Tag Archives: Little Miami River

Musical Review
Hot Damn! It’s the Loveland Frog!
Hugo West Theatricals
at Loveland Stage Company Theater

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I believe I first heard of Hot Damn! It’s the Loveland Frog! about a year and a half ago when I was making plans to attend the inaugural Frogman Festival. It premiered at the 2014 Cincinnati Fringe Festival and had not been performed since. Resigned to accepting that I had missed what was likely my only chance of seeing it, the disappointment I felt last year probably made hearing that it would be performed this year even sweeter. I immediately reserved a seat in the front row for opening night.

That was last Thursday, and it was a hoot. It’s pretty obvious that the play’s writers, Mike Hall and Joshua Steele, realized something a decade ago that many residents of the city of Loveland have picked up on only recently: It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not, it’s fun.

Nor does it matter if the music might not actually be, as promotional materials proclaim, bluegrass. The songs are good with lyrics that always help tell the story and are often quite funny. Almost every cast member sings and sings well. The four-piece band does a great job on every tune and may even sound a little bluegrassy in spots although it is done without the benefit of either banjo or mandolin. There is a fiddle, though, played by Linsey Rogers. She also plays “The Old Woman” who is also blind and often uses her bow like a cane. Tom Steele, Steve Goers, and Bill Jackson fill out the quartet on guitar, keys, and bass respectively.

In addition to the scenic, and in this context unavoidable, Little Miami River, the script brings in other bits of Loveland such as the Loveland Castle, the Valentine Ladies, the popular bike trail, and the fact that Jerry Springer once called the city home. Just about every version of the Loveland Frog legend is referenced in one way or another and that includes a questionable Twightwee Indian tale presented with the aid of shadow puppets. There are characters in the play based loosely on individuals associated with the two most commonly mentioned “sightings” in 1955 and 1972. Maybe I did not need to include the word “loosely” there since every connection between something in the play and something in real life is a loose one.

Hall and Steele find lots of humor in those loose connections then thicken the laughter and the plot with some complete fiction. At the heart of the play are brother and sister moonshiners that take advantage of the frogman legend to scare folks away from an operation so successful that it has its own brand labeled Mason jars. A dishonest and disgraced cop and an ambitious college professor add to the confusion and laughter. The show’s sponsor, Schwartzman Taxidermy, benefits from surprise product placement and heartfelt endorsements. The whole show is funny but a canoe and bathtub chase on the river and a tandem bicycle trailed by a tiny scooter got me to laugh the hardest. Both of these scenes make good use of a moving projected background which plays a role in other scenes as well.

There have been a few attempts to make the Loveland Frog scarey but he is usually seen as rather harmless. That is how he appears here when he shows up near the play’s conclusion and, Wizard of Oz style, makes sure all ends well. Before leaving, he assures us that when a certain celestial alignment, which I did not have the wherewithal to record, occurs, he will be waiting at the bar in Paxton’s. I hope to be there and will happily spring for the first round of Ribbit River Moonshine.

This is another of those reviews published too late to be useful. When I left home for Thursday’s show, several tickets remained for both the Friday and Saturday performances. I made plans to hurry home and ready the review for a Friday morning post to provide a little help in filling them. However, by the time I got home, Saturday was sold out and a single seat remained open for Friday. I could see that my help was not needed and aimed for the normal review publication day of Wednesday. That lone ticket was gone when I woke up Friday morning.

At the end of my post on that first Frogman Festival, I noted that I thought it looked successful, and wondered if there would be another. Despite a venue change and the main sponsor going out of business, there was, and dates for a 2025 event have already been set. I did not make this year’s event but Jacob the Carpetbagger did, and reported on it here.

That 2023 Frogman Festival post also included a picture of Loveland’s rather new mascot taken earlier in the year at the city’s Hearts Afire event. At the time it seems not to have registered with me that part of the mascot’s job was to promote a new festival debuting in October of this year. It’s pretty obvious, however, in this picture taken during Loveland’s 2024 Independence Day Parade. The first Return of the Frogman festival will take place on October 12, 2024, with plans to have another “Leap into the Legend” every leap year going forward. The Loveland Stage Company will also be involved with a showing of Frogman, the movie, which was just released in March. Sadly, at the moment it looks like I won’t be here to attend the festival but I sure hope it’s a success. I guess if I can wait ten years to see the musical, I can wait four years for the festival and — maybe — the movie.

A Pair of Zippers

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I don’t know that I’ve ever heard anyone else call those who travel on ziplines zippers but it seems reasonable to me. Of course, John and I weren’t all that concerned about what we should call ourselves while we were flying through the air with the greatest of ease. That last phrase comes from an 1867 song titled That Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze. Yeah, we weren’t on a trapeze and neither were we all that daring or the least bit young. Plus, to be honest, our flying was not actually done with the greatest of ease — or grace. But it was fun.

The two of us have talked about trying a zipline for a few years. For the last couple of years, our excuse has been COVID-19 shutdowns. I don’t remember what our excuses were before that. When Ozone Zipline Adventures reopened earlier this summer, our last excuse was gone. Last week we picked a date based partially on a ten-day weather forecast.  When we headed to the site on Friday morning, it was quite apparent that the forecast had been right for at least one day out of the ten. It was perfect.

Ozone is operated by Camp Kern YMCA near Fort Ancient Earthworks & Nature Preserve. Multiple ziplines in the trees provide what is known as a canopy tour. A restored 1806 stone house that once operated as Cross Keys Tavern serves as the meeting place for zipline patrons. We were a few minutes early but a note on the front door assured us that we were at the right place and guides and other zippers began arriving in short order. A small bus carried us up the hill where we were helped into sturdy harnesses and supplied with hardhats. We took a picture because we could.

The group paused for some instruction at the base of the first tower. Two guides accompany each group. KJ, on the left, would be our “receiving guide”. He crossed each line first and unhooked subsequent crossers as they arrived. Jesse was our “sending guide”. She connected participants to each line and signaled when it was time to go. She and KJ coordinated crossings by radio. As part of their presentation, one of them mentioned that, if you were nervous, it was best to go early to avoid watching everyone else. When it came time to climb the stairs, no one moved and it eventually became apparent that all the others were waiting for John and me. We were clearly the senior members of the group but we were also the only zipline rookies. We had been silently elected “Most Likely to Be Nervous”.

So John headed up the stairs and I followed. At the top, KJ pointed out a few things as he was hooking up then zipped off into the trees. Then it was John and then me. Only when I was about to step off of the wooden platform did I realize that the vote at the bottom of the tower had been pretty accurate. Until that point, I had been thinking of this as something very similar to going down the big slide on the school playground. I realized how different it was as I looked out at all those trees and not much else. Maybe I had been nervous before but didn’t know it. Now I knew I was nervous but didn’t have time for it. I also didn’t have much time for pictures. I had my little Panasonic with me but it was usually tucked deep in a pocket and did not get used a lot. The picture at left is of a member of our group crossing after I did. I’m not even sure if it is the first or second line.

The third line is the longest of the tour and one of two that cross over the Little Miami River. Because of its length, zipping to the end is not automatic. At its beginning, KJ gave us some pointers on increasing our likelihood of making it and some instructions on what to do if we didn’t. The advice was essentially to do more of what we had been practicing on the first two lines which was to keep your legs tucked in (called “cannonballing”) and your body in line with the cable. If forward travel ended short of the platform, you were to grip the cable (Ahead of the trolley!) to keep from traveling backward and KJ would come out and tow you in. The second picture is KJ heading over the river to be both “receiver” and “retriever”. No one rolled back to the middle of the river but more than half of our group did require a short tow. This was accomplished by KJ hanging almost upside down in his harness and sort of “walking” with his feet on the bottom side of the cable. Pretty impressive.

The line back across the river is a little shorter. Once there, this swinging bridge leads to the last two ziplines of the tour. We had crossed two similar bridges earlier in the day.

The canopy tour really was fun and truly scenic when I could pull my eyes away from what was directly in front of me. My “nervousness” certainly diminished and would no doubt disappear completely after a few more trips but I’m not sure there will be more. With the possible exception of climbing that first tower, there was nothing really strenuous but neither is it the carefree floating I’ve seen in some photos. There’s a reason that retired folk comprised only 20% of our group and I’m sure that was higher than average.

Green Day

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fa1It’s beginning to look a lot like summer. That was basically true last weekend for my circumnavigation of Indianapolis and has become ever more true with each passing day. Yesterday I went to a favorite nearby breakfast spot, Paxton’s Grill. The food and service are always great but a wonderful bonus is the option of eating outside in warm weather. The temperature was in the fifties as I crossed the street intending to enter but, as I approached the front door, I noticed that the outside tables were set up and ready. I asked, got an enthusiastic “OK”, and took a seat on the empty patio. It wasn’t empty when I left. It was, in fact, pretty much filled.

fa2fa3The temperature had gone up as I ate which meant the top could go down when I left the restaurant and set out on a little Saturday morning drive. It was more or less aimless although I did sort of meander along the Little Miami River. When I crossed the road leading to Fort Ancient, I made it a destination. The photo at the top of the article was taken looking northwest from an overlook in the park. That’s the Little Miami River and a bridge carrying OH-350 on the right. The leafless trees may not look too summery but the green grass proves that the next season is coming our way rapidly.

fa4Morgan’s Canoe Livery and public access to the river is less than a mile from Fort Ancient. As I stood watching the water flow by, two couples arrived in a pickup truck carrying two small kayaks. I admit to being a little surprised when I realized that the two women would be traveling by water while the menfolk drove down river to meet them. I wasn’t shocked and I spent zero time questioning it but it honestly was not what I expected. As the women headed off on the rather high and rapid water, I learned from the men that the kayaks were newly acquired and that this was the women’s first outing in the new green boats. I was impressed and I was envious. I used to live by this river about fifteen miles downstream from here. I miss it. I had a canoe and a kayak and a bunch of inner tubes and I miss them, too. I chatted with a fellow who was heading off in a rented canoe for some fishing then walked up to the office to check out prices and stuff. I’ll be back.