By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher
MAY 14, 2024 | Every now and then, you come across something that surprises you, and you say to yourself, “I didn’t know that.”
It was a small item about the way fashion shows itself off at the Kentucky Derby. Down in the story, a line told us: “The Kentucky Derby was started by Meriwether Lewis Clark Jr.”
That sent us to the computer, and Wikipedia told us that Clark (1846-1899) “was the founder of the Louisville Jockey Club and the builder of Churchill Downs, where the Kentucky Derby is run.”
A familiar name, Clark was the grandson of the explorer and Missouri governor, Gen. William Clark of the Lewis and Clark Expedition! His mother was a Churchill, one of the first families of Kentucky, the family which gave the land for the horse track, called today Churchill Downs.
When Clark’s mother died, he lived with his aunt, Lutie Churchill, where he developed a taste “for expensive things,” including horse racing. He traveled to Europe, where he was inspired by the fashionable dress codes at events like Ascot in Britain and Paris’s Grand Prix.
Creating the Derby around the well-to-do, he figured, could transform his racetrack from a place of ill-repute to one for the well-heeled high society. From the very first race in 1875, when 10,000 people showed up, the New York Times reported that day “the grandstand was thronged by a brilliant assemblage of ladies and gentlemen.” These days those attending are still “brilliant assemblages.” And do the ladies like to show off fancy hats!
Lewis also made several contributions to racing, introducing the French system of parimutuel betting machines, to eliminate old-fashioned bookmaking. He instituted many racing rules still used today, including a uniform system of weights and the stakes systems.
Yet Lewis lost lots of money when the stock market crashed in 1893. Fearing poverty, sadly, he took his own life in 1899.
Have you noticed how slim beer (and some soft drink) bottles are today? There’s a reason. Some bottlers have started giving you not the previous standard 12 ounce liquid of their product, but now bottle beverages in 11.2 ounces. What do you call that? Nothing more than a price increase, for you now get less but pay the same price. Smart marketing? How about disregarding the customer with a price hike?
Germany’s Bayer pharmaceutical company received a patent for Aspirin in 1899. This most ubiquitous of nonprescription drugs had its roots in the bark of the willow tree. In 1828, a German pharmacy professor isolated the active ingredient in willow bark and named the bitter yellow crystals “salicin,” after the Latin name for white willow. German chemist Hermann Kolbe first synthesized salicylic acid in 1860. In 1895, Bayer chemist Felix Hoffmann combined an acetyl group with salicylic acid, yielding a gentler product in 1897.
Bayer sought a patent for the brand name Aspirin: “A” for acetylsalicylic acid, the synthetic compound developed by Hoffmann; “-spir” for Spiraea ulmaria, or meadowsweet, which was a botanical source of salicylic acid; and “-in” because it was a common suffix for drugs at that time. By 1950, it was the best-selling pain reliever in the world.
Helping legislators who have children: In South Carolina, we recently read, legislation passed its House of Representatives that would allow donations made to a candidate could be used to cover childcare expenses. What! The Freedom Caucus opposed this bill. The Freedom Caucus spoke for lots of people.
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