Our Shared Story at CMC

Joseph Jonas is thought to be the first Jew to actually settle in Cincinnati. That was in 1817. In 1821, he was one of a handful of men who purchased land for a cemetery so Benjamin Leib’s deathbed request that he be buried as a Jew could be met. The creation of that cemetery, the Chestnut Street Cemetery, is recognized as the event that formally established the Jewish community in Cincinnati. It was renovated last year and its rededication on September 26, 2021, marked the official beginning of the Jewish Cincinnati Bicentennial.

But it wasn’t a visit to the cemetery that led to this post. It was the “Our Shared Story” exhibit at the Cincinnati Museum Center that led to a visit to the cemetery. In 1821 Cincinnati really was a frontier town and the Chestnut Street Cemetery was not just the first Jewish cemetery in the state but the first west of the Alleghenies. In 1824, K.K. Bene Israel was established. Now known as Rockdale Temple, it is the oldest Jewish congregation west of the Alleghenies. Cincinnati’s Jewish community experienced great growth and had significant impact on the religion in the U.S. with things like major support for Reform Judaism and the founding of Hebrew Union College. The exhibit tells of this influence but has even more examples of the impact Cincinnati Jews had on the world at large.

Quite a number of community and business leaders are recognized. This picture is of a wall where several of those business leaders are identified. Some of the businesses are Manischewitz, Frank’s, Fleischmann’s, and Frisch’s. I got a kick out of seeing a “Jewish Cowboy” promotional record put out by Manischewitz. I got an even bigger kick out of listening to it on YouTube.

As befitting a place that started professional baseball, one Jewish business found success in sporting goods. The Cincinnati Red Stockings began play in 1869, the P. Goldsmith Sons Company was founded in 1875, and a Jewish player named Lipman Pike joined the Reds in 1877. Of course, there are now Jewish players in every professional sport and Jewish fans too as this Bengals yarmulke shows.

Chestnut Street Cemetery is less than a mile from the museum. A double-sided plaque contains information about the cemetery and the two centuries of Jewish history. The information panel visible in the opening photo says that Benjamin Leib’s grave is unmarked but believed to be “in the back left corner”. I’m guessing that means it’s in the left rear of this picture.

Buddy, Can You Lend Me a Sign?

When the American Sign Museum announced its “first-ever traveling exhibit” at the National Museum of the Air Force, I felt pretty confident that I would see it someday. I was less certain that I would see the signs the museum had loaned to the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company. Then, with almost no planning and a fair amount of luck, I saw both borrowed batches of brightness this week.

On Saturday, I learned that my previously made plans for the week had fallen through then almost immediately recalled an email about a museum member discount for the play featuring the loaned signs. I went to the CSC website looking for something later in the week but was surprised to find that a front-row seat was available for the next day (Easter Sunday) and that the performance was one followed by a Q&A with some of the performers. I snatched it up.

CSC’s production of The Comedy of Errors has a modern setting with the play’s Ephesus presented as a Las Vegas-like city. Wanting to add some Vegas-style glow to the stage and realizing that an outstanding repository of neon and such was just a few miles away, the CSC reached out to the ASM, and here (with permission and a phone camera) is the result. The play is hilarious and the cast is superb. In addition to the neon, modern touches include a number of songs to make it a sort of Shakespearean musical. All my roadie friends will be happy to learn that among those songs is a version of “Get Your Kicks on Route 66”. The production runs through April 30.

With some pictures of one set of borrowed signs in my pocket, it wasn’t long before I began thinking about a blog post on the subject, and almost immediately realized that any such post would benefit greatly by also including the other set of current loaners. On Tuesday, I headed to Dayton and, after breakfast at the nearby Hasty Tasty, the Air Force Museum.

Using the life of real sign maker William H. Hahn as inspiration, placards displayed with the signs tell the story of the fictional Joe Signman. On display are examples of the lightbulb, neon, and plastic signs Joe would have dealt with during his career.

My birthday has been the subject of a couple of recent blog posts so you might already be aware that the United States Air Force and I were established the very same year. I have about five months seniority on the Air Force and am all done celebrating. The museum, however, intends to talk up the big anniversary throughout the year. “The Signmaker’s Journey” will be there through October 10.

An Almost Easter Parade

From the beginning, this blog has had a weekly post appearing on Sunday which means that a post has been published on each of the ten Easter holidays that the blog has existed. There have also been posts reporting on most Reds Opening Day Parades during that time. The two events are close but are usually at least a week apart so that there is no interference between the posts. This year a Major League Baseball owner-player dispute delayed the start of the season so that the Reds’ first home game and the associated parade occurred on Tuesday just five days before Easter. Interference has come to pass.

The first Easter post, in 2012, was really just a couple of paragraphs acknowledging the holiday. The 2013 post wasn’t much longer but was more interesting, IMO, with its mention of Eostre beer brewed by Howard Town Brewery. At the time, Eostre was listed on Howard’s website although none was actually available. Each year since then, I’ve checked the website hoping for a resurrection of the beer but instead have seen the beer’s name disappear completely. This year I searched the full internet for any mention of Eostre beer and discovered that at least four other breweries have made an Eostre beer over the years and that one apparently brewed some recently. Kent Brewery, in Birling, England, does not list the beer on its website but there are several recent check-ins of the brew on Untappd from pubs in the area. The connection between beer and Easter may not be as strong as the connection between beer and baseball but it does exist, and that’s enough, again IMO, to legitimize an Easter Sunday post about beer and baseball.

The beer-baseball connection is very strong. In fact, there is substantial evidence that baseball, as we know it, would not even exist without beer (See America’s Pastime Saved by Beer). Both were represented by more than one parade entry with an example of each shown here. The Cincinnati Vintage Base Ball Club plays the game by 1869 rules. Wiedemann Brewery was begun in 1870 and resurrected a few years ago. The splash of red at the left edge of the team photo comes from the better half of a well-dressed pair of nineteenth-century Reds fans. The national beer industry was represented in the parade right behind the Wiedemann wagon.

The powerful team pulling the Wiedemann entry were hardly the only horses in the parade. None, however, were better controlled than this pair.

Of course, an Opening Day Parade in Cincinnati would not be complete without fan organizations, precision drill teams, high school bands, and other musical groups. These photos are merely representative samples except for the drill team. As far as I know, the Wapakoneta Optimist Lawnmower Precision Drill Team is the only one of its kind.

And celebrities. A parade has to have celebrities. Former Reds’ All-Star shortstop Barry Larkin was the parade’s Grand Marshall, Channel 12 news anchor John Lomax is retiring at month’s end although I’m sure he won’t be disappearing, and the World’s Funkiest Reds Fans, Bootsy & Patti Collins, were bobbing to Little Willie John’s Fever blasting from the King Records float just in front of them.

Thanks, Findlay Market for another great parade.

Check out previous Opening Day Parade posts (2012, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019) and previous Easter posts (2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021).

Science Behind Pixar

The Science Behind Pixar exhibit at the Cincinnati Museum Center opened last October meaning I’ve had plenty of time to see it. There are two reasons that I waited until it had barely three weeks remaining before checking it out. The first is that I believe 2006’s Cars is the only Pixar movie I’ve actually seen in its entirety. The second is that I thought the exhibit was for kids only. Reason one is undeniable fact; reason two is pure nonsense.

The picture at left is of a divider in the exhibit. Some of the figures on it do look familiar to me because I’ve seen them in commercials or maybe in a movie that was playing somewhere I walked past. But I can’t connect any of them with movies or commercials they are in, and I sure don’t know their names. Characters are used to demonstrate different pieces of Pixar science, and I don’t doubt that knowing who they are would make things more fun — watching kids experiencing the exhibit proved that — but it’s not required.

The idea of a creative pipeline is central to Pixar’s operation. The steps that go from story and modeling to lighting and rendering are identified in an introductory movie and panels explaining them are arranged in a circle near the center of the exhibit.

The bulk of the exhibit space is filled with hands-on stations where kids and old men can pretend to participate in each of those pipeline steps in a variety of ways. I don’t know how many job openings Pixar expects over the next few years but I’m sure that, with this sort of recruitment tool, they will all be easily filled.

There are also a number of these smaller kiosks around with Pixar employees describing their jobs or how certain problems were solved. If neither the hands-on stuff nor the technical descriptions make you want a job at Pixar, maybe seeing the enthusiasm these employees have will do it.

Heck, after playing with some animation, lighting, and other pipeline steps, I was almost ready to ask about job openings myself. And I have no intention of ever working anywhere ever again. I am, of course, joking about this whole thing being a recruitment tool for Pixar — mostly. I am not joking at all about the exhibit showing how much fun and satisfaction there can be in science.

I attended The Science Behind Pixar on Friday, April 1. It is open through April 24.

Getting Springy in Cincy

When spring arrived on Sunday morning, the only item on my calendar for Monday had nothing to do with the season. That quickly changed and I went to bed with a full day planned for the first full (i.e., 24 hour) day of spring. The annual butterfly show at Krohn Conservatory had just opened on Friday and I was happy to see that plenty of tickets remained for Monday. I grabbed one for the time slot with the most remaining which happened to be noon.

The Egyptian-styled columns near the entrance hint at this year’s “Butterflies of the Nile” theme. Last year I was the first of my group to enter the Butterfly Showroom so was able to snap a picture of the room with only plants, butterflies, and a single attendant. I wasn’t that lucky this year. Not only were there more people in the room when I entered but there would also be more throughout my time there. Attendance is limited to 100 per hour this year compared to 40 per hour in 2021.

As in previous years, I made no attempt to identify the butterflies but merely photographed them.

Unlike previous years, I did not see lots of sugar water dispensers. There has always been fresh fruit available to hungry flitterers but it seems to really be emphasized this year. Maybe that will help the butterflies keep their weight down as the show goes on.

Everyone is given a scratch and sniff card for use in attracting butterflies but clearly, not everyone needs it. This year I was one of those and had a hitchhiker for more than half of my time there. Several people mentioned it to keep the fellow from being prematurely flattened but a young girl was the first. I think that might be her hand slipping the card under the fence. It was her mother who took the picture of my passenger and I think I only stuttered slightly as I asked.

My next stop was in Ault Park to check on the cherry trees. Butterflies at Krohn have been a sign of spring only since 1996. Cherry blossoms at Ault go back to the 1930s when 1,000 Japanese weeping cherry trees were given to the city and planted in the park. In 2008, these were augmented by 121 Somei Yoshino trees.

Not all of the trees were in bloom on Monday but enough were to make my visit more than worthwhile. Plus, it’s quite obvious that more blooms are on the way.

The trees full of white and pink blossoms are certainly beautiful in their own right but they can sometimes be used as a backdrop for something even more beautiful.

 

The day’s third stop, and the item that was on the calendar first, was at Playhouse in the Park. The theater is in the middle of a $50 million expansion that includes a new main stage. Monday’s event was one of several aimed at raising the last million of the fifty. I’m not a big donor or even a season ticket holder but do usually attend one or two performances each year and am on some mailing list somewhere. I enjoyed getting the update and look forward to the opening of the new theater which is planned for March 2023.

Pi at Phi

The Golden Ratio is represented by the Greek letter Phi (Φ). The ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter is represented by the Greek letter Pi (Π). The Fibonacci Sequence, where the sum of each consecutive pair of numbers equals the following number, is closely related to Phi. Mount Healthy’s Fibonacci Brewing takes its name from this sequence. The first three digits of Pi are 3.14. Because this looks like March 14 when written American style, that date has become known as Pi Day. Because Pi and pie are homophones, it naturally became popular to eat pie on Pi Day. At Fibonacci Brewing, great honor is bestowed on the person consuming an entire pie the fastest without using their hands. Yes, everything about this, starting with Phi and Pi, is irrational. But it sure is fun.

Betty Bollas, who owns Fibonacci Brewing along with her husband Bob, says the idea for the event came to her in a dream. The brewery held its first Pi Day celebration in 2018. Mark from Brink Brewing, the guy in the opening photo, won. He won again in 2019. He didn’t get a chance in 2020 because the event was canceled with just days to go. Ohio’s official COVID triggered shutdown of bars and restaurants occurred on March 15 but it was already obvious that a big gathering at that time would not be a great idea. The event did not even reach the planning stage in 2021 but it’s back for 2022 with a nice white table cloth and a line of boxes filled with North College Hill Bakery cherry pies.

I apologize for not knowing who’s who but I do know that Urban Artifact, Humble Monk, Higher Gravity, Marty’s Hops N Vines, and Brink are all represented and that the guy in the center is a last-minute volunteer from the crowd recruited to tackle an unassigned pie. One of these pictures was taken at 7:05 and the other at 7:06.

Andrew Desenberg, a.k.a. The Gnarly Gnome, MCed while two unidentified fans cheered on the competitors. I have to wonder just how much standing while eating helped Zane from Humble Monk munch his way to victory. His name will now be added to the Fibonacci-Pi trophy just like Indy 500 winners are added to the Borg-Warner trophy. The Borg-Warner is currently valued at $3.5 million. Give it time.


I did my own pie eating before and after the competition. The before part was at Mom’s Restaurant where I got the next to last piece of apple pie. The after part was at the brewery with a pie from Big Dog’s Pizza truck. I sat down for both, used my hands, ate slowly, and enjoyed every bite.

Bock Bock Goat

Cincinnati’s Bockfest has fared relatively well during the pandemic. It slipped in just ahead of the big shutdown in 2020 and muddled through 2021 with a few venues and some coordinated at-home celebrations. I believe there was even a very short parade around Dunlap Cafe but I can’t find any record of it. For 2022, it’s back in all its glory including a full-size parade with staging at Arnold’s just as it should be. ERRATUM 10-Mar-2022: My memory of Dunlap Cafe staging a short substitute for a canceled parade was only partially correct. It did happen but it was for the 2021 Cincinnati Reds Opening Day Parade, not the Bockfest Parade,

Lenten fish fries suffered a bunch because of COVID but it looks like they will also be operating somewhat like normal this year. In the past, I have walked past the fish fry at Old St. Mary’s Church as I followed the parade. I’m going to try patronizing a fish fry every week this year and got things started by reaching downtown early enough to stop by St. Mary’s before the parade. I munched on the tasty sandwich as I continued on to Arnold’s.

At Arnold’s, I grabbed a Moerlein Bar Bender bock to wash down the sandwich as the parade was being organized — and I use the term loosely — in the street in front of the bar.

The parade began to move a few minutes ahead of the scheduled 6:00 PM start. Seeing Cincinnati legend Jim Tarbell near the front helped make things feel normal.

Of course, Jim wasn’t the only familiar and reassuring parade entry.

And there were plenty of new entries and old entries in new guises.

I always appreciate the touch of glamour that the Court of the Sausage Queen and the energetic dance troupes add.

The parade’s endpoint has been moved to Findley Market Playground from the closed Moerlein facility on Moore street. Despite the structure’s obvious lack of both bricks and mortar, it is still called Bock Hall rather than Bock Tent.

Perry Huntoon and his son were in town for the festival and we met up outside Bock Hall. After one Hudepohl Bock, we walked up the street to the slightly less crowded but at least as noisy Northern Row Brewery. Northern Row was actually serving their bock at a stand outside the big tent but, even though the brewery was rather full, the beer line was much shorter.


Rhinegeist Brewery is sort of just around the corner and Perry and Erik turned in there while I headed on to the car and home. I extended my Bockfest involvement just a little on Saturday with a visit to Fibonacci Brewing. That’s Honey Doppelbock on the counter. It is named after the goat with the splash of white on her head. I also tried Fiddlehead Maibock, named after the white goat. I guess Buttercup, the third goat, doesn’t have a beer named after her yet.

Book Review
Lost Cincinnati Concert Venues
Steven Rosen

This book brought back some memories, corrected others, and filled in gaps I didn’t even know I had. And I was only here for the last quarter of the covered period. For the years before I moved to Cincinnati, it confirmed some rumors and filled in some blanks. Its author, Steven Rosen, has done an awful lot of writing both as an employee (Cincinnati Enquirer, Denver Post) and as a freelancer (NY Times, LA Times, Cincinnati Magazine, etc.). He is currently serving as Contributing Visual Arts Editor for Cincinnati CityBeat as well as continuing to freelance. With a resume like that, it’s surprising to learn that this is Rosen’s first book.

True to its title, the book is organized by the venues where concerts took place, but venues only matter because of the events they host, and those events are what is really at the heart of Lost Cincinnati Concert Venues of the ’50s and ’60s. The two venues in the subtitle are great examples. The Surf Club operated at the beginning of the 1960s and became known for hosting comedians like Lenny Bruce, Dick Gregory, Henny Youngman, and Phyllis Diller; musicians such as Sarah Vaughan, Peter, Paul, & Mary, and Julius La Rosa; and acts like The Smothers Brothers and Homer & Jethro who were a bit of both. Ludlow Garage rose at the end of the decade with performances by Alice Cooper, the Allman Brothers, Santana, the Kinks, and a whole bunch more. People may or may not remember that the Surf Club had taxidermied swordfish on the walls or that the Ludlow Garage had some really big chairs, but remembering where you saw Phyllis Diller or the Allman Brothers is a certainty.

Cincinnati is a border town with some Kentucky venues as accessible to residents as many in Cincinnati itself. Rosen’s first chapter is, in fact, titled “Northern Kentucky”. He acknowledges the Beverly Hills and Lookout House showrooms but seems to feel that their notoriety has brought them enough attention. He focuses on some lesser-known places like the Sportsman’s Club (where the Drifters once performed), the Copa Club (Miles Davis, Sam Cooke, and more), and Stagman’s Flamingo Dance Club (Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, et. al.).

Rosen describes and locates the venues then fleshes them out with tales of the acts that played there and the people who owned and managed them. In the case of the northern Kentucky clubs, ownership might have a little organized crime involved and Rosen discusses that too.

There is also a chapter on “Downtown Cincinnati” (Living Room, Albee Theater) and one called “Neighborhoods and Beyond”. There are lots of neighborhoods in Cincinnati and Rosen doesn’t get to all of them but here’s a sampling of the neighborhood-venue-performer combinations he does get to: Walnut Hills, New Cotton Club, Aretha Franklin; Eastern Avenue, Vet’s Inn, Albert Washington; Western Hills, Hawaiian Gardens, Lonnie Mack.

Some venues get their own chapters. In addition to the subtitle’s Surf Club and Ludlow Garage, there’s Cincinnati Gardens, Seven Cities, Babe Bakers, Hyde Park-Mount Lookout Teen Center, and Black Dome. Gene Autry played the Gardens long before that Everly Brothers headlined show with Rodgers, Holly, Anka, Cochran, et.al., and in the years that followed, the Stones, Beatles, James Brown, Bob Dylan, and just about everybody else played there.

One act and one event also get their own chapters. The act, not surprisingly, is the Beatles who played Cincinnati twice; once at Cincinnati Gardens and once at Crosley Field. The event is the Cincinnati Summer Pop Festival of June 13, 1970. It was also held at Crosley Field and Rosen uses the chapter to mention that the Ohio Valley Jazz Festival took place there from 1964 to 1970. With acts like Traffic, Mountain, Grand Funk Railroad, and Bob Seger, the Pop Festival was a major event and Rosen can certainly be forgiven for stretching the ’50s and ’60s by a few months. Back in those days, people apparently sometimes brought pineapple upside-down cake and peanut butter to concerts giving fans something to remember Alice Cooper (cake) and Iggy Pop (peanut butter) by.

Rosen used some of his own memories in this book and combed through a lot of local papers and other publications. He also contacted many of the others who were actually there. Jim Tarbell, of Hyde Park Center and Ludlow Garage fame, provided the forward. He also provides a telling comment about loss at the end of the ’60s. Reflecting on rock becoming big business, he says, “It was baptism by fire to realize how quickly the whole scene changed from peace and love to money.”

Even though it’s not exactly about peace and love and money, the book’s final sentence does make a thoughtful observation on the loss of a major Cincinnati concert venue. “Crosley Field is now lost but is still dearly missed by fans of both Cincinnati baseball and Iggy Pop.”

Lost Cincinnati Concert Venues of the ’50s and ’60s: From the Surf Club to Ludlow Garage, Steven Rosen, The History Press (Jan 10, 2022), 6 x 9 inches, 176 pages, ISBN 978-1467147217

Available multiple places including Arcadia Publishing (History Press) but I suggest going straight to the guy who wrote it: StevenRosen.net.

Voice of America Museum

I attended Airwaves Kite Fest in 2006 and 2010. 2006 was the second of eight; 2010 was the sixth. It was a cool way to greet springtime and I wish it was still around. It was held at the Voice of America Bethany Station site where a huge array of antennas once broadcast news and more to Europe, Africa, and South America. I believe that parts of the building were open in 2006 and I took some photos inside but the entire month of April 2006 has gone missing from my photo archives. The building held the beginnings of a museum in 2006 and in 2010 it was being renovated to improve the museum operation. Since then, it has gone from being open sporadically to being open every Saturday and Sunday. I’ve driven by it countless times since 2010 but Saturday was the first time I actually did what I told myself I should do on most of those drive-bys. I made it inside where those 2006 beginnings have turned into the impressive VOA museum.

I arrived just as a volunteer was wrapping up his introduction to a sizable group which turned out to be all one family. I accompanied them past a beautifully restored Crosley Hot Shot to watch a short orientation movie.

Then it was a stop at the “Ham Shack” operated by the West Chester Amateur Radio Association. Several members were present (and behind me in the photos) and we were given an overview of the operation. We also got to listen in on a conversation with a fellow in Finland while we were there.

The claimed purpose of the Volksempfänger (people’s receiver) was to make radio reception affordable to the general public but its real purpose was to make the general public accessible to Nazi propaganda. Of course, it could also be used to listen to the BBC and VOA although that was quite illegal. Knowing that Hitler sometimes referred to the VOA broadcasts as “the Cincinnati liars” was and is a source of pride for the locals.

Hitler was completely wrong. For one thing, from its beginning, VOA realized that broadcasting reliable and truthful news would have more impact than broadcasting false propaganda. Secondly, although transmission was from near Cincinnati, the content was not. It came from New York and Washington on telephone lines which were routed to one of six 200-kilowatt transmitters. There were no liars involved and definitely none in Cincinnati. Before it was shut down in 1994, Bethany Relay Station saw several upgrades in transmitters and antennas. People living nearby often reported receiving the station on the plumbing in their bathrooms and the fillings in their teeth.

There were multiple reasons for locating the station here including it being a safe distance from the coasts. But a possibly bigger reason was the existence of Powell Crosley and Crosley Broadcasting. After starting elsewhere at 50 watts, Crosley’s WLW (World’s Largest Wireless) was broadcasting AM from just down the road at 50,000 watts. Between May of 1934 and February of 1939, it had transmitted at an incredible 500,000 watts. Here’s a closeup and description of that pictured metal ball. Across the road from the AM station, a Crosley shortwave station was retransmitting its programming. This became WLWO (Overseas), increased power to 75,000 watts, and, as told here, begat VOA.

Crosley begat a lot of other stuff too. There were cars like the previously pictured Hot Shot. Radios, though, were the money makers. Some products were invented in-house and some were purchased patents. The purchased category included the Icyball and Shelvador. Although refrigerators with door-mounted shelves are commonplace these days, hardly anyone makes a fridge with a good built-in radio anymore. The Reado could deliver and print the news overnight but was done in by the Great Depression.

Crosley was the pioneer and long-time leader but Cincinnati’s TV and radio story goes far beyond that. The museum includes lots of memorabilia from others who spent some time living on the air in Cincinnati.  

Book Review
Christmas in Cincinnati
Wendy Hart Beckman

This History Press publication, as is their standard formula, is built around lots of photos both old and new. In this case, a few of those photos are mine. I won’t pretend that isn’t what made me aware of the book and triggered this review but will point out that the book does fit handily into the local-author-local-subject category that I’m fond of talking about. The local author, Wendy Hart Beckman, isn’t a native Cincinnatian but has spent much of her adult life here. I’m thinking that her New England background might actually help in recognizing what is unique or even just a little different about Christmas in Cincinnati.

As befits a book from The History Press, the first section of this book following the introduction is named “History” and notes that the very first celebration of the holiday in what would become Cincinnati occurred way back in 1788. Christmas is technically a Christian holiday, of course, and this chapter includes the history of the early days of the churches and the religion itself in the city. With Christmas being the only federal holiday with religious connections, I’ve often wondered why and when that happened but never got around to digging up the answer. Beckman answers the “when” question by writing that President Grant made it an official federal holiday in 1870. Ohio had made it official in 1857. Guess I’ll have to learn why on my own.

What follows is five chapters devoted to our five basic senses. There is a considerable amount of history presented in each of those too. But you knew that without me saying it. The reason you knew that, is because, like me, you instinctively knew that this book was about Christmas traditions and traditions are just an ongoing form of history. So, as Beckman informs us of “Things to Do”, “…Hear”, “…See”, “…Smell”, and “…Taste”, she presents the history of those things along with some guidance on how to experience them ourselves.

“Things to Do” in Cincinnati around Christmas time include skiing, sledding, and ice skating on Fountain Square. Shopping and visiting Santa in the numerous downtown stores was once a major draw in the days leading up to the holiday but the stores and the shoppers slipped away to the suburbs some time back. In 2020, COVID-19 nearly put a stop to in-person shopping anywhere and only time will tell if it ever fully returns. The same is true of sitting on jolly men’s laps. Beckman includes “Donating” among things to do and writes about several Cincinnati signature campaigns like the Ruth Lyons Children’s Fund and Neediest Kids of All.

Starting with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, there is no shortage of “Things to Hear” in Cincinnati. Beckman identifies many musical organizations, both professional and amateur, that offer Christmas-themed performances around the holidays. In addition to the many local groups, she mentions the Trans-Siberian Orchestra whose Decemberish visit has become something of a tradition over the last twenty years.

There are indeed plenty of things to do and hear in Cincinnati but there are even more “Things to See”. Beckman lists many Nativity scenes and light displays including some at private residences that have become must-sees over the years. The Cincinnati Zoo’s “Festival of Lights” and the tree on Fountain Square are in that must-see category. What might be considered the big three of Cincinnati Christmas events are on Beckman’s “Things to See” list. The oldest is Boar’s Head and Yuletide Festival which has been celebrated in Cincinnati since 1939. That’s clearly long enough ago to qualify as a true tradition but the festival’s history goes back another 600 years in England. Number two is The Nutcracker which the Cincinnati Ballet Company has been doing since 1974. The newest of the three is Playhouse in the Park’s production of A Christmas Carol which dates to 1991.

Only two categories of “Things to Smell” are identified by Beckman but each has quite a few entries. The “Freshly Cut Trees” category includes wreaths and garlands but if you want a serious grade A freshly cut aroma you need to do the cutting yourself and more than a dozen places offering that experience are listed. The second category is “Family Dinners” and only scents, not locations, are listed.

Good flavor is often advertised by a good aroma so it isn’t surprising that the word “family” reappears in “Things to Taste”. “Family Affairs” talks about some of the feasts of Christmases past. Some restaurants are also mentioned in the “…Taste” chapter but it was photos and descriptions of Cincinnati’s bakeries, candy shops, and ice cream parlors that got my taste buds’ attention. If you want to talk about tradition, how about a company (Doscher’s) that has been making candy canes since 1871?

For the history buff, Christmas in Cincinnati provides a good look at how Cincinnatians celebrated Christmas in the past. Perhaps more importantly, though, it identifies pieces of those celebrations that have become Queen City traditions and offers some guidance in how to participate in those traditions in the future.

Christmas in Cincinnati, Wendy Hart Beckman, The History Press (October 18, 2021), 6 x 9 inches, 160 pages, ISBN 978-1467148313
Available through Amazon.