Best Road Trip In Ages Pt. 2

4 Generations of Prices:  Jackie & Glen, Barry, Dylan, and Logan

Even when you're having a great time travelling you still think of the folks back home.  We were lucky enough to get the 4Gen pic above when Mom & Dad came up from Tennessee for a visit.  We really miss having them closer by.

We had a pleasant night at Dan & Rosario's place.  We rarely sleep through the night, what with trips to the bathroom, muscle spasms, and round-the-clock kid traffic, so the chugging of trucks & Harleys on the nearby road and the crowing of the rooster in the yard were not disturbing.  No sirens, much different from back home.

In the kitchen, a pot of coffee and a big cast iron skillet with fresh eggs scrambled with some spicy peppers that Mark brought from his garden.  Toast, bacon, forks clicking on plates, quiet conversation as we watch the hummingbirds & dragonflies buzz past the window.

Hey Nigel-cat, did you ever see that movie about your alien duplicate hatching from a pod to replace you?

Rolling gargoyles gather no moss.

I poked my finger 3-4 inches into this soft green cushion and it never hit bottom.

Mike Lebens, Mark Schlembach, Marcy Price, Nan & Eric Day, The Other Dan Johnson, Dr. Dan Johnson, and Lisa (Mrs. Other Dan) Johnson.

Hmm, what could this gift be?  Nan is acting so innocent...

Best of all, it's microwaveable!

Nan is a soil scientist and also has an asparagus farm in Virginia with her other half, Eric.  She says you shouldn't use a knife to harvest asparagus, but just snap it off.  It knows the right place to break.

Fresh zucchini for dinner tonight.

Sun inside.

Mike Lebens, a social worker in Pensylvania.  He made a couple of varieties of real nice beer for the party.  Delicious and hearty,  dark strong foamy stuff, still alive, I think.  Mike was in attendance when Dan's parents' let my old band Ruff Midget set up a stage using haywagons and box trucks in their front yard.  Most of Morgan Township must have heard us that full-moon summer night, and half of them came to Dan's to join the party.  Was that a special occaision?  Does anybody have pictures?  By, the way Mike, you gotta try the fresh-picked broccoli, steamed with wild lamb's quarters that was growing right next to it.

Dr. Dan dons his hardhat to extinguish the inferno.  Good thing they didn't put all 50 candles on the cake or we'd have needed an open burning permit.

Happy Birthday, Dan Johnson!

We went to bed that night relaxed and happy.  What a nice bunch of people!  What a lovely place!  We expected a good sleep with motors and roosters and a great day tomorrow, and we were not disappointed.

No More Tiers

So this is our grand-daughter, Logan.  It's our first time watching her for more than a few minutes for a run to the store.  She's a good baby, so I taught her to stick out her tongue.  She's not quite 4 weeks old.

Mommy's out doing foxy boxing tonight and it looks like Logan is, too.  Dynamite comes in small packages!

That's my size 10+ foot next to the biggest mushrooms I have ever seen.  Wish I was better educated in whether they are edible.  Too risky.

I spent a lot of time on the phone yesterday with different branches of Ohio Job & Family Services.  The first call I made was to unemployment.  Actually I had tried them on Monday and their outgoing message said that people with names that start with "P" should only call on Wednesday,  so being obedient and orderly and a former call-center drone, I called on Wednesday.  Sometimes the outgoing message says that call volume is too high, please call back at another time, this call is now ended, but I managed to get through.  The menu choices didn't fit what I wanted so I punched # and 0 until I got that sickeningly peppy light jazz hold music and I waited a very long time.

Finally a human answered the phone and I was able to ask my question.  I said that I had not received a benefit payment for several weeks and could not even file a weekly claim online so I assumed that I was one of that new class of people in today's economy called a 99er.  I had even logged in to the unemployment website and counted payments and it looked like I had used up my legally allotted 99 benefit weeks.  The reason for my call was that I had just received a direct-deposit payment after that gap of several weeks, and I wanted to make sure it was legitimate before I spent it, because I would not be able to repay it if it was a mistake.  The call center agent told me that it was indeed legit, that it was my 99th payment which just happened to get held up by that tug-of-war that had been going on in Congress.  So unless Congress passes a Tier V, it's the end of the line for my unemployment benefits.  I'm still applying for jobs though, so any phony statistic from the government or media that says that I have given up is just baloney.  There is a growing number of people like me who can now be left out of the official unemployment numbers and ignored, like a shadow army growing increasingly frustrated and desperate.

That bottle in the picture is a little experiment we're trying for the first time.  It's homemade blackberry wine!  And it turns out that blackberry wine is kind of a family tradition from back before my Mom was born, and it created repercussions with the Patriot Act, but that's a story for another post.

Opposite of an Obituary

This morning Dylan's gal Sarina gave birth to Logan Virginia Price, 7 lb 4 oz.  Everything went well and everybody is healthy.

Aw, I feel the same way, my little Loganberry.  My unemployment insurance benefits (not welfare, John Boehner!) ran out weeks ago.  Job & Family Services flipflops on Marcy's medical coverage, now denying it to her.  Our household has zero monetary income, just food stamps.  But today especially we do not despair.

I wish I could write the opposite of obituaries.  The obit tells of the loved ones who have to survive the departed one, the career accomplishments of the past, the community service no more, the creativity extinguished.  I wish I could write "Do not despair, for this baby born today will grow up to cure dread diseases, solve our energy woes, and bring us peace through her enchantingly beautiful art."

I just met Logan this morning and I miss her already.  I can't wait for her to come home.  I just don't know how we'll pay the mortgage.  But we'll be OK.  We come from good stock!

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.

Stella's 94th Birthday

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

My Pocahontas lineage

Revised for readability.

We had a little visitor for Easter.  Dylan's gal Sarina brought her daughter Mercedes (Sadie).

We had an eggsellent time!

 

Derek's surgery went well and he spent the weekend recovering.  It hurt him to move for a few days but he toughed it out and now can walk around pretty normally.  No heavy lifting for a while.  He of the nimble fingers owed me a favor so he keyed in the document detailing how my Dad's side of the family is descended from Pocahontas.  I originally posted it with all the "begats" cluttering things (sorry Lili) so I pulled a few highlights out up front and you can read/copy the rest if you want.  Enjoy!

...The Garland Family was criticized greatly for marrying into the Indian Families.

...Suzy Bowling’s mother was pregnant with her when Quantrill’s Renegade Rebels came through scavenging. The Rebels wanted her to tell them where the fresh horses were and she wouldn’t tell them, so they hung her and while she was hanging she pulled her clothes over her head as far as she could and hissed at them. They left her hanging until her husband, who had gone to the mill, arrived a few minutes later and cut her down. She was apparently dead but he worked with her and brought her to. When Suzy was born she was marked by this tragedy and at times they had to make her stay in the house because she would pull her clothes over her head and hiss and be out of her mind, all this being caused by the trauma before she was born...

...The rebels just took everything in sight. The Irish potatoes were in a hole under the floor and they didn’t get them but the family was left without anything to eat and this was in the winter months. So papa Solomon and the older boys armed themselves with axes and went to the woods and hunted a hibernating bear and killed it to have meat. Their dogs were starving too, so they ran a deer on the ice below the house and the men killed it for the dogs. This saved the family over...

Hubbard History Pt 2, etc.

Death certificate from Kentucky Vital Records Project

My oldest son Dylan is 23.  He's all excited this week because he & his younger brother Derek are getting ready for the first show of their band The Sentinels.  Dylan & his gal Sarina are expecting a baby girl this June.  It's strange, tragic too, to think that my great-grandma Mary Lee (Brummet) Hubbard was just 23, the mother of two young boys (William & Colonel) when the Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918 took her life.  World War I was just winding down in Europe when the flu hit.  More than a fifth of all people in the world were infected, more than a quarter of all Americans got it.  Ten times as many Americans died from the flu than from the war!  Of all the U.S. soldiers who died in Europe, half died from the flu instead of the fight.  People age 18-34 were hit much more frequently and much harder.  Many young adults would sicken and smother in their own mucus in the space of a day or so, and no real effective treatment.  Awful, just awful.

  I don't know how much news the Hubbards heard down there in Pulaski County, Kentucky, but the world was totally transforming.  Empires were colliding and crumbling, emperors & kings were being murdered or deposed, kingdoms were converting to republics, little duchys and territories and what-not linked up into countries.  The map started to look like something we might recognize.  Britain occupied Palestine and later just arbitrarily draws lines on the world map, sowing the seeds of future chaos in places we now know as Israel, Kuwait, Iraq, Pakistan, India.  Yes, the British Empire has caused us some headaches over the years, to say the least, and many lives have been lost in cleaning up their messes.  But I haven't figured out any way (yet, other than their traditional rivalry) to blame them for Russia's revolution, which produced the Soviet Union.  That sure filled the heart of the 20th century with misery, until we finally had to go deep into debt and create monsters like Osama bin Laden to weaken them.  And then... and then... and then...  The Law of Unintended Consequences produces some fascinating results.

Now you went and got me rambling about the state of the world, when what I meant to talk about was Hubbards.  After Mary Lee died of the flu, her husband Monteville had to get on with life so he married Dolly Hicks to take care of his two boys and to have some more babies.  More on all of them later.  But little William was lucky enough to grow up and meet Ida Belle Farmer and marry her.  Her parents were caretakers of this house in Stanford, Kentucky.

My mom, Jackie, was born in the upstairs bedroom of this house.  I remember sleeping up there when I was real little, under a pile of handmade quilts thicker than me.  You had to go down those funny narrow steps that turned a corner so one was like a triangle.  Downstairs was like a sitting room but it seems that there were also a couple of beds.  The center of the front wall was dominated by a pump organ which is now at my brother Scott's house.  You had to go out on that porch to the left side of the house to get to the kitchen which was further back.  It had a kerosene stove with ornate glass cylinders for the fuel.  If mom can get me the address of the place I'll try to add an aerial view from Google.