Broadside, Northside, Riverside Revisited

Posted on July 3, 2022 by Denny

This past week was a combination of busy and boring that seemed certain to result in a canned post. In the end, however, I decided to reuse an old post rather than posting a new canned one. I may attend a parade or two this year and might watch some fireworks and thus feed an Independence Day post for next week but this week’s post is from 2015. The post originally appeared the day after rather than the day before the holiday. It has parades and fireworks but the highlight for me was viewing a copy of the second printing of the Declaration of Independence. I noted then that we had celebrated the “239th anniversary of that day when men of courage and vision” had stood together to create a new country. I don’t think “men of courage and vision” were all that common then and in the now 246 years since they have sometimes been downright scarce. They’re pretty scarce right now but there are a few. Unlike in 1776, however, many of today’s “men of courage and vision” are women. And that seems like a good thing.

July 5, 2015: There’s something in that display case that is 238 years 11 months and 26 days old. Twelve of America’s thirteen British colonies voted to adopt the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The thirteenth, New York, had not authorized its Continental Congress delegates to vote on the declaration. On the night of the fourth, Philadelphia printer John Dunlap produced at least 200 copies of the document with one of those copies reaching the New York Provincial Congress on July 9. Before the day was over, New York had joined the other colonies in approving the Declaration of Independence and ordered another 500 copies from New York printer John Holt. The Holt Broadside, as the second printing is known, contains the text of the New York resolution along with the full text of the declaration. Some copies were sent to the Continental Congress back in Philadelphia where it seems they somehow helped in getting the official parchment copy of the Declaration prepared. The signing of that official copy commenced on August 2.

A copy of that second printing made it to Cincinnati. One of four copies known to survive, it is in the pictured case. It is believed to have been brought to Cincinnati in 1810 by Richard Fosdick who, in 1815, was a member of Cincinnati’s first town council. The copy has been in the history library’s possession since at least the 1870s but was not recognized for what it is until about five years ago. The Holt Broadside is the centerpiece of the temporary Treasures of Our Military Past exhibit at the Cincinnati Museum Center.

Yesterday was the 239th anniversary of that day when men of courage and vision agreed to “mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor” in the creation of a new country. The day before was the 239th anniversary of the writing of a letter by John Adams in which he anticipated the happenings of the next day and told his wife that he expected it to be celebrated “with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.”

I tried to do my share. I’ll admit that I didn’t actually go looking for guns and I gave up quickly on finding any bonfires. It’s even possible that the only bells I heard were electronic but I saw plenty of games, sports, and shews. I saw two parades, a fine set of illuminations, and there was pomp everywhere.

There was no shortage of parades in the area. Picking one wasn’t easy but I have absolutely no doubt that I picked the right one. Northside’s first 4th of July parade happened in 1864 when orphans were moved from downtown to a new orphanage by canal boats with members of the Turners, Oddfellows, Butchers Association, Bricklayers Society, and the Catholic Orphans Society marching alongside. The parade developed into a fundraiser that continued until the 1960s when the orphanage again moved. It was restarted in 1970. This year’s Grand Marshall was two-year-old Quincy Kroner who received some national attention after meeting the garbage collectors he admired. The event website is here.

Picking parade pictures from my 200+ was even tougher than picking the parade. I didn’t quite manage to trim them down to a reasonable number so here’s the start of an unreasonable number. I liked the big headed Spirit(s) of ’76 and Ben and Captain America, too. The patriotically attired lady next to me was not at all out of place as a spectator but she was there for a higher purpose. When the local steam punk group came by, she pushed the stroller forward and stepped right in.

When a portion of this cycling group started placing their bikes sideways down the center of the street, I expected some sort of slalom maneuver but noooo.

Someone told me that this same group marched in Cincinnati’s Gay Pride parade last month and much of the crowd simply turned their backs as they passed. It seemed that few did that today and, in my case, by the time I’d read all the signs, there was little point in turning. “I STAND WITH ISRAEL”, JESUS IS YOUR ONLY HOPE”, “…BEHOLD, NOW IS THE DAY OF SALVATION”.

I believe this was my favorite parade entry. Essentially a live performance of Yellow Submarine with a Beatles soundtrack, it seemed to have it all. “Full speed ahead, Mr. Parker, full speed ahead!”

It might not have been quite as thrilling as the folks jumping over each others’ bikes, but these skateboard cowboys still put on a pretty exciting show with their moving ramp.

Lots of people accepted the “Dare to dance” challenge of the parade’s last float. Dance music blared as a street full of happy folks danced and smiled their way to the end point.

The end point was at the Northside Rock n’ Roll Carnival in Hoffner Park with twenty-one bands over three days. That’s “Daniel Wayne and the Silver Linings” on stage. The Stroh’s shirt is a bonus. As a similarly aged friend observed, the parade and carnival do sort of have a ’60s feel. It’s not a “we’re wearing beads and tie-dye” feel but a “we’re having fun and caring about stuff” feel.

I headed to Loveland for some fireworks and was pleasantly surprised to get there in time to catch part of another parade. It’s a little smaller and a bit more traditional than the one in Northside but it was still quite cool in its own way.

On the way to a fireworks viewing spot, I snapped a picture of Cindy’s holiday tree and the festival stage. Entertainment for Loveland’s Firecracker Festival included the Rusty Griswolds.

Loveland is the home of Rozzi’s Famous Fireworks so the city usually has a pretty decent “illumination” above the Little Miami River. This year’s grand finale didn’t seem all the grand but the overall show was quite good. Mr. Adams, I’m happy to report that we appear to still be observing this most important day pretty much the way you envisioned. I’m even happier to report that, at least in Cincinnati’s Northside, a little independent thinking can still be observed on Independence Day.

Trip Peek #117
Trip #127
2015 LHA Conference

Posted on June 26, 2022 by Denny

This picture is from my 2015 LHA Conference trip. The conference was unusual in that it did not take place on the Lincoln Highway. It was held in Ann Arbor. MI, and focused on Detroit, MI. Detroit had never been served by the highway but had been home to the association’s headquarters for its entire existence. In 1915, LHA President Henry B. Joy drove to the Panama-Pacific Exhibition in San Francisco on the LH after connecting with it in Indiana via a feeder route from LHA headquarters. That trip would be recreated with a tour immediately following the conference. I was present at the start of the tour but was not a participant. I did get to experience the feeder, however, even if it was in the opposite direction. Prior to the conference, I joined a small group in Elkhart, IN, that followed the feeder to near Ann Arbor. I followed it the rest of the way on my own after the conference. The picture of the Irish Hills Towers was taken while following the feeder on the way to the conference.

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.

LHA 2022 Conference

Posted on June 21, 2022 by Denny

After two years of cancelations, it was sure nice to take in a historic highway conference in early June. That event was for the Jefferson Highway and now I get to do it again for the Lincoln Highway. This conference is being held in Joliet, Illinois. I drove here today from my home in Cincinnati, and am looking forward to bus tours and presentations for the next three days. Seeing familiar faces sure does a body good.

This entry is to let blog-only subscribers know about the trip and to provide a place for comments. The journal is here.

The Signmaker’s Circus

Posted on June 19, 2022 by Denny

The Signmaker’s Circus took place last night at the American Sign Museum in Cincinnati, Ohio. The picture of Zoltar was not taken there which I realize might not seem quite proper to some. It was taken last week at Uranus, Missouri, but not used in the journal entry for the stop. I liked it and jumped at the chance to use it here when I realized it was a pretty good match for the event’s Save the Date card. The event is subtitled “A Decade of Camp” since its reason for being is to celebrate the museum’s first ten years in Camp Washington. The permanent full-time opening was on June 23, 2012, but two preview days occurred three weeks earlier. This blog was still fairly new then, and I had not yet stopped creating oddments. I did post a blog entry here that includes a link to the oddment and the oddment can be reached directly here.

All the rest of the pictures are from the circus, and there’s a bunch. I arrived about ten minutes before the scheduled start time and found a fairly close parking spot on the street. The museum’s parking lot was being used for valet drop-off and fire juggling. A line that had formed in the lot moved quickly to — and almost as quickly through — the doors when they opened.

The museum looked extra festive and drinks were available at multiple bars. A young lady (blurrily seen here) circulated through the crowd in a dress bearing cones of popcorn. The Burning Caravan provided music to party by from in front of the Rock City sign.

I knew from a Friday Facebook post that something would be revealed from behind a red curtain but I had no idea what. By the luckiest of coincidences, I was walking by the curtain when the ringmaster began his countdown. A proclamation from Mayor Pureval was read making today “American Sign Museum Day” in Cincinnati then the curtains parted. Others had paid better attention to the clues and some had been involved in the preparations. I was gobsmacked when I saw the great neon-illuminated space on the other side and we were invited to pass through the balloon arch.

I recall going to exactly one circus as a child. At ten or so years of age, I was naturally in awe of the exotic animals, people, and costumes as I watched the entrance parade from my bleacher seat. There were no elephants or tigers present last night and I’m over six decades more worldly and jaded than I was then, but I wasn’t watching a distant parade from bleachers last night. With carnival music accompaniment, I was doing the marching past exotic people and costumes. And there was neon everywhere. I did not magically feel ten years old but I was at least as awe-struck when I walked into that room as when those elephants entered the big top all those years ago.

The Burning Caravan played throughout the evening inside the museum while DJ Mowgli provided music for the circus. I’m pretty sure this is as close to a rave as I’ll ever get. People with turbans and tails chatted casually as people with neither lined up to confer with a real live Zoltar.

The ringmaster continued working and introducing acts both on and over the stage. Photos from later points in that on-stage performance can be seen here, here, here, and here.

A sign museum can always be counted on to have just the right marker for everything and that includes pointing to the two food trucks parked right outside the building.

I didn’t get my fortune told but I did get a tee shirt airbrushed. This was free with the purchase of an event shirt. The shirt was dropped off at the painting booth then picked up later when it was completed. The artist and the fellow who took down the instructions had a disagreement over whether it was “DEnny” or “DAnny” so the name was left blank until I returned. This gave me an opportunity to get a snapshot of the shirt getting its final touches.

What a wonderful way to celebrate the museum’s first decade in Camp Washington. I certainly enjoyed myself though I expect someone will ask, “Who was that bearded lady I saw you with last night?”

My Caboodles — Chapter 6
OST Zero Milestones

Posted on June 12, 2022 by Denny

How tough could it be? There are only three of them, and they are all on a single historic auto trail. Granted, the auto trail runs all the way across the country and there is a marker at each end but that just means there’s some distance involved. Collecting another three-member caboodle seemed like something that should be rather straight forward and it would have been at any time other than the summer of 2014.

There was an International Route 66 festival scheduled for Kingman, Arizona, that year. I planned to attend and, never one to seek out shortcuts, decided to first drive the Old Spanish Trail from Saint Augustine, Florida, to San Diego, California, then work my way back east to the festival.

1. The first one was pretty easy. It’s a hundred yards or so north of Castillo De San Marcos on the opposite side of San Marco Avenue (US-1). It can partially be seen from the street but you need to enter the small park that houses it to see and read the plaque. This is not, as is sometimes claimed, part of an old Spanish “colonial trail” but the eastern terminus of an early twentieth century named auto trail.

2. The second one sits outside San Antonio’s city hall and is also pretty easy to find and photograph. It is near the midpoint of the 2,750-mile-long route but is still labeled a “Zero Milestone”. The best reason I can think of for this is that the Old Spanish Trail Association was headquartered in San Antonio and considered this the starting point for trips to either end.

3. But that 2014 trip hit a snag when it reached the western end of the OST. The picture at the top of this post shows what I saw when I pulled up to Horton Plaza in downtown San Diego. The plaza was in the middle of a multi-year redo that had caused the marker to be moved to a warehouse. The first picture at left, taken through a gap in the fence, shows the area where the marker would reappear in May 2016. The second picture shows the marker in November 2016. Although the marker is commonly referred to as a Zero Milestone, it is inscribed Pacific Milestone. Here are somewhat readable views of the south, east, north, and west sides.

As it turns out, the situation in 2014 may not have been a blip but the new normal. The Pacific Milestone is once again absent. In addition to marking the western end of the Old Spanish Trail, the stone also marked the western end of the Lee Highway, named for Confederate General Robert E. Lee. There are references to extensions leading to San Francisco and New York City but those may have been on paper only and were not a consideration when the stone was placed. The inscription on the stone’s east side specifies Washington, D.C., and San Diego as its endpoints. The logo in the center of that inscription contains the word “Lee”. As reported here, the stone’s connection to the Confederacy triggered its removal from the park in June 2020. This is a caboodle that may never be seen again.

Trip Peek #116
Trip #63
National Road Festival

Posted on June 5, 2022 by Denny

This picture is from my 2008 National Road Festival trip. It was taken in Addison, PA, where I encountered a wagon train encampment on the way to join a different wagon train in Clear Springs, MD. I became “embedded” in the Clear Springs train for the purpose of producing an article for American Road magazine. Because of that, I avoided using photos or other items destined for the article in my journal. Even so, I managed to include a few pictures from my two days with the train and plenty from the before and after travel days. Post-train travel included a visit to Antietam National Battlefield and some time on the Lincoln Highway as I headed home. That Lincoln Highway time included a stop at the Flight 93 Memorial which still had a very “homegrown” appearance.

JHA 2022 Conference

Posted on May 31, 2022 by Denny

I’m on my way to a conference and it feels a little strange. The last time this happened was June 13, 2019, when I set out from home to attend the Lincoln Highway Association Conference in Rock Springs, Wyoming. I spent six days getting to that conference but will spend less than three getting to this one. The journal is here with the first day posted:

Taste of Memory

Posted on May 29, 2022 by Denny

I don’t have a dog. Don’t need one. I can eat my own homework. I went to three different events yesterday with the intent of including all three in this post. I’m still going to do that despite the sad fact that they will not be as well documented as I planned. However, before I can even start talking about the three planned activities, I have to tell of my arrival home at the end of the day.

I took quite a few pictures throughout the day and popped out the memory card containing most of them as soon as I reached home. One of the day’s events had been Taste of Cincinnati with 36 restaurants and 18 food trucks. There is no reason anyone would be even slightly hungry after attending such a gathering and I really wasn’t. Nonetheless, I grabbed a few snack crackers from an open box when I walked by it on the way to my laptop. I popped one into my mouth and munched it as I picked up the laptop and headed to the table. I popped in a second one but it didn’t munch so well. It failed to crumble on the first bite so I bit it again before realizing something was terribly wrong. As I juggled laptop, memory card, crackers, and some mail I’d retrieved from the mailbox, the memory card somehow ended up in the hand with the crackers and then in my mouth. Something in it had snapped on that second munch attempt. One bite equals 68,719,476,736 bytes.

My first thought after accepting that the pictures were gone was to post something canned this week. But I had taken some pictures with my phone and those survived. There were enough, I decided, to do a stripped-down version of the three-event post I had planned. Here goes.

Coffee With Tod got the day started at the American Sign Museum. This was the second Saturday morning that museum founder Tod Swormstedt spent sharing some of his knowledge with museum members. During the first one, he picked a few special signs and told about their history, owners, and acquisition. Today he spoke about how “Signs of the Times” magazine has been an inspiration for and something of a predecessor of the museum. “Signs of the Times” is a sign industry trade magazine that Tod’s family was involved with from its beginning and which they owned for most of its life. In the photo, Tod is holding a hardbound copy of the very first issue from 1906. The tenth anniversary of the museum’s move to this building will be celebrated next month with an open-to-all Signmaker’s Circus.

Next up was the Taste of Cincinnati which was first held in 1979 and is now the longest running culinary arts festival in the country. Like many festivals, this one did not happen in 2020 or 2021 due to the COVID pandemic. As mentioned, 36 restaurants and 18 food trucks are participating in this year’s event. I took pictures of many of them and made sure to snap a photo of each one where I made a purchase. Those are all gone and the picture at left is out of sequence. It was taken after I’d done my eating and was ready to leave.

Before the festival is opened to the public, first, second, and third place offerings are picked in four categories. I limited my purchases to the four number ones. In the Soup/Salad/Side category, that was Bulgogi French Fries from YouYu. The Waygu Meatball from Council Oak Steak and Seafood placed first in the Appetizer category. Both were served from the same booth as the two restaurants are part of the Hard Rock Casino.

The only picture on my phone of the Entree winner was my failed attempt to get it and the Procter & Gamble towers in the same picture. I got half of the towers and the side of the container holding Alfio’s Veal Short Rib Ravioli. Pompilio’s Chocolate and Peanut Butter Cannoli won the Desert category and fared much better than the ravioli in the picture department.

Once I’d finished my selective sampling, I walked about a block from the festival and hopped on the streetcar to reach Washington Park. There a number of sculptures made entirely of Duck brand duct tape are on display. Named “Knock It Out of the Park”, the exhibit is all about baseball. I believe I took at least one photo of every sculpture but very few were on my phone.

My First May Fest

Posted on May 22, 2022 by Denny

The oldest choral festival in North America will celebrate its 150th birthday next year. It came frightfully close to reaching that awesome landmark without me ever having been present at a single performance. Both it and I were spared what would have been a truly embarrassing occurrence by my attendance on Friday. I am speaking, of course, of Cincinnati’s May Festival which was first held in 1873.

The venue was Cincinnati’s Music Hall. The festival and building have an interesting and possibly unique relationship with the event actually being responsible for the existence of the structure. Before the May Festival became an annual event in 1967 it was generally held every other year. The first two were in 1873 and 1875. Both were held in a large building called Saengerfest Hall. Rain was a minor problem in 1873 and became a major one in 1875. It wasn’t that patrons got wet but that they could not hear the music during the brief time that it fell in 1873 or the much longer period of rainfall in 1875. Amplified by the tin roof of Saengerfest Hall, the rain forced the performance to be paused. It also gave rise to a project to construct the brick building that has been home to the festival since 1878.

Only one of this year’s four major performances fit into my schedule. It turned out to be probably the worst fit for my tastes. There are many things that divide the world’s population and one of them is opera. I am a member of the unappreciative group. But, even though it’s quite likely I would have enjoyed a different program more, there was much to enjoy in Friday’s performance. And I did. For one thing, I believe it was the first time I had ever watched a composer conduct his own composition. I guess John Adams conducting El Niño could be considered the black-tie version of a more-familiar-to-me performance by a singer-songwriter. As always, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra sounded superb and the 100+ voices of the May Festival Chorus sounded as wonderful as I’d hoped. The main chorus sat through long periods of inactivity then rose in unison to sing. Each of them held a copy of the libretto so that their risings had the appearance of a large flock of attacking seagulls. I found myself enjoying that more than I probably should have.

Before the concert, I walked a few blocks from Music Hall to enjoy another Cincinnati tradition. Scotti’s isn’t quite as old as the May Festival but it’s working on it. After studying the stuffed menu for some time, I went with Lasagna Ala Don Giovanni.

Fried or Roasted Daily

Posted on May 15, 2022 by Denny

I usually try rather hard to avoid chain restaurants but here’s one I went to less than a week after it opened. Not the chain — which opened in 2012 — but the latest link. Florida-based Ford’s Garage opened its first Ohio restaurant in the former LeBlond Machine Tool Company powerhouse in Norwood on Thursday, May 5. I stopped in the following Wednesday.

The first I became aware of the chain was when I read an announcement about this one being planned for Cincinnati. Of course, any restaurant featuring ‘burgers and beers has a good chance of catching my attention but it sounded like this place had a little more going for it. It is an official licensee of the Ford Motor Company which allows it to use the Ford name and logo and it uses Ford cars for decoration. It was obviously a place I was likely to visit eventually so I decided to do it sooner rather than later.

The 1917 powerhouse, which was most recently occupied by a Don Pablo’s, is accessorized to resemble an early service station. Gas pumps and a pair of Model A Fords stand near the entrance and there is a Model T and another Model A inside. The cars and the building are of similar vintage. A Library of Congress photo shows the building when it was younger.

The building’s high ceilings allow faux Fords to circulate around the restaurant on a simulated assembly line and a stationary Model A hangs over the bar. A penny-covered wall holds forty beer taps. As I was taking the picture of the taps, a restaurant employee told me there were 21,004 pennies on the wall. I have a suspicion he made that up on the spot but I’m not sure so I’m repeating it.

Of course, it takes more than decor to make a restaurant. There’s a lot more than hamburgers on the menu but that’s sort of their featured item so that’s what I ordered. This is the quite tasty Mushroom & (Tillamook) Swiss. A couple of other things in this picture deserve mention. One is the shop towel napkin inside the hose clamp. The second is the frost-covered surface beneath the West Sixth Porter. About eight years ago I saw a similar setup in a bar in Kingman, Arizona, and figured it would be in every watering hole in the country before I got home. But this is the only other one I’ve ever seen which is not much help at all to my reputation as a futurist.

Despite it being a chain with a plethora of gimmicks, I basically liked the place. The chain is fairly small with twenty stores in five states and the gimmicks are mostly harmless (the napkins) or cool (the cars). One gimmick, however, seemed a bit overly silly to me. I noticed the funnel behind the bar and had vague intentions of asking about it when I overheard one of the bartenders talking about it with a visiting friend. He flipped an unseen switch to open a valve in the transmission (He called it the crankcase.) that allowed some liquid to drop into the funnel and into a glass placed below it. He said it was for a drink called the “Oil Change” although I’ve found no such drink on the menu. As I said, it struck me as quite silly but who am I (a fan of Max & Erma’s double-breasted beer taps) to judge.

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