Author Archives: Denny

Trip Peek #125
Trip #155
SCA Conference 2019

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This picture is from my trip to the 2019 Society for Commercial Archeology conference. The conference title was “Wacky in Wisconsin” and this picture is of one of the wackiest things we saw. It’s the Forevertron at The World of Dr. Evermor. The conference had kicked off the preceding evening with a boat cruise through Wisconsin Dells. The Forevertron was seen on a bus tour that took in several of the area’s wacky places and included an abbreviated visit to House on the Rock. A second bus tour took us into Milwaulkee for more wackiness. A day of presentations separated the two tours.

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.

US 127

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US-127 is the shortest of the two United States Numbered Highways that pass through the county of my birth. It has naturally been on my list of roads to drive but it has been pretty low on the list and hasn’t received a lot of attention. That changed a little bit last year when I realized that its southern terminus is quite close to one of my favorite breakfast spots. It got another boost, and a date to hang a trip on when I learned of an opportunity to scratch off another list item while traveling the route. So I left home Tuesday morning and headed toward the northern terminus of US-127. I actually reached it and will begin driving the trip’s namesake highway in the morning. Even though today was really just getting ready to start, I did take some pictures and put together a journal page.

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

Walking With Amal to Cincy

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Little Amal had already covered a lot of ground and water before she reached the midpoint of the John A. Roebling Bridge on Friday afternoon. The twelve-foot-tall puppet representing a ten-year-old Syrian refugee began her trek in Turkey in July 2021. Much of her travels have been in Europe where she walked in Germany, Italy, France, Ukraine, Poland, and many other countries. She has also walked in Canada and this is not her first time in the U.S. She was in New York City for seventeen days in 2022.

This time though, she will be walking across the entire country. The picture at left is a capture from a live feed of her first night in Boston where a pre-recorded message and lullaby from Yo-Yo Ma offered some comfort. That was on September 7. Cincinnati is just one of the forty cities she will stop in as she travels some 6,000 miles through the country before wrapping up the visit in San Diego on November 5. Check out her plans here.

Friday’s walk started on the south side of the Ohio River in Covington, Kentucky. A bit of rustling in the crowd gathered at the entrance to the Roebling Bridge alerted me to Amal’s arrival, and I caught my first glimpse of her just a few minutes past 3:00. The Ciara Harper Trio and Revolution Dance Theatre began a wonderful performance of Wade in the Water (great harmonies!) as Amal worked her way forward. By the time the song ended, she had joined the singers.

The two puppeteers handling Amal’s arms can be seen in this picture of her starting across the bridge. Some zooming, tweaking, and general mucking about allows the person responsible for Amal’s walking to be seen vaguely here. Most puppeteers are not athletes by any stretch of the imagination but this one is. For sure. Indubitably.

As she made her way over the bridge, Amal frequently paused to interact with the people greeting her. Near the Ohio side of the river, she pets one of Cincinnati’s flying — or maybe just dancing — pigs.

Keeping her pathway clear was at least partially successful and Amal does make it over the river. She takes another whiff of the giant flowers that have followed her from Kentucky as she exits the bridge and heads toward her designated spot.

Reaching that spot, where the mayors of both Covington and Cincinnati awaited, took a while and when she got there all I could see was her head above the crowd. I couldn’t actually hear everything either but I did hear most of what Cincinnati Mayor Aftab Pureval had to say. This was not his first time meeting Amal. They had met last October when Pureval was in Amsterdam for a Mayor’s Conference and Amal was doing a walk in the city that included Anne Frank’s house.

Pureval has some very personal reasons for caring about the world’s refugees that Amal is walking on behalf of. He was born in Ohio but his parents were immigrants. His father was born in India. His mother was born in Tibet. Her parents had been forced to flee Tibet with her and she grew up in India — as a refugee.

Donate to the Amal Fund here.

Play Review
What the Constitution Means to Me
Ensemble Theater

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Some plays you watch. Some plays you experience. This one’s in the latter group. Heidi Schreck wrote the play which is rooted in her own life. She also starred in the play — as herself — in multiple productions including a nearly six-month run on Broadway in 2019. What the Constitution Means to Me has been nominated for a bunch of awards and has won several. It was a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. I knew none of this when I first saw an announcement for the production at Cincinnati’s Ensemble Theater.

Schreck is not part of the Cincinnati cast. Here Heidi is a character played by Connan Morrissey. There is no intermission or numbered acts but the play rather naturally divides itself into three portions. As a teenager, the real Heidi earned college money by entering and winning US Constitution-based speaking contests sponsored by the American Legion. The play’s first portion depicts that period with Heidi, the character, frequently breaking the fourth wall and the rules of the contest to speak directly to the audience. It starts when she first steps onto the stage, describes the contest setting, and asks everyone in the audience to pretend to be an old white cis-gendered male.

A Legionnaire, played by Phil Fiorini, keeps time and generally facilitates things as Heidi, the character, repeatedly sidesteps the contest to share family history and personal thoughts with the audience. Eventually, the pretend speaking contest is completely abandoned, and Heidi, the character, proceeds to share her thoughts directly from center stage. Those thoughts include how the Constitution has failed women, Blacks, Native Americans, immigrants, and others. She points not only to the words of the Constitution but to how this document written by old white men has been interpreted by what until recently was just another group of old white men. Playing a few recordings of Supreme Court discussions provides some all-too-serious laughs.

Freed of his Legionnaire duties, Fiorini moves on to portray Mike, another character/real person. Mike Iveson originated the role which, like the real Heidi being embodied in the character Heidi, brings forward some of the real Mike’s experiences with masculinity and homophobia. This naturally provides opportunities for pointing out how the Constitution has failed another big group of citizens but the real Mike and the real Heidi both see the role as something more. Schreck refers to “positive male energy”. Iveson talks about “modeling what it looks like when a man actually listens to a woman”. I read those comments only after seeing the play but they instantly made sense.

The play’s third phase begins when a third cast member is introduced. Twenty-one-year-old Sydni Charity Solomon plays herself in a debate on the proposition that the US Constitution should be rewritten by a more diverse group for a more diverse world. Cheering and booing by the audience is very much encouraged at this point and everyone is given a pocket-sized copy of the Constitution for reference. At debate’s end, an audience member is selected to determine the winner. It is my understanding that sides in the debate are determined each night by a coin flip and that the actual arguments may be different from one night to the next. On Thursday night, Heidi defended the proposition while Sydni attacked it. The selected audience member declared Sydni the winner meaning the Constitution should be kept and fixed rather than discarded and completely done over.

One of the performances with Heidi Schreck and Mike Iveson has been recorded and is available for streaming through Amazon Prime. I’m sure it’s good and seeing the real Mike and the real Heidi is certainly attractive though not so much as to get me to subscribe. If you have Prime and want to watch it, by all means, go ahead. It is true, though, that watching a movie is not the same as watching a play, and watching a play is not the same as experiencing a play. The intimate Ensemble Theater is a good place to experience What the Constitution Means to Me. It’s there through October 1.

A Big WACO Birthday

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It was one hundred years ago that the Weaver Aircraft Company moved to Troy, Ohio, and became Advance Aircraft Company. The company’s origins were in 1919 and some name changes had already occurred. One more was yet to come. The planes the company built were always known by the Weaver-based acronym WACO and in 1929 the company formally became the Waco Aircraft Company. The company no longer exists but its memory is kept alive at the WACO Museum and Airfield

I have attended the annual WACO Fly-In a few times including last year. My first visit was in 2006 and I also documented a visit in 2014. This year’s event was much bigger than any of those. The normally ample parking near the museum was filled long before we got there. We parked in an area on the other side of the airfield and rode a shuttle back.

Organizers had hoped to attract 100 WACOs for this 100th anniversary. I’m pretty sure that didn’t happen but there were certainly a lot more there than the twenty or less I’ve seen in the past. I estimated there were 50 to 60 WACOs on the ground. Unlike in previous years, the main airplane parking area was reserved exclusively for WACOs with all other planes relegated to the far side of the airstrip.

In a conversation with another attendee, I learned that this plane was one that I used to watch from the banks of the Little Miami River as it flew over Kings Island in a daily air show. This was in the 1970s when the name WACO would not have meant much to me.

WACOs are beautiful machines whether they are on the ground…

…or in the air…
 
 
 
 
…or somewhere in between.
 
 
 
Heck. Even the naked engines can be kind of pretty.

To close, here’s a look at a WACO from every angle: WACO Pirouette

Ohio River Sternwheel Festival

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For the forty-seventh time, a bunch of sternwheelers gathered to party in Marietta, Ohio, and, for the first time, I was there. Motel and hotel rooms in Marietta are pretty much filled by Ohio River Sternwheel Festival attendees but I found a very reasonably priced room less than twenty miles away in Mineral Wells, West Virginia. Even after a very leisurely drive on US-50, I arrived in plenty of time to head to Marietta for the festival’s opening ceremonies.

There were some short speeches and some long and sincere thank yous, the national anthem with a giant flag overhead, and a flyover by a Navy jet. Things officially went live with the lighting of the festival torch.

A full evening of entertainment followed with a Tina Turner tribute to finish out the day. Despite knowing that “big wheel keep on turning” would sound extra special tonight, I headed to my motel to rest up for a full day on Saturday. I did stay long enough to hear several tunes from Steve and Beverly Pottmeyer and a friend. Steve performed at the very first Sternwheel Festival in 1976 and has only missed performing at one since then.

I made it back Saturday in time to catch the first musical performers. The Marietta High School Wall of Sound wouldn’t fit on the stage so they formed their wall on the river bank. The Marietta High School Choir – Vocal Point did fit on the stage. The place where I parked yesterday was operated by the choir. The Bruce Hass Trio was up next with, as far as I know, no high schoolers.

Between checking out the musical acts, I walked the line of boats pulled up to the shore. I counted thirty although I could detect no wheels on the sterns of two of those I counted.

I had noticed a large sternwheeler passing by yesterday and again today. Thinking it might be offering cruises, I zoomed in on its name and turned to the web. Sure enough, the Valley Gem was offering one-hour cruises and there was one remaining before the sold-out fireworks cruise. I reserved a spot on that cruise then turned to Google Maps for directions. I knew the dock would be some distance up the Muskingum River but it was a little farther than I would have guessed. My estimated arrival time for the 2:45 cruise was 2:46.

Although I was one of the last to board, I made it. I could now see the wheels on all those sterns. Note the kayakers in that picture with the Lafayette Hotel in the background, and take a look at some of the onshore crowd in the third picture. The cruise also provided a pretty good look at the fireworks barge.

My return to the festival area was a lot more relaxed than my hurried walk to the Valley Gem had been. I tried out a couple of benches along the way then stopped at the Marietta Brewing Company for a brew and dinner. Even so, a couple of hours remained until fireworks time and the ever-increasing crowd reminded me of why I mostly avoid events such as this. I probably would have left if I had not been parked in.

So I stayed and enjoyed a very good, nearly half-hour long, fireworks display. This is a festival highlight that locals mention a lot and it’s easy to see why.

Getting through the ensuing traffic jam was every bit the nightmare I anticipated. I don’t think I learned a whole lot about fireworks-related traffic jams that I didn’t already know but I still feel I deserve a few continuing education credits.

Lunken Airport Days 2023

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As I imagine the case is everywhere, Labor Day weekend is pretty crowded with activities around here. I picked Lunken Airport Days to fill my Saturday primarily because I had never attended before. It was also the closest of the events I considered and was the only one that was free. Lunken (LUK) opened in the 1920s and was Cincinnati’s principal airport until Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport (CVG) opened in 1947.

Airport Days is hosted by Cincinnati War Birds so basically features military aircraft. Several classic cars are on display and there are even a few civilian airplanes such as this 1940 WACO. The 100th anniversary of WACO Aircraft Company will be celebrated leter this month at the museum and field in Troy, Ohio.

Military planes included a 1942 BT-13A VULTEE, the next to last B-25 ever built, and a 1944 P-51D Mustang. Seated in the foreground of the Mustang phot is one of the local artists participating in an informal “Lunken Days Sketch Outing”.

But the biggest plane on campus — actually one of the biggest planes ever built — was the B-29 Superfortress named Doc. 1644 Superfortresses were built during World War II. Only two are flying today. This remarkable airplane has its own website here.

My attention focused entirely on Doc when I heard that first engine begin to turn. That initial bit of smoke was soon gone and soon all four engines were running smoothly. Doc earns his keep by taking paying passengers aloft Some of this flight’s passengers can be seen here and here as the plane taxies.

After taxieing to the far end of the field, Doc rumbles down the runway, lifts off, and disappears behind one of the airport buildings. Because of the surrounding trees and the plane’s low flight path, I don’t get a shot of the plane in flight until it returns and circles the field.

It is headed south, just as it was on takeoff, when it returns to the runway.

There was just enough time after the flight landed to prepare for the presentation of the flag and singing of the national anthem at noon. I was not able to photograph the color guard as they marched toward the plane but I caught them on the way back.

Although we could see everything the guide pointed out, there wasn’t much room in the cockpit for taking pictures. The tunnel to the rear of the airplane went unused as entry and exit were via vertical ladders.

I could now get closeups of the nose art and bombardier’s position. With plexiglass domes in place of gun ports, I could look right through the plane to the historic terminal.

Airport Days is a two day affair so, if you are seeing this shortly after publication, you can easily catch the second half. The weather looks to be just as delightful today as it was yesterday.

Two Oldies Again

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Last week’s post covered my second-ever visit to the Dayton Porchfest. My first visit was covered as the “something new” in the 2018 Two Oldies and Something New triple feature. Although the order was shuffled this year, those three events again occurred within a week of each other, and I again attended all three. So this post will complete the coverage by reporting on the two oldies of 2018. First up is the Great Darke County Fair where I found some of the critters a little eggcentric. “That’s a joke, I say, that’s a joke, son.”

Before I saw any of the critters or any of the other agricultural exhibits, I strolled down the midway past rides and games that were almost — but not quite — the same as those I strolled past as a teenager many years ago.

In the lower floor of the coliseum, almost all of the flowers that had peaked for the judging were gone along with most of the baked goods. Thankfully, quite a few fruits and vegetables remained to supply some color.

I was encouraged by the realization that I was still capable of recognizing dairy cows and also comforted by the fact that they were prominently labeled in case I falter at some point in the future.

I peeked in on the only judging that I saw going on while I was there. Junior events such as this are really the only fair competitions that I enjoy anymore. I guess it’s because I don’t need to know a single kid or critter to appreciate the accomplishments.

The day’s big event was the tractor pull. I had seen signs promoting it as I entered the grounds and glimpsed some of the competing machines when I passed the race track. My memories go back to when horses and tractors both competed in — separate — pulling events at the fair. I hesitated only a moment at the tail end of the ticket line before heading to my car and starting the long drive home.

The second oldie was the Tri-State Gas Engine and Tractor Show where my Wheel Horse collecting buddy, Terry, is a regular exhibitor. When hooked to a tractor, that trailer in the foreground of the picture becomes my chariot as Terry chauffeurs me around the grounds looking for items of interest.

There is no shortage of strange contraptions at the show. Many of them we have seen before or at least know what they are but not all. This was a mystery that intrigued us enough to pause and make some guesses but not enough to actually dismount and examine it. I commented that it resembled a small corn sheller although there were clear differences. I snapped a picture and the mystery was instantly solved once I saw it enlarged. New Era Rope Machine is cast into its surface and there is a video of it being used here.

There was no mystery in the purpose of either of these contraptions but there were some details that were far from obvious. Terry had previously seen the display and met the owner, and made me aware of just how odd this little engine was. The story of the variable displacement diesel that burned a variety of fuels including paraffin is here. A description of its operation is here. The Shaw product was another kit engine designed to be mounted on a bicycle. This example is mounted on a Gendron Iron Wheel Company bicycle. Shaw eventually switched to Briggs & Stratton engines but remained in business selling mowers and small tractors until 1962. Although it has gone through many changes, Gendron Inc. still exists as a manufacturer of mobile patient management systems.

Dale, another school days buddy of mine lives nearby and the show is a convenient meeting spot for the three of us. Along with Dale’s wife, we spent a fair amount of time this year solving the world’s problems and ignoring our own. At the end of the day, as soon as I started walking to my car, I realized with regret that I should have asked someone to snap a picture of our little group. I’ll try not to forget next time.

Dayton Porchfest 2023

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I attended my first Porchfest in 2018. It was Dayton’s second. Despite good intentions, I did not make it back in 2019 and there understandably wasn’t one in 2020. Dayton did hold Porchfests in 2021 and 2022 but they did it without me. I guess I sort of forgot about them until I saw an ad of some sort a few weeks ago. Ithaca, NY, had the first Porchfest in 2007. The Dayton Porchfest was number 94. There are now more than 150 taking place each year.

That opening picture of Baker & Collins, of the band Berachah Valley, probably looks exactly like what you expect a porch fest to look like but that is not the way this one started. At 12:15, after a few announcements,  Phil’s Big Azz Brass Band kicked off the music in a parking lot. No porch could hold them.

Starting at 1:00, and continuing for the next six hours, eight to ten concerts began on porches — or something similar — throughout the Saint Anne’s Hill section of Dayton every hour on the hour. After listening to a few tunes from Baker & Collins, I moved on to catch a few from Jimmy D. Rogers then around the corner to catch a few more from Dennis Geehan and the Storied Blues Project.

This is crabswithoutlegs who, in addition to having a name that triggers a plethora of questions, were probably the highlight of my day. They are on a back porch in a fenced yard completely filled with people with more listening outside the fence. Fortunately, there was a small but steady stream of folks moving to other porches so I was able to slip inside the fence for a bit. This extremely tight jazz fusion group was made extra impressive by the apparent young age of every member.

They and I performed on a very real porch although it faced a side yard rather than the street. I had paused for a beverage at the Fifth Street Brewpub as the 1:00 concerts came to an end then spent a little extra time taking in crabswithoutlegs. As a result, I only managed to hear pieces of two of the 2:00 concerts.

Sharon Lane was the first of the 3:00 performers I saw. I’ve included a shot of the building where she performed to show that she really was on a porch. The porch that Novena performed on was much more open and stage-like.

Other 3:00 concerts I saw included Austin Wolfel, Tim Gebard & the Hit Men, and Dave Zup who performed in the street while his accompaniment was on a porch.

There is no such thing as too much music but there was more music than I could take in. It wasn’t really practical to attend all of the eight or more concerts occurring simultaneously plus I did not make it to the end of the festival. In 2018, it was rain that caused me to leave early. In 2023, it was my legs. Four hours (minus one beer) of walking wore me out. I know I missed a lot. Porchfest is a great concept and Dayton, via Saint Anne’s Hill, does it right.

 

Book Review Building the Bridges Along the National Road Through Ohio Cyndie L. Gerken

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Cyndie’s done it again. As I began to write this review of Cyndie L. Gerken’s fourth book on the National Road in Ohio, I revisited my reviews of the previous three thinking I might come up with a better opening line but everything I saw just reinforced my initial thought. Cyndie has indeed done it again.

The words “accurate” or “accuracy” appear in the opening paragraphs of all three along with words like “precision” and “thoroughness”, and all those words certainly fit once again. In my review of the third book, Headley Inn and Cliff Rock House, I noted that it differed from the previous two by focusing on a small stretch of roadside rather than all of the state. That difference struck me again as I read Building the Bridges Along the National Road Through Ohio but in a slightly different way. The “Along the National Road Through Ohio” in the title tells us that this is something of a “return to form” but it occurred to me that the set of four is just a bigger version of something going on within each of the individual books. There is no denying that reading lots of details about lots of very similar things can become repetitious. In Marking the Miles… and Taking the Tolls… and again in Building the Bridges…, Gerken often intersperses human-interest style stories among the facts and statistics to help fend off boredom. Thinking of Headley Inn and Cliff Rock House playing a similar role in the series, despite having its own sets of facts and statistics, brought a smile to my face. It might have had just as much value in that regard to the writer as to the reader.

Although I certainly know better, I tend to instinctively think of big stone arches when I hear the phrase “National Road bridges”. One reason is that many of those stone bridges, some of them S-shaped, are still in existence. There were also many wooden bridges along the road but all were much shorter-lived. Building the Bridges… includes both. It identifies twenty-one covered wooden bridges built for the National Road in Ohio in addition to probably forty-some stone bridges. There were also well over a thousand stone culverts and one reason an accurate count of stone bridges is difficult to produce is that not everyone followed the same rules when distinguishing culverts and bridges. Span length was and is the distinguishing characteristic. Twelve feet, twenty feet, and no doubt some other numbers of feet were used to make the distinction and some reports did not distinguish the two at all.

Gerken talks about culverts vs. bridges in the introduction along with many other topics related to the Ohio National Road bridges in general and some that simply concern all bridges in general. Building techniques are described as are bridge types and bridge components. Thanks to an annotated picture of one of the Blaine Bridge arches, I now know what a voussoir is although I’ve no idea how to pronounce it. (Voussoirs are the wedge-shaped stones that form an arch.)

A chapter titled “The Builders of Ohio’s National Road Bridges” follows the introduction. Its opening pages contain information about the road’s Superintendents, how the road was divided, what contracts looked like, and similar subjects. Then comes fifty+ entries on individual builders.

After telling us about as many of the bridge builders as she could identify, Gerken touches on some of the iconic National Road bridges east of Ohio, including the Wheeling Suspension Bridge, before beginning a county-by-county trek across the state. Each county chapter begins with a thumbnail of the county and the National Road through it. A map locating the National Road bridges in the county appears very early in each chapter. Sections on each of the bridges and some of the culverts in the county appear also in east-to-west sequence. Just as some bridges east of Ohio were touched upon preceding the border-to-border coverage, a few in Indiana follow it. 

At a minimum, the location of each structure and what it crossed is given. The builder or builders are identified if known and, thanks to some pretty good sleuthing, many of them are. Beyond that, the information given for each bridge or culvert varies widely but it is a natural variation. For unnamed culverts over unnamed intermittent streams, location might be just about the only thing known. For major structures, lots of additional information might be included and usually supported by various graphics. Topographic maps are fairly common and there are lots of historic photographs and drawings. Plenty of modern photos also appear and if a structure is still standing there’s a good chance that the book contains a very modern picture of it taken by the author herself. Stories about events associated with happenings at or near a particular bridge can pop up anytime and are often fleshed out by reproducing contemporary reports.

The current status of each structure is always given if known. I’ve long been impressed with the number of National Road bridges still standing. Maybe I should be even more impressed after reading about all that failed and had to be replaced within a year or two of completion due to shoddy materials or workmanship. The number of contracts that had to be reissued after being abandoned by the initial winning bidder was also somewhat surprising. Building the first interstate was no simple task.

Ample anecdotes and news reports are mixed in with or printed beside all the facts and statistics. Some are funny and some are sad but almost all provide a glimpse into another time. I’ll share a piece of one that struck a chord with me. In her reminisces on the two-lane covered bridge over the South Fork of the Licking River, Minnie Moody describes a sound from another time.

What I liked was to go clattering through one lane of the bridge at the same time another vehicle was passing through on the other side of the center partition. Whang, bang, clickty-clack! With a roof over our heads the uproar was terrific.

I believe I have passed through a two-lane “double barrel” covered bridge but I’m not 100% certain. I am 100% certain that I’ve not done it in the presence of even one, let alone two, horse-drawn vehicles. I’m nearly 100% certain that I never will but thanks to Minnie — with the help of Cyndie — I have a pretty good idea of what it was like.

Yep. Cyndie has done it again. Building the Bridges… is quite clearly a valuable reference book for National Road fans but it’s something of a storybook, too. It has people in it along with the stones and lumber. The Ohio Genealogical Society hands out awards to several books each year. One of these is the Henry Howe Award which goes to a book on “Ohio state, county, or local history”. Each of Gerken’s previous three National Road books has won the award and I’ve a hunch this one will as well. Yeah, I think Cyndie’s going to do that again, too. 

Building the Bridges Along the National Road Through Ohio: A Study of Early Stone and Wooden Bridges Along Ohio’s National Road, Cyndie L. Gerken, Independently Published (May 14, 2023), 8.5 x 11 inches, 521 pages, ISBN ‎ 979-8393147471
Available through Amazon.