A Birthday Bash and a Big Bashing

Posted on January 19, 2014 by Denny

Consistent is not the way to describe my news input. I hardly ever read a newspaper anymore. I do occasionally watch some national news on the broadcast networks and some national and international stuff on PBS. I think I watch local morning news fairly often but it’s hardly regular and I guess it can’t really be called often in the way that most of the world defines the word. I’m writing all of this in an effort to establish an excuse for missing a landmark event in a nearby community where I once lived. Despite significant advance coverage by local TV stations and others, it wasn’t until I saw an “after the fact” report that I learned of Pleasant Ridge Chili‘s 50th anniversary.

It was Friday evening when I saw the report on Wednesday’s celebration. I felt embarrassed, of course, and even a little guilty that I not only missed attending but was totally ignorant of the big event. I corrected things as quickly as I could. On Saturday afternoon, I headed to PRC, grabbed a seat at the counter, and ordered a 4-way. In chatting with the waitresses, I realized that missing the big day wasn’t all bad. It had been a madhouse; in a good way, of course. Ninety-nine cent coneys and free baklava had customers lined up “out the door”. Though things had calmed down considerably, it was still extra busy on Saturday and everyone was looking forward to a day off on Sunday. Owner Danny Sideris was one of the people hustling to keep things running smoothly but he sure was happy and I even got to talk with him a little when he would pause near the end of the counter to contemplate his next move. He estimated that about half of the customers were there for the first time and he wanted to make sure their first impression was a good one.

Before I knew of the anniversary, I had determined that nothing blog-worthy was happening this week and scheduled a Trip Pic Peek for the Sunday morning post. I briefly reconsidered this after my Saturday afternoon visit but decided that a post about missing the party would not be very interesting and not worth the effort to put together before bedtime. So, what changed my mind? Actually, nothing changed my mind about the story being interesting. It isn’t and I know it. But, before I fell asleep, I discovered something else I had missed and which made a chili related post almost mandatory. The thing I discovered was posted in October so I’m already really late in reacting. No use waiting another week.

In an unguarded moment, I was led, through some sort of internet baiting, to a blog post titled “The Great American Menu: Foods Of The States, Ranked And Mapped”. The post is here. It is an honest article that declares up front that it is not “scientific”, “researched”, or “fair”. It didn’t take long to realize that the writer was some sort of cyberspace Don Rickles who felt obligated to insult almost every state and edible including those he claimed to like. I never cared much for Rickles but admit that he did occasionally say something funny. Same with the writer and I found myself smiling now and then as I read through the list. As I crossed the halfway point, it occurred to me that he would likely be even more obnoxious with his unscientific, unresearched, and unfair set of losers. I also realized that Ohio had not yet been mentioned and that’s probably what drew me on. As the list moved into the lower fifth, I started fearing that Ohio would pop up around 44 or 48. “Please, Rickles wannabe”, I silently pleaded, “don’t rank Ohio merely near the bottom. We want nothing but the worst.”

My pleas were answered with a tirade that was so far over the top that I suspected the entire list was created just as an introduction for this blast. (It was.) The District of Columbia was included in the list but Ohio did not come in at 51. In addition the the 50 states and DC, the writer inserted “Being Hit By A Car” in front of Ohio for the apparent purpose of moving the state down another notch. Few states got more than a paragraph in the list and many were dismissed with just a few words. Ohio got four paragraphs and over 400 words all targeting Cincinnati Chili. Skyline is the only brand name used but it’s unclear whether that’s the only name he knows or if he has a special grudge against the company. It’s no more clear why the bonus blather for Cincinnati Chili. Maybe a Skyline waitress once saw the guy naked and laughed or maybe he heard a rumor that his conception involved a 3-way and misunderstood. Or maybe southwest Ohio just doesn’t visit deadspin.com enough.

Deadspin is the website where the list appeared. It is described as a sports website with a sarcastic and humorous editorial tone. Add the connection between food lists and sports to things unclear. Perhaps there was a “get more Cincy clicks” directive and the chili bashing was the result. If so, it worked. I visited the deadspin site one more time than I would have otherwise. Hope that’s enough.

Planes and Things

Posted on November 24, 2013 by Denny

On Friday, November 22, 2013, a friend and I visited the National Museum of the US Air Force near Dayton, Ohio. Among the many historic items on display is the Boeing VC-137C that carried John F Kennedy to and from Dallas, Texas. The two pictures below were taken of the same general area of the plane just a few hours shy of fifty years apart.

johnsonsi sam26000_int

Another museum display recently in the news is associated with the Doolittle Raiders. A “Last Man Standing” pact had been established in which the last surviving Raider would drink a toast to all those who had gone before him.On the most recent anniversary of their 1942 bombing run over Toyko, the last four living Raiders decided not to wait but to have their final public reunion and drink their toast now. That toast took place at the museum on November 9 and can be seen here. Their eighty silver goblets, with the seventy-six belonging to diseased Raiders standing up side down, are displayed at the museum. My report on last year’s 70th reunion is here.

Half Century Gone

Posted on November 22, 2013 by Denny

Kennedy official photo On this day fifty years ago I was a high school junior. I do not even remember most of the day and some that I do remember is foggy and questionable. I remember some very small pieces all too well. I remember going to my chemistry class and taking a seat in the second or third row. It was the rightmost seat facing the teacher’s desk and the wall of blackboards. My memory is that the principal, Mr Pawlowski, entered before class actually started and gave us the news though it might have come from Mr Conrad, the instructor. In my memory, Mr Pawlowski quickly moved on to personally deliver his message in other classrooms so that every student heard the same version. It is logical and might indicate how important he thought the message — and its uniform delivery — was but I cannot be certain that my memory is accurate. The message was, of course, “The President has been shot.”

The remainder of the school day is blurred. I believe that no more classes were held and I have a vague memory that students who walked to school were allowed to leave. Maybe we all were. I’m fairly confident that I drove to school that day. I was sixteen with a car and a driver’s license. What else would I do? I do remember that by the time I left school, whenever and however that occurred, the message was no longer that the President had been shot; By then we knew that the President was dead.

The time between hearing that the President was shot and learning for certain that he was dead could not have been long. Other points of uncertainty were not so easily or quickly resolved. Who did it? Was the country under attack? Were we, in our tiny Ohio town far from both Dallas and D.C., safe? With the exception that New York replaced Dallas, those are the exact same questions I had on a September morning nearly thirty-eight years later. The world in which the terrorist attacks of 2001 took place was not, however, at all the same as the world of 1963.

The basement of the school building in which I heard the news had sealed containers of “rations” stacked along the walls. With their Civil Defense markings, they were visible reminders that this was a designated fallout shelter. The first anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis was not even a month in the past. I recall learning, only a couple of years before, a new prefix: mega. I didn’t need it to discuss megapixels, or megabaud, or even megabytes. I needed it to try to comprehend the power, in megatons of TNT, of hydrogen bombs being tested in the friggin’ atmosphere. The Cold War was not as nebulous as the War on Terror and I think it was somewhat scarier. Has there ever been a more accurate acronym than the one referring to Mutual Assured Destruction?

I do have some memories of the evening. A buddy and I went driving around because that’s what sixteen year old boys with cars did. The world was closed. Games and dances were canceled; Restaurants shut down. The buddy had a little battery powered tape recorder. This was well before cassettes or even 8-tracks. It used very small reels. It was pretty much a toy which we used to make Dickie Goodman style “break-in” recordings that were even worse than the ones Goodman did. That night, as we drove through the one city (1960 population 10,585) and some of the small towns in the county, we made comments and observations into the recorder. It is long gone, of course, but I’ve often thought of just how interesting it would be to listen to that tape today. It might offer a unique look at rural Ohio on the night of the assassination or it might just be filled with stuff like “Holy cow!. Even Frisch’s is closed.”

The weird uneasiness continued through the weekend as facts and rumors tumbled out. Lee Oswald was arrested. The shooting of a cop, J D Tippit, was somehow related but it was not at all clear how. Then Oswald was shot and things got even more confusing. I’ve convinced myself that I watched Jack Ruby gun down Oswald on live TV but the scene was shown so many times I can’t be sure. Two things helped; The eventual realization that the office of President of the United States had been transferred just like the rule book said and the fact that Walter Cronkite was in the newsroom. I think it a pretty safe bet that I’ll never trust any one the way I trusted Walter.

Ansonia High School 1964 yearbook President John F Kennedy was officially pronounced dead at 1:00 PM CST; The same time as the posting of this article. The scan at left is of an introductory page of my high school’s 1964 yearbook. I imagine something similar appeared in the yearbooks of thousands of schools across the country. I believe the picture is a closely cropped version, with the background removed, of the official one at the beginning of this article.

One Last Flash

Posted on November 17, 2013 by Denny

Flash cover This Flash is not a fleet-footed tights-wearing superhero. It is, or was, a publication, though saying it was about superheroes would not be wrong. The Flash‘s banner reads “A publication of the 78th (Lightning) Infantry Division Veterans Association dedicated to the preservation of the friendships established in 2 world wars”. The association is disbanding. There just aren’t that many friendships to preserve anymore.

There were 1542 members at last count; 1011 veterans and 531 associates. I was one of the associates. My dad had been a member. After his death in 2011, I wrote to arrange my own associate membership and was warned that the association might only continue another year or so. It lasted for a bit more than two. The note that cautioned me about the possible end of the association mentioned a couple of reasons. One was obvious. At that time, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs, an average of 670 World War II veterans were dying every day. Another, though related, might not be so obvious. Veterans in the association ranged in age from 85 to 95. They remained very much in control of their association but recognized that increases in age are often accompanied by decreases in faculties. In the words of that note, “They want to decide what to do before they are no longer able to do that.” Just one more example of how “The Greatest Generation” doesn’t want to have someone else finish their business for them.

Dad never attended any of the reunions or other gatherings of the association but he “read” every copy of The Flash. Starting in the mid-1990s, I would bring home the issues he was done with and “read” them, too. We both went through the pages the way one does with a newspaper, scanning the headlines until something caught our eye. For Dad, it would probably be a place or a name he remembered. Increasingly, when he recognized a name it would be in an obituary or the “Taps” column. I looked for anything related to the 309 Field Artillery Battalion, Dad’s unit, but finding something was fairly rare. Mostly what I read were the remembrances that veterans or, as was also increasing the case, surviving family members, sent in. Sometimes it was a quickly written and possibly even jumbled memory of a single incident. Other times it was a longer memoir. Some were organized and well-written, others not so much. But all were interesting. All were glimpses of real history that I felt privileged to read.

The Flash was not a glossy magazine. It was printed on newspaper-like stock in black and white with just a touch of red on the front and back covers. It was well organized but not overly edited. Pretty much everything members sent in appeared in print. Even the last issue includes change of address letters mixed in with the obituaries, reports on recent happenings, requests for information on events of 70 years ago, and those remembrances that I look for. It was published quarterly although the final issue came out more than a year after the previous one. The June 2012 issue announced the planned dissolution and spoke of one more issue. When the end of 2012 came and went, I figured that was probably not to be. When the final issue did arrive, I was glad to see it and sad to read that this time it was — officially — for real.

The final issue reported on the 68th Jonah Edward Kelley Award ceremony that took place in Keyser, West Virginia, in April. Kelley was the 78th’s only Congressional Medal of Honor recipient, and the Veterans Association has annually given the award and a $6000 scholarship to a graduating senior at his former high school. The Association’s remaining funds are being transferred to the Ed Kelley Scholarship Trust so that this practice can continue.

The Association’s website will also continue. There is an active group of 78th reenactors, and two members of that group have taken on the work and expense of keeping the website, which includes a message board, alive at www.78thdivision.org, the same address it has always had. The website for the 78th Infantry Division WWII Living History Association is at www.78thinfantry.org.

ADDENDUM 30-Nov-2023: For the first time in quite a while, this post appeared in the statistics for this website. Just over ten years after its publication, someone had visited, and I’d like to think read, the article. The appearance prompted me to revisit and reread it myself, and I sadly realized that neither of the two links in the last paragraph remained valid. I have disabled them both. A Jonah Edward Kelley website, which appears to have been created around 2016, is active at http://jonahedwardkelley.com/. It includes a 78th Lightning Division reference but its “Read more” link (presumedly the same 78thdivision.org link appearing in this article) has been disabled. It is estimated that 131 World War II veterans are dying each day at present. That is fewer than the 670 per day reported in 2011 but only because less than 120,000 remain as opposed to the 2.1 million estimated to be alive in 2011. Preserving their memories is the best we can do and it’s one of the most important things we can do.

5K: The Ventures Way

Posted on November 10, 2013 by Denny

DAV 5K The Disabled American Veterans organization held a race Saturday. It was the inaugural running of what they called the National 5K Run/Walk/Roll/Ride. I first heard of it a few weeks ago when my friend, Dave, announced that he had signed up. Some people ran, some walked, some rolled on hand-cycles, and some rode motorcycles. Dave walked. So did I.

When the event came up in a conversation, Dave said something like “You ought to do it, too”. Then I said something like “Yeah, maybe” without really meaning it but the seed was planted. l’m a firm believer in the only-if-chased concept of running. There is absolutely no way I would ever consider running any farther than the last lane of a street crossing to avoid an approaching SUV on auto-pilot. But walking is a different story. I walk quite a bit. I’ve always done it on road trips where I will park the car and walk around a town or park or other attraction. This summer I’ve been doing more of it at home and even think I feel a little deprived on days when I don’t walk.

Five kilometers is about three miles; 3.106855961 to be be precise. I might walk that far a few times each week although there is usually a restaurant or bar somewhere near midpoint. I started to somewhat seriously consider doing the walk about the same time that another friend and I picked that day to take an underground Cincinnati tour we had been talking about for awhile. I assumed I couldn’t do both until a week or two later when I looked at the details. Start time for the “race” was 9:00; for the tour 1:00. That was plenty of time for even sluggish old me to finish the walk, which had awards scheduled for 10:45, and get to the tour.

So I signed on. Dave and I were a little surprised by the size of the crowd when we arrived about a half hour before the start time. We later learned that the event had more than two thousand entrants. I registered late and in person and had picked up my stuff when I did. Dave had registered very early on line and was picking up his stuff today. An entrant’s stuff consisted of a long sleeve shirt, a “bib”, and four safety pins. The pins were to attach the numbered “bib”, with its attached timing chip, to the shirt. Shirts were black for veterans and white for civilians. Dave’s a Navy vet. I’m a civilian.

We did not have long to wait until the starting gun went off and, presumably, the serious runners up front went dashing away. Eventually the more casual crowd near us started moving and we were off. We started fairly close to the back and by the first turn had managed to work our way even closer.

There were several bands performing along the way and we were given water at strategic spots just like real runners. Near the end, we were even cheered and encouraged just like real runners. Dave was the target of extra cheering when some in the crowd recognized him as the model for a widely used street sign of which an example can be seen to his right.

We crossed the finish line to the sound of bells and cheers from an enthusiastic group who had probably come near to dozing off during the lull that preceded us. Two bicycles had been the first to cross the line with times of 14:44 and 15:07. The first place runner had a time of 16:26. Dave and I finished 2019th & 2020th in an hour and twelve minutes. There were 2033 finishers so we were denied last place but we were close. On the other hand, we were only about 56 minutes out of first.

The cheering and applause even for old guys finishing in the 99th percentile is intended to make you feel like you accomplished something and it did. Both Dave and I have walked 5 kilometers many times so neither of us felt any great affirmation but we did feel good and it sure was fun. In years past I’ve attended parades and concerts and other events associated with Veterans Day (I even remember Armistice Day.) but this is the first time since being in the high school band that I have participated. Maybe I really did accomplish something after all.

ADDENDUM 07-Nov-15: Here is a picture from the DAV website of Dave and I crossing the finish line.

The “Ventures Way” is, of course, walking rather than running. The Ventures first drummer had left the band and was on his way to becoming a veteran before Walk Don’t Run was released but did get to perform it with them again a few years later as captured here.

I made it to the tour in plenty of time and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was the “Queen City Underground Tour” from American Legacy Tours. Having done other tours of Cincinnati’s underground, I thought this might be something of a repeat but that was not so at all. Only the very last of the tour was familiar and by then we had been inside a 19th century tenement and an underground crypt and had been entertained and educated by a pair of knowledgeable guides. Plus, the familiar part led to the Christian Moerlein Tap Room which is hardly a bad thing.

Flying Pumpkins

Posted on November 3, 2013 by Denny

What a clever way to get people to learn a French word and a little bit of history. Use trebuchets to hurl pumpkins high into the air and explain that their original purpose was to attack castles in the Middle Ages. Then, as the French would also say, voilà! Old and young are suddenly using the word trebuchet as if they’ve always known it though, to be honest, not everyone remembers the Middle Ages castle stuff.

Saturday was the 7th (or maybe 8th) Heads-Up Pumpkin Chuck at Stanbery Park in Mount Washington, a Cincinnati suburb. The event raises money to help maintain the park. People bring in no longer needed –or wanted — Halloween pumpkins and, with help from the “pros”, load them into the slings of the trebuchets, then pull a rope (bet the French say lanyard) to launch them into the air. All for three bucks.

Some of the carved and less fresh specimens burst apart mid-flight like exploding cannon balls while others smash into the ground with a solid thunk before scattering themselves about. The Real Mary Peale from my favorite radio station, WNKU, did her show live from the park with microphones strategically placed to capture the sounds of both launch and landing.

The event had been promoted as being the 7th but that is definitely in question. In an on-air interview, one of the trebuchet builders and operators said “…7th, 8th, 9th, whatever…” and Mary subsequently referred to it as 7th or 8th. An outdated but still online announcement for the 2010 Chuck called it the 5th. The counting of individual pumpkins also appears to be a little loose. In another on-air interview, the Pumpkin Queen (pictured at left) said, near day’s end, that “over 400” pumpkins had been chucked. Many pumpkins in view had numbers in the 5, 6, and 7 hundred range. There are, of course, aspects to chuck scheduling that I cannot know.

I believe that both of the big trebuchets are purpose built. One was completed about 1:30 AM on chuck day. The smaller one, which handles smaller pumpkins but gets as much distance as the biggies, is from a privateer. Its owner is an engineer at GE who brings it every year. There are just not that many places a guy can go to play with his trebuchet.

Au revoir.

Geeks in the ‘Hood

Posted on October 13, 2013 by Denny

I attended my third Road Meet on Saturday; This one in Cincinnati. The previous two were in Columbus and Dayton. I did a blog entry on the Dayton meet in which I tried to define “roadgeeks” and describe how they differ from “roadies”. That generated a little discussion on the blog post and more on a Facebook post pointing to it. The much condensed version is that I described “roadies” as liking old roads and “roadgeeks” as being attracted to new roads. The gist of the comments, mostly from those calling themselves “roadgeeks” was, “Hey, we like old roads, too.” And I know they do. As a result, I’ve been shying away from both names and mostly using “road fans” to describe folk who like roads and/or the stuff beside them. It remains true that members of Route 66 and Lincoln Highway groups often refer to themselves as “roadies” and that many of the Yahoo Roadgeek group postings concern new road construction but, as the discussion triggered on that earlier blog entry indicated, the old vs. new distinction really is just one of degree. On Saturday, a bunch of road fans, who are members of a group named Roadgeeks and who know a lot about the way roads are built and signed, met in Bellevue, Kentucky, just across the river from Cincinnati.

The Cincinnati meet had more of a mix of old and and new than the other meets in my limited experience. It started with drivebys of some old signs on a railroad overpass, which I did not photograph, and this embossed “END OF…” sign. We drove a bit further south before moving onto expressways to head back toward the river. That picture at the top of the article, taken in Devou Park, should have two more people in it. We lost them during on the expressway section and I am responsible for that.

The meet’s organizer, Jeremy Mose, was in my car so I was leading. Behind me, the other four cars shuffled a bit but I thought all were with me as we moved from I-275 onto I-75. But, when we left the interstate, I soon realized that a grey car I believed was part of our group was not. Before too long, I was feeling helpless as well as guilty. The lost couple were attending their first road meet. The first time any of the other attendees had met them was at the restaurant where the meet started. No one had a phone number for them. They had not been part of the group associated with the Facebook event entry for the meet which meant they had not received the cellphone number Jeremy had sent to everyone signing onto that event. They did have a set of driving instructions so it seemed a good possibility that they would find their way to Devou Park on their own but that did not happen during the hour or so we were there. There was only one car in the group which could be lost with no means of contact available and I did it.

EDIT 14-OCT-2013: I have just learned that the missing couple received a phone call from a son in need of a ride and, in their words “had to bolt the meet”. My guilt is gone but I will make more of an effort in the future to see that anyone following me can contact me.

We eventually headed across the river and through what Jeremy called the 6th Street viaduct project and which I, in my few encounters, thought of as a US 50 project. It apparently has an official name which is neither of those though, unless my memory surprises me by tucking away Valdvogel Viaduct, I may continue to use US 50 as the identifier. Valdvogel Viaduct is kind of fun to say so it could happen. We also got a view of part of the project and a lot of Cincinnati from Olden View Park near where the Price Hill Incline once terminated.

This is a view of the “Lockland Canyon” that I had never seen before. In fact, I don’t recall ever before hearing this section of southbound I-75 referred to by that name though it is apparently fairly common. The canyon aspect of the road comes largely from the fact that locks of the Miami & Erie Canal once occupied this space. Widening the “canyon” is part of a project planned for 2016. Although this was my first time at the “scenic overlook”, I have driven through here countless time. I have also ridden a motorcycle here and can attest to the buffeting that a semi-truck and those concrete walls can create.

Our last stop was near the Kennedy Connector project. I couldn’t get much of a picture of the project itself so here is a picture of a sign assembly associated with it. The photo illustrates two things. One is the odd mixes that can show up on roadside signs. The right hand panel contains button copy (reflective “buttons” on sign elements). Ohio was one of the last three states to use button copy (The last was Arizona in 2000.) so it is not as rare here as elsewhere but it is an old technology. The left hand panel contains Clearview Font which is sort of the leading edge of highway sign lettering. The second thing the photo illustrates is that roadgeeks notice these things — and the orange “detour arrow”, too.

I had visited another construction project on Monday. A few days earlier, a Richmond, Indiana, newspaper published a story about a repair crew uncovering an 1832 stone culvert underneath US-40 (a.k.a., National Road). The uncovering was temporary and the culvert would again be hidden when the repairs were complete. I headed over for a look but it was already too late. Although the article had appeared just days before, the project it described had taken two months and was very near completion when I visited. The culvert was likely out of sight before the article was printed. Still, it’s nice to know it is intact even though it is out of sight and it is a wonderful thing that pictures were taken during the culvert’s brief appearance.

Valiant Still

Posted on October 6, 2013 by Denny

Pumpkin Run 2013 I made my first attempt to sell the Valiant this weekend. It was feeble and half-hearted and impressively unsuccessful. What I did was put the car on display in southwest Ohio’s largest car show with a “For Sale” sign on it. At the end of two days, I had not a single indication of serious interest in the car but I’m neither disappointed nor particularly surprised. The whole thing was something of an experiment and I think I learned quite a bit which is essentially what experiments are for. I certainly hope I no longer own the car when next year’s show rolls around but I’m pretty sure I could generate a little more interest if that were the case. I’ve got a somewhat better handle on the crowd and I’ve got a much better handle on pricing.

Danny’s Rod Shop is a key player and gets a ton of name exposure by supplying the window tags but the Pumpkin Run Nationals is managed by Fastiques Rod & Custom, Inc., a car club based in Owensville, Ohio. The show, which typically has 2600-2800 entries, is held in Owensville at the Clermont County Fairgrounds. This is their 38th year. I’ve attended before as a spectator but this was my first time as a participant. Cars must be running and registered and can be no newer than 1970. That’s it. Gates open at 6:30 Friday morning and cars are waiting. The picture of the Valiant was taken about 9:30. The place seems rather full by Friday afternoon but there is another burst on Saturday morning that makes the fairgrounds seem packed.

The picture at right hints at the variety of cars on display. That is an original MINI between the MG-TD and the big Packard. It is hard to identify specific cars beyond the three in the foreground but I do see a panel truck, a couple of Chevrolet hardtops from the sixties, a pickup truck, and at least one decades old sedan.

I picked these three as some of the more unusual stock cars I saw. The 1959 El Camino is beautiful as well as unusual. Then there’s a 1960s era Chevrolet 4-cylinder and a 1969 Rolls Royce.

There is no shortage of variety but the Pumpkin Run is the brainchild of a hot rod club so there is a general air of performance. Among the stock entries, Muscle Cars are plentiful, and real drag and even track racers are well represented. The middle picture is of a Corvair window van based dragster with a big V8 where a bench seat once sat and electric fans where the original flat-6 once was. There were several Studebaker Lark based dragsters which I found surprising.

I happened to look inside that green Lark and noticed a message. Dennis Gage of the TV show My Classic Car was known to be on the grounds doing interviews and such for a show to be broadcast in January. Looks like one of those interviews just might be with the owner of the Lark. I ran across Dennis himself a bit later and got a friendly pose when I raised my camera. He was coming from the general vicinity of my car but I found no note on my front seat.

The weather on Friday was great and, although it rained a little overnight, Saturday started out just about as good. Then, a little before 2:00, some rain fell. It was short lived but so was the sunshine the followed it. Starting about 3:30, the rain became increasingly steady. I was one of the car owners who retreated to their vehicle and quite a few actually headed for the gate. That yellow car seen through my windshield is a Super Bee. There was another on my left side and a Road Runner a couple of cars beyond that. The rain wasn’t too heavy and the temperature remained high so people continued looking at cars but the numbers had definitely decreased. Anyone who had a poncho or umbrella, put it to use.

Weather reports called for a stop to precipitation around 5:00. I mostly stayed in the car until, at about a quarter until 5:00, I saw clearing skies approaching the fairgrounds. With predictions of storms and heavy rain overnight and a rather wet Sunday, I decided to truncate my first (and probably only) participation in the Pumpkin Run at two days. I headed home.

Now That’s Art

Posted on September 8, 2013 by Denny

Cincinnati got a new statue Saturday. There was a big unveiling ceremony with an estimated 3,000 people in attendance. Most of those 3,000 people were standing directly in front of me. I’d heard of the planned unveiling some time ago and probably even considered attending some time ago. But it never really made it onto my agenda until Friday night.

The statue is of Joe Morgan, second baseman of the Big Red Machine. If you didn’t already know that, I’m not sure I even want you reading this but maybe you just forgot so here’s a little refresher. The Big Red Machine was the remarkable Cincinnati Reds team of the 1970s. Between 1970 and 1976 they won their division five times, their league four times, and the World Series twice. Those World Series wins were back to back in 1975 and 1976. In both of those years, Joe Morgan was the National League MVP. So seeing a statue of him unveiled would certainly be a cool thing but, on the other hand, I didn’t think it cool enough to fight a crowd to see something I could probably have all to myself on most afternoons in a month or so.

Then, on Friday, I’m out playing trivia with the Reds game on TV. It’s live trivia so the TV sound is off. It is the start of a Joe Morgan weekend and there is a pregame ceremony. I’m watching it out of the corner of my eye and eventually realize that, one by one, Joe’s old teammates are trotting out on the field. Soon the entire Big Red Machine starting lineup is there. The most astonishing thing about this is that it includes Pete Rose who has been banned for life from participating in any aspect of Major League Baseball. He was being permitted on the field so that Joe’s celebration could be complete. Seeing the Great Eight, as that group was called, was cool enough to justify dealing with a crowd.

So I fought the crowd and the crowd won. My resolve to go wasn’t nearly as strong when I woke up as when I went to bed. I alternately talked myself into and out of going until it reached the now-or-never point. It once again sunk in that seeing the Great Eight together just might not ever happen again. I left home with just enough time to get there before the unveiling. The first picture is what I saw when I arrived. The second is what I saw after I had worked myself to the other side of the crowd. When things actually started, I realized that, not only were all those heads between me and the speakers, so was the tent. I had incorrectly assumed they would be in an open space to the left. I could, every once in a while, see one of the speakers under the tent covering and over the bobbing heads and I’ve included a picture of Joe to prove it.

Drat! I had not actually seen the Great Eight. However, there would be another ceremony of some sort preceding the afternoon game with the Los Angeles Dodgers. The game was sold out but I got a ticket for a bad seat for a so so price from a scalper. I walked around the area and grabbed a sandwich. The crowd that initially hid the statue (shown at right) eventually thinned out so I could take the picture at the top of this article.

I misjudged the time and the ceremony was already underway when I entered the stadium. I made it just in time to see Pete being introduced and Joe soon followed. The other six were already on the field. There was, of course, more to the Big Red Machine than these eight players but they were the heart of it. Of the 88 games that all of the Great Eight played in 1975 and 1976, they won 69 or nearly 80%.

There were a few speeches and even the unveiling of a miniature of the life size statue outside the stadium. The ever classy Morgan talked much more about his teammates than about himself.

When it was time for the ceremonial first pitch, all eight players moved to their positions. The 69 year old Morgan had no trouble getting the ball to the plate and the 65 year old Johnny Bench had no trouble catching it. Then, as they walked toward each other, Bench flipped the ball back to Morgan who casually one-handed it. Then the Big Red Machine gathered for one more meeting by the pitcher’s mound.

At the end of the day, when I looked through the pictures I had taken, I noticed that Bench’s star, in the line where the Great Eight had stood, was turned sideways. Had someone goofed when they laid them out? Had it been accidentally kicked around as the players waved to the crowd? Nope. A check of earlier photos revealed the truth. Bench had turned the star himself when the players moved to their chairs. Johnny is a joker.

There is an awful lot of Cincinnati history in these two murals at Great American Ball Park. For one thing, the mosaics are reminiscent of those that once hung in Union Terminal and have since been moved to the airport. Sadly, those are once again in danger as the building they are in is slated for demolition. Secondly, there is the suspension bridge in the background. The bridge officially opened January 1, 1867. It’s still there and can be seen from the current ball park. One mural is of the 1869 Red Stockings, the world’s first fully professional baseball team. Note that the bridge is correctly shown without the steel trusses that were added in the 1890s. The other is of the Big Red Machine, the same eight men who were on the field today. The Red Stockings had a 65-0 record in 1969. In the seven seasons between 1970 and 1976, the Big Red Machine had a record of 683-443.

With the game tied 3-3, I left after eight innings. The Reds won in the tenth. That’s when the Reds latest speedster, Billy Hamilton, scored from second, which he had stolen, on a Todd Frazier single. Today was the thirty-ninth anniversary of another Reds win over the Dodgers. During the 1970s, the Reds-Dodgers rivalry was one of the biggest in baseball. Joe Morgan was playing with a sprained ankle on September 7, 1974 so wouldn’t be stealing any bases. Instead, he beat the Dodgers with a two-run eighth-inning homer.

Battle of Lake Erie Bicentennial

Posted on August 30, 2013 by Denny

I didn’t turn my attention to the Battle of Lake Erie Bicentennial in time to participate in the reenactment or even book passage on one of the cruises going out to watch it. That did not, however, stop me from going and seeing what I can see. By booking a day cruise to Put-in-Bay, I got to see some of the tall ships and I’ll get back for part of the festival. I think I’m going to see a little bit of Canada and the Dixie Highway, too.

The journal for the trip is here. This will be the only blog entry related to the trip and will serve to hold any and all comments.

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