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Michael McLeod

I'm thinking this story will fit right into the rampant nostalgia that holds sway around here.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/11/nyregion/the-sistine-chapel-of-comic-strip-art.html

James Hamilton, M. D.

Folks,

Having been back in Columbus this past week for some family celebrations (graduation, birthdays) I had a brief opportunity to visit Walhalla Ravine on an overcast, gloomy, Cinco de Mayo morning with my brother-in-law. What with all the folklore and ghost stories about this ravine the weather seemed appropriate and, besides, such areas are best photographed in diffused light anyway.

Springtime foliage was blooming well with the abundance of rain that Columbus has had, but once summer fully hits I suspect Walhalla will be densly covered by all the leafy deciduous trees and bushes. For those of you who grew up in the more southerly part of Clintonville - such as Jack, Donna, Mike McL. and others - you may recognize some of the scenes in these shots. I, myself, was more familiar with the ravines behind and near Whetstone Park. So please, add any comments that you may have.

Oh, and by the way, we encountered no supernatural sightings!

First of all, some good advice:

The manhole covers over the drainage areas had several different dates on them This was the oldest we saw:

Many of the old stone bridges were still intact:

And some vines still grow, probably not the same ones that Donna and her friends used to swing on over the creek:

Finally, there are a lot of old stone stairways, some ascend to homes, some go nowhere, all are overgrown and have a spooky look to them:

James Hamilton, M. D.

And to all mothers in our class, and all our mothers alive or deceased: thanks for your love, care and sacrifices and HAPPY MOTHERS' DAY!

Timothy Lavelle

Sending fresh flowers to all you Mothers, would-be mothers, Mothers of Invention, and all women who have helped us see the light of love and grace throughout our lives. Surely these do not deserve to share a site with Jim's photos but I know you, because of how you all are, will honor the joy with which these are given.

Dave, Happy Birthday to your lovely Mom a day late. Jim those photos, especially, to me, the stairway to nowhere, were exceptional.

Party On....

James Hamilton, M. D.

Timothy Lavelle

Jim, 

Thanks for the kindness. Front yard. These are the May flowers you get from PNW showers!

Tim

Donna Kelley (Velazquez)

 The greatest gift is that of beauty. Thanks for sharing, Jim and Tim. The Walhalla photos jolted so many memories that had been tucked away for decades.  Thanks for that too, Jim.  My next Columbus visit will definitely include a walk through Clintonville. It has been much too long.

​By the way one of those vague memories is of a shadowy dark haired character on a pogo stick focusing his camera on a group of us as we swung from the vines.  Hmmmmm

Mary Margaret Clark (Schultheis)

Jim......next time you are in Columbus, stop by 191 E. Weber which is directly across from the Wahalla Ravine....you can take some more pictures and then we can sit on my front porch, and not only take in the breeze from all of the trees that surround the ravine, but also the sounds of the fire engines, the ambulances, the motorcycles, the trucks, the bikes, the cars that pass by my humble home reminding me that i am not alone in this world!!  LOL  

Tim......your flowers are stunning and such a beautiful sign that there is a rythym and cycle to our world and to life itself.

As we are honoring Mothers this weekend, I am sharing an article which seeks to 'reflect on the story told by the most powerful depiction of motherhood", Michaelangelo's Pieta. 

As we head into Mother's Day, I think it could be worthwhile to reflect on the story told by the most powerful depiction of motherhood, and one of the greatest works of art, ever produced by human hands. Michelangelo's masterpiece, the Pieta, portrays Mary cradling Jesus in her arms after He was taken down from the cross.

Imagine the motherly pride flowing from her heart as she saw her Son make the ultimate sacrifice for the sake of mankind. Imagine her pain as she watched Him in unthinkable agony, abandoned by almost everyone who had once followed Him. There were only a few people who stood by Jesus in His final moments. How appropriate and how beautiful that one of them was His mother. This is what a real mother does: she sacrifices, she endures, she suffers, she loves.

Sometimes, I think, we lose sight of the human element in this story. We've heard it a million times, so we gloss over it and begin to see it as something distant and abstract. But Jesus really died on that cross. And His mother really stood there helplessly watching as her Son was tortured and murdered right in front of her. She must have thought back to that prophecy she'd been told in the temple all those years ago: "A sword will pierce your soul" (Luke 2:35). And that is how it must have felt, like a blade cutting through her body and into her innermost being.

I think all mothers (and fathers) can relate to this to a certain degree, some more closely than others. Many mothers have experienced the incomprehensible torment of watching their children die slowly in a hospital bed, or quickly after a car accident or some sudden tragedy. Many mothers have suffered the agony of miscarriages, losing children they never had the chance to know or name. Most have felt, if not the pain of losing a child through death, still the pain of losing their children to the inevitable passage of time.

A mother feels profound joy as she watches her child grow from a baby in her arms, to a toddler waddling clumsily around the house, to an older kid with a greater sense of independence, to a teenager, to an adult. But that joy is mixed with the bittersweet flavor of change and the tinge of loss. Her child breaks off pieces of her as he grows, and he carries them with him unknowingly, as she is left to live with the little holes he leaves behind. If the unthinkable happens and the child dies, she will feel as though he has carried her whole being with him into the grave. That is what it means to love someone the way a mother loves a child. It means giving them your entire self, suffering as they suffer, and going as they go.

All of this is perfectly exemplified by the story of Jesus and Mary. Modern society tells girls to look to pop stars and businesswomen for inspiration. They ought to look here instead. To the foot of the Cross. To pain and beauty and redemption and love. To a mother and her son.

 

James Hamilton, M. D.

Nina Osborn (Rossi)

Hi Everyone!  Have not written lately but I do try to read most of the posts. I FINALLY took the time to watch Mark’s movie!!  Deep!  Very well done Mark.  A lot said in 29 minutes.  Thought provoking for sure .  I enjoyed it, especially knowing the writer and producer!!  Also, Jim, your photos are beautiful.  Thank you for posting them. I felt like I was there like I was so many years ago.  

David Mitchell

Amen Mary Margaret!

That is a beautiful piece. Of all the qualities I can recall about my mother - lots of love and affection, nurtering, protecting, guiding, teaching, story-telling (my favorite part), laughing (and yes, spanking) - I think her patience and endurance stand out the most. The things I put her through in my self-absorbed ways must have really tested her. It never dawned on me how much she must have worried about me for those 18 months of my "fly fishing" sabatical on the Mekong until I came home. And I know some of you went through the same with with a son or daughter in recent "trips" to the Middle-East.

And there are so many things that pull our kids away from our love and protection in everyday life. One of the wisest things I ever heard was hearing Kevin Ryan remind me of something at a lunch together about 17 years ago. I was just moving to SC and trying to make my last rounds of goodbye's with a few best friends. We were talking about the ups and downs of raising our kids and he said "They are not ours to keep. God only loans our kids to us for about 20 years. And we are supposed to raise them to leave home and have a life of their own." That really left a mark on me! 

And I am aware of much more trying stories (than mine) amongst this group, in both our mother's generation as well as our own group of mothers. Your (and their) patience and endurance are magnificent!

I think the thing that tugs at our hearts so much as we look at this statue is the aspect of a mother's helplessness in so many tragic situations beyond their control - as was Mary's at the Cross. I think we all realize that Mary knew precisely who her little boy was, and what was to come for HIM. But I also can't imagine it made that day any easier for her.   

However, I am reminded that HIS sacrifice was not for loss, but for my (our) gain. The ultimate act of HIS totally "wreckless", unselfish love - caring not for HIS own comfort, but offering up everything for our eternal joy.

----------

(p.s. I got to see the " Pieta" in the wonderful Vatican exhibit at the 1964 World's Fair in New York. Dad and I and my first childhood buddy drove to NYC and stayed with one of Dad's oldest grade school buddies at his home on Long Island. I was 16 and Dad let me drive into Manhattan in rush hour traffic - and even down into the "garment district" - which was quite an experience. And we got to see a Mets game while we were at the "Fair" - a game that lasted 17 innings and made us miss the last connecting train from "Jamaica Station" to Long Island at 3:30 a.m. - long story)

At the Vatican exhibit, you filed in slowly in a very long line, and once inside, ushers stood by to "space" you out while you steppped onto a level moving "carpet" (escalator) that kept the crowds moving past the statue at a steady pace and would not allow lingering. The lights were very dramatic with, if I recall correctly, a blue tint for dramatic efffect.  I wonder if any more of you got to see that?)

David Mitchell

Jim and Tim,

All this great photography is making me jealous. I have been a serious photo hobbiest off and on three different times in my life and I miss the hobby very much. I have an "itch" to get back in again but have only the desire to get back into something I cannot presently afford (the exciting new Fuji X system cameras - expensive stuff).

We started talking pictures in my home on a vintage Kodak Brownie box camera. It was a simple black box that you held down above your waist and looked through a crude tiny "wasit-level" finder. The shutter release button was a tiny bent aluminum lever on the side of the body of the camera.

(similar to this)

I am sorry. I cannot get the photos to load without them being huge oversized files. 

Then we got a fancy new Kodak "Duo-Flex" model that was really cool looking. And you flipped open a much bigger and cooler (more cool?) form of "waist-level" finder - also shot from mid-chest looking down into the viewer. It was a "Twin Lens" viewer. We used this one for years. And remember, these first two cameras used the wider "120 Roll Film".  

Sometime in the mid 50's my Uncle Ralph returned from a business trip to Germany (first employee of Abbott Labs) with gifts for all of us. He bought my Dad a "Kodak Retina IIa". It was a gorgeous little thing that shot the "new" 35 mm film. It had the coolest little lens cover/door that swung out and pulled the lens out with a small leather extension bellows. The lens was a fine glass 50mm f 2.0 Scheider "Xenon" lens (and sharp as a tack!). This was a really proffessional camera. You could adjust the focus, the lens aperture, and shutter speed on a small rings around the lens. There was also a dial to set varuous "ASA" speeds" with the actual names of about 6 or 8 types of Kodak film on the setting ring. But you had to "read" your light with a separate hand held light meter to be able to make your exposure setttings. I still have that old light meter around somewhere. I got interested in using the camera about age 14 and my Uncle Ralph who lived in a far away place called Clintonville showed me how it all worked. As I began to grasp the inter-relationship of lens speed, aprerture setting, and focus I became mesmerized! 

Later in the sumer of 1965, Dad let me take the camera with me to a summer of school in Salzburg, Austria. One of my favorite times was a night of shooting all the lighted fountains and statues of the city. A couple of us went out with a tripod and shot scenes using our own "one one thousand, two one thousand" count while we guessed at three different exposure times - a short one, medium one, and a long one. Salzburg during the summer Mozart Music Festival (recall the "Sound of Music") is a spectacular show of colored lights on Cathedrals, fountains, and statues. Amazingly, all of our shots turned out great!   

I had such an appettite for my own Camera by then that I dreamt of the day I could own my own SLR. When I was fairly new at my new home in Vinh Long, I went into the PX one day and saw two Canon FTb's on the shelf. I knew this was a rarity for our tiny little PX and decided to grab it while it was still there. (the other one was gone by later that day - I checked). I never regetted it. Kept it for years until it was stolen from my car at a constructiuon site in Denver.

Stayed out of the hobby for a short time and then got sucked back in to buy a beautiful all-black Minolta XD-11 and several lenses. Used it for a lot of the kids growing up picutes but needed to raise cash and sold it all.  

Later, I got back in with a Pentax SLR - forget the model? Then got all three of my kids a Penax K-1000 so they would have to learn to do it all manuall - and thus understand it. They still enjoy it, but one daughter has gotten really serious and uses it for her blog about raising kids with gardneing, cooking, and books. She's gotten quite good.

I would love to get back in, but I'm being stubborn and choosy.

NOTICE: Donations to Dave's camera purchase fund will be accpeted in cash, fine jewelry, rare stamps, or gold dubloons. 

David Mitchell

Mike,

The article about the cartoon murals in the NYC Bar is great stuff!

Mark Schweickart

Mike -- I concur with Dave. The article about the Cartoon Bar you linked us to was terrific.

Nina -- Thank you so much for the kind comments about my film, but to be fair, most of the credit goes to my son who directed and edited the piece, the actors who did very good work, and the cinematographer and his crew who made the piece look quite beautiful. If anyone wants to see this, and has long since lost track of the DVD copy that Janie put in our reunion swag-bags, you can watch it on this vimeo link:

https://vimeo.com/136256427
The password is: maxx

For some reason, on my computer, the image quite annoyingly pulsates light and dark when viewing on Safari, and sometimes on Firefox,  whereas Google Chrome doesn't seem to have this problem.

Changing the subject, there is currently streaming on NetFlix a four part doc on RFK called Bobby Kennedy for President, that I cannot recommend highly enough. In a few weeks, we are coming up on the 50th anniversary of that fateful day, so it is an appropriate time for this remembrance. The show gathers tremendous force as it unfolds, so don't be too quick to judge if the first episode doesn't grab you well enough. You'll be reaching for a tissue by Episode 3. As someone who has read many books about the Kennedys, and Bobby in particular, I still was mesmerized by seeing things I had only read about, and was continually struck by how forceful it was. So I would imagine that for those less familiar with his story, it will have even more impact. It was also nice to see in the last episode, some of the reasons why conspiracy theories erupted about his death. Although not treated in depth, at least enough substance was offered to understand why legitimate questions were raised, and not dismissively suggest that it should be consigned to the gauzy realm of crack-pot hypotheses. And whatever one's opinion of RFK might be, this documentary is worth watching just for the amazing footage from our shared past.

Aside from the obvious impact Vietnam has had on our collective psyches, which we have talked about a bit here on the forum, I think in general we tend to think back on our childhood in a somewhat overly-fond, halcyon-days manner. We tend to downplay what an enormously turbulent time we all somehow skated through in the sixties. Not that I particularly want to dwell on those negative times here on the forum, but it is quite satisfying, in a cathartic sort of way, to run into a  documentary like this -- quite a forceful reminder of those sad, complicated days of yore. 

Alan Standish

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms in the class of 1966!!  Your love, dedication, and sacrifices for your children ensures that the legacy of them will live forever.

Michael McLeod

Nice pieces of writing, MM.

But when you were running down the city sounds you forgot one: the trains!

Michael McLeod

Oh, and Mark:

I think the childhood years our generation experienced break down rather neatly into two opposing decades:

The 50s were innocent; the 60s, tumultuous.

It's an oversimplification, but a useful one.

The 50s felt innocent to us, of course, because we were too young to know otherwise. But I think, even for adults, that was a relatively smooth-running, post-war, kinda scary but not too scary decade. The country was self assured, confident, had its issues but thought well of itself. 

The 60's - whoa, Nellie. Katie bar the door and throw away the key. We've got a barn-burner here, everybody!

John Maxwell

David Mitchell

Very sweet Jack - spoken for all of us.

_______________

And Mike, did I hear a "Jimmy Crum" in your analysis? I distinctly heard a "Jimmy Crum". Yes, I am certain I did. 

Fred Clem

Mike,

Our innocence was destroyed in the fall of our sophomore year.  It had been over 62 years since the last president was murdered in office.  Two days later we witnessed the killing of his accused assassin as it happened.  Such an unbelievable time in our history.

Michael McLeod

Fred: You were never innocent. I'm pretty sure you were guilty from the start.

James Hamilton, M. D.

David Mitchell

Jim,

I have no idea where I was that day. But I thought somebody was going to ask "Where were you when something else happened" -  in Fred's prior post? 

Of course we all were in school that day. I recall the exact moment. I was in gym class - playing basketball - writhing in pain on the floor along with Dan Dublin. We had just come down awkwardly on each other's ankle on a jump ball - twisting in pain. Then we heard the Monsignor's voice, something like,,,, "May I have your attention. Everyone return to your home room immediately!"  

While we were downstairs, quickly changing in the locker room, a classmate came at me with some really ugly comments - looking to provoke me. I fought my anger. I shrugged it off and followed the Monsigor's orders, like the others.

I think you are right Fred. We were changed that day. Should we wish for a return to those "good ole' days?"

Funny - the world turns slowly at times - almost plodding. Then there are days when it bolts ahead like lightning striking very close - grabbing you by your throat - completely off guard! Perhaps we are in for a something big in Hawaii.  It does look foreboding. 

What's that saying?   Each Day is a Gift. 

Fred Clem

Not as guilty as you Mike.........

Michael McLeod

Ok that just gave me chills. Fred is obviously channeling Sister Norbertine.