Finally, after six years from sixth grade to my senior year of high school, I was finally free from living at home and had the money for a ticket to Terrapin Hill.  I and two other friends, Ozzy and Hannah, planned to go and meet up with our friends that had already graduated.  It was better than what I could possibly have imagined.  It was a three day long party with no parental supervision.  It was just me, my friends, and a huge congregation of hippies and dead heads from way back in the day.  Compared to the small town just seven miles down the road this place was like a whole other planet. 

            The people at Terrapin were all peace loving, dreadlocked, hippies.  I met this one old guy that was a dead head from way back in the day.  He was wearing a vest and pants that seemed to be made entirely out of patches from festivals and bands, and he had a story for almost every one of them.  I saw entire families of hippies there.  There were Tie-dye toddlers dancing under the stage lights with their parents.  Every night there was a fire dancer show with a drum circle to keep the rhythm before the last band went on stage. There were drum circles jamming at every hour of the day.  I joined in every chance I had.  Everybody was dancing, singing, hula hooping, drumming, and just having fun without a care in the world.  This festival is a place where I and other people like me can go without stares and avoidance from mainstream society because at Terrapin we are the mainstream.  I finally felt like I fit in. 

            The little shops around the campsite were pretty freaking cool.  One shop had guys making glass jewelry, pipes, and ornaments.  You could even ask them to make a completely customized pipe right there.  There were all kinds of organic foods.  I had an organic soda that was just plain awesome.  Terrapin Hill itself is an organic farm. 

            It was a great weekend.  No parents, no jobs, no worries.  There was great music everywhere around the campsite along with the incredible live performances.  I can’t wait for next year’s Terrapin Hill festival.  Hopefully I’ll be on stage next time. 

            The time was getting closer and closer to begin the show.  One of my friends, we call him Jo Jo, was seriously debating on whether or not he was going to sign up.  He has always been musically talented.  Whenever I am with him and we are walking around UK’s campus girls I, and sometimes he, do not even know come up to him and ask him to sing.  Jo Jo finally decided to put his name on the list.  His performance was going to be him singing a song, while he was playing the piano.  For as long as I have no him (at least 10 years) I had never seen him perform before.  This was a treat for me.

            “Mike Check” began.  There was one rule they had to follow:  each performer must say the phrase “Mike check” before they start their performance. Then the audience shouts “One two!” in response.  The first guy stepped up to the mike and instantly started to sing without saying the phrase “mike check.”  The crew running the show on the side of the stage stopped him and told him he had to say it. The guy forgot again!  He then stepped aside and started laughing.  It turns out it was just a short skit to explain how mike check worked.

            Now the first girl walked on stage and a D.J. started playing music.  She was rapping the song and dancing at the same time.  She really got the crowd energetic through the fast and very common song.

            I thought this was how most of the performances would go, but there were a wide variety of performances yet to come.  There was a lot of poetry read.  And all of the poetry read was by that person reading it.  I was amazed because I never really imagined people my age reading their own writing to a huge crowd of people.  I know I would never.  Some other people sang songs most of us were familiar with.  Some people had written their own songs and sang those.

            Before long it was Jo Jo’s turn.  He told me that he had never been so nervous before.  That was not a good sign to me.  Jo Jo walked on stage and casually sat down on the piano bench.  He shouted, “Mike check!” And we responded, “One two!”  Jo Jo worked wonders on the piano.  Once he found the rhythm he began to sing.  Before I knew it everyone was on their feet singing along with him.  I was so excited for him. 

            “Mike Check” was a completely new experience for me.  I got to witness people expressing their true emotion through the poems they wrote and the songs that they sang.  I felt connected to each of them in a unique way.

Although Man on Fire is fictional, the background information about Mexico City in Mexico is somewhat true.  The movie is about a guy name John Ceasy (Denzel Washington) who is hired as a personal body guard to protect Pita Ramos (Dakota Fanning).  At first it’s hard to understand the purpose of Denzel’s role, but you begin to realize by the size of her parents house, the type of car they drive, and the many people they have that work for them, that something fishy was going on with their family. 

                Later in the movie when Dakota and Denzel had developed a strong bond, Dakota is kidnapped, and while Denzel attempted to stop them, he was shot 2 times.  As she was caring to Denzel who had been shot, the kidnappers took her.  The kidnapping rate in Mexico is unbelievable, and it is truly a problem today.   Mexico City is notorious for kidnappings in the world, and most are for huge ransoms, and most of the victims are tortured and killed.  This was one of the most important moments and the foundation for the rest of the movie.  As a result, Dakota’s family tried to make a deal with whoever had kidnapped her, but the transaction went wrong and everyone thought Dakota Fanning was dead. 

                Consequently, Denzel took it into his own hands to find whoever kidnapped her, and literally went on a rampage to track down the “murders.”  This movie was constructed very well because it makes the viewer think that she is dead, but really, near the end of the movie you find out that she is alive.  Dakota’s dad and his lawyer were the reason behind the kidnap in order to make a massive amount of money.  Denzel connects all of the “bad guys” together and traces down the “voice of the guardian” and finds out that Dakota is still alive.  He makes a deal, that is, “a live for a live” and Denzel accepts. 

                As I begin to end this refection I just realized I spoiled the ending for any of you all that have not seen this movie.  But, this movie was so awesome, and the way it is developed keeps you on the edge of your seat the whole time.  I recommend everyone see this movie because the filming is phenomenal. 

            Next up was Kevin Parcheck, a student from Eastern Kentucky University. His material was almost as bad as the first guy up. He couldn’t get off the subject of straight men appearing gay, and what to do to ensure you don’t get hit on. Specifically, he talked about proper bathroom edicat when another man is in there and how to properly dance in night clubs. When he was on stage I couldn’t bring myself to laugh at his jokes because they were so offensive. There is a point in comedy where the jokes can go too far and turn sour. Being there I could even feel like air thicken. The audience felt like they needed to laugh since it was a comedy show, but were unable to laugh with Kevin, only at him.

            The actual professional comedian the University brought in was Jay Scott Homean from Alabama. He has appeared on Comedy Central and has opened for some headline comedians. He said some funny jokes, but it seemed he was very unprepared. He would go from one topic to another without ever connecting to two together. My favorite joke was as follows, “I hate to go to fancy restaurants, I like themed places. That way when your on your date you can look around and see interesting things to look at and talk about.”

            Comedy is great for the soul when it’s good and makes you laugh. However, when it is bad and offensive, it is a chore to have to endure. Although I can’t imagine anyone wanting to go see the show after reading this, but just in case the next one is on Wednesday, November 12 at eight. It just happens to be their 150^th show, which proves it must normally be entertaining. Obviously it was not my lucky night for comedy. 

Although I am not entirely into the hip hop scene, McDaniels’ speech was still interesting.  He spoke about the way hip hop was during the Run DMC era and the way it is now.  He said that hip hop is not near as good today as it was back in the 1980s because everyone is the same.  Their music is the same, they dress the same, they do everything the same.  He spoke about how today’s rappers all rap about gangs, crime, sex, and sluts because that is all they see.  McDaniels knows that is not true.  Not every single place they look is about those things.  He believes that a rapper should make a song about the woman who gets up early every morning, rides the bus to work, then rides the bus home late at night just to go to bed and do it all again so she can provide for her family.  He thinks they should do this because the young, poor boy who idolizes the rapper needs to hear it so he will know that the world is not only about gangs, crime, and sex.  Run DMC was “hardcore into drugs, sex, and rock and roll,” but they never incorporated that into their music or videos.

McDaniels’ passion for hip hop started in the seventh grade when an eighth grader brought a boom box recorder to school and played a 30 second rap.  They listened to the rap over and over again all during recess and McDaniels begged the older classmate to please let him take home the recorder for the weekend.  After all his begging, the classmate gave in.  He took the recorder home and he and his brother listened to the rap repeatedly over the weekend.  That is when he knew hip hop was what he wanted to do with his life.

Every week at a park near his house, someone would park their van and play beats really loud and hundreds of people would come to listen.  People would play their own beats at shows for free for anyone to listen, but Russell Simmons would have them come play in his attic and he would charge five dollars for anyone who wanted to come in and see them.  At one of these shows is when McDaniels met Joseph Simmons.  They played around with beats and Simmons told McDaniels that when he made a record, he would have McDaniels on it. 

Joseph Simmons begged his older brother Russell for years to let him make a record and finally, Russell said that once he got a college diploma he would let him.  He wanted him to be educated in case the music business did not work out.  Fortunately, the music business was a huge success for the new group called Run DMC.  Run DMC was the first hip hop group to do many things including being in the top 10 of the R&B and pop charts, being on the cover of Rolling Stone, and having the first hip hop video to appear on MTV.

“If you were number one at the time, it was because you were completely different than everyone else.”

-Darryl “DMC” McDaniels 

            Lets start off with the history. Tuberculosis was beginning spread in the 1900’s because, according to Charlie and Tina Mattingly, the owners of the Waverly Hills Sanatorium,

Tuberculosis is a deadly infectious disease caused by mycobacterium. Tuberculosis most commonly attacks the lungs (as pulmonary TB) but can also affect the central nervous system, the lymphatic system, the circulatory system, bones, joints and even the skin. Those afflicted with the disease had to be removed from the general public and quarantined somewhere that had the ability to care for them properly. The large Sanatorium that you see at the top of this page was constructed for that purpose.
Construction began in March of 1924. It opened on October 17, 1926 to administer patients. With over 500 beds available this state-of-the-art facility was populated with citizens of Louisville and other parts of Kentucky as well as people from all over The United States. All of which went there in hopes of being cured of Tuberculosis. This was unfortunately not the case as thousands of people suffered and died of TB at Waverly Hills. To cope with the large numbers of deaths and to avoid hurting the morale of other patients a 500 foot long tunnel that was originally used as a supply tunnel was converted into a “Body Chute”. The bodies of the deceased would be lowered down the tunnel via rail-tram system to train cars at the bottom of the hill.
Waverly functioned as a tuberculosis hospital until 1961, when it was closed down to be quarantined and renovated to be opened again in 1962 as Woodhaven Medical Services. The facility remained a geriatrics center until 1980, when it was closed by the state for alleged patient abuse (pg. 1).

            We came up on, what looked like, an abandoned street. It was dark and was surrounded by a forest of trees. The first thing we came to was a white booth, in which you had to stop at to pay for parking. I was expecting just a regular person to be taking up money, but no, it was some scary, nasty, ugly, creature; that really started our haunted house experience off right.

            Getting out of the car was another adrenaline rush experience. You could just capture the scent of death from where you were standing. Standing in line to get tickets, you would think, would be dreadful and boring. Absolutely not! I don’t know which was the most exciting, the chainsaw guy chasing you all over the sanatorium grounds or the haunted patients literally grabbing you and shaking you, asking you to help them.

            The tour of Waverly was absolutely astounding, I loved it. When we first walked in we took a ride in the elevator to the first floor, with a creepy looking character; who almost smashed my foot with his metal cane. As we walked through these rooms there were many moments when I thought my heart was going to jump out my chest. We had people jumping out at us left and right. I finally realized every bit of this actually represented close to what actually happened to the patients that resided in this hospital, because within each room there were patients screaming for help and grabbing begging you to get them out of that hospital.

            This was definitely an awesome experience and if I ever have a chance to go back I will, without any hesitation. Yes, it was close to 35 degree’s outside, but it was more than worth it. If you are looking for an adrenaline rushing, heart pumping night, go to Waverly Hills Sanitarium.

I felt like I had stepped through a time portal and went to the past. There were tents set up where the “soldiers” were staying in. There were little shops selling souvenirs all around. Horse drawn carriages can be seen everywhere. Chickens were running around from time to time. People were also dressed in old fashion for the occasion. Women donned bonnets and dresses that reached all the way to their ankles. Men wore tall hats and wool jackets. Little boys had suspenders. They looked so much like the pioneers from my history textbooks. It was seriously the strangest thing to see history come to life but also amazing at the same time.

Wandering around, I took a peek inside several shops. I watched women cook the old fashion way with no electricity. I watched clothes being sewn with an ancient sewing machine. I listened to music being played on a banjo. People were drinking water from tin cups. Letters were being written with fountain pens. Everything just seemed so old fashioned. There was even a shop selling clothes that were made to look like they were from the 1800s.

Finally, the battle reenactment started. I was actually excited to see it, after seeing everything else the event had to offer. Suddenly I was transported to that fateful day in October 8, 1862 when the battle was taking place. Soldiers marched across the battlefield with rifles and canons. Abruptly, I jumped at the sound of a loud crackling noise. I didn’t expect the rifles to actually fire! They even produced smoke and sparks. Same thing with the canons, only the sound was louder. One by one, bodies started falling. Excluding the lack of blood, it all looked so real. The battle didn’t last long, it was about twenty minutes.

I never really cared much about history but being there at the Battle of Perryville made me a little interested in the subject. I would encourage anyone to try and experience this blast from the past. If only all history classes were taught like this!