Happy Eostre

Posted on March 31, 2013 by Denny

Eostre Beer, Howard Town Brewery The Christian holiday called Easter may or may not be named after the Anglo-Saxon goddess Eostre who may or may not be related to the Germanic goddess Ostara. It is not, despite what you may have read, named after the Babylonian goddess Ishtar. Ishtar was, by all accounts, a really fun lady and probably deserves some sort of holiday but Easter isn’t it. It’s not 100% certain that Easter is Eostre’s either but it is certain that this beer was named for her. That’s her picture right there in the middle of the label. Eostre — the beer — is brewed by the Howard Town Brewery in Glossop, England. HTB’s website lists the quantity of each beer currently available and for Eostre that amount is zip. Bummer. No way to have a Happy Eostre just now, I guess.

Ishtar, Babylonian goddess of love and war Until the folks in Glossop get around to brewing another batch of Eostre, I suggest we work on getting this divine Babylonian her own holiday. We could celebrate it by wearing wings and leaving our hats on.

And Now For Something Completely Different:
A Guest Post on the 1913 Flood

Posted on March 25, 2013 by Denny

There hasn’t been a lot of requests/offers to do a guest post on this blog but there have been a few. Until the most recent, all were from sites with nothing but contrived and flimsy similarities. They resembled shotgun “link swap” requests more than anything and that, of course, made them easy to ignore. The latest request was different. It came from some fellow Ohioans who call themselves “weekend history buffs”. Their recently launched website looks promising and their initial round of blog posts involves something that’s been on my mind of late. Exactly one hundred years ago today, water started spilling into the streets of Dayton, Ohio, from stressed levees. The flood that followed is the topic of this post from the folks at HistoricNaturalDisasters.com.

ADDENDUM 27-Mar-2022: Obviously my ability to assess new websites leaves much to be desired. HistoricNaturalDisasters may have been promising but it was not delivering. It is now gone and probably has been for quite some time. This nine-year-old guest post may be the only remaining online evidence that it ever existed.

HistoricNaturalDisasters.com Guest Post

The week of March 21st through March 26th marks the 100 year anniversary of one of the greatest natural disasters to ever hit the United States. A series of storms caused flooding and even tornadoes that ravaged the Midwest and parts of New England during this week in 1913 and left hundreds dead and thousands homeless, and caused billions of dollars in damage. One of the cities hit the hardest by the storm’s fury was Dayton, Ohio.

Located along the Great Miami River bend, Dayton had been prone to major flooding events every decade or so since its establishment in 1796. What happened during the storm of 1913, however, was a flood the magnitude of which was unlike anything Dayton had ever seen. Starting on March 21, storms dumped between 8 and 11 inches of rain on the already oversaturated Great Miami River watershed causing all the rivers in the region to swell far beyond their normal banks. At approximately 6 AM on March 25th, the levees holding back the Great Miami River broke and water began to rush into the Dayton streets at speeds approaching 25 miles per hour.

The waters filled the city so rapidly that most of the residents were trapped in their homes and many were quickly forced to take refuge on their roofs as the waters filled the first and second floors of their homes. Many people were faced with essentially camping on their roofs for days on end as they waited for rescue, which proved nearly impossible for relief workers in boats due to the incredibly strong currents of the flood water. The currents were so forceful in fact that many homes and business were literally ripped from their foundations and carried away by the waters, disappearing from the Dayton streets forever.

Downtown Dayton was among the hardest hit areas, with flood waters reaching a high of 20 feet in some spots. Unfortunately, the destruction was just beginning, as fire took hold where the waters receded, fed by natural gas escaping from broken stoves and gas lines and pushed along by strong winds. An entire block of businesses and factories in downtown Dayton was burned down to the water line, with the fire department unable to get men and equipment close enough to help due to the depth of flood waters.

By the end of the flood, March 26th, the damage was widespread. 14 square miles of the Dayton were underwater, and more than 360 people were dead. Some 20,000 homes were completely destroyed, an estimated 65,000 people were left homeless, and all told, the city had suffered close to $100 million ($2 billion in today’s dollars) worth of damage. The cleanup effort took more than a year to complete and Dayton’s economy didn’t make it back to pre-flood levels until more than a decade after the disaster.

1913: Fifth and Ludlow Streets in downtown Dayton during the worst of the flooding

1913: The ruins of the Lowe Brothers Paint Store on the Southeast corner of East Third and Jefferson Street in Dayton

2013: The corner of East Third and Jefferson Streets as it appears today

1913: Fifth and Ludlow Streets in downtown Dayton during the worst of the flooding

2013: Fifth and Ludlow Streets in downtown Dayton as it appears today

Thanks so much to Denny Gibson for letting us share a piece of this historical project on DennyGibson.com. We’re humbled by the interest in this project, and we really hope you enjoyed this snippet of history!

We’d also like to thank some of the great archives and archivists who have done so much work to preserve the amazing history of the 1913 flood, including the Dayton Metro Library and historian Trudy Bell. The amount of history compiled at these two websites is amazing. Lastly, thanks to Jason from InsuranceTown.com, who lent us some of the resources we used to help prepare content for the web and publish our blog and inspired our Mapping History Contest.

Don’t forget to check out HistoricNaturalDisasters.com for more images and for information on our Mapping History Contest – help us figure out the locations pictured in historic photos from 1913 and you could win $100!

Saint Paddy’s Eve

Posted on March 17, 2013 by Denny

Even though there was lots of rain Friday night and into Saturday morning, the weather guys were claiming it should stop in time for the noon start of Cincinnati’s Saint Patrick’s Day Parade. I believed them enough to head downtown and not only did the rain stop, the sun broke through the clouds more than an hour before step off time and some pretty serious warming got underway. At Arnold’s, the Guinness parade pictured at right was going on long before I got there and would continue throughout the day.

This parade has followed many routes over the years. Once upon a time, it actually started near Arnold’s but had not been very close is several years. Today’s route passed just a half-block away on Sycamore after running north on Eggleston and — quite briefly — west on Central parkway. The parade is always led by the statue of Saint Patrick seen in the first picture passing the recently opened Horseshoe Casino. The casino wasn’t the only “new” thing on the parade route. At the last minute, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), which had marched in the parade last year, was booted. Well behaved but very vocal protesters stood at the turn onto Sycamore.

As often happens, I hadn’t been paying attention. The first I’d heard anything about this was back at Arnold’s where I struck up a conversation with a member of the Ancient Order of Hibernians. The parade is organized by the AOH. Yes, he said, he would be marching but it was a “terrible route”. He decried the fact that the parade would not go through “downtown”, by which I assume he meant Fountain Square. Then he seemed to somehow blame this “terrible route” — a phrase he used several times — on the fact that “we won’t allow gays in the parade.” That could hardly be the case since GLSEN’s banishment became known only Friday but the move did not go over well with city officials. As reported by The Huffington Post, several withdrew from the parade in their own protest. I guess I should start paying attention as this clearly is not the end of the subject.

There was plenty of normal parade stuff including what must be one of the largest groups of Irish built cars in the world.

I’d climbed to the upper floor of a parking garage to get that shot of the DeLoreans and, while there, pointed a long lens toward Arnold’s. It obviously remained busy during the parade and was even busier after. The second picture is in Arnold’s courtyard where I managed to find a spot at the back to listen to the Cincinnati Glee Club perform a medley of Irish tunes. Sláinte!

On top of the parade, my weekend plans included a Saturday night concert in Oxford and a Sunday afternoon book presentation in Greenville. Between the parade and the concert, I stopped by the open house at Fifth Street Brewpub in Dayton. This is the first co-op brewpub in Ohio and only the second in the nation. I can now honestly tell people I own a brewpub.

Although I could have driven home between each of these events, I made it a little easier by spending Saturday night at one of my favorite independent motels. The Golden Inn is on the National Road near New Paris, Ohio, and more or less half way between Oxford and Greenville. Lea Ann Golden, who runs the place with husband Jeff, mentioned a new restaurant in town and I tried it out. No pictures but the meat loaf and okra were excellent.

The concert was at the home of Marc and Lisa Biales, a.k.a. The Big Song Music House. The performer was Michael Johnathon of WoodSongs Old-Time Radio Hour. I really do need to get to the show in Lexington but this will do for now. Lisa has appeared on the show and tonight she opened and returned near the end for couple of duets. Another great evening of music in the Oxford countryside.

Sappy Ohio

Posted on March 10, 2013 by Denny

I really goofed last week. I was in Greenville on Saturday but didn’t realize it was syrup making time at the Shawnee Prairie Preserve with demonstrations and a waffle! breakfast. It would have been perfect but, in my ignorance, I dawdled, ate breakfast in Dayton, and only reached town and learned of the event long after breakfast was finished and the whole shebang was pretty much over. I cast about for a way to make up for this missed opportunity and even briefly considered returning to Hinckley with the buzzards for one of the area’s big maple sugaring weekends as I did in 2011. But, in the end, I decided to stay closer to home and yesterday checked out the 47th Maple Syrup Festival at Hueston Woods.

I started out by standing in line for the very popular pancake breakfast at the park lodge. I realize that the breakfast isn’t all that photogenic but it sure tasted good. Pure maple syrup does that.

Then I headed over to the Pioneer Village area to stand in line for a “hay ride”. Trucks pulling trailers with seats made of straw bales carried people to the start of a short trail leading to the “sugar shack”. A guide would then lead the way down the trail while providing information about the area and the syrup making process. In chatting with some of the volunteers, I learned that a shortage of guides had resulted in a minor bottleneck. Even though our departure was delayed as long as practical and the ride to the trail was as slow as possible, we still reached the trail several minutes ahead of our guide.

The wait was worth it. I feel extra bad about not learning our guide’s name because he sure was an extra good guide. He spoke, in a most entertaining way, about both the natural and human history of the area and he talked of the social as well as technical aspects of sugaring. He explained that, since the sap contains only a percent or two of sugar when it comes from the tree, it doesn’t taste very much like syrup. At the guide’s invitation, several young tour members personally verified this by licking fingers that had caught a few drops.

There was another line at the sugar shack but it wasn’t a long one. The original Hueston family shack burned in the 1980s but the current one looks much the same and is on the same foundation. Maple syrup must be about two-thirds sugar which means an awful lot of water has to be removed. This is accomplished by the wood fired evaporator The fog makes it hard to see but the warmth is certainly welcome. After hearing an explanation of the evaporation process, there was one more short line for the shuttle back to the car at Pioneer Village. The well run free festival is a great fun and educational, too.

Not far from Hueston Woods, the home of William Holmes McGuffey, the man behind the incredibly successful McGuffey Readers, is now a museum. It’s owned and operated by Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. McGuffey was part of the university faculty when he had the house built in 1833 then took on creating the first reader, published in 1836, as a way to augment his professor’s salary. The house is filled with wonderful period furnishings including several of McGuffey’s own pieces. Among these are the eight-sided rotating table and the tall desk behind it. I was accompanied as much as guided by a fellow named Steve who thoroughly answered every question I had. Like the festival, the McGuffey Museum is free and fun and educational.

Wilmington’s Denver and Murphy

Posted on February 25, 2013 by Denny

I live about thirty miles from Wilmington, Ohio. It’s where my daughter lives as do some very close friends. The nearness of my own bed means there’s hardly ever a reason for me to spend the night there and the willingness of friends and family to put me up means there’s really no need to resort to commercial lodging in any case. In fact, when I first mentioned I that intended to spend a night at the General Denver Hotel, I was met with incredulity. Why would anyone, I was asked, want to stay in that old place when they could stay in a nice warm no-cost bed just a few blocks away? Fortunately, they know me well enough that there wasn’t a big fight when I explained that I wanted to stay there precisely because it was such an “old place”. I did realize, however, that the warmness of the available bed was stressed because my friend’s parents had once nearly frozen while staying at the GDH and that the temperature of my room would be a hot topic, so to speak.

I’ve mentioned the General Denver in this blog before. It’s where I’ve eaten, in addition to several other meals, my last four Thanksgiving dinners. I wrote of the one in 2011. It was built in 1928 by Matthew Denver who named it for his father, James Denver. James was born in Virginia and seems to have dropped off his parents, and eventually his own offspring, in Wilmington while he went out west to became the Governor of the Kansas Territory, a Civil War General, and enough other high profile things to warrant having the city of Denver, Colorado, named after him.

The General Denver Hotel was certainly a high toned place when it opened but it wasn’t alone. The ten year old Murphy Theater stood across the street and the nine year old courthouse was barely a block away. The courthouse and theater had cost $300,000 and $250,000 respectively. It was a pretty classy neighborhood and still is. All three buildings remain in use today. In fact, it was an event at the Murphy that allowed me to finally justify a night at the Denver on Saturday. Lisa Biales, who I’ve also mentioned in this blog, performed there as a New Lyceum Circuit artist.

The guy who the Murphy’s named after was a pretty high profile fellow too but he built the theater himself rather than waiting for the next generation to do it. Charles Murphy was born in Wilmington. He worked for the Cincinnati Enquirer and Times-Star newspapers and the New York Giants baseball team before becoming a team owner himself. The Chicago Cubs were his from 1906 through 1913. The Cubs have won exactly two World Series in their long history. Both — 1907 and 1908 — were on Murphy’s watch.

Matt and Jim and Chuck are still in town. I stopped by Sugar Grove Cemetery to see them before checking in to the hotel. There are large family markers — the Denvers have a truly impressive Washington Monument style obelisk — surrounded by smaller individual ones. Finding them took some luck in addition to the FindAGrave clues but I could now be a guide if the need ever arises.

Checking into the General Denver involved signing a real register. It’s hard for me to believe that I’ve never signed one before but I certainly can’t remember ever doing it. My friend, John, met me in the bar and, although I did eat dinner there and had good intentions, lively conversation made me forget to take a picture. I did get a picture of breakfast. I had the Denver Bake which is simply a casserole version of a Denver omelet. It seemed super appropriate to eat, as I Tweeted at the time, a Denver omelet in the hotel named for the man that the city that the omelet was named after was named after. Both meals were good and the from-the-menu breakfast is included with the room. That elevator is the original with manual controls that must be operated by a trained professional (i.e., essentially any member of the hotel staff). I took a ride before I left and found it very smooth. Like most hotels more than a few years old, the The General Denver is reportedly haunted and I’ve mentioned the heating problems of the past. I saw neither ghosts nor frost during my stay and thought my room rather comfortable.

The bartender had suggested that, if the concert audience was small enough, it might be placed entirely on stage as had been recently done at another show. I didn’t give it much thought and John and I walked across the street as show time neared with me thinking we would simply take our reserved seats. The bartender’s prediction had indeed come true so our last minute arrival put us in the last rather than the first row. That was hardly a problem, though, as the last row on the stage put us at least as close to Lisa and violinist Doug Hamilton as the front row on the floor would have and the setting was clearly much more intimate. Lisa was just getting over a cold she had been fighting for several days but you would not have known that from her voice which was spot on. I think this was probably the first time I’ve seen just the two of them perform which may explain why Doug sang a bit more than I’m used to. Nice addition. Of course, both handled their instruments masterfully and the duo delivered two great sounding sets separated by a short break. Anyone with even slightly sharp eyes may have noticed that Lisa Biales is not listed on the marquee in my picture of the theater. That’s because I didn’t get around to taking the picture until Sunday morning after the sign had been changed. However, her name can be seen on an enlarged section of the photo at the beginning of this article.

The Future is Rosie

Posted on February 3, 2013 by Denny

A far as I know, not a single marmota monax in the city of Cincinnati has shown any propensity for prognostication. That means I have to go to Dayton if I want my Groundhog Day predictions live. But not only is Dayton, OH, a much shorter drive than Punxsutawney, PA, watching the Boonshoft Museum of Discovery‘s Rosie do her thing is a lot less effort and a lot more comfortable than watching Punxsutawney Phil, which I did once, do his. It was even a little more comfortable this year than most. Normally the resident groundhog works in an open wooden shelter beside the museum but, when single digit temperatures were predicted, museum staff decided to move it inside. There is no doubt that both Rosie and the kids (who are very much the target audience) appreciated this. The predicting took place next to a solid wall of windows so that any shadow making stuff that showed up outside could make shadows inside, too. It took a few banana slices from the museum’s Melissa Proffitt to entice a reluctant Rosie to poke through the door but she eventually came out and took a look. There wasn’t a hint of a shadow and Rosie confidently predicted an early spring. Museum President and CEO Mark J. Meister read the proclamation with TV weatherman Chris Mulcahy, who served as MC, looking on.

After the big event, many of us kids headed off to check out the museum though quite a few did hang around to get a closer look at Rosie. It’s no accident that the museum feels like a combination children’s museum and natural history museum. In 1993, one century after the Dayton Museum of Natural History began, some community leaders got together to explore starting a children’s museum. The philosophies of the new group and the existing one were so similar that the Children’s Museum Board and the Board of the Dayton Society of Natural History merged in 1996 and this is the result. The phrase “…to be the premier regional provider of interactive science learning experiences which enrich the lives of children and adults…” is from the Boonshoft’s mission statement and I think they may have already done that. This is one really cool place. Every single employee I had contact with was extremely friendly and helpful. On top of that, they all seemed to be having a really good time and spoke about the museum with genuine enthusiasm. Seems like this is a good place to work as well as visit.

Rosie isn’t the only resident of the museum. The Discovery Zoo contains quite a few animals, birds, and other smallish critters. Otters and meerkats are representative of the size of animals on display although the largest resident is a Burmese python that’s nearly 16 feet long and 180 pounds in weight. I understand that he almost never sees his shadow.

I think my personal favorites were The Dome and Science on a Sphere. Both are pretty much what they sound like. The Dome is a full-dome screen on which planetarium programs and movies, including some in 3D, are projected. Science on a Sphere is a large ball which can display images on its entire surface. The picture here shows a color coded image of the height of waves during the 2011 Japanese tsunami.

This was Rosie’s second year of handling Groundhog Day duties. She was found injured in Minnesota and is believed to be about three years old. Although she has essentially recovered from her injuries, she is partially blind in one eye so returning her to the wild would not be wise. Ivy, Rosie’s predecessor retired last year then died just a month after Groundhog Day. The average lifespan of a groundhog in the wild is two to four years; In captivity it’s eight to ten. Ivy was right at eleven. Of course, regular meals and good shelter had a lot to do with Ivy’s long life but I’ve a feeling that having a purpose helped a little, too.

The Boonshoft Museum of Discovery is in Triangle Park a little north of downtown Dayton. It seems somehow fitting that my visit to Rosie and the park occurred on the eve of this year’s version of the National Football League’s Game of the Century. Until I started putting this post together, I simply assumed that Triangle Park took its name directly from its location in the triangle formed by the joining of the Stillwater and Great Miami Rivers. Turns out that had nothing to do with it. The name comes from a trio of Dayton companies who sponsored a professional football team and gave them the name Dayton Triangles. This was their home. The Triangles were charter members of the American Professional Football Association (APFA) which changed its name to the National Football League (NFL) in 1922. Not only was professional football played here for several years, there is at least a 50/50 chance this is where the very first APFA/NFL game took place. Read the story here then imagine an all Ohio Super Bowl between the Dayton Triangles and the Columbus Panhandles.

Something’s Brewing in Cincy

Posted on January 13, 2013 by Denny

Cincinnati has breweries. It used to have a lot of breweries and they used to be bigger. Maybe the glory days when more than twenty breweries operated in the Queen City won’t be returning but the count is definitely increasing. Most of those 20+ breweries simply didn’t recover from the Eighteenth Amendment. A few — Hudepohl, Shoenling, Wiedemann, Burger — did and were going strong when I came to town in 1965. But one by one they closed and all were gone by the end of the century. An exception of sorts is the former Shoenling Brewery now owned by Boston Brewing and used to produce Samuel Adams and other brands for a company headquartered nearly 800 miles away.

In 2004, Greg Hardman started putting his money and his considerable energy where his heart is. Using contract brewing, he brought brands like Christian Moerlein, Hudepohl, and Shoenling back to Cincinnati shelves and taps. A major goal was reached in February of 2012 with the opening of the Moerlein Lager House on the banks of the Ohio River right next to the Roebling Suspension Bridge. An even bigger goal is about to be reached when beer starts rolling out of the Moerlein Brewery in Cincinnati’s Over The Rhine. The building on Moore Street began life as part of Kaufmann Brewing Company, spent many years as a Husman’s Snack Foods potato chip plant, and more recently served as the Great Hall for the annual Bockfest. The photo at left was taken during an open house in late November as things eased ever closer to an actual opening. As I stood in the full and noisy hall, I planned this post — sort of.

My actual thoughts on that day were of a brewery that had been operating in the Cincinnati area for several years but which I’d never visited. Visiting that brewery became a priority. There were issues, however. Tours are offered but only on Saturdays. My December Saturdays were already filled so it wasn’t until the new year started that I could get serious. By then my thought had expanded to include other breweries in the area. In fact, the brewery that had triggered the plan would actually be the last one I would visit during three days of peace and brewski.

I started on Thursday with a stop at Triple Digit on Dana Avenue. The brewery is part of Listermann Manufacturing who has been supplying home brewers since 1991. They have been brewing themselves for several years and I’ve enjoyed some of their product in local restaurants. The taproom is rather new, though. Until last spring, an Ohio taproom required its own licence in addition to the brewery license. Removal of that requirement was a real boon to smaller operations like Triple Digit. I tasted a few brews and walked out with a couple of bottles of Chickow! Very good stuff.

Lunch at Arthur’s was next. That it was fairly close and more or less on my path were good reasons but there were two better ones. One is that on October 23, Arthur’s began “Proudly serving only Local Draft Beer!!!”. Most of the nationally distributed stuff is still available in bottles as is a wider range of local brews but each of the six permanent taps dispenses only beverages brewed in the Cincinnati area. A very cool and classy move in my opinion. The long standing Tap Tuesday’s could be construed as a technical violation of the “local only” rule but it is certainly a reasonable one. There is a single standalone tap that gets a keg from some smaller brewery every Tuesday. As it has been in the past, this will sometimes be a local product and sometimes not. This week it had been from a small brewery in Portland, Oregon. Hard to fault them for that. The second “better” reason was to try the beer coming from the tall diamond shaped tap. It’s Fork in the Road, an India Amber Ale from Blank Slate Brewing Company. That would be my next stop but I knew there was no tasting room or much chance of seeing anymore of the brewery than the mailbox. That’s it at the top of the article. More good beer. If you find Fork in the Road on tap, take it.

Thursday’s last stop was at the Fifty West Brewing Company on Wooster Pike, a.k.a. US Highway 50. Anyone who looked for the six taps in the picture from Arthur’s may have come up one short because the Fifty West handle is sideways and hard to see. The company is pretty new. The taproom is just seven weeks old but going gangbusters. I started with a Brewmaster’s Choice flight then, on a neighbor’s recommendation, did a pint of something else. My favorite was the Horse & Buggy Scotch Ale but, at 8.3% ABV, it wasn’t something I could just guzzle.

On Friday afternoon I drove up to Valley Vineyards near Morrow, Ohio. They’ve been making some well respected wine here for over forty years. I’m not much of a wine drinker but did attend some of their earliest wine festivals when I lived near by. I’ve been wanting to revisit the place ever since they added the Cellar Dweller nanobrewery a little over a year ago. The one word description “refined” came to mind as I worked through the seven member flight and the word seems fitting for an operation with the experience behind it that this one has. Although the offerings fill the full range from an American Light to an Irish Stout each is rather middle-of-the-road for the type. That’s not at all a bad thing. I’m sure Valley’s goal was to provide a range of high quality and pleasant brews without jarring palettes. Well done. Perhaps it is also fitting that my favorite was the middle of the lineup Dead Dweller English Ale.

Friday’s second and last brewery was Rivertown in Lockland, Ohio. The taproom is open only on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday with tours available Friday and Saturday. They charge five bucks for the tour but it includes a beer and a souvenir glass. Since most beers are $5, they’re really giving you a glass to take the tour. Rivertown Brewery is only a couple of years old but quickly overcame some early quality problems to become one of the area’s more successful breweries. One of the beers I’ve tried and liked in the past is Roebling Porter. At the brewery I got to try it the “right way” with nitrogen delivery and liked it even more.

OK. Here it is. The place that got me thinking about visiting local breweries last November. Mt Carmel Brewing has been producing beer in this 1924 farm house since 2005. They have been offering tours on a regular basis since that change in Ohio law allowed them to open a taproom last spring. It’s not a big place so a tour doesn’t take long but it does provide a good feel for how the place operates. Improvements and expansions have occurred as the business grew and more are planned. Production is the top priority but things like more parking for taproom patrons are also in the works. As Mt Carmel brews have appeared on an increasing number of area shelves and taps, their Amber Ale has become a favorite of mine.

Visiting these five taprooms made it clear to me that brewing is pretty healthy in Cincinnati. Although my timing was accidental, it was also extremely appropriate. Next Saturday, as a prelude to Cincinnati Beer Week, six sold out “Taproom Trolleys” will visit most of the same places. The buses will not go to the remote Valley Vineyards but will stop at the Moerlein Lager House and Rockbottom Brewery. I beat the crowd but just barely.

My Christmas Squirrel

Posted on December 16, 2012 by Denny

I’m not much of a decorator. When there were young’uns in the house, there was always a tree at Christmas and I even strung up a few outdoor lights once or twice but there has been nothing of that sort around my bachelor abodes. When I lived in a one bedroom apartment, I found a couple of red balls that probably came from someone’s tree and hung them from a ceiling beam. I’ve expanded on that just a bit in my current location. At some point after Thanksgiving has passed each year, I take my single armload of holiday trim out of the closet and make things all Christmasy.

The little tree is store-bought. It’s the only component in my Christmas display not made by a family member’s hand. The snow-couple on the mantle are covered soft drink bottles. My sister dives into various arts and crafts projects on a regular basis and one year she made quite a few of these. I’m guessing that the ornament with the photo of the grandsons was assembled by my daughter-in-law or maybe the oldest boy did it. It arrived just a few days before my first ever Christmas Escape Run in 2006 and I took it with me. It first hung on a tree of sorts in a room above the Under the Hill Saloon in Natchez, Mississippi.

The star is one my Mom made of wax-coated paper. My sister and I each have five. I think Mom may have formed the stars then dipped them but I might not be remembering that quite right. She passed away in 1959 so the stars are at least 54 years old. Unlike my current piece of fake shrubbery, there was some store-bought stuff on our trees in those days but not a lot. There was popcorn we had strung while also eating a goodly amount of it and each year we carefully removed the hanging strands of tinsel (icicles) to reuse the next. The tree was definitely not fake.

The merry-go-round isn’t exactly holiday themed but, like pretty much any toy, seems quite appropriate. I guess Dad ran out of furniture to refinish or chairs to cane or maybe he just wanted a break. Whatever the source of the urge, it resulted in the production of several of these merry-go-rounds some years back. They were populated with a variety of animals. Mine has a chicken, duck, cat, and squirrel.

The sweat of the honest makes the merry-go-round.
Dirk Hamilton, Rainbows in the Night, 1995

I wasn’t able to get an ornament made by my newest grandson in time to include it in this post. Construction is in progress and I’ll update this post with a photo as soon as possible. For the present, I’ll just include this photo so that all three grandsons are represented.

UPDATE: January 3, 2013 – I picked up the new ornament on the way home from my Christmas trip. As promised, here it is. I’m all set for Christmas 2013.

Morristown 2012 Holiday Tour of Homes

Posted on December 2, 2012 by Denny

On Saturday I toured several nicely restored and decorated homes on the National Road in Morristown, Ohio. An Oddment page on the Holiday Tour of Homes is here.

This entry provides a place for comments on that Oddment as well as covering some “support activities”.

My bed for the night was at the Twin Pines Motel a few miles east of Morristown. I had read a couple of reviews that made it sound OK and it was. It’s a clean and reasonably maintained older place with no frills but all the necessities including wi-fi. Price was about $50 with tax. There is a look at my room here.

Chapz is on the National Road between Morristown and the Twin Pines. I stopped there for a beer before the home tour and for a ‘burger after. Anything that looks that unhealthy just has to taste great and it did. Just as the sign shows, female bartenders and waitresses wear Daisy Dukes and motorcycle chaps. Depending on age and size that can look really hot… or not.

Hats Off to Larry

Posted on November 25, 2012 by Denny

Guitarist Larry Goshorn “retired” this week. Of course, musicians don’t retire the way some folks do. A guy who retires from Ford will probably never build another car and a retired assassin can be perfectly happy not killing anyone ever again. But no one believes that, just because a musician does his last concert and stops actively looking for gigs in clubs and bars, they quit being a musician. Following Wednesday’s “farewell” concert, Larry may not be as prevalent on the local music scene as he has been but neither will he vanish completely.

Larry, along with brothers Dan and Tim, has been a big part of Cincinnati’s music for pretty much as long as I’ve been here. I moved to the big city in the fall of 1965 and evolved from visitor to resident over the next couple years. I don’t know when I first became aware of the Sacred Mushroom or even when the Sacred Mushroom first came into existence but I do remember Sunday afternoons in Eden park with the Mushroom in the band shell and nights in a dump called the Mug Club with the Mushroom on stage. Dan Goshorn did most of the singing but Larry also sang a bit along with doing all the lead guitar work. I fondly recall a couple of break time conversations with Larry at the Mug Club. I don’t recall their content; Only that they happened. No reason for Larry to remember them at all.

The Sacred Mushroom was a different sort of band. There was, of course, the Mushroom House and a life style that said “we are musicians, dammit” but their music was different, too. There were other good bands in Cincinnati including several that, like the Sacred Mushroom, did a mix of covers and originals. But the Mushroom’s covers were from guys like Willie Dixon and Paul Butterfield and their bluesy originals (actually Larry Goshorn originals) were not exactly formula top 40.

The peak and the crash were not far apart. In October of 1968, they opened for Big Brother and the Holding Company. I was there in the last row of the last balcony with a ticket I’d bought at the last minute. Their one and only album was released the following summer but the band was already disintegrating. It was kind of like the Beatles and Let It Be minus the long string of million selling albums in front of it.

Larry didn’t stop playing, of course. I may have even seen him a time or two before he went off to help put Pure Prairie League on the charts but I really don’t remember. My memories of his days with PPL are pretty spotty, too. Even though I liked several of their tunes, I never became a big fan. I saw them perform just once.

Larry didn’t write the song that put Pure Prairie League on the charts. That song, Amie, was written and recorded by Craig Fuller before he left to deal with draft obligations. What Larry did do, after replacing Craig, was ~~sing~~ play (see Tom Sheridan’s informative reply below) Amie in a couple of hundred concerts that got the song enough airplay to make it a hit. He then went on to write a number of the band’s songs including my favorite, Two Lane Highway. As much as I like the song, I don’t dare dwell on the lyrics. Just like Springsteen’s Born in the USA is not (despite what some politicians apparently believe) exactly glorifying the country, Two Lane Highway is not an ode to back roads. I never thought to ask but was there when a friend did and learned that Larry wrote the song in the back of a GMC motor home as the band rolled through a Pennsylvania night and he really did want to “get off this two lane highway”. He’s got a front row spot in the picture at right.

The Pure Prairie League story is a convoluted one and quite a few web pages offer up pieces and variations of it. Today, a four piece group with a couple of original members keeps the name alive. The official Pure Prairie League website makes no mention of Larry at all. A careful scan turned up one tiny uncaptioned picture that has Larry in it but that’s all. The closest the site’s text comes to mentioning him is in an almost comical reference to the “departing Gorshorn [sic] brothers”. Along with ignoring his contributions, they’ve forgotten how to spell his name. Larry’s younger brother, Tim, had joined him in the group around 1977 and they did leave together around 1978. Tim later rejoined for a second stint.

Between PPL and the 1994 opening of a certain bar on Main Street, I have no personal knowledge of Larry’s activities. I heard ads for The Goshorn Brothers Band on radio and I may have even had a beer or two somewhere they were playing but I wasn’t paying attention. When I saw Larry and Tim at what I believe was the opening night for Tommy’s on Main, I was reminded of how much I enjoyed his playing and I’ve not lost sight of him since.

I probably irritated some folks when I said I was never a big fan of PPL. I liked them well enough and I certainly appreciated their talent but they weren’t one of my top tier groups. That tier was filled with the Moody Blues, the E Street Band, Yes, and others. I liked PPL the same way I liked the Eagles and there are more similarities between the two than my level of fandom. Of course, they sound somewhat alike but there was another connection that maybe only I cared about. PPL had sucked up Larry Goshorn; The Eagles had sucked up Joe Walsh. I was much more a fan of the James Gang and Sacred Mushroom than of the Eagles and Pure Prairie League. On one of those very first nights at Tommy’s, I mentioned to Larry that I had thought of his time with PPL as a “day job”. He smiled and said, “Me too.” I don’t know if he meant it the same way I did or if he even meant it at all.

The Tommy’s gig started as an “acoustic” duo then one night ex-PPL drummer Billy Hinds showed up with a snare drum. From there, it wasn’t long until a five piece Goshorn Brothers Band had taken up residency at Tommy’s. Billy was behind a full drum kit with Michael Baney and Steve Schmidt taking care of bass and keyboards. Other top notch musicians would sit in or perform their own shows. Wonderful music poured out of Tommy’s for the next couple of years with GBB typically playing three nights a week and me being there for at least one of those nights more often than not. Tommy’s eventually closed but the Goshorn Brothers rolled on. The lineup wasn’t particularity solid so you were never quite sure who would be backing up the brothers on a band date but you knew they would be good. The two Goshorns could probably make anybody sound good but it’s a plain fact that they attract the best. Many different combinations have appeared as the Goshorn Brothers Band over the years and every one that I’ve heard sounded great.

I have no pictures from Tommy’s. Those at left are from the 2007 and 2008 Summer of Love Reunions. A big part of celebrating the Cincinnati music scene of four decades ago was the current Goshorn Brothers Band playing the role and the songs of the Sacred Mushroom. Both years, Mushroom bassist Joe Stewart (in the first picture) was coaxed into performing a couple of those tunes with his old bandmate.

The photo at the top of this post is from Wednesday’s concert as are the two at right. The evening began with a Larry and Tim acoustic set and ended with the brothers fronting a hard hitting five piece. The time between was filled by the same group minus Larry. Larry broke his ankle early in the year and Tim has been performing without him in a quartet sometimes called Whistle Pig and sometimes called Friends of Lee. Members are Lee Everitt on keys, Bam Powell on drums (no, his head doesn’t really look like a cymbal), and Mike Fletcher on bass. This was the group that filled in the middle and by definition became the Goshorn Brothers Band when Larry joined them.

The music was great and the event well attended. The only surprises were things that didn’t happen. I had expected some comments or jokes about retirement and there was absolutely nothing of the sort from the stage. I had also expected something like an all star jam but, despite there being a number of well known and talented musicians in the house, nothing of that sort happened either. I really shouldn’t have been surprised though. The “we’ll never see Larry again” shock of the first announcement had become a more realistic “we’re going to see Larry less”. The shift was made official with an “or is it?” appearing on posters and tickets. It was a great show and it brought a lot of old (in every sense of the word) friends together. But I think we were all rather relieved to realize that Larry is only mostly retired.

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