Ukrainians are still here

Line up waiting. Normandy High is now one of two public high schools in Parma, last year there were three.

Big brass arrives.

Family likes Argos.

St. Vladimir Orthodox, one of several Ukrainian parishes (mostly) within Parma

Puppies can march too.

German Shepard rides in a butcher's truck.

Great Dane mix

on the edge of Appalachia

Millfield Coal Mine Disaster

Important details are on the sign. Sunday Creek Coal Company Poston Mine #6  was considered the safest mine in the Hocking Valley. Two hundred and fifty some miners were working that day. The mine was known to be gassy. An electrical line arced, and the explosion came. Nearly all those died were choked by a non-explosive gas, carbon monoxide. Most of the men who escaped, climbed ventilation shafts. The nineteen that were found alive, only two were conscious. That group had walled themselves off from the gas by an ersatz wall they made from mud, burlap, scrap wood. This was Ohio's deadliest mining incident. The mine continued until 1945. Not until the 1970s was there some interest in marking the lives, and the event. 

 

I heard a professor of geography say, that the mid-West began in Lancaster and ended in Denver. East Millfield is in Athens County, which is wholly in Appalachia; and as Joe Burrow realised growing up, the area has much poverty. Lancaster is midway between the state capital and Athens. If one were to drive south on 33, you will see the flat ground approaching a rising wall of trees. Those hills of trees commence to Appalachia. While the Middle West is agricultural land of fecundity, Appalachia is one of rock. There is clay for pottery, pipes, and bricks. There is coal. Coal mining is dirty and deadly. When the coal has been tapped out, poverty remains. Ohio is not a coal mining state anymore.

Not very far from Millfield and Chauncey is Morristown Holiness Church. This was part of their campus. This is a Pentecostal sect.

basketball hoop on the porch of a rental unit 

The big engine of money generation in the county is the first college in the Middle West (the old North West), Ohio University. The county seat is there too in Athens' County, the biggest of the county's two towns, and in most decades the only town.  The government's definition of a town is 5,000 people. Each county has a county seat. In south east Ohio, several county seats are villages. One of the money makers in Athens is renting to college students. And, each year new bodies with fresh dollars in many old shabby abodes.

Black vultures high atop the old Athens Lunatic Asylum. 

The main building had a administrative core, with one wing for female residents, and one wing for male residents. There is a big stone on the building, 1868. The first patients came in 1874. Seeing the building's date alone, it would have been the great war to save the Union against insurrectionists, and secessionists. I have not seen the records, i would have guessed a number of war veterans might have been there. I did see a note, that many epileptics were sent there. Epilepsy was considered a form of lunacy. The name of the hospital was changed many times, and the patients were not all mad. Tuberculosis victims stayed there.

The place had many buildings. It was also a working farm, and some trade shops operated there. Physical labor was considered therapeutic, and it help sustain the enterprise. At one time, it was the largest employer in the county. It was like a village. In 1993 it was no longer a hospital, Ohio University absorbed it. 

 

Ohio University's oldest buildings are on what is called the College Green. In the 1950s & 60s the campus expanded with dormitories on the new East, West, and South Greens. The State Asylum was called the North Green unofficially by the students. Now the university is calling the class room buildings near College Green, "North Green".

In recent years, an interest has developed over the three cemeteries, WOUB-TV did at least one documentary. Also as a place where many lobotomies were performed, has made it a further interest to medical history.

Between the outdoor steps of a classroom under an arch, is this Jonah? 

James Edward Leonard Eldridge *1930, 2018 was a Michigan Wolverine footballer, who became a navy pilot. In 1958 was an art professor at Ohio University, and became Æthelred Eldridge. He was an avant-garde painter in black and white, and an eccentric enthused by William Blake. In 1967 he painted a very large mural on the arch connecting two parts of Seigfried Hall. The powers that were, were not amused. He painted it over in white, with two little hands trying to break through from behind the whitewash. For years it remained that way. I read that it was brought back in 2015. Eldridge lived in Millfield on a place he called Golgonooza (Blake's city of imagination).

Keith Wilde. Release. 2018. This is where Carpenter becomes Stimson. I took a snap on another day [click].

Ombrellino, there are seven of these in Ohio. This is the newest one. Saint Mary in Lancaster has been raised to a minor basilica. The dedication was on the Assumption of Mary, also a name of the parish, on its feast day on August 15th. Papal colors are scarlet and gold, the umbrella is kept half open, if the pope comes it becomes fully open. A tintinnabula (bell) is also given. Both are meant to be used in procession.

Guatemala on West 25th

To-day there was a public celebration of a panoramic mural of Guatemala on Cleveland's near west side. I learned about its creation from a teevee story on WEWS-5. I went there five times to see the continuing progress, and i was repeatedly pleasantly surprised by new additions. To-day, i asked a fellow when did the jaguar, and the monkey show up. He said they flew in last night.

July 26th.  More of the mural extends to either side, here is the large middle. It was clear that the quetzal bird was the centerpiece. He is the national bird. The money there is in quetzals, stamps had quetzals. There are some six species. The one painted here is the resplendent quetzal, at first it was the only one called quetzal. The Nahuatl word means "large brilliant tail feather". After the male bird becomes an adult, it takes three years for the tail feathers to grow out. One grade school teacher taught us that Aztec emperors had capes made from these feathers. Once i saw a 1948 Buick Roadmaster drive by, it was painted in Aztec green; i had to check the foto, i had misremembered it as a Pontiac, General Motors could have used the same color for a different make too. [click, one of these fotos shows the bird did not yet cover the door]

August 3rd. Corn grew on the far right side.

August 3rd. The door is painted over, and the mountain is a volcano.

August 10th. Dragonflies

August 10th. Froggy

August 10th. Iguana

August 12th. Quetzal has his feathers further detailed. I thought, the painting was practically done. I was wrong.

August 20th. Here's a howler monkey. There are many species of howler monkeys, not just the loud fake blonde con man howler monkey type we have in the States.

Alex was one of the seven painters on the project. He had been a tae-kwon-do champion and Olympian in his youth. He remembered driving a '48 Buick to Cedar Point. That is why i had to check whether my foto was of a Pontiac, or not [click].

Akron Zoo

This jaguar posed.

From my angle, this Sumatran tiger seemed to have a large head.

There was a garden, partly devoted to monarch butterflies. This is a sculpture of  one in the caterpillar stage. One of the great photo-ops throughout the park. You can sit on it and pretend cowboy.

perhaps the stateside descendant of the Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog

A very well kept building is the Komodo Kingdom, with a Curious Animal display. chameleon supra

Barn owls are the most wide spread of all owls. They are night time hunters of grasslands, and one of six that can be naturally found in Ohio, but not great numbers, They are among the North American animals in the park.

I was mesmerised by moon jellyfish. They were behind a window, and oddly they continued to float upwards, i don't know if there was a loop they travelled.

From a couple of spots, the smokestacks (2 on the left) of the old BF Goodrich tire factory could be seen. There is a current issue of there impending demolition.

For a three hour comfortable walking tour, one can see the entire park. It is well landscaped, clean, compact, and very friendly. There are changes in elevation, they are gradual enough. There are many polite and informed volunteers. There are play spots for children. It is a very well designed zoo.

Argos visits North Collinwood

Argos amongst rose mallow/giant hibiscus

Saw a fellow post from Yorkshire his photos of his walking dog. Here is one with Argos.

close up of the dragon's head

St. Joe's (VASJ) is getting tiger turf for Bill Gutbrod Field. For many years, their home varsity football games were played at Euclid High. For a time, their football team was at the top of the state vying with a Cincinnati Catholic school. Locally, they were to be eclipsed by Iggie's, and Ed's. Their junior varsity and practice field was here, and the grass was poor, ok--lousy. They had merged with a girl's school, and the combined body is smaller. Tuesday, the new field started to go in. Now, much more than a generation has passed. At midfield, there will be a scarlet V with a Columbia blue outline.

Argos rests on a strip.

Catholic high school football is considered a big thing.

mid-century bas-relief sculpture on the shop building 

The school began in the 1950s, post World War II, about the same time as Lakewood's St. Edward's. Joe's was in Cleveland, and Euclid was across the street. It was affordable, and many ethnic, and working class, and poorer boys' families attended. It was not solely college preparatory. A lot of those boys would not be able to go there then, if under to-day's economics.

scaffolding in front of Our Lady of Perpetual Help

photographs of abandoned places #43

 Willson Avenue Temple

9 June 2019 Friendship Baptist

Cleveland renamed streets in 1906, it was organised by increased, ordered numbering.  Willson Avenue became East 55th. Cleveland's second Jewish congregation, Tifereth Israel, finished a new building on Willson Avenue in 1894. Previously they were further downtown on Huron. In 1924 they moved to a beautiful new temple on Ansel & E. 105. Later they moved to an eastern suburb. This constant movement eastward was done by many Jewish congregations. Some of these buildings were great, but they were transitory. This one is the oldest extant Jewish worship building in Cleveland.

Willson Avenue Temple was sold to Mount Zion Congregational in 1924, they then also moved eastward. Friendship Baptist (not the only one in Cleveland) of National Baptist Convention U.S.A. bought the old temple in 1940. That congregation had filled the building, but a few years ago they were down to a few dozen people. In 2014 they were between pastors, and someone stole the outside copper wiring. For a time, the outside sign advertised a centennial celebration for 25 November 2018. I don't know when they had their last service, but guessing from a sign, they were absorbed by Mt. Sinai Baptist.

12 August 2023 Some weeding had been done for a few years, it has pretty much stopped.

That tree may have been growing there from last century.

nests at the bottom of the windows, and resurgent ivy

Those robes have been there since closing. Those bars have been there for some time. The side entrance for the offices is on Central, across the street is the now closed East High. The sanctuary entrance is on East 55th, and housing projects are across that street.

2023 Miscellany #12 — more images

  Blue heron makes a water landing, North Ridgeville O. July 19th.

New Guinea impatiens

 Clydesdale stockings are called feathers, i too once had hairy shanks.

Sometimes parking is a problem. Sunset Strip, North Canton O.

A building on Scranton, Lincoln Heights Cleveland, is undergoing a slow remodel. These old windows look great, they had been boarded over for years as the building was vacant.

It's raining at the zoo, so go into the gift shop and buy animal pattern plastic panchos.

Argos' summer reading

Ever watch teevee, a football game, slow motion replay? and you see little black pellets fly up after footsteps? O, you are seeing fine, it is not some aberrant optical conclusion[sic], it is crumb rubber infill made of ground up tires. It makes the playing carpet safer, and longer lasting, it keeps the color fast, and decreases drying time. Yet, that ground car tire contains many chemicals in its production. It is more comfortable than first generation astroturf, but it is not healthy as real grass; also this field was a hazardous chemical site a few years ago,

 

So, the carpet layer is a landscaper. Here his machine drives the pellets into the turf of Jose Ramirez Field Cleveland. August 10th.