Athens OH Archives

November 27, 2013

Altenburg Christmas Trees

I was busy shooting photos for my Last Generation project in Perry County, so I didn’t have much time to hang around the Altenburg Lutheran Heritage Center and Museum while they were putting up this year’s Christmas Tree Exhibit. In fact, the only shot I could find was of Dorothy Weinhold perched on a ladder putting the finishing touches on her tree.

[Drat! I just discovered that the Dorothy photo is on a harddrive buried in the back of the van. Sorry, Dorothy, I don’t have any way to get to it. I’ll have to sub a photo from an earlier year.]

Director Carla Jordan posted on the Heritage Center’s website, “The museum will be open every day from 10am-4pm this season (except Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, and New Years Day.) We will be open until 8pm every Thursday evening in December, and until 9pm on Dec. 19th & 20th for the Christmas Country Church Tour. Admission is always free.”

Warren Schmidt Video

Fortunately, Warren Schmidt my favorite right-wing curmudgeon and executive board president, transformed a bunch of still photos into an impressive video so you can sample the flavor of the exhibit.

Past exhibits

Travel update

If you saw Wednesday’s Athens Winter Storm Video, you might figure out why I decided to stay another day in Ohio. The West Virginia DOT website showed most of the route through the mountains as clear, but there were a few patches that were marked as slush and a couple that said “severe.”

Iffy road conditions and a gazillion cars heading for grandma’s and already late didn’t sound like fun. I’d rather drive when the roads are clear and everybody is holed up with football, parades and turkey.

I slept late, then went up to the library to research the protest movement in the late 60s and early 70s for an exhibit I’m doing in the spring. There’s a pretty good chance I’ve spent more time in the OU library in the past two days than I ever did when I was a student.

I was scurrying to get back to my car before the parking meter ran out when I spotted the iconic War Memorial statue warming his back in the last rays of the afternoon sun. He must have needed it: there’s still a patch of snow on his shoulder.

I should be Florida-bound Thursday. I hope there will be some turkey left when I pull into the driveway.

November 26, 2013

Athens Winter Storm Video

If you’ve been following my travel saga on Facebook, you’ve heard me worrying about the weather. Well, the winter storm caught up with me in Athens, Ohio, Tuesday.

Temperatures hovered just above the freezing mark all day, so I got to splash around in cold, miserable rain that was trying to make up its mind. When I sat down to dinner, it was raining with an occasional flake mixed in. Just as I started to get up, I pulled up the weather ap on my tablet. It was clear from looking at the amateur weather stations that the line of 32-degree temps had just hit us.

I called Wife Lila to tell her that huge flakes of the catch-em-on-your-tongue variety were falling from sky.

“Take pictures,” she said

“Take pictures,” she said. “That’s cool.”

“You don’t understand,” I tried to explain to someone in Florida, “the SNOW is cool to look at, but the air it’s riding in is COLD.”

“Take pictures anyway,” was her response. “Shoot video.”

“Yes, Dear,” was my response (as it should have been the first time she asked. I’ve been away from home so long my reaction time has gotten slow).

The video is pretty neat

OK, I’m glad she made me do it. The picture at the top of the page is a screen grab from the 37-second video. That’s why it’s not as sharp as if I had taken it with my Nikon still camera.

November 26, 2013

Truck on I-55

I’ve passed this high-flying 18-wheeler a bunch of times over the years, but this is the first time I’ve bothered to pull off the road to snap a picture of it. It’s on the east side of I-55 near Sikeston. And, yes, it’s the real deal, not a billboard or a model.

I was prepared with an excuse if a cop pulled up to tell me that stopping on the Interstate isn’t allowed: “But officer, my Check Engine light came on and I wanted to make sure everything was OK.”

Of course, when your van has 181,000 miles on it, the Check Engine light is ALWAYS on. I get out, raise the hood, check to see if the engine is still there and then keep driving down the road. If the light ever DOES go out, I’ll assume that the bulb burned out, not that the problem mysteriously healed itself.

The Kid has theories

(That might be the reason Kid Matt concocted this Shameless Plug page. He doesn’t want to have to drive to some Podunk town to pick me up when the van dies.)

(He has a second theory, too: he says everybody is too busy heading out for Turkey Day, preparing for Turkey Day or recovering from Turkey Day that they aren’t going to be reading the blog this week. That’s why you’re going to get some light-weight content while I’m on MY way back to Florida.)

Oh, by the way, I covered the Sikeston Rodeo. Jim Nabors performed there in 1965. Here are more photos of the 1965 Rodeo.

On the road

Speaking of travel, I left Cape Monday morning for Athens, Ohio. I was worried about the weather because of all the freezing rain, ice pellet, snow and sleet warnings along the route. On top of that, there was a forecast for four inches of snow in Athens on Tuesday.

To get home I was going to have to go over some pretty tall stacks of rocks where Florida Friend Jan saw her first snow in January. I may end up staying an extra day in Athens if West Virginia gets any serious snow.

As it turned out, I must have been racing the frozen precip all day. I could see I was on the eastern edge for at least 40% of Monday. The snow pellets sounded like my car was being peppered with BBs; the snow, fairly heavy from time to time, was pretty. It swirled around in the wake of traffic, but it never stuck.

Here was the obligatory Good-Bye selfie. It only took 19 frames to get one even close to having both of us in it.

November 15, 2013April 22, 2021

Treat Me Like A Tractor

I’ve been burning up the road between Cape and Altenburg interviewing people for my Last Generation project – trying to capture the last generation of East Perry county residents who spoke German as their primary language.

There are a lot of crops being harvested right now – primarily corn and beans. I was southbound on Rt. C near New Wells when this monster machine appeared in front of me doing about 20 miles per hour.

The driver did a masterful job of keeping the high center of gravity vehicle going while dodging mailboxes and shoulder drop-offs when he had to get over in his lane for oncoming traffic.

As the cars backed up behind me, I could only think of how many people would be honking and writing letters to the editor about how bikes don’t belong on the road if I had been on my Surly Long Haul Trucker. (For the record, this is one of my favorite bike routes. I’ve always been treated with courtesy on it. It’s only when you get close to Cape that you run into drivers who are jerks.)

So, when you see me on my bike with my Slow Moving Vehicle triangle on my back (just like this guy’s), treat me like a tractor. And, if you are going too fast to slow down without hitting me, you’re going too fast to keep from hitting the Monster Machine or the many deer I’ve seen alongside (and crossing) the road.

Heartwarming Americana

I was trying to make a left turn out of a nursing home in Perryville where I had been shooting one of my subjects – a 103-year-old Altenburg woman.

A school bus dropping off kids had traffic backed up about a dozen cars deep. “Oh, man, I’m going to be here for a long time,” I thought.

Reminding me that I was back in the Midwest, a car about four back slowed down to create a gap, then the driver motioned me out. Yep, we’re not in Florida anymore.

I didn’t mind the delay

The bus driver must have made at least six or eight stops, with the line of cars growing longer and longer behind me. I didn’t mind the delay, to be honest. I really enjoyed watching the grade school kids hop off the bus loaded down with their backpacks and dash to the house where a parent would be waiting at the door.

One middle school kid stopped at the mailbox, grabbed a letter from it and went running up the hill to his home. He seemed excited. I wonder what was in the envelope?

The driver finally got to a spot wide enough for him to pull off to let the line of cars go by. I was kinda disappointed. Since I wasn’t watching the clock, it was nice change of pace.

P.S. I was too far back to get a good bus shot, so I had to dip into the time machine to pull up this Athens County bus from Oct. 11, 1968.