Snippets of Snow



I grew up in Iowa. And, in Iowa, like Ohio, we know snow, we know deep-drifting snow, we know blowing snow, we know dry powder, and wet snow. In Iowa we know slush and brown, dirty snow, and pristine fields of white. We know sledding and ice skating on a frozen pond, and trees bowed down with icicles. We know snow-ball fights, snow angels and building a snowman. We even know about gliding while cuddled with a loved one in a horse drawn sleigh.



I can say I relate to Ohio snow – except for this – I didn’t hang in the snow after I grew up. Most of my life snow has been up in the mountains to play in while we lived in the sunny valleys of Arizona, on the sun-drenched California coast, or in the wet humid heat of Florida. I haven’t known real snow in a very long time.



Snow can't be left out of an homage to Ohio, right? It is still there every winter for the people who didn’t leave. There are plenty of snow videos on the Internet. Most are amateur and long but they are fun if you watch part of it - a snippet.   I viewed a lot of them and I’m posting a few of the best here.

I definitely recommend watching all of the video by GoBucks812 in the fan tribute to the Ohio State band. I love the finish! The others I’ll put links to so that you can watch snippets of them.  There are a couple by rail fans – huge rumbling trains in snow are cool and I’m sure those die-hard rail fans are downright cold. The last one is snow tubing. The front section of the video shows quite an expensive piece of equipment preparing the snow lanes for tubing. After you take a look at that you may want to scoot forward and watch the actual tubing.  That looks like great fun! Ohioans – the snow will be coming soon and I hope you enjoy the white stuff and make lovely videos without freezing your fingers, toes, and noses off!



Click the back button to come back to this site after a video!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gv8AFIEBxWs   Mr Vernon, Knox – driving in the snow

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvW_w8bdt1s  Snowstorm in Columbus

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuVsqwXPM9I  Railfanning in deep, Ohio snow

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0F-ytKyqmA  train kicking up snow

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqKKrC0HJeE  Snow Tubing lane prep & tubing

Credit:  Snow clipart, www.microsoft.come/clipart
Video: Fan Script Ohio by gobucks812, YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6L-fVwcGBlU

Kent State Crosby Stills Nash and Young



If you were less than nine years old in 1970, or not yet on planet earth you can’t know the Vietnam era in your gut or reverberating through your body and soul in memory. You can know facts and figures, you can approximate but you cannot come near. The division in this country over the war was palpable and painful – like a broken heart beating out of rhythm in the same body.


 Out of that brokenness, in the heart of America, came a terrible tragedy.  Today’s children raised on violent entertainment and inured by mad killers with guns cannot know this ingenuous time when the unthinkable happened when young people on a college campus protesting the war, as it was being protested all over the land, were fired on by other young people from the Ohio National Guard. The tragedy was on both sides, that sick feeling of horror -- that ‘not in America’ that ‘not in Ohio’ -- and moved us together toward an end of the war.

For those of you that don’t know, the ‘Kent State Shootigns’ took place at Kent State University in Portage County in northeastern Ohio in the small city of Kent. Kent is not far from Akron, and in easy driving distance is Cuyahoga Valley National Forest and West Branch State Park – a lovely college town with much to recommend it and this one tragic event that marks this spot on the map forever and gives us the determination – never again.

Here is a link to Kent State University's Oral History archive of the Kent State massacre.

For the past few days I’ve woken up with this song playing in my head, reminding me that it is time to post Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young’s unforgettable song about this horrible moment in Ohio’s history. 
 


Here is another great Vietnam era song from Buffalo Springfield in 1967, a prophetic precursor to the song above.

Credit: "Ohio" TheBacmaster, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnOoNM0U6oc, written by Neil Young,
performed by Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young.
"For What It's Worth" PityYou007, YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gp5JCrSXkJY, by Buffalo Springfield, 1967.

Beautiful Ohio?



It looks like one week. The idea that you are showing ‘the best’ of anything means that at some point you run out and it’s time to move on to another phase. Will my readers miss the YouTubes when I go back to regular posts? I have many more than seven videos left but they fall roughly into seven groups. Frankly, some of the ‘groups’ aren’t the best but just other - a favorite depends on the taste or preference of the reader.

There is a song, for instance, that has played as Ohio’s anthem for close to 100 years. Everyone has done it, or so it seems. That is “Beautiful Ohio.” It’s an okay song but it has been done to death. Still one can’t ignore the iconic. Is Ohio beautiful? Yes, it is beautiful. Ohio has it’s ugly – in the sense of:                  

There was a little girl who had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead;
When she was good, she was very, very good,
And when she was bad she was horrid.*

The ugly is human-made, though.  Without man to muddy it up Ohio is naturally beautiful. And, there are beautiful

man- made places – picture postcard farms, quaint towns with church steeples, barn quilts, city skylines, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  Where humans are involved we are back to taste or preference. God’s Ohio is always beautiful.

I’ve sampled several performers singing Beautiful Ohio, music by Mary Earl (aka Robert ‘Bobo’ King), lyrics by Ballard MacDonald.  In 1919 the recording by Henry Burr was a #1 chart topper and I’m posting Henry’s version here. Also, there are links to a few other versions.  Dad may prefer Glenn Miller or Lawrence Welk, my cousin may find Tiny Tim is a hoot, and my daughter may like Kenny Roberts and the Pinetoppers in their 1951 cowboy version. Do people who like country music also like cowboy music? Cowboys are western country I guess. Taste, it’s all about taste. If you click through the links below to sample various styles you can vote for your favorite by leaving a comment on the blog post.  I’d love to know which one is ‘best’ - vote!



Other versions of Beautiful Ohio:
Kenny Roberts and the Pinetoppers -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DluZQvsuOhQ
Tiny Tim - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdTe8rkTNF4
4 Rose Bowl Parade bound Ohio Bands - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bv0BCM_N7Rs
Marty Robbins - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzzM1E_lgg8
Sammy Rimmington - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rj3tn2IkzZU
Lawrence Welk - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYSIWM2bz6Y
Player Piano - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VocFMWK3TqY

Credits:  Beautiful Ohio posted on YouTube by CatsPjamas1, sung by Henry Burr, music by Mary EArl, Lyrics by Ballard Macdonald, 1919.
The Little Girl with the Curl - http://www.mothergoose.com/Rhymes/lrhymes.htm

Photos: http://consumer.discoverohio.com/pressroom/freeohioimages.aspx

Ghost Town



Sometimes a little bonus falls into your lap, or onto your computer, as it were.  I couldn’t believe what I found this evening while going over my list of Ohio videos.   I’ve mentioned Ohio ghost towns before but Whoa! This place was mentioned in my Belmont County post back on August 10^th   I had no idea there was a video of it on YouTube. Amazing.

I mentioned in my post that after her husband John died, Mary Moore and four of her 13 children moved to Belmont County. In 1825 they walked from Maryland through the forest and down Zane’s Trace, still not much more than an improved Indian path, when Mary stopped and decided she wasn’t going any farther and that this spot on Stillwater Creek near Sewellsville would be her home.

Marker for Crabapple Presbyterian Church
1800-1948

As Spiritseeker01 mentions in the introduction to the video – communities like this were abandoned when the coal mines gave out in this Appalachian area. This is all that’s left of Mary’s Sewellsville.  It must have had nothing when she stopped in 1825 and it is going back to nothing in 2013. Even Mary eventually abandoned Sewellsville to move closer to her son near the Crabapple Presbyterian Church in Wheeling Township. Mary is buried in the Crabapple Cemetery.

Still I can’t help feeling that Mary wants us to remember her as an intrepid pioneer woman.  I’d love to follow her path from Maryland and see where her property was by Stillwater Creek in the woods.

This second video is Beethoven's Ode to Joy and winter scenes from near Athens, Ohio - not far from Crabapple Church and Cemetery.  It has lovely photos and music but it is long; so only watch as much as interests you.



Credits: Spiritseeker01, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orKYYLtYGZs
Athens Ohio Snow Day, Ben Irwin, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0bQxLlsnSI&list=PL7FF6AC6FBBCEDE82
Photo: Crabapple Pres. Church, findagrave.com, FamTreeHunter
Image Credit: Ghost With Sign Clip Art from Vector.me (by liftarn)

What's Up Ohio! Ohio Songs

Good grief, we are coming up on the middle of October!  I feel like I’m moving through molasses in trying to get my book together – I’m scattered and its time to rework the list and focus.  Ohio is done (the state history page) except for a few more Ohio videos I’d like to upload to the Aquila’s Orchard blog.  I found some great things for children at the Ohio Statehouse, they have a wonderful website.

Ohioans love their sports teams and like to sing or rap about them. There are a lot of rap or hip hop numbers out there that I can’t or won’t post due to questionable language or content.  However, there is a photo of some coeds mooning the camera that appears in several videos.  Ohioans seem quite taken with it and I’ve given up trying to keep it out altogether. So, if it offends please blink as it goes by. 

My goal was to find the best Ohio videos on YouTube, and one member has gathered several of the best songs making my job easier.  If you are trying to get a feel for Ohio and Ohio fans I’d recommend the first – “What’s Up Ohio” with its tribute to Ohio fans of all kinds, even mooning coeds. The video, as it ends, rolls right into the second which is a parody called “We Live in Ohio” – also worth watching, although there are some inside jokes or comments that may mean little to non-natives.

Party Like a Buckeye, is repetitive rap for diehard OSU football fans and the next two videos are about their rivalry with Michigan. If you keep going down the list you will find Bruce Springsteen’s “Youngstown.”  One of my favorites on the list is “The Low Anthem – To Ohio,” (click on this link!!).  Also on the list is “Banks of the Ohio” a rather depressing folk song that has been done by every artist you can think of from Johnny Cash to Olivia Newton John. Why it is so popular escapes me.

“What’s Up Ohio” was posted by Wellpplrstupid.  The list of Ohio Songs was compiled by Chet Ridenour.  Thanks Chet!  Anyway, I hope you enjoy getting into the Ohio groove.

To pick up the sidebar with the list of songs click here: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJoyXn0nwrE&list=PL860191F40F56FC7D

 

Credits:  Chet Ridenour on YouTube - http://www.youtube.com/user/Rooster2318
What's Up Ohio by Wellpplrstupid - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJoyXn0nwrE&list=PL860191F40F56FC7D
Snoopy: http://www.centerstagestudio.org/newsletter/snoopy-woodstock-autumn-leaves/

The Best Damn Band In The Land!

Woody Hayes winner of five National Championships as football coach at Ohio State University was so moved by the Buckeye marching band that he rose up from the bench one day and said “That is the best damn band in the land!”  



OSU Marching Band



After seeing these videos few if any could dispute Woody’s
TBDBITL – this all brass and percussion marching band is as close to perfection as it gets. They are simply the best. They float around that field writing a script OHIO and making it look easy. It is not. That kind of perfection takes a tremendous amount of work, practice, patience, and dedication.

Note how they dot the “I” in Ohio. It is an honor to be the dot and sometimes guest celebrities, such as Bob Hope or John Glenn, take their turn at being the most famous dot in the land. The dot is usually a fourth or fifth year sousaphone player.*   In this video, if I’m not mistaken, it is a female dot. It was not until the 1970s that women were allowed to march with the band.

I was going post the Ohio Script ramp entry and performance here by itself. BUT, you have to check out this half-time show at an OSU vs Nebraska game Oct. 6, 2012.  Simply incredible.

My Valley High School Marching Band hat and plume is off for you OSU – the best damn band in all the land.

 A Pregame show. [If the box appears black click on it.]

Half-time homage to video games – amazing!

Credits: The Ohio State University Marching Band Ramp Entry, Script Ohio & Pre-game show. OSU vs Indiana University. 11 5 2011.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdWolVsKlAI  by mbandfan2 on YouTube.
OSU Half-Time Show - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAzzbrFgcUw posted on YouTube by HandMRowGoBucks·
*For a detailed description of the band check Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ohio_State_University_Marching_Band
Photo: The Buckeye Battle Cry, http://www.thebuckeyebattlecry.com/2013/04/changes-coming-for-tbdbitl/
Logo: The Ohio State University Marching and Athletic Bands - http://tbdbitl.osu.edu/

Goodbye to Old Ohio ~ family ties to John Brown

John Brown

In discovering the best of Ohio’s YouTubes I also want to stay close to the purpose of my blog and the way that Ohio relates to our family history; which brings us to a fine performance of a genuine folk song about the abolitionist John Brown and his followers.

Many, if not all, of the counties our families helped settle had a strong and active segment of the population that were lobbying for the end of slavery.  Some of the new Ohioans who came into the Northwest Territory, at the time just prior to or shortly after Ohio became a state, trekked in from Pennsylvania, New York and the New England states.  But many of them moved north from slave-holding states to live on ‘free soil’ and to fight against slavery.  They were in Maryland, Kentucky, and what would become West Virginia poised to move into a free state once the territory was opened.

Barclay Coppock

Edwin Coppock

Our Quaker ancestors came up from the “deep south” state of South Carolina.  Among those was the Coppock family.  We have two related lines of Coppocks who married into our Pemberton, Coate, Jay and Hall families.  These families continued the westward movement from Ohio to Indiana to Iowa. And somewhere in there, not direct-line but 3^rd cousins, were the Coppock brothers, who were recruited in Iowa by John Brown and moved on to Kansas to fight beside him.  They were extreme, you might say rabid, abolitionists.  Whether you believe John Brown to be a criminal or hero there is no denying that he was a larger than life personality who had a profound influence on these Quaker boys who were raised in a pacifist culture.  Edwin was hanged with John Brown in Virginia. Barclay escaped to fight another day and died in the Civil War. Their lives were anything but ordinary. Read more about the Coppock brothers at http://antislavery.eserver.org/legacies/the-coppock-brothers-heroes-of-harpers-ferry.  (This link leads to the introduction of the Debs essay.  The essay must then be downloaded with one of the 3 links on the top left.  There are large gaps in the copy, scroll down for the next portion.)

Harpers Ferry, West Virginia 1865

The hopeful tone of the song and my knowledge of what actually happened gave me goose-bumps. 

 


Credits:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCV2_63M08g   Goodbye to Old Ohio, Blue House Productions.  Video by Magpie, Terry Leonino & Greg Artzner: http://www.magpiemusic.com/  If you look under the comment section on YouTube you will see credits given under the name ‘artzner.’
Photos: John Brown, Barclay and Edwin Coppock, Harpers Ferry - Wikpedia

The Snow Bowl ~ 1950

We’ve all seen some extreme sports but I don’t think it gets more extreme than this – at least in the weather department. I know that sports are important to Ohioans. They have their professional teams and they love and support the college sports programs. Are there any more faithful and fearless fans than those of Ohio State University football?

What I found on YouTube is a game dubbed “The Snow Bowl” between Michigan and Ohio State. This game, played in Columbus, Ohio, was won by Michigan 9-3 but all of the players should have received a trophy for this game – and what about those crazy fans?! Would this game be played today or called due to blizzard conditions? 

Not surprisingly, this is posted on YouTube by a Michigan fan WolverineHistorian but I’m sure there are many Ohioans who are proud of their boys.  It was posted 7 Sep 2009. The footage is long and you may want to skip through some of it but don’t miss the end. It is hard to believe, but the storm actually gets worse! Sixty-three years ago football was younger, there were fewer rules, and you didn’t postpone a game because of the white stuff!

Photo:  www.momsteam.com 
Andrew Niemann, with article Cold Weather Sports: Recognizing and Preventing Dehydration, Hypothermia and Frostbite
YouTube: posted by WolverineHistorian, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tP1ZfZMbarI

Steel Valley and the Rust Belt

Youngstown Sheet & Tube and Viaduct

When it came to picking a more serious look at Ohio this video/musical statement about the changes in Youngstown floated up to the top of the list and watching it again hit me in the gut even harder than the first time.  The city has a rich and interesting industrial past but it's had to move on.  It sits on the border of Ohio and Pennsylvania in the Appalachian county of Mahoning.  It is part of what was called Steel Valley and is now part of what is called the Rust Belt.  Mike Eakin’s choices in this video are excellent – from the gritty, haunting music to the fade-ins contrasting old and new scenes in this deindustrialized area – to his final graffiti message – Don’t Forget.

[If this video appears black at first, click on it. For this, and all the videos, know that you can make it full screen by clicking in the bottom right corner, and return to normal to continue the blog with the Esc key.]

This video was posted in March 2010.  Please take the time to visit Mike's page and read his comment on the video.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZvJ1EUlM-o

Source: YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZvJ1EUlM-o 
Youngstown, Ohio, Rise and Fall of Steel Valley, Linkin Park, Mike Eakin
Photo of postcard: Wikipedia commons

Why Oh Why Ohio?

19 counties – mostly agricultural or Appalachian, with a couple of large metro areas -- Columbus, the capital, and Cincinnati, which some people consider part of Kentucky . . . they are representative and yet they are not.  My journey didn’t touch on the draining away of industrial prosperity – the steel industry – almost any kind of industry that’s left a rust-belt, joblessness, and poverty.  I didn’t look at Youngstown, or Cleveland, or Dayton, or Akron.  I didn’t look at big city slums with large, black, and often angry populations and a black middle class that’s losing ground; and I didn’t explore the white-bread marshmallow small towns dwindling in populations as joblessness increases with a white middle class that’s losing ground.  I haven’t looked at rotting city centers or once bustling farm towns that are now ghost towns. I could give a nod here to other ethnic groups they are there in small numbers but this is not California, or Florida, or Texas – this is Ohio and it is a story mostly told in black and white that was once red all over.

Remember that children’s joke – ‘what is black, white, and red [read] all over?’  The answer was 'the newspaper.'  What an apt parallel.  Newspapers are going the way of Ohio mining and industry.  I haven’t taken a definitive look at Ohio’s colleges and universities, or the sports teams – other than that Kentucky team – the Reds – just kidding, Cincinnati!
  The truth is that Ohio as it stands today is not my family’s story. All those families, probably 25 – 30 of them, began arriving in the late 1700s and by 1850 most of them had moved on. They were farmers and loved the land and the siren call of westward movement and the promise of a fresh start in Indiana and then Iowa.  They settled, they built, and they contributed to Ohio and left.  It is the age old saw – the one thing Ohio can count on is change – but liking what they were makes change inevitably painful.  Ohio is being reinvented – hopefully carrying through all the things that make it wonderful – while adding a trait that will make it great – adaptability. 

I’ve grown to love Ohio -- all of it – the black and white of it – it’s history and it’s potential. I ache for what Native Americans lost in Ohio – it was and is a beautiful and bountiful land that was their home.  For many of them it was an adopted home, as they had already been pushed westward from the east coast. That is not a story unique to the North American continent.  It is the age-old story of the Celts and the Picts, the Angles and Saxons, the Vikings and the French, the Normans and the English, the Romans and everyone else. In one way or another we've all been  conqueror or conquered. And that brings us back to that one thing we can count on - change. And, that thing that will help us to remain great -- adaptability.  That is the story of the human race.

All I know of Ohio was handed- down to me from those long-ago families and what is on the Internet. So . . . I went looking for Ohio on YouTube.  I found a lot of mediocre stuff – like I would find for any area of the country – after all people are trying new wings on YouTube. No one springs up an Emmy-Award-quality video producer without trial and error. After a couple of long sessions of sifting through chaff I found some gems. I’m going to share these in the next few posts.  Some of them are long and you needn’t watch past your point of interest.  Others you will want to watch to the end.  All have an Ohio flavor as seen through the eyes of Ohioans themselves. Let’s start with humor. 

As found on YouTube/melaniepinnay· at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vAIzilTl-I   Carol Burnett & Jane Lynch on Glee (which, of course, takes place in Ohio!), from the musical Wonderful Town, music by Leonard Berstein, Lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green.
Clipart - www.microsoft.com/clipart