Larry Klein

Golf update:

Max B had a rough day with the course and the competition.  He will get another shot at State next year.

Katie H also had a rough day, but somehow overcame adversity and posted a 79, good enough to lead the individual qualifiers for state (this despite a near disastrous triple-bogey on the 17th).  We'll be playing the Ohio State Grey Course next Friday and Saturday for all the marbles.  Wish us luck!!

Here she is with "Coach" and her certificate for the state tournament.  Go Eagles!!

Philip Spiess

Now that I have had a closer look at those two photos on the Capitol grounds, the hour is not so late, and the drinks are not so strong, I believe I can identify a few more people:  I think that is John Danner behind Kenzo Takai (1st photo, back row, far left); Darryl Arthur, perhaps, next to John (1st photo, back row, second from left); Rick Vogel [was he still with us then?] (2nd photo, back row, second from far right); Jim Stillwell (2nd photo, back row, far right end); the girls all mystify me (but they did back then, too).

Larry:  I guess I should have asked my question in an old-fashioned form:  "Dust thou remember Lubbock?"  And you seem to be doing something right with those golf teams!

Bruce:  Mount Storm Park in Clifton was formerly the Robert B. Bowler estate; he was (as I recall off the top of my head, if you get the point) a prominent Cincinnati dry-goods merchant and local magnate in the middle of the 19th Century.  He became one of the "Seven Barons of Lafayette Avenue" when he bought the knoll at the western end of the avenue (circa 1850?) and built himself a pretty large and ornate Italianate mansion (two French-style drawing rooms!), surrounded by impressive gardens and, I think, some water features.  On the night he moved into his new mansion, a massive rain and wind storm swept over the knoll (to quote Baron Bulwer-Lytton:  "It was a dark and stormy night . . ."), and so he named his new house "Mount Storm."  The Pergola, which still stands in the park (it's that colonnaded, domed thing) was the cover to an underground reservoir that supplied water to (supposedly) seventeen greenhouses; Bowler's gardener was Adolph Strauch, former gardener to the imperial House of Hapsburg in Vienna, later the chief landscape architect at Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati; he is buried on a picturesque island in that cemetery.  The Pergola became locally memorable in 1867 when the then Prince of Wales, Queen Victoria's eldest son, Albert Edward (known throughout his youth and early manhood as "Bertie," but who became King Edward VII on his ascension to the throne in 1901), who was traveling in the United States (supposedly incognito -- yeah, right!), gave a short speech to the local populace from the top of the steps of the Pergola (presumably he was Bowler's guest).  (I can give you more -- and scandalous -- information on Bertie, if you wish).  The cave I mentioned can also still be seen (at least when the Park Department clears the weeds and shrubbery); it's a little, but prominent, mound to the west of the Pergola.  Its three entrances are now sealed up with concrete, and have been since the 1920s when, according to my grandmother, some child hit its head on a stalactite and died.  [Really?  There are stalactites in that tiny mound?!!  We're not talking Kelleys Island, Ohio, here, folks!]  According to tradition, the cave served as Robert Bowler's wine cellar.  Bowler died at a very young age in a carriage accident in downtown Cincinnati; his widow lived on for many years, and I believe it was she who gave the property to the city somewhere along in the 1910s.  (I think the house stood for some ten or fifteen years longer, and you can still see the estate's carriage house -- now serving as a home for the park's caretaker -- down the hill to the south from the present Park Shelter House, which, I believe, was built by the WPA.)

Ann Shepard (Rueve)

Late to the tv conversation as usual. We got our first tv in 1951, when I was 4 1/2. It was a Crosley "entertainment  center", wth radio, record player and a 6" tv. I remember swinging on the doors of the beautiful wood cabinet. Some of the early syndicated shows like The Cisco Kid, Sky King, and Whirlybird were produced by Cincinnatian Frederick Ziv for the old Dumont network. Back in the day, the tv stations were WLWT channel 4, WCPO channel 7, and WKRC channel 11. I believe those stations switched to their current 5,9, and 12 when there was some FCC ruling in the early 50s. The tv broadcasts were only a few hours a day. My brother and I would watch the test pattern before the show started. They would sign off playing the national anthem. 

I lived with my aunt in New York from 1967-68. She had a color tv. I was so used to watching color, when I got my first pay check from my summer job in the clerical pool at Western-Southern Life Insurance Co., I went straight to Steinberg's and put a down payment on an RCA color tv for my parents' anniversary. Of course, I was still living at home. 

It still amazes me, having grown up with a tv, that I can now tap on an app on my iPhone and watch tv any time or any where. 

Philip Spiess

Okay, this Forum's been dead for almost a week!  And speaking of dead, we're a week away from Hallowe'en (anybody remember why the apostrophe is supposed to be in there?).  So -- my question of the week is:  What is your favorite or, you feel, the scariest classic horror film?  My personal favorite is probably Frank Langella's Dracula (1979) -- wonderful Victorian Gothic settings, etc. -- which we saw in a stage version years ago at the Kennedy Center starring Martin Landau, with sets (and curtain) by Edward Gorey.  Or perhaps it's Tod Browning's Freaks (1932) -- just for sheer repulsive kitsch.  But what I think is the scariest movie I've ever seen (aside from Margaret Hamilton's Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz -- 1939), is The Haunting (1963), based on Shirley Jackson's story The Haunting of Hill House.  I first saw this movie somewhere around my sophomore year at Hanover College, when it was shown campus-wide in the auditorium; at the climactic scene (which I won't divulge), the entire audience nearly went into cardiac arrest -- my roommate almost bolted backwards over the seats into the next row (I was a little more mellow, as I'd been drinking).  Two years later, my senior year, I realized that date night at my fraternity house was given over to viewing The Haunting on TV; it turned out that many of those present, brothers and dates alike, had not seen it earlier in the auditorium, so it was a perfect set-up for me.  I insisted that all of the lights in the room be turned off, so we could concentrate on the suspense that was unfolding in the film, and, knowing when that climactic moment was coming, I was prepared.  At the precise moment when the horror struck on screen, I dropped a live cat into the lap of the sorority girl whom I deemed the most susceptible.  The chaos and screaming that ensued (even from the boys!) was most gratifying to me, and I felt that it had been an evening well spent, one that would live in happy memory!

Ann Shepard (Rueve)

I was told by my mother that the FIRST movie that ever scared me was a 1938 Disney cartoon, Ferdinand the  Bull. She said that as the image of the bull grew larger and larger covering the movie screen, I screamed so horribly, she thought I was being stuck by a diaper pin. Of course, I have no recollection of this.

My first real fright at the movies was seeing the robot, Gort, emerge from the flying saucer in the 1951 sci-fi classic, The Day the Earth Stood Still.  I ran out of the neighborhood theater, The Avon (corner of Reading and Union St.), leaving my eight year old big brother, who had been entrusted with my care on our first solo sibling movie outing. A couple of years later, I was so traumatized by the vision of three lenses on the probes used by the aliens in the 1953 version of War of the Worlds, that I was frightened by the tail lights on the 1957 Oldsmobile.  

After that, nothing in the sci-fi genre of movie scared me, but the shower scene in Psycho still lingers in the back of my mind enough to make sure I securely lock the bathroom door when I am traveling alone. 

Dale Gieringer

The first movie that really scared me was "Jack in the Beanstock."  I was just a wee tyke then and the giant was humongously terrifying.  My grandparents evacuated me to the back of theater until after the scary part was over.   I reacted similarly to "Sinbad the Sailor."  Funny how so many of our scariest experiences come from premature exposure to supposed kids' entertainment at the age of four or five.   My daughter's scariest amusement park experience was the Snow White ride at Disneyland.        In my teenage years I learned to steel myself to horror movies.  The turning point for me was going to see the "Blob" with a friend.  It was the first time either of us had walked to a movie at night without our parents.   There's this chilling scene where the Blob oozes through the vents of a movie theater and causes the audience to panic.    That was the highlight for us.   After surviving it, I felt prepared to deal with all of the horror scenes to come.  

Larry Klein

Well Phil, this won't be about my favorite "scary" movie (which was "The Blob", btw), but it should liven up the message board for some of our Eagles sports fans!

GOLF UPDATE

Walnut Hills Sophomore Katie Hallinan survived an adventurous opening round on Friday at the Div I Girls State Golf Finals with a scrambling 79, then blitzed the course on Saturday with even-par 70.  Katie netted four birdies and four bogeys in the process.  Her 149 total was good for a tie for state runner-up, just two shots off the winner.  Katie also garnered a slot on the all-state first team in just her second trip to State finals.

Coach and Katie with her runner-up medal and 1st team all state plaque at the OSU Scarlet and Grey Course following the Ohio Division I Golf finals.

Jerry Ochs

In an attempt to touch all bases, I dreamt I was watching the Cincinnati Reds finish the season with the 2nd worst win average (Philly's was worse) on a 1949 Motorola cabinet TV with a circular screen instead of studying for a Latin test.  Talk about scary.

Philip Spiess

First off, congratulations to Katie, and to you, Larry!  All goes well with training and coaching, it seems!

Ann:  I love Ferdinand the Bull, which I first had read to me at the University of Cincinnati's nursery school (part of the then Women's College, later the College of Home Economics), where I was a student prior to Kindergarten (notes on this earlier in these pages); I particularly love the pictures in Ferdinand, which have even colored my view of Bizet's opera Carmen (take note, Nelson).  To my surprise, I have never seen Disney's film on this subject, nor even knew it existed, although I'm a cataloger of Disney movies.  My meltdown in the movie theater was during Stars and Stripes Forever (1953), starring Clifton Webb as John Philip Sousa; I saw it at the downtown RKO Lyric theater (where I also saw Disney's Cinderella) as a child of about seven.  I dearly loved Sousa marches (as I've mentioned earlier in these pages), and I couldn't get enough of the movie.  We'd sat through it once, and then again about half way through (you could do that in those days), and then my parents said it was time to go.  I went ballistic -- they had to carry me out in a crying jag -- it must have been a Sunday, for we retired to my grandparents' house on Terrace Avenue in Clifton for supper, and I was in hysterics; they had to put me to bed with an aspirin!

And Ann:  I think most of us remember the shower scene in Psycho, with the blood going down the drain, as being in color, even though it was in black and white! -- the "blood" was apparently chocolate syrup!  (Hitchcock, you rascal! -- and you all know that Hitchcock made a brief cameo appearance in each of his films; you have to watch for them.)

Yes, Dale, I well remember you and me and Jeff Rosen going to a drive-in movie our junior or senior year (probably the summer between the two) to see Boris Karloff and Peter Lorre and Vincent Price in The Raven (1963), a total send-up of Edgar Allen Poe's poem (it even included a young Jack Nicholson) -- it was more hilarious than scary, and that's when you put your "foot" through the "boot" (i.e., back plastic window) of Jeff's car.  And, yes, terror at the age of four or five:  I was vastly troubled by Robert Newton's performance as "Long John Silver" in Disney's Treasure Island the year that it first came to the silver screen (1950), though later I came to think of his performance as the best (he really is the one who initiated "ARRGH!" as a pirate's classical vocal throat-clearing or utterance -- now very much a piratical cliche), a role which he repeated in a so-called sequel, Long John Silver (1955), first transformed into a TV series (1954).  He also played another pirate in Blackbeard the Pirate (1952).  (Very early on his voice and his eyes were recognizable as a smuggler in the film version of Daphne du Maurier's novel, Jamaica Inn, in 1939.)

Jerry:  Studying for Latin tests -- or the tests themselves -- was scary as hell!  So much for "Veni, Vide, Vici!" -- it was more "Non intendo" or "Non mi ricordo."

Oh, and having referred to the spelling of "Hallowe'en" [Post 1981], I should mention that I was taught this correct spelling by Miss Scarborough, my 1st grade teacher (who taught my mother and my sister and me how to read) at Clifton School -- who was also Miss Wilma Hutchison's (our beloved senior APP English teacher at WHHS) long-time companion and apartment mate -- both of them extraordinary teachers of English!

Ira Goldberg

So, folks, I remember seeing Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte, with its haunting song and lyrics. Remember the lover's hand being axed clean off and those exposed bones? Does it count as scary if I slept for days with my wrists wholly under pillow? Could never see Betty Davis or her eyes without humming it and seeing that ghastly image. 

Gene Stern

My Mom used to give me a quarter every Saturday and I walked to the movie theater in South Avendale (from Northern Avenue) to see the double feature.  I saw the original King Kong and it scared the heck out of me!  I was in the second or third grade. Can you imagine a parent allowing their 7-8 year old walk to a movie thater by themselves today-crossing major streets?

Ira Goldberg

Seeking assistance to ID names of colleges some classmates attended. Please message me if you know of these. I realize some have passed away. Others have attended none or one plus. Thanks, in advance.

Barbara Kahn (Tepper)

Gene, I know what you mean because the world has changed drastically.  One time my mother took me to the bus and said go downtown by yourself and learn to be independent.  I don't remember how old I was.  For 2 summers, at the age of 14 and 15, I was a candystiper at Jewish Hospital. I took the bus to Avondale from Roselawn and had to transfer to get there.  I would never let my young teenage daughter do the things she told me to do.  

As far as the scary movie goes, I delayed the answer because I cannot find the correct title of the movie but it was something about the Horrors of the Wax Museum but not what I find when searching I think.  There were a couple of birthday parties where theaters were rented and this movie was shown.  It scared me so much that I often just sat there and closed my eyes. 

Gene Stern

Barbie, I think that movie starred Vincent Price, as I recall someting about the Horrors of the Wax Museum.

Gene Stern

Barbie: I looked up Vincent Price movies (there were a lot of them) and the House of Wax was made in 1953-could that have been it?

David M. Schneider

Could have been the British film "Horrors of the Black Museum" from 1959 which I saw with John Isidor at either the Albee or the Palace.  The Blob was shown at the Grand with pink/red cellophane(?) hanging over the theater marque.

Ann Shepard (Rueve)

Perhaps it was House of Wax, 1953, starring Vincent Price as a mad sculptor who used real women (whom he was attracted to) to create his life like creations in wax. At the end, you saw his face was made out of wax to cover hideous scars  he suffered in a fire.  I saw it in the theater.  It was in 3-D.  We had to wear those paper glasses with green and red plastic lenses.

Here's a link:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0045888/

Barbara Kahn (Tepper)

David, I watched the trailer for Horrors of the Black Museum and it would've scared me but that's not it. Loved the trailer though.  Ann, I considered House of Wax with Vincent Price and I'm pretty sure I did see that but it's not the one I'm trying to remember.  Still searching....it might come to me in the middle of the night someday.  That's when I seem to remember things.  

Bruce Fette

Sorry to break the current thread.

Today I was able to scan a large format photograph from the Hughes High School class of 1941. If any of you had parents on the class, or have friends who may have had parents in this class maybe you would love to have a copy of this image for your family. I also have a Hughes High Year book from 1941, (with minor water damage). 

These names are on the back (I apologize if the spelling is not quite right but the hadwriting is highly stylized): Richard Kristi, Jack Linnie, Jas Riuncke, Norman Whitekamp, Ray Newforth, Willie Camova, Milton Armbruster, Robert Armbruster, ? Stone, Billie Moss, ? Stone, Dorothy Cole, Phyliss Wilson, Doris ?, June Hudson, Carolyn Stone, Dorcie Novotony, Narnie Schaefer, Marion Schwettman, Mary Whitsed, Helen Procter, Virginia Hill, Ruth Spreen, Rose Umbach, Betty Frankes, Hazel Harvey, Jessie Carr, Edith Harris, Evelyn Hirsch, Marion Fritsch, Jane Rowe, Martha Elmore, Kathryn Augustine, Vivian Bell, Annette Liebing, Nancy Flick, Elizabeth Rose, Marjorie Esterkamp, Mary Lou Ritten, Betty Linskey, Marjorie Miller, Charlotte Krafy, Gloria Smith, Magnolia Walkiss, Bernice Clark, Florence Bienceke, Margie Hicks, Dorthy Kistner, Betty Hill, Ellen Woodruff, Marily Morning, Esther Stockmier, Jane Meyer, George Wagner, Bob Klansing,  Arthus Fischer, Mark Hicks, Clyde Taylor, Allan Borgman, Jack Bradley, Richard Kist, Jas Backer, Greorge Bruckman, Al Grandenberger.

As with all these images, they are in pdf and dont appear able to be converted to JPEG.

So email to be if you know of someone with an interest. brucefette at yahoo.com

Ira Goldberg:

I dated Diane Lemperle, and I recently looked her up on the internet to see if I had a high school picture that matched her, which I did. She was mentioned in an equirer obituary as her husband had passed away. As of that time, she still lived in Cincinnati. ( I hope that is a tiny bit of help).

Dexter Roger Dixon

Phil:

The scariest film I ever saw was "The Haunting".  Last year I jumped at the chance to direct the stage version of the film entitled "The Haunting of Hill House".  I worked really hard to garner the same sort of unease and fear in the audience as was evident in the film.  It was one of my biggest directorial challenges.   From the audience response there were a lot of gasps and involuntary screams.

DRD

JoAnn Dyson (Dawson)

Scary movies--I really liked the old ones the best--"Dracula", "Mummy", etc.  The scariest:  "The Night of the Living Dead".  That's one that I could not finish.  I was a wreck.  I watched it on TV with my husband (who had seen it before) fell asleep,  I just could not watch it without an awake person with me.

Dexter--you would have enjoyed a recent discussion of Shirley Jackson who wrote The Haunting of Hill House and other interesting pieces.  The program was The Diane Riem (not sure of the spelling) on NPR, either late Sept or early Oct 2015.  Terrific discussion as is usual for that show.

And an old topic--Early TV:  We had our 1st TV when I was 9 years old. Many of you already mentioned shows that I enyoyed so much. I also recall "Mr. Peepers", "Gerald McBoing Boing", Sid Caesar (what a great show), and the great TV play shows.  Those shows of live or filmed plays were wonderful, even though I didn't always understand much more than recalling a plot here and there.

Philip Spiess

Gene:  Yes, King Kong was kind of kitsch as you went through the island jungle, then -- when Kong suddenly appears above that wall, it gets scary as hell!  After my son saw the movie as a relatively young child, we built the wall, etc., with his Legos, including Fay Wray shackled to the sacrificial altar.  Some questionable dad, huh?

Barbara:  Key waxworks movies include:  The Mystery of the Wax Museum (Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray, 1933); House of Wax (Vincent Price, 1953); Nightmare in Wax (a.k.a. Crimes in the Wax Museum) (Cameron Mitchell, 1969); Terror in the Wax Museum (Ray Milland, Broderick Crawford, Elsa Lanchester, Maurice Evans, John Carradine, 1973); The Florentine Dagger (Donald Woods, C. Aubrey Smith, 1935); Charlie Chan at the Wax Museum (Sidney Toler, 1940); Midnight at Madame Tussaud's (1936); Waxworks (German - Das Wachsfigurenkabinett) (Emil Jannings, Conrad Veidt, Werner Krauss, 1924); and Waxwork (Zach Galligan, Patrick Macnee,1988).  If you're interested, you can ask me about my connections with Madame Tussaud's museums.  I won't even go into what stories of wax museums occur in literature.  (I've been a museum professional for 48 years, remember?  And I did a lengthy bibliography on "Museums in Literature"; most of the works, it turned out, dealt with thefts, forgery, illegal digs, etc. -- quite an interesting set of readings!)

Dex:  So glad you were able to achieve the total frisson of horror that The Haunting of Hill House requires.  I remember that we read Shirley Jackson's short story "The Lottery" (1948) in 9th grade English with Mrs. Durbin; I suddenly think that it and Richard Connell's short story The Most Dangerous Game (1924), which we read in Mrs. Sommers' (nee Froug's) 8th grade English class, and which Jeff Rosen and I acted out to great acclaim -- at least our own, to each other -- could conceiveably together be prequels to The Hunger Games.

JoAnn:  Loved Mr. Peepers and Our Miss Brooks (with Eve Arden, whose ironically dry voice was always recognizable, even in other shows).  Enjoyed Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca (when I saw them later in repeats) from Your Show of Shows (1950-1954); I was considered too young to watch them when they were on originally, as I had to go to bed.  The sequence with the Swiss cuckoo clock that went off kilter was classic!

I suddenly recalled, when my mother (94 years old) was at our house for Hallowe'en dinner, that she not only had Miss Scarborough (mentioned above) as a teacher at Clifton School, but that she had had Miss Hutchison for English as well at WHHS.  She said that they had had to vote on what they were to read; I remember that in 12th-grade APP English with Miss Hutchison, we, too, had to vote on whether we were going to read Chaucer's Canterbury Tales or Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby or something else (which I forget).  Being a classicist, I voted for Chaucer, but Fitzgerald won; we read The Great Gatsby.  I will say I enjoyed it immensely, and it played out well in college, when I had to read it again, and wrote a paper comparing it with Catcher in the Rye, which won me plaudits in the English department ("So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.").

Philip Spiess

Friends:

In the increasing turgid frenzy and ensuing pandemonium (in the original sense of the word) of this our present Presidential season, exhibiting an excitement not seen since Tilden beat Hayes and Dewey defeated Truman, I recommend for your reading enjoyment (and as a corrective astringent) "Saki's" (H. H. Munro's) short story "Forewarned" [from The Toys of Peace (1919)].

Also, a cautionary note:  If you have an election lasting more than four months, check your blood pressure and call your doctor.

Jean Snapp (Miller)

Amen to that.  So glad that our governor is back in Wisconsin doing the job he was elected to do (3 times in 4 years).

Bruce Fette

Some folks in Congress should consider doing the same. :)