Sherry Chandler » 2007 » October » 21

Amaizing maze

There’s a famous old poem, written in 1902 by James H. Mulligan, that ends like this:

The song birds are the sweetest
In Kentucky;
The thoroughbreds are fleetest
In Kentucky;
Mountains tower proudest,
Thunders peal the loudest,
The landscape is the grandest-
And politics—the damnedest
In Kentucky.

Leaving aside the fact that our mountains are fast being flattened to get at the coal, I think maybe we should write a new line for the old poem. Something like:

The crop circles are corniest
In Kentucky

Check out this Great Corn Maize that is a fall feature at Kelley Farms in southern Fayette County (Photo by J. Hamon):

The Great Corn Maize

“Miles of Maize” promised on the website. And I believe it. Those are highways you see at left and at bottom. I also believe that this took an amaizing amount of work and considerable ingenuity on the part of the Kelley family.

It’s what we do to keep our farms now that tobacco culture is dead.

You can walk the maize day or night for a price and get your jack-o-lantern pumpkin, too, while you’re there.

Added: A friend who has walked the maize with her grandchildren says that there are stations with secret words that you can find to get a prize, which gives this phenomenon a sort of video game aspect.

And, having seen too many horror movies in my misspent youth, I have to think of Children of the Corn. Perfect for Hallowe’en.

This post was written by sherry

21. October 2007Pop Culture 4 Comments »