William (Bill) Waxman

Counts was reassigned after making one too many anti-Semitic comments to me when I was on the jv basketball team. My parents called Coach Lunsford who worked with the appropriate school officials in informing Counts that he was in the wrong school for such an attitude. I hated that man, and if I saw him today would still want to kick his ass. 

Paul Simons

And there he is....two eyes, a nose, a mouth, two ears - the variable is what's in his head, in his mind, and how it got there, and what good or damage it can do.

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Gail Weintraub (Stern)

I remember that Mr. Counts was called “The baby eater “.

Jerry Ochs

You will see that photograph when you look up Backpfeifengesicht in a German dictionary.

Philip Spiess

Not to change the subject but --

Another historical vignette (or is it "vinaigrette"?), this one entitled "A Hole in the Head":

Perhaps you saw, as a youth, Walt Disney's film version (1959, starring Pat Boone) of Jules Verne's Voyage au centre de la terre (1864), i.e., Voyage to the Center of the Earth (it's actually been made into film and other dramatic productions, even opera, beginning with silent films and ending with TV and video games, over twelve times).  The premise is that the Earth is hollow, and that there are actually one or more civilizations down there, primitive or otherwise, including dinosaurs, etc.

Well, that is nothing new:  I just completed a lecture for my Adult Education class at my Presbyterian church on "The History of Hell," covering over four thousand years of hellish anticipations and attendant horrors (including the pre-Civil War museum exhibit, "The Infernal Regions," in Cincinnati's Western Museum, the most popular American museum exhibit in the 19th Century), and, despite all logic suggesting that a Hell confined by Earthly constrictures could not contain all of the damned of eternity, the Infernal Regions, whether Sumerian, Egyptian, Greek, Christian, Scandinavian, or Muslim (etc.), have been placed in the center of Earth, and, therefore, it must be a hollow one.

Let us move forward.  The focus of this piece is one John Cleves Symmes Jr., whose uncle, John Cleves Symmes, for whom he was named (the "Jr." being added later to distinguish the two), established the Miami Purchase, that is, the large plot of land on the Ohio River between the Great Miami and the Little Miami Rivers, which became the location point of the three pioneer settlements which establshed Cincinnati:  Columbia on the east (by the Little Miami); Losantiville (later Cincinnati) in the middle (on the Mill Creek); and North Bend on the west (by the Great Miami, near the Indiana border).  The elder John Cleves Symmes (just to set an historical perspective) was a delegate to the Continental Congress (from New Jersey), Chief Justice of New Jersey, and father-in-law of future President William Henry Harrison (who, in his maturity, set up his home at North Bend, Ohio, and who is buried there.)

The younger John Cleves Symmes (Jr.) served in a variety of positions in the budding U. S. Army, including in the War of 1812, and in 1819 he moved his family to Newport, Kentucky.  Earlier, he had attempted trading with the Fox Indians, but, failing as a trader, Symmes turned to other things:  he contemplated the rings of Saturn, and soon developed his "Hollow Earth" theory, a theory which he would spend the rest of his life promoting.

In 1818 Symmes announced his "Hollow Earth" theory to the world, publishing his Circular No. 1.  It stated:  "I declare the earth is hollow, and habitable within; containing a number of solid concentrick spheres, one within the other, and that it is open at the poles 12 or 16 degrees; I pledge my life in support of this truth, and am ready to explore the hollow, if the world will support and aid me in the undertaking."  Although Symmes had sent his circular to "each notable foreign government, reigning prince, legislature, city, college, and philosophical [the older term for "science"] societies," the world was not impressed, to put it mildly.  (In 1878, Symmes' son, Americus, noted that "[i]ts reception by the public can be easily imagined; it was overwhelmed with ridicule as the production of a distempered imagination, or the result of partial insanity.")  Nevertheless, Symmes began a campaign to build support for a polar expedition to vindicate his theory.

Trying not to get into too much detail, let me summarize:  Symmes believed that the inner surfaces of the five concentric spheres would be illuminated by sunlight reflected off the outer surface of the next sphere down [why does this suddenly sound like the structure of Dante's "Inferno:?], and would be habitable, being a "warm and rich land, stocked with thrifty vegetables and animals if not men."  Symmes believed that these spheres revolved at different rates and upon different axes [!].  Later Symmes simplified his theory, abandoning the concentric spheres and espousing "only one concentric sphere (a hollow earth), not five."

Symmes' theory was not a new one (aside from the theories of Hell).  The 17th-Century British Astronomer Royal, Sir Edmund Halley (he of comet fame) had proposed a similar theory, posited on the different locations of the geographic and magnetic poles of the Earth.  But it was Symmes who promoted and publicized the theory, lecturing on it in Cincinnati and other towns in the tri-state area.  For these lectures, he made use of a wooden globe with the polar sections removed to reveal the inner earth and the spheres within [this globe is now in the collections of Drexel University's Academy of Natural Sciences].  Apparently, Symmes was a very poor lecturer with a nasal voice, but he persevered, nevertheless.

So how did this curious saga end (or did it)?  Although Symmes himself never wrote a book promoting his theory (he died in 1829), his follower James McBride wrote Symmes' Theory of Concentric Spheres in 1826, and Jeremiah N. Reynolds published a pamphlet, Remarks of Symmes' Theory Which Appeared in the "American Quarterly Review"; a Professor W. F. Lyons published The Hollow Globe in 1868.  And Symmes' eldest son, Americus, in 1878 published an edited collection of his father's papers, Symmes's Theory of Concentric Spheres:  Demonstrating That the Earth is Hollow, Habitable Within, and Widely Open About the Poles, Compiled by Americus Symmes, from the Writings of His Father, Capt. John Cleves Symmes.

John James Audubon, then working at Cincinnati's Western Museum [see above], produced a portrait of John Cleves Symmes Jr. with his Hollow Earth (1820).  And his son Americus erected a memorial to him, a pylon topped with a globe carved in the shape of a hollow sphere, which you can visit in Hamilton, Ohio, in Symmes Park (a.k.a. Ludlow Park), off of Sycamore Street between 3rd and 4th Streets.

[Oh, did I mention that the "Hollow Earth" idea has sparked reactions from a lot of kooks?  (Does this surprise you?)  Here are some:  "Our universe lies in the interior of a hollow world"; "There are more advanced civilizations in the hollow Earth, with an interior sun"; "There are three openings to the inner Earth:  two near the poles and one in the Himalayas"; "Most UFOs don't come from outer space; they come from 'inner space'"; and, finally, "the aliens, the Free Masons, and 'the government' (say which?) are all hiding from you in the Inner Earth."  But, hey, you can find all this fun stuff for yourself on the Internet!]  

I will only add that the reason that Santa Claus, though having a winter home at the North Pole, does not have a summer home at the South Pole, is because he is not Bi-Polar.

Jerry Ochs

Question for the members of the tribe: Even though it was not overt anti-semitism, how did you feel about participating in the Christian-centric events and assemblies?  As an atheist, I found it offputting but not unbearable, like attending the birthday party of an obnoxious cousin.

Paul Simons

In reply to your question Jerry- first I am a Christmas-O-Phile and I've got the Ebay purchase history to prove it. Old-style large incandescent tree lights and those fantastic lights filled with alcohol of various colors through which bubbles would rise when the power was on. That plus a life-long love of Bach. Who can listen to "Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring" and not feel it? I have a love of Chanukah as well and again Ebay has seen me search for and buy those old style fat orange candles from years gone by.

About assemblies devoted to religious themes - I don't remember them. I don't remember feeling angry or left out at that time of year. Re: public nativity scenes and municipal Christmas trees - no problem. We have far more pressing issues to deal with.

Re: religion in general - I've been lucky. One locker-room fight at WHHS where one generally hostile fellow with a German sounding name started beating me up and another generally good natured fellow with a German sounding name defended me and had harsh words for the attacker. Although I have visited the observation deck at the top of the World Trade Center I wasn't there when the islamofascists destroyed it. I wasn't at the Tree of Life Synagogue when the Jew hater white Christian supremacist murdered 11 people there. In general I think the conflict between religion and science has reached a very dangerous point globally and there are daily examples of the cornered-beast reaction of some religionists. It's extremely dangerous because they still have enormous influence, so the continuing denial of global warming and of the need to vaccinate against disease by some is putting us all at grave risk. 

Even right here, in the country that came up with the telephone, the airplane, the polio vaccine, the internet and a few other items, it's going on. On this website we are enjoined to not be judgemental but - . In general high schools have done a lousy job communicating facts about difficult topics like slavery and holocausts. A kid shouldn't graduate from high school anywhere and still be ignorant enough to admire the perpetrators of these things.

Finally in response to Phil's dissertation - I happened to take "A Closer Look" as one of our verifiable national treasure late-night comics would say at a depiction of Dante's Circles of Hell and - well, there's a lot of imagination in the tortures to be found there. The movie "Journey to the Center of the Earth" looks a lot better. In particular the multi-color crystalline formations that the adventurers pass through at one point. More color-changing Christmas tree lights and fewer religious-hatred atrocities, please.

Barbara Kahn (Tepper)

Wow! I thought I was the only one who disliked Mr. Counts so much Bill. He was creepy and your photo is way too kind Paul. 

Stephanie Riger

Although my mind is blank on Mr. Counts, I do remember anti-Semitic remarks from other students. At the time, it was shocking, but unlike today, there was no fear of violence behind it. 

Judy Holtzer (Knopf)

Jerry, now that I have discovered that I am an authentic MOT, I can answer your question about how it felt at religious events at WHHS. I was in Glee Club, not sure which year, I liked to sing, my voice was acceptable, and I liked Mrs. Murphy. Everything was cool until Mrs. Murphy tested us using Adeste Fideles. Even an Orthodox Jew such as moi knows the words and music to that ditty, after all. But the crunch came, and I never realized that I was doing it until I was tested on the song, when I had to sing out loud the words "Christ the Lord". I guess I had never said those words out loud when I sang Adeste Fideles before. She called me up to sing together with someone else, and I just could not say those words when we got to them. Mrs. Murphy took off her glasses and looked at me like I was a roach in her plate. I tried to explain that as a Jew, I was not allowed to say those words. However, Mrs. Murphy came back at me with the horrible truth that there were hundreds of Jewish singers at school who had no problem with this phrase. I just had no good comeback to that. So I failed this test and got a C in Glee Club which dragged down my GPA. I was pretty angry.

My parents never asked about it, and I never raised the point. I was in a kind of daze. It was incomprehensible to me that someone did not know that it was just. not. allowed.! to say these words if you are Jewish. So I was in the same place as Mrs. Murphy, just at the other end of the spectrum, if you please.

Still. I would certainly not label this as anti-semitism in any way, simply ignorance. There were several Jewish teachers at WHHS, so IMO Mrs. Murphy should have a faculty MOT about the point I raised. The vast majority of Jewish students were raised as Reform Jews, not Orthodox. There was a small handful of those raised Orthodox, and the only only student who comes to mind at the moment is Bill Waxman, actually. 

Jerry Ochs

Judy: Our sons attended Marist Brothers International School from pre-K to G12.  In one of their school years I was president of the PTA.  By tradition the president opens each PTA general meeting with a prayer for divine guidance and in the past there were many more mentions of Jesus than of God.  In my case I couldn't say a prayer to anybody, so I asked the vice-president to do it, but he was a Hindu so he passed.  The secretary was a Muslim and the treasurer was a Jain.  I explained the impasse to one of the Brothers and he agreed to do it. At the start of the meeting he asked "the Spirit of Love and Peace" to guide us.  Bless his heart.

Philip Spiess

I have been told the following:  "Jews don't recognize Jesus as the Messiah; Protestants don't recognize the Pope as head of the Christian church; -- and Baptists don't recognize each other in the liquor store."

My son, though baptised Roman Catholic (in his mother's church, where we were married), was raised Presbyterian in the church where I am an Elder, but he went to a local Roman Catholic high school because he loved its auditorium and stage (and became an expert member of stage crew; he still occasionally does the sound engineering for professional musicians).  Because it was a Catholic school, each year the students had to take a "Religion" course (by the way, a number of Muslim kids, whom I'd had as students in Middle School down the road, also attended this school), and the first year (9th grade), my son's religion teacher, a layman -- whom I can only describe as a "wannabe priest" -- told the class that "all Protestants are going to Hell."  My son, a chip-off-the-old-block, retorted, "In that case, I'll see you there, Mr. McDonough!"

Nancy Messer

I think it was Diane Potashnik who never attended any of the Christmas assemblies the whole time we were there.  I assume she raised the issue with the appropriate person who excused her from attending.

Barbara Kahn (Tepper)

Amazing stories about our Christmas songs. Holiday Choir was the highlight of the year for me.    I had no problem with the words but I do understand how it would be uncomfortable for someone more religious than mw with my Reform Jewish background.  I loved the solo "O Holy Night" but was never good enough to sing a solo. 

Stephy I wasn't aware of anti-semitism that I can remember but as we relive some of our HS experiences I think there was an awful lot I wasn't aware of. 

Paul I love those bubble lights too! 

Paul Simons

Barbara - For many years I'd get together with friends and play and sing various tunes at the holiday season. "Silent Night" was always a favorite because it lends itself to a snowy night. The idea of "Peace On Earth" is in it, and a winter night with 8 or 10 inches of newly fallen snow can be, if not silent, then very quiet. Pretty peaceful, as I remember. We rarely get snow like that around here anymore.

I hear that they do have some monster storms, record-setting amounts of snow in places like Massachusetts and Wisconsin. Kind of the winter equivalent of the days and days of stationary rain storms,10 or 20 inches of rain all at once in Florida and Texas. One wishes all that watrer could have been routed to California when forest-fire infernos were reducing towns and people to ashes. Ultimately thoughts and prayers, and songs, don't work.

Phil - is the (fake) scientist John Cleves Symmes Jr. that you mentioned looking for work? There seem to be frequent vacancies at NOAA or the EPA, and per their current meteorological and oceanograqphic standards he'd fit right in.

Philip Spiess

Paul:  I think John Cleves Symmes Jr. has gone underground.

Oh, and you do know that "Silent Night" was written for, and first performed on, guitar (because the church mice had eaten a hole in the bellows of the church organ, so it wasn't working that morning).

Judy Holtzer (Knopf)

Nancy: Amazing that you brought up Diane Potashnik as not attending Christmas assemblies. I can understand that happening. Diane's father was VERY old-school ultra-Orthodox. For a time, my family went to his congregation because it was the only synagog close enough for my very religious grandmother to be able to walk to, since riding is forbidden on the Jewish Sabbath and most holidays. I remember Rabbi Potashnik being SO old-school that his sermons were always in Yiddish, which only the older members could understand. Very few of our generation, born in America, could understand or speak Yiddish. His sermons, according to my mom, were always the same, asking for money to keep up the synagog. 

Phil: I was not religious enough for Diane to speak with, by the way. She had a way of looking right through a person. I could never understand why she and her older sister were sent to Walnut Hills and not to an ultra-Orthodox school for girls in New York....

Philip Spiess

Judy:  I never really knew about or understood the different branches (or denominations) of Judaism until I taught "World Religions" to my Middle School students (2006-2013).  I did know that a large number of Jewish Cincinnatians were Reformed Jews, because Cincinnati was the founding center of Reformed Judaism, thanks to Rabbi Isaac M. Wise.  I will admit that I was surprised to discover at Walnut Hills that some of these Reformed Jews had migrated further "left" to Unitarianism (case in point, Mrs. Levy).  I was also pleased to meet Rabbi Heller through the musical Jonas family at Walnut Hills, who were close friends of ours, and I also knew Rabbi Sandmel of the Hebrew Union College through his son, my friend Charlie Sandmel (whose mother dubbed me the "Poet Laureate of Clifton").  [Oh, dear god, can you believe that "Spellcheck," or whatever it is, just corrected my word "Rabbi" to "Rabbit"?  And it's done it three times while I've been writing this!]

I guess I missed anti-Semitic comments or actions at Walnut Hills because half of my friends were Jewish (Jeff Rosen, Johnny Marks, Steve Levinson, Dick Ransohoff, Al Weihl, etc.), and I spent a lot of time at their houses and in their neighborhoods (Avondale and Clifton, to be specific).  After all, we had all grown up with Jewish kids and black kids, and all sorts of other kids in our elementary schools (apparently this was not the case in many parts of the United States at the time).  But I also missed the Racism, overt or not so overt, that was going on, until Mr. Lounds (and others) addressed it on this site.  Yes, my sister was told by our parents that she could not date black guys (it had reached the time in history that she and I thought this a little odd), and, yes, I have a favorite black nephew in my family, my sister's grandson, a Rugby star with the U. S. Naval Academy at Annapolis.

Jerry Ochs

Correct me if I'm wrong but according to Exodus 31:15 if Judy's nana had taken a taxi to synagogue she would have been put to death.  Seems a bit harsh.

Paul Simons

Jerry - a lot of the stuff you'll find in ancient religious texts is horribly brutal. I doubt that you'll find acceptance or enforcement of what you quote in this era, or for that matter hunderds of years or more back, by my crew anyway. That is not true of other sects - some make the news regularly for their hideous punishments of religious dissent.

Phil - thanks. I used to play it on a Dobro - a resonator guitar set up for slide. I don't have a video of myself but this is similar to what I was doing. Maybe the gang will get together for a redux next Christmas/Chanukah season.

Steven Levinson

Jerry, forgive me, but you're beating a dead (pun intended) horse.  Obviously death for taxi trasport, not to mention death for planting two crops in the same field, etc., etc., is beyond harsh.  By today's standards, it's absurd.  What's your point?

Dale Gieringer

I was unaware of anything controversial about Christmas Assembly until my junior year.  I always loved Christmas celebrations, even though I was always skeptical about the religious part and became a decided non-believer in Christianity as of 11th grade.  It didn't occur to me that my non-believing Jewish classmates (WHHS didn't have any Muslims, Hindus or Buddhists in those days- I wonder, does it now?) might object to "Adeste Fideles"  which seemed like a tuneful and joyous way to flaunt some Latin.    It was Jimmy Rosenfield, of the Class of 63, who finally enlightened me that he and numerous of his fellow Jewish classmates found Christmas distasteful and made a practice of skipping the Christmas Assembly entirely.  That was easy to do, since it was the last period before vacation.  Like Philip, I was unaware of any anti-Jewish sentiment at WHHS, though I heard some from my family - much to my surprise and chagrin, as I couldn't see anything objectionable about them .  To tell the truth, I was actually suspicious about Catholics, since they didn't attend the same school as we did and were taught by those nuns in creepy black costumes.  Besides which, they professed to believe that non-Catholics like me were going to Hell.   Only later did I discover that Catholics were by and large enlightened enough not to take such dogma seriously.

Jerry Ochs

The Internet is Alice's rabbit hole.  Judy's remark about walking made me take an hours-long on-line trek.  Eventually I reached "activities prohibited on Shabbat" and ended up reading the passage from Exodus.

Steven Levinson

I grew up with Christmas.  My parents were very Reform, as had been my mother's family (on both sides) for generations.  Also I attended an ultimately WASPy private elementary school (Lotspeich), with the Tafts and Gambles and Pogues, and had Bible study three days a week from the principal during daily school assemblies (and recited The Lord's Prayer (the Episcopal version apparently -- debtors instead of trespassers) every damned day at assembly's end), all this counterbalanced by twelve years of religious school at Rockdale Temple.  Also my mother's birthday was December 24.  So Christmas Eve saw several rituals at our house.  We trimmed a tree, hung stockings on the mantlepiece, saw the seasonal movie blockbuster at whichever of the RKO theaters it was showing, and had dinner at the Golden Lamb in Lebanon.  Christmas (totally secular) and Hannukah (chauvinistically Jewish) were completely intertwined.

I loved the WHHS Christmas assemblies for the warm, fuzzy feelings they engendered.  I loved most of the music . . . but not all.  The choir's singing of Silent Night, O Holy Nignt, Adeste Fidelis, and the like, gave me the creeps and even then struck me as gross violations of the separation of church and state.  But I mostly chalked it up to what I viewed as the clueless assumption by the prevailing Christian culture in which general life in Cincinnati was embedded that the rest of us didn't matter much and could like it or lump it or love it or leave it.

Steven Levinson

Jerry, thanks for your response.  I respect what you say.