08/22/2024
How did we ever wind up as close as we are?
I don't know but someone deserves a lot of attention and praise from others besides me.
My friend's the kind of person that doesn't like my me to tell anyone how significant he is.
What my friend has done and deserves national attention!
Most notable is the lack of support by local, state and national authorities and leaders.
There needs to be serious action on a regular basis as to listening to his recommendations.
This man's intent, for a long time, and continued recently, has been to save lives.
My connection, or memory, with Gerard Gerhard began when he was the cadet commander, I think, of the University of Kentucky's Army ROTC.
His dream probably was to be a general in the Army MP division but like me he was honorably discharged.
Him for hearing issues and mine for publicly organizing and photographed that was use in the UK student newspaper with us protesting the Vietnam War at a silent protest on campus.
This was even after we both had completed summer camp to join Army ROTC and become officers.
Back then one chose to do two more years, and were paid a monthly stipend, after the mandatory first two years of ROTC classes.
Gerard, a rather short male, thus was a little unusual leading the massive group assembled on UK's parade field.
During inspection in the field in front of the UK administration building on the parade field, Gerard found a no-no when he came across this sorta, Gomer Pyle, defiant cadet in training.
Gerard noticed my not-official shoes, not spit shined Army issued shoes.
I was lazy and had purchased always shiny shoes, maybe covered outside with some plastic that stayed shined thus not needing to be spit shined.
He was yelling criticiam so I don't think I wore them again.
In reality if you scratched those shoes, then they wouldn't shine ever again in the scratched spot.
Later we both were in Pershing Rifles, a drill team that competed with other ROTC programs from other schools, normally.
I don't think we ever won or even competed but we did participate in a memorable experience in the Kentucky Governor's parade.
We weren't that noticeable but with the small marching group we had, we almost brought a Frankfort bridge down.
Our Pershing Rifles commander, later our friend - Sandy Broughman, was leading the drills marching across the bridge when he noticed the bridge shaking. He immediately called a halt to that cadence then we returned to the marching drill when we were on solid ground.
Despite not being brilliant in our performance skills, we could possibly have taken a major bridge down.
Note: Sandy went on to be a significant engineer in Vietnam plus illegally in Laos and Cambodia.
He was leading a unit building bridges in those places that friendly military used in the daytime with the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese using at night.
Sandy deserves a story as well, yet shorter story.
A great documentary is Ken Burns' film on Vietnam!
The United States military loss was a major mistake that damaged many an American soldier and others friendly forces over there.
Worse is the damages that we did to Vietnam, their people and the region.
My oldest daughter, Carrie Pratt, recommended an exhibit at the Kentucky History Museum.
What I saw was a collection of photos and acknowledgements of many photographers who had died covering that war, beginning with French photographers and others who had been covering it before the United States wrongfully entered the war.
The exhibit was marvelous!
As I was leaving an interesting tour was arriving.
A Lieutenent Governor was arriving to see the exhibit yet his eyes seemed to be on Miss Kentucky who was also more interested in looking at him as well, not the photos.
They married later.
Back to Gerard...
Gerard was at least a year ahead of me in school.
He went to summer camp at Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania the year before I did. I didn't witness it but the story he told was fascinating.
Seems he broke rank in a massive group of cadets in camp, ran out in front of them holding up his canteen.
The army put Lister Bags out at training areas for cadets and others to fill their canteens with colder water than the cadets normally had in their canteens.
One early-on assembly, Gerard ran out next to what probably was that cadet commander in camp and he yelled at all the cadets,
"You cadets keep emptying your canteens in the Lister Bags and everybody else is now having to report to the medical clinic with dysentery. "EMPTY THEM OUT, THEN REFILL THEM AND STOP PASSING ON DYSENTERY!
GIVE ME 20!" (meaning push ups - they did!)
All the cadets did as he ran back into the ranks.
Apparently, the training officers took note and he was the darling of the staff for camp that summer.
Actually, he was to get an es**rting jeep with a driver after he got a severe case of blisters from his shoes due to assigned shoes that were too small.
They also had the most successful cadet at the obstacle course and/or long distance run in full combat gear to run in his place.
A couple of times with flip flops on due to the blisters, Gerard was chewed out only to later get apologies from the same offending officer.
Another time, Gerard was sent - with equipment on as well as packing his M-1 rifle - with a message to a head cook in a kitchen.
When he arrived that cook said something like, "Boy, you do NOT bring a rifle (Army issued) into my kitchen/dining hall!"
Not hesitating, Gerard quickly asked if he was supposed to leave it outside to
be stolen.
I don't think he got any more negative words then.
Back to the on campus events, two Kentucky Army General's were on campus for a meet and greet with cadets and I assume ROTC staff.
One general was in charge of Kentucky's Army Reserve and the other in charge of Kentucky National Guard.
As he was led down the meet and greet line by the regular Army Colonel in charge of the University of Kentucky's ROTC program, the Colonel said to the first General, "I'd like you to meet...."
Before he could get a word out both Generals stuck out their hands to shake saying, "Hello Gerard, how are you?"
The new Colonel was nearly in shock.
Gerard knew the Generals for different reasons.
I think one had been in high school with him and was the daughter of a governor.
Gerard also was very helpful to others.
I recall one particular incident that still gains my respect and compliments.
A person he had been very close to had been robbed and brutally assaulted in her place of business.
Showing up there, Gerard was to tell the woman's husband to go with her to the hospital and he'd clean it up.
The husband did and Gerald cleaned up the horrible mess left at the location.
Gerard also was well known and well like in MANY places and by many officials around the University of Kentucky campus.
While in the university's K thru 12 school, Gerard worked to help pay for his tuition by running errands which included documents and letters to different officials and staff.
He was constantly called on to do something for someone that amazingly was done better and faster than the "proper methods and channels."
Gerard's lost his engineering faculty member dad, so UK officials gave him jobs to help pay his tuition and fees.
One was a dispatcher for the police department and another security at the law school.
He was on campus doing security at the UK Law School where he later was to graduate.
When the campus was closed after the "State Police riots" handling protestors of the Kent State killings by Ohio's National Guard and generally protesting the Vietnam War and draft system, a unit of the Kentucky National Guard was told to go to the UK Law School where a law professor was violating the orders to evacuate campus.
Gerald met the National Guard at the law school door and told whoever was in charge it everything was OK there.
The leader of the Guard called someone in control and asked what to do.
He was asked who told him that it was OK there?
The Guard officer told him Gerard Gerhard.
The man on the land said, "Oh, then it's OK."
They left.
The day after school was closed with the guard occupying the campus overnight, Gerard was walking across the "closed campus" when a car with blackened windows closed pulled up in front of him.
Someone says, "You're not supposed to be on campus!"
But another voice says that's Gerard, he's OK.
At one point, Gerard was working for the state as a lawyer in the Kentucky Attorney General's office in the capitol.
There he had developed a reputation of handling difficult cases of people calling in or even visiting who were hostile.
He did it well to eventually be honored when retiring with 5 or 6 governors coming to his retirement party.
A significant compliment to say the least.
Gerard was called on sending him into strange places.
What reasons don't matter but arriving down a hollow, or hollar, in eastern Kentucky, he came across three or four big strangers, at least one with bib overalls on, standing in the path.
Walking up to them, one said something like, "Boy, ain't (or hain't) you scared being here?" I guess the man meant them being the threat.
Gerard replied, "If I was, I wouldn't be here, would I?"
That was enough of a response and the guys pointed him up the right path beyond them but giving them a warning of a big dog he should be worried about.
Seems Gerard added that if he was worried he wouldn't go further, but he went on to deliver something to a man up the hollar a little further.
Arriving at the door, the man he was to see opened the door, "Gerard, I was expecting you."
Gerard didn't know the man but he did what he came to do or served papers or whatever and is still with us.
Another time in the middle of the night, a truck with it's lights shining straight ahead. Two men stood out in front of their truck looking into the road ahead.
Gerard goes out to ask them to move their truck so he could pass.
They said that they wouldn't move until a copperhead snake in the road moved off the road or was dead.
Gerard reach into his ankle holster and pulled out a little pistol to the chagrin of the local men which they indicated, "That ain't gonna kill that snake."
One blast and the snake blew to pieces.
He had shotgun shells in it.
Gerard was the favorite of many different police officials, especially state police.
When the state police who discriminated in not hiring women, he was "used" as an example why.
Seems the prejudicial state police wanted to use him, a very small man, dressed in full gear as being ridiculously wearing the uniform with full gear on.
They made a uniform for him to wear with full gear as an example of why not women as state police.
Well, the women won but his wearing the uniform and equipment was a funny event when he showed up at state police headquarters in full gear.
The normally very, very busy secretarial pool went totally silent when he asked for the commander's office.
Of course he knew where it was but asked with a smile and entertained himself, the staff and the commander he was to see.
State police would harass him occasionally, for fun, in addition to helping him at other times.
Once Gerard, and his then wife, were at a truck stop towards Richmond eating with the new baby.
Two state police officers pulled up, walked in with the entire folks in the restaurant curious about what was happening.
The officers walked over to Gerard and his wife, lifted the blanket over the sleeping baby's (David Gerhard) carrier, looked at the baby, put the blanket on and said that they just wanted to make sure it was his.
That as all folks.
Another time he had to be in a meeting that was normally an hour away.
A friendly state police officer knew, maybe needed to be there too, getting there in 45 minutes.
He was pulled over once wondering what law he had broken when driving.
That officer was just checking to see if there was a driver driving the car.
He is short.
A bunch of bikers, including some state police, I think, were in Cracker Barrel when they saw him enter then invited him over to ride a Harley.
He said he couldn't because he needed a box.
A box was a big questionmark on their minds so he explained that he needed a box to help get up on a Harley.
In Cracker Barrel, he and one Lexington Police officer was standing as a man walks in, over to a cast iron frying pan, takes it down and walks out the door.
The officer asks, "Did you see that?" but didn't really need an answer.
The guy was arrested in the parking lot.
He did go into a Harley Davidson store at least once.
Seems the salesman was rude denying him help getting a catalog but a rough looking biker nearby overheard the conversation.
The biker jumped on the saleman who straightened up and got the catalog immediately.
After the salesman went out of listening distance, the biker said, "Gerard, don't you know me?"
Gerard was baffled until the biker identified himself as being his name, an undercover Lexington or State Police Officer.
Another event occurred when Gerard was speaking to group of Lexington police in a room above a firestation's two trucks below.
When mentioning a name in a humorous way, the entire class began chanting the man's name and pounding the floor with their feet.
Guessing the floor held but I am sure it alarmed the firemen below.
There is no particular order to my recollections but when Gerard took his only son to Mammoth Cave, an experience imagining his son warn the tour guide is fun.
With the tour guide asking if there are any questions, Gerard's son jumps out toe say, "My dad can't help himself."
Sure enough Gerard couldn't.
Gerard asked, "Is the entire cave underground?"
David Gerhard became a major figure in national and international cartooning.
Gerard paid for his education and schooling as an artist with David taking up cartooning.
I believe Disney, Nickelodian, The Cartoon Network and others have hired him and his creativity.
David was working with a large group of cartoonist in Canada where he moved after owning a home in California where he worked previously.
After the writer's strike, he move back to Lexington where he and his wife, Lynsey, are living with her working at David's mom's locally famous coffee shop.
David may be cartooning from home now.
I enjoy seeing both of them and I think have seen them more in this recent return to Lexington than I have seen them more than
Gerard's long time (thirty years) girlfriend.
It's not many times but great visits.
Gerard's girlfriend runs in different social circles and is what Gerard lovingly calls his "Management."
Yes, he jumps when she says jump!
Sometimes if funny to watch him take a call and rush off, running sometimes to his car.
She is filthy rich and doesn't invite me around though I've known him longer than her, unless she was in grade school with him.
In thirty years, I've only been with her around 5 or 6 times.
Traveling rich places and having a circle of friends that don't hang with activists, I've only been to "their home quarters", hers legally, twice for two of his birthdays.
I think only three of his friends were invited yet the place was packed with her friends.
In the living room, a group of her friends had to listen as I told of his many meaningful accomplishments that they had never known.
As I said in the beginning, Gerard has done much we never hear about.
He won't write it down or record it either... so I am trying.
One of the many accomplishments many do not know is the centralized automobile registration and licensing.
There use to be long lines wrapped around the court house with people wanting to renew their licenses at the first of the month.
On his own dime and time, Gerard persued moving the controls of registration and licensing via new IBM computers out of the hands of county clerks control and under statewide registration.
Of course this pi**ed off many corrupt county clerks who used the control to provide temporary licenses to family, friends and donors to them or their campaigns for reelection.
The profits, even reduction of taxes on their friends' and families' vehicles was done, illegally or unethical without the knowledge of other taxpaying citizens.
Even when the head of the state transportation cabinet was testifying to a committee in Frankfort, Gerard was the "hit of the show."
The transportation chief was asked why people couldn't register their cars on their birth months instead of the month of purchase?
That dingbat con said, "People can't remember their birthdays."
In the audience, Gerard let's out a LOUD "Bulls--t!" bringing the house down.
A Courier Journal reporter in front of him turns around and asks if he could quote him.
Apparently, Gerard was quoted in the Courier.
Gerard once was showing a television reporter the extremely dangerous, unmarked connector loop where I64 drivers could turn north onto I75.
Many an accident had occurred there, even after Gerard had called attention to this danger to the local state transportation district office.
This time he told the reporter that the state road engineer was speaking downtown and to ask him about that curve.
The television reporter did an got a stupid, yet funny quote.
That fool said, "Those big trucks should remember the curve once they have gone through it."
Guess first time accidents don't occur.
Now you should see the markings including many signs before the curve, flashing lights, loop signs and more yet notice a truck roll over danger sign IN the curve, not before the curve where it should be.
Actually the federal manual for signs and more concerning highways (the transportation Bible) tells officials to place it in the wrong place.
Another funny incident occurred just after the central licensing laws passed when Gerard happened to be in the state's Transportation Office Building cafeteria.
Sitting at a table next to some strangers who were probably corrupt auto dealers from around the state, Gerard heard one say, "Oh sh-t, he got a part into law that makes us subject to federal prosecution."
What a laugh to hear and know they would be... but Gerard held back.
When a Louisville TV station wanted to know who and how the law had been used and was helping some folks avoid taxes, Gerard helped.
He took the TV reporter to the University of Kentucky's football coaches parking space near Commonwealth Stadium.
Ironically, the head coach came out during the filming thinking it was to be a good interview.
The reporter explained with the coach immediately jumped in and sped out off.
You probably see less dealer's licensing being used while you can see lots of Florida license plates with locals getting their personal cars registered their to avoid Kentucky higher taxes.
Some businesses license their vehicles in Indiana, I think, to avoid KY taxes and some folks have "Farm" license on their trucks for them to get lower tax rates?
Sarcastically said, "What honest people we are."
A pleasant, fun memories was heading out to eat with Gerard driving, he exclaims "Look at that!" with me seeing a semi in the distance turning toward Walmart on Wi******er Rd.
Driving to follow, we found the semi parking in a wide open space in the Walmart parking lot with a LARGE Idaho potato replica being pulled behind the semi.
A graduate at UK had asked the Idaho Potato public relations firm in they would stop by Lexington as an honor for her graduation.
She was there with her boyfriend in cap and gown smiling from ear to ear.
The potato had been in the Louisville's Kentucky Derby Parade and was traveling south for another PR appearance at a grocery in southern KY.
I got out snapping photos.
The semi driver and two female crew then invited us all into the potato to see the memorabilia they gave out.
I gladly took a tee shirt and a stuffed Mr. Idaho Potato.
I have a cool photo of Gerard sitting in Cracker Barrel with my Mr. Idaho Potato in front of him, though Mr Gerard was a little bit grumpy.
Gerard was invited to one of Anita Madden's famous Kentucky Derby Parties.
Dressed in formal clothes with a beautifully dressed date, he stopped in a Waffle House to have a late night snack.
A bunch of guys were smiling, talking to themselves about the short man with such an attractive, tall blonde when she got up to go to the restroom.
They didn't hesitate to ask Gerard if that was his daughter or his date?
It was more of a laugh than a question.
His long time girlfriend had a house on the property where Greenbriar is in West Virginia.
I have heard many a story of his going there.
Xmas's were some of those times, once seeing a KY governor there with his wife and daughter.
But my favorite was when the national Republican congressional body was rendezvousing there.
(Actually, underground bunkers were there for congress in case of a nuclear bomb attack.)
This one visit found the entrance blocked with two Washington DC police cars blocking the gate.
Him driving, three men, came to the car with their cars blocking the gate behind them.
One man had a clip board and the other two submachine guns.
The clip board guy asked for his ID which he showed him.
The clip board guy says he didn't have approval to enter but Gerard said it would be in Jenny's name.
Jenny was sitting next to him with them checking then approving their entry.
As they turned to go back and move the cars, Gerard asked them if he could take a photo and that he'd never seen DC police cars blocking the road.
The clip board guy said he didn't know.
Gerard told him he'd know who to call.
As the guy turned to go ask for approval to take a photo.
Gerard stopped him again and asked him to get someone to bring something in a bucket to wash off a little bit of the dirt on the cars.
The machine gun guys laughed but the clip board man and Jenny didn't.
Jenny had season tickets to the Opera House shows but one performance Gerard was asked to join his friend, the head of photojournalists at the Lexington Herald-Leader.
This performance was of George Carlin, one of the most profound but profane comedians.
Gerard had no idea who Carlin was.
Gerard is not a man who like or uses profanity.
But when Carlin starts one of his incredible performances, within 5 minutes over half the audience got up and left.
That may have been as humorous as George Carlins powerful routines for Gerard.
Jenny has been the love of his life but she doesn't like his working on the issue of curves which frequently cause deaths.
This is due to poor signage, a responsibility of state transportation offices around the state.
He has documented and share his highly technical, and I assume legal skilled writing, with photos, many a time being ignore far more than once.
I have always felt he should be sharing such far more with news media and the general public now to save lives.
This is because local and state officials chose to ignore him.
I remember one extremely dangerous curve for a normal speed where a state police officer was killed.
However, the next day they put up "slippery when wet" signs, not reducing speed or an impending curve warning.
A lot of the deaths are due to blind curves which are a curve that goes right or left and drivers cannot see as they approach. This is especially true at night.
I have seen a location where a family missed a severe right turn curve, all drowning in a flooding stream to be found days later when water subsided.
I have seen a curve in Lexington-Fayette County where a high school basketball stars son died in a curve as well as numerous other curves in Fayette and surrounding counties nearby where people have died.
Gerard gets mad thinking of media's failure to address this even nationally.
A school bus crash, with kids deaths, in Arkansas and a fuel truck blowing up under a bridge below a major interstate in Pennsylvania weren't marked properly.
The later took down a major highway that had to be shut down.
Years ago, a Pulitzer prize for reporting was awarded for a writing about death at railroad crossing.
Things thankfully changed for RR crossing around the country!
The same needs to happen around the nation regarding curves!
This is why I have been Gerard's friend for a LONG time... sadly seeing deaths in curves over and over STILL.
For 20 years, I've collected/distributed donated, good condition, used luggage to KY foster/adoptive kids so they don't have to move in garbage bags.
