End of the Fall Term at OLLI

One of the reasons I have found it hard to contribute to this supposedly weekly blog of late is that I have had a heavy schedule of classes with OLLI, the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute's adult learning course offered in this city through the University of Cincinnati. I first started with OLLI in the summer of 2014--I signed up even while I was living in Spain--and attended the summer program of single-session lectures on different topics. Fall, winter, and spring sessions offer a combination of single-session lectures and regular six or eight-week courses that meet once a week.

I have two good multiple-week courses this fall. Financial Planning is one of those for which I was long overdue. It would be stretching the truth to say that I have enjoyed it. Rather, I found it valuable, since I have now reached the age where decisions have to be made about the various pots of money that I put away toward retirement during my working life. I have been fortunate to have a partner who was more interested than I in exploring investments and following the stock market; of course I should have been more involved to maximize the value of my savings, but frankly, I found it boring. Now after this class I am motivated, and while I still find investments tiresome, I no longer pass over the emails from the organizations where my money is sitting, nor do I pass the statements on without opening them. That is a small but positive and measurable outcome, I told the instructor at my last class.

The second full-term class was called Listening-Confrontation Skills: More Joy in Relationships. I took the course to concentrate on personal relationships, but much of the earlier sessions used examples from work and parent-child relationships, which have less applicability for me. It has been a long and difficult series, but the instructor asked us at the beginning not to judge the course until the final session. I heard him, but even though we have two make-up classes still to go this coming week, I can now confidently say that I have benefited from the course--at least one major argument has been averted using the techniques practiced in the class.

And then there are several one-time classes that I have experienced this term, usually presented as a lecture by a person with a passion:

• What We Wore: American Fashion, 1900–1970
• Reflections of a Tuskegee Airman, the remarkable story of two men who grew up next to each other but separately in Cincinnati, flew together but separately over Europe in WWII, and only met 50 years later
• Writers, Readers, and Buyers of Books, five presenters from the book scene in Cincinnati
• Chocolate, Chili, and Riverboats, a history of some of the families and institutions of Cincinnati
• Getting the Scoop: Maryanne Zeleznik at WVXU News, the local NPR station
• They Invented What?, a roundup of interesting inventions and how they came to be, together with a little information about patent law
• Oddities of England, dispelling the myth that the British are prim and proper--though I knew that already from my time with Brits in Spain, and
• An Autumn Tram Tour of Spring Grove Cemetery, the second largest cemetery in the U.S. and a National Historic Landmark

A discerning reader may note that many of my selections have to do with events and topics introducing me to the history and culture of my new home. It came as something of a surprise to me this week to realize that we are now approaching the one-and-a-half year mark of living in Cincinnati.  OLLI is one of the opportunities that has made the transition from living in Spain easier and more enjoyable, and for that I am grateful.

More Amazing Grace

On July 12 I wrote about our first visit to The Gathering at Northern Hills, a Unitarian Universalist congregation in Cincinnati, and my joy at hearing and singing new words to the hymn Amazing Grace. At the time I did not know the author of those new words.

Now four months later, I confess that I have been spending most Sunday mornings with this congregation. We have been welcomed and are getting to know numerous loving and caring people,  and we always find the services enlightening, hopeful, and thought-provoking. A large part of the intellectual stimulation comes from the congregation's minister, Rev. Doug Slagle.  Today, following his message on Gratitude and Confession, we sang Amazing Grace again, and this time, the name of the adaptor was given in the program.

Amazing Grace

Text by John Newton; revised by Rev. Doug Slagle

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound

That loved a soul like me.

I once was lost but now am found,

Was blind, but now I see!

'Twas grace that taught my heart to love,

And grace such love received;

How precious did that grace appear

The hour 'twas first perceived!

Through many dangers, toils, and snares,

We have already come;

'Tis grace that brought us safe thus far,

And grace will lead us home.

When we've been here ten thousand years,

Together just as one,

We've no less days to sing love's praise

Than when we'd first begun!

Immigration Crises and Family Values

In between the gross excesses of the U.S. political campaigns blared daily on the evening news programs you might find a few minutes, or occasionally a longer, thoughtful story, on the unending immigration crisis. I mean the immigration crisis playing itself out in Europe, though I can think of no reason why it should end there. Earlier we saw huge boatloads of refugees from war, crossing treacherous waters and arriving on land, and the ensuing chaos as the people tried to move farther along in their journey but were stopped by bureaucracies and fear. Many of these first arrivals were men who had left early and were trying to find a new home for their families. Now the families have joined the journey, and we tend to see unending lines, comparatively orderly, of men, women, and children walking hundreds of miles in long queues, still on their way north, still trying to find countries that will take them in, if only for the length of time it takes to pass through to a place that will accept them legally.

Here in the U.S. we tend to focus on our own immigration crisis. I have been dipping into an extraordinary book about the toll that illegal status places on children in families in the U.S. The author, Joanna Dreby, speaks about families in New Jersey and in Ohio. Everyday Illegal: When Policies Undermine Immigrant Families is an academic book; her research is thorough, but imparted in plain English. What makes this academic title also a book for general audiences, however, is her recounting of her own story and that of her two children, who somehow entered into the uncertainty of a family living with illegality through some mishandling of paperwork discovered in a divorce transaction. There are hundreds of gotchas that affect thousands of children, and this book shows in painful detail how families can be torn apart in our own immigration crisis.

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Even though I haven't read it all, I need to take this book back to the library soon. I've already renewed it once and I just don't think it's right to keep it longer. But it's worth mentioning that getting the book represents a minor everyday miracle of the library system in Ohio. This title was not available through the Cincinnati and Hamilton County Public Library system, but it came to my local public library from Capitol University, via OhioLINK, the consortium that links many libraries of different types in the state. I worked for multitype library lending and cooperation many years ago (in Massachusetts) and Ohio was a best practices model then. It is nice to see that the system still works. And it's always nice to see my tax dollars going for something good.

Back to Sundays in Cincinnati

It has been a very, very long time since I updated Sundays in Cincinnati. That's mostly because it's been a very, very long time since I spent a Sunday in Cincinnati. On the rare occasion when I was here, I was returning from elsewhere. Here's a round-up.

On August 9 I was in Chicago, relaxing after a drive across Indiana the previous day, and preparing to board a plane Sunday evening for a 14-hour flight to Dubai, United Arab Emirates. We made use of the time by finding a shopping center with a Barnes & Noble, where I bought three books, which I stored in the back of the car that we were leaving at a hotel near the airport while we were away.

The next Sunday was not in Dubai.  We had spent three interesting days there ("that's more than enough," the Emirates airline agent had said to us when we checked in, but we found plenty to do). On Sunday, August 16 we were in Cape Town, South Africa and it was the inauguration ceremony for the World Library  and Information Congress, sponsored by IFLA. The ceremony was a glorious colorful extravaganza with music and dance, celebrating Africa's story-telling tradition. It was only the beginning of a very exciting time at the conference itself and at several places--and with several people--in Cape Town and environs.

The following Sunday, August 23, we were back in Dubai, breaking up our return trip (9 hours from Cape Town, 14 to Chicago) by a single day at The Dubai Mall. Yes, we spent the entire day there, or at least that portion of it that was left after arriving very early in the morning Sunday and leaving very early in the morning Monday.

By Sunday, August 30 we were back in Ohio. But we were only returning to Cincinnati from farther north, Sidney, Ohio, where we had spent an enjoyable and emotional weekend while attending my 50th high school reunion. It was a treat to see and exchange conversation with so many classmates from 50 and more years ago.

Last Sunday, September 6, I was in Cincinnati--at least my body was. I managed to get to church and to Ikea to buy curtains and rods (we had had six new windows installed during the week and determined that we did not want to put the same old window treatments up over them). But I was a little "out of it," as I had also had periodontal surgery on Friday, aided by a good dose of sedatives and painkillers, thank you very much.

Today, September 13, I am also in Cincinnati. All day. And I have been here all week! The season has changed--I put on fall clothes last night to attend a Scandinavian Society of Cincinnati dinner, but I was back to late summer attire for church this morning. But fall activities have started, and the social calendar is already full. Scribblers group starts tomorrow, with the Readers group and Cincinnati's OLLI lifelong learning courses the following week. We are still in the middle of house renovations (replacing a wood-burning fireplace with gas), and that is a bigger project than first anticipated, as we have had a whole corner of the living room wall and flooring knocked out and now they are in the process of being replaced. We will reach a pausing point by the end of Wednesday, when the contractor goes on his late-summer vacation. That will give us time to finalize arrangements for house guests who will be with us next weekend--including Sunday--taking a spring vacation from Argentina.

I may post more detail about some of my recent adventures in the coming days--I have several jottings--if there is time. At any rate, I am delighted that we are coming to a stable period where our activities are mostly contained within the boundaries of one state.

The Origin of "Pringles"

I had coffee and conversation with a friend at Panera in Finneytown this week. Finneytown is one of the north-of-Cincinnati residential areas that I have passed through frequently on the bus or in the car as we go into downtown Cincinnati by way of Winton Road.  Though I have thousands of hours of commuting time in all sorts of weather and road conditions under my belt, those days are past, and I am no longer an adventurous driver. Nevertheless I felt perfectly comfortable driving there by myself in the middle of a sunny afternoon, and I arrived early, as I usually do, since I don't really believe that you can get "everywhere" in Cincinnati in about a half hour, and always allow more time. I am wrong more often than I am right--it almost always takes less time than I allow.

We were in my friend's neighborhood, and after we talked, I offered to drive her home. I was watching carefully where I was going, so I could get back again, and after we made a couple turns I noticed the sign for Pringle Drive, though that was not where we were headed. Then she remarked casually that Pringles were named after this road! Oh, that's where the inventor lived? I asked. No, but the product manager at P&G who was working on their potato chip product back in the '60s happened to live in this general area, before the new product with the innovative shape and container was named. He and a colleague or two car-pooled, and as he passed one day he noticed the name of the street and thought it was catchy. Neither he nor any other Pringles associate actually lived on Pringle Drive, but the street is forever enshrined because its name caught his eye and his imagination.

Pringles, which I have seen in numerous countries throughout the world, is one of the hundreds of consumer brands that I recognized as a Procter & Gamble (P&G) product even before I came to Cincinnati. But it turns out that my recognition is outdated. Since I moved here and read The Enquirer I have been aware that P&G is downsizing, selling off tons of its brands. They sold Pringles in 2012 and it is now owned by Kellogg.

The Wikipedia article about Pringles gives a good history of the "potato snack," as it is now called, and speculates--but without this exact story--about its name. I like this one.

Two-Car Family

Nothing makes me feel more American than the fact that we have once again become a two-car family. Two cars for two people. During most--but not all--of our working life in New England, we had two cars and set off for work in different directions and on different schedules. But when we moved from New England, with one of us retired and one working at home, we downsized to one car.

It's hard to believe that we existed for a good five years with no car at all. That was in Spain, when we lived in an apartment on the main street of Roquetas de Mar, with a bus stop outside the door and within four or five blocks of the sea-side promenade.  We walked; we biked; we took the bus to the nearby city of Almería; we depended only occasionally on the kindness of friends to drive us to an event; and we occasionally rented a car when we wanted to go farther afield. We were in much better shape physically than we are now.

Five years later, but still in Spain, we were in the process of moving farther to the east and northward up the Mediterranean coat to the Torrevieja area in Alicante province. It was a minimum three-hour car trip (without stops) between the two areas, and it took us almost a year to explore the new area, decide on a new house, sell our apartment, and get settled. Even before we chose the exact house we eventually moved into, we knew we were going to need a car, because everything was so much more spread out in the Torrevieja environs than it was in Roquetas. We bought a "new" used car from Goldcar, the company we had used for renting umpteen cars to go back and forth. It was a silver-gray Ford Fusion, German-made but American-branded, the first American car I had personally ever owned. Throughout our life in the U.S., we had been regulars with Volvos and Toyotas after my husband gave up on the blue Camaro convertible my father had encouraged him to purchase in 1967 "because he knew Susanne would like it."

The house that we moved into in Algorfa, near Torrevieja, was within a five-minute drive of everything you would ever need on a daily basis, and a good deal more. It was within walking distance of nothing, however, unless you counted the Sunday outdoor market (but you would die of gas fumes walking along the road to the market because of the hundreds of cars that came from longer distances). And so when our good bikes were stolen we did not replace them, and we got used to driving the short distances to shopping and entertainment together, or occasionally as a single, but only a couple times did we ever have a conflict when one of us wanted to be in one place at the same time that the other wanted to be in a different place. It worked for our semi-retired, active, but joint life in Spain.

We bought a car here even before we moved back permanently to the U.S., because we knew we were going to move, and we knew we would need one. The used Avalon sat in a rented storage area for the last six months we were in Spain. Now we are permanently and fully back home in the U.S., in a condo where I, at least,  can actually walk to drugstores, the hairdresser, restaurants, a liquor store, and various other establishments (but not a good supermarket), and where there is a a bus stop outside the door that takes you into the city. Our activities have changed, though. We still go to a number of social events together, shopping, and medical appointments. But we have added adult-ed classes, a book group, and meetings with other painters and writers. During the spring session of the OLLI adult-ed classes, I gave up two desired classes because we could not coordinate the drive schedule. And if I go off for a lengthy book group and luncheon meeting with the car, Johannes feels cooped up not being able to drive ten minutes to Lowe's or the frame store or somewhere else to work on a project.

Johannes has always said that his next car would be an electric car, so off we went a month ago to look at a used all-electric car. We test-drove it and agreed to think it over. But we failed to pass by a Toyota dealer on the right side of the street on the way home without stopping to look, so several hours later we found ourselves the new owners of a used Prius, which is partially electric.

The Prius is now sharing space with the Avalon in what used to be a comfortably open double garage with one car and a lot of side space. Now it is cramped and we have to be careful how much we are carrying when we get into or out of the car--either one of them. The Avalon has become somewhat neglected, since the Prius gets twice the miles-per-gallon that the Avalon gets and suits almost all our driving needs. Only twice, I believe, have both cars been out of the garage at the same time. I don't think we are driving any more--in fact, maybe less, since we no longer have to make some contorted trips to accommodate two passengers in two different places. The OLLI schedule will come out in a couple weeks, and I am happy that I can choose what I want without worrying about whether Johannes will choose a course at the same time at another location.

I do, however, have to worry about which car my sun-glasses and a/c sweater are in, where the library books and reusable grocery bags are, and whether I have the right keys for the right car at the right time. And then there is the matter of the garage door opener, of which we inherited only one when we bought the house. I am sure we can buy a second, but then we would have to program it!

There is always a price to pay.

A Walk in the Park

The walk was a week ago Friday and the park was Smale Park, a large park in various stages of development on Cincinnati's riverbank, adjacent to downtown Cincinnati and immediately across the Ohio River from Covington, Kentucky.

The day started with a bus ride into the city. It had been nine months since I had taken the bus, and I planned to catch it at a different stop from where we had run after it in the mall parking lot last fall. This stop was a short walk from my garage door. I checked the schedule carefully, planned on getting there ten minutes ahead of time, since only one bus comes per hour, and allowed five minutes for the walk. The walk took one minute tops, and the bus came fifteen minutes after the published time. Still, I was in the city at the Government Square depot just 45 minutes after I got on, on time. The route passed through areas with which I was familiar, and I was glad to see that I could get to two grocery stores, historic Findlay Market, and the Music Hall by bus if I ever feel the need to do it that way.

Meeting up with my sister at Fountain Square was easy, and we walked down Walnut Street toward the riverfront. Our first stop was to look around at the various statues in front of and around the Great American Ball Park. We had heard the sculptor talking at an earlier OLLI lecture this summer, and there were still signs of the 2015 All Star Game that had taken place just three days earlier. The weather was good: bright and sunny, not humid, and still under the 91 degrees F. that would show up on the temperature gauges later in the day.

We moved on to the 45-acre Phyllis and John Smale Park itself and saw its welcoming water cascade and splash-and-play water fountains roomy enough for a baby stroller to be driven through, which was happening. On to a 19-foot earth-based piano with 32 bells and keys and chimes that ring out when kids dance on them--if they are big enough to trip the sensor (For very young children it takes a team effort). We stopped on the waterfront and observed how high the river has grown this wet summer, and my sister oriented me to the several towns along the other side, in Kentucky Walking  farther west we eventually came to Castellini Esplanade, with picnic table and benches recalling the names of many early farmers who came from what are now three states to sell their produce.

We never found the spiral labyrinth we had read about, but some people did, for that is where you can rent bikes, segways, and tandem or quad-cycles to navigate around on, and we saw lots of people on those, especially the bicycles for two side-by-side. We did find Carol Ann's Carousel, a lovely old-fashioned structure with paintings of Cincinnati landmarks, and watched as children found their places and whirled around, and as parents and grandparents watched them with enjoyment.

Then we made our way to Moerlein's--"the official after-game gathering place"--for lunch, and afterwards we walked back up into downtown and toured the Hilton Netherland Plaza and rode the elevator up to the 49th floor of the Carew Tower, the "highest elevated building in the city of Cincinnati," to get a view of the city and the winding river that separates it from Kentucky. Finally we walked back to the Government Square area and found our respective buses and returned home after a special day for me of learning about some of the highlights of Cincinnati history and architecture.