St. Ursula - Dave's Midwestern Ohio Memories

A Series of Guest Blogs by an out-of-state Fish Report reader originally from this area about fond memories of growing up in Midwestern Ohio during the 50’s & 60’s

St. Ursula

 

With Lent underway, it’s appropriate the focus of this week’s blog is on St. Michael’s church in Ft. Loramie, the site of so many childhood memories. Many times while attending church as a youngster, I had wondered about the statue of St. Ursula under the Blessed Virgin Mary alter in the church. After doing some research on-line, I discovered the statue also includes an imbedded relic, but I could not find what the O.P.N. abbreviation means; likely something in German since it was the predominant language in Ft. Loramie at the time the Church was built.

St. Michael’s is the sixth oldest parish in the archdiocese of Cincinnati and the huge edifice built in 1881 is designated as one of the Land of the Cross Tipped Churches prevalent in western Ohio. In fact, over 30 area churches as a group are designated as an Ohio Scenic Byway. The architect of many of these churches was my late aunt’s great grandfather as documented in this previous blogpost. Speaking of blogs, there is a blogpost published by Russ Martin, the so called "Steeple Chaser" at this link highlighting each of the churches included in the "crossed tipped" designation. Click the St. Michael’s link on the right and you’ll see photos of the stations of the cross statues mounted on the church walls. Those statues bring back special memories as an altar boy during Way of the Cross services each Lent.

XI Station

Photos of the stained glass windows are also included, along with an explanation of each, which I found interesting.

Back to St. Ursula, apparently Fr. Bigot, the parish priest when the church was being build, had connections with St. Ursula Basilica in Cologne, Germany, the site where the saint's body was buried. He arranged to have the statue with the embedded relic made in Germany and shipped via canal boat to Ft. Loramie and had it built into the side alter of the new church.

Now for the interesting aspect of St. Ursula; according to legend, she was the daughter of a Christian British king and was sent to pagan Europe along with thousands of maidens so they may be wed to the locals as a way of spreading the Catholic faith on the mainland. Their first stop was Rome for a visit with Pope Leo the Great to get his blessing for their mission. The entourage then traveled to Cologne where they were all martyred in 383 AD by the invading pagan Huns. In the 12th century, the Basilica of St. Ursula was built on the site of a mass grave believed to be the ancient cemetery where St. Ursula and her companions were laid to rest.

The bones from the mass grave are stored in the so-called Golden Chamber within the Basilica. Click here for a video of the inside of the chamber: Since it’s impossible to know which of the bones belonged to St. Ursula herself, the entire collection is considered a relic of the group as a whole. In fact the October 21st feast day for St. Ursula is designated in honor of all the martyred maidens not just the saint.

The Order of Ursulines, founded in 1535, are devoted to the education of young girls, which has also helped to spread St. Ursula’s name throughout the world. As a result, she is the patron saint of school girls. And in honor of St. Ursula and the maidens, the Virgin Islands in the Caribbean were named by Christopher Columbus in 1493.

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Idyllic Times - Dave's Midwestern Ohio Memories

A Series of Guest Blogs by an out-of-state Fish Report reader originally from this area about fond memories of growing up in Midwestern Ohio during the 50’s & 60’s

Idyllic Times

My Siblings: Luke, Lucy, Ann, Sara and me circa 1962

Fish Report readers; here’s your opportunity to step back in time and get a sense for what it was like to live in the 1950’s & 60’s. View this short video and then we’ll discuss growing up back then. I’ll also share how those times compare to other periods in my life.

Some readers may think I must be living in the past to always blog about those so called "idyllic times”. Nothing could be further from the truth. I am very much a "carpe diem" kind of person, living in the present, while still planning for the future and learning from the past. Having taken two years of Latin back in high school, I vividly recall phrases like “carpe diem” (seize the day”) and “finis origine pendet” (the end depends upon the beginning), which gets to the root of my perspective on life. This short segment by Robins Williams in the movie Dead Poet’s Society says it all.

The only reason I got into this blog gig in the first place is because Fish Report articles would bring back memories that I would occasionally share with Craig. He kept encouraging me to contribute in some way to Fish Report, and in July, 2015, I posted my first blog. While Fish Report Live just celebrated its 250th episode over 8 years, soon my 200th blogpost over 4 years will enter cyberspace. See them all at this link!

The two happiest periods of my life were in my youngster years and now in retirement. In between was a challenge, as there was never enough time or money and too much stress to really enjoy life, relatively speaking. Work demands squeezed out much time for family and self-fulfillment, which led to concealed frustration. Brought up by parents who survived the Great Depression and WWII, we were ingrained to save our money, so we literally lived on our original starting salaries, as almost every raise over 35 years of work was directed towards a 401k, IRA or invested in our home. As I rose up the management ranks at Ford, the work stress was causing my health to deteriorate as I could feel myself prematurely aging, or so I thought.

No, it wasn’t a midlife crisis. Instead it was stress from another crisis - the Arab Oil Embargo that occurred in October, 1973. Unlike today, at that time, the US was almost totally dependent on cheap foreign oil from the Middle East. After the Yom Kipper War that same month, the defeated coalition of Arab countries retaliated by embargoing oil from being shipped to those countries like the US that had supported victorious Israel during this short war. Gas prices skyrocketed overnight and long lines formed at gas stations.

About the same time, I was promoted from the engineering ranks at Ford into management just as it became quickly apparent that the US auto industry had to totally re-engineer their entire fleet to dramatically improve fuel economy. The auto industry to this day is still reacting to this single incident, which also instigated acts of terror by the oil producing countries since it was proven they couldn’t win an outright war. Plus, it’s the reason Iran still wants to develop nuclear weapons.

That all being said, for the most part, I enjoyed every minute of my working career, doing exactly what I had set out to do and accomplish. Working at Ford made me feel part of the extended Ford family and to this day, the company stays very engaged with its employees and retirees.

However, thanks to our disciplined savings strategy, I was able to retire from Ford on the very first day eligible. The perceived health problems suddenly disappeared (except the gray hair!), my schedule freed up and I could enjoy more family time and satisfying activities. Retirement also allowed me to pursue new, less stressful part-time consulting work and volunteer charitable opportunities, while also providing more time for entertainment, sports and exercise.

If it were possible to take a trip back to the past, more than likely those times would not be so idyllic. As an engineer, the technologies back then would be really frustrating after enjoying 4K TV compared to B&W, smart phones versus rotary dial, SUV’s as opposed to gas guzzling cars, 100Mbps internet contrasted to the word-of-mouth grapevine, etc, etc.

In addition to appreciating all the latest technological developments, retirement has also presented me with the opportunity to write this weekly blog. Hope you enjoy the posts as much as I’m enjoying writing them in my retirement. Maybe in my next life, I’ll blog about memories of my retirement in the 2010’s & 20’s!

 No, this is not a Cialis commercial!

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Skiing Memories - Dave's Midwestern Ohio Memories

A Series of Guest Blogs by an out-of-state Fish Report reader originally from this area about fond memories of growing up in Midwestern Ohio during the 50’s & 60’s

Skiing Memories

Even though basketball was by far my favorite winter sport, I ventured into other recreational activities each winter as documented in last week’s blogpost about skating pursuits. Skiing is the focus this week. My first attempt at skiing came around age 16 at Valley High Ski resort near Bellefontaine that had just opened a few years before in 1962. At the time, it was the only ski lodge in Ohio (now there are 5). The slopes have a vertical drop of only 300’ so the runs went rather quickly! Its name had been changed to Mad River Mountain Ski Resort before the original ski lodge that I recall was destroyed by fire in 2015 as shown in this photo.

A totally rebuilt lodge pictured below with slopes in the background opened in 2016.

Starting college in Michigan in 1967 exposed me to the larger slopes in that area like Alpine Valley at 380’ vertical drop.

But eventually we headed up north to places like Boyne Mountain, with a vertical drop of 500’. I distinctly recall going to Boyne with my girlfriend, now wife, who had never skied before. After a few trips on the bunny slope, we ventured up the ski lift to the top of the mountain. We literally rode the entire slope down on our butts, laughing but a little scared all the way!

After college, there were ski trips to Snowshoe Mountain in West Virginia where the vertical lifts were 1500’, the highest this side of the Rockies. By then, we could ski quite comfortably and really enjoyed the resort.

After our son was old enough to ski, we’d take him to local ski resorts in southeastern Michigan like Mt. Brighton and Mt. Holly, all nicknamed Mt. Trashmore because they were on former landfills. Such places were good for one day ski outings as opposed to driving hours up north to the larger mountains.

There was one memorable ski outing to Mt. Brighton with some friends and relatives who were visiting from Ohio. One of the skiers by the name of Dale forget his gloves so on the way to the ski resort, we stopped at a local store near the resort to buy a pair. Unfortunately, the only gloves available were yellow Handy Andy farmer's gloves like pictured below. Dale obviously took a lot of good-natured ribbing from the rest of us all day long, as you could see him in those bright gloves all over the slopes.

Although I’ve never skied out west in the Rockies or the Alps in Europe, summertime visits to both were very special and memorable. The Aspen trip involved a fraternity national convention described in this previous Coors Tour blogpost. Aspen's vertical drop is quite an increase at 4030 feet from the “bunny” slopes I was used to around home. Too bad it wasn't winter at the time.

Seeing the Alps was included in an alumni tour organized by my university in July, 2004 to Italy and Switzerland. We took a cogged railway to the peak of Jungfraubahnen in the Swiss Alps. It’s the highest train station in Europe at 11332 feet, with a vertical drop on its ski slopes of an astounding 5591’. Check out the following photos.

My skiing days are long gone due to bad knees; however, snowboarding does look interesting and likely a lot less stressful on the knees than conventional skis. Wonder if an old dog can be taught new tricks?

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