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MARIO J. TORRES
Chronicle of a city
This is the time of the year when
the home of ardent and spirited horses, the special river city and the site
of the peculiar April thunder, now dressed in cold white, is missed more by
those absent. No matter if you were born or lived there for some time. It is
the same effect, perhaps misleading and deceptive, to find its defects when
you are there but to discover its real values when you are gone. It all has
to do with human being's contradictory nature of inconformity, who most of
the time do not know what they have till they lose it. And it does not mean
repentance on the part of those who left. It is just the recognition of
values that are maybe better seen from the distance.
Ali's home is a unique place whose secret only natives know and proudly
share in silence. This noble and peaceful valley of green trees, blue grass,
of slow streets and sober people, full of invariable and typical traditions,
has confidently opened its doors to the newcomers, giving them a helping
hand and teaching them its customs, habits and ways and becoming a second
homeland for many who were looking for one. The very king in his monument
feels joyful because many others, also foreign, may now accompany him as
foster children. For the stranger and the unaware, Muhammad's cradle has
much more to offer than its famous yearly Derby's.
From the great Main to the southern Okolona and from the busy Shelbyville to
the neighborhoods of the western Valley Station, the strangely beautiful and
serious Lady of Louisville, quite urban in size but small and dormant in
everyday life, tradition and thinking, is latent shelter for the helpless
and the wanderer.
MARIO J TORRES
DECEMBER 2004
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