Tag Archives: Ohio

Horns Aplenty

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The 27th Bockfest parade has come and gone. There’s still plenty of festival left, but the Friday night promenade is the highlight for me. Precipitation of just about any kind will keep me away but this year was dry and the mid-40s temperature was downright balmy compared to some years. I drove, parked, and walked to the parade start point at Arnold’s Bar and Grill to meet a friend who works just a couple blocks away and can stroll over in a few minutes.

There was no shortage of folks in full-body Bockfest garb, but there seemed to be quite a few with nothing Bockish except fake (I assume) horns. It was only while editing pictures for this post that I noticed Clyde, the friend I’d just connected with, peering from behind the horned hat.

Clyde had stepped into the street to talk with some members of FC Cincinnati support group Die Innenstadt. He had marched with the club in last year’s parade and was seen in a story WCPO recently broadcast to promote this year’s event. When he spotted WCPO’s Evan Millward, Clyde approached the newsman and the two talked about the broadcast. For some reason, Evan was carrying Mayor Cranley’s Bockfest proclamation which I took advantage of by snagging a photo.

I was really just joking about the balmy temperatures but it appears that kegs, whether being carried on your bare shoulder or concealing your bathtub’s propulsion mechanism, will keep you warm.

Like Arnold’s self propelled bathtub, these three are long time parade regulars. By the time this is published, 2018 Sausage Queen Luis Balladares will have been replaced by a new queen selected on Saturday. Both the Sausage Queen and Beard Baron competitions are gender neutral. No one ever seems to follow the Whip Lady too closely but the same cannot be said of the Trojan Goat.

Some people may wonder why the Kentucky Chapter of the Association for Gravestone Studies has a parade unit and why they are participating in an Ohio parade promoting beer. But those are the same sort of people who question the presence of dinosaurs or a Krampuslauf group. Bockfest does not need those people.

I missed getting a picture of Aaron Sharp when he first passed in the parade vanguard. I’m glad he circled back. Aaron was one of the key individuals at the sorely missed WNKU radio station where good music could always be found. He is now part owner of Lucius Q where good BBQ and beer can always be found and often good music, too. I’ve never sorted out what his official role is with Bockfest but he’s been doing it a long time and I know he is really good at it — whatever it is.

Although they’ve been around since 2016, this is the first time I’ve seen Dance Flash Fusion and realized it. They have been in at least one previous Bockfest parade so I must have seen them but either they’ve improved considerably or I wasn’t paying attention. I was impressed. Die Innenstadt is the FC Cincinnati support group that Clyde belongs to. I’m pretty sure they set off one of their colored smoke bombs somewhere near MOTR on Main Street, but, even though I was moving with the parade at that point, I was way too far behind to hear or see it. Stuff like that does linger, however, and I put other senses to use as I passed through the area.

Here’s the group with the large goat head featured at the start of this article but I don’t know who it is. The base of the float is covered with album cover reproduction but I saw no identifying markings. They were preceded by a truck with banners reading “Crocodile Bock” and “Crocked on Bock” and this musical duo. I’ve no idea whether or not they’re connected. The Red Hot Dancing Queens have been favorites of mine ever since I first saw them in 2015 not long after they had formed. I think the RHDQ have a slight edge on DFF but it’s really exciting to have two dance troops having so much fun and so much talent.

Not long after the RHDQ passed by, I headed north with the parade. The sun was setting faster than I was traveling which contributed to none of the pictures I took along the way amounting to much. These three were taken at the last turn to the parade’s conclusion at the Moerlein Malt House. With little light, I notice even fewer details through the camera viewfinder than I do in the light. I failed to see a rather major feature of the “Bock on with Your Bock Out” float. It’s pretty obvious but even easier to see here. The name I used comes from the shirts being worn though I’ve no idea whether there is any connection with the beer by that name from a Chattanooga brewery. The Rabbit Hash General Store float is always near the end of the Bockfest parade and I have several pictures of it at this corner. There was a large gap in front of the entry in the last picture and, if it hadn’t been for people staring down the parade route, I’d have assumed the parade was over. A large plastic tarp was carried by a van with walkers holding up the edges and fog filling the space under it. The combination made for extra slow travel and thus the gap.

I walked on down to the crowded Bockfest Hall where bands were playing and bocks were flowing. I had one from the Alexandria brewery then, after meeting up with an out of town friend, another from Hudepohl. I’d had a single Moerlein Emancipator back at the parade staging area. Apparently my current Bockfest beer quota is three. 

Time of Pharaohs

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The renovated Cincinnati Museum Center takes another step at getting back in the swing of things by hosting the U.S. debut of Egypt: The Time of Pharaohs. The exhibit is new but the objects in it are anything but. Some of the 350+ artifacts on display are more than 4,500 years old. 4,500 years isn’t old like a colonial era cabin, or a New Mexico pueblo, or even a European castle. No, we’re talking old like a pyramid which is, of course, where some of these items come from.

I was there Friday evening for a members only event. It was a well attended members only event. Part of me was really happy to see that lots of people support the museum with their memberships and that same part was really happy to see that lots of those members also support special extra cost exhibits such as this one. Another part of me kind of wished all those people would just get out of my way.

I was smiling when I wrote that last sentence. Timed entries kept the exhibit from being overrun but attendees were not being hustled through it. The crowd simply meant I had to occasionally wait a bit to read a placard or study an artifact up close. It also meant that most photos I took had one to twenty people in them but just about every one of those people was seriously curious and that’s a very good thing.

Based mostly on Hollywood movies, my idea of Egypt includes a lot of gigantic stone things like the Sphinx and those pyramids. But, almost immediately I found a wooden jackal, a bronze cat, and a clay cup. A sign next to the cup dates it to the 1st half of the 3rd millennium BCE. The 2nd half of the 3rd millennium BCE started 4519 years ago. By comparison, the cat is almost modern. It’s from the 3rd century BCE. The jackal is from around 1000 BCE.

These bronze statues are just a few inches tall and quite detailed. That’s Amun-Ra on the left and Isis on the right with a sun disk on her head and Horus on her lap. I didn’t catch a date for the Amun-Ra statue. The Isis statue is from the 6th to 3rd centuries BCE.

My Cecil B. DeMille based ideas weren’t entirely wrong; The Egyptians did do a fair amount of stone carving. The first stele features the crocodile god Sobek. It was carved sometime between roughly 1290 and 1190 BCE during the 19th Dynasty. I screwed up and got no information on the second stele. The third picture shows a plaster cast of a carved wall of the Temple of Amun-Ra at Karnak. The plaster cast is 135 years old. Like the first pictured stele, the wall was carved during the 19th Dynasty. The casting is a solid grey. The colors are from a projector that cycles on and off to show the wall as it was originally. A replica of a 13th century BCE chariot stands in front of the wall.

Of course, you can’t have an Egyptian exhibit without a sphinx and some mummies. This limestone sphinx is a baby just a couple of feet long. It’s from the 3rd to 1st centuries BCE. The coffin is from the 14th or 15th centuries BCE. It’s a mix of wood and plaster with gold trim. The mummified cat comes from the same time period as the sphinx.

There is actually plenty of modern technology mixed in with the multi-millennium old artifacts. An audio guide is available that provides commentary keyed to specific displays. There are several interactive exhibits that help explain timelines, hieroglyphics, and more. The final display is pretty high-tech. High resolution CT scans have recorded the details of every layer of a mummy from about 750 BCE. Holography is used to project a rotating 3-dimensional image inside a clear pyramid. The image cycles through the layers as it rotates. It’s a time warp that even Doc Brown might appreciate.

Egypt: Time of the Pharaohs is at the Cincinnati Museum Center through August 18.  

The Holocaust and Humanity Center is Open

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The Cincinnati Holocaust and Humanity Center reopened in its new location last Sunday on the 74th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. I had seen the space it moved into on a “hardhat tour” during the Cincinnati Museum Center’s member’s preview in November. At the time, I noted my failure to visit the center in its current location despite it being on my list and relatively near my home. I once again resolved to get there “before they start carrying stuff out” but I failed. I tried after about a week had passed, but it was already too late. The move had already begun and the operation at Rockwern Academy in Kenwood had already closed.

I would not get inside the Center today, either, but it wasn’t because I was too late. I arrived about half an hour before the 1:00 opening ceremony when the space around chairs provided for holocaust survivors and family members was wide open. I could have staked out a spot right next to them but didn’t. By the time the procession of survivors and descendants began, my best view was via the giant screens at either side of the stage. The processional was quite moving not only for those participating or watching familiar faces enter the rotunda, but for folks like me who recognized no one. Some in the procession may have been experiencing memories of when they first saw Union Terminal. This was where many people escaping Europe or recently freed from Nazi concentration camps arrived in the 1940s to begin a new life in Cincinnati. The last picture shows the center’s Executive Director Sarah Weiss cutting the ceremonial ribbon along with Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley and Nancy and David Wolf for whom the center is named.

Entry to the Holocaust and Humanity Center was free on Sunday via time stamped tickets. I doubt that people were actually being forced out of the center after fifteen minutes, which was the interval on the tickets, but it was pretty obvious that this was not the day for a leisurely stroll through the exhibits. I thought it absolutely wonderful that the opening had attracted so many people, but quickly decided to take advantage of one of the perks of being retired and come back sometime during the week.

Incidentally, the HHC opening wasn’t the only thing bringing people to the museum center on Sunday. The picture at right, taken long before the crowd appeared for the opening ceremony, shows a line of people stretched across the front of the rotunda waiting to get museum and movie tickets. There probably wasn’t a lot of overlap with the HHC crowd; Most of the groups in line included young children. I noted in my post about the theater reopening that families with school age children were flocking to the renovated Union Terminal during the holiday break, and it looks like that flocking continues on weekends. I bet it’s the dinosaurs.

I made it back on Tuesday. Entry to the Holocaust and Heritage Center is not included in Cincinnati Museum Center membership, but tickets are sold through the CMC kiosk in the rotunda and there is a discount for CMC members. These sculptures were at the front of the rotunda and usually surrounded by people on Sunday. At present, they are near the stairs leading down to the HHC. The HHC is right next to where the Cincinnati History Library and Archives was and will be. The library closed in 2016 along with the CMC and has not yet reopened.

We were given a peek at a small portion of this mural on that November “hardhat tour” and I had been looking forward to seeing the whole thing. It didn’t disappoint. The 63 foot mural covers more than one wall of the center’s lobby area. I had some time to look it over as I waited to enter the “Winds of Change” theater that separates the lobby from the museum galleries but know I have some more looking to do. I believe all of the mural’s twenty-six scenes come from stories that are told, at least partially, inside the museum. Inside the theater, holocaust survivors now living in Cincinnati tell pieces of their stories in a video. The local connection appears throughout the museum in the display of artifacts and quotations from local survivors.

The first gallery beyond the “Winds of Change” theater begins with the story of the rise of Nazism. It’s a story of relatively small steps that go from Jews being valued members of their communities to their extermination being seen as a solution to something. The HHC utilizes two types of interactive exhibits. One uses touch screens to allow selection from a small set of recorded first person accounts related to the display they are part of. The second uses sliding panels operated by push-buttons. This not only provides more surface area for images and text but involves visitors ever so slightly. At first I thought this was a little hokey but I quickly became a fan. If you don’t press the button, you will miss out on something, and when you do press it, you’re kind of committed to studying what is revealed. 

In addition to the big mural, I believe that every description of the center I have seen mentions the bullet picture and the train window. The bullet picture is an image, reproduced with empty shell casings, of Jews being gunned down in a burial pit they had been forced to dig themselves. The train window is simply a window in the museum wall that opens onto the active tracks behind the building. Only a tiny bit of passenger traffic trickles through Union Terminal but freight traffic passing through the yard is quite significant. Visualizing human beings stuffed into box cars isn’t difficult.

The aftermath of the holocaust is also examined. I was on the leading edge of the Baby Boomer generation. The war was over and the death camps liberated before I was born. Some of the war crimes trials occurred in my lifetime but I certainly don’t remember them. However, I do remember seeing the movie Judgement at Nuremberg in a theater during its first run and same day TV coverage of the Eichmann trial. This was in 1961 when the events they dealt with were less than twenty years in the past. The holocaust was just outside of my own memory but was rather fresh in the memories of the adults in my world.

The “Points of Light” theater marks the end of the Holocaust Gallery and the beginning of the Humanity Gallery. From here on out, the exhibits deal more with today’s world. People called “upstanders” are identified and their stories of resisting hate or doing something else to improve their part of the world are told. The last picture is of the “Make Your Mark Wall”. Visitors can leave their thoughts and impressions via the touch screens and add their selfie to the wall if desired. On the day I was there, a portion of one of the large screens was blacked out, but I’m guessing that was just from someone leaving their coffee in front of a projector or something similar.

The Nancy & David Wolf Holocaust & Humanities Center is an impressive and welcome addition to the Cincinnati Museum Center. I entered the “Winds of Change” theater by myself, but took my time going through the galleries, and found myself in the presence of several other visitors by the time I exited the museum. Even so, I know I need to go back. It is really impossible not to see similarities between the increasing hatred seen in some corners today and some of the events described in the center. The centers’ creators were certainly aware of these similarities, and I don’t doubt helped make them more apparent here and there. That sure doesn’t seem like a bad thing to me.

Fire and Ice in Hamilton

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This was the weekend of the Hamilton Ohio Ice Festival. The festival takes place every other year and I go to every other festival. The biennial schedule for the festival is intentional. My quadrennial attendance is not. In fact, I didn’t realize my attendance was so infrequent and regular until I started to write this post. I believe the festival is always a two day event with activities beginning Friday evening and wrapping up on Saturday. I was there in the bright sunshine of the event’s second day in 2011 and in the cool of Friday evening in 2015. This year the theme was Games and several Monopoly pieces were on display. This post opens with my favorite: the race car.

When I can’t get the race car, I go for the other wheeled marker, the wheelbarrow. It was there, too, along with the Scottie dog an Rich Uncle Pennybags.

More recent games were also represented including Dig Dug, Pac Man, and Rock ’em Sock ’em Robots. I’ve always wondered if my sons knew that the robots they played with on Christmas morning had received a few practice punches before going under the tree.

Most of the carvings are strictly hands-off, but there is an area where games are meant to be played. How about some chilled checkers or frosted tic-tac-toe?

All outdoor events are affected by weather and those involving ice doubly so. Good weather with high temperatures can be nearly as bad as foul weather. This year’s festival was faced with both. One of the reasons I chose to attend on Friday was that rain turning to snow was predicted for Saturday. Friday’s temperatures weren’t exactly balmy but they were above freezing and carvings that were to be judged on Saturday were keep inside so as to be in the best shape possible for the competition. That’s very sensible but does result in some disappointment.

One festival activity was a Friday night only affair. Fire and Ice action started a few minutes before 7:00 when three lead carvers and several assistants went to work on three giant ice blocks on the courthouse lawn. I arrived a little later with no chance of a good view so I took some shots over people’s heads. In just about an hour, the blocks had been transformed into Mario, Princess Peach, and Bowser the fire breathing dragon. The carving was impressive not only for the speed at which it was accomplished but at the details in the finished work in spite of the speed. The fire came in two forms. Mario was tickled by flames coming from Bowser’s mouth with the aid of a propane torch, and some unidentified fiery liquid erupted in intricately carved ice bowls beside the figures. There is a glimpse of Bowser breath in the second picture, and the last picture, which I took after the crowd thinned, shows one of the bowls of fire.

Got the Hanger Before the Plane

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The title is my questionable attempt to make an aeronautical version of that saying about getting the cart before the horse. I started on a trip yesterday that is aimed at having me at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, for the 115th anniversary of the Wright brother’s first flight on Monday. In anticipation of that, I recently revisited some Wright related sites in nearby Dayton, Ohio. This was actually the main reason I was in Dayton when I made the Carillon Historical Park visit that yielded last week’s Christmas themed post. There’s been a bit of a squabble between Ohio and North Carolina over where this flying business got started, but my title is not a reference to that. I’m just acknowledging the fact that this blog post about the Wright brothers in Dayton is going up before my trip journal entries about the brothers in North Carolina. Dayton was the Wright brothers’ home and there are quite a few locations associated with them. Probably the most important single location tied to the Wrights and their development of human flight is Huffman Prairie Flying Field where a replica of their 1905 airplane hangar stands. A placard in the hangar is here.

Official input to the squabble included North Carolina putting “First in Flight” on their license plates in 1982 and Ohio following with “Birthplace of Aviation” in 1997. In theory, the argument officially came to an end in 2003 when the U.S. Congress recognized Ohio as “the birthplace of aviation” while acknowledging that the first flights occurred in North Carolina. The text associated with that recognition is here. It’s easy and maybe somewhat natural to think that Ohio got the nod because the Wrights lived there but that the actual “birthing” happened in NC. The fact is that the brothers did a lot more than live in Ohio. Tremendous amounts of research and experimentation occurred in Dayton both before and after the trips to NC, and almost all of it that took place after December 17, 1903, took place at this field near what is now Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Both of those slogans are correct. The first flight — actually the first four flights — happened in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina; Aviation was born in Dayton, Ohio.

The reason for the Wrights’ trips to North Carolina was the strong and steady winds there. They had proven that their machine could fly, but further development was required. The brothers naturally wanted to avoid the time and money consuming trips to the coast but Ohio winds are weak and fickle. They might lay out as much as 240 feet of rail only to be forced to move it when the wind shifted. The catapult near the hangar is a replica of the one they used to shorten takeoff distance to 60 feet with less need for a headwind. The brothers improved on the machine they flew in NC and eventually learned to control the craft to the point of flying around the perimeter of the field. Their flight path is kept mowed and may be walked.

Not far from Huffman Prairie Flying Field, a Wright Brothers Memorial stands atop a hill that bears their name. The area containing the field is included in the view from the overlook behind the monument. There is a small museum and interpretative center across the road from the monument.

What I think is one of the coolest sculptures around stands in the median of Main Street in downtown Dayton. Called “Flyover”, it is a full scale representation of that first flight in Kitty Hawk. The sculpture’s length matches the 120 feet covered by that first flight. Each of the flight’s 12 seconds is marked by a set of wings showing the craft’s climb and descent. It’s really eye-opening to walk the length of the sculpture and realize just how short that first giant hop for mankind was. Another full scale sculpture stand just a few blocks away, on Monument Street. The plane depicted is the 1905 Wright Flyer III in which the Wright brothers improved their design and skills at Huffman Prairie. The real thing shows up in a couple of paragraphs.

The Wright Brothers National Museum is inside Carillon Historical Park. It’s been there since the park opened in 1950 but just received the “National” designation in August. More Wright brothers artifacts are displayed here than anywhere else. The bicycle in the second picture is one of five Wright brand bicycles known to exist and one of two on display in this building. The Wrights eventually built a wind tunnel and other devices for more accurate measurements, but some of their earliest testing involved mounting variously shaped surfaces on the horizontal wheel then peddling into the wind to see how they reacted. This may not be the most famous camera in the world but it is responsible for taking one of the most famous photographs in the world. Orville set up the camera before climbing aboard the flyer, Wilbur handed off the bulb so he could help steady the craft during takeoff,  and John T. Daniels pressed that bulb at the right time to head off the “pictures or it didn’t happen” crowd back in Dayton.

The story of how this display happened is almost as cool as the display itself. In the 1940s, when Colonel Edward Deeds was putting this park together, he had a chat with his good friend Orville Wright about making a replica of the first Wright Flyer. Orville had a better idea. Why not rebuild the real Wright Flyer III? This was the first truly practical flyer and the brothers considered it their most important aircraft. It had served its builders well in their 1905 developments at Huffman Prairie, then had been shipped to Kitty Hawk for U.S. Army trials in 1908. Following the trials it had been more or less abandoned although there were some pieces in various locations around the country. Orville knew where those pieces were and of course he knew everything there was to know about the original plane. What followed has been called “The first pilot’s last project”. Not only did Orville contribute to rebuilding the airplane, it was his idea to display it in a sort of pit so that visitors could get good views of the whole thing. It is believed that approximately 85% of the original machine was recovered and 60% to 80% was used in the reconstruction. Many of the original pieces that were not made part of the plane were used in making replacements. Some of these are displayed nearby. A placard with the plane’s specifications stands by one of its wings. 

Musical Review
Cincinnati King

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Although it didn’t feel much like it, this was actually something of a repeat. I attended a reading of KJ Sanchez’ Cincinnati King in Washington Park back in 2015. It was during a King Records celebration and drummer Philip Paul was among the musicians performing before the reading. There was music during the reading, too, but it didn’t make me think of the play as a musical. They’re calling it that now, and they’re right. I don’t doubt that my 2015 perception was off a little. In fact, I’ve probably forgotten more about that performance than I remember. But, as enjoyable as that Washington Park reading was, Cincinnati King sure has sure come a long way since then.

From the long list of colorful and talented people associated with King Records, Sanchez picked three to tell her tale. Syd Nathan, the label’s founder and beyond colorful owner, had to be one of them, of course. To represent Syd’s stable of singers, she chose Little Willie John whose story contains some of King’s best and worst. To help keep that volatile pair on point, she picked the guy who did the same thing for much of King’s product, long time session drummer Philip Paul.

Those great characters are portrayed by great actors. Neal Benari is a convincing and properly blustery Syd Nathans, Stanley Wayne Mathis nails Philip Paul, and Richard Crandle made me wish I could have attended just one Little Willie John performance. Benari and Mathis do sing one song each, but it’s Crandle, along with Cullen R. Titmas and Anita Welch, doing the heavy vocal lifting. Titmas and Welch kind of work their way through the King roster from Cowboy Copas to Moon Mullican and Annisteen Allen to Lula Reed. Welch has a wonderful voice and her dancing certainly adds to the show as well. The singers are backed by a top notch quartet comprised of Music Director Richard Livingston Huntley on drums, Terrell Montgomery on bass, Ralph Huntley on piano, and Seth L. Johnson on guitar.

Cincinnati King doesn’t tell the complete King story but it does paint a representative picture. From our current perspective the King Record story may seem rather sad but that could be mostly perception. King Records was successful: the sixth largest record company in the country. It was innovative: the first record company to record, manufacture, package, and distribute its product. It was progressive: generally colorblind hiring practices and minorities in key positions. It was trend setting: Little Willie John preceded James Brown, Moon Mullican preceded Jerry Lee Lewis. It was inspired: Fever, The Twist, The Train Kept A-Rollin’, and other long lived songs originated there. It was noticed: Syd Nathan is in the Rock & Roll and Bluegrass Halls of Fame and several King artists are in one or the other. KJ Sanchez gives us a feel for all of that in a highly entertaining two hours.

It’s also an informative two hours, and I could tell that parts of the story were real revelations to some of the audience. I’m no authority but I have read a fair amount about King Records and Syd Nathan over the years. Still, one piece of the story was entirely new to me. Syd Nathan, in the very early 1960s, traveled to Hamburg, Germany, to see the Beatles. It’s implied that he could have signed them but missed his chance. Whether or not an actual signing was likely, the reason for Syd not even making it to the club is telling. At some point on the day he was to see the Beatles, he watched a group of German boys walk by from his hotel room window. It’s not clear what it was about the boys that seemed menacing but the sighting caused Syd to stay in his room until time to return to London the next day. The Third Reich had been defeated little more than fifteen years earlier. Germany was not a place the Cincinnati Jew wanted to be.

I think it was the day after I saw Cincinnati King that I read a review written a few days earlier. It was very positive. I’d enjoyed the show immensely and the review reinforced my impressions. It praised the story, the actors, the musicians, and the staging. It was all flowers and sunbeams until the very last paragraph. Describing the show as “anchored in local history”, it concluded that it is “not a show that’s likely to move on to other cities and venues.” Maybe so, I thought. King was definitely a Cincinnati company. But I almost immediately started questioning the review’s conclusion. The company’s influence sure wasn’t limited to its home town. People all across the nation were once interested in its music; Why wouldn’t they be interested in its story? There’s a quote from former Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Director Terry Stewart on that panel I photographed:

There are only three places in the country that can claim to be the birthplace of Rock and Roll: New Orleans, Memphis, and Cincinnati.

I’ve no idea what plans may or may not exist for Cincinnati King. I’ve a hunch that KJ Sanchez doesn’t believe that “other cities and venues” are out of reach. I don’t.

Cincinnati King is at Playhouse in the Park through December 23.

Only Rock and Roll

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In getting in position for my personalized three ring rock and roll circus, I passed through a town whose name has a rock and roll connection even if it’s actually just a stand-in for the place Credence Clearwater Revival made infamous. The circus starts with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on Friday, then The Tubes on Saturday. On Monday, Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul will be in ring #3, and I predict a little Lincoln Highway and other stuff in between.

This entry is to let blog only subscribers now about the trip and to provide a place for comments. The journal is here.

Fish Farm Fun

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I like fish… and I like shrimp… and I’ve lived my entire life in Ohio. Why, then, did it take me 17 years to get to the Ohio Fish & Shrimp Festival? Is a puzzlement. It becomes an even bigger puzzlement when you add in the fact that I like music and this is a festival with a reputation for putting some of the best local and regional entertainment available on its stage.

I don’t know about previous festivals but this year’s event covered three days. I made it on Saturday, the middle day, and I made it in time to catch part of the day’s opening performance. The very impressive Devil Doves are based in Columbus, Ohio.

I hung out near the stage until the set was finished then headed up the hill to check out the festival’s reason for being. There are multiple food vendors present but the Fresh Water Farms is the host and naturally has the biggest stand in the best location. I’m a sucker for coconut shrimp so that’s what I picked from an extensive bill of fare. That’s kale Caesar salad in the box and it was delicious. So was the shrimp.

I was eating at one of the tables when Mustards Retreat began their set. The group from Michigan served up some excellent vocal harmonies. This would be the last group I saw. The next group was still on their way when Mustards Retreat finished and I decided not to wait out the delay although I’m sure it was a short one. There would be a total of five bands on Saturday ending with the outstanding Teeny Tucker. Check out the full festival lineup here.

Beer and wine are available but there is an alcohol free zone that includes some of the food vendors and a children’s play area. Speakers at the back of the stage means the live music can be heard through much of this area.

Some of the actual farm facilities lie just beyond the play area and were open for exploring.

On the way back to the festival’s main area, I grabbed some pistachio gelato for dessert. I finished it as Mustards Retreat finished their set. Then, as mentioned earlier, I headed home happy to have added another fine Ohio festival to my experience.

18th Century Flashback

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The Ohio Renaissance Festival began its 2018 run on Saturday as did the Fair at New Boston some twenty-five mile to the north. The Festival will last two months, operating every weekend in September and October. The Fair will last two days. The Festival celebrates 16th century England. The Fair decidedly does not. The Fair represents a settlement in the Ohio territory in the year 1798 when the England of any century was anything but celebrated. The war that had ripped thirteen of England’s colonies away from her was a very fresh memory in the fledgling United States of America of the day.

I’d attended the Fair at New Boston once before, in 2010. As it did then, the day began with a parade…

…and some opening ceremonies. The flag was raised to the top of the pole then lowered to the halfway point in recognition of the 21st century death of Senator John McCain.

With the fair officially open, the entertainment commenced immediately. Pictured are Johnathon Hagee, Jack Salt & the Captain’s Daughter, and the Clockwork Clown.

I’d essentially jumped out of bed and headed straight to the fair, then followed the parade through town and paused to be entertained. It was now time for breakfast. Freshly peeled peaches and pound cake were just about perfect.

I then headed to Cheapside Theater for the world premier of Bard of New Boston, a play comprised of Shakespeare excerpts. Volunteers from the audience fill out the trio of witches from Macbeth. Complaining about the lack of a Romeo, Juliet begins the balcony scene by herself before the town rat-catcher steps up. This guy roams all about the fair with a couple of live rats in a cage and a stuffed one in his hands and in your face. His general griminess and very audible flatulence adds to the image. He spent the first half of the play heckling the actors before bringing a dash of romance to the stage. The whole company appears at the end in a curtain-less curtain call.

I completely missed out on the preparation and just barely arrived in time for the hot air balloon launch. A strong cord between balloon and owner kept the two from being separated as the former led the latter though the fairgrounds before cooling and landing.

Authenticity and historic accuracy is stressed at the fair and that includes the nearby Kispoko Town. I eavesdropped a bit on the fellow drying pumpkin rind and heard the two young observers getting what I suspect will be a rather memorable history lesson.

I missed out on this year’s historical speakers, which included Simon Kenton, Chief Blackhoof, and Daniel Boone, and I took off before the reenactment of the Battle of Picawey. Clouds were gathering and I had things to do so decided it was time to leave.    

Jeep Jam 2018

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For a number of years, although I don’t know what that number is, something called Jeep Jam has taken place on a farm near Willmington, Ohio. It moved to the Clinton County Fairgrounds this year and that move helped bring the event to the attention of my buddy John who lives close enough to the fairgrounds to hear knobbies spinning in mud pits. The threat of rain had caused a Friday night concert to be canceled but it did not affect the planned cruise-in much if at all. John reported a downtown filled with Jeeps parked for viewing. On Saturday, he and I went to the fairgrounds.

There were vendors selling food and all sorts of four wheel drive related merchandise, and there were Jeeps. Lots of Jeeps. Hundreds of Jeeps. The majority didn’t look all that changed from when they left the dealer but some were clearly experienced and eager off-road machines. This open-wheeled specimen was probably the most battle ready vehicle we saw.

Many of the Jeeps were parked which allowed guys like us to walk by and look them over. Others were in long slow moving lines going somewhere. Some were headed to riding trails both on and off site. Those in the first picture were working their way to an obstacle course which featured the piles of mud in the second picture.

We didn’t study the whole course so can’t say if this was really the highlight but it did seem to be where most of the attention was focused. This clearly wasn’t a super challenge for a Jeep, but it did provide plenty of fun without undue risk.

A concert featuring Molly Hatchet would close out the day, and was included in our $5 admission. Neither of us were big Molly Hatchet fans and there really wasn’t all that much to hold a non-Jeep-owning spectator’s attention until then. A walk to the far end of the grounds and back was enough for us. However if you own a Jeep and wanted to get it dirty, add some accessories, or swap stories with other owners, this was the place to be.