Ann Shepard (Rueve)

David,

Jadyne and Gail are glowing. Do I see stemware on the table and a bag of chips? 

Thanks for sharing your pictures. 

Mary Benjamin

David

I just looked at your photos of Japana - they are so wonderful! Thanks for the link! It looks like you three had a wonderful trip. 

xx

Mary

Philip Spiess

Speaking of remembering Latin, anybody remember this?

"O sibile!  Si ergo!

Fortibus es in ero!

O nobile!  Deus trux!

Votis inem?  Causam dux!"

Jon Singer

As an infrequent flyer on any social networks, I enter this information with some trepidation.  I will be in California at the time of Rick's tribute.  My daughter (our youngest) will be attending a group 40th birthday celebration and Ruth and I will be in charge of her 3 boys. I'll miss seeing those who will meet to honor a good guy, who among other interests and talents, supported theater.  In that regard, Rick had encouraged my writings, but was wisely never going to finacially support one of my play productions.( I just finished my eighth, "Grandpa Gets a Mini Mental Exam").  Cincinnati Playwright's Initiative, an organization with roots back to 1996 with the mission to promote local playwrights will put on a staged reading of my play, "Waitlisted." The event will be at the Fifth Third Bank Theater, within the Aronoff Center For The Arts. 7:30 pm  Tuesday March 20th. Ticket sale instructions on their web site, cincyplaywrights.org.  I'd love for any classmates to attend. Jon

Ann Shepard (Rueve)

SPIESSS!!!!! 

It took me a while!!!! Lol!  Your "Latin" is superb!!! ...and rhymes too!

Larry Klein

Phil - I couldn't translate Latin today even with a textbook.  The extent of my Latin memories would be "et tu, Brute", which, btw, rhymes if you say it backwards.

And welcome back to the fold to our class playright, Jon Singer.  I'd say you figured out the posting thing pretty good, Jon.

Philip Spiess

For those whose "Latin" is in declension, here's the deal:

"Oh, see Bill!  See 'er go!

Forty buses in a row!

Oh, no, Bill!  They is trucks!

What is in 'em?  Cows and ducks!"

This was the sort of Latin that WHHS students regularly recorded on their math pads.  I believe the tradition (and the poem) goes back at least to my mother (WHHS Class of 1939).

Larry:  You are obviously quoting Julius Caesar, who, when asked by his friend Brutus how many White Castle hamburgers he had just eaten, responded, "Et two, Brute!"

Judy Holtzer (Knopf)

Wow, Phil. You reminded me once again of my significantly sheltered existance at WHHS. Six years of Latin, and I never heard that ditty. My head is bent in shame.....

Jon, congratulations. You are another of our class's renaissance men! Awesome.

Philip Spiess

I would be amiss if I did not acknowledge Doug Gordon's comments (Entry #3242, Nov. 19) on Caesar's Gallic Wars:  I believe he does have the opening statement quite correct in its original Latin.  I have had a copy of Caesar's Commentaries in English in my library for many years, since my undergraduate days, and I'll admit I've never read it (I've never crossed that Rubicon -- which, by the way, is a really piddling river, I am told); maybe I'll do so now.

And, by the way, Doug, is that St. Peter's Basilica in Rome behind you in the picture? 

Bruce Fette

Harold Merse and I captured the distribution of birthdays amongst our WHHS class. Today is one of those extremely rare events where 3 birthdays occur on the same day.

Happy Birthday to ALL 3.

Lee Max

Thank you Bruce.

Philip Spiess

It was a quiet evening in January of 1896, in the Cincinnati suburb of East Walnut Hills.  All at once the quiet was shattered -- and windows, too (for two miles around, it was said) -- by the thunderous voice of a great bell resounding throughout the neighborhood and heard even fifteen miles away.  It was the ringing of the new bell in the tower of St. Francis de Sales Catholic Church, cast in October, 1895, by the Cincinnati bell foundry of E. W. Vanduzen Co. (formerly Vanduzen & Tifts), successor to the old Buckeye Bell Foundry.  The bell, known as "Joseph" (also "Big Joe" -- named after the largest donor to the bell project, Joseph G. Buddeke), is now the second-largest free-swinging bell in the world and the largest ever cast in the United States.  It still hangs in the tower of St. Francis de Sales Church, but it has never been rung again by swinging.  Indeed, the parish priests declared that the bell shall "remain immobile forever," because the trembling of the bell tower and the crumbling of the tower's mortar on its first being rung was simply considered too unsafe.

"Joseph," which rings a sonorous E-flat, measures 7 feet high with a diameter of 9 feet, and is hung 125 feet up in the bell tower; it weighs 17.5 tons.  Thus it took a twelve-horse team to haul the bell from the foundry at Second Street and Broadway, up the Gilbert Avenue hill, and down Madison Road to the church.  The bell's 640-pound clapper, which initially required six boys to pull it by means of hempen ropes, is no longer used; today the bell is rung with an oversized foot-hammer tapping its rim.  "Joseph" is struck three times daily, at 6 a.m., at 12 noon, and at 6 p.m. (for the Angelus), followed by the chiming of four smaller bells which rest above it and which are known as the "ladies in waiting."

Historically, Cincinnati has been an important bell-producing town.  One can still find field bells surviving on old plantations along the Mississippi River that were cast in Cincinnati and made their way down river; some can even be found as far afield as California.  The national Journal of Fine Arts for November, 1851, commends the city for G. W. Coffin & Co.'s "Buckeye Bell Foundry" (1837) and for George L. Hanks' bell foundry and "the exceeding purity of their work" on peals of bells, chimes, and steamboat, factory, and smaller bells.  Circa 1851, Hanks' foundry cast the 3,400-pound tenor bell named "Great Peter" for St. Peter in Chains Roman Catholic Cathedral, a bell decorated with medallions of Biblical scenes and a heavily fruited grapevine in high relief.

As those of you residing in Cincinnati probably know, this tradition lives on in the Verdin Company bell foundry, a Cincinnati business since 1842.  Curiously enough, the French immigrant founder of the company's six generations of Verdin family bell-makers was named Francois de Sales Verdin, prefiguring the like-named church of the "Big Joseph" bell; he founded the company, the oldest family-owned manufacturing company in Ohio, with his brother, Michel Verdin.  Among the company's landmark events were the invention of an electric winder for clocks (1910); the first electric bell ringer (1927); and the introduction of electronic bell carillons (1946).  Verdin acquired the Vanduzen Company in 1955, and in 1999 it designed and cast (in France) the world's largest swinging bell, the 66,600-pound World Peace Bell, to commemorate the Millenium.  The Verdin Bell Museum, in the Over-the-Rhine section of downtown Cincinnati, was established in historic St. Paul's Church in 1981.

Larry Klein

Phil - St. Francis DeSales certainly "rings a bell" for me. I was in 1st grade at Kilgour School. Mom and I lived with an uncle in the 4th floor corner apartment across Madison Rd from the church. I heard that bell ring many times.

In later years, at WHHS, I rode the 68 bus from East End to DeSales Corner and transferred there to the 4 bus to Blair Ave.  Many times after school, while waiting for my transfer to the 68, I stopped in the little family deli on Woodburn for a cone of lemon custard (still the best I've ever had). Those were the days!

Philip Spiess

It's winter now (and we may have discussed this before):  where did you go sled-riding, and / or ice skating (outdoors or indoors)?  And with whom?

Chuck Cole

I remember sledding at Avon Fields golf course, and then we'd go to Loretta's on Reading Road for hot chocolate and cinnamon toast.  In my memory, the sledding run at Avon Fields was incredibly long.  I wonder if kids still use that hill for sledding. Alas, Loretta's has been gone a very long time.  

Paul Simons

Just a note in reference to Phil's comments about bells which mentioned carillons. As a kid one memorable trip was to Deeds Carillon Park in Dayton. The thing was in a tower and if I remeber right it made some impressive sounds. You can see the multiple bells which ring at different pitches, allowing melodies to be played.

Nearby - part of the park - were amazing historical places including the Wright Brothers' workshop

and an early steam powered electrical generating station called the Corliss Engine.

Evidently there were more than one - this is from a different city but similar to the one in Dayton.I was in Dayton maybe 10 years ago, these things werestill there.

About sledding - I guess it was the Avon golf course between Paddock and Reading Roads - my dad took my sisters and me there, was sledding downhill and the sled hit a raised manhole cover that was hidden by the snow. The crossbeam of the sled broke out several of his front teeth. I think about that a lot. It was bad, the worst physical injury he suffered in life. There was another adult there who drove us to the hospital, and home I guess. It's been many years.

Jeff Daum

While it may be winter Phil, it is still in the upper 60s to low 70s here in Vegas.  A stunning December so far .  I remember sledding at Avon Golf course (as well as some streets in the neighbor hood..), ice skating at Cincinnati Gardens and outdoors at one of the parks/lakes whose name currently evades me.

And Paul, I recall going around Carillion Park in Dayton, numerous times while attending Miami U.  The ringing of the bells was certainly very impressive (that is when we were not having 'enthusiastic' street races in our cars...).

Philip Spiess

Good lord, I had completely forgotten about Carillon Park; it's just on the southern outskirts of Dayton, isn't it?  I don't think I've been there since I was a child.  It was the first carillon I'd ever seen (we have two in Washington:  the Robert A. Taft Memorial Carillon on the Capitol grounds and the Netherlands Carillon next to Arlington Cemetery -- but they're rarely ever played).  And I distinctly remember the Wright Flyer (I think it's the second? -- the first being in the Smithsonian, but how it got there is a whole other story, which I'll save for another time!).  The other parts of the park I don't recall; I wonder if they've been added more recently.  The largest Corliss Engine ever built was built for the United States Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876; it ran all of the machinery in the vast Machinery Hall in Fairmount Park.  This incredibly powerful steam engine was started up by President Ulysses Grant and Emperor Dom Pedro II of Brazil, thus opening the exhibition, which celebrated America's 100th annniversary.  By the way, the Director-General of the Exhibition, who put the whole thing together, was Major Alfred T. Goshorn of Cincinnati, who had headed up the earlier Cincinnati Industrial Expositions and who later became the first director of the Cincinnati Art Museum.

As to sledding, those of us who lived in Clifton had the magnificent sledding hill in Mount Storm Park.  Starting at the parking area by the Shelter House (that is, west of the classical Pergola and the park's sealed-up cave), this hill descended both straight and smooth down to the lower reaches of Lafayette Avenue, a curve or two above where it meets McAlpin Avenue at Sally Fox's (former) house.  To the left, a rounded hill came in to meet the main slope, so, if you chose, you could steer toward the left and have an extended run from one hill to the other.  My sled, which I still use today on occasion, was my grandmother's Flexible Flyer (thus eminently steerible), which by now must be about 113 years old, as she told me stories of having ridden on it to Clifton School, pulled by her father in the snow; this would have been about 1905 (the same year, I believe, that the school was built).  One final sledding anecdote:  at the bottom of the aforementioned hill there was a drain with bars of iron across it for taking the water run-off from rain and melted snow; it was a hazard to be missed if your sled got that far.  In the winter of 1957-1958, when I was in 6th Grade at Clifton School and my sister Barbara was an "effie" at Walnut Hills, we both got new winter coats.  My sister loved hers, a nice pink wool, as I recall.  Well, we went sledding at Mount Storm; there had been lots of sledding that weekend, and the snow at the bottom of the hill just above the drain I mentioned was rather worn away and churned into mud and slush.  My sister went sledding "belly-buster" perfectly straight down the hill on her stomach; because of the "thawed" conditions at the bottom of the hill, her sled stopped significantly short of the drain -- but she sailed on, straight through the mud and slush.  When she got to her feet, her new coat was covered from top to bottom with a thick layer of mud, as was her face (as well as her glasses).  It was the first time I ever heard my sister swear -- and in public, too!

Paul Simons

Phil you have clear and detailed memories and I'm sure others here do too so I want to pose a question. Does it seem that back then we would have really wintry weather - dark grey skies, snow, slush - BEFORE Christmas? It seems to me that there's a noticeable change, that it doesn't hit until farther into winter, January and February, and any snow that falls doesn't last long.  Remember making snowmen by rolling snow to form big snowballs and stacking them up? Does anyone see that anymore?

Mary Vore (Iwamoto)

I don't remember sledding, but have very fond memories of ice skating on the pond in Burnett Woods.  I took some outstanding spills, as occasional tree limbs above the water line, but beneath the snow, would reveal themselves too late!  It was well worth it.  I still love getting out in the cold for winter sports, which are in short supply here in Kentucky. I hope kids of all ages can still ice skate in Burnett Woods, and that it hasn't gotten too warm.   

Dale Gieringer

I remember distinctly that snow had a habit of arriving the day after Thanksgiving when we were in school.  Not just a sprinkle, but a blanket fit for sledding and snowballs.  Itoccurred at least once on consecutive Thanksgivings and came to be something I looked forward to.  I also remember yearning in vain for a white Christmas.  One of my bitterest Christmas memories is finding a toboggan under the tree on a sunny 65° Cincinnati Yuletide day.   The first snowy Christmas I can remember occurred some years after we graduated, and it wasn't white but sleety and slushy, turning to ice when it was time to drive to the family Christmas gathering.   Since moving to California, I've learned to yearn for a rainy Christmas, that being the kind of weather we can expect in December.  Unfortunately, this December has been bone dry, exactly the weather pattern we experienced during our five-year drought.  It broke last year, but is threatening to return with a vengeance.   This weekend we have a fire alert due to high winds.  The winds are driven by a high pressure ridge that appears to be linked to recent changes in the Arctic ice sheet.  A big no thanks to humanity for global warming.  - Scrooge :(

Philip Spiess

First, I want to remark to Larry that you've set up my tastebuds for lemon custard, and to Chuck that I'm quietly drooling for a taste of hot chocolate and cinnamon toast, a favorite.  (I'm consoling myself in our snowy weather here tonight with Laird's New Jersey Applejack.)

As to weather changes, Paul, I well remember some heavy snows in my Clifton childhood, starting about mid-November (we once had enough snow that we built an igloo in the back yard).  I'd lie awake in my upstairs room on McAlpin Avenue and hear the occasional car coming down the long hill from Clifton School to where the descent ended in front of our house (across from Durban the Florist's Greenhouses), the car's snow chains clinking as it came.  (Remember that people used to have to put snow chains on their tires, in the days before "snow tires," in order to get traction?  My father hated them.)  Being a Romantic, I always thought of the sound of the clinking snow chains as really the sound of sleigh-bells in the night, knowing full well that the only horse in the neighborhood was that on the Rawson Farm behind Clifton School (aside from the one heading up the cast-iron hitching post on Whitfield Avenue).

Later, in school at Hanover College in Indiana, the weather went like clockwork:  the first really big snow of the year always occurred on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, the day that the school let out for the holiday, making it an exciting challenge to get home to Cincinnati on somewhat rural roads.  Later, living here in Washington since 1973, the annual big snowstorm always fell on Washington's Birthday weekend in February -- but that hasn't happened now in some time -- possibly because of the hot air constantly blowing from Capitol Hill.  Guess we'll just have to go with hurricanes, floods, and horrific wildfires for our "special" weather.

As to ice-skating, I, too, Mary, did most of my skating on the pond at Burnet Woods.  If the ice was thick enough for public skating, a skating flag would be put up at the Ludlow Avenue/Jefferson Avenue entrance to the park.  It was always crowded, and sometimes the park concession stand was open for hot drinks (the Trailside Museum, across the street, was open for bathrooms).  One year (I may have been a junior or senior at WHHS), I was skating madly up the lake when Steve Pahner's older brother Mike and I collided, breaking my glasses and giving me a bloody nose.  We also occasionally went over to Eden Park and skated on the Twin Lakes there by the Romulus and Remus statue.  And, of course, there was many a skating party indoors at Cincinnati Gardens, especially after the second rink was added as an annex.

Jeff Daum

Thanks Mary Vore, I could not remember in my post above, but it was Burnett Woods where, in addition to Cincy Gardens, I skated back then.

Bruce Fette

I also remember the snow. When I was young, Santa Clause came to our house to deliver gifts. And there were years when he had an amazing 3 feet amount of snow to be able to get to our house at the bottom of a long hilly street in College Hill.  And I remember at 13 I was told that I should go Christmas shopping for all members of the family on the weekend after Thanksgiving, and yes there was ice and snow in downtown Cincinnati that year and every year I went Christmas shopping there. Even as my family returned from Arizona for the holidays, Christmas shopping just before Christmas was sure to include lots of snow.

Sledding through the trees was available for me at a hill at the bottom of Reid Avenue in College Hill. All the boys on my street were there, and yes we came home a wet frozen mess afterwards, because there was a creek at the bottom of the hill.

I finally learned to ice skate as a teen at a rink, but I think it was in Kentucky somewhere.  Probably the same year I learned to dance at Madame Federova's. I guess I needed lessons to get past the 13th year :)

When I was just 16 and just began driving, I remember many cars trying to negotiate the long steep hill on the newly paved Winton road, and many of them sliding backwards. I remember the bus picking up Fred Hoeweller and Mary Jo Smith nearby Winton Road, and I remember the year that there were many really huge snow sculptures in her front yard.  I also remember that the bus always had a difficult time negotiating Woolper to Vine St, but the alternative of Greendale was a worse choice.

Yes, very reliable snow and ice for Thanksgiving and Christmas and the next 3 months.

Philip Spiess

Bruce:  Before the "new" Winton Road was built, bypassing "Wooden Shoe Hollow" and going to the west side of the Winton Road Reservoir (formerly it went to the east), one winter my father was trying to take us up the old Winton Road to Finneytown, where my grandparents had moved from Terrace Avenue in Clifton.  (We had, as usual, stopped in Winton Place at Christos & Dravakos Chocolates store to get reinforcements.) My sister and I were to spend the weekend with our grandparents, but an ice storm had ensued before we were to be delivered there.  So, although almost to the top of the hill by the reservoir and just below the old Finneytown graveyard (i.e., a stone's throw from Fred Hoeweler's house and the Finneytown Inn), my father, driving an early Volkswagen "Bug," which usually plowed through snow and ice as if it were nothing, simply could not make the steepness of the hill at that point, which was covered with severe ice.  He tried three or four times, but kept slipping back down the hill.  Finally, with some words we kids were not supposed to hear, he gave up, went back down Winton Road, over Spring Grove Avenue to Cumminsville, and went up Hamilton Avenue and through College Hill to get us to our grandparents'.  (But the trees were beautiful in their crystalline garb!)