southeast Ohio road trip

mosaic above front entrance St. John the Evangelist Logan Ohio

glazed brick fired in Logan, in front of St. John's (1897)

2007 Mural of Mingo leader Logan the Orator 1780†, on side of bank next to park on the chief intersection. Quotation is covered up. Only the words “not one” are visible. 

Logan's Lament delivered near Circleville

“I appeal to any white man to say, if ever he entered Logan's cabin hungry, and he gave him not meat; if ever he came cold and naked, and he clothed him not. During the course of the last long and bloody war, Logan remained idle in his cabin, an advocate for peace. Such was my love for the whites, that my countrymen pointed as they passed, and said, Logan is the friend of the white men. I have even thought to live with you but for the injuries of one man. Col. Cresap, the last spring, in cold blood, and unprovoked, murdered all the relations of Logan, not sparing even my women and children. There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living creature. This has called on me for revenge. I have sought it: I have killed many: I have fully glutted my vengeance. For my country, I rejoice at the beams of peace. But do not harbor a thought that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will not turn on his heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan? Not one.”

Southeast Ohio mined coal, and clay. The towns produced glass, ceramics, pipe, and brick. The coal mine owners were harsh, and greedy bastards. The formation of unions were necessary, and were put down by all means available. I remember reading, Nelsonville was Local #1 of the United Mine Workers (i do not have the citation here). Most of the coaling was done after the War for the Union (1861-5), and ended after World War II.

Public Square of Nelsonville Ohio has this two-sided marker concerning the Hocking Valley Coal Strike of 1884-5. There has been periods of time, in which the recounting of such history was not approved. We still have powerful forces that want such recollections not to be public knowledge.

Karma did a circuit around this fountain, and was miffed there was no opening. She enjoys a dip in such pools. It was in the mid-80s at the time.

On a hill above, Betty's Cross [click] stands above town, and yes Nelsonville is a town again (5,000).

Piggly Wiggly is the best name in the grocery business. Always thought, they were a southern chain. Ohio has five stores, and the most northerly one is in The Plains. The store had been a Big Bear, and then a Foodland. Inside The Plain's store is the banner infra.

Athens High is in The Plains. The football stadium is now named after Joe Burrow, Class of 2015. In 2019, he was awarded the Heisman Trophy for being the best college football player. The vote was a rout, he had won by the greatest margin in its history. More importantly, is what he said,

“Coming from southeast Ohio, it’s a very, very impoverished area. The poverty rate is almost two times the national average. There are so many people there that don’t have a lot, and I’m up here for all those kids in Athens and Athens County that go home to not a lot of food on the table, hungry after school. You guys can be up here, too.”

In a few days, a few hundred thousands of dollars came to charities in Athens County, including the county food bank. The county school board voted to name the stadium after him.

This sundial is on the spot of the first building of Ohio University Athens. It sees very little sun, so it is largely inoperative. Many thousands of people have walked by it, and did not notice.

The Ohio Coal Miner. Alan Cottrill. 2012. Byesville.

Cassius is posing in front of the statue. The miner has the tools of his trade with him. Historical details alluding to the history are on the statue:  half of a fore finger is missing, in a jacket pocket there is a medallion numbered 382, for the number of miners dying while working in Guernsey County. There is a coal miners' museum to the left, and a train exhibit to the right.

signs on a garage, Byesville

Logan Oak

In Old Logan Cemetery, there is one of the biggest, and oldest white oak trees in Ohio. The town estimated the tree to be 600 years old. Glancing through computer search engine, doubts that, it has 450 as a limit, and i did not find this tree listed. That little spot of  pink, towards the lower left center, is a shirt on a six foot man. The black stripe next to him, is a greyhound. The tree is on a hill which drops off  precipitously, at left, and aft. [foto:jz]

View about 90° from supra, and yes, some boughs touch the ground.

gnarly and broad

It is a marvelous tree, and boughs go in many directions.

  Fotos here are all taken roughly perpendicular to the ground.[foto:jz]

Trees can be climbed, or hugged. [foto:jz]

Lorain Impoundment mudflat

There have been landscape changes, aplenty, at the impoundment. Some were surprising, such as the removal of many trees. The best one (by far) for attracting birds is the mudflat that has come this year. It is easy to get to, is small, and various migrants visit.  A willet has been there for a while, i greeted the bird enthusiasm. This willet , and a few other shorebirds were the first of their species i have seen--called lifers by bird watchers. I missed the visits of a golden plover, a dunlin, and a ruddy turnstone.

 

Same Willet, is the other bird a Sanderling? if so, i saw these two together, and had not seen either before.

Warblers are great, but herons are easier to photograph; they pose sometimes.

two avocets

3 species: avocets, kildare, dowitcher

Pectoral Sandpiper

female mallard, semi-palmated sandpiper

2022 Miscellany #12

The end of summer monarch butterfly migration from Canada, sometimes includes an overnight rest stop at Cleveland's Whiskey Island/Wendy Park. When it is a very cool, and maybe wet evening, they clump into clusters. When the new day warms up, they get active again, and flutter away south.

Not an Hallowe'en decoration, but a part of below porch outer space theme.

Der Name Beethoven ist heilig in der Kunst

I saw this a few years ago [click], and yesterday i was in the neighbourhood. I wanted to see if it still was in good shape. Sometimes in the past, i would have waited for his birthday to post, or have a count down like Schroeder. To-day, enjoy a fifth of Beethoven.

Sometimes while visiting a colorful site, other people are having their pictures taken by professionals. This was in the Rockefeller Greenhouse, Cleveland...

..and this was in front of Cleveland Art Museum.

look right

as seen from Red Green Walkway Cleveland

sand and chalk ephemerals

Carl Jara does the sand sculpture, annually, at Berea's Oktoberfest. Usually there is a German theme.

Ruh-roh [foto: jz]

City Dogs is Cleveland's kennel. They are very often beyond capacity. Almost all the dogs are pit bulls, or pit bull mixes. They are a stigmatised breed. Many are sweet dogs. This is a way to get them noticed.

sketch of blue dog

chalkings of koi, and other fish were popular

one of the bridge pylon's heads

Postage stamp Elvis was a Saturday chalking protected with plastic sheeting, before Sunday noon there was hours of rain. Some chalkings were washed away. The nature of outside, open air art made with sand, and chalk are temporary installations. Water will move fine particles of rock. There is a small duration after creation, see it while it lasts. Overall, these tend to be a conservative art form, and easily appreciated. Abstract expressionism does not appear. The chalkings were done on the stone surfaces outside the 1916 entrance of Cleveland Art Museum.

chalk after rain

There were a few remembrances of Elizabeth II.

Posing with Greyhounds #9 — Chalk Artists

front row: Karma, Cassius — back row: Oliver St.Clair, Hector Castellano

by Oliver St.Clair, who fancied both of the wolves

by Hector Castellano:  large, unfinished chalking consisting of many bats (no Bacardi endorsement)

Cleveland Art Museum has returned to a two day chalking. Overnight, and through the morning the rains fell, and much chalk washed away. A few works were protected by clear sheeting, or tent. These fotos were taken late Sunday morning, and wetness was all around.

When the Emperor was Divine

    

Well, sometime ago i got "When the Emperor was Divine" from the library. I got it because it was banned. Someone with a political agenda objected to it as un-American. It described the internal concentration camps for Japanese Americans. That was a taboo subject, and some want it to be again. Orwell's memory hole exists in America, and it is de rigeur in Republican America.

When it came, i saw it was a small book, but procrastination is its own reward. Well, today i went for the bivalent coronavirus vaccine. In the past, a fifteen minute wait thereafter was required. The nurse saw on her computer, that, i had no allergic reaction to the prior ones, so it was not necessary to wait. I had brought the book to start for that time interval. She asked me, whether i wanted to get a flu shot. I said "yes". There was a line for that, so i began the book.

First paragraph was straight forward prose, it was the cause necessitating a small shopping trip. It was the narrator's last day in town. The next day, the remainder of her family was going into internal deportation. She had things to pack. There were three pictures hanging in the home. One was a painting of Princess Elizabeth...serendipity...she died two days ago. There was a picture of Jesus, and Millet's "Gleaners".

Then the brutality began. Her husband was in camp for months. When he was allowed to write home, the envelope was stamped, "Censored War Department", or "Detained Alien Enemy Mail".

Pets were not allowed to accompany the internal exiles. She gave the cat to a neighbour. The White Dog was old, and blind in one eye. Part of the shopping was for a hammer, the store did not have one sufficiently large. She used a shovel to dispatch the animal, in one blow. The story began on page 3, we are up to page 11. I was slow to start this book, i do not think i will take a long time to finish it.

The problem with a good novel, or other art, is that it can lead to empathy when showing truth. Truth that makes the powers that be, or those who wish to be a part of the powers that be, look bad. It is not that they are ashamed, they are angry and wish to impose their will to satisfy their feelings of revenge, and wish to crush anything that does not support their views, or programme.

vanishing Labor Day parades

I read, that this year, there are three Labor Day parades in Ohio with significant Labor involvement. Toledo is Ohio's fourth most populous city. The other two parades are in Kettering, and Barberton. Ronnie Reagan, his reaganistas, and offal of successive Republicans and their owners have done great damage to the civic presence of Labor.

I have, over recent years, come to photograph parades. It is public space, people parading are in good moods, and are there to be seen. The better fotos come before the parade when people are just standing around waiting. To-day, there was a light drizzle throughout the parade in Barberton.

We were near the start of the parade. The Summit County mounted unit was next to us during the entire parade. Sheriff Kandy Fatheree is furthest left.

One of the first units, Barberton High School Marching Band, wore raincoats. Unfortunately, they were not joined by any neighbouring schools.

With the militancy of fascist, and other Republican constituencies the libraries are in the cross hairs [click]. It is good to see librarians in public.

novelty ambulance

Since to-day is Labor Day, you would think labor would be up front. But no, the unions were all in the tail end.

As in so many parades, there were politicians. I do not know, if they switch off in alternate years. The Republicans were up front, and the Democrats were ahead of the workers and their unions. Tim Ryan was there, and he had the right message.

the secreted monuments

Ever take a walk in the woods, and a monument appears? We were walking, in a group of almost twenty, in part of the former lands of Simon Perkins. His father, Simon (whose father also was a Simon Perkins) was a surveyor for Moses Cleaveland. Those two Simons were among the largest owners of land in the Connecticut Western Reserve, and then Ohio. The middle Simon was the co-founder of Akron. His son moved to Akron to manage part of those lands. He had many sheep, and went into business with John Brown. To-day, some of that land is Akron Zoo, and Perkins Park.

John Brown had a home in Akron Ohio from 1844 to 1854. Ohio was a free state then, and he came from Connecticut Yankee stock. In 1837, Brown was living in nearby Hudson. In church, John made a public declaration that he consecrated his life to he abolition of slavery. In Akron, he became a sheepman and wool merchant. In his business travels, he was a conductor of the Underground Railroad—he led enslaved people north to freedom. He was called Captain John Brown.

Brown was hanged in December 1859. Historically, he was Akron's most significant resident. It was approaching fifty years, and there was no monument in Akron of Brown. Akron's German American Alliance acquired a sandstone column from the demolished county courthouse, placed it on a plinth, and put a metal eagle (gone for some time) on top in 1910. In 1938, a plaza, seating and a second monument was added.

John Brown 1800-1859 

He died to set his brothers free 

His soul goes marching on 

Dedicated Sept 25ᵗʰ 1938 by the Negro 25 Year Club of Akron Ohio

For a few decades, the monument was part of a public park. Then urban blight came, and the area was abused. The path was fenced off, and the zoo became custodian. Vandalism has stopped, and the monument has been largely forgotten. Now for a couple of decades, there has been various talks of moving the zoo, moving the monument, expanding the zoo, making the monument accessible to everyone. Summit County Historical Society has occasional excursions to the monument, to-day was such an instance.

medallion close up [foto:jz]

John Brown is an important historical figure. His cause was just, and he became
willing to use violence, combat, and bloodshed. He, and some of his sons were involved in Bleeding  Kansas, in the second half of the 1850s. A precursor to the later war, that involved all of the United States, was fought in Kansas on the issue of chattel slavery. There was a federal armory in Harpers Ferry Virginia with 10,000 muskets and rifles. He and a group of men, the size of the group who visited the monument to-day, went to capture the armory in October 1859. He planned to arm the enslaved in Virginia. Rebellion, insurrection, uprising, and freedom were to come to county, after county in Virginia, and the rest of the South. He failed.

For decades, the slave owners had been paranoid, and fearful of slave revolts. Now, white men, Yankees were willing to start revolts. Brown terrified them, and his actions would be called terrorism to-day. To many in the North, and to Black Americans he was a hero, and martyr. To many on both sides, he was the other bookend to Abraham Lincoln.

Recently, Confederate monuments have been removed. Modern sympathisers were upset. For those, who would know of the existence of the John Brown memorials, they would not be pleased with their continued existence. 

________________________

postscriptum:  There are southerners still who say, "Well, i'll be John Browned".  John Browned is a synonym for damned, and hanged.

Republican speak—candidate quality

It is rare when a Republican makes a truthful admission. Marble-mouthed Moscow Mitch, the sleazy, slimy, serpentine Senate leader made one on the 18th of August. The press and political prognosticators have called for a Republican ascendancy, almost since Biden's inauguration. The forecasts are changing slowly, more slowly than reality. As Mencken noted, Americans are a pretty dumb lot. The one adage the faux savants of political commentary do correctly employ is that voters have a short memory (with exceptions). The last federal elections were Democracy versus Fascism, and so are the upcoming ones. Hair Furor lost, lied (well constantly), and did not want to leave. His putsch failed. Orange Caligula has not stopped plotting.

'Candidate quality' is business jargon for hiring. Spanky Covefe has involved himself in Repukican primaries. The quality he demands from candidates is the repetition of his lies. This gives the more despicable, and deranged individuals currency.

“The problem the Republican Party has is that they got really stupid people that vote in their primaries, and… really stupid people demand to have really stupid leaders. That’s where the Republican Party is now.” — James Carville

Now, whether a Repuke is vilely reprehensible, or not, it does not much matter politically. They will act as a unified, unflinching bloc on most matters. Those who act on conscience will be ostracized. So which particular miscreant is chosen is of little difference, outside of histrionics. Now in some districts, and states any Monster (R) will win; in others not so much.

The commentariat is now reeling in their cast. McConnell has given them the signal. “I think there’s probably a greater likelihood the House flips than the Senate.  Senate races are just different. Candidate quality has a lot to do with the outcome.” What he admits to is obvious [it is not possible to gerrymander a senate race], and he does not mention Biden's successes, the Supreme Court, or Trump's continuous treason.

These less than stellar candidates are legion. Very few read my essays, a lengthy essay is not practical for me to type. I will mention only a few of the horses' asses.

Florida and Texas have two incumbent performing fascists, who aspire to the presidency, as governors; both are running for re-election. In Texas, Beto Rourke (a gifted speaker, and maybe a good and sincere man) is again running against a major malefactor. Rourke lost his Senate bid against the largest cesspool in the Senate, the one senator who is hated by all senators, Rafael Canadian Cancun Cruz.

The premier charlatan the Repukes are running for senator is in the Pennsylvanian race. He lives in New Jersey. He is a Turkish agent, but primarily he is a celebrity quack. He was unleashed on America by Oprah Winfrey, and given a national teevee show, which he has used to enrich himself, partly by promoting fraudulent cures and nonsense. No surprise that the Donald approved. In Baum's story, the Wizard of Oz admitted he was a fraud.

The billionaire class puts up candidates to do their financial wants, and whims. Much of literate America realises that Koch Industries has selected many Republicans, but there are other billionaires that reach with their tentacles to arrange a politic garden. One such is Peter Thiel, a queer Nazi, who has put his millionaire employees as the senatorial candidates in Arizona, and Ohio. The one in Arizona (who may be an ex-paramour, but current political etiquette frowns on outing; but Miss Lindsey gets elected easily, time after time) is running against an incumbent who was an astronaut, and whose wife survived a political assassination.

The goofiest race is in Georgia. The current governor and his allies have done everything they could within the law, and much outside the law, to limit the voting rolls. It is easier to win elections, when you choose who votes. Kemp is running for election in a rematch against Abrams, who increased the voting rolls. In Georgia, for some time, nearly all the white congressman have been especially repugnant. But the goofiest race is for US Senate. Even before Trumple-thin-skin, white supremacy has been supreme in the South. Two generations ago it switched parties. This senate contest is between two black men. The incumbent is a Democrat, Raphael Warnock, pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church Atlanta. The same church as the Kings. The other candidate is a former employee of Cadet Bone Spurs. Herschel Walker played Georgia football, and has not lived in the state for years. He has a history of severe mental problems, he probably also has football brain injuries. His comprehension, and speech patterns suggest dementia. The lack of sanity is emblematic of the Republican Partei, and electorate. Yet, the polls showed to the public are astonishingly close. Bloody well how?