NOW BATTING MIDDLETOWN NATIVE GREG GALIETTE IS LIVING HIS DREAM AS SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT OF THE LOUISVILLE BATS built yet,” he says. “I remember going to St. Matthews for grocery shopping because there was no grocery in Middletown at the time.”
Writer / Carrie Vittitoe Photographer / Bruce Hardin Blue Harvest Photography
The East of of Louisville in 2020 is vastly different than that of the 1950s. Where a drive down Shelbyville Road now takes you past gas stations, restaurants, boutiques, big box stores and frequently through mindboggling traffic. A drive in the 50s and 60s might have seemed downright idyllic: farmland dotted with sheep or cows, widely spaced utility poles, a hardware store, a diner, and a Hudson Wasp or Simca Vedette rambling down the road. As a kid growing up in Woodland Hills, the subdivision behind Eastern High School in Middletown, Greg Galiette was able to experience those blissful conditions. “I actually have photos of our house down on Westwood. You could see all the way up to the high school because a lot of the houses up toward that part of the subdivision hadn’t been
He would often ride his bike the six miles to Floyd’s Fork to fish or hang out at Wish’s Drugs, where he and his friends would buy candy, soft drinks, or baseball cards. He eventually worked as a lifeguard at Cox’s Lake and would ride his bike to work.
He attended Hite Elementary and distinctly recalls his first day of first grade. His father had died from Hodgkin’s lymphoma when Galiette was only five years old, and he remembers, “I did not want to be at school.” His mom had driven him that morning, but it was close enough to walk home so he simply left school and beat his mother home.
“I was waiting for her on my front porch when she pulled in,” he says. “She was not “Obviously, you don’t dare do that now with happy.” the traffic,” he says. “It shows you how quiet Middletown was back then.” He spent the remainder of his years at Hite walking to and from school each day, and Galiette recalls how the children of then did the same to Eastern, which, prior Woodland Hills would have basketball to Crosby Middle School’s construction, tournaments in which kids from one street was for students in grades 7-12. would compete against children from another street. It wasn’t unusual during the His mother was a professional artist but summer for 15-20 kids, ranging in age from sometimes worked as a substitute teacher elementary to high school, to play softball at Eastern High School. He remembers a games. Galiette would frequently play in day during his senior year when his mom the creek behind his house where he would subbed in his accounting class, which his friends greeted with delight. catch crawdads and salamanders.
30 / JEFFERSONTOWN MAGAZINE / APRIL 2020 / JeffersontownMag.com
