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.