Mayor interview series includes Newberry

Lexington Mayor Jim Newberry is one of several U.S. mayors interviewed about their concerns as part of a new online video project called MayorTV.

The interviews were organized by The Nation magazine and the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy, a progressive think tank. The project seeks to focus more of the discussion in the 2008 presidential campaign on urban issues, saying 80 percent of Americans now live in urban areas.

In the six-minute interview, Newberry discusses the importance of cities and Lexington issues such as the EPA consent decree on sewer improvements, the Urban Services Boundary and the role of arts in urban economic development.

Watch Newberry’s interview below. To see interviews with other U.S. majors, go to MayorTV’s Web site.

Where to find teen driving classes

My column Friday about the need for more hands-on training for young drivers prompted a lot of response from readers, many of whom suggested some good resources.

Perhaps the best is a full-day seminar that will be coming to Commonwealth Stadium’s parking lot in Lexington on Aug. 2.  It is the Tire Rack Street Survival program, which costs $60, can take as many as 30 students.

The program was started as a non-profit organization in 2002 by the BMW Car Club of America and puts on seminars around the country coordinated by local volunteers and supported by local sponsors.  Sponsors for the Lexington session include the Sports Car Club of America and Kentucky Children’s Hospital.

Gail Morgan Reynolds decided to organize the Lexington session after taking her son, Don Morgan, 17, to one in Louisville last year. “We were just so impressed,” she said. “It was such a good course.”

To sign up for the course, go online to www.streetsurvival.org and look for the Lexington course information under the “school schedule/registration” link.

Reynolds is still looking for experienced volunteer instructors, as the goal is to have one instructor for every two students. She said additional classes may be scheduled in the future, depending on demand and the ability to schedule dates when Commonwealth Stadium’s lot is empty, or find another suitably huge expanse of asphalt.

Other Street Survival sessions planned in the region including Carmel, Ind. (just north of Indianapolis) on June 21; Columbus, Ohio, on July 12; Chattanooga, Tenn., on Sept. 13 and Oct. 18.

Another non-profit program is Driver’s Edge, which offers a two-day course that’s free. But the only course planned in our region is Aug. 23-24 in Nashville, Tenn.  Registration for it will open soon at the organization’s Web site,  www.driversedge.org.

The Mid-Ohio School in Lexington, Ohio, north of Columbus, offers a teen defensive driving course, along with many other courses for people who want to learn to race cars.  The teen course costs $350.  For more information, go online to: www.midohio.com.

Among the other solutions: BMW offers a one-day course for teens at its Performance Driving School in Greer, S.C., for $495. And while it’s nothing like hands-on experience, a company called Road Skillz (www.roadskillz.com) sells a DVD for $19.95 that covers the most common mistakes young drivers make and how to survive them.

Lexington turns out on two wheels

Lexington is never more beautiful than on a sunny spring day, viewed from the seat of a bicycle. It looks even better when everyone else is on a bicycle, too.

This was Bike Lexington weekend, and everyone downtown seemed to be on two wheels.

The fun began Friday evening along Euclid Avenue with the prologue of a three-day stage race that attracted more than 150 racers — and several times that many spectators.

“Three restaurants in Chevy Chase told us last night they had never been so busy on a Friday night — and their road was closed,” said Joe Graviss, a McDonald’s restaurant franchisee who helps sponsor a local racing team.

What makes Bike Lexington special isn’t the racers — it’s the average folks who come out on all kinds of bikes.

“This may be my most enjoyable day of the year in Lexington,” said Mayor Jim Newberry.

The main event was the Saturday bike rally, which attracted more than 1,000 people to the courthouse plaza.

Corporate sponsors Humana and Pedal Power and Pedal the Planet bike shops set up festival booths, as did cycling organizations.

Bicycle police officers were there, as well as the fire department’s new Bike Medics, showing off their rigs.

The idea behind Bike Medics is to quickly reach an ill or injured person at a crowded event. A paramedic on a bicycle can administer first aid and prepare the person for evacuation on a small utility vehicle.

“We can do everything on these bikes that we can do on these trucks,” said firefighter Anthony Johnson, whose bike packs held a heart defibrillator and other equipment, along with emergency drugs. “It also makes it less likely we’re going to hurt somebody else like we might if we tried to take a truck into a crowd.”

The Brain Injury Association of Kentucky fitted and gave away 250 bicycle helmets. And the Yellow Bike program, which offers public loaner bikes downtown, signed up new members.

Shane Tedder served up fruit smoothies on his bicycle-powered blender, which he and welder Patrick Garnett built from old bike frames.

In remarks to the crowd, Newberry said promoting bicycling for fitness, recreation and transportation is a priority of both his administration and the Urban County Council.

“We’ve made some significant improvements, and we’re going to do more and more,” Newberry said.

Lexington has 19 miles of bike lanes on streets and 12 miles of trails, Newberry said, and more are planned.

Newberry and at least two council members were among the estimated 800 people who participated in the 10-mile family fun ride through downtown and the University of Kentucky campus, around Commonwealth Stadium, out Richmond Road and back. That were about 100 more participants than last year, said Kenzie Gleason, the city’s bicycle and pedestrian coordinator.

People of all ages and sizes, riding all kinds of bicycles, cruised through the cool morning breeze on a course closed to motorized traffic. There were many children and more than a few senior citizens.

“You can see biking has really taken off in Lexington,” said councilman Chuck Ellinger.

Councilman Tom Blues, who like Ellinger is an avid cyclist, predicted that more people will bike as more trails and lanes are built — and as more people realize that Central Kentucky’s rural roads are a cycling paradise. Rising gas prices won’t hurt, either.

Bruce and Jessica Rishel of Versailles brought their two young children to Bike Lexington last year, and they’ve been eager to come back ever since. “She thinks the courthouse is for bike festivals,” Jessica Rishel said of her daughter.

The Rishel children — Anemone, 5, and Alex, 3 — wore helmets and rode tiny bikes with training wheels for the kid races. Their parents pulled them in a bike trailer on the family fun ride.

As I got ready to start the 10-mile ride, I pulled up beside Jim Hilke of Paris, who is something of a legend in the Bluegrass Cycling Club. Hilke turns 78 next week. He has already ridden 700 miles this year, and he’ll get in another 1,300 or so before Christmas.

Because cycling doesn’t pound your body like running and some other sports, it can be a lifelong activity.

Hilke said he’s starting to slow down, what with arthritis and all. But I think it’s a ruse: The last time I rode with him, it was all I could do to keep up.

As the family fun ride started, Hilke pulled out ahead of me, and I thought of little Alex Rishel riding in his bike trailer somewhere back in the crowd. In 75 years — at Bike Lexington 2083 — he just might be the next Jim Hilke.

Top photo: Shane Tedder, right, built the bicycle-powered blender with help from welder Patrick Garnett. He made smoothies with help from Jake Samson, 13, who supplied the pedal power.

Bottom photo:Bruce and Jessica Rishel of Versailles came with son Alex, 3, and daughter Anemone, 5. Photos/Tom Eblen

Ideas for training better young drivers

Jim Starks, a retired state trooper, asked if I remembered the most difficult part of the road test I took when I was 16 to get my driver’s license.

Parallel parking?

“That’s probably right,” he said. “You ever see anyone killed parallel parking?”

When teenage drivers die in accidents, it’s often because they don’t know how to react when something goes wrong at high speeds.

“Everybody makes mistakes driving,” Starks said. “But it’s what you do after you make a mistake that often determines whether you live or die.”

Starks was one of several people who called to respond to my column last Friday about how people drive too fast on rural roads. The column was prompted by a crash last week that killed two young people whose car ran off a rural Woodford County road and hit a tree.

The callers all made the same point: We could save a lot of lives if Kentucky teens got more intensive training behind the wheel. Not only would it help them survive their teenage years, but it would give them skills to keep them and others on the highways safe for the rest of their lives.

Driver’s education classes were once a high school staple. But many have disappeared because of lack of funding, insurance costs, liability concerns and a need to focus more instructional time on academics that are measured in standardized tests. Fayette County Public Schools, for example, no longer teach driver’s education.

Kentucky started tightening license requirements for teenage drivers in the mid-1990s after statistics showed the state had the nation’s highest death rate. The toughest rules came in 2006 when Kentucky adopted a graduated license system that requires more training and experience before young drivers can receive full licenses.

Graduated licenses and tougher seat belt laws are thought to be two reasons for a drop in Kentucky traffic deaths during the past two years. Only about 6 percent of Kentucky drivers are teenagers, yet they’re involved in about 20 percent of all crashes.

Starks said he investigated many traffic accidents during his 27 years as a trooper and state police detective. He saw the same thing over and over: Teen drivers would encounter a problem, overcompensate and crash.

So, in 1992, he and other law enforcement officers in Woodford County decided to do something about it. They found a narrow road in a county park, added a skid pad and got some old police cruisers. They gave serious hands-on training to young people as part of a driver’s education class at Woodford County High School.

During the five years the program was operating, no teens died in Woodford County accidents, said Starks, who retired in 1998.

“I think we saved several lives,” he said. “And I think if we did this on a statewide basis we would save a lot of lives.”

Richard Stafford, a Ph.D. student in public policy, agrees. He is developing a driver’s training program he hopes Kentucky will adopt. Stafford said he has received encouragement from Transportation Secretary Joe Prather and his predecessor, Bill Nighbert.

Part of Stafford’s idea is to use old state cars for driver’s training. He also would hire former police officers, who retire relatively young with decades of valuable traffic safety experience, to work part-time as driving instructors.

“A secondary benefit would be these kids being able to interact in a positive way with law enforcement officers,” he said.

Although Stafford said he is still developing his plan, he thinks it could be done statewide for about $10 million a year.

Another possible solution could be high-tech driving simulators, which get cheaper and more sophisticated all the time.

“Anything you can encounter on the street, we can do in here,” said Ronnie Day, director of the Kentucky Fire Commission, which owns one of the nation’s most advanced mobile driving simulators.

The commission, a part of the Kentucky Community and Technical College System, uses the simulator to train law enforcement and emergency personnel to drive firetrucks, ambulances and police cruisers.

“It’s similar to a video game, but much more sophisticated,” said Charlie Shaw, who manages the simulator. “I think it certainly could have a place in the school systems.”

There seems to be no shortage of good ideas for reducing highway carnage; smart people just have to figure out how to make them happen.

I think our kids are worth it. Do you?

Lessons from Bourbon Boot Camp

I reported for duty at Bourbon Boot Camp earlier this week. As a native Kentuckian, it seemed like the patriotic thing to do.

More than 40 other volunteers and I met at a downtown Lexington bar with Harlen Wheatley, the master distiller at Buffalo Trace distillery in Frankfort.

Over the next hour and a half, the 39-year-old chemist lectured us on the finer points of Kentucky’s signature beverage. We took sips of various products and learned about his craft.

Clear whiskey acquires bourbon’s distinctive color and flavor after years of seeping in and out of a white oak barrel’s charred walls. Wheatley discussed how bourbon’s taste is affected by age, grain mixtures, distillation processes and even variations in barrel wood.

But did you know that about 3 percent of bourbon evaporates through the barrel each year during aging? Or that 98 percent of all bourbon is made in Kentucky, but none of it in Bourbon County?

At $12 a head, Bourbon Boot Camp sold out weeks in advance. It was fun, interesting and one of the smarter marketing stunts I’ve seen.

It also made me think: What could the rest of Kentucky learn from its bourbon industry?

In the 1960s, bourbon fell out of favor as public tastes changed. It was considered your father’s drink — or your grandfather’s. Sales and production plummeted, and some distillers let quality slide.

Things began changing in the mid-1980s. Kentucky distillers began making small premium batches and selling “single barrel” brands. Bill Samuels of Maker’s Mark knew he had a good product, and he set the industry standard for creatively marketing it. In the process, he attracted fans around the world.

The high-end bourbon business is now booming.

Buffalo Trace celebrates a milestone Wednesday when it will roll out the 6 millionth barrel it has produced since Prohibition’s repeal in 1933. Helping roll out that barrel will be retired warehouse supervisor Jimmy Johnson, 92, who helped roll out the previous five milestone barrels.

Harlen Wheatley of Buffalo Trace distillery leads bourbon camp Monday night at the Horse and Barrel Pub in Lexington. Photo/Tom Eblen

Buffalo Trace, which sits on a site where whiskey has been distilled since 1787, will make about 75,000 barrels of bourbon this year. Wheatley wishes he could make more.

“We’ve had to curtail some of the interest because there’s only so much product available,” he said, noting that it takes at least eight years for a batch of his bourbon to be ready for sale. “We can’t go into China, for instance, because we don’t have the juice.”

Kentucky’s bourbon production more than doubled from 1999 to 2006, and about 1 million barrels will be produced this year. But the industry isn’t just selling liquor, it’s selling an experience — a uniquely Kentucky experience.

In 1999, the Kentucky Distillers’ Association created the Kentucky Bourbon Trail, a marketing effort to encourage visitors to tour seven of the state’s nine distilleries. An eighth distillery will join the tour next year, said Eric Gregory, association president.

Distilleries expect to get a lot more tourist traffic when the Ryder Cup comes to Louisville in September, and even more when the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games come to Lexington in 2010.

When people think of Kentucky, they think of bourbon — along with horses, fried chicken and basketball.

Economic success is often about figuring out your unique assets or abilities, building a brand and marketing it well. It’s about creating something special that others want to have or experience.

What other things could Kentucky use to build a successful brand in the global marketplace? It’s worth thinking about — perhaps over a glass of you-know-what.

A bike wreck teaches educator some life lessons

Life can change in an instant.

Stu Silberman, superintendent of the Fayette County Public Schools, learned that lesson on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, Oct. 8, 2006.

He was on a leisurely bicycle ride with a friend among the horse farms of northern Fayette County. He was riding slow, probably too slow, making a left turn and trying to put a water bottle away when he lost his balance.

“The next thing I know, the front wheel is wobbling and that’s all I can remember,” he said. “Somehow or another, the bike flipped over and I landed on my right side.”

Silberman hit the road hard, breaking his collarbone, several ribs, a hand and, most seriously, shattering his hip joint. “Thank God I had my helmet on,” he said. “It cracked in three places.”

An ambulance rushed him to a hospital, where the next day he had the first of six surgeries. Over the next several weeks, his body would acquire an assortment of metal rods, plates and screws - and a serious staph infection, among other complications.

“My life completely changed on that day,” Silberman said. “There were two or three times at different points where I thought I was going to die.”

Silberman recently had what he hopes will be his last operation. Physically, he’s almost back to normal. Mentally, spiritually, emotionally and professionally, Silberman says he will never be the same. Like many people, he has found that a life-threatening event can also be life-changing - mostly for the better.

“The first thing I learned is that this is an extremely caring community,” said Silberman, a New Yorker who moved here from Owensboro in 2004 with ambitious goals for improving Lexington’s public schools.

“There were over 1,000 cards that were sent,” he said. “I didn’t know until much later how many prayer lists I was on at churches and temples all over the place.”

One of the most difficult adjustments Silberman has made since his recovery is that he no longer rides his bicycle outside, where he used to put in 1,000 miles a year.

“Boy, oh boy, do I miss it,” he said. “That was my combination hobby and exercise, my outlet, my everything.”

Silberman has given up outdoor cycling until retirement, which he expects to be at least seven years away.

“If I pop over, I could be back in the hospital,” he said. “If it happened again, I think the community would have a much different reaction to it, and it would be very difficult for me to explain. … I have a responsibility to this whole community, and I feel that.”

To compensate, Silberman rides his bicycle in his garage. It is hooked up to a high-tech stationary trainer and a laptop computer. The system measures his speed, heart rate and other vital statistics in addition to tracking mileage. An integrated video system shows him riding stages from the Tour de France as he pedals.

While he misses the open road, Silberman loves the high-tech gadgetry. He lost 25 pounds after the accident, but gained 35 back. He needs to work some of that off, plus stay in shape for a cycling trip to France he has planned for retirement.

A long road back

Silberman’s wife of 38 years, Kathy, was his constant caregiver through months of recovery from surgery and infection and the long, painful weeks of rehabilitation at Cardinal Hill Hospital.

“I think he makes time for things more now,” Kathy Silberman said. “The idea that you’re here today, and tomorrow you might not be.”

The Silbermans were active in their Owensboro church but were too busy for church after moving to Lexington. Silberman called the accident a “major wake-up call.” During his recovery, they found a new home at St. Luke’s United Methodist Church.

“There is no question that your faith is strengthened, because when you’re lying there in bed, that’s what you’re thinking about,” he said. “You’re doing a lot of praying. At least I did.”

Melissa Bacon, a school board member who belongs to the same church, said Silberman has become extremely active - leading a stewardship campaign and leadership classes.

“I think the accident definitely allowed him to reach out and depend on his faith,” Bacon said. “I also think he’s a little more sentimental, because he appreciates things more.”

Silberman said he no longer takes simple things, like being able to walk, for granted. He has new respect for doctors, nurses and other caregivers, as well as for disabled people.

“I’ve just become really thankful for lots of stuff,” he said. “Being able to step into the shower - it’s just part of a daily chore until you can’t do it. It really makes you think about what you’re doing today, because you don’t know what tomorrow will bring.”

Silberman remains hard-charging, arriving at the office by 7:30 a.m. and frequently attending school events in the evenings and on weekends. Before the accident, Silberman said, he would stay up half the night responding to

e-mail. Now, he tries to be in bed by 9 p.m. and rises at 4 a.m. to do e-mail.

“You know, I’m kind of a workaholic,” said Silberman, 56, who is in his 34th year as an educator.

Speeding up the clock

Silberman credits his staff with keeping things running smoothly during his recovery.

“This school district didn’t miss a beat,” he said. “I really think we got better while I was gone, which is what I would have expected them to do.”

Silberman thinks he has become “more grandfatherly” with his staff.

One reason may be that he became a grandfather eight months ago when one of his three daughters gave birth to a daughter, Allie. Silberman’s motto for the Fayette school system is “It’s about kids,” and you don’t have to be around him long to see he’s all about this one.

Silberman said his accident has led him to focus more time and attention on staff development, mentoring and leadership training. Plus, he plans to take his broken helmet around to elementary schools to talk about bicycle safety.

He is especially proud that six staff members over the course of his career have become superintendents.

“There’s this sense that you have to pass along those kinds of things because you may not be here tomorrow,” he said. “I don’t think about that all the time - that I might not be here tomorrow - but subconsciously what ends up happening is your sense of urgency, or your clock, speeds up.”

That sense of urgency has made him put even more pressure on himself and his staff to achieve the school district’s goals of raising test scores and improving student proficiency.

Silberman said his stamina is back.

He recalled that Cathy Fine, the principal at Glendover Elementary, took ballroom dancing lessons last year. At her school’s winter program, which Silberman attended, she and her dance school partner put on a show for the kids.

Silberman saw Fine again recently at a school district career fair. Suddenly, he said, he grabbed her by the hand, and they took a few spins around the room, much to everyone’s surprise.

“I wanted our people to see that I’m back, and I’m dancing.”

Oxford American features Lexington landmark

In its latest issue, the Southern literary and culture magazine Oxford American focuses on our homes. It’s not exactly the Southern Living view of things, which makes it all the more interesting. One of the best articles profiles 11 modern masterpiece homes in the South, as chosen by contemporary architects, including the Miller House in Lexington.

French architect José Oubrerie designed the house, completed in 1992, for Bob and Penny Miller. After Bob Miller’s death, the land was sold for development and the empty house was vandalized.

Michael Speaks, the new dean of the University of Kentucky’s College of Design, writes a short, perceptive essay about the boxy, concrete house, which many Lexingtonians have found difficult to appreciate.

“The story of the Miller House is emblematic of the struggle in Kentucky, and indeed throughout the South, between the soul of modernism — note how the Miller House is both a specific place and yet universal — and the rapacious logic of suburbanization, which produces the stamp of the universal on specific places,” he writes.

A few articles from the Oxford American’s special “Home Sweet Home” issue can be read on the magazine’s Web site, although you’ll have to buy the magazine ($4.95) to see the “Beyond Nostalgia” feature that includes the Miller House. It’s worth a look.

Your life right now, in one sentence

I love Facebook, the online social networking tool. It was created for college students, but I find it more useful for adults.

Over the years, you collect a diverse and far-flung set of friends, but you rarely make the time to contact them to see what’s new in their lives. On Facebook, that information comes to you automatically.

My favorite part of Facebook is the “status update.” That’s where you say in one sentence what you’re doing, thinking or feeling, and it goes out to all of your Facebook friends with a time stamp.

Today’s lineup on my Facebook home page was classic. It included the following:

• (A friend in Detroit) is very worried about Lebanon today. 2 hours ago
• (A photojournalist friend in Florida) is editing audio. 3 hours ago
• (A foreign correspondent friend) is back from Afghan, which was good, and Dubai, which is weirdsville, and is now in Moscow, which is chilly, and soon to be headed for the states, which is far. 5 hours ago
• (A young friend in Australia) ’s favourite food is risotto. 7 hours ago
• (A friend in Maine) has high spirits, but a creaky knee. 16 hours ago

So how would you sum up your life at this moment, in one sentence? Comment below.

Is the problem our rural roads? Or our drivers?

When I heard about the crash on “roller coaster road” that killed two young people, I thought: Oh, no. Not again.

I’ve been driving Dry Ridge Road in Woodford County for more than 30 years, usually while squeezing the steering wheel and hoping somebody wouldn’t pop over a hill and hit me head-on.

At least 10 people have died in five accidents on that three-mile ribbon of pavement since 1984, according to the Herald-Leader archives.

My first thought: Something should be done about that road.

My second thought: The road isn’t the problem.

I drove out there Thursday morning, just after the daily parade of commuters who use Dry Ridge as a shortcut from south Lexington to the Bluegrass Parkway and Frankfort.

Friends of Hannah Landers, 17, a Dunbar High School senior, and Ben Thompson, 22, of Wilmore, had put up two white crosses to remember them. The crosses were in front of a big, skinned-up tree at the end of muddy skid marks. It was where the 2007 Suzuki Reno carrying them and two other young people crashed late Monday morning.

The four apparently had gone joy riding on Dry Ridge, where if you drive too fast you can leave the pavement for a few seconds - or forever.

There were two bouquets of flowers, and a yellow ribbon was tied around the tree. On the ground beside the tree was a journal, wet from rain. It had a few pictures of the smiling young people, sweet notes and many pages that will never be filled.

The memorial is less than a mile from four other white crosses. They are nailed to a tree where a van crashed in September 1999, killing three tobacco workers and a 5-year-old boy. Speed and alcohol were factors in that crash.

As Kentucky country roads go, Dry Ridge is in good shape - 20 feet wide with solid grass shoulders. It was resurfaced and restriped two years ago, and 45 mph speed limit signs are posted in several places.

“If you drive the speed limit, it’s a pretty safe road,” said Buan Smith, Woodford County’s highway engineer. “But people drive quite fast. You can see where they’ve bottomed out jumping some of the hills.”

Wilbur Hill has lived and farmed on Dry Ridge Road since 1944. He agrees it’s a good road. But he has seen a lot of tragedy.

“My son pulled some girls out of a car one time at the same tree where those kids were killed,” Hill said. “We had another young man got killed just beyond our driveway, about 20 years ago. My boys were out that night, and it scared me to death.”

While he sees occasional joy riders - “The kids get reckless and like to get airborne” - he is more concerned about the commuters who zip by every morning and evening, going 10 or 20 mph over the speed limit and paying little attention to the double-yellow line.

“It’s the same cars every day,” he said. “People aren’t careful enough; they don’t anticipate the curves and hills. They’ve posted the speed limit several places, but that doesn’t slow them down.”

Kentuckians love their blacktop. Usually, our first reaction to a tragic wreck is to say the road needs to be wider, flatter, straighter. We’re always eager to four-lane the most scenic of rural roads, whether it needs it or not.

There are more sensible reactions.

We could warn our kids about the dangers of joy riding. Still, the smartest kids will do the dumbest things. Always have, always will.

But teenagers aren’t the main problem.

Kentuckians of all ages drive too fast on country roads that were designed a century or two ago for horses and wagons, not Dodge Ram pickups and Escalades.

Rural roads should be well-built and maintained, just as Dry Ridge Road is.

Beyond that, we have two choices: We can spend all of our resources flattening, straightening and four-laning Kentucky into asphalt ugliness, or we can slow down and be more careful.

Something should be done, and I think you know what it is.

For sale: Hunter S. Thompson’s childhood home — bullet holes, Gates of Hell not included

The Realtor’s listing says it all: “Although the current children are perfectly normal - Hunter S. Thompson grew up here!”

That’s right, the Gonzo journalist’s childhood home in Louisville is for sale.

Thompson’s father, Jack, bought the two-story, stucco bungalow in the Cherokee Triangle for $4,100 in the winter of 1943. The asking price now for 2437 Ransdell Ave. is $435,000. (UPDATE: The house sold June 24 for $412,500, according to the property records database of The Courier-Journal.)

Thompson, who committed suicide in 2005 at age 67, is almost as famous for his wild drug- and alcohol-induced behavior as for his rambling, first-person narratives that became known as Gonzo Journalism. The Rolling Stone magazine correspondent and author of several books, including Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, is perhaps most famous locally for his classic 1970 magazine story, The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved.

“There are 40 million stories about Hunter in the neighborhood, and they all center around this house,” said Sandy Gulick of Kentucky Select Properties, the listing agent.

“Jim Thompson, nine years younger, remembered his older brother as a wild man who terrorized their house,” author William McKeen writes in Outlaw Journalist: The Life and Times of Hunter S. Thompson, which will be published in July by W.W. Norton.

McKeen said Jim Thompson told him about an elaborate tableau of the Gates of Hell that his brother painted on his bedroom floor. “He kept a rug over it, but required little prompting to reveal it to visitors,” McKeen writes.

Unfortunately - or, perhaps, fortunately - the Gates of Hell were sanded off the floor years ago, said McKeen, who heads the journalism school at the University of Florida.

The bullet holes also have been patched, said Hunter Thompson’s childhood friend, Gerald Tyrrell.

“I was in the house with him when he took his .22 rifle and, by mistake, put a bullet through the bedroom floor,” Tyrrell, 69, said in an interview Wednesday.

“The bullet went through the china cabinet downstairs and missed a plate by not much. There was a shard of wood in the corner of the cabinet that was just hanging. His mother and grandmother were out of the house at the time, so we glued it back and nobody ever noticed.”

Tyrrell said he has fond memories of the house: “We went to Hunter’s house every day after school, or all day if there wasn’t school. All of the neighborhood kids were there.”

Thompson amassed a large army of lead soldiers in the basement, which they used to wage epic battles in the in fortifications they dug in the backyard. His bedroom was filled with books - he was always a voracious reader - and lots of mementoes, including a flag he swiped from the nearby golf course, Tyrrell said.

When Tyrrell was in high school, his father made him stop hanging out with Thompson, who by then was frequently in trouble with the law for a wide assortment of petty crimes. After serving 30 days in jail on a robbery charge, Thompson left Louisville for the Air Force and returned only occasionally.

The 2,600-square-foot bungalow has been owned for 21 years by Rick McDonough, an editor with The Courier-Journal.

“An awful lot of people drive by and snap pictures,” McDonough said. After Thompson’s suicide, several people knocked on his door to express their grief, and somebody even left a filter-tip cigar and flowers on the sidewalk.

“It’s a curiosity,” he said. “But I don’t know that anyone’s willing to pay a premium for it.”