Steven Levinson

Ann and Barb, the Mandarin (across from Lenox Place) was a 10 minute walk from our house.  My family ate there regularly.  What my father ordered was cast in concrete:  sweet & sour pork, shrimp with lobster sauce, egg foo young, beef with pea pods, and spare ribs (all quite kosher, yeah Barb?).  I didn't think that I liked Chinese food (what was I thinking?), so I always ordered the one-dollar steak sandwich.

Paul Simons

There was another Chinese restaurant in Avondale, roughly Reading Rd and Blair Ave, The Tom House. Not as large as the Mandarin, signage not as elaborate, but fine food and atmosphere.

Ann about the area around Reading Rd near Section, Losantiville - did you or anyone go to The Whisper Room? I did, as often as I could. So dark in there you could not possible read a menu but incredible jazz by any standard. (If I have the name of the place right).

And Bilker's grocery store for those who might like whitefish salad or lox and cream cheese on a bagel. Which items have become universally prized in corporate America "team meetings". Until corporate America became work-from-home America because America hasn't done so well with with a highly contagious and deadly didease that was billed as not much more than the common cold.

Ann Shepard (Rueve)

Paul: I remember Tom House too. My aunt lived on Perkins Ave. The JCC was on that section of Blair. 
Bilkers, as far as I know, still has a deli on Kenwood Rd. in Blue Ash. 

Jerry Ochs

Are there any Dairy Queen or A&W Root Beer stands extant in Cincy?

Philip Spiess

Paul:  Ah!  We non-Jewish folk went to Bilker's for Halvah.

Jerry:  There's a Dairy Queen here in my neighborhood in Springfield (Northern), Virginia, where I regularly went to get my mother her requested milk shakes (varied flavors) when she was in a dementia ward, and then in hospice, near us, 2017-2018.

Paul and Jeff:  I was a Patrol Boy at Clifton School, 1956-1957 and 1957-1958 school years (5th and 6th grades).  We patrolled the McAlpin Avenue crossing on the south side of the school and the Clifton Avenue/Woolper Avenue crossing on the east side of the school.  The McAlpin side was easy; the Clifton Avenue side was more difficult:  much more traffic coming from three ways (given Woolper Avenue's intersection with Clifton Avenue at the school), and a dubious cop (volunteer? retired? definitely superannuated!) on duty to "supervise us," who was regularly drunk.  The principal (Pearl M. Wright, a paragon of elementary education -- she and her sister have been honored by the University of Cincinnati), appointed me Lieutenant (that is, the officer in charge) of the Traffic Patrol in my 5th Grade year; the 6th graders on the patrol at the line-up before we went out on duty roundly booed me.  Panicked, and not knowing what else to do, I faked a stern manner and ordered them out to their posts; to my astonishment, they went (and there were no more problems after that).  [N.B.:  The same action worked in college when I was elected president of my fraternity as a sophomore, and the upper classmen rebelled.  The fact that I could outyell 40 members of my fraternity played a big role in my success as president.  (An uppity fraternity pledge dubbed me "The Mouse That Roared"; needless to say, he didn't get in.)]

Paul Simons

You know Phil a lot of people seem to think that the great gift that God bestowed on us MOT’s - Members of the Tribe - Jews - which eventually got passed around was the Ten Commandments but I think halvah is right up there as well, along with Freudian psychoanalysis and Einsteinian physics. The problem is that except for the second item - the Ten Commandments - I can’t digest any of them. But that old Jewish version of the Golden Rule - “don’t do to anybody what you wouldn’t want done to you” - that goes down OK.

Concerning your adventures as a Patrol Boy and College Fraternity Man and myriad other topics - your detailed essays here are always entertaining and enlightening but I think you’re robbing yourself of one of the great joys of life which is making it up. You could pick up where another gift from Judaism - Philip Roth - left off. You’ve already got the first name part of the equation. There’s nothing like creating a totally fictional world, many people are saying that. Very fine people. In fact I indulge in the process myself but it’s with tunes, songs, although social distancing has put a damper on band practice.

Reading this over, I’d have to do some serious research to find out which came first - the Ten Commandments or halvah.

Jerry Ochs

Shifting to a deeper subject.

When you were younger, did you ever wonder where you would come out if you dug a hole straight through the globe?  Now you can find the answer without leaving the house.   I'd come out under the ocean off the coast of Uruguay. Glug....

https://www.antipodesmap.com/

Ann Shepard (Rueve)

There are a couple of Dairy Queen locations, one very close to me on Springfield Pike in Woodlawn. I have never been a fan of soft serve "ice cream", and with Graeter's around the corner, I haven't visited.  The last time I had a cone of something like ice cream was when my boy friend drove a Freezer Fresh truck (competitor of Mr. Softee) and made long stops in front of my house daily, the summer after we graduated from high school. The long time Original Root Beer Stand is still going strong, since 1957, at the end of Reading Rd. In Sharonville. When my grandkids were little, they couldn't wait until it spring for it to open so I could take them to get root beer and foot-long hot dogs.

Elsewhere in this forum, I mentioned that I was a Saftey Patrol Lieutenant in 6th grade and had the intersection of Montgomery Rd. and Brewster in Evanston.  I was also captain of the hallway guards ("girl guards").

As for digging a hole through the earth from Cincinnati, I'd end up all wet!

Dale Gieringer

 Everyone of us in the U.S. lives on the opposite of the earth from the deep Indian Ocean - except for those of like Steve Levinson who live in Hawaii, which is opposite the Kalahari desert in Botswana.

Barbara Kahn (Tepper)

Steve, Your father was a champion Chinese food orderer - what a feast.  I would love those dishes now but not when I was young. As I said, my sister and I ordered plain fried chicken. 

Our father loved Loretta's which was in that area on the other side of the street I think. In later years we did go to the Chinese restaurant in Roselawn. I now live near many Orthdox families and I doubt they eat Chinese food but the Reformed Jews love it. In past years one of the most crowded nights in a Chinese restaurant was Christmas Day dinner. 

Paul, I don't know the name of the place but there was a sort of jazz club at the Carousel Motel. I was there once with my  Uncle Bob Elkus.  

As for Bilkers - love it! We went once a week. It was across the parking lot from A&P so we could do all the shopping together.  

Jerry, one of my grandsons lives near a Dairy Queen and we used to take him. I love the chocolate dipped cone.

Philip Spiess

Jerry and others:  Apropos of the Antipodes, you may wish to refer back to my Post #4052 (5-27-2019) on this Forum, which brings us to why Santa Claus does not have a summer home at the South Pole -- he's not bipolar.

As to your suggestion, Paul, how do you know I'm not making it all up?  As Oscar Wilde once said (paraphrasing here), "The role of the historian is to report accurately and fully that which never occurred."

Steven Levinson

Jerry, how do you find these websites?  Dale, you beat me to it.  I never would have guessed that the Ghanzi District of Botswana would be the antipodes of Honolulu.

Barb:  I'm still kicking myself that I didn't partake of my father's Mandarin menu. What wasted opportunities!

Paul Simons

 This is getting as thick as the pavement on Reading Rd when Loretta’s with the fabulous blintzes was on one side and the Mandarin advertising cocktails along with the chicken egg foo yung was on the other and then the last name Elkus comes up and I know that family was involved with Max’s Gentry Shop. Where a high school nerd could persuade himself that, for just a few bucks, he could transform himself into someone who would have adventures that would absolutely have to be written up for Playboy Magazine or the Penthouse Forum. Those were the publications of record. Lord have mercy!! That new pin-striped shirt and a half bottle of Canoe cologne would surely get the 1962 version of Stormy Daniels to want to jump off that centerfold or out the door of Mme Troeger’s French class and into my ‘57 Plymouth! And it worked! Sure it did. I’m not making this up! Not much, only about 99%. 

Jerry Ochs

If the planet was created solely for our benefit, shouldn't there be much less water (now 75%) and much more land?

Jeff Daum

Jerry, land is pretty useless without water- take it from us located in the desert.

Philip Spiess

During my high school and undergraduate college years, I got some of my best Pendleton sports coats at the Max Gentry Shops.  Although they didn't win me women and the high life (I didn't expect them to), they did make me feel like a well-dressed (maybe even distinguished) gentleman-about-town.  (Although many of my fraternity brothers used Canoe cologne -- I could smell it on date nights -- the "undistinguished" brothers used Old Spice -- I myself used English Leather -- where is it now?)

Jerry:  We ourselves are composed of some 90+% water.  (Don't cry for me; I'll get pissed off.)

Paul Simons

First let me apologize for taking up perhaps more than my share of the space here. But it seems that since there are incredible outrageous things going on that are out of bounds for discussion nevertheless the desire to comment remains strong. So this fine Friday morning to address Jerry’s question I’m sure we’ve all heard or read that for us and our planet to exist the entire universe including constants like the speed of light and the strength of gravity must be exactly what they are. Stars formed billions of yeast ago, exploded billions of years ago, reformed billions of years ago, creating more and more elements some of which are now water, land, and us. The question is was it all to give us this place to do our loving and hating in intentionally by someone who looks like Alexander Hamilton but has a tolerance for much higher temperatures - in the millions of degrees - or did it happen by itself, or did the creator look more like Nelson Mandela or perhaps Bruce Lee? Or maybe like The Lone Ranger’s faithful Indian friend Tonto? Or like the wife or sister or mother of one of those dudes? Anyway the land/water ratio had better stay the way it is or we’re all dead. If something happens and we start losing our atmosphere which includes water vapor we’re done. The Nobel Peace Prize for this year was announced today. I wish it had gone to Greta Thunberg. 

From Google: At any one instant, the Earth's atmosphere contains 37.5 million-billion gallons of water vapor – enough to cover the entire surface of the planet with 1 inch of rain if condensed. This amount is recycled, through evaporation powered by the Sun, 40 times each year in what is known as the hydrologic cycle.

Lee Max

Barb, for years, your uncle Bob sponsored a Knothole Baseball team based in Roselawn. One year we almost won the district championship. The unique thing about our team was that at every game, (usually Saturday mornings) we had the cleanest uniforms. On Monday mornings, a van from Max's Gentry Shop would stop at every player's house, pick up the dirty uniforms from Saturday's game. The uniforms would then get dry cleaned, and returned by Friday. We weren't always the beat team on the field, but we were always the cleanest and best dressed.

Steven Levinson

For years after Lynn and I moved to Hawaii, every time we'd be back in Cincinnati, I'd visit the Gentry Shop (it had dropped the "Max's" by then, hadn't it?) in or near Kenwood, where it had moved, and buy another $100 (give or take) work suit.  Once I bought a Polish knock-off of a London Fog.  What a store!

Jerry Ochs

Jeff,

If you're feeling parched, there's always Coors Light.  It's the closest thing to water known to science.

Jeff Daum

Are you sure Jerry?  Here I thought it's been the vodka that I drink to concerve water 

Jerry Ochs

Jeff,

I learned in Prague that the Russian word for water is "voda" and adding the "ka" diminutive makes vodka.

Jeff Daum

da! Jerry 

Jerry Ochs

Little Ivana would naturally be called Ivanka.  

Paul Simons

They say “Don’t try this at home” but if you live too far from a White Castle you CAN try this at home. (Works best with FROZEN meat patty.)