‘So, are you the mayor?’ the stranger asked me

As a journalist, I talk to people a lot. It’s just part of what I do.

Mark White is Editor of The News Journal.

Even when I am not working, I still tend to talk to people quite a bit when I am out and about so let me tell you about a couple of interesting conversations that I had recently, including an interesting question that got posed to me.

Let me preface this by saying that several months ago my blood sugar got up much higher than usual, and I started walking on a regular basis in an effort to help bring it down and to try and get a little healthier.

One of my usual places to walk is along Depot Street behind my office in Corbin. The sidewalks aren’t bad there and traffic isn’t too heavy.

Since I have been walking back there on a regular basis, I have encountered a number of people, including some strangers needing directions and two of them stand out.

One of them was in his SUV trying to get his navigation system to work while his significant other was checking out the Colonel Harland Sanders statute. He asked me for directions to Cumberland Falls, and we talked for several minutes about how to get to the falls and about things to see in and around Corbin.

Then the stranger asked me, “So, are you the mayor?” (Not sure how Mayor Suzie Razmus should feel about that one…LOL.)

I laughed and said, “No, but I am the editor of the local newspaper,” and pointed to my office about a block away.

I added jokingly that I hadn’t lost quite enough senses yet to run for office.

The stranger, whose name I didn’t catch, laughed and told me not to run for office.

As it turned out, he used to be the mayor in his town for several years. I can’t say this surprised me as he seemed to be an interesting fellow.

The other memorable encounter that I had with a stranger while out walking was back in the fall.

This other stranger that I encountered was out walking his dog while passing through town, and asked me about the location for the pinball museum and about what there was to do around town.

I suggested he check out the Colonel Sanders statue, and maybe run by the newly renovated KFC restaurant and museum. Even though the interior of the museum isn’t open yet, the outside looks pretty darn cool.

Then I pointed out the nearby L&N 2132 locomotive along with its coal tender that Corbin got from Bainbridge, Georgia, and renovated.

The stranger got kind of excited by that.

As it turned out, the gentlemen, whose name that I can’t recall, was from the Bainbridge area, and had no idea about the history of the locomotive.

You can find out all kinds of interesting things just by talking to people sometimes.

When you live in a place for a long time, I think you sometimes forget that there is some nice stuff to see around there.

Cumberland Falls State Resort Park is one of, if not the most visited state park in Kentucky. People come from all over the world to see the moonbow, which is a rainbow that forms at night when we have a full moon and the conditions are just right. Cumberland Falls is one of only two places in the world where you can regularly see a moonbow. Yet there are many people in Whitley County, who have never seen Cumberland Falls let alone the moonbow.

When the weather gets better go out some weekend and take a walk around some of our local towns, and check out some of the things again that visitors find so amazing about our community.