Monthly Archives: July 2020

More Cincy Reopenings

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The Cincinnati Reds opened their season on Friday instead of March 26 as planned. Friday is also the day I made the Cincinnati Museum Center visit I’d postponed a couple of weeks earlier. It was supposed to happen on the same day as my Maya exhibit visit, but a service appointment got in the way. The delay moved it from the members-only preview week to a week after the general opening and fountain turn on. Water now shoots high in the air and cascades down through that series of pools in front of Union Terminal. The marker in the foreground stands near where the world’s first professional baseball team had their home plate. Less than two miles away, in an empty stadium, the modern version of the team got the shortened 2020 season rolling with a 7-1 win.

The museum center is using timed entry to keep the number of people in the building below capacity although that hasn’t yet been an issue even though attendance has been slowly increasing. Three museums are part of the CMC. Because just about everything in it is hands-on, the Children’s Museum remains closed as do two of the major components of the Natural History Museum. Keeping the replica limestone cave and the Science Interactives Gallery sanitized just isn’t practical, and some interactive experiences have been temporarily removed as well. I know all of that makes things considerably less entertaining for younger visitors but the most prominent residents of Dinosaur Hall are still there and they’re still awesome.

There are currently two temporary exhibits that are included in CMC admission. I checked out “Inspired by Nature” first. If you’ve spent any time looking over downtown Cincinnati, there’s a good chance you’ve seen some of Charley Harper’s art. It appears in several murals with “Homecoming (Blue Birds)”, on Court Street, being the most well known. The placard at the left of the last picture contains a Harper quote that probably sums up the man as well as any.

This is the centennial year for the passage of the constitutional amendment that allowed women to vote. “An Unfinished Revolution: Women and the Vote” tells of the struggle that preceded that breakthrough as well as the struggle that continues today in pursuit of equality. The 19th Amendment was passed on May 21, 1919, and ratified on August 20, 1920. In between those events, Ohio legislators took steps to assure that women could vote in the 1920 presidential election even if the amendment was not ratified in time. In the center of the first picture, the 1919 and 1920 Hamilton County voter rolls give a visual indication of just how significant a change that was.

Some portions of the Cincinnati History Museum are closed but I think that has at least as much to do with establishing new and reworked exhibits after the big renovation as with anything COVID-19 related. I was excited to find that “Cincinnati in Motion” is now complete. New to me sights included Proctor and Gamble’s Ivorydale complex and Crosley Field where I watched several Reds games and one Beatles concert. Neither “Shaping Our City” nor “You Are Here” were entirely finished when I was here last, but they are now. As we (at least I) struggle to outsmart our phones, it helps being reminded that all new technology requires some learning.

Another thing that happened during the two weeks between my planned and actual visit, was the reopening of the Holocaust and Humanity Center. Entrance to the HHC is not included in CMC admission but it is is the same building and discounted combination tickets are available. This was my second visit and I again found the personal stories and keepsakes extremely interesting. The pictured Torah was saved from a burning synagogue on Kristallnacht. I had taken a picture of the only window in the museum on my first visit but I had not actually looked out of it and that is the whole point of it being there. It provides a view of railroad tracks which is how many holocaust refugees arrived in Cincinnati. The third photo is from the “Humanities Gallery” which deals with today rather than history. I took several pictures of the row of screens and their rotating set of images and picked one to include in this post. Then, as I actually put this post together, I discovered that I had unwittingly selected a picture that was a near duplicate of one I had posted from my first visit. That picture, which can be seen here, obviously made an impression on me undoubtedly because it is evidence of the bigotry present today. I did not want to just repeat that picture and decided I didn’t want to repeat the feeling either. I went with something much more hopeful.

Many things at Union Terminal are now open but absolutely nothing is back to normal. That’s true of the whole world, however, and the folks at CMC and HHC seem to be doing the right thing. Kids have it the worst. I can think of nothing equivalent to the learning that automatically comes along with all the fun in the Children’s Museum and Science Interactives Gallery. I’m sad that they are closed but know that the risk of having them open is too great to even think about. A few interactive displays exist in the Cincinnati History Museum but they are in places that can be constantly monitored and sanitized frequently. In the HHC, pushbuttons are used to activate displays and recordings. Everyone entering is given a rubber-tipped stylus to handle the button-pushing and they are encouraged to “take it with you when you vote”. Hand sanitizer is available throughout all the museums. Every employee and guest I saw was wearing a mask and many staff members also had a face shield. In some sense, this could be considered a good time for adults to visit. It’s not crowded and access to both displays and docents is easy. But empty museums are not, in general, a good thing at all. I really look forward to the return of flocks of noisy kids figuring out where that ball is going to fall and which direction that gear is going to turn.

The picture at right was taken two weeks ago on my way to the Cincinnati Museum Center to see the Maya exhibit. Sugar n’ Spice has operated on Reading Road, about five miles north of downtown Cincinnati, since 1941. They are taking COVID-19 seriously with limited capacity, masked staff, plexiglass dividers, and more. I had heard something about plans to open a second location but I hadn’t really paid any attention to details. As I finished up my original wispy thin pancakes, I struck up a conversation with a manager who showed me some pictures of the new location. I learned that 1) the grand opening was happening the very next day and 2) the new store wasn’t just near the old Sycamore Street diner, it was in the diner.

I stopped here on Friday on my way to see the dinosaurs and suffragettes. It’s a 1955 Mountain View diner that was moved from Massillon, Ohio, to the Over the Rhine section of Cincinnati in 1984. It then operated for many years as The Diner on Sycamore. Its most recent life was as Joe’s Diner which closed in 2016. In between, it had a couple years of life as Vinyl and was dormant for several years. I really like what Sugar n’ Spice has done here and I really like their chances of success. The middle of a pandemic is certainly not the ideal time to open a restaurant but everything was, of course, in motion well before the pandemic hit. Although it’s a family-owned business, Sugar n’ Spice is really an established brand that has brought their bright colors and slightly whimsical decor along with a reputation for quality to a classic factory-built diner. The counter is not currently being used but two outside dining areas are available along with plexiglass separated booths in the Mountain View and in the brick and mortar building it is attached to. I’d totally forgotten how big Sugar n’ Spice omelets are. Five eggs aerated. This is what I had for breakfast — and dinner.

A Darke Drive

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A sixteen-mile long driving tour some fifty miles from home is what passes for a road trip when cabin fever and a coronavirus collide. Several years ago, the Arcanum Wayne Trail Historical Society folks put together a self-guided driving tour of the nearby area. That area is the southern part of the county where I was raised so the tour naturally interested me. As I recall, when the tour was first announced, there was some sort of museum event associated with the launch. I couldn’t make it but copied the tour description to my phone and plotted the route on my GPS. My intent was to combine driving the tour with a visit to the museum, but it never became a high priority and, with the museum open just one day a month, it never happened. The COVID-19 pandemic has eliminated even that single day of museum operation while elevating my need for some sort of outing. Road trips planned for April, May, and June have evaporated, those envisioned for July are all but gone, and August doesn’t look any better.

The tour passes one street south of the museum but I stopped by for a picture. The other pictured building is just up the block and some may remember it from this 2017 post. Sadly, the restaurant that was housed in the building and which triggered the post has closed. I’ve since seen a couple more Battle Ax Plus signs, but this was the first.

Arcanum’s Main Street runs north and south. I’m guessing that George Street, where the museum sits, was the original main east-west street since the first street north of it and the first street south of it are called, respectively, North Street and South Street. The tour begins at the intersection of Main and South and heads west, toward the water tower, on South Street. Arcanum isn’t a large town (population 2129 in 2010) so it doesn’t take long to reach open countryside.

South Street quickly becomes Arcanum-Hollansburg Road and intersects State Route 503 in just a few miles. At the corner, a church that was once part of a settlement named Beech Grove has been converted to a home. The tour turns south here, but I headed a short distance north to pause at the cemetery. Someone keeps the cemetery mowed but there is little evidence of any other sort of maintenance. A neighbor’s tractor display helps make the stop worthwhile.

I returned to the tour route and followed it to another cemetery. This is Ithaca Cemetery just north of the town by that name. Going backwards in time, we have veterans of the Civil War, Mexican War, and War od 1812. There are quite a few Civil War veterans buried here including one with a modern military plaque. That sort of plaque is common but I don’t recall ever seeing one for a Civil War vet. Sure is easier to read than weathered stone.

The tour description identifies four burials of significance here but I only managed to locate two. The first is Arcanum’s founder, William Gunder, who is buried next to his wife Nancy. The other is Revolutionary War veteran William Ashley although calling it a burial isn’t really accurate. Ashley was buried on a family farm nearby and when a new owner refused public access to the site, the marker was relocated here. Presumedly, Ashley himself was not moved. The other markers in the picture are for Revolutionary War veterans Ezekiel Farmer and William Walker. These are fairly recent additions and are not mentioned in the tour description. My guess is that these are also markers only.

The tour makes two passes through Ithaca. The directions discuss the impressive three-story I.O.O.F. building on the second pass but I paused for this photo when I entered from the north. The two passes actually overlap only at this intersection. This small crop of Corvairs, which look overly ripe and may have missed their harvest date, is at Ithaca’s western edge.

This is Darke-Preble County Line Road and, since I’m on the south side driving east, I may actually be in Preble County taking these pictures. The trees and bridge mark Miller’s Fork which is, according to the tour directions, “the speculated location of the first settlement of white people in southern Darke County.” The second picture is of the intersection with OH-503 which once contained a toll house, a one-room school, and the aforementioned Ashley farm. The tour directions do not indicate where the farm was in relation to the intersection so the location of William Ashley’s remains may or may not be in the picture.

The tour heads north on OH-503 but turns off of it on the second pass through Ithaca. It then returns to its starting point on Arcanum-Ithaca Road which becomes Main Street at the city limits. It was great to get out and drive some back roads even if it was for less than two hours including graveyard loitering. It helped with road trip withdrawal for the very short term, but overall it may have aggravated it by reminding me of what I’m missing. 

Book Review
Secret Route 66
Jim Ross & Shellee Graham

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At first glance, this probably looks like a perfect fit for my bookshelf. Like many of the other books there, its subject is a historic highway and its authors are people I know. In this case, the highway is Route 66 and the people are the husband-and-wife team of Jim Ross and Shellee Graham. Both are accomplished historians, photographers, and writers with Jim probably having a bit of an edge in the history department, Shellee having an equally small lead on the photography side, and their writing skills being too close to call. A second glance, however, just might turn up something about this book that is different from most of the others with which it now shares shelf space. It is the word “secret”.

I am not a fan of books with words like “haunted”, “mysterious”, “unsolved”, or “bloody” in their titles. I don’t know whether or not that puts me in a minority of road fans, but apparently it does in the larger world of readers in general. A writer friend’s publisher has pushed for a “haunted” book saying they are four times as popular as the other kind. To me, those words smack of exploitation. They seem to scream out the intent of emphasizing some sort of supernatural or scandalous connection for a topic that must be otherwise boring. I acknowledge that “secret” doesn’t sound quite as exploitative as “haunted” and that even “haunted” and the other words I’ve mentioned can be used as honest labels, but I still find them offputting.

Anyone who read my blog entry about visiting the recently reopened American Sign Museum will know when I bought this book and may even have some idea why. The ASM, like practically every other museum in the country, was hit hard by a COVID-19 related closing. As a member, I’d paid nothing for my visit, and wanted to show a little support with a purchase.

So how is this book I didn’t exactly want? Surprisingly good. I’m not really all that surprised, of course. To my relief, the idea of revealing secrets doesn’t get much further than the title. I doubted that a pair of respected authorities would suddenly become conspiratorial sounding characters sharing dark secrets from the shadows but it was good to have that verified. To some extent, the subtitle also does that. Weird, wonderful, and obscure accurately describe the book’s contents.

Almost everything in Secret Route 66: A Guide to the Weird, Wonderful, and Obscure is something that, while not actually a secret, is not likely to be found in mainstream guides. Even when the subject is something commonly known, Ross and Graham provide some detail or backstory not commonly known at all. Sometimes the subject isn’t a place or a thing but simply that uncommon detail or story.  Among the things that struck me as weird is the true tale of a proposal to use atomic bombs for roadway excavation. Everyone has their own definition of wonderful but my definition is matched by the story of the Motel St. Louis sign that wandered off to help people find another motel (Finn’s in St. James) and then a church (New Hope) before being rescued and returned home. I thought learning about the annual reunion for the ghost town of Alanreed was kind of wonderful, too. Topping my personal list of obscure things is the chapter on several abandoned bridge abutments on the original route through Santa Fe.

A pair of facing pages make up each of the ninety chapters so that everything about an item can be studied without flipping back and forth. A sidebar contains appropriate information, such as location. These pages are printed in black and white, but they are augmented by sixteen pages of color photographs (plus 2 b&w to make the positioning work) in the middle of the book. Some page flipping here is appropriate but the subject and associated page number are shown for each photo to make it easy. Images in the book are a mixture of historic and modern. Most of the modern photos are the work of the authors but not all. Other researchers and photographers are always credited with images provided.

I ended up liking this book that I didn’t exactly want. That really was to be expected with the Ross and Graham names on the cover. It’s a good reference to add to a Route 66 library although not to start one. Seeing obscure things is good. Seeing only obscure things not so much. You don’t want to come home from your first Route 66 trip and have to say “no” to every “Did you see?” your neighbors and relatives ask. You want to respond with, “Yes, and did you see the [put your favorite Route 66 ‘secret’ here]?” 

Secret Route 66: A Guide to the Weird, Wonderful, and Obscure, Jim Ross and Shellee Graham, Reedy Press, LLC,  October 15, 2017, 6 x 9 inches, 208 pages, ISBN 978-1681061078
Available through Amazon.

Maya at the Cincinnati Museum Center

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March 14 was to be opening day for a huge exhibit of Maya artifacts at the Cincinnati Museum Center. March 9 was the day a state of emergency triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic was declared in Ohio. The opening did not happen. On Friday, nearly four months later than planned, I was among the first group of visitors to step into the exhibit. We all wore face masks and all staff members wore face masks in addition to clear plastic shields. We were all museum members as only members are allowed in for the first week. Our entry time was preselected which is pretty normal with major exhibits at the museum but the number allowed for each interval was considerably less than what it would have been in March. There were floor markings to encourage six feet of separation and a few interactive “experiences” were removed to eliminate contact. Touching the artifacts would be forbidden in any case and I don’t believe any were removed. All 300+ seemed to be right where they had been waiting for four months.

The Children’s Museum and the cave portion of the Natural History Museum are closed but most of the center is open. Entry, however, is now time-based and I had reserved a slot for checking other things out after the Maya exhibit. That was not to be as I immediately headed home. Missing an appointment with an AC service guy in July is not wise.

That scheduled service call did not actually make me rush through the exhibit but it did cause some shortcuts. As I entered, I learned that an audio tour was available through my phone, but in the probably mistaken belief that it might slow me down, I ignored it. No doubt that’s one reason I have so little information to share on specific items. I read every description but took no notes, not even with my camera, and my memory did not retain details very long.

I did not photograph many of the numerous small pieces in the exhibit and didn’t even do a particularly good job with the larger ones. The three items displayed here against the lighted and decorated pyramids can reasonably be called mid-sized. The picture at the beginning of this article is of the one at the front right of the wider view.

This stela is one of the largest items in the exhibit. It can be seen beyond the pyramids in the previous pictures. Created in 800 CE near the peak of Maya civilization, it documents some of the accomplishments of a Maya king. That’s something I happen to know because of some only slightly blurry photo notes.

Only four Maya codices, all written after the civilization’s peak, are known to exist. The Cincinnati exhibit includes this partial reproduction. It and the two stone carvings are among the items I wish I’d picked up more details on, and it’s likely they will become justifications for a return.

I have no details to share about the stone mask but I do have this for the jaguar man. The exhibit was originally scheduled to close on September 7 but the delayed opening has moved that to January 3, 2021. I hope to return and be better prepared with more time when I do.

As for the rest of the museum, I will definitely be returning, possibly as soon as this coming week, to see that. I sort of want to see what changes COVID-19 has triggered and I most definitely want to check out a special exhibit on women and the vote that is open through September 27. As everyone should know, this is the centennial of the first national election in which women were permitted to vote. 

Book Review
The Tinker of Tinkertown
Carla Ward

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I guess my purchase of this book fits the technical description of an impulse buy, but I sure don’t think of it that way. Yes, I bought it without a hint of hesitation the instant I learned of its existence and there was certainly a lot more emotion than logic involved in the decision. But I sincerely believe that the logical part of my brain had long ago decided that acquiring this book was something I needed to do as soon as it existed. If it ever did.

It was the last day of June 2011, almost exactly nine years before I heard of this book, that I first heard of Tinkertown. As I sat in an Albuquerque hotel room working on the day’s journal, a friend sent a message saying, “Don’t forget to checkout Tinkertown”. In the morning, I did just that and was immediately blown away. Ross Ward, the tinker — and creator — of Tinkertown had already been gone for many years but I got to see many of his artworks, meet Carla, his widow, and tour the museum that the two of them had built in Sandia Park. It was a place that simultaneously reminded me of some of the many one-man folk-art installations I’d seen while being completely unlike any of them.

As I’m sure is the case with many visitors, it was the mechanized carvings that made the biggest impression on me. It’s the sort of blending of engineering and artistic creativity that tugs at both the analytical and the aesthetically driven parts of my brain. There was ample evidence of Ward’s other talents in some flat paintings, the bottle filled walls, and the sometimes whimsical but always artful signs appearing throughout the museum and grounds. There were enough hints of Ward’s life outside of Tinkertown to seriously arouse interest. That interest really can’t be satisfied with a single book, but this one does a remarkable job of trying.

Sometime between the book being ordered and its arrival, I revisited its description and noticed its length of thirty-six pages. I wasn’t worried but I did wonder how Carla could tell Ross’ story in just three dozen pages. The answer, as I think I already knew, is “Just fine.” She tells it with pictures and just enough well-chosen words to properly place those pictures in Ross Ward’s life and to tell some details of that life that the pictures do not.

There are several delightful photos of Ward, but the bulk are of his art and the bulk of those are in a section of “2D Work”. It’s a section I found quite interesting as most of its contents are things not displayed at Tinkertown. Items range from posters to etchings to fine art paintings representing nearly every period in Ward’s life. A personal favorite is a circus parade that he drew on thirty feet of adding machine paper at the age of eight.

A “Tinkertown” section follows. The pictures in it are of things I’ve seen but that doesn’t make me enjoy it any less. The well-done photos provide an excellent look at the exhibits that got me interested in Ross Ward to begin with. A timeline of Ross Ward’s life appears on the final page. 

There might be just thirty-six pages in The Tinker of Tinkertown, but they are really great pages. I’ve learned that images of the flat artwork came from high-resolution scans and that Carla (with an iPhone 11) is responsible for most of the modern photos including those shots of sideshow attractions and trapeze artists in Tinkertown. The images are well served by the fairly heavy semi-gloss paper they are printed on. That paper, by the way, is Forest Stewardship Council certified which speaks not only to the quality of this book but to the quality of the people at Tinkertown.

The COVID-19 pandemic caused Tinkertown to miss its traditional April 1 opening this year but the museum and staff are ready for the reopening when it is permitted. The book, of course, will be available there when that reopening occurs, but until then an online purchase is the only option available. Order your copy here.

The Tinker of Tinkertown: The Life and Art of Ross Ward, Carla Ward, Tinkertown Press, June, 2020, 11 x 8.5 inches, 36 pages, ISBN 978-0-9793124-8-9

Return of the Signs

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Concerts, museums, festivals, and parades have all made frequent appearances in this blog but not lately. They have all been impacted by the COVID-19 shutdown. I”ve tried to keep my concert cravings in check by watching online live streams and even did a post about it back in the early days of the quasi-quarantine. The closest a museum has come to being the subject of a post in the last several months is when I covered the new stairs at the closed Cincinnati Art Museum. Until today.

The Cincinnati Art Museum opened to members on June 18th and to the public two days later. Parts of the Cincinnati Museum Center will be open to members on July 10 and to the public on the 17th. The American Sign Museum allowed members in on July 1 and will open to the public on Wednesday, July 8. Preceding a general opening with a members-only “soft opening” isn’t the only thing these three have in common. All will operate at reduced capacity enforced by advance reservations. Employees and visitors will be screened for high temperatures. All employees will wear masks and masks will be required for all visitors to the Sign Museum. The other two stress the wisdom of wearing masks and ask that visitors comply but apparently won’t actually require it. Hopefully, anyone not wearing a mask will be glared at intensely until they at least start smoldering.

Almost as soon as I heard of the Sign Museum’s opening, I went online to make my reservation. I had expected to be asked to pick a day and time but was simply assigned the first slot on the first day. That was just fine with me but I’m guessing a phone call is required if a specific time and date is needed. Before entering, I stepped out front to get a look at the recently added Burma-Shave style signs. Here is the font-appropriate finale. The big letters atop the building were rescued from Cincinnati Gardens just ahead of its 2018 demolition. The ‘S’ was moved and three lower case letters added to make the perfect sign museum topper.

Once inside, it was scan, scan, scan. My temperature was checked with a forehead scan, my ticket was scanned on my phone, and I scanned a QR code for the self-guided tour. The free live tours have been temporarily halted to help maintain social distancing. I’d never tried the audio tour and figured I should since the live tour I always recommend won’t be available for a while. The audio tour is accessed through a smartphone by scanning the QR code or entering the URL. It then plays through the phone (earphones recommended) and is controlled (start, stop, etc.) through it. I was quite impressed and will have no qualms about recommending it in lieu of a live expert. With or without a guide, I almost always find something new when I visit although sometimes it’s something that’s been there since day one and I’d just not noticed. These signs on the floor were definitely new. They are placed throughout the museum as reminders about social distancing and to provide visual hints as to just how far six feet is.

Of course, all the old favorites are still there. The audio tour talks about the history of signs just like a live guide would and describes many of the more interesting signs on display. It doesn’t cover every detail of every sign and that’s just like a live guide, too. Exploring and reading on your own is part of the fun. The audio tour does come up short when it comes to answering questions but the folks at the front desk and roaming staff members are happy to do that.

A favorite spot of mine is this workshop area which is usually open with contents constantly changing. Some signs leave here to return to their proper homes in the wild while others are on their way to be displayed in the museum. The big camera, a highlight of my day, is one of the latter. A lot of space remains unfilled in the building housing the museum and a major expansion is in the works. As told here, the neon trimmed Pentax, complete with working flash, will be part of that expansion.

As I mentioned, I sometimes think something is new when it isn’t but I’m pretty confident that both of these items are recent additions. The “color chart” was once used by Cincinnati’s Holthaus-Lackner Signs who donated it. I’m absolutely certain that the neon sculpture is new because I watched the comment card being taped to the window as I approached. For any who miss the Dan Aykroyd connection, there’s this. The Neonworks sign shop can be glimpsed in the background of both of these photos. Guided weekday tours usually included a visit inside the shop. Those visits are on hold along with the tours but you can still watch through the windows.

Before leaving, I made a pass through the gift shop where I spotted this book by a couple of friends in Oklahoma. I then posted a picture similar to this one to a Route 66 Facebook group. It has received about fifty reactions (including from one of the authors) but no comments. I really expected someone to jump all over the Kentucky tagged items on the left and those on the right tagged Ohio. Route 66 ran through eight states that are listed on an out of frame sign, and neither Kentucky nor Ohio is among them. Those two states do, however, supply the majority of museum visitors and gift shop customers. There is a Stanley Marsh 3 (the Cadillac Ranch guy) sign on the cover of the book that reads “ART IS WHAT YOU CAN GET AWAY WITH”. Clearly, those candles are art.