And a bit on Ashland, too, from the bank building to Rico Suave. The writer of Ashland’s Wikipedia page, we’ll call her Marcia, writes with a similar sense of dejection. Ashland’s story is also a story of glory days, glory days that stretched only a little bit farther into history. There, still, is the steel mill, now owned by the Japanese and half the staff moved to Ohio, and there, still, is the Ashland Oil refinery in Catlettsburg, now owned by Marathon, and there, still, is the Ashland Oil office building, the people within it moved to Lexington, and there, still, is the Ashland Bank building, the town’s tallest structure. A description of this structure is best left to Marcia: “the Ashland Bank Building, which is built to Manhattan height and style standards…serves as a reminder of what Ashland leaders hoped [Ashland] would become.” The local pride and joy, the Paramount Arts Center, is a theater built in 1931 to showcase Paramount Pictures’ new talking movies. It is the likely setting for Jack Kerouac’s brief mention in On the Road, written around 1950, which, looking back, must be regarded as prophetic: “at midnight Ashland, Kentucky, and a lonely girl under the marquee of a closed up show.” One wonders who that lonely girl was, if she’s still alive and still lonely, if she has any inkling of her 15 minutes of fame. One wonders also if she could stand as a true symbol of the town itself. Marcia litters the Wikipedia page with a list of famous Ashlanders, athletes, beauty queens, and musicians. The home of Billy Ray Cyrus is officially marked as Flatwoods, but one hears tales of him playing around in smoky parts of town, and other tales include the mother of Miley Cyrus, who went to Blazer (Ashland’s high school) and who carries the blame for Miley’s wildness. My cousin remembers Ashley Judd from the same high school, and Naomi’s mother lives on a nice estate in South Ashland. In that same neighborhood one might have seen Chuck Woolery mowing his mother’s lawn while wearing his famous Rolex. The mother of Charles Manson is missing from Marcia’s list. Also missing is the rumor that Gerardo, better known as 1990s pop sensation Rico Suave, married an Ashland girl and moved to Bellefonte. The place only admits to what it has to.
Posted on: Sat, 21 Jun 2014 13:34:26 +0000
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