Willy-nilly Friday 5: Going Home...

I spent last weekend in Middletown, Ohio, where I grew up.  My mother was recently moved to assisted living and after a huge amount of work by my sisters and brothers, we had an estate sale last Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  Here are some of my observations about the event.

1.  My mother had a lot of stuff.  Here’s a photo of a table full of her stuff on the second day of the sale.  There were other tables full of stuff throughout the house.  We sold a lot of this stuff.  There was twice as much as this there the day before.

In the end, almost all of this kind of stuff sold, but this didn’t sell.

I think that is a statement about how people live today. An almost flawless service for 12, this china was a bargain, but people just don’t entertain formally these days.  Heck, I can’t remember ever eating off of these dishes so we weren’t so formal either.  Or else my mother lived in fear that something might happen to them…no clue.

This didn't sell during the sale either.

I can’t tell you how many people came through and said what a nice piano this is.  “It’s yours!” I’d say.  “Nah,” they’d say.  “Don’t have the space for it…can’t play anyhow… already have a keyboard.”  But, lucky for us, I believe that it has been claimed at this point.  Happy playing to whoever got it.

2.  This is the house I grew up in.  We moved there from upstate New York in 1956 when I was almost three so it is really the only house I remember as a child.  I have three brothers and three sisters, but we managed to fit somehow.  Well, my father added this room and that room as the family got bigger.  There is a large great room on the back that is not visible from the street and at one time, the basement was fixed up and my sister Cindy and I had bedrooms down there.  My nephew Neil is sprucing it up on the inside, then it is going on the market.

When we moved in, the house had no garage and very little landscaping.  In fact, the yard was mostly mud.  But over the years and with lots of work, the yard got nicer.  That huge pine tree in the front yard was our Christmas tree that my father planted after the holidays were over.  I don’t think he ever thought it would get that big or he would have planted it further away from the house.

3.  One of the features of a ranch house is the hallway.  For whatever reason, my father started taking pictures of us coming out of the doors in the hallway.  Here are a few:

This one was probably taken in 1957.  Left to right:  That's me, Judy, Susan and Cindy.

Here we added my brother Mark to the mix.  Left to right:  Judy, Cindy, Mark, Susan and me looking kind of maniacal.

Daddy needed to focus a little better on this one or else we weren't being cooperative, but brother Rob was added to this one.  Left to right standing:  Judy, Cindy, Susan (sans head) and me.  Mark is on the left on the floor and there's Rob.

This photo was taken in 2008 and is the only one that includes all of us.  Any of you with large families know how hard it is to get everyone together in one spot.  Left to right:  Cindy, Susan, Rob, me, Jay and Judy.  Mark is kneeling.

And we took one last one this past weekend in the almost empty house.  Unfortunately, Jay was not around.  Left to right:  Cindy, Rob, me, Susan, Jude and Mark.

4.  As a person who really cherishes my alone time, I spent the nights in a local hotel.  It was nice to be able to get back there and collapse on the bed at the end of the day.  But I did get the wonderful opportunity to see my friend Gloria, who dropped by the house and brought these from the BonBonerie Pastry Shop in Cincinnati so we could keep our energy levels up.  As tempting as it was, I couldn't bite into that owl.  My sister Judy had no such compunction.

Our friends Ruby and Mark brought us gourmet lunches each day giving us a nice, relaxing break.

And I got to see my friends Dona and Joanne who both married men named Bob.  We got some pretty good laughs in.

  Seeing my mother in her new place was not such a good time as she continues to be rather unsettled, but we did have a pleasant visit and I am glad she is in a nice, safe place.

5.  And finally, because this has gone on way too long, we had fantastic weather the whole time and I had great weather to get home. The Accuweather app on my phone didn’t agree but I have proof.  There wasn't a cloud in the sky.  Someone suggested that I had accidentally keyed in some other Middletown, but I checked.  Maybe Accuweather keyed in some other Middletown.

Linking to Tanya's Willy-nilly Friday 5!

Entering the WABAC Machine…

It’s not exactly the same as having Mr. Peabody around, but having a computer does allow me to store recent history and go back to it.  So I’m going to set my WABAC Machine for June 28, 2014 and travel back in time to Dayton, Ohio, when my brother Rob took my daughter Carrie and me to Carillon Historical Park.  Thanks, Rob!

Carillon Historical Park contains historic buildings and exhibits about the history of technology highlighting the roles that Dayton played in that history from 1796 to the present.   So here we go.

One of our first stops was at Locust Grove School No. 12 (circa 1896).  The elementary school I went to when I was a kid had desks like that.  I’m not sure how that makes me feel.

You can see that the biology lessons were a little different though.

Self-portrait in a chrome ball.  This was taken in the old power station.  If you look closely you can see me, Rob and Carrie.

I love this dress.  It was part of an exhibit about the Dayton Flood of 1913 when the Great Miami River overran its banks.  More than 360 people were killed in that flood but apparently this dress survived.

Dayton has had a long history with bicycles.  Did you know that the Wright Brothers owned a bicycle shop in Dayton?  You can still see it today.  But something I didn’t know, in spite of growing up around there, was that Huffy Bikes came from Dayton.  It all began when George P. Huffman bought the Davis Sewing Machine Co. and moved the company to Dayton.  They made their first bicycle in Dayton in 1892.  Here are a couple of posters from the bicycle exhibit in Carillon Park.

And isn’t this just the coolest bike ever?  The Huffy Radio Bike was manufactured in 1955 and 1956.  Why they ever quit making this one is beyond me.  I was too young for one of those in 1956, but I sure would have thought that was the coolest thing ever in 1960.

Of course, probably the most famous of all Daytonians were the Orville and Wilbur Wright, “whose gift of powered flight lifted the world forever skyward.”  This bench is in memory of them.

A duplicate of this bench is in Woodland Cemetery where the Wright Brothers are buried.  I took a photo of Carrie sitting on the bench in 2010.

And last but not least, they have the coolest carousel there. The seats that are not standard carousel horses have some relationship to Dayton.  Like this seat that represents National Cash Register, a company that was founded in 1884 and was located in Dayton until they moved to Duluth, Georgia in 2009.

This is Scipio, Orville Wright’s St. Bernard.  I found this blurb about Scipio on the St. Bernard Club of America’s website:  He bought this dog from White Star Kennels in Long Branch, New Jersey, in 1917, for $75.00 as a puppy. According to Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, at the time of his death in 1948, Orville still had pictures of this dog in his wallet.

But this one would be the one I would ride on if I were a fan of going round in circles.  I still think that Mikesell’s Potato Chips are the best in the world.  We used to get big tins of these delivered to the house when I was a kid.

  No wonder I’m fat.

The Carillon Park Bell Tower.

Soon after leaving Carillon Park, Carrie and I jumped back into the WABAC Machine and drove into the 21st Century in style.

The End.

Good Country Fences...

My daughter, Carrie, and I got back from our travels around 2 in the afternoon yesterday and today, I am moving kind of slowly.  The weather is above my comfort zone in both temperature and humidity.  But they have downgraded Hurricane Arthur so that by the time it hits us tomorrow, we shouldn't suffer from it much if at all.  So that's good!

On our way out to Ohio to see family, Carrie and I passed through some rural areas and I managed to find a few fences along the way.  This first one looks a little inadequate to the size of the cow, but I don't imagine she is going anywhere.

This cow also served as the last entry in my Flickr 365 Project.  Yay!  I am done!!

Being done with my 365 doesn't mean I didn't pick up my camera frequently while we were gone.  Here are a couple more fence pics that I took out in the country first in Pennsylvania near DuBois and in Ohio somewhere around Ashland.

I'm hooking up with Theresa's Good Fences.  And I'm glad to be back.

Drive-by shootings: A study in contrasts…

Here are a couple of barns I shot last month while driving through Ohio.  Obviously one has seen better days and the other is in pretty good shape.

Linking to Bluff Area Daily’s Barn Charm.

Late Entry Barns…

I got carried away watching Prince Fielder win the Home Run Derby tonight and forgot all about adding my barns to Barn Charm.  But it’s not too late so here they are.  Some more of the barns I picked up on our recent trip to Ohio.  Sleep tight, you all!

Linking to Bluff Area Daily's BARN CHARM.

Drive by shootings: Ohio Barns…

We drove by a lot of barns on our recent trip to Ohio.  I drove a lot of the way through Pennsylvania so I didn’t really get any good shots until we reached Ohio.

I guess “good” is relative.  These are “good” for driving by at 70-75 mph but you notice that I did do a bit of messing with them to try to hide their flaws.  Here are my barns for Barn Charm this week.

LINKING TO Bluff Area Daily's BARN CHARM.

Making the most of getting older…

I had a wonderful birthday this year.  It was on Monday after the family reunion festivities were officially over so we slept in a bit and then decided to go out for Cincinnati Chili.  I may have left the Cincinnati area to live in another part of the country but I have never left behind my love for Cincinnati Chili.

Here’s what makes chili Cincinnati Chili:  You start with a spicy (not hot, just spicy) chili spooned over spaghetti noodles and topped with shredded cheddar cheese.  That’s a 3-way.  Then the fun begins.  You can add red kidney beans or onions.  That makes a 4-way.  If you add both, you get a 5-way.  It is served with oyster crackers and lots of hot sauce.  I’ll put the recipe I use when I make it at home at the end of this post in case you want to try it.

The definitive Cincinnati Chili is had at one of the many Skyline Chili restaurants around there.  But there are other Cincinnati Chili restaurants around that are good.  We discovered Blue Ash Chili while watching Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.  It is worth a trip to Blue Ash to check this place out.  What I like is that I can get a 4-way without onions but with jalapeno caps.  I’m in heaven.  Love those jalapenos.  And if you have the chili with beans, onions and jalapeno caps, you get a 6-way.

After our lunch, Greg took us to the Blue Ash Rec Center where there is a replica of the Crosley Field scoreboard.  Crosley Field is where the Cincinnati Reds played baseball when I was a kid.  We went to quite a few games there over the years but I was lucky to attend the last game they played in Crosley with my parents and a couple of siblings on June 24, 1970.   The Reds won 5-4.  Johnny Bench and Lee May hit back to back home runs in that game.  After the game, a helicopter came down and home plate was transferred by air  from Crosley over to Riverfront Stadium where the Reds played from 1970 until 2002.  

Then instead of birthday cake, I got a scoop of Graeter’s black raspberry chip ice cream.  Oh, boy, it can’t be beat!  Best ice cream on earth.  Ask Oprah. 

But to top it off, we went to dinner that night to the Olive Garden to celebrate my mother’s birthday, which is the day after mine and I got to have dinner with 18 of my family.  It ended with Greg, my cousin Ken and my nephew Neil all singing happy birthday to my mother and me.  It made getting older not so bad…at least for the day.

CINCINNATI CHILI

2 pounds ground beef

1 quart water

2 medium sized onions, grated

2 8-ounce cans tomato sauce

5 whole allspice

½ teaspoon red pepper

1 teaspoon ground cumin seed

4 tablespoons chili powder

½ ounce bitter chocolate

4 cloves garlic, minced

2 tablespoons vinegar

1 large bay leaf

5 whole cloves

2 teaspoons Worcestershire

1 ½ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1. Add ground beef to water in 4 quart pot, stir until beef separates to a fine texture.  Boil slowly for half an hour. 
2. Add all other ingredients.  Stir to blend, bring to a boil; reduce heat and simmer uncovered for about 3 hours.  Last hour, pot may be covered after desired consistency is reached.
3. Remove bay leaf.
4. Chili should be refrigerated overnight so that fat can be lifted from top before reheating.  Not necessary if using extra lean beef.

Serve it in one of the following traditional styles:

Chili Plain

Chili and Spaghetti

3 way – chili, spaghetti, and shredded cheddar cheese

4 way -  chili, spaghetti, cheddar and onion or beans

5 way – chili, spaghetti, cheddar, onion and beans

Coney Island – a frankfurter in a bun topped with chili, cheese and onions or any of the above ingredients.

There is nothing in any of these combinations that an antacid can’t remedy!