Southern Charm

Louisville isn't really that southern.

except for the first Saturday in May.

That's when we pull out all the stops.  It's the Kentucky Derby.  The fastest two minutes in sports.  The first leg of the Triple Crown.  Where ladies don their best chapeaus and frocks, men dapper in their seersucker suits, bow ties and straw fedoras.  The classic cocktail of the mint julep.  The late night before partying.  The early dawn workout with mimosa sipping owners and cigar smoking punters shoulder to shoulder, studying the morning odds. All hoping to hit a win, double or trifecta.  Throngs hitting the in-field.  The game of sneaking in what you can.  Picnicking in small metal runged boxes with six folding chairs, so as to avoid the horrid carnival food.  Wishing you had with the catering food on "Millionaire's Row."  Feet aching long day of people watching, horse flesh assessing, indulgence... leading up to those famed two-minutes.  Just before, Southern Charm enters into the gentille song of "My Old Kentucky Home" - edited for political correctness.

For the locals, a game of sparing for the coveted finish line boxes begins the year or more before.  Companies, corporations, jockey just as hard for prime real estate - grandstand, bleachers,

counting the jets that depart that night and the next.