Every Friday and Saturday night, the Grand Ole Country Music Hall brings country music lovers the show they deserve. With a house band to beat and a constantly rotating cast of performers, each show is a special treat that can only be lived once. Not only do they cover their usual country singers with local singer Larry Sander and young upstart Christian Tobbe, but the music hall also brings a unique cast of characters to their stage, such as Elvis impersonator Todd Bodenheimer.
World renowned for his ability to become the beloved late-performer, Bodenheimer has perfected his look and mannerisms to reflect Elvis Presley. When he takes the stage, older eyes in the crowd light up in recognition, and everyone enjoys his energetic covers of Elvis’ classics, many even singing along.
Without fail, the show goes on; the dedication Grand Ole Country Music Hall has to the music lovers of the West Point community shows through every set. The music hall puts on a show every Friday and Saturday with no plans to stop anytime soon.

The night sky glimmers through smog pouring from the smokestacks of the Kosmosdale Cement factory while a figure emerges from the dark. The shadow moves quietly across Highway 31W through the pools of artificial light cast from dim lamp posts. Just a few paces down the sidewalk, they pause, then contort. Back arching violently, arms clenched into their side with hands tensed like claws. Their mouth is agape with an empty scream emitting no sound. In the blink of an eye, they are back to their normal gait, shuffling down the sidewalk. Thirty paces away, they turn back to light a cigarette, the small warm flame piercing the night for a moment like the stars above. They then continue walking into the night until their distant silhouette disappears around a bend.

As tradition and small towns begin to fade moving north, urbanization takes over and in the eradication of small communities, it carries an invisible but heavy companion: heavy drug usage. In all directions, when asking many locals about the development of 31W, the topic of drugs will inevitably come up. Fentanyl and other opioids are the most prominent drug of choice, followed closely by heroin, meth, and cocaine. Just last year, Louisville DEA agents, working with the Jeffersontown Police Department, intercepted 30 kilograms of cocaine and one kilogram of Fentanyl. Drugs and the overdoses they induce are ever-present in the abandoned spaces along the highway, especially leading into Louisville.

Kerry and Tracy Caufield, a sibling duo, carry on the legacy of their grandfather Keran S Caufield through the family business. Caufield Sr. was an Irish Immigrant who opened a photography studio in 1915. When Keran’s son, Kerry and Tracy’s father, was involved in an automobile accident, the family received an insurance settlement. After paying the medical bills, they used the leftover $25 to purchase novelty merchandise to amuse the customers as they waited for their tintype photographs to develop. The studio began to sell these items upon demand and eventually selling the curios brought in more money than the photography. When the photography studio closed for good, Caufield’s Novelties was born in its place in 1920.
“I always say photography stores in the early 1900s are kind of like video stores in the 80s,” said Tracy. “They were everywhere.”
Caufield’s Novelty has always been unique. Throughout the Great Depression the storefront persevered and the inexpensive jokes and magic tricks became a light in a dark time. Caufields is now one of the oldest and largest theatrical distributors in the country and competes with a growing market of online sellers by shipping nationwide and overseas. Despite the competition with an increase in online sellers, Caufields is here to stay. “I think you have to do a little something extra these days so you are a place that people want to come to instead of sitting on their computer and ordering,” said Tracy. And at Caufields Novelty, there’s never a shortage of a little something extra.