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University of Dayton Flyers

Men's Basketball Ranked #4!

Dayton's magical run in the Associated Press top-25 poll continued Monday when it climbed from No. 5 to No. 4. It's a special season when Dayton fans can complain about not being ranked third, but many thought they should have jumped Gonzaga and San Diego State.

Dayton extended its winning streak to 16 games by winning 66-61 at Virginia Commonwealth on Tuesday and beating Duquesne 80-70 on Saturday at UD Arena.

As Steve Kisling can attest many fans celebrate post-game at

the crowded Oakwood Club

Prior to this season, Dayton had not ranked in the top 10 since 1967

and had not ranked in the top five since it reached No. 2 in 1956. Dayton is the highest-ranked Atlantic 10 Conference team since Saint Joseph’s, which reached No. 1 in 2004. That was the last A-10 team to reach the top spot. Dayton has never ranked No. 1.

This is the first time since the 1955-56 season that Dayton has been ranked in 13 straight weeks. The 1955-56 team was ranked all season in 15 polls. That team finished 25-4.

Cheerleaders!

1923: Women are allowed to cheer for the first time, at the University of Minnesota.

1948: Lawrence Herkimer launches the National Cheerleaders Association.

1968: Becky Spahr, Lynne Wagner, Sandy Stimmel, Marilyn Blesi, Suzi Willig, and Barb Getty

1971: Herkimer invents and patents the pom-pom.

1974: Jeff Webb starts the Universal Cheerleaders Association (UCA), which will later become Varsity.

1980: UCA holds the first National High School Cheerleading Championship in Orlando, Florida.

1986: Herkimer sells the National Cheerleaders Association for $20 million. Varsity buys its parent company, National Spirit Group, in 2004.

2000: Bring It On comes out, shining a spotlight on the sport of cheerleading.

2004: Varsity launches the nonprofit International Cheer Union, the self-proclaimed “recognized world governing body of Cheerleading.”

2016: The International Olympic Committee grants cheerleading provisional recognition as an Olympic sport.

In the late 1800s, groups of young men at Ivy League colleges formed “yell teams” to cheer on the sidelines of football games. These were the ancestors of today’s cheerleaders, and the sport was considered a man’s activity because it put a premium on traits typically associated with masculinity, like the ability to lead a crowd. During World War II, when young men left school to go off to war, women started joining cheerleading teams, and the stereotype of cheerleaders as all-American-girls-next-door largely replaced the previously male standard.

By the mid-1970s, almost all cheerleaders were women. In 1968 Yolande Fulton, Kathy Finke, Jan Windsor, Connie Thompson, Peggy Mathes, and Marty Hart were cheerleaders for West.

In 1972, the federal government passed Title IX, a civil rights law that barred discrimination in publicly funded education institutions on the basis of sex, including in athletics. The courts ruled that cheerleading didn’t count as a varsity sport, meaning it wasn’t subject to the same equal opportunity requirements and didn’t qualify for the benefits of being a Title IX sport. According to Jaime Schultz, associate professor of kinesiology at Pennsylvania State University, that’s when “girls and women began to turn away from cheerleading.”

“In response,” Schultz writes, “leaders of the emerging ‘spirit industry,’ who sought to expand and profit from the activity, made it more athletic by encouraging the use of acrobatic stunts and tumbling.” At the same time, men started rejoining the sport, making it broadly more co-ed. Despite the athleticism required, cheering is still considered a “student activity, not an interscholastic varsity sport” according to USA Cheer, and thus not held to Title IX standards.

With some of the finest, whitest sand in the world, this beach attracts sand collectors from all over.  Siesta Beach has clear, warm waters ideal for swimming.  The beach is hundreds of yards wide in the shape of a crescent due to anchoring of onshore rocks to the south.

From the 1800s and early 1900s, Siesta Key was known by a variety of names, including “Little Sarasota Key” and “Sarasota Key.” The first attempts to develop the key was by the Siesta Land Company in 1907 consisting of Harry Higel, Captain Louis Roberts, and E.M. Arbogast. The company platted the northern end of the key as "Siesta on the Gulf" as well as dredged bayous and built docks. The only access to Siesta Key was by boat or ferry until the first bridge connecting it to the mainland was completed in 1917. The bridge was later replaced in 1927 along with an addition of a second bridge located on the southern end of the key. The entire key was officially recognized as "Siesta Key" by 1952.

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for a deep fried hot dog and other drive-in treats while in Sarasota?

1701 N Washington Blvd, Sarasota, FL 34234

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All about the 60's

60 Years Later

You might enjoy feeling younger in the elderly population of Florida's Gulf Coast.

Sarasota’s history began over 10,000 years ago, with research showing that native people occupied it. Europeans first discovered the area in the early 1500s. In 1539, the city was named “ZaraSota” by Hernando de Soto. At this time, Sarasota was not settled but was instead a place for fishing camps.

There are more females than males, making up 52% of the population. About 30% of the people in Sarasota County are at least 65 years old, making up the largest age group. Over 70  years old 20%. Just 17% are under 18 years old. Am comfortable here because 40% of males have never married like me and Nish.

First visited Sarasota in the early 60s on our family vacation. Driving down I-75 in a station wagon like many Buckeyes.  We went as a family a few times and just the guys for spring training one year. Dad was born in 1918 in New Port Richey, north from Sarasota, and our grandmother lived there in the family house her carpenter husband built. He had brothers and sisters in Sarasota. And we had  five male cousins.

We loved the white sandy beaches and warm Gulf water. When we realized our cousins were playing in the Gulf water with the spring training ball a player gave to us that my brother and I prized, it was clear we would not be close with cousins Richard and Ralph. Anyway I have pleasant memories of Florida in the 60s.

My partner, Ellen, and I one Thanksgiving (1978) met my father and mother for Thanksgiving weekend in an A-frame  right on the soft sand on Siesta Key. Wonderful weather and a great, memorable time for everyone.

Have enjoyed years of  camaraderie in Sarasota with Steve & Ann, Brad & Linda, Gary & DeeDee as well as the slow traffic on the Trail and long traffic lights. Better weather than February in Northern California. Filled with sun and laughs and dining out. Our visitors have included my late father, Pat Pancoast, Dick Dormitzer and Dave Chambers.

Am looking forward to another our upcoming gathering. Hope to see many Dragons I have never seen in Florida.

Should be another goodtime.

The Stivers Class of 1964 Will Not Be There!

Class of '69 Dragons

Gathering in Sarasota

Live music, food and drinks

Academy Awards 2020

"American Factory"

Wins the

Documentary Feature

Oscar!

Yellow Springs filmmakers Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar won their first Oscar tonight for locally-made documentary “American Factory.”

Reichert: “Even before that envelope got opened, just being in the presence, in the company of our sister and brother documentarians who risked their lives making stories, bringing stories to us about hospitals being bombed in Syria, about Brazil, about Macedonia, we were so proud. We are inspired by you guys. Our film is from Ohio and China. Go Buckeyes! Sorry. But it really could be from anywhere that people put on a uniform and punch a clock, trying to make their families have a better life. Working people have it harder and harder these days. We believe that things will get better when workers of the world unite.”

Bognar: “Thank you, Academy! Thank you to everyone who trusted us to tell your story. Junming Wang, thank you to our unstoppable crew, our beloved friends and family, Jeff Liu, our unstoppable editor Lindsay Utz, and to those big-hearted people at Netflix, Participant Media, Higher Ground Productions, and the tough, inventive, great people of Dayton, Ohio.”

Acceptance speeches are a rare peek beyond the highly filtered veil of modern celebrity. The moment of surprise that comes from winning a major award like an Oscar or an Emmy can throw some stars off so much that they’re left speechless, say too much, or have the kind of awkward moments created by the pressure of live television.

For nominees who are contenders for major awards, like the Oscars, acceptance speeches can boil down to a science—interweaving humility while pleasing the Academy with acknowledgement to the community. Other performers use their platform to make a political statement, bashing politicians, advocating for diversity, or protesting war. The best get clever, with a sonnet, a freestyle, or a Jane Austen homage. Here are some words for the people who really matter, you the readers (and our agents).

Most unbelievable moments

Strange and downright cringey off-script moments during acceptance speeches abound. Here are some of the weirdest:

Kanye West interrupting Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech at the 2009 MTV VMAs

Jack Palance doing push ups on stage

Roberto Benigni standing on seats

Melissa Leo’s F-bomb slip

Angelina Jolie professing her love for her brother

James Cameron’s “I’m King of the World”

Adrien Brody kissing Halle Berry

Christine Lahti in the ladies room when her award was announced

Remember "Bucky" Bockhorn?

Arlen Dale "Bucky" Bockhorn (born July 8, 1933) is a retired American basketball player. He was a guard for the National Basketball Association's Cincinnati Royals from 1958 to 1965. He played college basketball at the University of Dayton and is a member of Dayton's Hall of Fame and All-Century team.

 

DAYTON — 

This Dayton Flyers men’s basketball season has had everything — the program’s best-ranking in more than 50 years, the best start in league play in 16 years, a player earning more national attention than perhaps any player in school history — but has lacked one thing: the presence of a legend or The Legend.

 

 

Nineteen games into the season, Bucky Bockhorn has yet to call a game on WHIO Radio alongside his longtime partner Larry Hansgen. Bockhorn underwent back surgery earlier this season and has been on the mend.

“Let’s put it this way,” Bockhorn said Thursday. “I haven’t had dress pants on in about 10 weeks.”

However, there’s good news that goes along with that. Bockhorn, 86, said the surgery wasn’t as bad as he thought and took care of some his pain. He had his last appointment in the first phase of his rehab recently, and now Hansgen is going to take over the rehab at Bockhorn’s home.

Bockhorn said he gets questions all the time about whether he’s going to return to radio this season and wants everyone to know he hopes to do a couple of games.

“Give me about two more weeks,” Bockhorn said, “and I may think about coming to do a game.”

» MORE ON BOCKHORN: A-10 honors him in 2017 | Still making a difference for UD

Even though he hasn’t been at UD Arena or at road games, Bockhorn has kept up with the No. 7 Flyers (17-2, 6-0), who won their eighth straight game Wednesday, 88-60 over St. Bonaventure. He can identify with what they’re experiencing. He was a senior on the last Dayton team to be ranked in the Associated Press poll for eight straight weeks.

Dayton won 15 games in a row to climb as high as No. 8 in the 1957-58 season. Bockhorn averaged 10.8 points that season and finished his career with 941 points in three seasons. He was recently passed by Crutcher on the scoring list.

 

Sometime soon Bockhorn will get to see Crutcher in person again. When he does call a game, it will be the 51st season he has done so at UD and his 37th with Hansgen. Few teams have been as strong as this one.

 

 

OBI!

 

 

 

 

 

{Bockhorn spent a year at the University of Dayton and two years in the U.S. Army before becoming a starter for three National Invitation Tournament (NIT) teams at Dayton, beginning in 1955–56. As a sophomore at Dayton, Bockhorn was on a team that had a 25-4 record, finished third in the final Associated Press poll and was runner-up in the NIT. He averaged 10.7, 11.8 and 10.8 points in his three UD seasons, averaging 12.4 rebounds in 1957–58 when he was the team's most valuable player. In his three seasons, the Flyers were a combined 69-17.

Bockhorn has the distinction of being one of three brothers to play on one varsity major college team, in 1957–58 with brothers Terry and Harold, one of the few times this has happened in Division I history. Brothers Matthew, Thomas and William Brennan also played together in 1957–58, for Villanova University. The two trios of brothers were the last to play together in Division I for 54 seasons until Miles, Mason, and Marshall Plumlee played for Duke University in 2011–12.}

 

“I’ll tell you one thing, this team is enjoyable to watch,” Bockhorn said.

Since Bockhorn hasn’t been able to provide analysis on radio, here are his takes on this team:

On the team in general: “What impresses me is it seems to me — and even when I was watching practice this summer — the camaraderie is really good. … This team reminds me of our ‘57-58 team when I played. We went on that winning streak. We were not supposed to be very good that year.”

On the offense: I’m just amazed at how well they pass the ball and hit the open man. I haven’t seen one guy that’s greedy and looking for shots.”

On Obi Toppin: “Obi’s sensational. He just amazes me sometimes. He’s probably right there in the top five or six spots (in Dayton history), somewhere in there. I go way back, but I don’t think you can take the old guys and make comparisons. Don May was an absolute beast. We had some good ones. Johnny Davis and Donald Smith from back in the old days. Brian Roberts was a great shooter.”

On Jalen Crutcher: “That’s my man, Jalen. I love that kid. You can print that. I really believe he’s made more clutch shots than anybody who’s played at UD. Maybe not. But I enjoy watching him play.”

On the Toppin-Crutcher connection: “Obi and Crutcher work so well together. That pick and roll, those long passes on run-outs. Deadly.”

On the seniors: “The unsung heroes of this team are Ryan Mikesell and Trey Landers. They’re blue-collar guys who get it done. They’re showing great leadership with this team, too.”

SUPER BOWL

Miami, FL

February 2

San Francisco 49ers v. Kansas City Chiefs

My seat cushion from 1989

Miami Super Bowl

The road to sobriety is paved with good intentions

The American experiment with prohibition, which began on January 17, 1920, and ran through 1933, gets a bad rap—perhaps undeservedly. The US temperance movement was never about banning alcohol consumption; by banning sale, manufacture, and transportation, it targeted the liquor companies that preyed on the poor and the states that relied on alcohol taxes for income. Drinking itself and home production remained legal, though consumption of course fell, a phenomenon that persisted well after Prohibition’s 1933 repeal.

The US isn’t the only country that has banned the sale of alcohol. Many European countries experimented with bans around the same time. Today, there are about a dozen countries—all majority-Muslim—that have nationwide bans, although some have exceptions for non-Muslims. Indian states have tried bans with results as mixed as they were in the US. Time to take a tipple.

30: Times advocate Carrie Nation was arrested from 1900-1910 for smashing up saloons with a hatchet

>1,000: People killed by mafia violence in New York City during Prohibition

$100 million: Amount gangster Al Capone raked in annually in the mid-1920s

35 million: Gallons of moonshine produced annually in the US by 1934

30,000-100,000: Estimated number of speakeasies in New York City during Prohibition

<40%: Distilled spirits’ share of US alcohol consumption before Prohibition

>75%: Distilled spirits’ share of US alcohol sales by its end

60 million: Gallons of industrial alcohol stolen annually during Prohibition

An offer mobsters couldn’t refuse 

According to Las Vegas’s Mob Museum, “Prohibition practically created organized crime in America.” Before, criminal gangs were usually street thugs extorting local businesses and running gambling rackets and brothels. But gangsters quickly took control of the entire alcohol supply chain, reaping huge profits that allowed them to consolidate power and necessitated greater organization.

Since supply chains were interstate or even international, mobsters set aside territorial squabbles and syndicated. In 1931, Charles “Lucky” Luciano created “the Commission,” a board of directors for organized crime in the US; it lasted until the late 1950s. To launder profits, mobsters began investing in Las Vegas casinos after Nevada legalized gambling in 1931. They also funneled money through Swiss banks.

The mafia’s rise helped bring about Prohibition’s demise. The murder of seven of Al Capone’s rivals in 1929, known as the Valentine’s Day Massacre, swayed public opinion toward repeal. Though the feds couldn’t nail Capone for the massacre—perhaps because he didn’t do it—or his bootlegging activities, he was convicted of tax evasion in 1931 and died in prison.

Just an update on the

Florida get together. 

There will be a dinner party beginning at 6:00 PM on Saturday, 2/29 at Sun and Surf Club, 1148 Ben Franklin Drive, Lido Beach 🏖  Sarasota. Sun sets at 6:30 PM.

Average high in Sarasota those days 74 degrees/ low 55, average Kettering high 44 degrees/ low 27. 🔅😎🔆

We also plan to have a cocktail party 🍷🍸🍻🍹🥂 on Friday evening, 2/28 beginning 6:00-7:00 PM but are still deciding among several venues.  Will provide that location once a decision has been made.  There will be no charge for either event.

A number of classmates have already indicated they will be attending (Joyce Levy Jordan, Gayle Shepherd, Leslie Williamson, Cindy Shahan, Brad Buettin, Debbie Ake, Cindy Brock, Diane Kempfer, Pat Pancoast, Lynne Wagner, Pam McCoppin and Jim Wick) and we need to hear from anyone else who will be attending so we can plan accordingly. 

My Future Transportation

Segway’s newest self-balancing vehicle won’t require you to stand up. Dubbed the S-Pod, the new egg-shaped two-wheeler from Segway-Ninebot is meant to let people sit while they effortlessly cruise around campuses, theme parks, airports, and maybe even cities — all of the same places you’d expect to see one of the company’s iconic (if still a bit dorky) stand-up vehicles.

The S-Pod is powered by basically the same gyroscopic self-balancing technology as a traditional Segway. But unlike a traditional Segway, which is driven by leaning forward, backward, and to the sides, the S-Pod is controlled using a little joystick on the right side of the seat. Segway says its self-balancing technology will always keep the chair level and that the two-wheel setup will allow for quick changes in direction even while stopped. (That said, there are three more small wheels visible on the underside of the chair, presumably for moving the S-Pod while its motors aren’t on.)

DAVID LLOYD CHAMBERS

  aka

"The Humble Meandering Scholar"

has written two books

As the clock chimes midnight and the calendar turns to Palm Sunday, April 9, 1865, Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, ravaged by almost a year of near daily combat with Ulysses S. Grant's Union armies, rests fitfully around the headwaters of the Appomattox River. Lee, aggressive as always, hopes to escape his pursuers and plans to give battle at first light. Grant, despairing of Lee ever surrendering, fears that either he will have to order an Armageddon, annihilating Lee's outnumbered, outgunned, and famished troops, or that Lee will release his men from command and they will disperse into the woods and hills to fight on in a guerrilla war. The Union Commander in Chief, Abraham Lincoln, is in Virginia sailing down the James River and heading back to Washington. Confederate President Jefferson Davis and the rump of his cabinet, having abandoned their captured capital, Richmond, are a government in exile, temporarily housed in private homes in Danville, Virginia. Around the village of Appomattox Court House the weary soldiers, North and South, have brothers, friends, sons, and fathers on the other side. Many of the generals, Union and Confederate, have known one another since their days together at West Point and in the antebellum U. S. Army.

Palm Sunday: April 9, 1865 - Ante Meridian unfolds, hour by hour, from midnight to noon, interweaving the true events of one of the most important days in the history of America with the stories of a small handful of fictional characters, most prominently an African-American Union soldier and his former master in Confederate Gray. Grant, Lee, Lincoln, Davis, and the great generals of both sides, Longstreet, Sheridan, and Custer, all make significant appearances in the first volume of this unforgettable novel of the day the American Civil War affectively ended.

AVAILABLE NOW ON AMAZON.COM

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1733341404/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

SPEED READING

If you want to read faster than most other people, there are plenty of books, classes, and videos offering to teach you how. Speed reading has been an international fascination since the 1950s, when American school teacher Evelyn Wood created a system teaching students how to read thousands of words per minute. She called it “dynamic reading,” but “speed reading” is the name that caught on.

The premise is simple: Using a few basic techniques, like eliminating distractions and reading large numbers of words at once, you can move through a text much faster, without sacrificing comprehension. That makes it possible to read hundreds of books per year, and speed through work much more efficiently.

Assuming, of course, that it really is possible. For decades, scientists have argued that people aren’t capable of reading thousands of words per minute without skimming and missing details. They refer to extensive research about how our eyes and brains work together to glean meaning. But some researchers say that even if many speed-readers are frauds, it is possible to read significantly faster than the average person. It just requires the proper practice. Let’s read on.

200-400: Words per minute that most college-educated adults can read and comprehend

1,200: Words per minute US president John F. Kennedy was said to read

500-600: Words per minute some experts estimate he read with good comprehension

>1 million: People who took some version of Evelyn Wood’s speed reading course, Reading Dynamics, between 1959 and 1980, including US president Jimmy Carter and actor Charlton Heston

$395: Price of the 7-session course in 1980

2,700: Words per minute that Wood claimed to read

3.5-7: Minutes it should take most college-educated people to read this email

2.5: Minutes it would take Kennedy, according to expert estimates

30: Seconds it would take Wood, assuming her claim is true

The mechanics of reading

When you read, your eyes pause every few characters, before moving quickly to the next point and then pausing again. These pauses are called “fixations,” and they last just long enough to process what we see. The rapid movements in between are called “saccades.”

Reading also involves auditory processing, because even when we read silently, we pronounce each word to ourselves. That inner speech is called “subvocalization.”

Both processes are critical to comprehension. They also limit how fast you can read; according to cognitive neuroscientist Mark Seidenberg, the eyes take in seven to eight letters in each 200- to 250-millisecond fixation, adding up to 280 words a minute. Your eyes need to pause a certain amount of time to recognize and understand what you’re reading, and your inner speech can only pronounce words so fast.

Anyone can read a little bit faster by eliminating distractions, so you don’t keep reading the same sentence over and over again. But when it comes to mental processing, there’s a trade-off between speed and accuracy. This applies to basically everything your brain does: When you try to go faster, you do a worse job at it.

Evelyn Wood’s “dynamic reading” courses teach you to make fewer fixations, and eliminate subvocalization entirely. This would obviously help you read a lot faster: Reading is slow because you have to recognize and pronounce all the words. If you could just recognize large chunks of text at once, and you didn’t have to worry about pronouncing anything, you could breeze through a test incredibly fast.

The question is whether that’s actually possible. For most people, subvocalization is a core part of reading. For speed-readers, it’s a bad habit we pick up as children, when we first learn to read aloud—and one they claim we can break.

But really, is speed reading possible?

There’s hardly any published research suggesting speed reading is possible. The scientific consensus has long been that it’s impossible to read anywhere close to 1,000 words per minute, and anyone claiming to do so is merely skimming—speeding through a text to get the general idea, without worrying about processing each word.

But researchers at the University of Wuppertal in Germany think the scientific community has been off-base about speed-reading for decades. They’re working to prove that you can in fact learn to read faster, using a few basic strategies: organize your reading, speed up gradually, keep moving forward, start recognizing larger chunks of text so you can make fewer fixations, and stop subvocalizing.

All of this is highly controversial, and the lab is years off from publishing any of its results. But the researchers said all the participants in their first study have learned to read faster—sometimes dramatically so—without losing comprehension.

If they’re able to prove speed reading is possible, the next step would be to understand how it works. So they’re collecting eye-tracking data to see how people’s fixation patterns change as they speed up their reading. One day, they hope to put super-fast speed readers in a functional MRI machine to study their brains as they read. That could give clues as to how they process information at speeds most of us would find impossible.

The Quotes of Steven Wright:

 I'd kill for a Nobel Peace Prize.

Borrow money from pessimists -- they don't expect it back.

 Half the people you know are below average.

82.7% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

A conscience is what hurts when all your other parts feel so good.

 A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.

 All those who believe in psycho kinesis, raise my hand.

The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

 I almost had a psychic girlfriend, ..... But she left me before we met.

 How do you tell when you're out of invisible ink?

 If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.

Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.

When everything is coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.

Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy.

 Hard work pays off in the future; laziness pays off now.

 I intend to live forever ... So far, so good.

 If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?

Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.

 What happens if you get scared half to death twice?

My mechanic told me, "I couldn't repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder."

A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.

Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.

 The hardness of the butter is proportional to the softness of the bread.

 To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research.

The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard.

The sooner you fall behind, the more time you'll have to catch up.


 If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.

Thanks to David Younkman

OHIO STATE WINS BIG TEN CHAMPIONSHIP

34-21

Next up Clemson

Ohio State and the Cincinnati Bengals won!

If you're still interested

has arrived

OK Boomer

Beware, millennials! Thanks to the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, dismissing an over-40 co-worker with an “OK, Boomer” insult could get you fired.

Millennials have taken to using the “OK, Boomer” line to be dismissive of criticisms from the Baby Boomer generation (1946-1964).

But the Age Discrimination in Employment Act prohibits discrimination against people 40 and over.

Use of the phrase could be considered to create a “hostile work environment,” according to Inc., which constitutes “behavior that violates the law-such as age, race, or sex discrimination.”

Bachelorette Parties

$1,400: Average price of a destination bachelorette party in 2018

40%: Share of bachelorette party attendees who spend $200 or less on the event

10: Average number of attendees at a bachelorette party

5: Average number of cocktails consumed per day on a three-day bachelorette party

56%: Share of brides-to-be who celebrate their bachelorette parties for two or more days

$300 billion: Value of the global wedding industry

$14.99: Sale price of a “Happy Penis” piñata on Bachelorette.com

The first last hurrah

Long before armies of women in matching outfits took over Nashville bars, men were celebrating bachelor parties. In the 5th century BC, Spartans held toasts and feasts where “the soon-to-be-wed pledged his continued loyalty to his brothers-in-arms.” Fast forward to 1896: P.T. Barnum’s grandson’s Herbert Barnum Seeley attracts police attention for allegedly booking nude belly dancers at his brother’s stag party, dubbed the “Seeley Bachelor Party Orgy.” In 2003, Thomas Bruderman, then a trader for Fidelity Investments, was investigated by the SEC for paying for a lavish three-day bachelor party on Fidelity’s dime—complete with illegal drugs, prostitutes, and a person with dwarfism booked for entertainment purposes.

For women, “bachelorette parties” came much later. Up until the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, women were celebrating their upcoming marriages with tame affairs like a wedding shower or brunch, and even if the dress code didn’t call for a hat and gloves, Grandma was usually present. The advent of male strippers, most notably Chippendales in 1979, helped usher in the era of bachelorette parties, and also set their tone. In 1976 the Times of London first used “hen party”; in 1981 “bachelorette party” appeared in The New York Times for the first time, in a story about the “21” Club in Manhattan, where the soon-to-be first lady of New York State had held hers. Sheila Young, a British researcher who studied hen parties for her PhD, tells HuffPost that hen (and stag) dos didn’t start becoming blow-out rituals until the 2000s.

While the explosion of the wedding industry (and reality TV) has ushered in an era of extravagance in which luxurious accommodations, custom gear, and wild expectations often mark the occasion, bachelorette parties are also a ritual highlighting sexual and financial independence. “As the sexual double standard lost some of its power and as women’s rights and freedoms became more pronounced, it has become more socially acceptable for women to acknowledge that they, too, are entitled to a ‘last night of freedom’,” writes sociologist Beth Montemurro.

Satisfaction Living in Dayton

Thought bubble

Some of the earliest mentions of baths in human history come from an ancient Indian book of Vedic domestic ceremonies called the Grihya-sutras, which recognizes bathing as both a hygienic necessity and a rite of purity. Over the centuries, different cultures developed their own bathing rituals, from Japan’s hotspring steam baths to Turkey’s hamams, yet the basic act of submerging oneself into water to soothe aches, wash off grime, and even to socialize with fellow bathers has remained essentially unchanged for millennia.

In the 20th century, soaps manufactured with foaming agents called surfactants—short for surface active agent—which create the pillowy tufts of bubbles now near-synonymous with bath time, caused a splash. Today, bath gels, salts, milks, soaks, and even fizzy baking-soda-based bath bombs promise bathers an increasingly luxuriant experience. Are we living in the golden age of bathing culture? Let’s sink in and see.

2.7 million kg (6 million lbs): Weight of the baking soda LUSH North America used to manufacture bath bombs between July 2018 and June 2019, according to LUSH

454,000: Number of Instagram posts tagged #bathart

$20 million: Annual revenue for Da Bomb Bath, a bath bomb company founded by two preteen sisters in 2015

45: Minutes Glossier beauty company founder Emily Weiss claims she spends soaking in an extra-hot bath every night

$55: Price for an 8.4-ounce bottle of the Santa Maria Novella bubble bath Weiss favors

$36 billion: Estimated size of the global bath and shower product market by 2023

$1,950: Price for a Bluetooth-enabled air bathtub that shoots jets of air, rather than water

15: Men interviewed about feminism while bathing for the Men Who Take Baths project

Welcome to the age of #bathfluence

Rachel Syme coined the term “bathfluencers” in the New Yorker, capturing the rise of social media influencers who create aspirational bathing experiences involving elaborate, ritualistic elements that make your average morning shower look about as glam as a cold spray from the hose. We’re talking candles, we’re talking bubbles and a few hunks of aura-cleansing rose quartz for good measure, we’re talking so many fresh flowers floating in the tub that your plumber could make potpourri after dredging your pipes.

While it’s very possible to dump $25 worth of potions into your bathtub at a go, in the age of luxury wellness products the bath trend is appealingly democratic—anyone can enjoy one, given time, a tub, and a few scoops of Epsom salts. “A lot of what is out there in the wellness world can feel inaccessible,” Brooklyn bathfluencer Deborah Hanekamp tells Syme. “A bath doesn’t feel too far out.”

Bath-related industries are soaking in the spoils. LUSH saw sales of their extremely fragrant bath bombs increase 71% between 2015 and 2018, linking the uptick in part to the rise of the #bathart hashtag used alongside mesmerizing videos of bath bombs dissolving. The National Kitchen and Bath Association’s 2018 Design Trends study reported that 87% of industry professionals report freestanding tubs “are an important component of the surge in self-care rituals.”

Are baths actually good for us?

Sure, baths feel nice—but do they really have any health benefits? In short, yes. There are reasons hydrotherapy has been practiced for centuries. Soaking in warm water can be a great way to boost blood circulation, lower blood pressure, and calm the nervous system. Breathing steam clears out your sinuses, and as anyone who went too hard at the gym can tell you, hot water can take the edge off sore muscles. And, it just feels good.

Snow in Ohio

Monday: Another winter storm will bring rain showers in the late morning with most seeing a transition to a wintry mix to snow showers around noon. Snow showers will continue throughout the remainder of the day and overnight. In all, due to some melting early, Dayton will likely see an inch or less of snow accumulating.

Finishing up the season 4-1 after starting 0-5

Set your clocks back?

In 2017, three American scientists won the Nobel Prize for their work on the molecular foundation of circadian rhythms. We don’t just wake up when it’s light outside out of habit; our daily relationship to the sun is encoded on the cellular level. Our biological clocks tell our bodies when to start calming down for the night and when to wake up in the morning, and influence a host of other functions including body temperature, blood pressure, and hormone levels.

24.2: Average period, in hours, of the body’s circadian rhythm

50-70 million: Americans with chronic sleep problems; data from some sleep apps suggest that people in other countries sleep even less

25%: Share of sleep time humans spend in REM, the deepest state of sleep

5-10%: Share of sleep time other primates spend in REM

3 million: Workers in the UK with overnight or non-traditional work hours

20%: Share of workers in the US with overnight or non-traditional work hours

10-40%: Share of shift workers who suffer from shift work disorder

7: Minimum hours of sleep adults are recommended to get per night

3-5: Nightly hours of sleep that Margaret Thatcher, Thomas Edison, Boris Johnson, and Donald Trump have claimed to need

Every day, our bodies go through a set routine—wake up, do things, go to sleep, wake up and start all over. Every cell in our bodies has a biological clock, so the body’s processes occur at regular intervals each day. This is true for all multicellular organisms: A protein called PER cyclically accumulates and then degrades in cell nuclei, keeping the clock in perpetual motion.

These clocks operate on a regular cycle of about 24 hours, keeping time to a beat known as our circadian rhythms. For instance, when it gets dark, our bodies produce melatonin, a hormone that makes us sleepy. And in the morning, light inhibits melatonin synthesis, so we wake up.

Circadian rhythms affect virtually every part of the body—from our ability to focus to our susceptibility to heart arrhythmias. Circadian rhythms dictate how hungry we are and how fast our skin repairs from damage.

Our circadian rhythms are incredibly important, which is why it’s so dangerous to mess with them. Many of us do anyway—we work odd hours, stay up late, drink coffee or alcohol, stare at our phones before trying to fall asleep, take sleep aids and other drugs. But we pay the price: Disturbing your circadian rhythms is correlated with depression and other mental health disorders, as well as obesity and a host of health risks.

There’s a wide range of normal metabolic activity, but here’s a “typical” 24-hour circadian cycle, and how it affects sleep and alertness.

6am: Body starts releasing cortisol

7-8am: Melatonin release stops

10am: Peak alertness

Noon: Elevated mood

3-4pm: Improved reaction time

5pm: Elevated muscle strength and flexibility

7pm: Body temperature peaks

9pm: Body starts releasing melatonin

2am: Deepest sleep

4-5am: Body temperature drops to lowest point

Circadian types

Night owls naturally stay up longer at night and also wake up later, potentially due to genetic wiring.

 Morning larks naturally wake up earlier and go to sleep earlier as well, which tends to peak in early and late life.

️Short sleepers need less than 6.5 hours of sleep per night. Most of the time, this is not innate; it’s due to anxiety, insomnia, or work or family obligations. Natural short sleepers are exceptionally rare, and researchers are only beginning to understand them.

 Long sleepers need more than nine hours of sleep per night to be at their most productive, and may struggle with the demands of a normal daily routine. They haven’t been studied yet, but researchers looking at familial natural short-sleepers are confident they exist.

 Teenagers go through hormonal changes that tend to delay sleep, making it hard for students to get a full night’s rest and wake up in time for school.

Another Fairmont Victory!

Fairmont 28, Lebanon 8: Tank Gant racked up 144 yards on the ground with two touchdowns and Male’k Hillon added 118 rushing yards with one score for Fairmont, which finished 4-6 after an 0-5 start to the season. Keith Farr had the lone touchdown for Lebanon in its last Greater Western Ohio Conference game.

Revenge of the Millennials:

Urban Dictionary:

YES!

Firebirds do shoot the Beavers!!!

Fairmont 35, Beavercreek 0

Male’k Hillon tallied 165 yards on the ground with two touchdowns to pace Fairmont. Tank Gant, Trey Baker and Logan Adams each added a rushing score.

Sarasota

Sarasota, variously spelled Sara Zota, Sarazota, and Sarasote, appeared on maps in the 1700s, but the origin of the place-name is uncertain; one explanation is that it may have been derived from a Spanish term meaning “a place of dancing.” The first settler arrived in 1856 and planted orange trees.

Dragons in Sarasota

February 28 & 29 (Leap Day!)

March 1 

2020

We will not be able to visit

the

Dog racing has been outlawed in Florida

From our visit in 2017

$.50 for a PBR

$.50 for a hot dog

Time to Shoot the Beavers!!!

Another loss to Wayne.

///////////////////////

I could stop taking naps but

I'm not a quitter!

FANTASTIC FAIRMONT

Fairmont 28, Centerville 20

Well, gas was $1.20 a gallon.

Fairmont’s 28-20 win over the Elks Friday night was nearly identical to their 28-23 win in 1997.

“This is a rivalry game,” Fairmont coach Dave Miller said. “It was a great gut-check win for the kids.”

And, it tested Miller’s gut as well.

The Firebirds’ coach didn’t get a chance to exhale until Garrett Danielson picked off Centerville’s Chase Harrison at the goal line with 20 seconds remaining to preserve the win.

“They had just made a big catch to set them up again, just like they did last week,” Miller said. “And, I knew I had seen them do this before, got Garrett got that interception. He’s not the most athletic kid on the team, but he is a student of the game and he busted his butt and it was good for him and good for our team.”

And it finished off exactly what Centerville coach Brent Ullery had warned his team about during the week.

Last season, Fairmont entered their week nine game 6-2 and headed for the playoffs while Centerville was battling through a 0-8 start.

The final: Centerville 17, Fairmont 0.

“We told them all week,” Ullery said after his team fell to 4-3 and 2-1 in the Greater Western Ohio Conference American Division. “We knew they were going to come in hungry, well coached with a lot of ability and that’s a recipe for a long night.”

From the start, it didn’t look like the Elks were going to have many problems with the Firebirds.

Centerville took the opening kickoff and marched 71 yards to take a 7-0 lead on 4-yard pass from Harrison to Connor Walls.

Fairmont, which had thrown just 10 passes in six games, got on the board on a 58-yard pass from Male’k Hillon to Garrett Baker to tie the game.

“If you don’t defend those passes, you are going to give them up,” Ullery said. “With a triple option team, you know those passes are there and they are not going to be short gains, they are going to be big.”

Fairmont pushed the lead to 21-7 on a 9-yard Hillon run and a 24-yard run by Tank Gant.

“We used some different formations and sets after that first drive,” Miller said. “We knew we had to keep them off-balance.”

The Elks got a field goal just before the half and trimmed the deficit to 21-17 when Bryce McMahon bulled his way in from 6 yards out.

Hillon added the final points on a 46-yard run with 8:40 remaining, setting up the wild final two minutes.

“With our start (to the season), for our kids to come out here and persevere and do this,” Miller said. “I am so proud of them.”

Centerville held a 20-9 advantage in first downs in compiling 355 yards while holding Fairmont to 265.

Harrison finished 19 of 29 for 158 yards, but threw two picks while McMahon had 146 yards on 25 carries. Brendan Salo booted two field goals.

Hillon was a perfect 4-for-4 throwing the ball for 115 yards and also led the ground attack with 79 yards on 11 carries. Trey Baker had an interception, forced a fumble and recorded 13 tackles to lead the Firebird defense.

Two Dragons in Turlock, CA

Division I

1. Springboro (6-0): d. Northmont 27-21; hosts Springfield (5-1).

2. Springfield (5-1): d. Beavercreek 61-0; at Springboro (6-0).

3. Centerville (4-2): d. Wayne 27-21; hosts Fairmont (1-5).

Do you understand and enjoy today's music?

Do you rap along to today's urban, hip hop music?

Or do you react the way our parents did towards rock 'n roll?

Frank T. McAndrew October 7, 2019

When I was a teenager, my dad wasn’t terribly interested in the music I liked. To him, it just sounded like “a lot of noise,” while he regularly referred to the music he listened to as “beautiful.”

This attitude persisted throughout his life. Even when he was in his 80s, he once turned to me during a TV commercial featuring a 50-year-old Beatles tune and said, “You know, I just don’t like today’s music.”

It turns out that my father isn’t alone. As I’ve grown older, I’ll often hear people my age say things like “they just don’t make good music like they used to.”

Why does this happen?

Luckily, my background as a psychologist has given me some insights into this puzzle.

We know that musical tastes begin to crystallize as early as age 13 or 14. By the time we’re in our early 20s, these tastes get locked into place pretty firmly.

In fact, studies have found that by the time we turn 33, most of us have stopped listening to new music. Meanwhile, popular songs released when you’re in your early teens are likely to remain quite popular among your age group for the rest of your life.

There could be a biological explanation for this. There’s evidence that the brain’s ability to make subtle distinctions between different chords, rhythms, and melodies gets worse with age. So to older people, newer, less familiar songs might all “sound the same.”

But I believe there are some simpler reasons for older people’s aversion to newer music. One of the most researched laws of social psychology is something called the “mere exposure effect.” In a nutshell, it means that the more we’re exposed to something, the more we tend to like it.

This happens with people we know, the advertisements we see and, yes, the songs we listen to.

When you’re in your early teens, you probably spend a fair amount of time listening to music or watching music videos. Your favorite songs and artists become familiar, comforting parts of your routine.

For many people over 30, job and family obligations increase, so there’s less time to spend discovering new music. Instead, many will simply listen to old, familiar favorites from that period of their lives when they had more free time.

Of course, those teen years weren’t necessarily carefree. They’re famously confusing, which is why so many TV shows and movies—from Glee to Love, Simon to Eighth Grade—revolve around the high school turmoil.

Psychology research has shown that the emotions that we experience as teens seem more intense than those that comes later. We also know that intense emotions are associated with stronger memories and preferences. All of this might explain why the songs we listen to during this period become so memorable and beloved.

So there’s nothing wrong with your parents because they don’t like your music. In a way, it’s all part of the natural order of things.

At the same time, I can say from personal experience that I developed a fondness for the music I heard my own children play when they were teenagers. So it’s certainly not impossible to get your parents on board with Billie Eilish and Lil Nas X.

Fairmont Firebirds Victorious!!!

Fairmont 14, Miamisburg 7: Keon Wright hauled in two touchdown passes from Male’k Hillon, including the game-winner late in the third quarter for Fairmont. Braden Barr scored on a seven-yard scramble for ‘Burg.

Curses to cursive!   

Cursive is cool!

In the age of keyboards, touch screens, and voice commands, penmanship has become a polarizing issue. Anti-cursive campaigners argue that slavish adherence to centuries-old writing standards is a waste of time and can even erode student confidence.

There’s an equally ardent cadre of educators, politicians, and scientists who have been lobbying for a revival of cursive penmanship, citing a range of neurological and psychological benefits. Cursive’s defenders suggest that putting pen to paper increases comprehension and information retention, improves fine motor skills, and fosters self-discipline.

This struggle isn’t new. Time magazine points out that hating on cursive goes back to the “days of typewriters, shorthand, telephones, and dictaphones.” In fact, cursive writing is routinely deemed obsolete, anachronistic or archaic, every time a new type of recording technology emerges.

~3200 BC: Sumerians develop cuneiform, among the earliest writing systems.

8th century: Benedictine monk Alcuin of York creates Carolingian Minuscule, a legible calligraphic script used for religious manuscripts. It becomes the basis for present-day Roman upper- and lowercase type.

16th century: An efficient style called Secretary Hand becomes the business standard in the UK.

1570: The first printed handwriting manual in English, A booke containing diuers sortes of hands, is published.

1815: Fifteen-year-old Platt Rogers Spencer begins teaching penmanship courses in Ohio. The sinuous style called “Spencerian Script” becomes the dominant writing style in the US and is used in the original Coca-Cola logo.

1894: Austin Palmer publishes Palmer’s Guide to Business Writing, a manual for a simplified cursive script that becomes the most popular style in the US.

1935: Time magazine publishes a story suggesting the decline of penmanship in the US is nothing short of a moral crisis.

1977: January 23 is designated as National Handwriting Day in the US. The date coincides with the birthday of John Hancock, a signatory of the Declaration of Independence with a particularly elegant scrawl.

2013: US treasury secretary Jack Lew presents a new and improved signature to be used on banknotes. President Barack Obama jokes that Lew promised to make his inscrutable autograph more legible “in order not to debase our currency.”

2015: German typographer Harald Geisler and Harvard-trained physicist Elizabeth Waterhouse develop a typeface based on Albert Einstein’s penmanship. Geisler is currently translating Martin Luther King’s handwriting to a font.

2016: California educators kick off the “Campaign for Cursive,” an initiative to encourage kids to learn cursive handwriting.

“Write legibly. The average temper of the human race would be perceptibly sweetened, if everybody obeyed this rule! A great deal of the bad writing in the world comes simply from writing too quickly.”

—Lewis Carroll, Eight or Nine Wise Words about Letter Writing

Hidden messages

The point of penmanship is to standardize the way we form letters for greater legibility, but we all put our own stamps on our handwriting. Train 10 students to write in Palmer script and you’ll end up with 10 different variations. Handwriting experts believe that you can glean some 5,000 personality traits from our individual takes on penmanship. Analyst Marc J. Seifer told Quartz that president Donald Trump’s jagged, loopless signature indicates someone who has an “aggressive nature and [has a] tendency to see things black or white, one way or the other, with little room for compromise.”

Graphologists like to point to other quirks as indicators of personality. Among the most common is the so-called “felon’s claw,” a letter stroke that goes below the baseline and resembles a claw—which they believe, is an indicator of a backstabbing traitor wracked by guilt. There’s no firm scientific basis for handwriting analysis, and it is becoming increasingly maligned as a forensic tool, though it’s certainly fun to wonder what a graphologist would make of your signature.

33%: Share of adults who have trouble reading their own handwriting

18: Number of US states where cursive writing is taught in public schools

$32,350: Average annual income of a calligrapher in New York City

$2.70: Average price calligraphers in the US charge to address a wedding invitation

1-1.5 inches (2.5-3.8 cm) from the tip: Recommended pencil grip for a left-handed writer

7,000: Estimated number of preventable deaths in the US healthcare system each year caused by sloppy penmanship

5,000 rupees ($70) each: Fine the Allahabad High Court charged three Indian doctors in Uttar Pradesh for bad handwriting in 2018

  Springfield (3-1): d. Northmont 28-17; at Fairmont (0-4)

Springfield is ranked No. 2 in DDN Power Rankings

Police responded to the homecoming dance at Stebbins High School Saturday night after hearing reports of false threats.

“There was a rumor of a threat which was not true, and we are working with authorities to address the issue,” said Chad Wyen, Superintendent of Mad River Schools. “The students involved with starting the rumor will be disciplined. Riverside police department was at the dance prior to the rumor as an added layer of security.”

INITIAL REPORT: 

Multiple law enforcement units have been dispatched to Stebbins High School following text message threats, according to Huber Heights dispatch center.

Police are investigating the situation further.

We will update this story as we learn more.

Firebirds Football

KETTERING — 

Fairmont High School sophomore Tank Gant was born with the ultimate running back name. At a chiseled 6 feet 3 and 215 pounds, he ably fulfills that role, too.

“When I was born, they gave me to my mom and she said, get this tank off my chest,” said Gant.

That’s what a lot of Fairmont opposing defenders are likely thinking, too. Gant has become the main option on Fairmont’s run-heavy option attack. He had 34 rushes and put 110 yards rushing on Lakota East in Week 2. He topped that with 36 carries for 144 yards and a touchdown in Week 3 at Northmont.

 

That durability and productiveness despite being marked has landed him fifth among all Greater Western Ohio Conference rushers. That also stamps him as a developing player to watch and his recruiting interest should soar.

 

But that hasn’t meant success for Fairmont (0-3), yet. More realistically, the Firebirds should be a GWOC and Division I playoff contender the next two seasons. If that sounds familiar, it should. Loaded with outstanding underclassmen when head coach Dave Miller took over, Fairmont dipped to 1-9 in 2016, then qualified for the D-I playoffs the last two seasons.

 

“That’s a fair comparison,” recalled Fairmont senior linebacker Trey Baker, a rare four-year starter whose father David Baker is a Firebirds running back/receivers coach. “Our seniors are taking us in the right direction to prepare us for the future. We like to do what we do.”Fairmont is loaded with experienced senior linebackers Garrett Baker, Trey’s cousin, Evan Overholser and Zack Snodgras

 

Fairmont and Wayne (0-3) are the only winless GWOC teams, and there’s no letup in Week 4 matchups. Fairmont will host Trotwood-Madison (2-1) at Roush Stadium on Friday and Wayne hosts unbeaten Springboro (3-0), the No. 1 team in the Cox Media Group Ohio power rankings. Trotwood defeated Wayne 40-28 in Week 3.

 

Fairmont sophomores Tank Gant and QB Keon Wright are promising Firebirds underclass players.

 

Fairmont also dropped its opener to unbeaten Alter after taking out the Knights the previous two seasons.

 

Male’k Hillon and Keon Wright have shared taking snaps for Fairmont and both are sophomores. Gant has quickly won Miller over.

 

“He’s special,” Miller said. “What’s great about him is as good as a player he is, he is a great young man. His mom has done a superior job of parenting him. He is so bought in and he’s one of our hardest-working kids. You have that going on with his ability and the sky’s the limit.”•

 

 

 

 

 

1920: Edwin Perkins invents Fruit Smack, a fruit-flavored liquid concentrate.

1927: Inspired by Jell-O, Perkins creates a powdered version of Fruit Smack and calls it Kool-Ade.

1934: Perkins trademarks the name and spelling Kool-Aid.

1953: Perkins sells Kool-Aid to General Foods, since merged with Kraft Foods.

1954: Marvin Potts creates Pitcher Man, the precursor to Kool-Aid Man.

1974: Pitcher Man is rebranded as Kool-Aid Man.

1983: Marvel Comics creates a comic series called The Adventures of Kool-Aid Man. Mattel also made a Kool-Aid man video game for Atari 2600 in the same year.

1998: Kool-Aid is named the official state soft drink of Nebraska, and the town of Hastings, its birthplace, launches Kool-Aid Days, an annual weekend-long festival.

2000: Kool-Aid Man leaves his footprints in front of Mann’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood.

2011: Time magazine names Kool-Aid Man as one of the creepiest product mascots of all time.

2013: Kraft Foods rebrands Kool-Aid Man with a more personable and less aggressive personality.

Edwin Perkins was an entrepreneur, chemist, and inventor who sold a wide variety of household goods, including face cream and medicine, through a network of door-to-door sales and a mail-order catalogue. One of the most popular items in his inventory was Fruit Smack, a liquid drink concentrate. A fan of Jell-O since his father stocked it in the family’s small general store, Perkins was determined to find a way to sell Fruit Smack in powdered form—the glass bottles the concentrated liquid came in were expensive and problematic to ship. In 1927 he started selling Kool-Ade, with the promise that each 10-cent packet would yield 10 glasses of refreshment.

When the Great Depression hit in 1929, Perkins lowered the price to five cents a packet, marketing it as “the Budget Beverage,” an attainable luxury in a cash-strapped era. Perkins kept the price throughout the Depression and for several years after, and Kool-Aid has remained a budget-friendly staple in many households since.

“Kool-Aid seems to make everyone happy. Whether it reminds them of some long-ago family picnic or using the stuff to badly dye their hair in high school, it weirdly connects to so many personal memories. It’s kind of a mutant version of Proust’s madeleines.”

—Matt from Dinosaur Dracula, speaking to The Takeout

Those colorful packets seem to inspire creativity in the kitchen and beyond. Alternative uses for Kool-Aid touted by superfans include:

 Hair dye and Easter egg coloring

 Toilet cleaner—the citric acid in the lemon flavor in particular supposedly removes stains and can freshen a washing machine or dishwasher as well

 An ingredient in brightly-hued pickles (Koolickles, if you will), marshmallows, ribs, and fruit-flavored popcorn

Lip gloss

The Jonestown massacre is the source of the saying “drinking the Kool-Aid,” to indicate someone who is going along with a questionable idea or belief. In 1978, more than 900 members of the Peoples Temple, a cult in Guyana, drank a grape-flavored drink laced with cyanide, Valium, and other chemicals. The fatal cocktail was not made with Kool-Aid, but rather Flavor Aid.

The song that took over the world

John Lennon once claimed that The Beatles were "More popular than Jesus.” According to the Songwriters Hall of Fame, there’s one song that’s way more popular than anything The Beatles ever wrote—more widely performed, in fact, than the works of The Beatles, Beethoven, and Bach combined. It’s a song that even small children around the world know by heart, and the only song that’s ever been performed on Mars (at least as far as we know).

That song is “Happy Birthday to You.”

“Happy Birthday” is the most-sung ditty in the English language, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. And while it may seem hard to imagine a world without the tune, it’s a relatively recent invention.

In 1889, Patty Hill, a Kentucky educator, and her sister Mildred, who would go on to become an ethnomusicologist, teamed up to write songs for children. “Happy Birthday,” their greatest hit, went on to become the standard song for celebrations across a wide variety of countries and cultures. Close your eyes and make a wish.

1889: Patty and Mildred Hill begin composing songs for children.

1893: The Hill sisters publish the tune, with the words and title “Good Morning to All,” in their songbook Song Stories for the Kindergarten. The “Happy Birthday” lyrics are included as an alternative.

1912: The lyrics to “Happy Birthday” appear—accompanying the tune to “Good Morning to All”—for the first time in a piano manufacturer’s book of songs.

1933: “Happy Birthday” is featured in the world’s first singing telegram.

1935: The copyright to “Happy Birthday” is issued to the Hill sisters.

1955: Composer Igor Stravinsky writes “Greeting Prelude,” based on the “Happy Birthday” melody, for the 80th birthday of French conductor Pierre Monteux.

1962: Marilyn Monroe delivers her historically seductive version of the song to John F. Kennedy on his 45th birthday.

1969: Composer Aaron Copland writes an orchestral arrangement of “Happy Birthday” in honor of the Philadelphia Orchestra’s 70th anniversary.

1988: Warner Music Group acquires control of the song as part of a $25 million deal.

1996: Reports circulate that Girl Scout troops are avoiding “Happy Birthday” ‘round the campfire because they’re worried about getting sued, prompting public outcry.

2002: A Saturday Night Live skit features Jack Black attempting to overthrow “Happy Birthday” with a hard-rock alternative involving riddles, a witch, and an epic quest.

2012: The Free Music Archive and New Jersey radio station WFMU sponsor a contest to replace the “Happy Birthday” song with a new tune that’s not ensnared in legal problems.

2013: The Mars Rover hums a hopeful “Happy Birthday” to itself, alone on the red planet.

2016: A US district judge approves a settlement that puts “Happy Birthday” in the public domain.

What did people sing on their birthdays before “Happy Birthday”?

For the most part, nothing at all. As George Washington University law professor Robert Brauneis explains in a paper on the song’s history: “According to scholar Elizabeth Pleck, birthday parties did not become common even among wealthy Americans until the late 1830s; modern birthday cakes emerged after 1850; and peer-culture birthday parties, involving children of the same age as the child whose birthday was being celebrated, emerged between 1870 and 1920, after American urban public schools became age-graded.”

Medieval Germans and British Victorians were known to celebrate children’s birthdays, but birthday parties really went mainstream in the 20th century, buoyed by factors including the relatively recent cultural celebration of childhood and the prosperous post-World War II era. (It’s worth noting, too, that given sky-high child mortality rates across cultures for most of history, celebrating birthdays may have seemed like tempting fate.)

As birthday recognition increasingly became the norm, so too did “Happy Birthday” become woven into the fabric of festivities, popping up in singing telegrams, plays, films, and more. A 1941 article in the New Yorker notes, however, that Patty Hill refused to license its use in swing music: “It was swung once on a Jack Benny program and she didn’t like it.”

DAYTON, Ohio (WDTN) – Grammy Award-winner Smokey Robinson is performing at Kettering Medical Center Foundation’s Heart to Heart on

Wednesday, September 25 at 8:00 p.m.

at the Benjamin and Marian Schuster Performing Arts Center.

https://my.ticketcenterstage.com/5985

The win was the second straight for Northmont (2-1), which is at Springfield (2-1) in Week 4. Fairmont (0-3) will be looking for its first win next week against visiting Trotwood-Madison (2-1).

Sophomore Tank Gant scored on a 5-yard run midway through the second quarter to pull the team even at 7-all. Colin McLaughlin also scored in the final two minutes on a 1-yard run for Fairmont.

Friday September 13

Fairmont

(0-2)

@ Northmont High Thunderbolts

(0-1)

KETTERING 

An effort is underway to crack down on illegal massage businesses all over the area.

News Center 7’s Sean Cudahy is in Kettering, where a new law is in the works in the name of public safety.

Experts said most people who have gotten a massage don’t know if that place was licensed. It’s the reason city leaders in Kettering are working to finish writing a new law, which they said would help make the city safer.

When students and staff at the Dayton School of Massage in Kettering go into a room to work with a client, they take with them countless hours of training.

They practice with a strict code of ethics, and the intent to help heal.

But massage therapist, instructor and industry expert Jennifer Cull said all too often, places posing as massage businesses are actually doing things that are sexual and illegal.

“They’re fronts. They’re fronts for sexual services, human trafficking,” said Cull, who also is president of the American Massage Therapy Association.

In Kettering, there are 40 massage establishes in the city.

They include places that have seen four arrests since 2014 and two more are under investigation.

The city of Kettering is looking to join Springboro, Centerville, West Carrollton and Huber Heights, among others, with new, tougher laws. Miamisburg is working on it, too.

Kettering wants everyone practicing massage to have a license.

“The biggest thing is public safety. The general public does not know the difference between someone who has proper education, has had received formalized training, has taken a national test,” Cull said.

State leaders also are working to strengthen regulations on massage businesses across Ohio.

“It was just an awful neighbor to have for five years.”

That’s what a neighboring business owner told Miami Twp. trustees in the spring about a suspected human trafficking operation authorities said was posing as a massage parlor in state Route 725.

“It’s as simple as this,” Cull said. “Do you have a license? Let me see it. If you do not, then you cannot perform massage.”

Cull is among those pushing for the state law to require everyone to be licensed. She said it’s also about getting dangerous businesses out of shopping centers we all visit.

“They don’t want these sex businesses. They don’t want it in the city. We don’t want it in the state of Ohio,” she said.

CINCINNATI

A popular amusement park plans to get rid of all of its rides.  

Coney Island has announced it will remove all amusement park rides at the end of September.

According to a press release, the park intends to instead focus on the Sunlite Pool and other water-related recreational amenities.

"All of our consumer research, all of our consumer feedback, and all of our in-park data shows that the vast majority of our guests come to Coney Island because of the fun they have while in the Sunlite Pool area," said Rob Schutter, Jr., president and CEO of Coney Island, in a press release.

The press release said over the past few years, Coney Island has split its focus and resources between the rides and the Sunlite Water Adventure area, but have decided to switch gears to focus exclusively on the waterpark area moving forward.

The park said it also plans to create additional spaces for popular events like the Appalachian Festival and Summerfair Cincinnati, to provide event spaces for other community festivals and events in the future.

The final day guests will be able to enjoy the rides at Coney Island is Sept. 21.

CENTERVILLE  

A driver smashed through a window and into a swimming pool at the Centerville LA Fitness location Monday afternoon, injuring two people.

The crash was reported at the fitness center at 45 West Alex Bell Road around 2:55 p.m.

A person swimming was injured as the car landed in the pool and the driver also was taken to the hospital.  Police described their injuries as “non-serious.”

Investigators are still working to determine exactly how the crash happened, but they do not believe it was a result of any medical conditions.

Two other people who were in the swimming area were not injured, police said.

“It definitely could have been a lot worse,” said Centerville police Sgt. Jeff Kaercher.

Xenia resident Jim Lee was at the fitness center working out when he saw all the commotion.

“I was just working out and then I saw a bunch of people running toward the locker room,” Lee said.  “I walked out and there’s a car in the pool.”

Lee said he was thankful more people were not in the pool area, because he has seen as many as 30 to 40 people in the pool during water aerobics classes.

Fairmont 6

Lakota East 14

Trey Baker struck first with a two-yard run for Fairmont, but Lakota East rallied with a pair of short TD runs from T.J. Kathman to pull ahead. Tank Gant racked up 110 yards on the ground for Fairmont.

DAYTON 

Cincinnati Bell is partnering with the Oregon District Business Association to donate upfront charges to install free public WiFi.

The Smart City solution includes installing fiber optics for free public WiFi in the Oregon District and software to support local businesses and help drive economic development, Cincinnati Bell announced in a news release.

Public WiFi will extend on Fifth Street from Wayne Avenue to Patterson Boulevard.

Cameras also will be installed throughout the business district, alleys and parking lots to support law enforcement safety initiatives.

“Cincinnati Bell is committed to supporting the city of Dayton and Oregon District Business Association,” said Jason Praeter, president and general manager of Cincinnati Bell’s entertainment and communications business. “As a lifelong Dayton resident currently residing in Bellbrook, I am especially proud that Cincinnati Bell is a part of this important project.”

Cincinnati Bell is donating the upfront charges for the Smart City solution over the next to to three months.

“We are so incredibly grateful for Cincinnati Bell’s generosity,” said Kyle Babirad, president of the Oregon District Business Association. “The importance of connectivity within the Oregon District cannot be overstated. Cincinnati Bell’s work with us improves our ability to connect with each other and with the broader Dayton community.”

Fairmont faces the Lakota East Thunderhawks  on Friday, September 6th

Lakota East High School is a high school in the Lakota Local School District which comprises both West Chester Township and Liberty Township in a suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio.

BTW

Alter plays its home games at Roush Stadium

Alter (1-0): d. Fairmont 21-7; hosts Thurgood Marshall (1-0) at Fairmont.

See Video of the Parade crowd 

3+ minutes of the folks along Far Hills watching the parade

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfJVuMCikss

September 2, 2019

KETTERING, Ohio (WDTN) – More than 200 community organizations and businesses took part in the Holiday At Home parade, Monday.

After the parade, community members enjoyed food, games, music and crafts all evening.

The theme was “Hit it out of the park” and organizers encouraged residents that didn’t have plans for Labor Day to not settle for a boring day off.

Most activities took place at or near the Fraze Pavilion.

With seats lining the streets of Kettering for the parade, it was easy to see why people call this community home.

“It’s a nice neighborhood. People are great. Everybody is friendly” said John Michael, a Kettering resident.

For many watching the parade, it was a moment to reflect on their younger days when they, themselves were in it.

“It just gets everybody together. It gets everybody outside before winter sets in. Everybody comes out to have fun and listen to music,” said Heather Douglas, a Kettering resident.

First Holiday @ Home 1959

Good News about next week's football opponent:

La Salle 31, Lakota West 7:

Alex Afari’s 35-yard punt return score was the lone highlight for Lakota West.

Quick Dates

• Annual Gala: Saturday, August 31, 6:00 PM to 11:00 PM
• Arts & Crafts: Sunday, September 1, 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM and Monday, September 2, 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM
• Auto Show: Sunday, September 1, 11:00 AM to 6:00 PM and Monday, September 2, 11:00 AM to 5:00 PM
• Children’s Zone: Sunday, September 1, 11:00 AM to 6:00 PM and Monday, September 2, 11:00AM to 5:00 PM
• 5K Race: Monday, September 2, 8:00 AM
• Parade: Monday, September 2, 9:55 AM to 12:00 PM

DAYTON 

The Gem City Shine benefit concert raised nearly $70,000 for the Oregon District Tragedy Fund.

The Dayton Foundation received $68,634 in contributions from thousands of residents who attended the concert last Sunday. 

Firebirds Lose to Alter

“They did to us what we’re supposed to do to people,” Fairmont coach Dave Miller said. “We didn’t do anything on offense. We have to get a lot better. We’re going to look at ourselves, learn from it and move on. That’s what you do.”

Fairmont drew even at 7-all on Colin McLaughlin’s one-yard run late in the first quarter. Linebacker Trey Baker recovered a red-zone fumble to set up the Firebirds’ only score. Baker was outstanding with a game-high 13 tackles, including 12 solos.

KETTERING 

Kettering schools had a soft lockdown Thursday morning after a staff member found a “statement with a threatening bent to it” written on a bathroom wall.

District spokeswoman Kari Basson said students were kept in their second period classes for about 45 extra minutes.

She said Kettering police investigated and found the threat not to be credible.

Basson said at 10:40 a.m. that students were about to be released from those classrooms to move on with the rest of their school day.

Police and school officials have not yet been able to identify who wrote the threat, but school resource officers continue to work on it, Basson said.

“We take these types of situations very seriously, even when the threat proves to be non-credible,” she said.

Close to 200 middle school students were in the high school at the time, attending advanced classes.

Basson said a “one-call” message was being sent to all parents of high school and those middle school students who were at the high school, explaining the situation. 

Fairmont Firebirds

vs.

Alter Knights

Thursday

August 29

Cox Media Group Ohio Top 5 

Division I

1. Springfield (9-3 last season): at Hilliard Bradley (9-2).

2. Northmont (10-2): hosts Dublin Coffman (11-2).

3. Miamisburg (7-3): hosts Cin. Walnut Hills (4-6).

4. Springboro (5-5): at Mason (8-3).

5. Fairmont (7-4): hosts Alter (13-2) on Thursday.

American shopping giant Costco got an unexpectedly frenzied welcome from zealous Chinese shoppers.

Costco opened its first warehouse club in China today (Aug. 27), in a suburb of Shanghai. Just a few hours into business, it had to shut down in the afternoon because of overcrowding, according to screenshots of messages sent to customers around 2pm circulating on China’s social media Weibo. Local media reported that local residents swarmed to the store—with cars queuing up to enter half a kilometer (0.3 miles) away, footage from news portal Sina showed.

Cars apparently had to wait for three hours to get a parking spot.

Even with 22 counters open for check-out, customers still needed to wait for more than half an hour to be rung up, Sina reported. On Chinese social media, many raved about the prices of grocery and other items. A Shanghai-based Weibo user was excited about the 32.9 yuan ($4.60) price for nearly 4 liters (about 1 gallon) of milk.

It’s also opening in the middle of the escalating US-China trade war, that has made consumers more cost-conscious and raised the prices of imported goods.

One day after the star-studded Gem City Shine event was held to reclaim the Oregon District, Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley said she was grateful for the “very Dayton” event.

“It was very diverse, very Dayton,” Whaley said.

Whaley said at one point she went to the second floor of the Dublin Pub and looked out on to the thousands of people gathered for the block party.

“Just seeing the sheer number of people who had come together was the most amazing thing,” Whaley said.

Whaley said she heard police estimates of between 30,000 and 35,000 people who came to the Gem City Shine event.

Gem City Shine was a successful event.

Here's the set list:

Stevie Wonder was the Headliner

Former Daily Show host Jon Stewart also addressed the crowd.

"Dayton, Ohio, you have reclaimed this area," Stewart said. 

Over 20,000 people are expected to pack the Oregon District Sunday evening in the Gem City Shine party and benefit concert, aimed at taking back the Oregon District following the mass shooting that took place three weeks to the day.

Comedian and Yellow Springs resident Dave Chappelle is scheduled to host the event, which will run from 4 pm to 10 pm. According to organizers, Gem City Shine will “honor the lives lost and to reclaim the community’s favorite places to shop, dine, and enjoy time with family and friends.”

The window to buy tickets for the event closed Wednesday night. 

Local and national acts are expected to take the stage, which will be located on near Fifth Street and Wayne Avenue, with performances both in the later afternoon into the evening.

Oregon District stores and restaurants are expected to be open for patrons to shop and dine at throughout the night. Food vendors and beer trucks will also be on hand. For $20, commemorative t-shirts will be sold with the proceeds going to the Dayton Foundation’s Oregon District Tragedy Fund. The parking lot next to Omega Music near the intersection of Fifth and Patterson will be home to a food pavilion and family entertainment area. This area is where community members are encouraged to participate in a community art project.

Located at several locations around the Oregon District throughout Gem City Shine will be beer trucks, soda/water stations, t-shirt stations, and donation stations.

There will be multiple places and opportunities around the Oregon District for patrons to give to the Dayton Foundation’s Oregon District Tragedy Fund.

Guess Who May Be There?

Lady Gaga
Bradley Cooper
Comedians include:

Michelle Wolf
Chris Rock
Michael Che
Aziz Ansari

John Mayer
Kanye West
John Legend

Broadway may soon get its own “Soul Train.”

A new musical inspired by the long-running music and dance variety television program, which showcased black music and culture for an audience of millions, will center on Don Cornelius, the former disc jockey who created the show in 1970. Producers are aiming for a Broadway premiere in 2021.

Soul Train is an American music-dance television program which aired in syndication from October 2, 1971, to March 27, 2006. In its 35-year history, the show primarily featured performances by R&B, soul, dance/pop, and hip hop artists, although funk, jazz, disco, and gospel artists also appeared. The series was created by Don Cornelius, who also served as its first host and executive producer. 

The origins of Soul Train can be traced to 1965 when WCIU-TV, an upstart UHF station in Chicago, began airing two youth-oriented dance programs: Kiddie-a-Go-Go

and Red Hot and Blues

 These programs—specifically the latter, which featured a predominantly African-American group of in-studio dancers—would set the stage for what was to come to the station several years later.

Don Cornelius, a news reader and backup disc jockey at Chicago radio station WVON, was hired by WCIU in 1967 as a news and sports reporter. Cornelius also was promoting and emceeing a touring series of concerts featuring local talent (sometimes called "record hops") at Chicago-area high schools, calling his traveling caravan of shows "The Soul Train". WCIU-TV took notice of Cornelius's outside work and in 1970, allowed him the opportunity to bring his road show to television. 

In 1973, Dick Clark, host and producer of Bandstand, launched Soul Unlimited — controversial for its pronounced racial overtures — to compete directly with Soul Train. Cornelius, with help from Jesse Jackson, openly accused Clark of trying to undermine TV's only Black-owned show. Agreeing, ABC canceled it after a few episodes. Clark later agreed to work with Cornelius on a series of network specials featuring R&B and soul artists.

Soul Unlimited

Three prominent black women in contemporary theater will form the core creative team. Dominique Morisseau (“Skeleton Crew” and “Pipeline”), a 2018 MacArthur grant winner, is writing the script;  Camille A. Brown (“Choir Boy”) will choreograph; and Kamilah Forbes, the executive producer for the Apollo Theater, will direct.

Ahmir Thompson, a.k.a. Questlove, the drummer for The Roots, is an executive producer alongside Don Cornelius's son, Tony Cornelius; Anthony E. Zuiker; Shawn Gee and Devin Keudell. Matthew Weaver, Jeffrey Tick and Richard Gay are general producing partners.

“Soul Train,” which left the air in 2006, played a significant role in bringing the music and dance of black America — particularly R&B, soul and hip-hop — into the cultural mainstream, featuring guest musicians like James Brown

Aretha Franklin

and Marvin Gaye.

Arguably, the program is best known for the “Soul Train” line: performances by in-studio dancers, many of whom had their careers kick-started by appearing on the show, including Rosie Perez and Carmen Electra.

“To me, ‘Soul Train,’ is the story between Don Cornelius and the dancers that built that show,” Ms. Morisseau, who is still working on the script, said in an interview. “I thought it would be so interesting to tell the story of the dancers and Don, in connection and in contrast and in contradiction and in conflict with each other.”

Cornelius stepped down as host in 1993. In his later years, he struggled with his health and experienced intense headaches, occasional seizures and social anxiety. He died in 2012 of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head at his home in Los Angeles. He was 75.

“Don Cornelius, to me, is like Hamlet,” Ms. Morisseau said. “He is his best friend and his own worst enemy.”

But his work left a lasting impression on the playwright, who remembered tuning into “Soul Train” every Saturday morning as soon as she was old enough to watch, finding in the series “a sense of pride and self-affirmation for who I was in the greater American culture.”

“The thing that excites me,” Ms. Morisseau said of the new musical, “is the way that we can make this an explosion, celebrating the origins of dance culture and the black cultural experience.”

It’s difficult to write a sentence without using the word “the,” yet this generic three-letter formulation is now appearing on trademark registration applications. The Ohio State University is the latest brand to seek a claim to this utterly indistinct word, but it’s not the first.

The university is, perhaps unsurprisingly, a little bit behind fashion designer Marc Jacobs. The high-end clothing brand, which isn’t a staid institution like the university, filed an application with the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to trademark “the” in May. The designer’s application got preliminary approval, but it is still under review. It will have priority over OSU, meaning that Marc Jacobs’ claim to the word, filed earlier, could delay review of the OSU application—and if Jacobs gets the trademark, OSU may have to fight the registration in order to secure protection for its own use of “the.”

In both cases, a grant of the trademark registration wouldn’t mean much to users of the English language. Even if brands can register the word, limitations on its use would only apply in specific contexts, in association with a logo or brand name, and any alleged infringements would have to be policed by the trademark holder.

Josh Gerben, a trademark lawyer, who tweeted about the university’s application, explained, ”In order for a trademark to be registered for a brand of clothing, the trademark must be used in a trademark fashion. In other words, it has to be used on tagging or labeling for the products. In this case, just putting the word ‘the’ on the front of a hat or on the front of a shirt is not sufficient trademark use.” The attorney predicts that Ohio State’s application will be rejected but suggests that the university could amend its filing so that its use of “the” in association with the university’s name or a logo might qualify for protection.

The Ohio State University spokesman Christopher Davey says the school intends to use the mark in a distinctive manner. “This only would apply for usage of ‘The’ in ways that clearly signify association with Ohio State and its brand, like for example a scarlet and grey T-shirt with ‘The’ on the front,” Davey told CNN.

If the USPTO ends up approving a registration for use of “the,” albeit in a specific context, it will still be up to the brand with this commonplace trademark to police its usage, which is a near impossible task. And that brand will have a difficult time convincing any court that its use of “the” has somehow become so unique and distinct that anyone else’s reliance on the word creates true marketplace confusion.

Ohio State has already run into obstacles in its ownership efforts. In 2017, the school sought to register “OSU” but ran into opposition from Oklahoma State University. Now, the two schools have an agreement stating that they can both use the acronym OSU. Presumably, however, if the USPTO ultimately approves Ohio State’s registration to trademark “the,” the school will seek to refer to itself as the one and only “The OSU.”

50 Years Ago Today in the Journal Herald

"American Factory"

is now streaming on Netflix

It is a documentary about Fuyao transforming the Moraine GM plant into an auto glass factory.

Fuyao has invested over $600 million and now employs over 2300 in the Dayton area.

Critics Consensus

American Factory takes a thoughtful -- and troubling -- look at the dynamic between workers and employers in the 21st-century globalized economy.

97%

TOMATOMETER
Total Count: 32

American Factory is one of the year’s best docs

The fly-on-the-wall look at a former GM factory in Dayton bought by a Chinese company is a fascinating peek into the challenges of globalization.

American Factory

The premise: In December 2008, the last truck rolled off the assembly line of the GM plant in Dayton, Ohio. Thousands of people were out of work. Then in 2014, a Chinese company reopened the factory and rehired a workforce to make automotive glass. American Factory is a documentary about the factory’s reopening, and the cultural clashes that put some bumps in the road. (It’s also the first film from Higher Ground, Barack and Michelle Obama’s production company, which has partnered with Netflix to distribute a slate of programming.)

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

What it’s about: Directed by veteran documentarians Steve Bognar and Julia Reichert, American Factory follows along — mostly in a fly-on-the-wall fashion — as the closed GM factory in Dayton is reopened as Fuyao Glass America, the US branch of a Chinese company that manufactures automotive glass. Daytonians who struggled after they were laid off from GM rejoice when they are rehired by the new company, but soon find that their expectations about labor practices and corporate culture clash with the new management’s ideals.

The film tracks American and Chinese workers and managers through a years-long period of adjustment, some of it quite rocky. At times, it’s a bit humorous; differences in American and Chinese ideas about loyalty to your employer, safety on the factory floor, working overtime, and much more come to the foreground. And when the workers at Fuyao Glass America decide to unionize, trouble is ahead.

Reichert (whose 50-year career in documentary film has often examined the American working class) and Bognar knew what they were doing in choosing this factory for the film. They live in Dayton, and in their 2009 short documentary The Last Truck, they captured the closing of the GM plant and its effects on the community, mostly through interviews with workers who were losing their jobs.

So it was familiar and personal terrain to them, and they spent years on the floor at the factory with their team to capture a well-rounded view of what happened that neither demonizes nor glosses over the conflicts. They train their cameras on not just the people but the tasks and materials of the job, giving audiences less familiar with the factory floor an idea of just how complicated and difficult the work is, and how valuable skilled labor is as well. American Factory tackles the challenges of globalization with much more depth and nuance than most reporting on the topic, precisely because it steps back to watch a story unfold over time and resists easy generalizations. It’s both soberly instructive and fascinating.

The New York Times

'American Factory’ Review:

The New Global Haves and Have-Nots

A documentary looks at what happened when a Chinese company took over a closed General Motors factory in Ohio.

“The most important thing is not how much money we earn,” the Chinese billionaire Cao Dewang says in “American Factory” soon before we see him on a private jet. What’s important, he says, are Americans’ views toward China and its people.

In 2016, Cao opened a division of Fuyao, his global auto-glass manufacturing company, in a shuttered General Motors factory near Dayton, Ohio. Blaming slumping S.U.V. sales, G.M. had closed the plant — known as the General Motors Moraine Assembly Plant — in December 2008, throwing thousands out of work the same month the American government began a multibillion dollar bailout of the auto industry. The Dayton factory remained idle until Fuyao announced it was taking it over, investing millions and hiring hundreds of local workers, numbers it soon increased.

The veteran filmmakers Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, who are a couple and live outside of Dayton, documented the G.M. plant when it closed. They included the image of the last truck rolling off the line in their 2009 short, “The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant.” That crystallizing image also appears in “American Factory,” which revisits the plant six years later. The feature-length story they tell here is complex, stirring, timely and beautifully shaped, spanning continents as it surveys the past, present and possible future of American labor. (This is the first movie that Barack and Michelle Obama’s company Higher Ground Productions is releasing with Netflix.)

“American Factory” opens with a brief, teary look back at the plant’s closing that sketches in the past and foreshadows the difficult times ahead. The story proper begins in 2015 amid the optimistic bustle of new beginnings, including a rah-rah Fuyao presentation for American job seekers. Bognar and Reichert, who shot the movie with several others — the editor is Lindsay Utz — have a great eye for faces and they quickly narrow in on the range of expressions in the room. Some applicants sit and listen stoically; one woman, her hand over her mouth, gently rocks in her seat, tapping out a nervous rhythm as the Fuyao representative delivers his pitch.

With detail and sweep, interviews and you-are-there visuals, the filmmakers quickly establish a clear, strong narrative line as the new enterprise — Fuyao Glass America — gets off the ground. The optimism of the workers is palpable; the access the filmmakers secured remarkable. Bognar and Reichert spent a number of years making “American Factory,” a commitment that’s evident in its layered storytelling and the trust they earned. American and visiting Chinese workers alike open their homes and hearts, including Wong He, an engaging, quietly melancholic furnace engineer who speaks movingly of his wife and children back in China.

His is just one story in an emotionally and politically trenchant chronicle of capitalism, propaganda, conflicting values and labor rights. As the factory ramps up, optimism gives way to unease, dissent and fear. Some workers are hurt, others are at risk; glass breaks, tempers fray. Both the Chinese and American management complain about production and especially about the American workers who, in turn, seem mainly grateful for a new shot. A forklift operator named Jill Lamantia is living in her sister’s basement when we first meet her. A job at Fuyao allows her to move into her own apartment, but like everyone else she struggles with the company’s demands.

By the time the documentary shifts to China, for a visit by American managers to the Fuyao mother ship, it has become clear that something will have to give. The American subsidiary is losing money and Chairman Cao, as he’s called, is not happy. His frustration can seem amusing, but as his dissatisfaction mounts, the temperature grows colder and management becomes openly hostile. For viewers who have never peered inside a Chinese factory, these scenes — with their singalongs, team-building exercises and extravagant pageants — may seem strange or perhaps a gung-ho variation on contemporary corporate management practice (cue the next Apple confab).

“American Factory” is political without being self-servingly didactic or strident, connecting the sociopolitical dots intelligently, sometimes with the help of a stirring score from Chad Cannon that evokes Aaron Copland. The filmmakers don’t villainize anyone, though a few participants come awfully close to twirling waxed mustaches, like an American manager who jokes to a Chinese colleague that it would be a good idea to duct-tape the mouths of talky American workers. It’s a shocking exchange — only the Chinese manager appears concerned that they’re on camera — simply because of the openness of the antagonism toward the company’s own labor force.

It’s these men and women — Timi Jernigan, John Crane, Shawnea Rosser, Robert Allen and so many others — whose optimism and disappointment give the movie its emotional through-line and whose stories stand in contrast to Cao’s own self-made tale. He recalls that the China of his youth was poor; now he is, according to Forbes, one of “China’s richest” and his hobbies include golfing and collecting art. You see the fruits of his endeavors in “American Factory,” in scenes of him relaxing and pontificating. And working too, of course, always working, including in a luxurious office where a couple of socialist realist paintings show him against the sky like a sleekly updated Mao — an image that the filmmakers linger on, letting its meaning bloom like a hundred flowers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m36QeKOJ2Fc

Remember Plant-Based Eggs?

"Now, the humble mung bean has set up camp in the egg section, and it’s starting to make some noise."

Tried it this morning

So many ingredients in JUST Eggs

Mostly cooked and looked like liquid egg

Texture satisfactory

Taste not bad but not there

$6.00 for 8 servings

They'll have to improve it for me

EMOJI

The earliest known mobile phone in Japan to include a set of emoji was released by J-Phone on

November 1, 1997

By the digits

176: Original assortment of emoji, including a heart, an umbrella, and a full set of zodiac symbols

3,019: Emoji in the Unicode Standard as of March 2019

7%: Share of people who use the 🍑 emoji as a fruit

5 billion: Emoji sent daily on Facebook Messenger

346: People and smiley-face emoji

7%: Rotten Tomatoes rating on The Emoji Movie

92%: Share of all people online who use emoji

>50%: Share of Instagram posts that contain emoji

110%: Purple Dragon emoji

17: Default date on the emoji calendar 📆

1, 2, 3: Rank of 😂, ❤️, and 😍 as most used emoji in 2018

A 2016 study found that people who rated themselves as agreeable were more likely to use emoji on social media sites. The study also found that people who commonly used emoji were more socially receptive and empathetic. Researchers in Colombia found the use of emoji faces produces neural responses similar to those observed in face-to-face communication.

Ryan Kelly, a computer scientist at the University of Bath, told Wired that emoji help create an "ambient presence" when words aren’t appropriate. He found that when messengers end their conversation, they often trade a few emoji as a “nonverbal denouement.”

Purple Dragon emoji

“After millennia of painful improvement, from illiteracy to Shakespeare and beyond, humanity is rushing to throw it all away. We’re heading back to ancient Egyptian times, next stop the stone age, with a big yellow smiley grin on our faces.”

—Art and design critic Jonathan Jones 2015

• 😴 Sleeping Face
• 😷 Face With Medical Mask
• 🤒 Face With Thermometer
• 🤕 Face With Head-Bandage
• 🤢 Nauseated Face
• 🤮 Face Vomiting
• 🤧 Sneezing Face
• 🥵 Hot Face
• 🥶 Cold Face
• 🥴 Woozy Face
• 😵 Dizzy Face
• 🤯 Exploding Head

Facebook and Twitter replace all Unicode emoji used on their websites with their own custom graphics.

Research has shown that emoji are often misunderstood. In some cases, this misunderstanding is related to how the actual emoji design is interpreted by the viewer; in other cases, the emoji that was sent is not shown in the same way on the receiving side.

Hang on Sloopy

The McCoys

Hang on Sloopy, Sloopy hang on
Hang on Sloopy, Sloopy hang on

Sloopy lives in a very bad part of town
And everybody yeah, tries to put my sloopy down
Well Sloopy I don't care what your daddy do
Cause' you know Sloopy girl I'm in love with you
And so I say now

Hang on Sloopy, Sloopy hang on
Hang on Sloopy, Sloopy hang on

Sloopy let your hair down girl let it hang down on me
Sloopy let your hair down girl let it hang down on me

Come on Sloopy, Come on Sloopy
Come on…

"Hang On Sloopy" is a 1964 song by Wes Farrell and Bert Berns, originally titled "My Girl Sloopy", it was first recorded and made a hit by R&B vocal group The Vibrations.

When the rock band The McCoys covered it in 1965, the song peaked at #1 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and #5 on the UK Singles Chart. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3E0xJpi9rK8

According to Rick Derringer, the original version of Sloopy was written by a "high school kid in St. Louis" and sold to Bert Russell, a.k.a. Bert Berns. Berns, who founded Bang Records, also co-wrote or produced such classics as "Piece of My Heart," "Brown Eyed Girl" and "Twist and Shout." In fact, the success of the Beatles' cover of the Isley Brothers' "Twist and Shout" prompted Berns to do the same with "My Girl Sloopy."

The inspiration for the song is said to be Dorothy Sloop, who was a jazz singer from Steubenville, Ohio. Sloop, who died in 1998 at age 85, performed in the New Orleans area using the name "Sloopy."

Dorothy "Sloopy"  Sloop

But Derringer was told by Berns that he picked up the expression in Cuba. "He said 'Sloopy' was a colloquialism, he put it, or a nickname for girls in Cuba," Derringer said. "He said the guys would go, 'Hey Sloopy, how ya doin'?' And he said he took that and he wrote 'Hang On Sloopy.'"

The McCoys were a rock group formed in Union City, Indiana in 1962. They are best known for their 1965 hit single "Hang on Sloopy". Their name was changed from Rick and the Raiders to The McCoys, taken from the B side of The Ventures hit record Walk-Don't Run titled "The McCoy."

The McCoys began as the Rick Z Combo (named after lead guitarist Rick Zehringer, who later became Rick Derringer) in Union City, Indiana. They developed a following playing at Forest Park Plaza in Dayton, Ohio (4444 North Main).

Amusement park replaced by Forest Park Plaza

1968

They later became Rick And The Raiders, a group led by guitarist and lead singer Derringer.

In 1965, Rick And The Raiders played a Dayton, Ohio concert as the backup band for The Strangeloves, who were a group of producers who wrote the song "I Want Candy" and made up a group for it.

Videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hx_kyLI3GA

&

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4WxJatnEeg

In early 1965, The Strangeloves, a New York City rock band, wanted to make the song the follow-up to their hit single "I Want Candy" and began performing it in concert. However, the Dave Clark Five, with whom they were touring, told the Strangeloves that they were going to record their own version when they returned to England, copying the Strangeloves' crowd-pleasing arrangement. The Strangeloves realized that the Dave Clark Five's cut would likely be a hit, but they were not yet ready to release a new single because they were still enjoying the success of "I Want Candy" from a few months earlier. The answer presented itself when a young rock group named Rick and the Raiders opened for (and provided backing for) The Strangeloves in July in Dayton, Ohio. 

"Coincidentally, the day that we were going to play as their backup band in Dayton, Ohio, we went out and bought Beatle suits," Derringer said. "We all had our little Beatle haircuts, we had our Beatle suits on. They hadn’t found the band that looked like the Beatles yet. And we went out there and they said, 'One of the songs we’re gonna play is "My Girl Sloopy"' and we all went, 'Whoa, we love that song.'"

"So we played the heck out of it, because we knew it and loved it. So of course afterwards, it was the last show on their tour and they hadn’t found that band yet. They brought us backstage and they said, 'Would you like to come to New York tomorrow and record 'Hang On Sloopy?'"

The Strangeloves — who were, in reality, three successful writer/producers from Brooklyn, New York — recruited Rick and The Raiders to record the song under their name. Lucky for The Strangeloves, group member Bob Feldman was afraid to fly, and on their drive back to New York, they stopped in Ohio and played the gig in Dayton where they met Rick And The Raiders, which was led by the 16-year-old Zehringer. The Strangeloves convinced the Raiders' parents to let them take the boys to New York (with Zehringer's parents along for the ride), where they sang over the already-recorded tracks. Said Derringer: "They gave us a small record player and a copy of the musical track and told us exactly what they wanted us to sing. We went out into the park for a few days, practiced singing it, and put the vocal on. They jumped up and down in the control room and yelled, 'Number One!' And a few weeks later, it was." It was decided to change the name of Rick's group to The McCoys to avoid confusion with another popular band at the time, Paul Revere & the Raiders, and Rick himself began using the stage name Rick Derringer. The single was issued on Bang Records and entered the chart on August 14, 1965, effectively beating the Dave Clark Five to the charts.

The single went on to hit

#1 on October 2 for one week

"Yesterday" by the Beatles was then

#1 for the next four weeks

The Ohio State University connection

The song gained an association with Ohio State University after its marching band began playing it at football games; it first played it October 9, 1965, after a staff arranger, John Tatgenhorst, begged the director to try playing it.

1st Performance

After finally convincing the director, Tatgenhorst prepared an arrangement and the band played the song in front of the stadium. After the crowd reaction, the band began to play it at every game and now it is a Saturday tradition to play the song before the start of the fourth quarter of every Buckeye game. Since then, "Sloopy" has been appearing on the band's CDs and is available as a free download on its website.

The song has also become a feature at the home games of professional sports teams throughout Ohio where, as is the case at Ohio State, fans usually chant the letters "O, H, I, O" during the pauses in the chorus while mimicking the shape of the letters with their arms, and is normally played during the transition from the 3rd quarter to the 4th quarter at Ohio Stadium.

Other charting versions

• Little Caesar and the Consuls released a version of the song in 1965 that reached #50 on the Billboard pop chart.
• "Hang on Sloopy" served as the title track of a live 1965 recording (released on Rhapsody in 1966) by the Ramsey Lewis Trio; the disc became a gold record. It reached #6 on the US R&B chart, #11 on the US pop chart, and #18 on the US adult contemporary chart.

• A cover in Spanish titled “Es Lupe" by Los Johnny Jets released in 1965 topped the Mexican charts for 13 weeks.

• Leno e Lillian, a Brazilian vocal duo, released a cover version in Portuguese (“Pobre Menina”) in January 1966 that topped the Brazilian charts. 
• The Lettermen released a version of the song in 1970 that reached #18 on the US adult contemporary chart and #93 on the Billboard Hot 100.

• Rick Derringer released a version of the song in 1975 that reached #94 on the Billboard Hot 100.
• The Sandpipers released a version of the song in 1976 that reached #32 on the UK Singles Chart.

Other versions

    James Henry & The Olympics (Jerden Records, 1965)
    Barry McGuire and The Mamas and the Papas (on Shindig! December 11, 1965)
    Jan & Dean (Liberty LP Folk'n'Roll, 1965)

    The Newbeats (Hickory, 1965)
    The Ventures (Liberty, 1965)
    The Vogues (Co & Ce, 1965)
    The Fabulous Wailers (Etiquette, 1966)
    The Beau Brummels (Beau Brummels '66, 1966)
    Arsenio Rodríguez (Bang, 1966)
    The Supremes (Motown, 1966)
    The Kingsmen (Wand, 1966)
    Dora Hall (Reinbeau, 1966)
    Benny Gordon & The Soul Brothers (Tighten Up LP, 1968),
    David Porter (Enterprise LP Into A Real Thing, 1971)
    A 1973 cover version by Ramsey Lewis won the Grammy Award for Best R&B Instrumental Performance in 1974.
    Johnny Rivers (United Artists, 1973)

    Messendger (1982)
    Aaron Carter (Aaron's Party (Come Get It), 2000)
    Die Toten Hosen (2002)
    It was also recorded by Ric Mango of Jay and The Americans and Johnny Maestro & the Brooklyn Bridge as a duet for an uncompleted album project. It was released on a 2011 CD titled The Ric Mango Story.
    Lieutenant Pigeon

    Lolita No.18
    Saving Jane
    The Smashing Pumpkins
    It has also been performed by Johnny Thunders and the Oddballs in a medley with "Louie Louie" and can be heard on the Add Water and Stir live Japan bootleg.
    The Yardbirds (Columbia [UK] EP Five Yardbirds, 1965)

[Most of these and more are available on Spotify]

 Watch Mick and the Rolling Stones perform it  >>>
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/watch-rolling-stones-perform-hang-on-sloopy-for-first-time-since-1966-49609/

50 Years Ago

Woodstock

Aug. 15-17

National media has provided much Woodstock remembrance about the one of a kind festival. 

Here's a look at the

Dayton Daily News

entire contemporaneous coverage of Woodstock

Our hometown newspaper printed nothing else about the music or the incredible scene, instead focusing on the negative.

Hope you caught 

"The Johnny Cash Show"

7/19/69

Sunday night (8/18/19) on get TV

Guests are Joni Mitchell

and The Monkees

Before We Became Dragons...

Our Reunion was not limited to tales from Fairmont West.

Stories were told about junior high school too.

Here are a couple:

Pat Pancoast moved from Illinois and was getting used to Barnes. Dick Dormitzer befriended him. They attended a Barnes dance. Pat only knew the girls who sat near him because of alphabetical seating. He asked Debbie Martinson for a dance. They danced and when they were done there was Debbie's boyfriend, allegedly Phil Drayton, who punched Pat in the face.

Welcome to Kettering.

Mischievous Mark Brainard and Gary Hutton were in art class taught by sweet, old Hannah Urick. It was the last day of school that year. At an opportune moment the boys realized she was in a closet and shut and locked the door. 

They left the class room. She pounded on the door and was eventually freed. Then a PA announcement:

"Could Mark Brainard and Gary Hutton report to the principal's office?"

They did and got paddled.

(Not actual paddle)

Then a few minutes later

"Could Brad Buettin report to the principal's office?"

Although he had no part in the incident Brad also got paddled.

If anyone has corrections or other junior high tales please post them.

Plant-based eggs are starting

to compete with

the real thing

The change was swift. In only the last few years, plant-based foods have suddenly snapped up market share in both the dairy and meat markets with alternative versions of milks, yogurts, and convincing faux beef patties.

They’re popular insurgents, this band of peas, coconuts, cashews, bananas, almonds, oats, and soy. As grocery store upstarts move into new aisles, they’re igniting plant-based coups that have reshaped supermarket economics.

Now, the humble mung bean has set up camp in the egg section, and it’s starting to make some noise.

When people buy eggs at the grocery store, they typically choose the kind that come in shells. Liquid eggs—the kind that come in cartons, yolked or yolkless—are very much a smaller category. But in that smaller pool of competitors, the plant-based liquid egg alternative created by one Silicon Valley-based company, JUST, is performing pretty well.

According to Chicago-based market research company IRI, JUST’s mung bean liquid egg product, JUST Egg, is at least the second-best performing in the category.

The company’s product is driving the greatest sales growth in the US liquid egg market, even as many of its competitors have lost traction, according to IRI data. It’s still more expensive than its competitors, but the texture, taste, and overall cooking experience is reportedly convincing. JUST founder and CEO Josh Tetrick claims his company has sold the plant-based equivalent of 10 million eggs since the launch of the new product in December 2017, and he’s hopeful that it’ll claim even more dominance in the space.

It likely will. JUST today announced its egg product is being picked up by one of America’s largest national grocery retailers, Kroger. The JUST Egg will be pushed into 2,100 of Kroger’s stores. That includes a few grocery brands owned by Kroger, such as Ralphs, Fred Meyer, and QFC. It’s already on the shelves of major store brands such as Safeway, Wegmans, Giant, Winn Dixie, and Albertsons.

 Its redevelopment did not begin until 1974

In 1972, the city created the Burns-Jackson Historic District to preserve the area. The name was later changed to the Oregon Historic District. The District today consists of twelve city blocks bounded on the north by Fifth Street, on the east by Wayne Avenue, on the south by the Route 35 Expressway and on the west by Patterson Boulevard, once the site of part of the Miami-Erie Canal. The construction of the expressway established the final definitive boundary of Dayton’s oldest neighborhood as it exists today.

The area has been known as the Oregon District for as long as anyone can remember. The Oregon Historic District was placed on the Nation Register of Historic Places in 1974. 

The District is home to many restaurants and bars, and a variety of shops and theaters.

Great mix of people, music and dining

just a fine urban vibe.

A Brief History of Holiday At Home

The Holiday At Home celebration began on Labor Day 1959

1962 H@H Parade

under the sponsorship of the Kettering YMCA which held the event to promote a membership drive. It was known then as “Kettering Day.” The YMCA board accepted a suggestion from President Robert Eichenlaub to plan a community parade and program. The events’ first year success was so great that it was deemed worthwhile to conduct for a second year.

Many leaders of the community and the YMCA worked together to organize a parade and evening program. From this well-organized beginning, Holiday At Home was refined and enlarged to the present Labor Day weekend festival that is now enjoyed by thousands of south suburban residents and visitors.

The name, “Holiday at Home”, was selected through a contest. It promotes the idea of staying at home over the holiday weekend, rather than becoming part of the large group of travelers at that time.

Kettering is used in the name to indicate the location; however, the festivities are intended for all of the communities south of Dayton. All southern communities and townships are invited to share in the Holiday At Home activities and to become part of the organization.

Quick Dates

• Annual Gala: Saturday, August 31, 6:00 PM to 11:00 PM
• Arts & Crafts: Sunday, September 1, 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM and Monday, September 2, 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM
• Auto Show: Sunday, September 1, 11:00 AM to 6:00 PM and Monday, September 2, 11:00 AM to 5:00 PM
• Children’s Zone: Sunday, September 1, 11:00 AM to 6:00 PM and Monday, September 2, 11:00AM to 5:00 PM
• 5K Race: Monday, September 2, 8:00 AM
• Parade: Monday, September 2, 9:55 AM to 12:00 PM

Stopped in at this KMart

About 10 miles away.

Open and surreal. Couldn't have been 5 other shoppers in the huge store. Bought a couple of items, was asked if I was a "member." No.

Closest KMart to Kettering is in Richmond, Indiana

NAPPING

Sure, am a daily napper

Here are some serious nappers!

In China

it is part of the culture

Napping is awesome.

It refreshes mind and body, perhaps because the brain is doing housekeeping

Mental: Naps as short as six minutes can improve the part of long-term memory related to the ability to recall facts and knowledge. Just 20–30 minutes improves motor skills (even typing) and alertness, while 30–60 will boost decision-making skills. NASA found that a 40 minute snooze improved performance by 34% in military pilots and astronauts—and improved alertness 100%. Another study that tested subjects on visual perceptions found that they performed just as well after a 90-minute nap as they did after a full eight hours of sleep.

Physical: Naps aren’t just good for your brain; your body benefits too. Studies have shown that sleep-deprived individuals who can snag a couple of quick cat-naps experience lowered levels of cytokines (too many cytokines can damage organs) and norepinephrine (adrenaline that can cause high blood pressure, anxiety, and heart palpitations).

Economic: The Wilson Quarterly repoted that a 2011 study found that a lack of sleep, and the exhaustion that inevitably follows, costs the United States $63.2 billion per year in lost productivity. Other studies show that a quick 20–30 minute nap boosts job performance by up to 34% thanks to decreased stress, increased attention to detail, and improved cognitive abilities. Nappers are also less prone to impulsive decisions and have a higher tolerance to frustration. Unless they are really pissed.

By the digits

$63 billion: Annual cost in the US of lost productivity due to sleepiness

$70 billion: Worldwide revenue from sleep assistance products in 2017

$13,000: Cost of a single MetroNap EnergyPod

33%: Share of Americans who get less than six hours of sleep a night

7-9: Hours of sleep a night recommended for adults

6.8: Hours of sleep Americans get per night on average

7.1: Hours of sleep Spaniards get per night on average

70%: Share of Brits who sleep less than seven hours per night

6.5: Average hours of sleep for “an average Chinese working professional in an urban metropolis”

2: Number of website visitors who have read this far.

0.5 to 2.5: Hours of sleep astronauts lose nightly compared to when they are on earth

Napping in Spain

American napping

& London

Maybe it will seem like a good idea,

later today

Holden Caulfield took a nap in a waiting room

Re-read it earlier this year.

Wish it had been on a Fairmont West reading list.

Too subversive for Kettering.

J.D. Salinger’s son is typing up his father’s handwritten work for digital release
 

Unseen works of the reclusive author J.D. Salinger are being prepared for digital release in a way he might have appreciated—at least for its old-fashionedness.

Matt Salinger, 59, tells the New York Times it will take five to seven years to finish the project he started in 2012, digging into the unpublished writing of his father, who died in 2010.

Part of the reason, as the Times reports:

    He sometimes found himself getting lost in the files, entranced by his father’s voice. “Everything’s a rabbit hole,” he said. Creating digital files has been daunting, he said, because he hasn’t been able to find reliable optical-recognition software to convert the handwritten pages into electronic text, so he manually types in the material himself.

Copying things himself also limits the possibility of dissemination before any official release. His father, who once said he saw publishing during his lifetime as an invasion of privacy, just might approve.
J.D. Salinger meets the digital age

Matt Salinger has been reviewing decades of manuscripts and letters for their eventual digital publication, as well as for a New York Public Library exhibition, the first featuring his father’s personal archives. The initial digital release of J.D. Salinger’s four books (The Catcher in the Rye, Nine Stories, Franny and Zooey, and Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour—An Introduction) is coming Aug. 13 from Little, Brown and Company.

His son speaks of a deep connection to his father’s work. He told Alice Develey of  Le Figaro (link in French) in June that he feels an urgency to make the work he often re-reads accessible to modern audiences.

As translated by J.W. Kash: “When I re-read The Catcher in the Rye or Franny and Zooey—which is my favorite—I feel like I hear his voice. But his voice is always there, in me. I thought I was experiencing something unique because I was his son. Then I realized that I had many brothers and sisters when I read it because he had written it in a very personal way for each reader. That’s what makes his writing so beautiful. I think that when you get older, you see things differently. By rediscovering it, you will surely learn things about yourself: how much you have changed, who you were and who you have become.”
“A terrible invasion of my privacy”

Salinger’s last published work, the short story “Hapworth 16, 1924,” appeared in the New Yorker in 1965. In 1974, unauthorized collections of his early magazine stories began showing up in bookstores in San Francisco, Chicago, and New York.

Within months, the author denounced their mysterious distribution in a rare interview, telling the Times, “There is a marvelous peace in not publishing. It’s peaceful. Still. Publishing is a terrible invasion of my privacy. I like to write. I love to write. But I write just for myself and my own pleasure.”

Salinger also said he was at work on material that might not be published while he was alive.

He was right.

Connor Betts Father,

Steve,Was A

1982 Fairmont West Dragon

Before August 2019, the Betts family consisted of the mother, father, and two children, Connor and Megan. Then, in a singular horrific act, Connor Betts, 24, took a firearm, and gunned down his own sister and eight other people in a mass shooting in Dayton, Ohio.

When it all ended, police shot Connor Betts to death outside a bar, and another 27 people were wounded. Police say they are still searching for a motive. It’s pretty impossible to find one on his parents’ public social media accounts anyway, where they painted a picture of a close family and posted about things like crab apples, dinners out, and their kids. 

On Facebook, Steve Betts, Connor Betts’ father, posted biographical information about himself. He wrote that he was “technical Lead at Altamira Technologies Corporation” and former Software Lackey at General Dynamics – Advanced Information Systems.”

Steve Betts wrote that he was from Kettering, Ohio, went to Fairmont West High School (1982), and studied at Ohio State University.

REUNION PHOTOS

50 Years Ago

August 10, 1969

Want more UV Protection for

Your Face/Head?

?????????????????

Use a facekini!

No more spf white lotions!

6th generation

Invented in China

Amazon sells them

Slushy Drinks Anyone?

The science of slushy drinks and how to make

a good one

Trying to make a Starbucks-style Frappuccino at home? Or even just trying recreate the texture of that smooth flavorful slush? The secret to the drink that drives 11% of the coffee company’s US revenue is xanthan gum.

What is xanthan gum?

Xanthan gum is a carbohydrate that’s produced when bacteria called Xanthomonas campestris eats. Allene Jeanes a chemist at the US Department of Agriculture, honed the process of deriving it in the 1940s. These days, it comes in a powdered form for commercial and home kitchen use.

Besides Frappuccinos, xanthan gum has been used to create bread-like chewiness in gluten free baked goods, freezer-burn resilient ice cream, unseparating salad dressing, and  easily squeezable toothpaste.

In the US, xanthan gum can be easily found online and in stores. It’s sold by brands like Red Mill in the US.

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=xanthan+gum&crid=XMI05H05YRQA&sprefix=xanth%2Caps%2C199&ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_5

Why does the gum make for better slushy drinks?

If you’ve ever made a fruit smoothie with ice cubes, you might have noticed that the drink tends to separate. A layer of fruit bits is suspended in the ice and a thin liquid sinks to the bottom. That’s because the sugars in fruit promote the formation of ice crystals in water molecules. Xanthan gum inhibits the creation of ice crystals.

The gum is promoting a gel-like structure to form. That’s because its a hydrocolloid: an insoluble molecule that is attracted to water. Water molecules are suspended in the gum, preventing them from forming a tight icy bond together. The result is a mouth feel that’s smooth and viscous versus brittle and coarse.

It also keeps our booze well mixed.

Google Maps

New Feature

Google regularly updates its navigation app with new features while testing other novelties with the help of beta releases, and Google Maps keep getting better as a result. But Google is also somewhat cluttering the app with features that might not necessarily need a home inside a navigation app. That’s because Google wants you to use Google Maps for almost everything you’d need during your travels. And that includes taking advantage of what is probably the coolest Google Maps feature yet, which finally just went live on both Android and iPhone.

Google explained the new Google Maps feature in a blog post, saying that it wants Google Maps to “simplify every step of your trip once you’ve touched down-from getting around a new city to reliving every moment once you’re home.”

Google Maps will now include all your travel data, such as flight and hotel reservations, which will all be placed in a new Reservations menu item inside the hamburger menu. Also of note, it works regardless of whether or not you have an active internet connection.

DRAGONS @ THE 50th REUNION 

More to Come

In preparation for a trip to New York City, 90-year-old Gere Kavanaugh is stuffing a rubber chicken into her suitcase. The celebrated Los Angeles-based designer is giving a lecture at the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum next month and a goofy hen-shaped handbag is an essential element of her networking ensemble. “The chicken purse is definitely coming,” she says.

In lieu of fancier designer bags, Kavanaugh says the capacious $25 rubber chicken purse has proven to be the perfect accessory for almost any occasion. She delights in how strangers at the grocery store, farmers market, or industry events openly admire the rubber chicken dangling from the crook of her elbow.

“If I had a dollar for every time someone asks about it, I would be a very rich lady!” she says gleefully. “I don’t have to ‘work a room’—people naturally come to me.”

https://www.amazon.com/Rubber-Chicken-Purse-Hen-Handbag/dp/B001G8N95I

A new study measured how men and women experience ageism at work

It’s commonly believed that women are far more likely than men to be victims of ageism in the workplace, but new numbers suggest otherwise.

Fairygodboss, a career site for women, recently surveyed 1000 people over the age of 40 to find out how many have encountered ageism in the workplace, what it looks like, and whether men or women are more likely to run into it.

Encouragingly, it found that the majority of respondents (72%) had not been affected by ageism. However, among the people who had felt some age-related discrimination, men and women reported fairly similar experiences. Among men, 13% said they believe their advanced age kept them from being hired; 12% of women said the same thing. Nearly equal numbers of men and women said a coworker had made a negative remark, joking or not, about their age.

Probably the most depressing finding from the questionnaire was that most people who had sensed ageism at work noticed it before their 45th birthday.

Respondents were also asked if they had ever lied about their age, fearing, one supposes, that having some life experience and seniority in the field would be held against them. Only 4% of people said they had. (In this tiny sub-population, people didn’t just fudge their age by a year or two, but rather, most commonly, by three to ten years.)

Rather than outright fib, more employees were likely to report taking steps to just look younger. Still, gender did not dictate who was more likely to get botox or dress differently. Admittedly, women were 1.8 times more likely to color their hair, but the differences between the sexes was otherwise negligible.

Unsurprisingly, older employees were most often stereotyped as less tech-savvy and less able or interested in change and learning, in the respondents’ observations. But that’s if they were stereotyped at all; 53% of people said they hadn’t run into any of the cliches that were listed as possibilities.

ca·ma·ra·de·rie

käməˈrädərē,ˌkaməˈrädərē

Mutual trust and friendship among people who spent a lot (50+ years) of time together.

1970

I Never Sang for My Father is a 1970 American drama film based on a 1968 play of the same name, which tells the story of a widowed professor who wants to get out from under the thumb of his aging father yet still has regrets about his plan to leave him behind when he remarries and moves to California.

Dad, Melvyn Douglas, is 68 years old. I did not see anyone at the Reunion that looked and acted

as old as him.

Applauded by critics and viewers, the film (and play) predicted the coming of the sandwich generation,

in this case, grown children and other family members helping their

elderly parents who are up in age and can't help themselves.

It would lead to other films on the subject, including the movies

"The Savages" and "Away from Her."

Where Retirees Live

Though many retirees dream of warm beaches in far-flung locales, the reality is often much colder.

It’s humble Canada that takes the No. 1 spot on the list of the foreign countries where the most retired workers are collecting Social Security checks. That’s followed by Japan, Mexico, Germany and the U.K., according to government data.

Canada       69,942
Japan          45,336
Mexico         29,553
UK               23,936
Philippines  19,238
Italy             17,435
Poland        17,082
Greece       14,409
Australia     10,740

SSA

To be sure, this is far from a perfect estimate of how many people are retired abroad in each country: Some Americans may be retired abroad and not collecting Social Security; others may have their Social Security checks deposited in the U.S. but live abroad; others may live abroad just part time. By comparison, 43.7 million retired workers received Social Security benefits in the U.S. as of Dec. 2018. 

Still, it’s interesting to note the trends here. Labor economist Teresa Ghilarducci, an expert in retirement security and a professor of economics at The New School for Social Research says that people often retire where they have family ties, so the dominance of Canada and Mexico, for example, on the list make sense, as many Americans have family in both countries. (It also helps that both countries are close by, which makes returning to the states easier.) Family ties may also help explain countries like Poland and Italy on the list, she adds. 

Whatever the reasons, Ghilarducci notes that few Americans end up retiring abroad — government data shows a total of roughly 413,000 retired workers getting their Social Security benefits abroad out of the tens of millions who receive these benefits — likely for a few big reasons, including inertia, family ties in the U.S., and Medicare, she adds. Indeed, Medicare mostly only covers health services you get in the U.S.; move to another country and you’ll likely have to pay for health insurance there. 

Did you take a deep breath upon entering

Carillon Brewing or

NCR Country Club?

Breathing is traditionally thought of as an automatic process driven by the brainstem—the part of the brain controlling such life-sustaining functions as heartbeat and sleeping patterns. But new and unique research, involving recordings made directly from within the brains of humans undergoing neurosurgery, shows that breathing can also change your brain.

Simply put, changes in breathing—for example, breathing at different paces or paying careful attention to the breaths—were shown to engage different parts of the brain.

The findings provide neural support for advice individuals have been given for millennia: during times of stress, or when heightened concentration is needed, focusing on one’s breathing or doing breathing exercises can indeed change the brain. This has potential application to individuals in a variety of professions that require extreme focus and agility. Athletes, for example, have long been known to utilize breathing to improve their performance. Now, this research puts science behind that practice.

The research findings show that the advice to “take a deep breath” may not just be a cliché. Exercises involving volitional breathing appear to alter the connectivity between parts of the brain and allow access to internal sites that normally are inaccessible to us. Further investigation will now gradually monitor what such access to parts of our psyche that are normally hidden can reveal.

Have you ever returned anything

after you've used it?

I have.

Buying clothes for a fancy event, tucking in the tags, and returning them to the store the next day has for years been the strategy of thrifty shoppers. Today, people are doing it just for the ‘gram.

According to a survey commissioned by the credit card company Barclaycard, nearly one in 10 UK shoppers (9%) admit to buying clothing only to take a photo on social media. After the “outfit of the day” makes it online, they return it back to the store.

The survey of 2,002 adults showed that shoppers aged 35-44 are the most likely to do this, and men outnumbered women. (That being said, the survey omits teenagers, a massive demographic for Instagram).

But the rise of social media has meant that everyone, not just celebrities, is expected to maintain and curate a personal brand. Since we’re constantly documenting our lives and posting them online for public judgement, getting caught in the same outfit more than once—which many see as a faux pas—is almost unavoidable. And the cost of all those #ootd’s adds up, making returns an understandable tactic.

There are brands that tailor specifically to the Instagram shopper, like the uber-popular Fashion Nova. “These are clothes made for social media: meant to be worn once, maybe twice, photographed, and discarded,” Allison P. Davis wrote in her deep-dive about the company in The Cut. Another favorite of the Instagram age is Rent the Runway, which embraces the return philosophy, and lets customers rent designer clothing for a fee.

A new 50th Reunion Photo Gallery has been created. I just added an image and the process was simple. Push on the "Add Photos" button and upload your Reunion photos. If you have difficulties let me know. C'mon we need your photos.

There is now an animated dance gif.

Contrast and Compare our Reunion with those described in the following articles:

Here's a New York Times article on a 50th Reunion of the Class of 1964, the beginning of the tradition for us Baby Boomers

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/20/business/a-50th-high-school-reunion-and-a-generation-to-follow-.html

Another take on the 50th from Daily Kos

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/10/1/1800640/-On-attending-the-50th-high-school-reunion

Here's another 50th piece on Crosscut

https://crosscut.com/2014/10/in-praise-50th-high-school-reunion-john-hamer

History News Network has a 50th Reunion piece

https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/156468

Coaching Positivity weighs in

https://www.coachingpositivity.com/2017/05/50th-high-school-reunion-positive-reminiscing/

Another 50th article on Blogspot's Six Decades and Counting

https://sixdecadesandcounting.blogspot.com/2018/10/high-school-reunion.html

ANewCafe report on a 50th Reunion how a spouse survived her husband's 50th

https://anewscafe.com/2016/07/19/redding/how-i-survived-my-husbands-50th-high-school-reunion-or-everything-was-going-rather-well-until-this-old-guy-flashed-me/

50th Reunion Awards

OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG

Most Hats : Mike Jones

 Tallest       : Alan Kemp  

 Most Troy : Dave Beitzel

Second Most Tan : Mark Brainard

Most Compliments Given:  

Jim Anewalt

Only Ponytail : Dennis Dillenger

Most Shoe : David Shoemacher

Worst Hamstrings: Doug Gage

Best Nickname Origin:

Dave "Ross" Vendt

Best White Suit: Jan Windsor

Best Beard: Rick Ware

Most Nish: Mike Nishamura

Best FauxHawk: Mike Nolan

Best 1969 Story: Ann Schuler

Best "No Look Pass": Mel Hill

Best

Gary Knight

Best Sisters :

Kathy and Susie Banks

Still Homecoming Queen:

Lynne Wagner

Attending Three High School Reunions:

Brad Buettin

Most Vegas: Kathy Denka

Most Purple:  James Wick

Only Nancy Smith Attending:

Nancy Rae Smith

  Just back from 

"Once Upon A Time in Hollywood"

As was reported earlier it is set in

1969

If you want to continue the 1969 vibe

Tarantino really got it right.

Thoroughly enjoyed this movie.

SF Chroncle's Mick LaSalle said it better:

“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” is great in all the ways you’d hope and expect a Quentin Tarantino film to be great. It pays homage to other genres and eras with the precision of a stylist and the obsession of a collector. And despite the dark subject matter — Los Angeles in the era of the Charles Manson murders — it’s funny.

But there’s something else going on here, something beyond that. This time, you get the feeling Tarantino loves the people he’s showing us. It’s a movie about friendship, about beautiful real things that live in the midst of beautiful phony things. It’s less an action movie than a meditation on things lost. And the result is, without question, Tarantino’s warmest film to date.

Fairview High School

Home of the Bulldogs

55th Reunion

NCR Country Club

"We pledge to not bother those happy younger people next door."

July 27, 2019

Getting ready for the class photo

BTW

Please contact the photographer if you want the photo:

The photographers were Ed Esposito and Greg Grizzell - KedEspo Photography

Ed 937-409-1297

Greg 937-409-1048

reunionphotos@kedespo.com

Marilyn Duffy has a few commemorative glasses left. Contact her if you want one.

REUNION RECAP

Friday July 26th

Golf at NCR

A mild, warm sunny morning

at on Dogwood Trail

More Reunion golfers than in the past

18 hole golfers started about 9 AM

9 hole golfers started about 11 AM

All finished after 2 PM

Most followed up with

lunch at the Club Grill

Marilyn, Denny, Lynne, Ann, Pam and Brad

Pam, Brad and Mark

Friday Night

A large number of alumni gathered at

the Carillon Brewing Company

(Looking remarkably clear eyed and sober)

Nancy Rae, Linda and Jerry

Two Toms

(with photobombing by Mike Viets and Gregg Sipe)

Kathy, Lynell and Pam

Marilyn, Bona and Jim

Nancy Rae, Leslie and Lenny

Sandy and Pat

Barb, Mike and Kathy

Joe and Mr & Mrs Sipe

Cindy, Dave and Mike

Julie Chambers, Kathy, Bob and Steve

Kathy, Dick and Ross

Jonnie and Brad

Mike Nishamura's shirt with name tags

Saturday July 27th

Fairmont Tour featuring the new $10 million auditorium

Marion's Piazza

Free Pizza

NCR Country Club

Marilyn, Lenny and Debbie

Ohio Sunset Tuesday Evening

Wonderful Reunion weather

Just another reason to join us

Class of '69

Superfine

Still

     See you at Carillon Brewing Co. Friday at 6 PM

See you outside Trent Arena Saturday at 11 AM &

NCR Country Club at 7 PM

FairmontWest69.com

The primary purpose of which is to provided details about the almost here

50th Reunion of the Fairmont West Class of '69.

This is our third reunion website and is sophisticated enough to allow for messaging and videos and more. 

Reunion information has been posted here in more than one page since February 2019.

Other than that its purpose is to inform and entertain.

If and when a topic has little direct relation to the event, feel free to quickly scroll down or choose another page or website.

Those puzzled or annoyed by infomation with tenuous connections to the event will surely be bothered by...

In 2019 skincare is more sophisticated and complicated than ever. It's blatent capitalism at its best with scientists and celebrities and old line producers striving to make you look and feel better. 52 percent of Americans use skin care products every day. The perecentage of alums using skin care prior to the Main Event is surely higher.

You may read Amazon or other websites consumer reviews or get a list of beauty review websites that are clearly not independent and objective.

Years ago I found Paula Begoin's Beautypedia.

They provide independent reviews and information to help inform skincare and make-up consumers. I rarily buy skincare products that are not well rated by Beautypedia.

Check it out. For more go to the new Beautypedia page.

Laughter