The Louisville Lip: My Town’s Founding Father

Posted: June 10th, 2016 | Filed under: Culture | No Comments »

aliimagesThe Louisville Lip.

That’s what the brash Olympic champ come Heavyweight contender from his hometown, our hometown, was called.

It was meant as a pejorative.

Truth: Muhammed Ali née Cassius Clay was Louisville’s true Founding Father.

When his pugilistic prowess and propensity for poetry and conversion to Muslim and Conscientious Objector stand made him a figure of renown and ridicule in the early 1960s, Louisville, his hometown, our hometown, was a sleepy Southern burg.

We were content to open our doors to the well heeled once a year, the first weekend in May.

And just as content to be left alone the rest of the time.

We made baseball bats. Ted Williams once came to visit to oversee the crafting of his.

The town Orchestra was noted, at least in the niche world it inhabited, for its recordings of contemporary classical music.

And, well, there wasn’t much else.

Okay, there had been a couple of NCAA semi-final, final weekends here, but they were so under the radar, they were shown on tape delay. Actually, only the title tilt. It wouldn’t be known as the Final Four for years.

Okay, and Victor Mature was born here. And there were two fine dining venues, Luvisi’s and the Old House, both on the same block of 5th Street.

The town was an afterthought, not famous for its restaurants. There were no bourbon tours. Hunter Thompson hadn’t started swallowing acid yet. Diane Sawyer wasn’t yet America’s Junior Miss.

Jennifer Lawrence and Jim James weren’t even gleams in their parents’ eyes yet.

Muhammed Ali, Founding Father, changed all that.

Upon his rise, we were on the map. We were global.

Louisville Lip.

Damn right!!!

On this very hot Friday in June, a throwback summer’s day, without stifling humidity, the way it was before pollution, when Ali was on the rise, we, those who puffed up our chests at the mention of the Louisville Lip, paid our respects.

Four hours before his remains would pass through the gates of Cave Hill, thousands had already gathered at Broadway and Baxter. The assembled were the proverbial multitudes of all races, all creeds, all ages, all economic statuses.

The grocery store was eerily empty.

Traffic on Shelbyville simply wasn’t there.

Our town, Muhammed Ali’s town, essentially shut down in honor of our Founding Father, to honor the magnificence of his giving countenance.

Just about every Louisvillian has an Ali story. A chance encounter. A selfie. A kiss on the head. A pulled punch to the solar plexus. A signed Koran.

But here’s what we all have in Louisville.

Muhammed Ali, the most famous man in the world, was and always shall be ours.



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