Author: bookmarcus

THE NOTEBOOK
Ohio is written, all I, II, and III of it. Some stuff just didn”t fit, but was too precious to ignore. Here it is.

CHEERLEADERS
The Reds have Cheerleaders! There are three and they dance on top of the dugout between innings. I don”t recall any organized cheering. Rah Rah Sis Boom Bah, Go Reds!

VEHICLES
I saw one Prius in Ohio. Of course there are more, but it is obvious that trucks (including SUVs and the giant “minivans”) outnumber cars by at least two to one.
Continue reading “WHS 50 The Notebook” →

It was a partly sunny, but cool Sunday afternoon before Labor Day, the Giants win at Cincinnati was over and there was no NFL on the TV, it being the last Sunday before the regular season kicks in.

Bored, I decided to go to Circuit City and look at TVs again. I had been looking at HDTVs at Circuit City and Anderson’s Big Screen TVs on the Peninsula for a couple of months or more. But I hadn”t pulled the trigger. Leslie recently got a 42″ from Circuit City and Paula and John were sporting a smaller wide-screen number, so I was in the mood.
Continue reading “Th’ TV” →

This is the third installment of my odyssey surrounding the Columbus West High School Class of January 1956 reunion.

Since I made the long trip to Ohio for a weekend, I extended the trip on each end for some adventures in Cincinnati, and passed through Carol’s homestead in Lancaster in each direction, as well. This epistle is divided into three parts; The Heartland, Columbus and the Reunion, and finally Lancaster Redux and Cincinnati.

If you want to know more about the food, I”m concurrently posting a food centric edition on my eats site.

Sunday, August 20, 2006 (continued)
“I”mmmm Baaaaack,” I called out as I came through the door. Liz and Bus were in their chairs and Bus said, “Alan will pick us up at four to go to the Logan Country Club for dinner.” Whodathunk there would ever be such a thing as Logan Country Club?! I had four hours to kill. I figured Carol should be up by 9:30, so I called. That took 15 minutes. So I called Sue Hupp, the girl I took on a double date with Jim Heil and Carol Hale in 1958. (It’s now Sue Mohr and she lives outside Baltimore, Ohio.) That took another 20 minutes. Idea!! “You folks had lunch?” Not really but not much thinking about it. “I”m going to Bob Evans (an Ohio cultural institution) so I can write about it. Want to come along?”

“No, you go ahead, we”ll just have a little something here… dinner’s coming up.” Bob Evans is a mile or so toward town on the ridge above Memorial Drive. Although there was a wait, one for lunch and no preference on smoking snagged a quick seat at a table near the window in the smoking section. Nobody is smoking, I doubt that anybody would in a Bob Evans.

Continue reading “WHS50 III” →

This is the second installment of my odyssey surrounding the Columbus West High School Class of January 1956 Reunion.

Since I made the long trip to Ohio for a weekend, I extended the trip on each end for some adventures in Cincinnati, and passed through Carol’s homestead in Lancaster in each direction, as well. This epistle is divided into three parts; The Heartland, Columbus and the Reunion, and finally Lancaster Redux and Cincinnati.

If you want to know more about the food, I”m concurrently posting a food centric edition on my eats site.

Friday, August 18, 2006 (continued)
Just as I got in the car, it started to rain, not hard, but rain. I drove out of it within a mile. I kept taking “downtown” cues on what ever US-33 turned into and got off where it said Broad Street. This is now familiar territory, the streets I roamed before the freeways were built. I passed the State Capitol and thought I should have a digital picture of that. After circling a few blocks I parked on 3rd Street and pumped the meter with all the change I had for 22 minutes. Enough. In the course of walking around the capitol block, I took an oblique and a straight on picture, found a little but nice farmers market tucked into an alley off Broad Street, followed this young woman with a great ass, soaked in the scene and got back with 3 minutes to spare.

Continue reading “WHS50 II” →

If you are at all curious — it’s not a popular character trait right now, but I think it’s essential for happiness — you can find the most wonderful things, and the most wonderful ideas, and there are many most wonderful things and ideas, and that’s why getting up in the morning is a pleasure. With caffeine: even better.

–Jon Carroll, SF Chronicle 8/29/06

Now that I”m back, I”ve jazzed up this post with some pictures and a little editing, and decided to divide the trip into three parts; The Heartland, Columbus and the Reunion, and finally Lancaster Redux and Cincinnati.

If you want to know more about the food, I”m concurrently posting a food centric edition on my eats site.

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Our swell United airplane makes a smooth landing at Dulles International (the co-pilot is a woman) 40 minutes ahead of schedule. Doesn”t mean I”ll get home any earlier, what it means is I”ll have some time to kill. I know the concept of Dulles, very European; big transporters go to a plane and load people off, take them to the terminal which is a big room with a few “gates” where the transporters hook up. This is not the octopus type of airport where spiny legs stick out from the main termanel, and people walk, often a long way. Since it was designed by Eero Saarinan and built in 1982, things have changed. The Octopus” legs have been built but they”re not connected to the body. The big transporters go to the detached legs and get people who have assembled at a central gate and take them to another detatched leg or to the main terminal (body). So here I am on leg A, having come from leg D, and never having seen the magnificant terminal. Now that I”m writing this, I”m thinking that I should have gone to see it, I had time. But no… I had to have a Sam Adams Draft at the Cosi bar on the A leg.
Continue reading “WHS50” →

Hot damn! Summer in the City
Masha’s here and she’s lookin’ pretty
Walk around lookin’ for a ditty
Chinatown and every corner of the City

All around people doin” hip hop
Checked out Yerba Buena from the rooftop

Went ‘n’ found Titanic there
Spelling Bee was th’ next affair
C’mon c’mon there’s quilts in sight
That’s just for another night

And hey, doncha know it’s too witty
The days are good as the nights
In the summer, in the city
Masha’s in the city

Continue reading “Masha in the City” →