It's summertime and the memories are endless!

[Max]

Summertime means memories and for most of us, summer has always been when the memories that meant the most happened. Yes, this is another thread all about you -tell WAKY what has always meant the most to your summers...

I'll start things off with swimming pools, county fairs, band camp, summer trips to Louisville for summer & school clothes (AM radio stuck to my ear in the back seat listening to WAKY or WKLO), Bernheim Forest, fishing with my dad, mowing yards for record money, playing batmitten (sp?) with my sister, chasing lightning bugs, and the Kentucky State Fair (with staple food like corn dogs and cotton candy and concerts at Cardinal Stadium), which was always the swan song of the summer, or as the WAKY Beach Boys spot says, "the last blast before class".

In coming posts I will share excerpts from the book "100 Kentucky State Fairs".

Oops...I almost forgot playing in the sprinklers!!

[kevin502]

I have to say this summer has been good so far. But my favorite summer will always be 1972. The Olympics, WAKY had great songs that year, the DJ's were tops, the Reds, I think the ZOO opened that year right? I loved the ZOO the first time I went.

BTW

John, I love the new XM clips, they are great. I hope I don't fall for the whole XM thing, but you never know.

[Max]

It was and is hard to beat the highlight at the first Kentucky State Fair in 1902...

The Kentucky General Assembly passed the act to create the Kentucky State Fair in March, and Louisville won the bid to host the first Kentucky State Fair, held in September at Churchill Downs, under the auspices of the Kentucky Livestock Breeder's Association. Attendance for the five-day event, which featured horse shows, steam auto races, and the head-on collision of two freight trains, was 75,000.
-One Hundred Kentucky State Fairs-A Pictorial History, by Stepanie Darst

(How dey do dat? :

..I can just hear Travis saying "ouch!"

[Max]

Going from 1902 to a year most of us remember and the 1972 State Fair:

Musical entertainment ranged from Black Sabbath to Lawrence Welk to the Jackson Five, and the Oak Ridge Boys made their first of many, many Kentucky State Fair appearances as part of the Gospel Singing Spectacular. Teens had a new special place to hear local rock bands:"Mother Love's Psychedelic Circular Sideshow." (could this have been hosted by WKLO's Brother Love???)

and from 1973:

Two singer-songwriters, Mac Davis and Bobby Goldsboro, made concert appearances, as did the '50's-revival group Sha-Na-Na and the vocal trio Dawn with Tony Orlando.

-One Hundred Kentucky State Fairs-A Pictorial History, by Stepanie Darst

(sigh) Those were the good ol' days.

[GilHerbigJr]

I was at that Sha Na Na concert that summer. That was their first Louisville appearance. They came back in the summer of 75 and performed at the Louisville Downs. They put on a Great Show...and this was before they became popular from their TV show in 77. Sorry' the memories are flooding back ;D. Anyway that was one of the Great Summers.

[1240WINN]

I would have to say that 1975 was my favorite summer--the Cincinnati Reds won the World Series, and I had a couple of chances to go see them play at Riverfront Stadium. On one of the trips, we also went to King's Island and had a great time. (I think it cost $7.00 at the time to get in!)

But I remember 1975 as the year I kept my transistor radio with me almost constantly. I was either listening to baseball games or the local stations.

There was some really good country and rock music that year--some of it played on both formats.

I don't remember much about the fair that year, but my family undoubtedly went.

And the State Fair book that Max is quoting is an outstanding book--I highly recommend it if copies are still available.