I 75

The title is not a reference to a popular north-south expressway but a declaration that I have been around for three-quarters of a century. The first quarter was filled with school, drumming, marriage, working, kids, and enjoying life. The second quarter was filled with working, divorce, marriage, divorce, kids, and enjoying life. The third quarter has been filled with working, retirement, traveling, writing, and enjoying life. I’m not sure what — beyond enjoying life — the fourth quarter will bring but I’m looking forward to it.

I’ve always wanted to have hair like Peter Frampton, and now I do. Many years ago, I told myself (and a few others) that when my hair loss reached a certain point, what remained would go too. Although I never really specified what that point was, I’m pretty sure I’ve gone beyond what I had in mind at the time. Once I acknowledged that, I had only to pick an occasion and have at it. Birthday #75 seems as appropriate an occasion as any.

Including this picture in this post also seemed appropriate. I’ve used it before — originally for a retirement anniversary then later for a birthday — but it’s not worn out. At least no more worn out than the old guy on the bench and it pretty much sums up what I think of on my birthday. I usually celebrate, after a fashion, by treating myself extra nice but I do find birthdays are good occasions for remembering all the folks I’ve known who have been denied the privilege of growing older.

Pi at Phi

The Golden Ratio is represented by the Greek letter Phi (Φ). The ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter is represented by the Greek letter Pi (Π). The Fibonacci Sequence, where the sum of each consecutive pair of numbers equals the following number, is closely related to Phi. Mount Healthy’s Fibonacci Brewing takes its name from this sequence. The first three digits of Pi are 3.14. Because this looks like March 14 when written American style, that date has become known as Pi Day. Because Pi and pie are homophones, it naturally became popular to eat pie on Pi Day. At Fibonacci Brewing, great honor is bestowed on the person consuming an entire pie the fastest without using their hands. Yes, everything about this, starting with Phi and Pi, is irrational. But it sure is fun.

Betty Bollas, who owns Fibonacci Brewing along with her husband Bob, says the idea for the event came to her in a dream. The brewery held its first Pi Day celebration in 2018. Mark from Brink Brewing, the guy in the opening photo, won. He won again in 2019. He didn’t get a chance in 2020 because the event was canceled with just days to go. Ohio’s official COVID triggered shutdown of bars and restaurants occurred on March 15 but it was already obvious that a big gathering at that time would not be a great idea. The event did not even reach the planning stage in 2021 but it’s back for 2022 with a nice white table cloth and a line of boxes filled with North College Hill Bakery cherry pies.

I apologize for not knowing who’s who but I do know that Urban Artifact, Humble Monk, Higher Gravity, Marty’s Hops N Vines, and Brink are all represented and that the guy in the center is a last-minute volunteer from the crowd recruited to tackle an unassigned pie. One of these pictures was taken at 7:05 and the other at 7:06.

Andrew Desenberg, a.k.a. The Gnarly Gnome, MCed while two unidentified fans cheered on the competitors. I have to wonder just how much standing while eating helped Zane from Humble Monk munch his way to victory. His name will now be added to the Fibonacci-Pi trophy just like Indy 500 winners are added to the Borg-Warner trophy. The Borg-Warner is currently valued at $3.5 million. Give it time.


I did my own pie eating before and after the competition. The before part was at Mom’s Restaurant where I got the next to last piece of apple pie. The after part was at the brewery with a pie from Big Dog’s Pizza truck. I sat down for both, used my hands, ate slowly, and enjoyed every bite.

Bock Bock Goat

Cincinnati’s Bockfest has fared relatively well during the pandemic. It slipped in just ahead of the big shutdown in 2020 and muddled through 2021 with a few venues and some coordinated at-home celebrations. I believe there was even a very short parade around Dunlap Cafe but I can’t find any record of it. For 2022, it’s back in all its glory including a full-size parade with staging at Arnold’s just as it should be. ERRATUM 10-Mar-2022: My memory of Dunlap Cafe staging a short substitute for a canceled parade was only partially correct. It did happen but it was for the 2021 Cincinnati Reds Opening Day Parade, not the Bockfest Parade,

Lenten fish fries suffered a bunch because of COVID but it looks like they will also be operating somewhat like normal this year. In the past, I have walked past the fish fry at Old St. Mary’s Church as I followed the parade. I’m going to try patronizing a fish fry every week this year and got things started by reaching downtown early enough to stop by St. Mary’s before the parade. I munched on the tasty sandwich as I continued on to Arnold’s.

At Arnold’s, I grabbed a Moerlein Bar Bender bock to wash down the sandwich as the parade was being organized — and I use the term loosely — in the street in front of the bar.

The parade began to move a few minutes ahead of the scheduled 6:00 PM start. Seeing Cincinnati legend Jim Tarbell near the front helped make things feel normal.

Of course, Jim wasn’t the only familiar and reassuring parade entry.

And there were plenty of new entries and old entries in new guises.

I always appreciate the touch of glamour that the Court of the Sausage Queen and the energetic dance troupes add.

The parade’s endpoint has been moved to Findley Market Playground from the closed Moerlein facility on Moore street. Despite the structure’s obvious lack of both bricks and mortar, it is still called Bock Hall rather than Bock Tent.

Perry Huntoon and his son were in town for the festival and we met up outside Bock Hall. After one Hudepohl Bock, we walked up the street to the slightly less crowded but at least as noisy Northern Row Brewery. Northern Row was actually serving their bock at a stand outside the big tent but, even though the brewery was rather full, the beer line was much shorter.


Rhinegeist Brewery is sort of just around the corner and Perry and Erik turned in there while I headed on to the car and home. I extended my Bockfest involvement just a little on Saturday with a visit to Fibonacci Brewing. That’s Honey Doppelbock on the counter. It is named after the goat with the splash of white on her head. I also tried Fiddlehead Maibock, named after the white goat. I guess Buttercup, the third goat, doesn’t have a beer named after her yet.

Big Heads on Parade

This is one of those embarrassing moments when I experience something for the first time that has been going on for years right under my nose and is so cool I should have been attending regularly.  It’s the Mainstrasse Mardi Gras Parade in Covington, Kentucky. I’ve heard of Mardi Gras in Covington and possibly even heard there was a parade but I don’t remember. What I do remember is news reports about inebriated revelers trashing yards and peeing in bushes. It didn’t sound like a place I wanted to be. But this year I read about the parade with participants wearing gigantic papier-mâché heads and that very much sounded like something I wanted to see.

I reached the staging area with enough time to snap pictures of some of the big heads before they covered smaller heads.

Then got pictures of a few of those heads in place but not yet marching. I really don’t know just when this first began. One person I asked said, “At least ten years.” Another thought it started “around 2000”. I overheard someone telling a friend, “The last time I came down for this was twenty years ago”. I imagine I’ll eventually find something online that tells me, but not yet.

There were plenty of normal-sized heads in the parade and everybody was clearly having a lot of fun.

But it was the big heads that had gotten my attention and set the parade apart.

Most of the Mainstrasse restaurants and bars were fairly full before the parade started and became downright packed when it ended. Many had doormen posted to keep occupancy to legal levels. I moved away from the center of the festivities until I found a bar that was busy but not overcrowded and had one beer before heading home. I’ve absolutely nothing against partying in the streets for Mardi Gras but I’m too old and the street’s too cold.   

Trip Peek #115
Trip #47
Natchez Christmas

This picture is from my 2006 Natchez Christmas trip. It shows the gilded hand atop the steeple of the First Presbyterian Church in Port Gibson, MS, that mimicks a gesture the church’s founder and first pastor often used in his sermons. The photograph was made while traveling north on the Natchez Trace Parkway after spending Christmas in Natchez, MS. On the way south, I’d spent a night in Clarksdale, MS. My northbound route followed the parkway all the way to its terminus near Nashville, TN, but I slipped off to visit things like the Vicksburg National Military Park, Elvis’ birthplace in Tupelo, and this flying finger of faith in Port Gibson.


Trip Peeks are short articles published when my world is too busy or too boring for a current events piece to be completed in time for the Sunday posting. In addition to a photo thumbnail from a completed road trip, each Peek includes a brief description of that photo plus links to the full-sized photo and the associated trip journal.

A Cosmic Reason for the Season — Reredux

The following article first appeared in 2019 then reappeared in 2020 when the Fort Ancient winter solstice sunrise program was canceled. I have seen nothing specifically about the program this year but know that the site will be open between 7 and 10 AM on December 21, the day of the solstice. That’s a Tuesday which is a day that the site is normally closed this time of year. It is clearly being opened for sunrise and a program of some sort seems possible.

The article’s first publication occurred one day after the solstice. The next year, it was one day before. This year it is two days before. That shifting comes from our efforts to make Sol, Luna, and Earth play nice together. Most of this blog’s posts, and all three posts of this article, occur on Sundays. Days of the week usually shift by one each year because seven does not fit evenly into 365. The two day shift between the article’s first and second appearance was because seven is an even worse fit for 366 and 2020 was a leap year. The seven-day week isn’t quite as arbitrary as it might first appear but neither is it an intuitive unit of measure. The moon circles Earth every 29.5 days. The Egyptians divided that into three ten-day periods. Four eight-day Roman weeks or seven-day Babylonian weeks fit less precisely but could be tied, albeit imperfectly,  to the moon’s four phases. The Babylonian seven-day week was spread far and wide by Alexander the Great, and as Rome moved into Alex’s old stomping grounds, it began to think that way too. The western world’s week became pretty much established in 321 CE when Constantine declared that an official Roman week was comprised of seven days. This Sunday post precedes the winter solstice of 2021 by 2 days; 2 days, 4 hours, and 58 minutes to be precise. 


Calendars come and calendars go and Earth just keeps on turning. And it keeps on orbiting, too. The turning bit creates what we call days. The alternating periods of light and dark impact almost all life on the planet and humans adopted the day as a basic unit of measure pretty early on. What we call years comes from Earth orbiting the Sun. There was plenty of time for early humans to stare at the sky and not a whole lot to keep them from doing it. They couldn’t help but notice that things in the sky moved around. In time, some of the more observant among them realized that not all that movement was random and eventually some patterns were noted. I can’t imagine how exciting it was when some smart guy figured out that the sun popped up at the same point about every 365 days. Of course, that “about” would be very important.

The opening photo shows the sun rising yesterday over a “gateway” in the earthen enclosure at Fort Ancient. The photo at left was taken a bit later and includes a small mound inside the enclosure in the foreground. When the mound, gateway, and sunrise align, sunset will follow sooner than on any other day of the year. This is the northern hemisphere’s Winter Solstice. It is the day when the sun is above the horizon for less time than any other day of the year, and yesterday that amounted to 9 hours, 25 minutes, and 9 seconds. Although we talk about Solstice being a day, it is technically just an instant. It is the moment when the Sun is farthest north or south of Earth’s equator. It happens twice each year and happened yesterday at 23:19 EST.

Serpent Mound, another ancient earthen structure containing solar alignments, is a little more than forty miles southeast of Fort Ancient. The serpent’s head is aligned with the Summer Solstice sunset. Body coils align with Summer and Winter Solstice sunrises. For several years, a modern event known as Lighting of the Serpent took place there at Winter Solstice. It was discontinued in 2017. The picture at right is from 2014 which is the only time I attended.

Long before they knew anything about orbits and equators, humans knew the day of Winter Solstice was special. It is the point where each successive day receives more rather than less daylight. It’s the big turnaround that will eventually lead to the warmth of spring and summer. It is clearly a day worth celebrating and it has indeed been celebrated in many different cultures in many different ways.

During their existence, humans have developed a slew of calendar systems. Several actually remain in use today, but the Gregorian calendar is the one most widely accepted. In the late sixteenth century, this started replacing the Julian calendar which had been around for all of those sixteen centuries and then some. The Julian calendar had been created by folks who calculated that a year was 365 and 1/4 days long which was a lot more accurate than an even 365. They came up with the rather clever idea of adding an extra day every four years to balance things out.

We now know that a year is 365.2422 days long. A year is the length of time it takes Earth to orbit the Sun, a day is the length of time it takes Earth to rotate, and neither is adjustable. When the Julian calendar was first adopted, the northern hemisphere’s Winter Solstice fell on December 25 but it slowly drifted away. Someone in authority thought to put an end to this nonsense by declaring December 25 the official solstice. But those non-adjustable orbits and rotations kept doing what they were doing and the official solstice and actual solstice just kept getting farther and farther apart.

The Gregorian calendar, which we have used for roughly 400 years now, put an end to that. Like the Julian calendar, it considers most years to be 365 days long but has a more involved system of “leap years” that add an extra day. The result is that over a long enough period our years will average 365.2422 days in length. Not only did the new calendar eliminate future drift, it tried to correct for some of the previous drift by throwing away ten days. The calendar’s namesake’s full-time job was as Pope of the Catholic Church. Ditching those ten days moved the solstice to December 22 which is where it had been in 325 when the church was founded. Of course, some holidays that had been tied to the official solstice (which hadn’t been anywhere near the actual solstice for some time) would continue to be celebrated on December 25.

Anyone wanting a more complete discussion of calendars, solstices, and holidays will find one here. Additional information on Fort Ancient is available here.

Book Review
Christmas in Cincinnati
Wendy Hart Beckman

This History Press publication, as is their standard formula, is built around lots of photos both old and new. In this case, a few of those photos are mine. I won’t pretend that isn’t what made me aware of the book and triggered this review but will point out that the book does fit handily into the local-author-local-subject category that I’m fond of talking about. The local author, Wendy Hart Beckman, isn’t a native Cincinnatian but has spent much of her adult life here. I’m thinking that her New England background might actually help in recognizing what is unique or even just a little different about Christmas in Cincinnati.

As befits a book from The History Press, the first section of this book following the introduction is named “History” and notes that the very first celebration of the holiday in what would become Cincinnati occurred way back in 1788. Christmas is technically a Christian holiday, of course, and this chapter includes the history of the early days of the churches and the religion itself in the city. With Christmas being the only federal holiday with religious connections, I’ve often wondered why and when that happened but never got around to digging up the answer. Beckman answers the “when” question by writing that President Grant made it an official federal holiday in 1870. Ohio had made it official in 1857. Guess I’ll have to learn why on my own.

What follows is five chapters devoted to our five basic senses. There is a considerable amount of history presented in each of those too. But you knew that without me saying it. The reason you knew that, is because, like me, you instinctively knew that this book was about Christmas traditions and traditions are just an ongoing form of history. So, as Beckman informs us of “Things to Do”, “…Hear”, “…See”, “…Smell”, and “…Taste”, she presents the history of those things along with some guidance on how to experience them ourselves.

“Things to Do” in Cincinnati around Christmas time include skiing, sledding, and ice skating on Fountain Square. Shopping and visiting Santa in the numerous downtown stores was once a major draw in the days leading up to the holiday but the stores and the shoppers slipped away to the suburbs some time back. In 2020, COVID-19 nearly put a stop to in-person shopping anywhere and only time will tell if it ever fully returns. The same is true of sitting on jolly men’s laps. Beckman includes “Donating” among things to do and writes about several Cincinnati signature campaigns like the Ruth Lyons Children’s Fund and Neediest Kids of All.

Starting with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, there is no shortage of “Things to Hear” in Cincinnati. Beckman identifies many musical organizations, both professional and amateur, that offer Christmas-themed performances around the holidays. In addition to the many local groups, she mentions the Trans-Siberian Orchestra whose Decemberish visit has become something of a tradition over the last twenty years.

There are indeed plenty of things to do and hear in Cincinnati but there are even more “Things to See”. Beckman lists many Nativity scenes and light displays including some at private residences that have become must-sees over the years. The Cincinnati Zoo’s “Festival of Lights” and the tree on Fountain Square are in that must-see category. What might be considered the big three of Cincinnati Christmas events are on Beckman’s “Things to See” list. The oldest is Boar’s Head and Yuletide Festival which has been celebrated in Cincinnati since 1939. That’s clearly long enough ago to qualify as a true tradition but the festival’s history goes back another 600 years in England. Number two is The Nutcracker which the Cincinnati Ballet Company has been doing since 1974. The newest of the three is Playhouse in the Park’s production of A Christmas Carol which dates to 1991.

Only two categories of “Things to Smell” are identified by Beckman but each has quite a few entries. The “Freshly Cut Trees” category includes wreaths and garlands but if you want a serious grade A freshly cut aroma you need to do the cutting yourself and more than a dozen places offering that experience are listed. The second category is “Family Dinners” and only scents, not locations, are listed.

Good flavor is often advertised by a good aroma so it isn’t surprising that the word “family” reappears in “Things to Taste”. “Family Affairs” talks about some of the feasts of Christmases past. Some restaurants are also mentioned in the “…Taste” chapter but it was photos and descriptions of Cincinnati’s bakeries, candy shops, and ice cream parlors that got my taste buds’ attention. If you want to talk about tradition, how about a company (Doscher’s) that has been making candy canes since 1871?

For the history buff, Christmas in Cincinnati provides a good look at how Cincinnatians celebrated Christmas in the past. Perhaps more importantly, though, it identifies pieces of those celebrations that have become Queen City traditions and offers some guidance in how to participate in those traditions in the future.

Christmas in Cincinnati, Wendy Hart Beckman, The History Press (October 18, 2021), 6 x 9 inches, 160 pages, ISBN 978-1467148313
Available through Amazon.

Holly Days Under Glass

I’d read that Dayton’s Arcade has been the focus of major restoration efforts and that some tenants have moved in and that others were on the way. But I had also read that most of the structure, including the 90-foot rotunda, was not yet open to the general public full time. I had completely missed some opening-related events that had been held in the rotunda but finally got my act together on the second day of Holly Days 2021. It’s an event that the Arcade has hosted in the past. The most recent, however,  was in 1993.

In recent years the Third Street facing side of the building shown in the opening photo is the image assigned to the structure in my mind. Almost all of my memories of the Arcade are, strangely enough, from the outside. My only memory of the inside is of a straight glass-topped walkway that I believe is behind the giant smiling face and was once lined with shops. I vaguely recall stepping into that area in the tow of an aunt on a mission. I have no recollection at all of what she bought but I’m fairly certain that we reversed paths once the purchase was made and I never reached the rotunda. I automatically assumed that access to Holly Days would be through that arch but it was not. My first view of the rotunda was from a normal hallway behind these bland glass doors on Fourth Street.

I had seen plenty of pictures so that first view didn’t shock me but it sure did impress me. I actually think I was more surprised by the bustling crowd than the phenomenal restoration work. I’m pretty sure crowds only bustle during the holidays and possibly only when their focus is gift shopping. About half of the rotunda was filled with potential gifts and this crowd was clearly bustling.

Crowds would have also filled the rotunda in its earliest days and they might have even bustled on occasion. It opened in 1904 as a farmers market which explains the turkeys, ram heads, and fruit decorating the upper walls. Note that cardinal directions, such as east and south, are marked on pillars along with some of the more popular intermediate directions like 159° and 212°.

During Holly Days, a variety of entertainment utilized the rotunda’s north side (i.e., the side opposite the big S). While I was there on Wednesday afternoon, the Miami Valley Dance Company performed selected dances from The Nutcracker.

How something like this could have come as close as it did to vanishing is a question I’ve asked before about other treasures but there is hardly ever an answer. In the end, we just have to be thankful when the wrecking ball is avoided and doubly thankful when something not only dodges the ball but comes back looking like this. If you are unfamiliar with the Arcade’s history, I recommend checking out the information provided here. I also suggest taking a look at Ronny Salerno’s 2016 The Dayton Arcade for a glimpse at what it came back from. Ronny even has a picture of the bit I think I remember.  

A Hanukkah Drive-Thru

I’m not really sure what to think about Rockwern Academy’s drive-through Hanukkah display. On one hand, this new addition to Cincinnati’s holiday attractions is clearly making a lot of people happy. On the other, it is a little sad to see what seems to be one religion feeling compelled to compete with another. Of course, it could just be an example of a religion making a small concession to the modern world. Let’s go with that. It’s way too easy to overthink the whole thing. 

As I pulled into the display on Monday, a greeter offered some guidance and tips such as turning off headlights. She also held up a big QR code to help connect a smartphone to the school’s website and a soundtrack. The connection can also be made by manually entering the site’s address. The soundtrack is a brief introduction followed by recordings of students singing a number of Hanukkah songs. I scanned the QR code, connected my phone to the car’s sound system, and entered the display surrounded by happy young (the school is K-6) voices. I’m sure the owners of some of those voices appear in the slideshow of school scenes projected on a large screen near the beginning of the display.

The display is believed to be a first for Cincinnati. There is online evidence that something similar existed in nearby Dayton, Ohio, last year but that seems to have been a one-time pandemic-inspired thing. The folks at Rockwern say theirs will be back bigger and better next year.

I’ve never been Jewish although I once claimed to be 1/8 Jewish because my wife was 1/4 Jewish. I really don’t know much about Jewish traditions. I did know that Hanukkah celebrates a lamp’s one-day supply of oil lasting for eight days back in 3622 (139 B.C.E.). And I did know that the celebration lasts for eight days with a candle being lighted on each of those days. I even knew that those candles were held by something called a menorah but I did not know that menorahs come in two configurations. A Hanukkah menorah holds nine candles. The center candle is used to light the others, which represent the eight days of miraculous lamplight.

As I poked around the internet while writing this, I was seriously confused by the seven candle menorahs I saw. I’ve certainly seen plenty of them in the past but they just hadn’t registered. The seven candle menorah predates the miracle of the oil. If there was ever a single universally accepted explanation for its seven branches, it seems to have been lost to history. I’ve found references to the seven days of creation, the seven days of mourning associated with a death, and (from pre-telescope days) the five planets plus the earth and moon.

I also noticed what I thought was a significant number of bears in Hanukkah-related images. Almost all are the cuddly Teddy Bear type like in the opening photo. The internet was of no help in explaining then so I asked a Jewish friend. She knew of no official connection and theorized that their popularity might be due to being able to dress them like humans in displays such as this. It’s possible, we decided, that the whole thing just might be a Build-A-Bear scheme to increase the holiday market for their product.

Even though today, December 5, is the final day of Hanukkah 2021, the last chance to experience the display was last night. The first was last Sunday meaning that not one of this blog’s regular Sunday morning posts occurred during the event. If you missed it because you’re depending on me for Jewish holiday alerts, you are clearly meshuggah.

Santa Claus Is Climbing to Town

The title of this post is based on accepting that people climb down as well as up and that rappelling is a member of the climbing family. That’s because rappelling from the top of a twenty-three-story building is how the man in red entered Cincinnati last night. And that’s how he intends to enter the city every Saturday night from now until his other job has him busy all night long on the 25th. The daring drop is part of an event called Downtown Dazzle.

I reached Fountain Square with enough time before Santa’s arrival to walk a half-block one direction for dinner and a half-block in the other direction for a beer. Between the two, I snapped a picture of the city’s 56 foot Christmas tree which was officially lighted in a ceremony just yesterday.

There was a time when the Christmas tree really dominated Fountain Square during the holiday season. It still dominates the view from outside the square but it’s the skating rink that dominates the square itself. There has been a rink on the square since 2006 but it grew in size a few years ago. Last year, bumper cars were added and they’re back again this year. I was hoping to get my first look at the cars but, although they had operated earlier in the day, they were parked for Downtown Dazzle and 100% of the rink was available to skaters.

At a few minutes past 7:00, we were alerted to some “breaking” (but not very shocking) news. Reporters appeared on the square’s giant TV describing a UFO of some sort circling around downtown Cincinnati. When it was thought to have landed, searchlights played over several nearby buildings trying to locate the craft or its occupants. Three figures were soon spotted on top of the Huntington Center, and we all got to watch one reindeer, one Santa, and one elf descend to a much lower rooftop.

The instant that the trio reached the target roof and disappeared from sight, the first volley of fireworks exploded. For roughly twelve minutes, the Genius of Water and the Carew Tower were illuminated by the rockets’ red (and other colors) glare. Pretty cool! Be there at 7:00 PM on each of the next three Saturdays for more breaking news.


Although I had photos in hand, I did not identify my dinner spot when I mentioned it above. That was partly because it did not fit with describing the Dazzle and partly (maybe mostly) because I wanted to finish the post and go to bed. Now that deadlines are past and I’m no longer dozing off, I’m tacking it on.  Hathaway’s Diner has been operating in Cincinnati since 1956 but it wasn’t here. It was semi-deep inside the Carew Tower with no windows. The current owner has described it as a cave and I can’t disagree. It nearly closed in 2019 but a renegotiated lease kept it going. Then, just last month, they moved into a spot vacated by Frisch’s. It’s still in the Carew Tower but it now has windows and an entrance right on the street. There is also an entrance from inside the tower and that’s how I arrived. I exited directly to the street where, despite the chilly temperature, the diner was going hatless. I’d only eaten breakfast at the former location but went for a very good patty melt on my first time at the new, more visible and convenient, spot. I’ll be back. Probably for breakfast.