Memorial Day Weekend 2010

Any day is a good day to be alive of course, but some days more so.  Enough of shuffling paper, and the cleaning and mowing just needs done again as soon as you finish.  The sun is shining, the van has good tires and a tank of gas, so Marcy and I are heading out on a quest.  First we stop at Mt. Healthy Dairy Bar for a malt to share as we drive.  Very "Archie & Veronica" isn't it?  We take Gray Road along the northern boundary of Spring Grove Cemetery (We'll have to stop at that Weavers Guild sometime).  Circling around to the front gate we find the cemetery had closed at 6 p.m.  So we don't get to visit Marcy's dad George's mausoleum and we don't get to enjoy the beautiful, historic cemetery.  We sip the last of the malt as we take Spring Grove Avenue to the incedible urban industrial nexus where railway, Mill Creek, and highway throb together like an aneurism ripe for rupture.  We get on I-74 West and the landscape soon begins to open.  Each breath comes easier as wooded hills appear.  We cross the Great Miami River and soon comes the New Haven Road exit to Harrison.  The land of my people!  We roll down Broadway past my dad's old high school, hang a right on Hill to go past our old church.  I turn down the radio's Memorial Day countdown of hits as we approach the cemetery.

Marcy & I share a wedding anniversary with my aunt Robin (Beatty) and late uncle Ernie.  It all looks good here.  Respects paid, we exit the cemetery.

This house at the top of the hill was where my dad grew up.  Because my Grandpa Lloyd Price died when I was little I always thought of it as Grandma's house.  We would stop there after Sunday church, sometimes eat lunch, and Grandma and I would watch Mutual Of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, yes, in living color, and often linger over Marty Stouffer's Wild America.  It's changed, and I don't want to look too closely.  Some neighboring houses have been torn down, and the big new house in the background was built in the big side yard/garden.  There used to be nice maple & catalpa trees out front, and a gigantic willow behind the house.  The porch is wrong.  Better move along.

Down the road along the hilltop ridge, the turn on Flora.  It's the old church shelter house.  Summer revival meetings on hard wooden benches in the thick summer air, fans a-flutter in old ladies' hands.  My cousin Kenny Hornsby was married here.  So many dinners laid out on long tables covered in sheets of that glossy Champion paper cut from rolls.  Granny Jones' annual birthday gathering.

Down the hill was the water fountain, bathroom, and garage for the church buses, complete with mechanics pit in the floor.  The urinal in the men's room had woodsy spiders the size of saucers.  The outdoor water fountain put out a big thick stream of unchilled water that made great misty rainbows when directed skyward by any youngster who dared to get his church-clothes wet.

The softball field filled the terrace just above the shelter.  There was a real nice big backstop along the tree line back there but there still must be a lot of softballs composting quietly just inside the woods.  Some stout fellas could jack a ball clean over the shelter.  Wasn't that a ground-rule home run?  That house on the hill was built for the preacher.  It was quite an obstacle course when it was under construction.  Too many changes here, time to roll on.

We navigate over to California Road and enjoy the ruler-straight northward course up hill and down towards Governor Bebb Park.  But Okeana-Drewersburg Road calls me to turn left and we ramble over the Indiana border somewhere.  My smile grows wider as the roads grow more narrow and rough, the landscape seemingly an endless expanse of fields and pastures planed smooth by glaciers a few thousand years ago.  Holstein cows freshen the air.  I channel my inner Daniel Boone and  we find Indiana Route 252 and head east.  Look, here are a bunch of wild turkeys!

If I have to travel, let it be on a two-lane highway.  We roll through the tiny border-town of Scipio and resist the urge to go north on State Line Road up to the old pioneer church.  We can not resist a quick look at Governor Bebb Park, one of the most wonderful places in my world.  All is well, not too crowded on this holiday.  Away we roll, thinking it might be nice to go downtown to Taste of Cincinnati to round out our day.  The ribbon of asphalt carries us along the creek past the superlong rail trestle, through Okeana, through Shandon (Strawberry Festival coming up June 12!) we wave at the Francis sisters' alpacas, go past the Fernald Uranium Plant where my dad & I have both worked, through Ross (Venice Castle is for sale) and we turn south on US 27.  I think about the airport that used to sit where Northgate Mall does now.  So many things I look at used to be something else.  Is that a sign of age?  No, just longer perspective, stuff to write about later.  Before long we are back down in that valley where we first started our ramble.

We wander around downtown a bit then manage to find free, fairly safe parking on East 4th Street.  Wheelchairs in a thick crowd have advantages and disadvantages.  I only run up on the heels of one person.  We score a couple of Great Lakes pale ales and a mythos gyro and settle down on the doorstep of my old employer to enjoy Bad Veins play.  P&G must really be working on their public relations.  The gardens used to be a sacred and untouchable spot.  Now they seem to be avoiding any appearance of elitism as they open at least the walkways to the public.

The drummer seems to be looking up at my old office in the Twin Towers.

When finished, this building will replace the Art Deco era Carew Tower as Cincinnati's tallest building.

Farklishly Nice Things

Yeah, you Facebookers know what I'm talking about.  But this is real life.  Over my shoulder I hear the click of the five dice and then the rumbling roll on the gameboard.  We call it "Zilch."  Dylan, Sarina, and Marcy each won a game and this is the tiebreaker.  Friendly family competition to relax in the heat of the night.  We already played a game of Scrabble - The Nightmare Before Christmas Edition - and I won.  I got "unique" on a triple word space.  I also got to play the word "naif."  Like Dad always told me, I quit while I'm a head.

In the background the TV is playing "Diners-Drive-ins-and-Dives."  I was hoping it was the episode where they visited Cincinnati's Terry's Turf Club but I guess it's not tonight.  It's nice to hear the threesome next to me laughing and having fun.  Oh, they've switched to "Uno" now.  I wish you could hear Marcy laugh!  Mom & Dad, thanks for getting her that playing card rack.

We went with Sarina to her ultrasound last week.  It was cool that we got to see our grand-daughter Logan and all, but I was amazed by the technology, how far it's come since our kids were tadpoles.  That GE machine showed us the girlie parts, the beating heart, a well-formed spine, a palate un-cleft.  We saw the healthy placenta, then they highlighted the cord and measured for proper blood flow.  Neat.  Then they clicked the images of the leg bones and arm bones and it calculated her size to be perfectly average for a 32-week tadpole.  It did everything but take the kid's fingerprints, and that's probably in next year's model.

I've been too busy to post much lately besides some photos and a poor excuse for writing.  Our mental energy has been poured into a few very important and time-sensitive challenges but now we are seeing the results of our efforts just as we set out to do.  First of all, the bankruptcy.  "But wait," you say, "Isn't bankruptcy bad?"  Yeah, like chemotherapy is bad for cancer!  I really like our attorney, Robert Liebman.  He reminds me of Charles Foster Offdensen, the manager/lawyer for Dethklok on the show Metalocalypse.  He nailed the bankruptcy for us and got a lien on our house cancelled.  He's a lethal legal fencing master.  We actually shared a laugh right before the hearing, tee-hee!  Next, Marcy's medical care.  We finally got her approval for state Medicaid with actual "insurance" provided by Buckeye Healthcare starting in June.  Whew!  And speaking of her condition, we also completed a symptom report for SSI.  That was not so much fun.  List ALL symptoms, what they feel like, where you feel them, whether they spread, what makes them start, what makes them worse, how bad on on scale of 10 is a good day, how bad on a scale of 10 is a bad day, how many good days vs. bad days each week, how long each symptom lasts, how often each one hits, and even more.  Grueling, but it produced a well-organized picture of Marcy's misery.  Social Security also required a Work History analysis for the last 15 years, detailing all work duties plus how much she had to sit, stand, walk, crawl, climb, crawl, stoop, crouch, reach, schlep, manipulate, write, and so on.  Done.

The Victory Garden has produced its first tomato!

Speaking of which, I found another great use for the profusely growing lemon balm:  bruschetta.  I chopped up a couple of ripe tomatoes, took a few plucked tops of fragrant lemon balm and cigar-rolled them and cut little chiffonades, slivered a few "wild onions" I plucked from the back yard, a shake of dried basil and a splash of extra virgin olive oil and presto!  Spoon that stuff onto slices of Kroger Italian bread (marked down to under $1) and it is so delicious and fresh.  And take a look at this salad I made using baby lettuce thinned from the Victory Garden, plus garlic mustard, lemon balm, chive blossoms, wood sorrel (shamrocks), and those beautiful little wood strawberries.  We had it with dinner when our old friends Terry & Loey visited.

Totally Rad-Ish

Hey, Lili!  Check out the moose in the iron fire-ring.

Hungry as a wolf.  Friends like this keep a lot of pesky bugs from invading your home. 
Click the pic for a good look at the eyes, the fangs, and the pedipalps.

 

Is there a bit of a happy tear welling in Marcy's eyes?

 

Marcy and I shared the first radish of the season.  The texture was perfect and the flavor flowed from sweet to peppery.

Happy Mother's Day

Hi Mom, happy Mother's Day.  I love you and miss you a lot.  See you soon!

Shroom Bloom

I'm pretty sure these are Inky Cap Mushrooms.  I would not consider eating these unless I was desparately hungry.

I read that Inky Caps are sometimes called Alcohol Caps because if you drink alcohol within a few days after eating these you'll feel like you're gonna die, even if you don't.  I don't want to have to worry about that.

Inky Caps mature quickly and can turn to black slime within a day.  Don't even try to pick and store them.  Manna from heaven?  No thanks!  These are growing near the stump of a red maple and they follow the tree's old root system.  And these mushrooms are really all connected.  Mushrooms are called "fruiting bodies."  Imagine a bunch of apples scattered on the ground, you wouldn't think of them being connected, all fruits of the same subterranean tree that's managed to push its progeny to the open air for dispersal.  The mushrooms are connected all over the yard.  And certain mushrooms have affinity for certain trees.  In late summer I'll show you some ash tree boletes that appear in the back yard.  Fungi are so fascinating!

Stella's 94th Birthday

Stella Marie (Wellman) Beam, born 4/29/1916, with her daughter Marcy.  Happy Birthday!