Saturday, April 02, 2011

Blue Kentucky

Last Sunday I wrote about basketball as the civil religion of Kentucky.

This week, the feeling is even stronger. The University of Kentucky men's basketball team plays a Final Four game tonight. Today, our town was blue and white. In the grocery store, the bank, the coffee shop, on the street - by my count every third person was wearing blue and white and/or the word "Kentucky."

The commonwealth will slow down at 8:40. This is a binding fact among people of all classes. Civil religion's high festival is upon us.

2 comments:

Marc Bentley said...

I would agree that today it was stronger than last week. I don't count myself a Big Blue Fan, and I don't watch their games on a regular basis....yet I found myself watching tonight's game out of a sense of duty or a desire to be part of the communal conversation. I would say this is the first time I've watched a UK ball game all the way through since '98, but I made sure to watch it tonight.

Kerri said...

Coming into the LEX airport on Friday, I could easily tell who was there and waiting to fly out to the game on Saturday. (one bar/restaurant was very, very blue).