Author Archives: Denny

Book Review
Lost Treasures of Cincinnati
Amy E. Brownlee

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Amy E. Brownlee is a lifelong Cincinnatian. She naturally learned a lot about the city growing up here then used that knowledge and added much more during her ten years at Cincinnati Magazine. An awful lot of the treasures she writes about in Lost Treasures of Cincinnati were lost before she arrived but a rather frightening number have disappeared during her lifetime. Of course, an even larger number have disappeared during mine. Neither of us is responsible for that. I swear it’s coincidence pure and simple.

Lost Treasures of Cincinnati contains five major sections with several sub-sections in each. Most pages are split between two different lost treasures although more than a few treasures get a page all to themselves. Most descriptions are accompanied by images and these are usually of the actual treasure but there are exceptions to both. I believe that each treasure is described in a single paragraph although it is possible that an exception or two escaped me.

The book opens with “Food and Drink” in Section 1 then covers “Entertainment” and “Retail” in the next two sections. The smallest section, “Media”, is followed by the largest, “Community”. Definitions for those section titles are not particularly rigid and the size of the “Community” section probably indicates that it is the least rigid of all. It is where things like churches and breweries, of which Cincinnati had more than a few, appear.

Most, but not quite all, of the breweries mentioned in the book were gone before I got here. Likewise with restaurants and attractions which together comprise the biggest part of things that have disappeared during my lifetime. I caught one show, Hair, at the Shubert (“Entertainment”) before it was torn down. I also saw one movie at the Albee (“Entertainment”) but I don’t remember what it was. I had one meal each at The Gourmet Room and the Maisonette (“Food and Drink”) before they closed. There are quite a few places in this book where I ate one or more meals or watched one or more movies, plays, games, or concerts. Encountering each of them on these pages prompted memories that went way beyond the single paragraph of text. Reading about places that were already gone when I came to Cincinnati didn’t prompt any memories, of course, but it did make me appreciate just how many treasures have been lost.

I really enjoyed reading Lost Treasures of Cincinnati cover-to-cover front-to-back but as I did, two other ways of reading the book came to mind. With its fairly short standalone essays, it seems like a natural fit for that popular personal reading room with the porcelain furniture. Its use as a reference book also seems rather natural. I don’t mean an every-last-detail reference book to use in conducting deep-dive research but a great place to answer questions like “What was the name of that boat-shaped restaurant?” or “What happened to our NBA team?”. The full index will help the book play that role.

Lost Treasures of Cincinnati, Any E. Brownlee, Reedy Press (October 1, 2022), 6 x 9 inches, 192 pages, ISBN 978-1681063263
Available through Amazon.

Cars for a Cause

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The Butlers made a little money selling bathtubs on the internet. Actually, bathtubs aren’t the only things Matt Butler and his dad Mike sell at Signature Hardware, and saying they made a little money might not be telling the whole truth either. In Mike’s case, he made enough to buy a couple of hundred used cars. All were built in America between 1903 and around 1980. Apparently, Mike has occasionally let groups see his collection of cars and recently started letting the public at large in to see them — for a cause.

I first learned of Collection 21 last month when I saw this Citybeat article. The collection is available for viewing on Fridays and Saturdays from 10 AM to 4 PM. 100% of the requested $15 donation goes to Housing Opportunities of Northern Kentucky. I visited last Friday and the trio at left more or less greeted me when I entered. The red car is a replica of a 1936 Auburn Boattail Speedster built on a modern GM chassis. It was the only replica I noticed in the collection. The pair of 1937 Cord 812s that bracket it are very real as was every other car I took note of.

I had barely moved beyond those Cords when these Lincolns caught my eye. The 4-door is a 1967. I remember seeing a slightly older model in high school and thinking it was one of the coolest cars ever. Lincoln 4-door convertibles still fascinate me. The 2-door should fascinate everybody. The Derham Body Company made two of these 2-seaters in 1962 by drastically shortening full-size Lincoln Contentials. The resulting car is actually four inches shorter than a same-year Corvette. The idea never went beyond the prototype stage and one of the cars was totaled making this the only one of its kind.

This car was factory built and it’s not one of a kind but it sure is strange. It is a 1929 Chevrolet AC International Landau Convertible and there were supposedly about 300 of them made. I guess it’s for people who enjoy open-air motoring just a wee tiny bit.

The cars are not formally arranged although there are clusters of similar vehicles. I’ve clustered three cars with distinctive front ends together in this panel. The 1959 “slant-eyed” Lincoln and 1950 “bullet-nosed” Studebaker were physically side-by-side’ although I can’t say why. The 1940 “sharknose” Graham was several cars away.

The first Ford Ranchero car/truck was a 1957 model. The Chevrolet El Camino would not appear until 1959. Maybe the carlike fiberglass trim on the 1958 Apache Cameo Carrier was intended to fill the gap. Dodge put station wagon fins on their Sweptside pickups in 1957 and ’58 but they never did make a full-size Ranchero/El Camino equivalent.

The 1946 Lincoln Continental and 1939 Packard 1703 were parked next to each other. If there is a need to impress the neighbors, I’m pretty sure that either of these would do the job. That’s a 1931 Ford Model A in the foreground of that third picture but the thing that caught my eye was the shiny temperature gauge on the 1928 Dodge Brothers Victory Six beside it. The next car in line is a 1912 Maxwell Messenger.

When I eventually exited the building, two other fellows were beside me. We all made comments about how impressive the collection was. I mentioned that I had never seen so many split-window Corvettes in one place. They both agreed but when I said I thought there were seven of them, I was corrected. I had forgotten one near the front which made eight. I’d never had to count them before and just didn’t do well. There are five in this picture. The others are scattered here and there.

Among the brass-era cars in the collection is this 1911 Model 30 Cadillac. The Model 30 was manufactured from 1908 through 1914 with the price growing from $1400 to nearly $2000. When this particular car was built, the base price was about $1700. In 1912, the Model 30 became the first production car with an electric starter.

I could have included this 1903 Curved Dash Oldsmobile in the earlier panel of distinctive front ends. No electric starter for this guy. With production starting in 1901, this is generally considered the first mass-produced automobile. By the time production ended in 1907, roughly 19.000 of these one-cylinder wonders had been built.

If I had turned left instead of right when I came in, this 1954 Kaiser Darrin, with its own distinctive front end — and doors — would have been one of the first cars I saw rather than nearly the last. They say there are between 220 and 230 cars here at any time and that all can be started and driven. I have obviously shown just a tiny fraction in this post. Seeing cars as rare as many of those here at way under a dime a piece is a great deal and knowing you’re helping a charity makes it even better.

Product Review
Route 66 Navigation
by Touch Media

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Those who have read some of my writings on various routing devices are probably aware of my frustration at almost all of these devices being concerned with reaching a point with absolutely no consideration for following a specific path to get there. It’s a sad situation that has only gotten worse. Garmin continues to make models that support this to some degree but they are pricy and, in my opinion, not exactly ideal. A company named River Pilot Tours once offered a turn-by-turn guide to Route 66 (reviewed here) that worked with certain Garmin models but gave it up when compatibility issues appeared with newer Garmin products. MAD Maps once offered a selection of guides that worked with those same Garmin products to provide turn-by-turn directions. When newer Garmin products caused problems, they were dropped and plans announced to replace them with guides for smartphones.

I was kind of excited when Touch Media announced this Route 66 Navigation app in early 2018. Combined with MAD Maps’ smartphone plans, it made me think that I might soon be able to use my phone for the sort of path following that most dedicated GPS receivers weren’t very good at. But I couldn’t check out Touch Media’s product myself since it required being on the route and MAD Maps products required waiting. Then the COVID-19 pandemic pushed aside most travel and any chance to test the Route 66 Navigation app. Maybe it also pushed aside MAD Maps app development. Something did. The MAD Maps website still mentions “apps for iPhone and Android platforms (Fall 2021)” but I can find no product listed in Google’s Play Store.

There were a couple of near misses and at least one false start but I finally got to give Touch Media’s Route 66 Navigation a try during my 2022 Christmas MOP trip. A winter storm interfered a bit with my plans so I made my trial headed northeast rather than southwest as intended. That really didn’t matter since the app supports travel in either direction. I began with a drive from Tulsa, OK, to Carthage, MO. The app offers two alignments and I went with the recommended “A” alignment. This appears to be the more “mainstream” of the two. The app uses current position and selected direction to determine a list of cities from which to pick start and end points.

The route appears as a line on the map and it is never recalculated. That was my first real evidence that this product might be different from the rest. A circular green pointer tracks current position in real-time. The next driving instruction is displayed at the top of the screen along with its distance. Each instruction is announced vocally immediately after completing the one previous and at various points that follow. A final “Now turn left” or something similar is spoken with just enough time to complete the maneuver provided you are in the correct lane. These vocal instructions are quite important to me since I mostly travel alone. My phone or GPS receiver fills the role of navigator without arguing about turning back to photograph an old barn, complaining about me making the same wrong turn three times in a row, or decimating my snack supply.

There is a gap in the app’s audible offerings that I think is kind of serious. It has knowledge of somewhere around a thousand points of interest along the historic highway. A visual notification appears when one of them comes near. That’s useful if you’re actually watching the phone but is almost always missed if you’re watching something else like the road. A spoken name or other identifier would be wonderful but even a simple beep, which is what the River Pilot Tours Garmin app did, would be enough. In fact, I initially thought that the beep I heard occasionally might be a POI alert but was unable to associate it with actual attractions. I eventually learned that it is a speed limit alert than can be disabled.

Of course, that brief visual announcement is not the only way to learn of POIs. Markers for them are displayed on the map and there is a list organized by state. Details, such as those shown for Gay Parita, are accessed by clicking a marker or list entry and are available whether or not you are anywhere near Route 66. Navigating directly to a POI can be initiated from its detail page.

For me, how the navigation aspect of the app behaves when a traveler veers off of the route is arguably the most important question related to this product. Although veering off route is something I did many times (both intentionally and not), I somehow failed to grab a single screenshot of it. The short description is that it does pretty much what I think it should. For starters, it does not recalculate the main path. The line that represents Historic Route 66 remains in place. The app automatically calculates a path back to the nearest point on that line. This secondary path is constantly recalculated — as turns are missed and the nearest on-route point changes — until you are back on course. Excellent!

There is much to this product that I haven’t explored or even touched on. I don’t even know for certain that my biggest negative, the lack of audible POI alerts, isn’t solvable by some setting that I haven’t found. I do know that the answer to my biggest question is yes. Yes, Route 66 Navigation will keep you on course along Historic Route 66. It will do it in both directions and will let you choose between a recommended and alternative path for your travels. Of course, there are many more than two possible paths on Route 66 and it is really impossible for any guide to offer them all. Identifying every possible point of interest is also near impossible and I can’t say for sure that one or more haven’t been missed. But the version I have installed lists 1,154 so it couldn’t have left out very many. Each entry contains a photo, a description, the location, and contact information if appropriate. The Touch Media staff has done an impressive job in pulling all this information together and Route 66 authority Jim Hinckley has supplied much of the descriptive text. In another stick-with-the-experts move, the RSS feed from Ron Warnick’s Route 66 News is used for the app’s own news section.

The app can be downloaded free from Apple’s App Store or Google Play and many of its features accessed at no cost. However, access to its real reason for existing, real-time navigation, requires a paid subscription. Because I have an active subscription, I cannot currently see the in-app pricing but do know that I paid $30.09 for a one-year Android subscription. Online sources show varying rates but all are somewhere around $20/week or $40/year. The price has triggered some negative comments and the fact that it is a subscription has triggered even more. Some of those comments are from people who think that all things digital should be free because no steel, gold, or vinyl is physically transferred. Those can be completely ignored.

I’m no different than most folks in instinctively preferring a one-time purchase over a subscription but I also understand that the purchase model might not be the best for products subject to frequent changes from outside sources. Route 66 Navigation is clearly one of those products. Over time, businesses and roads open and close, and reflecting the real world is key to this app’s value. Although “subscription” is an accurate label, thinking of Route 66 Navigation’s period-based payments as “rent” might work better for some people. Many Route 66 travelers rent vehicles for the trip. Renting or hiring a guide is not terribly different.

Regarding the price, everyone has to evaluate that for themselves. For this solo traveler, having a reliable navigator tell me when and where to turn without criticizing my driving or raiding my cooler is nearly priceless. I personally think Route 66 Navigation is priced right. Now, if I only had a way to make my phone behave similarly for routes I’ve plotted myself, I could ditch my Garmin or at least get by with a cheaper one. 

Trip Peek # 122
Trip #84
Finding Holland

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This picture is from my 2010 Finding Holland trip. It was my first time seeing two musicians that I’ve since seen many times and whom I now consider friends. That’s Josh Hisle on guitar and Michael G Rondstadt on cello. At the time they formed a duo named “Lost in Holland” which is where the trip title came from. I did not then realize that Holland is the name of Josh’s son. Although ostensively a shake-down outing for the duo’s about-to-launch tour, many other musicians were on hand and contributed to a great evening of music. The concert was in Rising Sun, IN, which I took advantage of by booking a room in a historic hotel I’d long had my eye on. In the morning, I drove west to Madison before turning east to my home.

Trip Peeks are short articles published when my world is too busy or too boring for a current events piece to be completed in time for the Sunday posting. In addition to a photo thumbnail from a completed road trip, each Peek includes a brief description of that photo plus links to the full-sized photo and the associated trip journal.

Book Review
Cincinnati Curiosities
Greg Hand

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Greg Hand has been a man of letters — or at least a man of words — his entire adult life. He began as a newspaper reporter, moved up to editor, left to head up a university PR department, co-authored three books about the university while he was there, then retired. I was not even slightly aware of any of this as it was happening. I only became aware of Hand’s existence when I stumbled upon the blog he started post-retirement. His knowledge of local history and ability to dig up information to augment that knowledge was immediately apparent and I’ve been an ardent reader of that blog ever since that happy discovery. The blog’s name is Cincinnati Curiosities and it can be found here. That the blog would lead to a book by the same name seems pretty natural.

The book borrows more than its name from the blog. I recognize some of the book’s subjects from the blog and I suppose it’s possible that all have appeared there although I don’t believe that’s the case. Of course, there is a good chance that any topics appearing for the first time in the book will show up in the blog sometime in the future.

Cincinnati Curiosities (the book) begins with a definition of Cincinnati taken from Urban Dictionary. When I visited the source, I discovered that the definition was just one of more than forty that individuals have contributed. Most are simply excuses for hurling insults rife with misspellings and such but a few, including the one that Hand chose, make some attempt at being insightful. The Hand-picked quote begins, “A pleasantly bland and annoyingly conservative city…” Although there are some that disagree, I believe that’s a fair representation of the view that most non-residents (and many residents) have of Cincinnati. Hand goes so far as to state that, “We deserve this reputation.” Then, after agreeing that Cincinnati’s “bland” reputation is probably justified, he proceeds to show us that it wasn’t always so.

In fact, later in the book, Hand offers another very different capsulated view of the city. On December 12, 1890, he tells us, “The Palace Hotel had elephant steak on the menu because an elephant was executed by firing squad that morning at the Cincinnati Zoo. Hundreds of people watched. That pretty much summarizes Cincinnati in 1890.”

The book is not just some blog posts strung together. There are, in my opinion, two big differences between blog and book. One is simply the physical difference between holding a book and flipping through pages versus scrolling through items on a screen. The second is grouping. The book organizes the writings in groups so that a subject can be looked at from multiple angles or related stories can be read as a collection. The previous comment about the well-attended elephant shooting begins the chapter titled “The Sensational and the Senseless”. In addition to the tale of a pachyderm’s public demise, the chapter tells of the zoo’s annual Butcher’s Day, people leaping from bridges for profit, musclemen demonstrating feats of strength, and other assorted entertainments.

“The Sensational and the Senseless” is the fourth of ten chapters. Other chapters tell of monsters in the Ohio River (“The Old Weird Cincinnati”), Fanny Trollope’s visit during the “Porkoplis” period (“Tales From the Old City”), the possibility that striptease was invented in Cincinnati (“Freaks, Flesh, and Footlights”), and a large variety of other topics. The striptease claim is based on Millie De Leon’s orchestrated removal of several garters in 1901, and Hand cites the claim in suggesting that a Striptease Hall of Fame might be an “appropriate addition to our Over-the-Rhine neighborhood”. 

Hand’s usually light-hearted reports are often accompanied by contemporary illustrations. At left is a Pears Soap advertisement based on Lillie Langtry’s famous bath in Apollinaris water at Cincinnati’s Grand Hotel in 1883. It’s in the chapter titled “Nudity, Naughtness, and Negotiable Affection”, and if that doesn’t get you interested in the book I don’t know what will.

In addition to authoring this book and the aforementioned blog, Mr. Hand is a founder and mainstay of Stand-Up History which I reported on here. His stand-up presentations typically also fit in the Cincinnati Curiosities category. In a wonderful coincidence, the troupe is appearing at Muse Cafe on the same day that this review is being published. In a not-wonderful coincidence, I am committed to doing something else at the exact same time. Happily (for you, not me), my absence will mean more room for attendees. There is more info here.

Cincinnati Curiosities: Healing Powers of the Wamsley Madstone, Nocturnal Exploits of Old Man Dead, Mazeppa’s Naked Ride & More, Greg Hand, The History Press (November 14, 2022), 6 x 9 inches, 160 pages, ISBN 978-1467152822
Available through Amazon.

Hearts and Blues Afire

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I originally planned to do what I did for last year’s Inaugural Hearts Afire Weekend, and just attend the 2023 Hearts Afire Weekend on Saturday. By showing up mid-afternoon in 2022, I had been able to see some of the ice carvings in both darkness and daylight. Then I realized that Saturday was the day of the Cincinnati Winter Blues Experience and it wasn’t long until friends convinced me I should be there. So, without actually reading the schedule, I headed to Loveland Friday evening thinking I’d get to see at least some of those ice sculptures. Nope. There were plenty of festivities happening but no ice carvings. I told myself they were probably delayed because of the warmish temperatures but eventually learned that the plan had always been to have all the frozen art appear on Saturday.

So I headed over to Cappy’s where the Charity Date Auction was in full swing — inside. Outside, only a couple of teddy bears were hanging out with the roaring fire and the giant Chair-ity Date Auction chair. Inside the big tent, local TV and radio personality Ken Broo was MCing the auction. When a representative of auction beneficiary Women’s Health Initiatives Foundation came forward to talk about the foundation, she ended up getting auctioned off as part of the Saturday night group date.

Although I did pop into a couple more local businesses, I basically made it an early night with intentions of coming back on Saturday to check out those ice sculptures. As I headed home, I snapped a shot of this Loveland home decorated very appropriately for the location and the holiday.

I made it back on Saturday to see the ice carvings. I’m sharing photos of a few starting with these on or near the bike trail. I generally avoid posting pictures of children and really make an effort to avoid posting children’s faces even when I’m sure they are very happy ones.

Here are half of the six sculptures that Cappy’s, where last night’s auction was held, has this year. Some of them are sponsored by suppliers.

I did not have time to hang around for the ice carving demonstrations but I did get to watch one being started while a couple of future carvers looked on. I also spotted some blocks of ice being prepared for carving.

Remember that event that kept me from the ice sculptures tonight? There were eleven bands performing at the Cincinnati Winter Blues Experience and that included seven that I’d not seen before. I caught just the last few notes of The Mojo Blues Cats and got no picture. Here are the other six.

To be honest, I think I may have seen The Tempted Souls Band before but if so I don’t believe it was this lineup. Tullie Brae’s piano was initially missing in the mix but things were soon sorted and sounding good. Ivy Ford led her trio with good vocals and very good guitar work.

Gabe Stillman fronted his own trio as did King Soloman Hicks. Hicks might have been best of show. GA-20 is an unusual two-guitar trio. The band’s guitarists took turns playing bass lines on their fat strings while the other took the lead.

The Blues Experience was a one-night affair but Hearts Afire continues through today, Sunday, February 12.

Book Review
Red Dirt Girl
Katie Laur

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This was one of the most flat-out enjoyable reads I’ve had in a long time. I have seen Katie perform many times, heard her talk on the radio several times, and even chatted with her personally a few times. I knew her as a talented musician and entertaining storyteller but I did not know her as a writer. Others, it seems, have been aware of Laur’s writing skills for some time. It’s my impression that nothing other than the foreword, an introduction, and Katie’s acknowledgments was written specifically for this book. In one of the book’s essays, Katie talks of selling her writing and says she sold everything she wrote. From that, I assume that each of the essays and stories that make up Red Dirt Girl has previously appeared in print somewhere. Where I don’t know and regret that where ever it was, it was outside my field of vision. That I am only now seeing the literary side of Katie is very much my loss. This gal can write.

She writes about growing up in Tennessee, Michigan, and Alabama and the family and music that was so important to her. She writes about the Cincinnati music scene, and many other scenes in the city too. She writes about life as a touring musician traveling by van to regional bluegrass festivals and national radio shows. She writes about staking out her own spot on radio with nearly three decades of Music From The Hills Of Home. And she writes about all of those things with insights that show she was never just singing or talking; she was also listening and watching.

Laur and I arrived in Cincinnati within a year or so of each other so I’m familiar with many of the people and places she writes about. I remember Caledonia, Mister Spoons, and Johnny Rosebud. I remember Aunt Maudie’s (where I almost certainly first saw Katie perform) and the still-thriving Arnold’s. But I remember these things as a customer or audience member while Katie remembers them as an insider. Her memories not only wake up some of my own but also augment them and maybe make me appreciate them even more.

She also writes about people and places I’ve had no personal contact with at all. In fact, that applies to most of the book’s subjects. While those writings don’t awaken any of my own memories, they are every bit as entertaining as those that do and more educational too.

Being a resident of southwest Ohio during the last third of the twentieth century certainly makes some of the subjects of the stories more familiar but I don’t know that it makes any of the stories better. Laur made her living as a musician so a goodly portion of the book’s content is music related but far from all of it. Bluegrass was her forte so many of the writings that are music related concern bluegrass musicians, venues, and festivals — but far from all of them. I’m fairly confident that reading this book will be flat-out enjoyable no matter where you live and even if you’re not a fan of bluegrass or any other sort of music. Of course, if you did spend some of the last four or five decades in or near Cincinnati and are a bluegrass musician or maybe even a bluegrass fan, you just might be in the book.

Red Dirt Girl: Essays and Stories, Katie Laur, Orange Frazer Press (2022), 6 x 9 inches, 309 pages, ISBN 978-1949248-593

Available direct from the publisher, Orange Fraser Press, and at local bookstores, Iris Book Cafe and Urban Eden.

Stand Up History Live

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Historian Greg Hand and mixologist Molly Wellman dreamed up Stand-Up History a few years back but, due to a combination of ignorance and conflicts, it took me until January 2023 to actually make it to a performance. I liked the concept the instant that I heard of it, and the reality did not disappoint in the slightest. That January event was at the Muse Cafe on Harrison Avenue. The subject of this post, my second Stand-Up History experience, took place at the Mercantile Library in Cincinnati’s downtown. Not only would Molly be one of the evening’s presenters, she had made and was serving a big bowl of her Ginger Punch.

Stand-Up History is a wonderful learn-while-you-laugh program. As you no doubt guessed, the name came from “stand-up comedy”. In fact, searching for “stand-up history” will result in a bunch of links to the history of stand-up comedy pushing hits for this operation well down the list. The name isn’t all that’s borrowed, of course. A program consists of individuals standing up and talking. The subjects are all historical and the presenters are all experts but the presentations have a decidedly humorous focus and the subjects are chosen to assist in generating smiles, grins, chuckles, and guffaws. 

First up tonight was astronomer Dean Regas. Regas was also a presenter at that January show I attended. I’ve heard him on radio many times but that was my first time seeing him in person. Tonight’s topic was “How to Teach Grown-Ups About Pluto” which happens to be the name of Regas’ latest book.  It was a good use of his wonderful wit and his knowledge of both science and history.

Author and blogger Dann Woellert was up next with “Our Badass Sister of Charity and the Creation of Cincinnati Pizza Pie”. Sister Blandina Segale’s long life included serving her church in Colorado and New Mexico, dealings with a lynch mob and Billy the Kid, and establishing institutions such as Saint Rita’s School for the Deaf and San Antonio Parish in Cincinnati. One of the first places in America where pizza was served was at San Antonio festivals. It’s pretty amazing where the history of food will lead you if you let it.

As Cincinnati’s favorite mixologist, Molly Wellmann is an expert on the history of Cincinnati’s adult beverages and the places that served them. She sort of ventured out of her comfort zone tonight by telling the story of “How Hyde Park Became a Village Without Having a Tavern”. It was long ago annexed by the city of Cincinnati and now has taverns aplenty.

Greg Hand, of Cincinnati Curiosities, finished things up by poking holes in “Myths Cincinnatians Dearly Want to Believe”. There were myths about hills, chili, ketchup, and more. The final myth addressed was that Mark Twain quote about Cincinnati and the end of the world. “When the end of the world comes, I want to be in Cincinnati. It is always ten years behind the times,” has often been attributed to Twain but, as Hand pointed out, there is absolutely no evidence that he actually said it. I’ve always thought the quote presented Cincinnatians with a dilemma. On one hand, it’s kind of nice to have someone as famous as Twain notice your city but, on the other, very few people really want to live in a place that is ten (or, in some versions, twenty) years out of date. I don’t believe that Hand mentioned it but I’ve turned up a claim that the first reference to the quote in print was in 1978. A similar quote about the end of the world and Bavaria being fifty years behind appeared in print in 1886 and probably existed earlier. By 1978, Twain had been dead for 68 years and the Bavarian comment was 94 years old. That makes being one or two decades “behind the times” appear not so bad.

So here’s the whole crew including MC Mike Perrino in the middle of all the presenters. Having been founded in 1835, the Mercantile Library has lots of history. Perrino reminded us of that by noting that this was the 165th anniversary of an appearance by Herman Melville that local papers reported as “Earnest, though not sufficiently animated.” Tonight’s presenters seemed to be well aware of the importance of being animated. Some of them will be doing this somewhere on the third Thursday of every month for the foreseeable future. Next month, Molly, Greg, and Mike will be joined by Ann Senefeld at Muse Cafe. Details here.

Happy Imbolc Again

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I’ve made it known that I use canned posts when my world is “too busy or too boring for a current events piece”. Although my life was neither this week, the things that kept it from being boring were not the sort of things that make interesting reading. I was on the verge of scheduling a Trip Peek when I decided to instead reuse this article from 2016.

gknob2010Groundhog Day has long been one of my favorite holidays. In fact, attending America’s biggest Groundhog Day event in Punxsutawney, PA, was among the first things I did with the newly available time that retirement brought. The photo at right was taken at 4:58 AM, February 2, 2010. Sunrise was more than two hours away and the temperature was four degrees Fahrenheit. I had a good time and I’m glad I went but the experience did not lead to plans for an annual return. Standing outside in pre-dawn single-digit temperatures is something I prefer to discuss in past tense only.

I credited my original fondness for Groundhog Day to a belief that it had no religious connections and was basically folklore that had been adopted by some Pennsylvanians largely to promote silliness. While both of those claims are sort of true, there is more to it. I started to doubt the “no religious connections” when I discovered that America’s Groundhog Day shares its February 2 date with Christianity’s Candlemas. But sharing a date does not a connection make and there are no direct ties apparent between Groundhog Day and any of the three events (presentation of the child Jesus, Jesus’ entry into the temple, and Mary’s purification) Christians attribute to the day.

February 1 is also a day recognized by Christians. It is the day that Saint Brigid of Ireland is reported to have died and is celebrated as her feast day. Before Saint Brigid was born (in 451 they say) a Gaelic festival was celebrated about this time to honor a goddess also named, perhaps by coincidence though probably not, Brigid. I have to say “about this time” because man-made calendars had not yet taken over and feast days were not yet tied to specific numbers on pages. Brigid’s was associated with a point halfway between Winter Solstice and Vernal Equinox called Imbolc which happens near the beginning of what we call February. In 2016 it occurs at 4:30 EST February 4. (See 2023 comments at end of article.)

Without donut shops and corner diners, it isn’t clear where ancient Irish farmers gathered to talk about the weather but it’s a safe bet that they did. Around Imbolc, the coming spring would have been a big topic. Farmers without donut shops and cable television are quite observant of their environment and they no doubt noticed that bright clear days in the middle of winter were usually a little colder than cloudy ones. With Imbolc being the most “middle of winter” you can get, giving some special significance to the weather on that day was likely fairly natural. That’s about as close to science that the groundhog and shadow story gets.

I’m guessing that making a determination at sunrise was also fairly natural. Even if those early farmers were capable of determining Imbolc’s exact moment — and I’m not saying they weren’t — in those years when it did not occur during the daytime they weren’t about to get up in the middle of the night to see if the sun was shining. The crack of dawn probably seemed about right.

So there really are no direct connections between Groundhog Day and religion and there is plenty of silliness in its fairly recent (1887) use to bring fame to a small Pennsylvania town but its timing is firmly linked to the workings of the solar system and there is a tiny bit of logic in it being a day to make weather predictions. If nothing else, the days around Imbolc are most likely the coldest of the year meaning there’s a good chance that it’s all up-thermometer from here.

My 2010 Punxsutawney visit is here. I will, as usual, celebrate Groundhog Day on Tuesday by consuming pork sausage at some point. I have no plans to be awake at 4:30 Thursday to observe Imbolc.

I don’t know where I got the time and date for Imbolc 2016 but I know I did not calculate either. This year, my first searches turned up the date February 1 but no time was given. I decided to calculate it myself and came up with 11:48 GMT February 3. Of course, I initially doubted my math but quickly found reassurance at the Farmer’s Almanac that February 3 indeed is the midpoint of winter and eventually found support for that being the date of “Imbolc exact” in the Witches Astrological Calendar at Patheos. I cannot say for certain why so many sites give February 1 as the date but am guessing that some have decided that Imbolc is just another name for Saint Brigid’s Day. Regardless, I now have some confidence in my calculations being reasonably close and there is even a possibility that I’ll be awake when Imbolc 2023 rolls around (at 6:48 EST) with the previous day’s serving of pork sausage completely digested and sunrise not quite an hour away. 

Two Tours in Champaign County

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After talking about it for quite some time, my friend Terry and I finally headed off to Ohio Caverns on Wednesday. Since touring the caverns would only take an hour or so, we decided a stop at the Champaign Aviation Museum in nearby Urbana would help make the trip worthwhile. As we looked over items displayed in the lobby, Pat appeared and offered us a guided tour. In addition to filling us in on each of the airplanes on display, Pat explained the extensive restoration work that goes on here and took us into areas where that work was taking place. Later arrivals joined us, and at one point there were six visitors in our little group. What we thought would be a brief interlude turned out to be a two-plus hour stop that was both entertaining and educational.

I had visited the museum in 2012 during the Doolittle Raid’s 70th anniversary celebration at the Air Force museum in Dayton. In the blog entry associated with that report, I mentioned that I had taken some pictures here but did not use them because I was more focused on the events in Dayton. At that time, the C-47 pictured at left was a rather new acquisition. Here‘s a picture of it that was taken then.

Champaign Gal is the museum’s fully restored B-25. I saw her fly in 2012 along with about twenty others. The Stinson 10A is one of several such planes used to scout for submarines during WWII. Although there is no absolute proof, there is strong evidence that this plane was responsible for sinking a German submarine using the small single bomb that the scout planes carried. The third plane is a Viet Nam era Grumman C-1A from the carrier Lexington.

A phenomenal amount of restoration takes place here with the biggest current project being this B-17 named Champaign Lady. The engine nacelles have been completed and are literally waiting on the shelf for future mounting. The ball turret is also ready for installation. It was one of the items we looked over in the lobby. This is a massive project that was begun in 2005. Here is a picture from my 2012 visit.

Restoring an airplane like the B-17 involves salvaging parts from other airplanes, fabricating many other parts, and lots of volunteers working lots of hours. Pat told us that more than 80% of Champaign Lady will have been fabricated here when she is complete.

It didn’t take long to get to the caverns from the museum. They are open year-round but this is not their busiest season. When tour time came around, we were the only paying customers so we basically had a personal guide.

Discovered in 1897, Ohio Caverns is the largest cave system in Ohio and bills itself as “America’s Most Colorful Caverns”. Color does start showing up early in the tour.

During the summer, a choice of two tours, Historic and Natural Wonder, are offered. The Winter Tour includes highlights of both. We passed many interesting rock and mineral formations before entering this narrow passage but they became more abundant once we were through it.

This is the Crystal King, the largest stalactite in Ohio. Our first view of was through a passage blocked by chains then the winding passage we were following passed quite a bit closer to it.

I admit that I was not very attentive and don’t remember the names of any of the “rooms” we passed through or the formations they contained. Names might help with History but they really aren’t required to appreciate Natural Wonder.

The website says there are 38 steps going in and 60 coming out. The path between them is close to level and the distance below the surface is affected mostly by variations in the height of the hill above the cave. The guide had to tell us when we reached the maximum 103 feet below ground because there’s really nothing distinctive about it. Going down those entrance steps barely registered. Going up those exit steps, however, definitely did. Guys our age just seem to naturally notice things like that.