Category Archives: Event

Don’t Christmas My Yule

Posted on by
1

Heavens to Murgatroyd! How did I not know that? Until a few weeks ago I thought Yule was just another word for Christmas. Latin maybe. Or maybe German or Old — I mean Olde — English. Nope. The word itself is probably Norse in origin and the holiday it identifies predates Christ and Christ’s Mass by a bunch. There are many descriptions of Yule floating around and they vary quite widely but one of the things they all agree on is that Winter Solstice is involved. That’s important. It’s the thing I did not know. It’s something that distinguishes it from modern-day Christmas.

Of course, common sense and history point to a connection between Christmas and Solstice but these days no answer to the question “When is Christmas?” will contain the word Solstice. Conversely, the word Yule is used frequently in discussions of Christmas. It appears in officially designated Christmas carols and in greeting cards mailed from deeply religious homes. There are times when the words Christmas and Yule seem to be used interchangeably. That, no doubt, is why it took me three-quarters of a century to realize they are not interchangeable. One is tied to a naturally occurring planetary event. One is not.

The 12 Nights of Yule at the top of this post appears on numerous websites. I was unable to determine its origin so am unable to give credit. One of those sites is The Viking Dragon where an Origins of Yule post is quite informative. One bit I thought interesting is the fact that a King of Norway (Haakon the Good, 920–961) decreed that Yule and Christmas were to be celebrated at the same time. What better way to show the lack of a natural connection than a law arbitrarily linking them? The law also required every free man to consume a quantity of ale during the holiday which I assume is the reason that “the Good” was attached to his name.

The twelve days of observation is one of the more obvious things that the new guys copied from the old guys. The 12 Days of Yule begins the day before Solstice and runs through New Year’s Eve. The 12 Days of Christmas begins the day after Christmas and runs through January 6 which is the day associated with the arrival of the Magi or maybe Jesus’ christening. The Catholic Church calls this day Epiphany, and yes, I suppose you could use that word to describe my discovery that Yule was absolutely not another word for Christmas.

A Cosmic Reason for the Season — Reredux is this blog’s most recent previous post on the Winter Solstice. With plans to reference that post here, I looked it over and discovered that a website it linked to had disappeared. Since I thought its discussion of Solstice and Christmas a good one, I located the desired content through the WayBack Machine, fixed the existing links, and am including a direct link here. In previous Solstice-related posts, I’ve been upfront about the amount of time separating the post and the precise moment of Solstice. This year the event follows this post by 4 days 16 hours and 27 minutes.

Yippee-Ki-Yule, Y’all

Posted on by
3

On Thursday, I got a double dose of holiday hoopla. The first dose was administered at Krohn Conservatory in Cincinnati’s Eden Park. The second came at Thomas More Stadium in Florence, KY.

This year’s holiday show at Krohn is called “Golden Days of Yule”. That name, coupled with my improved understanding of Yule (the subject of next week’s post), was one reason I wanted to visit Krohn this month. Another was that I realized it had been ten years since I’d seen the holiday display at the conservatory. All of my visits since 2013 were to see butterflies.

“Golden Days of Yule”, like previous holiday shows at Krohn, has lots of Cincinnati landmarks such as Music Hall in the opening photograph. All are made of locally sourced plant material and most return year after year. New this year is the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center pictured at left.

Numerous model trains travel among the landmarks and the conservatory’s normal display of plants. Even though no train has ever crossed the real John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge, this version has a double set of tracks so that a train with a Cincinnati Reds boxcar can cross it in both directions.

Other returning favorites include Union Terminal, now the Cincinnati Museum Center, and Findlay Market, which is encircled by Thomas the Train. Procter & Gamble’s Twin Towers and the Tyler Davidson Fountain, featuring The Genius of Water, appear together in the third photo although the relationship between the two is nowhere near accurate in either size or location.

It somehow makes sense that the Krohn Conservatory contains a model of the Krohn Conservatory and there might be nothing more natural for a conservatory to hold at Christmas time than a giant poinsettia tree. “Golden Days of Yule” runs through January 7 with live music on weekends.

Thomas More Stadium, on the other side of the Ohio River, is home to the Florence Y’alls Class A baseball team. Winters here are way too cold for baseball so, for the second year in a row, a skating rink and 2.5 million lights have been moved in for Deck the Y’alls.

There are lights everywhere both inside and outside the stadium. They are impressive to look at from just about anywhere but following a path through the displays at field level is the main attraction.

A family of four was near me during the early part of my walk and the youngest child asked her mother to read the lighted signs that marked each section. As soon as she heard “Dinoland”, she announced that she was not going in there. I’ve a hunch that it was what she saw and not what she heard that prompted her reluctance. The family hung back at the arch but after a few minutes, I saw them move ahead slowly. Before long they were back at their normal pace. Up close, dinosaurs made of electric lights just aren’t that scary, it seems.

And “Ornament Land” just wasn’t scary at all.

Apparently, neither was “Under the Sea” although I lost track of the family somewhere around The Blue Whale of Florence.

Here’s a sampling of the “12 Days of Christmas”. In reality, this whole post is just a sampling.  There’s a lot more here than what I’ve shown.

This is the exit. I hung back to take some pictures — and watch and learn from the people in front of me —  then passed through the maze and headed for a cup of hot coffee.

As I sipped that coffee, I captured a short overview video. Deck the Y’alls runs through New Year’s Day with fireworks on New Year’s Eve.
 
  

For anyone wondering about the team name, it comes from a water tower. The short story is that while Florence Mall was in development, a water tower advertising it was erected nearby. Because the mall did not yet actually exist, that led to some legal issues which were resolved by hastily converting the “M” to “Y'”. This was supposed to be temporary but proved so popular that it remains today even though the mall has now been in operation for decades. A fuller version of the story is here. The team was founded as the Florence Freedom in 2004 but changed its name to Y’alls in 2020.

Last Flash Flash Back

Posted on by
Reply

A ten-year-old blog post recently appeared in this site’s traffic statistics. The post told about the last issue of a publication devoted to a veteran’s organization to which my father had belonged. It isn’t terribly unusual for ten-year-old posts to get hits but I really can’t remember the last time this particular post appeared. The hit prompted me to reread the post and even update it a little. In the process, I was also prompted to let my thoughts wander down several of the many paths uncovered by my reading. Whoever clicked on the search result that took them to this old post missed Veterans/Armistice Day by a couple of weeks and this post misses it by even more but my mind — and maybe yours too — is still in a slightly reflective mood. So this week’s post consists of just this paragraph and a link to that ten-year-old post. Reflect as much or as little as pleases you: One Last Flash

TG ’23

Posted on by
1

At one time, possibilities for Thanksgiving dinner included an Indiana state lodge with an overnight stay and an Ohio state lodge without. I dithered just a little too long, however, and both were completely filled before I made my calls. So I hastily put together a Plan C which involved an overnight stay in a Kentucky state lodge. That ‘C’ could stand for “cave” or “Carter” or both. Carter Caves State Resort Park was my destination as I crossed the Ohio River. 

Most of the miles I drove in Kentucky were on KY‑9 which roughly parallels the Ohio River although it is usually at some distance. It’s a pretty nice-looking drive but the low morning sun and the mostly eastern bearing were no help at all in photographing the scenery. After just under a hundred miles of KY-9, Garmin had me turn south on KY-2 where the sun was less intrusive and the scenery possibly even better as the road ran along Buffalo Creek. After a few miles of KY-2, the GPS directed me onto KY-7 and then, barely a mile later, onto Sutton Road. Sutton Road soon became gravel. With my destination just a few miles away, I saw no reason for concern…

…until I reached a T. The road to the right was marked with a “DEAD END” sign. To the left was a low water bridge with not much that I could see beyond it. Garmin assured me that Carter Caves Park was just a few minutes away on the other side. While I contemplated the situation, I checked the GPS to see if it was really in “Faster” mode and not in “Shorter” or “Adventurous” mode. It was. I have gone straight ahead in similar situations in the past but on this day I wasn’t in adventurous mode either. After turning around and traveling a short distance, I could look back and see a road heading off on the other side of the stream. I was tempted but continued on the prudent path.

I entered the park about half an hour later after a drive of 20, rather than 2, miles. Even so, I was there way ahead of my scheduled dinner time and assumed it was also too early to check in. I explored the park in my car and found every possible parking spot near the lodge/restaurant filled. The feeding frenzy was in full swing. There was a reasonable mix of cars and open spaces at the visitor center so I pulled in to take a look.

Once inside, I was pleasantly surprised to find that cave tours were taking place that day and even more pleasantly surprised to learn that a tour of X‑Cave was starting in just five minutes. X‑Cave is not very large but it does have a lot of interesting formations. It gets its name from two passageways that intersect to form an ‘X’. Tours travel through one side of the ‘X’, step outside, reenter, and travel through the other side. On the first pass through the intersection, the tour guide shared the cave’s very own Daniel Boone story. It’s extra appropriate on Thanksgiving Day.

While hunting one day, Boone spotted the largest turkey he had ever seen. He inexplicably missed his first shot but saw the turkey enter the cave  He hurriedly lit a torch and followed. Reaching the underground intersection, Boone saw the turkey down one of the passageways and fired. In his haste and weak light, the frontiersman had overloaded his rifle with powder and the blast threw him backward with such force that the imprint of his foot can still be seen. The turkey was missed once again by the shot but was so badly frightened that it instantly turned to stone.

Things were still busy at the lodge but I was now able to find a parking spot. I was even able to check into my room where I relaxed until dinner time. There is a salad bar behind me and a dessert-filled table just beyond the ham carving station. I helped myself to turkey and stuffing and more but decided against the ham when I reached it. I think that was because I had also helped myself to that other traditional Thanksgiving entree, catfish, when I filled my plate. After dinner, as I again relaxed in my room, I decided to get on board with the popular Elf on a Shelf craze.

When I left the lodge on Friday, I was only slightly surprised when the GPS directed me to turn left rather than retrace the way I’d arrived. Even though the road name didn’t register immediately, it did eventually, and as Sutton Road became narrower and more gravely, I knew exactly where Garmin was leading me.

This is the other side of that low-water bridge where I turned around Thursday. On Friday, having seen both sides, I had no qualms about splashing right on through. In fact, I was quite happy to do so and erase some of the guilt I felt about not splashing through the day before.

A Mighty Fine Season

Posted on by
1

The 2023 Ansonia High School football team suffered its first loss of the year on Friday. It will be their only loss as it ended their run at the state championship after a 10-0 regular season and 3 playoff victories. The game was at the same stadium in Piqua as last week’s game, and the afternoon rain had moved out by game time so Terry and I did make it. This week, though, we were the lower seed and sat on the visitor’s side of the field.

The Tigers got the ball first, and their running game ate up a lot of ground and time but ultimately came up a little short of the end zone.

Ansonia remained very much in the game through the first half. They never managed to score themselves but held the Marion Local Flyers to a single touchdown that was scored on a passing play. When the half ended, that touchdown and point after were all that separated the two teams score-wise.

The second half was a different story. The Tigers came out ready to play but so did the Flyers who scored in less than a minute on their first possession. The experience and size of the Marion Local team combined with some tiredness and demoralization on the other side to put the game out of reach fairly quickly. The Tigers were outplayed in this game but oh boy what a season! The 13 wins are the most ever for the school. They are nearly double the total number of wins during my entire time as a student (0-9, 0-9, 4-5, 3-6). Coincidentally, one of those four wins in 1963 was against Marion Local. The post title has it right. 13-1 makes for a mighty fine season.

ADDENDUM 2-Dec-2023: Today Marion Local won the Division VII State Championship by defeating Dalton, 38-0. This extended their unbeaten streak to 48 and their consecutive state championship streak to 3. We were beaten by the best.

Coffee With Jim (Hinckley)

Posted on by
Reply

I’m scheduled to be on Coffee With Jim, a podcast from Jim Hinkley’s America, this week. I know that some, but I’m sure not all, of our conversation will be about “Tracing a T to Tampa”. It will be recorded at 9:00 AM EST Sunday, November 19, and clicking here should allow you to listen in if you so desire. I believe that commenting or asking questions requires the PodBean app which is available on the page.

The program will be published on Spotify and other major podcast sources within a few hours of being recorded. If you don’t already have a favorite player and subscription service, it can be heard, once published, via the embedded player on Jim Hinkley’s America home page. You’ll have to scroll down just a bit.

A Win for Ansonia

Posted on by
6

Until last Friday, I don’t believe I had attended a single football game played by my high school alma mater since I graduated. Furthermore, it seems quite likely that I had not attended a game as a spectator ever. I had attended every game in the four years prior to graduation but it was always as a member of the marching band. Friday night was a new experience for me in several ways not the least of which was the favorable final score.

Of course, I’d thought about attending a game on several occasions but never followed through. I probably would not have made it to Friday’s game if my friend Terry had not been paying more attention to things than I was. Although our friendship goes back even further than high school, we did not attend the same school. Terry’s son did attend Ansonia High School and played on successful teams there in the 1980s.

As the regular season ended, it was Terry who made me aware of Ansonia’s 10-0 record and their entry into the 2023 playoffs. As the #2 seed for Division VII, their first two playoff games were on their home field but I was, unfortunately, out of town for both. Fortunately, they won them both (52-7, 34-8) to set up Friday’s match with St Henry at a neutral site. Also on the fortunate side of things, I was home for this one.

The game was a good one. Ansonia never trailed but our victory was not assured until the closing moments. With no kicking and little passing, the Tigers repeatedly moved the chains on third and fourth down with what often seemed like just inches to spare. The officials thought only one of their two-point conversion attempts was successful although there was serious disagreement from AHS fans on one of the others. Ansonia will play #1 seed Marion Local next Friday but where has not been determined. Whether or not Terry and I are there will depend a lot on the location.
ADDENDUM 19-Nov-2023: The Marion Local game was also at the Piqua stadium, and we did attend. Read about it here.

As implied by this headline from my days as a student, rooting for a winning team was once an impossible dream. The thirty-eight-game streak it refers to came to an end just a little over sixty years ago on September 13, 1963.

Both of these images are from the 1964 Ansonia High School yearbook. The first contains photos of the seniors on the team that ended the streak along with a local newspaper report of the event which attracted some national attention as well. The second image shows the entire team. In those days, yearbooks, at least those for small Ohio schools, were entirely black and white with the exception of the endpapers. There could be no better use of the book’s only splash of color than recognizing the group that ended what I believe was the longest losing streak in the nation at the time.

I mentioned that my previous AHS football game attendance involved the school band. The band’s fortunes over the last six decades do not appear to match those of the team. The picture at right shows the band during halftime of Friday’s game. I counted about twenty members, and Terry said that was noticeably more than what he remembered from the last game he attended.

There were 54 in the band that would have marched at that big 1963 win.

Route 66 Miles of Possibility 2023

Posted on by
Reply

As my schedule got increasingly messy, I let this event slide out of consideration. It again caught my eye when organizers announced an extension of the early-bird cut off and I realized that I could fit it in. So I’m off to the only annual conference dedicated to Historic Route 66. This is the eighth year for the conference, my fourth time attending, and the first time I’ve made it to two in a row. The conference actually starts Thursday morning but there was an associated concert on Wednesday and I planned the staging drive to include a major new attraction on the route. The first day of the journal is now in place.

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

Trades, Taverns, and Tippling

Posted on by
2

I have been visiting Vevay, Indiana, on a fairly regular basis since just before the turn of the century but Saturday was my first time at Musée de Venoge on the town’s west edge. The two-story early nineteenth-century house on the property was restored and opened to the public in 2011. Major living history events are held three times a year. One celebrates the 4th of July and another celebrates Christmas. The third celebrates the fall harvest in October. This year that event carried the title Trades, Taverns, and Tippling.

Trades displayed on the grounds included rope making and pewter casting. Today Kyle Willyard was casting spoons.

A blacksmith (Michael Shult) was working on an oven rake to help with the cooking while a carpenter (Tom Garrett) worked on what he called a school box.

The gunsmith (Michael McHugh) demonstrated a fire starter of the day. It uses the same mechanism as a flintlock rifle with tinder and a candle instead of a barrel and bullet. Several beautiful rifles he had made were on a table beside him.

Cooking, decorative painting, and weaving were also being demonstrated.

The restored house was turned into the Eagle Tavern for the day and that’s where the tippling occurred. Kentuckians Brian Cushing and Amy Liebert served as tavern keepers.

There was also music in the tavern and a lawyer hoped for new clients as he worked on a local murder case. It was the gentleman seated in the corner who suggested I try the Orange Shrub which I found delicious. He was, I presume, demonstrating tippling.

The weather was perfect with temperatures low enough to fit the season but not so low as to be uncomfortable. And the mix of bright blue sky and clouds made the day look exactly like it felt.

Walking With Amal to Cincy

Posted on by
Reply

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.