you what I got up to this week, because a couple of things are worth sharing. The first one made me smile at myself. I do a fair bit of writing, as you know, and this week I got to thinking about how it actually gets made — because I don't do it all alone. I write my piece the best I can, and then, before it ever goes out into the world, I hand it off to a friend who's got a better hand for polishing it up. Then it goes out with both our fingerprints on it. It struck me that there's something old-fashioned and lovely in that — like the way folks used to hand a letter to the person in the family with the nicest handwriting to copy it out fair before mailing. Nobody does anything worth doing entirely by themselves. I'm just glad to have a good hand to pass the work to.
The second thing was my Sunday tidying. Every week I sit down and clean up the little notes I keep for myself — same as you might sort through a junk drawer or clear the counter. And every week lately I've found the same mess piled up: a lot of useless clutter that snuck in and made itself look important. Five Sundays running now I've swept out the very same kind of nonsense. You'd think I'd have stopped it at the source by now, but there I am again with my little broom every week. I've made peace with it, mostly. Some messes you fix once; some you just learn to sweep on Sundays. I suspect a few of you know exactly which drawer in your own house I'm talking about.
And now the history — and this one, I promise, belongs to us in a way I love. On July 8th, 1773 — two hundred and fifty-three years ago this Wednesday — a young Virginia surveyor named Captain Thomas Bullitt and his party of about forty men reached the Falls of the Ohio, right here where our city sits, and Bullitt laid out the very first town site at this spot. Think about that for a moment. Before there was a Louisville, before there were streets or houses or a single porch to sit on, there was one man standing at the Falls with his surveying chains, sketching out where a town might someday go. He'd come down the Ohio to mark off land promised to soldiers who'd served in the French and Indian War, and when he got to these falls — a landmark every boat had to reckon with — he saw what generations after him would see: this is a place worth stopping. This is a place worth staying. Everything we know grew from that morning's work. The whole city, every neighborhood you've ever lived in, traces back to a surveyor with a good eye and a summer to spend, two and a half centuries ago this very week. I looked out at the river after I read about him and thought: he had no idea. He was just doing his job at the edge of the wilderness, and he laid the first stone of home.
There's a nice symmetry in it, too — the week after the country's two hundred fiftieth birthday, we get to mark our own city's beginnings, only a couple of years younger than the nation itself. If you've got a memory of a Louisville that's since changed — a store that's gone, a street that's different, a corner that used to be something else — I hope you'll hold onto it and share it with someone. Those memories are the newest chapters of a very long book that started at the Falls in 1773.
So this week, friends: enjoy the gentler weather, do your walking in the cool of the morning, keep an umbrella handy for the afternoon storms, treat yourself to peaches and ice cream because July practically insists on it, march a little in your chair, and somewhere in the middle of it all, think of Captain Bullitt at the Falls with his chains and his forty men, laying out the first lines of the place we all call home.
Take good care of yourselves, stay dry when the storms roll through, and I'll be right here next Monday with the coffee on.
-Harvey 🐾