I Swear...

Today was the swearing in of the City Commissioners for Sadieville. Bonnie is visiting and was able to see her oldest son take the Kentucky Oath of Office. The Kentucky Oath of Office is pretty long and says the traditional things at the beginning. Then the last half is all about swearing that you have never faught in a duel, will never fight in a duel, will never start a duel, and on and on and on about duels. The 1st time Claude was sworn in as a city commissioner (today was his 3rd swearing in) he was replacing Herb Archer as city commissioner. Herb is the man who built our home and then finished off the basement after we moved in. He needed to resign and knew that Claude was looking for a way to help out in the city. He asked Claude if he would be interested and if he was he would place his name as a possible replacement for him. Claude told Herb he was very interested and from that chat Claude because the new city commissioner. Since he was the only one being sworn in that time, he was quite surprised when they got to the part about the duels. The other commissioners all started to chuckle because they knew it was coming and realized no one had warned Claude about this very old language. Last year Claude took me away for an overnight trip to Bardstown, Kentucky. The purpose for the trip was to take a lunch ride on the train thru the countryside. While there we visited the Bourbon Museum in an old dormitory of a Catholic church. We just happened to get a glimpse of a letter in one of the display cases. When first arriving in Bardstown, we had toured an old mansion that was the home of a cousin of Stephen Foster. He visited this home and it was the inspiration for his song "My Old Kentucky Home" which is the state song of Kentucky. The judge that owned this home was a leading citizen and it turns out had the final duel that was fought in Kentucky. He killed his opponent. It was determined this dueling was not a good thing and the law was written against duels. From that point forward the Oath of Office from contained and still contains all the phraseology about duels. We would not have known the history of this interesting old language in the Oath of Office except for the letter in the display case at the Bourbon Museum in Bardstown. Now you have a bit of history trivia from Kentucky and we have a full slate of city commissioners for Sadieville.

The room they are being sworn-in in is the meeting room in the old Sadieville Depot building. The building was moved away from the railroad track after the train ceased stopping in Sadieville. Then it was refurbished and because our city hall and city clerks office. Claude has made sure a new deck was added around the side and back of the building and that the basement has been remodeled so it can be used for meetings also.