Author Archives: Denny

Musical Review
Hot Damn! It’s the Loveland Frog!
Hugo West Theatricals
at Loveland Stage Company Theater

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I believe I first heard of Hot Damn! It’s the Loveland Frog! about a year and a half ago when I was making plans to attend the inaugural Frogman Festival. It premiered at the 2014 Cincinnati Fringe Festival and had not been performed since. Resigned to accepting that I had missed what was likely my only chance of seeing it, the disappointment I felt last year probably made hearing that it would be performed this year even sweeter. I immediately reserved a seat in the front row for opening night.

That was last Thursday, and it was a hoot. It’s pretty obvious that the play’s writers, Mike Hall and Joshua Steele, realized something a decade ago that many residents of the city of Loveland have picked up on only recently: It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not, it’s fun.

Nor does it matter if the music might not actually be, as promotional materials proclaim, bluegrass. The songs are good with lyrics that always help tell the story and are often quite funny. Almost every cast member sings and sings well. The four-piece band does a great job on every tune and may even sound a little bluegrassy in spots although it is done without the benefit of either banjo or mandolin. There is a fiddle, though, played by Linsey Rogers. She also plays “The Old Woman” who is also blind and often uses her bow like a cane. Tom Steele, Steve Goers, and Bill Jackson fill out the quartet on guitar, keys, and bass respectively.

In addition to the scenic, and in this context unavoidable, Little Miami River, the script brings in other bits of Loveland such as the Loveland Castle, the Valentine Ladies, the popular bike trail, and the fact that Jerry Springer once called the city home. Just about every version of the Loveland Frog legend is referenced in one way or another and that includes a questionable Twightwee Indian tale presented with the aid of shadow puppets. There are characters in the play based loosely on individuals associated with the two most commonly mentioned “sightings” in 1955 and 1972. Maybe I did not need to include the word “loosely” there since every connection between something in the play and something in real life is a loose one.

Hall and Steele find lots of humor in those loose connections then thicken the laughter and the plot with some complete fiction. At the heart of the play are brother and sister moonshiners that take advantage of the frogman legend to scare folks away from an operation so successful that it has its own brand labeled Mason jars. A dishonest and disgraced cop and an ambitious college professor add to the confusion and laughter. The show’s sponsor, Schwartzman Taxidermy, benefits from surprise product placement and heartfelt endorsements. The whole show is funny but a canoe and bathtub chase on the river and a tandem bicycle trailed by a tiny scooter got me to laugh the hardest. Both of these scenes make good use of a moving projected background which plays a role in other scenes as well.

There have been a few attempts to make the Loveland Frog scarey but he is usually seen as rather harmless. That is how he appears here when he shows up near the play’s conclusion and, Wizard of Oz style, makes sure all ends well. Before leaving, he assures us that when a certain celestial alignment, which I did not have the wherewithal to record, occurs, he will be waiting at the bar in Paxton’s. I hope to be there and will happily spring for the first round of Ribbit River Moonshine.

This is another of those reviews published too late to be useful. When I left home for Thursday’s show, several tickets remained for both the Friday and Saturday performances. I made plans to hurry home and ready the review for a Friday morning post to provide a little help in filling them. However, by the time I got home, Saturday was sold out and a single seat remained open for Friday. I could see that my help was not needed and aimed for the normal review publication day of Wednesday. That lone ticket was gone when I woke up Friday morning.

At the end of my post on that first Frogman Festival, I noted that I thought it looked successful, and wondered if there would be another. Despite a venue change and the main sponsor going out of business, there was, and dates for a 2025 event have already been set. I did not make this year’s event but Jacob the Carpetbagger did, and reported on it here.

That 2023 Frogman Festival post also included a picture of Loveland’s rather new mascot taken earlier in the year at the city’s Hearts Afire event. At the time it seems not to have registered with me that part of the mascot’s job was to promote a new festival debuting in October of this year. It’s pretty obvious, however, in this picture taken during Loveland’s 2024 Independence Day Parade. The first Return of the Frogman festival will take place on October 12, 2024, with plans to have another “Leap into the Legend” every leap year going forward. The Loveland Stage Company will also be involved with a showing of Frogman, the movie, which was just released in March. Sadly, at the moment it looks like I won’t be here to attend the festival but I sure hope it’s a success. I guess if I can wait ten years to see the musical, I can wait four years for the festival and — maybe — the movie.

Cars Galore

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I attended the Pap’s Rod Shop Labor Day Bash on Monday but I still don’t know much about it. At least not much about its organizers or venue although both are obviously quite interesting. The venue was the Evans Family Ranch which appears to be a thriving operation offering a variety of products and services. The results of a search for Paps Rod Shop are not so clear cut. Most hits point to a Facebook group or to announcements of or reports on the bash. One of the administrators of the 6K+ member Paps Rods n Kustoms Facebook group claims Pap’s Rod Shop as a workplace. Following that clue led to this video report about that administrator and a not quite public shop near Springfield, Ohio. Good stuff, for sure.

The word “rod” in the title, made me think of cars like these, and pre-1940s coupes and roadsters stuffed with modern V8s were certainly well-represented at the bash.

Of course, there are also some later-model vehicles with upgraded (to say the least) power plants on display. 

There was a time when engine upgrades were not required to make a car a hotrod. In those days, Mopars with toilet-bowl-sized carburetors and supercharged Studebakers came straight from the factory.

Posters for the bash spoke of more than 600 cars on display and I’m guessing that could be right. Among them were some decidedly non-rod and non-hot vehicles. That group is represented here by this personal memory jogger. My very first car was a 4-door 2-tone 1953 Chevy. Mine was a top-of-the-line Bel Air and green instead of blue and it had a 3-speed stick rather than a 2-speed Powerglide. I also believe mine had more rust but other aspects of this example, such as the engine compartment you could pretty much climb into, look very familiar.

Dulcimers Galore

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A couple of weeks ago, I didn’t even know that a dulcimer museum existed let alone that it was within a dozen miles of my home. On the last Sunday of August, I visited the American Folk Music School/The National Dulcimer Museum and learned that the museum has been in operation for about two years and that the school it shares space with has been there for about five years.

US-42 (a.k.a., Reading Road) splits into separate north and southbound sections in Sharonville, OH, where the museum is located. The windows in the opening photo face the northbound lanes. The entrance and a parking lot are at the rear of the building. When I entered, Vickey Sasser, the knowledgeable and energetic lady behind the operation, had just started a museum tour with a group of people who knew much more about dulcimers than I did. Some were wearing shirts with the logos of assorted area dulcimer clubs and Vickie knew several by name.

There are, of course, factory-made dulcimers but most of the more interesting ones, which means most of those in the museum, are made by individuals. The wide variations in design, materials, and craftsmanship are part of what makes them interesting.

Some well-known builders or performers have multiple instruments in the museum. By far the largest collection of this sort is associated with performer Kevin Roth. That’s Vickey Sasser in the third picture holding a dulcimer that, if I understood her correctly, Kevin had made specifically for a single performance of the national anthem at the 2016 Democratic National Convention.

The museum is preparing a space for a collection of instruments from performer Bing Futch. Bing has performed and conducted workshops at the museum in the past and will be doing both again next June. Available right now is his video of a recent visit to the museum in which he and Vickie provide a much better overview than my few photos and uninformed commentary.

Although the bulk of the instruments displayed at the museum are mountain dulcimers, there are others including hammer dulcimers, autoharps, and flutes. Here Vickey is holding a hurdy-gurdy that I believe was made specifically for the museum. I have seen a few hurdy-gurdys in the past so already had some of my early misconceptions corrected but this one is small and simple and even opens for an up-close view of the internal workings. I think I finally understand how these things work.

Being open just two hours a month is clearly not a lot. Plus, due to another commitment, Vickey will not be opening the museum for its “last Sunday” showing in September. On the other hand, she is often on-site giving lessons and such so, if the scheduled monthly window can’t be made to work for you, there’s a pretty good chance it could be arranged for her to let you in that back door at some other time.

Trip Peek #138
Trip #68
Kids & Coast

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This picture is from my 2008 Kids & Coast trip. I believe this is the only time that a rare fly-and-drive trip included visits with both sons which is at least equally rare. Leg one was a flight to Seattle, WA, where I rented a car then drove to visit my youngest son in nearby Bremerton. That was followed by a drive down the Pacific Coast to San Francisco and a visit with the other son. It all ended with a flight out of SFO. The photo at right is of me, the rental car, and the Chandelier Drive-Thru Tree in Leggett, CA. I selected that as the highlight photo for the journal at trip’s end but found myself questioning that pick as I skimmed the journal in prepping this Peek. There is certainly no shortage of other candidates but picking just one seemed just as daunting today as it must have been sixteen years ago. Driving the Pacific Coast Highway and Columbia River Highway between offspring guided tours of Seattle and San Francisco make this one of the most highlight-packed outings I’ve even experienced.

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.

Trip Peek #137
Trip #132
Road Crew in the Fork

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This picture is from my 2016 Road Crew in the Fork trip. The title describes a key aspect of the planned trip but does not fit the actual trip at all. The trip was scheduled around a concert by “America’s Route 66 Band”, The Road Crew, in Leiper’s Fork, Tennessee. Shows at the Bluebird and Grand Ole Opry in nearby Nashville added to the trip’s planned musical content. The only one of those three shows I actually attended was the one at the Bluebird.

I had taken my time on the drive down with an overnight in Louisville, KY, and visits to a couple of museums before hitting the Bluebird on my first night in Nashville. It was raining when I headed back to my motel and overnight the biggest snowfall to hit the town in thirteen years began to fall. That night’s show at the Ryman did happen but I and many others were unable to get there with several roads, including parts of I-24 and I-40, closed. The Road Crew show for the following night was canceled. I considered myself quite lucky to be ensconced in something of a poor man’s resort with a rather busy Waffle House connected by steps to a cozy and completely filled Motel 6.

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.

Flower Power Tower

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With departure on a fair-sized road trip planned for Friday, there wasn’t much time for blog-feeding adventure this week, and I anticipated using a canned post. Then I remembered seeing some photos of an interesting but unfamiliar tower recently. It is inside Cox Arboretum MetroPark which is close enough that I do drive by it on occasion. I have visited the park in the past but that was before the tower was built and it isn’t visible from the street. I decided to stop by, grab a few pictures, and put off turning to canned posts for another week.

There is much more to the park than the tower and I certainly could not ignore the other attractions in real life. But I can in making a short blog post. I paused for a while on one of the benches at the base then climbed the tower’s 81 steps admiring some of the cool construction on the way up.

There are, as advertised, some great views from the top. And a chance to look over more eye-catching construction on the way down.

I snapped a picture of one of those flower-filled pots beside the benches while topside and pictures of some of its components back at ground level. Many more flowers are waiting to be photographed and there are plenty of trails to follow while seeking them out. 

NOTR and PPOO Part 1

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I am sure that many readers recognize the acronyms in the title. For those that don’t know, they represent the National Old Trails Road and the Pike’s Peak Ocean to Ocean Highway. These two named auto trails cross the USA east-west not too far from each other and not too far from my home. I intend to utilize this pair in crossing the country twice. Although I originally planned to make the journey in a single outing, I am now resigned to spreading it over two trips. Part 1, which I have just started, follows the NOTR east from the Ohio-Indiana border and returns to that border on the PPOO. I will return to that spot in the fall and finish following the PPOO westward then wrap things up by driving the NOTR back to Ohio. The journal for that first day of the trip, which is largely staging, has been posted here.

Goetta Again

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GoettaFest is that eight-day festival that is spread over two four-day weekends with a gap in the middle. Two years ago I made it to the first day of the first weekend. This year I made it — just barely — to the first day of the second weekend. I knew of the festival’s opening last week but had other things to do. When I did get around to thinking about this week’s itinerary, the predicted weather did not seem a very good match for outdoor activities. Several days of rain were predicted with possibly severe thunderstorms arriving just about the time of the festival’s opening. But, as opening time approached, those storms and even the rain were still marking time in Indiana. I decided to give it a try.

The Ferris wheel is new this year and “The World’s Only Goetta Vending Machine” might be too. I did not try it and now regret not studying it closer so I could describe it here. I believe this is the world’s only Goetta festival so one Goetta vending machine might be enough.

I have previously explained that the Cincinnati area has a near monopoly on Goetta and that Glier’s Meats has a near monopoly on Goetta in the Cincinnati area. The festival is officially the Glier’s GoettaFest. Next to the vending machine, there is a tent filled with Giier and Goetta information. The tent is a Goettafest fixture and I’m sure that the “Goetta Guy” has been here before but this was our first meeting. The “Goetta Guy” is Dan Glier, President of Glier’s Meats since 1977 and the second generation to run the company. Dan’s a very friendly fellow who is there to answer questions or just chat and that’s what we did. I was well aware that Glier’s Meats is located sort of across the street from Anchor Grill where I’ve consumed a fair amount of Gliers Goetta. Today Dan pointed out that the two began in the same year (1946) and have always been neighbors.

Here are a couple of other things that I had not seen previously but which may very well have been here before. I didn’t see anyone riding the mechanical bull while I was there but it was early and the bourbon bar was pretty much idle too. I suspect the two work well together.

Full-time music was happening on both of the festival’s stages with the Billy Brown Band opening on the west end and Red Hot Riot opening on the east stage. They would be followed by Vinyl Countdown and the Kevin McCoy Band.

Of course, there were plenty of food booths offering a variety of creative Goetta-based treats.

I opted for a Goetta Bun Link which, despite the word new on the sign and the fact that I’d never had one, were introduced in 2000. It was quite good and I even have a pseudo-drone shot for the truly curious.

I had every intention of riding that Ferris wheel and, now that I was fed, I turned my attention to it. There was no line but as I was about to approach the ticket booth, I felt the first drops of rain and noticed the breeze had picked up a little. I thought it over only briefly before heading for the car. I was inside the garage before the rain became steady and inside a nearby bar with a $2 PBR before it really cut loose. There was water running in the street when I left but the rain had slowed to a light drizzle.

I am disappointed that I missed my chance to ride the big Ferris wheel on Thursday but just seeing it reminded me of a time when giant “dueling” Ferris wheels were proposed for both sides of the Ohio River. It was just a few years ago that Newport, KY, had plans to build a 230-foot tall wheel on the flood wall near where GoettaFest’s 90-foot wheel was placed. At the same time, Cincinnati had plans to build a 180-foot wheel near the north end of the Roebling Bridge. In a sort of trial run, a 150-foot tall (137-foot diameter) wheel did operate at that point temporarily and I did get to ride that one. Read about it here.

A House Twice Storied

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I have heard it said that Uncle Tom’s Cabin was written in this house. It was not. Until recently, I had not heard that it was listed in The Negro Motorist Green Book. It was.

Although the book was not written here, Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, did live in the house at one time and the house has long borne her name. It has just reopened after an extensive restoration that recognizes its importance both as the Beecher family home and as a tavern and boarding house a century later.

There was a ribbon cutting for the restored Harriet Beecher Stowe House last Friday with special events continuing through the weekend. I missed the “Housewarming Weekend” but did reserve a ticket for the first regularly scheduled tour on Thursday. The site is closed Monday through Wednesday. I arrived early enough to look over the many informative panels placed around the grounds. Note the National Register of Historic Places plaque with both of the building’s claims to fame listed, beside the new entrance ramp.

Executive Director Christina Hartlieb was our guide, and, despite it being the first “regularly scheduled” tour following the reopening, it was pretty obvious that this was not her first time as conductor. I’m guessing that the “Housewarming Weekend” had given her and other guides ample experience. It is also the case that much of the information provided is about the house’s residents and unchanged by the restoration.

The house was built by Lane Seminary in 1833 as a home for its new president, Lyman Beecher.  The Seminary is a most interesting part of history in its own right. Particularly the slavery-related debates of 1834 and a related mass exodus of students that has been called the “first major academic freedom incident in America”. The tour began in the parlor where 25-year-old Harriet Elisabeth Beecher became Mrs. Calvin Stowe in 1836. The original part of the house has been restored to its 1840 appearance. A strip of original wallpaper once covered by a temporary wall has been saved and copied. In the kitchen, the original beehive oven and its surroundings have been retained.

Even though Harriet lived in Cincinnati for less than twenty years, it was here, with slavery in operation just across the river and fallout from it everywhere she looked, that the memories that became Uncle Tom’s Cabin were formed. In an upstairs hallway, beside a section of original brick wall intentionally left exposed, there is a photo of the Hartford, CT, statue of Stowe’s meeting with Lincoln. There is no recording and no proof that Lincoln actually said, “So you’re the little lady who started this big war”, but I like to think he did.

The Monfort family lived in the house from 1865 to 1930 and in 1908 they built a large addition. The addition’s exterior is currently painted white to distinguish it from the original building’s yellow. This was their formal dining room. During the 1930s and ’40s, it served as the Edgemont Tavern with a listing in The Negro Motorist Green Book. During that same period, the obviously updated second floor served as a boarding house. As a long-term residence rather than an overnight stop for tourists, only the tavern portion appeared in The Green Book. By coincidence, a traveling Green Book exhibit recently opened at the nearby National Underground Railroad Freedom Center and was the subject of a previous blog post.

So, no, Uncle Tom’s Cabin was not written here but its author did live here, and a lot of other pretty darned important stuff also happened here. The Harriet Beecher Stowe House is back and ready to let you peek at 1840 and a little 1940 too.

Wassup, Big Boy?

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Frisch’s Big Boy restaurants have been in the news quite a bit recently. In fact, when I sat down to write this article yesterday, a pointer to this photo essay was waiting in my email. It seems likely that the essay, like this article and my Friday outing, was inspired by not particularly cheerful reports such as this one from a few weeks ago. It was that article and other news of restaurant closings that prompted me to finally check out the museum that opened in 2018 inside Frisch’s Mainliner.

The Mainliner, Cincinnati’s first year-round drive-in, opened in 1942 and was named for an airplane. Several sources, including the Mainliner’s own signage, identify that airplane as a tri-motor but I think not. The plane that those sources are almost certainly referring to is the Ford Trimotor which was produced from 1922 to 1933. Boeing’s DC-3, which United Air Lines actually called the Mainliner when launched in 1937, would have been the most well-known passenger plane when the restaurant opened. The plane on the iconic Mainliner sign certainly looks a lot more like a DC-3 than a Ford Trimotor, and, despite the nose being a little extra pointy, I’m not aware of it ever having more than two propellers. At present it has none. I do, however, have a short video of the sign “at speed” from a few years ago. I’m sure there are more and better videos online.

The Mainliner was remodeled when the museum went in and has the latest generation of the Big Boy statue standing by the door. There are pictures here and here of previous generations on display a few miles away at the American Sign Museum. A cool mural greets customers right inside that door.

I sat at the counter and placed my order before walking over to the museum area. Only then did I realize that it contained what appeared to be some quite usable classic seating areas. There were people at one of the museum tables when I left.

In addition to the throwback seating, there are several signs and cabinets filled with artifacts in the museum. Among the artifacts was a reminder that once upon a time people might look for something to help them “dial the right number every time”.

I was probably still using a dial telephone the last time I had a Big Boy but it seemed the right thing to order today. Has corporate ownership brought a decline in quality that others say they see? Maybe, but maybe not. The sandwich was pretty much as I remember it although my memories aren’t very recent. I sensed the same slight understaffing that I feel in just about every restaurant I visit these days. No more. No less.

As I wrote this, it occurred to me that Frisch’s has been in my life longer than any chain restaurant. Although it’s no longer there, a Frisch’s restaurant sat at the edge of the seat of my home county. It was the place where, maybe once a year, the band bus would stop on the way home from an away game. When my friends and I began driving, it marked one end of our Saturday night cruising route. An A&W rootbeer stand marked the other. When I got my first co-op job in college, a Frisch’s was just about the only place within walking distance for lunch. The one at right is within walking distance of my current home and I stopped there on my Saturday afternoon walk. Rather than a Big Boy statue, this door is guarded by one of the Mr. Redlegs sculptures that were placed around the area as part of the Cincinnati Reds 150th Anniversary Celebration in 2019. Inside, a localized (Mason hosts the Cincinnati Open ATP Tournament) mural hangs on the wall. A big reason that I had not had a Big Boy in so long was not that I never patronize Frisch’s but that when I do I almost always have a fish sandwich. On Saturday I reverted to form.

I’m certainly no fan of corporations taking over privately held businesses. Maybe it was a decline in quality or some accountant’s idea of improved efficiency that led to those closures. Personally though, I’m more concerned about those missing props on the Mainliner sign.