I was surprised to learn that the Library of Congress has been storing some of the great treasures of American cinema in vaults at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton. And now they're leaving, moving to a new facility in Culpepper, Virginia.
The films include the original negatives of The Maltese Falcon and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (ironic, that). The 25,000+ films on about 125,000 reels have been stored in a temperature and humidity-controlled vault at the base. The oldest movies were made pre-1900.
The vaults were originally built to house military records, including film. Old movie film, made from nitrate, is extremely flammable and subject to decay, so special care was put into the vault design. In 1969, the storage facilities were turned over to the Library of Congress for storing the nation's film archives.
Buying chocolate, flowers, or those little message heart candies are fine if there's no time to plan ahead for Valentine's Day, but consider some other options. If you use your senses to lead the way, you might come up with some interesting ways to celebrate love. Or a deep like. Or an "I kind of like you." Here are some starting places:
Sense of smell- With Ohio's botanical gardens' conservatories creating a haven against the freshly arrived winter's chill, head to one of them. Breathe in the fragrances of the jungles, orchid gardens and mountainous regions of the world. So, what if you can't go to a tropical island with your honey this year? At Krohn Conservatory, Franklin Park Conservatory, and Cleveland Botanical Garden you can pretend.
If eating is a way to your loved one's heart, head to a cooking school where you can spend time together--plus taste your efforts. Dorothy Lane Market Cooking School in Dayton has wonderful options. Many restaurants, like Handkes in Columbus also have classes. Here is a Shaw Guides website with links to several of them.
For the soothing sense of touch, get a couple's massage. The Marengo Institute, a mind body spa that originated in California but now has Cleveland and Columbus locations, has a Couples Delight Package.
Another option for the sense of sight is an art museum. Here is the botanical garden and art museums page of Ohio Travelers.com to find one you may not have thought of before.
Ohio is noted for having impressive, even beautiful, county courthouses. Some diehard architecture fans even make a project of visiting all of them. For groupies like these, the old Montgomery County Courthouse, in Dayton is a high point. It's not only one of Ohio's best courthouses, but one of its best buildings. Some say it's one of the best surviving examples of Greek Revival architecture in the USA.
Howard Daniels, of Cincinnati, designed the courthouse, in 1850. That, in itself, is unusual. Daniels was primarily a landscape architect. He had worked on Cincinnati's Spring Grove Cemetery and Cleveland's Woodlawn Cemetery. That's a different sort of designing, to be sure. He proved his dexterity with more than just tombstones. This building is a gem. Like most public buildings in the Greek Revival style, it resembles a Greek temple, from the front, at least. In the back, Daniels did something that may be unique. Each rear corner has a quarter-round porch with a single column. This not only cut the cost of another porch, it provided more interior space. Another odd feature was the roof. It was made of the same stone as the rest of the structure. This wasn't the best idea. It started leaking about ten years later and was covered with tin.
To support the weight of all that stone on the roof, Daniels made the interior more Roman than Greek. There are brick arches in the basement and attic, and vaulted ceilings in most of the rooms. There were innovations inside, as well. In the middle of the building is a domed rotunda with an unusual cantilevered staircase. A third of each step is embedded in the wall. Another dome, this one oval, crowns the two-story main courtroom. Remember, in 1850, there weren't any sound systems. Lawyers had to rely on pure lung power. I'll skip the jokes. You can have fun with that, yourself. They must have been grateful to the cemetery designer who turned his hand to a courthouse. He made a courtroom with perfect acoustics.
Paul Laurence Dunbar, born to ex-slaves in 1872 in Dayton, Ohio was a contemporary of Orville Wright and a prolific poet who was the first African American poet to reach national recognition. Here is a wonderful video essay of Dunbar's poem, "The Old Apple Tree." The narrator has a lovely deep voice and takes the view on a walk through the woods and countryside while reciting the poem. This is an edited video--the kind you want to share with people.
The king of the urgency pitch, Burton 'Buddy' Kallick of Buddy's Carpet Barn passed away last week. For years, Buddy's smiling face and carnie voice were a fixture on Ohio television, offering carpet at what he would have us believe were astounding discounts. But only if we acted by Tuesday.
Kallick and his partner opened Buddy's Carpet Barn in 1983 near Dayton and over the next 20 years built it into a regional success. They sold the company in 2000, but Buddy remained as the pitchman through 2002 as they transitioned to the current spokeswoman.
In the age of MTV-style advertising, Buddy's ads harkened back to a time when advertising was unsophisticated, when the product, the seller and the sales proposition were simply presented. With his smile and conviction, Buddy was an iconic salesman straight from the 50's.
I hope he makes it to heaven by Tuesday, so he can take advantage of their specials.
December was filled with auto industry news impacting Ohio, both good and bad.
The bad news: Our sister blog Autoblog.com reports that Ohio Governor Bob Taft offered Ford a package worth $15.7 million if they would keep their Maumee, OH plant open. A Ford official implied that, despite the sweetness, the plant would remain on the chopping block. Also on death row is the transmission plant in Batavia, OH.
More Ford sadness: The company announced they have sold their four-million square foot Lorain Assembly Plant to the Industrial Realty Group for a reported $2.4 million. President of IRG Stuart Lichter was one of the principals in the successful redevelopment of the Goodrich plant in Akron.
Some of the best-known models in Ford history were built in Lorain: the Galaxie, Thunderbird, F-series pickup, Falcon, and my first car, the Ford Fairlane. In the 1970's, 7,500 people earned their paychecks at the Lorain plant.
The Delphi Corp., a spin-off of Chevrolet that supplies parts to the car company, announced that they lost $226 million in November. Their well-known struggles to wiggle out from under pension debt as well as their dependence on troubled General Motors have forced them into a severe pruning of the corporation, including several sites in Ohio. Delphi employs about 8,000 in factories in Ohio, including Sandusky, Columbus, Warren and Vandalia. Only the Warren and Vandalia plants are to remain open.
The good news: According to Autoblog, Honda's East Liberty, OH plant will be ramping up to build more Civics. Honda plans to increase production by 60,000 cars in 2007, to a total of 440,000 per year. Also rolling off the assembly line in Logan County is the new Acura RDX.
Unfortunately, the pay scale for Honda workers and the many temps Honda uses to flesh out its work force doesn't match the union-scale jobs lost. At least, however, we are seeing some job creation to offset those disappearing.
I don't get the chance on Blog-O to reference the London Daily Mail often, but today is the day. They are reporting that Princess Di's brother, Lord Charles Spencer, has abandoned his second wife just after the birth of their second child in order to pursue Dayton, OH newscaster Coleen Sullivan.
The story gets even more salacious, as Sullivan herself evidently has broken off an 11-year relationship with a partner most of her friends thought she was destined to marry.
Sullivan met Charles Edward Maurice Spencer, 8th Earl of Spencer, while in England filming a special about Diana for Dayton's station WDTN. Some sparks must have flown, because he subsequently invited her to join him for Christmas at his estate in South Africa.
Sullivan has resigned her job as anchor at the television station which she has held since 2002,, effective Jan. 11th, ostensibly to return to San Francisco to work in public relations.
Charles Spencer gained considerable notoriety in the wake of Princess Di's death choreographing the family's reactions and commemorations. According to the Daily Mail, he evidently has something of a reputation as a lady's man.
As I recall, he was rather unhappy with press coverage of Diana's death. I wonder if he realizes dating a reporter is not the best strategy to keep one's secrets safely tucked away?
Public art has a tendency to be controversial these days. Should it be a realistic depiction of something, or should it be the artist's impression of the subject? Dayton has a statue that sort of fits both ends of the debate. Flyover, by David Black, combines sweeping lines with an accurate depiction of the event it commemorates. It may look very abstract, but the 150-foot long arrangement of stainless steel tubes, aluminum, and tile is a fairly accurate representation of the path of the Wright brothers' first flight on December 17, 1903.
Black, who lives in Columbus, is a professor emeritus at Ohio State. His work has a world-wide reputation and has received a number of awards. Flyover was installed in downtown Dayton in 1996. Take a look at the picture. The wings of the biplane extend outward, giving you the impression that you're looking at a series of frozen frames from a film of the flight, a series of moments suspended in time. In a single piece of sculpture, David Black gave Dayton a record of this important event, from start to finish.
The second half of the 20th century may be remembered as the era of the shopping mall. Now there is a web site dedicated to dead (or, in many cases, moribund) malls. Deadmalls.com documents the passing of these hallowed grounds of consumerism. The posts are user submitted, similar to a wiki, so take the facts presented with a grain of salt.
What saddens me is the realization that this list is only a small fraction of the locations that even I, a non-shopper, could name off the top of my head. I can't help but wonder at the wastefulness of our constant pursuit of the new and novel. The first malls were built to replace the downtown shops, then enclosed to provide a Disneyland-like atmosphere. Now the hottest fashion in malls is to emulate the appearance of small shops in a downtown district.
The Ohio malls memorialized on Deadmalls.com -- how many of these have you visited? Southwyck Mall, Toledo Euclid Square Mall, Euclid North Towne Square Mall, Toledo Salem Mall, Dayton American mall, Lima New Market Mall, Columbus Southland Mall, Marion Woodland Mall, Bowling Green Westgate Mall, Fairview Park Columbus City Center Mall, Columbus Arcade Square, Akron Rolling Acres Mall, Akron Portside Festival Marketplace, Toledo Randall Park Mall, North Randall Surrey Square, Norwood Westland Mall, Columbus Beechmont Mall, Cincinnati Forest Fair Mall, Cincinnati Western Woods Mall, Cincinnati
So sad, and yet so true. The twelve days of Ohio are over. In case you missed them, here they are again!
On the first day of Ohio, the bloggers gave to me: a state bird (by Jamie)! On the second day of Ohio, the bloggers gave to me: a Twinsburg festival (by Tom)! On the third day of Ohio, the bloggers gave to me: sports museums (by Katherine)! On the fourth day of Ohio, the bloggers gave to me: women astronauts (by Jamie)! On the fifth day of Ohio, the bloggers gave to me: great actors (by Tom)! On the sixth day of Ohio, the bloggers gave to me: art museums (by Jeffrey)! On the seventh day of Ohio, the bloggers gave to me: baseball World Series Championships (by Tom)! On the eighth day of Ohio, the bloggers gave to me: presidents (by Jamie)! On the ninth day of Ohio, the bloggers gave to me: doubled cities (by Katherine)! On the tenth day of Ohio, the bloggers gave to me: famous Ohioans (by Jeffrey)! On the eleventh day of Ohio, the bloggers gave to me: Native American tribes of Ohio (by Tom)! On the twelfth day of Ohio, the bloggers gave to me: trivial Ohio facts (by Jeffrey)!
Hey, everyone knows about the Wright brothers. What about some famous people who were born in Ohio, but found their fame elsewhere? You might not even know they were buckeyes.
You've heard of Zanesville, right? You've probably heard of Zane Grey, too. Ever made the connection? Zane Grey wasn't only born in Zanesville, his family started it. For a writer of westerns, he started pretty far east.
How many of you knew Steven Spielberg was born in Cincinnati? A lot of well known people came from there. Take Ted Turner, he was from Cincinnati, too.
It helps to have a sense of humor, especially when dealing with Ohio politics. Erma Bombeck, who was born in Dayton certainly did. So did my favorite on the list, the great humorist and cartoonist James Thurber. That's his picture at the top. He came from Columbus and told some good stories about the place. While we're on the subject of humor, Ambrose Bierce was from Meigs County. He could tell a funny tale or two when he wasn't in a darker mood.
Did you know Clarence Darrow was born at Kinsman, in Trumbull County. His law practice got started in northeast Ohio, before he moved west. Then there's Norman Vincent Peale, who preached the power of positive thinking.
Next we have someone whose face might not be familiar, but you'd probably know her voice. Nancy Cartwright, from Kettering provided the voice of Bart Simpson. Don't have a cow if you didn't know.
Finally, a woman was born in Licking County, or Athens County, the sources differ, back in 1838. She went on to lead an eventful life and was the first woman to be nominated for president. Her name? Victoria Claflin Woodhull.
It's odd. I can't believe how hard it was to cut this list down to only ten people. The only easy part was leaving out presidents,astronauts, and actors. They were covered in other posts. Ten? I could have listed a hundred and still had more. If you'd asked me years ago, back when I lived in Pennsylvania, about famous people from Ohio, I'd have thought of a few presidents, the Wright brothers,and Thurber. I had no idea how many famous people were born here. I do now, and I'll post on some of them from time to time.
I'm not talking about the pat-down and feel-up security checkpoints, or confiscating your mouthwash. What you should be asking yourself is how alert and professional the air traffic controllers in the tower above you are.
I ran across some interesting stats about tower staffing of Ohio airports from the Gannett News Service.
Columbus- They're authorized to have 48 controllers and trainees, but actually have 46 on staff for a 96% staffing rate.
Akron/Canton- Targeted for 26, they actually have 19 certified controllers and 4 trainees, an 88% staffing rate. Four trainees seems like a lot, depending on where they are in the program.
Cleveland Hopkins- Authorized for 67 staff, they actually have 52 controllers and 10 trainees for a 93% staffing rate.
Dayton- Supposed to have 53 controllers and trainees, Dayton actually has 35 certified controllers and 4 trainees, for an abysmal 74% staffing rate. Assuming each staffer works a 40-hour week, to make up the missing 26% staff they'll have to average 14 hours of overtime apiece. I'd be pretty fried working such a schedule.
Cincinnati- Authorized for 86 people, they actually have 75, only one of which is a trainee, for an 88% staffing rate.
Toledo- Should have 27 on staff, but currently only have 21, for a poor 78% staffing rate.
Why does this matter? Remember in August when a plane leaving the Lexington Ky. airport chose the wrong runway and crashed on takeoff, killing 49 people? That tower was supposed to be staffed by two controllers, but only one was on duty, and he was trying to cover both radar and control tower operations.
Another issue explored in this report is the high percentage of these controllers eligible for retirement in 2007, which could exacerbate the shortfall.
I'm not saying we should be alarmed, but perhaps we should be asking why we're spending millions to confiscate aftershave while leaving the tower understaffed.
Are you a generous Christmas giver? Perhaps you'll feel like a piker compared to the gifts the state government is about to bestow on Ohio communities in the about-to-pass biannual capital appropriations bill.
By the way, I don't intend this to be a 'look how wasteful our government is" post. I'm sure every project in the budget has its passionate defenders, and things I think wonderful others would view as foolhearty.
Among the projects your money will fund in the next two years:
Hocking College Center for Hospitality Training -- $1,838,986
Butler County Voice of America museum -- $750,000
Johnny Appleseed Museum, Urbana -- $50,000
Galion Historic Big Four Depot restoration -- $30,000
Cleveland State University windtower generator project -- $400,000
Ukranian Museum -- $100,000
Mountain Bike Park in Midtown Cleveland -- $100,000
Little Brown Jug (horse race) facility improvements, Delaware -- $50,000
Delaware skate park-- $50,000
Center for Science and Industry, Columbus -- $1,000,000
ODNR Ohio Fairgrounds display area improvements -- $700,000
Gallia County French Art Colony -- $100,000
Jamestown Opera House -- $50,000
Cambridge skate park -- $50,000
Woodward Opera House -- $50,000
Heritage Center of Dayton Manufacturing and Entrepreneurship -- $1,300,000
Morgan County Historical Opera House -- $25,000
Shawnee State Motion Capture Studio Project -- $281,300
First Lunar Flight Project, Trumbull Co. -- $150,000
Mason ATP Tennis Center -- $1,300,000
Georgetown Community Tennis Center -- $75,000
Star Park Skate Park improvements (Meigs Co.) -- $65,000
The full list (174 pages!) is a fascinating read. I'd be interested in seeing a comparison of funding by county vs. the power of the state reps and senators from that county. I'm also surprised at the apparent influence of the skateboard and opera lobbies.
Keep in mind, though, that these local projects represent only a small portion of the budget. A vast majority of the funds are allocated to education.
I think it's interesting to note that our two-year budget of $1.78 billion is approximately 1% of our national budget for the war in Iraq in 2007 alone.
I was surprised to learn that the Library of Congress has been storing some of the great treasures of American cinema in vaults at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton. And now they're leaving, moving to a new facility in Culpepper, Virginia.
Buying chocolate, flowers, or those little message heart candies are fine if there's no time to plan ahead for Valentine's Day, but consider some other options. If you use your senses to lead the way, you might come up with some interesting ways to celebrate love. Or a deep like. Or an "I kind of like you." Here are some starting places:
a project of visiting all of them. For groupies like these, the old Montgomery County Courthouse, in 
The king of the urgency pitch, Burton 'Buddy' Kallick of Buddy's Carpet Barn .jpg)
December was filled with auto industry news impacting Ohio, both good and bad.
I don't get the chance on Blog-O to reference the 
Public art has a tendency to be controversial these days. Should it be a realistic depiction of something, or should it be the artist's impression of the subject? Dayton has a statue that sort of fits both ends of the debate. 
The second half of the 20th century may be remembered as the era of the 
So sad, and yet so true. The twelve days of Ohio are over. In case you missed them, here they are again!
to start.
Hey, everyone knows about the Wright brothers. What about some famous people who were born in Ohio, but found their fame elsewhere? You might not even know they were buckeyes. 
Did you ever realize that we share quite a lot of names with quite a lot of other cities? Look at this list.
How safe are Ohio's airports? 
