Ol’ Man River

Happy Saturday. It’s wonderful to sit back a bit in a warm room keying these Ramblings. All week long I’ve been hearing; “worst ever” in regards our weather. And yes, it has been cold, bitter cold. And, cold enough where much of the snow, now ice, wouldn’t melt.

But in my lifetime, it’s been worse. This week forty-six years ago, the Ohio River froze over. People walked between Ohio and Kentucky. It didn’t take long before our Mayor, Jerry Springer (yes, THE “Jerry, Jerry” of TV fame) put a halt to the happy ice-walkers. It was pointed out that underneath the ice the river was still flowing; “fall through and it’ll pull and drag you under the ice”. Whoops! Hadn’t thought of that. See, we were all young and foolish once.

Love that little piece of “Ol’ Man River”? It’s from Paul Robeson singing in the musical Show Boat (London 1928)

Before I forget, last week I promised that I’d report on our emergency stash of Aldi’s coffee; Thumbs Up, we’re enjoying even as I’m writing.

Katie Hopkins – an English commentator columnist and professional ‘controversial gadfly’ who has been described as a professional troll by the Huffpost.

Her take on the last-minute indoor inauguration on Monday was that this was the plan all along.

Her Quote: “Word on the street – inauguration pulled indoors to keep the President alive & get him in the White House”.

Personally, I think it was primarily related to the weather.

So now it’s a bright new day, the Don shines.

OK – I had to do some research this past week. Basically, to get access to some missing pages in a book. Okay, no problem, we have a large County-wide Library system. Strike one, they didn’t have a copy.

All right, now it was the Amazon route, strike two. A trip to our largest, we-have-it-all, bookstore. Strike three and I was out.

Or was I? It’d been a long time, but I remembered that something called the Internet Archive; Digital Library. This is a free non-profit entity and over time had amassed the following, all easily accessible:

• 835 billion web pages
• 44 million books and texts
• 15 million audio recordings (including 255,000 live concerts)
• 10.6 million videos (including 2.6 million TV news programs)
• 4.8 million images
• 1 million software programs

The old account still worked and after no more than five minutes I had the pages, snapped a picture of the ones I needed and at about fifteen minutes there was one happy pup!

Breaking News – Just released, this coming May expect another Periodical Brood XIV cicadas. Lucky you if you happen to live in one of the following States: Georgia, Kentucky, Indiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, and Ohio.

If we’re lucky it will revive the magical mania caused by the Snappy Tomato Pizza spoof jingle versions going back to the 80s; Snappy Cicada Pizza.

My small number of favorite bands – shrunk a bit this week. Whatever it is, but something in the sound of a specific group just sets it apart. It’s not necessarily an individual musician as much as how it becomes the total package. And the sound (on my list) is all over the place. They are as varied as Tedeschi Trucks, Tuba Skinny, Black Pumas, Grateful Dead, Dave Matthews Band, or St. Paul and the Broken Bones just to get you thinking.

One of my top dozen or so was The Band. This week we lost the last surviving member of The Band, the glue to their sound, Garth Hudson. His parents had him study classical keyboard, although he also played Sax, Accordion, Harmonica – my favorite Hudson work was his work on the Lowrey Organ.

The Band made their name and sound as Bob Dylan’s backup. Hudson informed his parents that he was off traveling with a new rock group. With mom & pop this was an absolute NO! Garth came back and told them that he was heading out with them as their ‘music teacher’ – a first real paying job. He then told his bandmates that each to pay him $10 per week as their ‘teacher’. The rest is history.

Cincinnati Chili – is a nationally recognized, little crazy and wildly popular, chili. A supply of noodles, the (heavily cumin laden) chili, topped with a mound of shredded cheese. Onions, beans, and such can be added. Plus, a side dish of oyster crackers completes a proper serving. The largest of the chili parlors in the area is Skyline Chili (founded in 1949) with 138 locations.

Now it’s a first. Our local, premier, Ice Cream creamery is Graeter’s which has been around since 1870. Now it has developed a one-time only batch – Skyline Chili flavored ice cream complete with oyster crackers. Buy it at Kroger’s grocery stores beginning Monday. Previewed on TV newscasts it was nothing but positivity.

The Bridge – Have you ever seen a six + lane steel bridge burn? Last November Cincinnati’s Daniel Beard Bridge which carries I-471 across the Ohio River to Kentucky did just that. As an aside, Daniel Beard after whom this bridge was named was a Cincinnati native who “founded the Sons of Daniel Boone in 1905, which Beard later merged with the Boy Scouts of America” (Wikipedia).

Watch: Daniel Beard Bridge repair Crews show the repairs being done to Big Mac Bridge | Watch

Yet, as the old song goes, “The Ol’ Man River — He keeps on rollin’ along”

Have a great week, till next Saturday goodbye and good health. Not certain exactly how it’ll work next Saturday since I am participating in the Cincinnati Cyclones Foundation’s annual Frozen 5K – and yes, the route is along Ol’ Man River.

Life is AMAZING!

Dirk

BONUS POINTS:

Colorado outlaws the sale of auto dealerships to sell cars on Sundays (boats and snowmobiles, etc. are exempt). Which three (3) of the following states also have similar laws?

1) “West Virginia”
2) “Kentucky”
3) “Indiana”
4) “New Mexico”
5) “Delaware”
6) “Louisiana”
7) “New Jersey”