A Visit from St. Nicholas

Sunday was St. Nicholas Day, which is still celebrated in places with strong German heritage, including Price Hill. I celebrated by appearing at the Price Hill Historical Society in a dual role—as the Old Curmudgeon to sign books, and wearing a St. Nicholas costume my daughter made for me years ago to entertain the kids who stopped by during “Holiday on the Hill.” We had a few young visitors, and they seemed to like the cookies and candy canes we had, even if they were a bit suspicious of a non-traditional Santa Claus type. Did you know that the historical St. Nicholas was born in Greece during the third century? His feast day on December 6 was celebrated by the Germans and Dutch for centuries before immigrants brought the celebration to the New World. After arriving in America, St. Nicholas was the subject of stories by Washington Irving, who wrote not about the Greek bishop, but about a version of St. Nick as an elfin Dutchman with a clay pipe. In 1823, Clement Moore wrote the immortal poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” and the middle eastern saint was completely Americanized as Santa Claus.
When I was a boy, we always hung up our stockings on the evening of December 5, and the next morning they would be filled with fruit, nuts, and candy. My daughters always hung up their stockings, too, and my grandchildren continue the tradition—Saint Nicholas finds them no matter where they roam. And I stepped right out of history (and out of my curmudgeonly ways) to celebrate the tradition of St. Nicholas Day.

Holidays on the Hill

It's not easy being a curmudgeon during the holidays. Fortunately, I have another alter ego, and I'll be making appearances in that guise this weekend. Look for St. Nicholas himself to stop by the Price Hill Historical Society Museum on Saturday and Sunday, December 5 and 6. He will be there from noon to 2:00 pm both days as part of Price Hill Will's "Holiday on the Hill" days. I had the St. Nicholas costume, my daughter made it for me back when her kids were in preschool so that I'd stop by there to make an appearance each December (it was a Montessori school, so St. Nicholas fit into the curriculum of studying other cultures better than Santa Claus, from what I gather). Anyway, the suit still fits, so I'll break it out again this weekend. Stop by to visit the museum, and if you want to buy some copies of The Collected Old Curmudgeon (they make great holiday gifts) while you are there, I'd be happy to step out of my St. Nick persona briefly to become the Old Curmudgeon again and sign books.

It’s Not Easy Being a Curmudgeon

Being a curmudgeon carries a lot of responsibility. One is expected to be a grouch and a complainer. I do my best, but it seems like an unending job. Restaurants are a perfect example. A curmudgeon is obligated to complain if the service is poor or if the food is not prepared properly. Actually, everyone should complain about bad service or food. I have done work for most of the restaurants in town and I know that the management appreciates your comments—they want to know about problems so they can improve things. By the same token, good service and especially tasty dishes should be complimented. Even curmudgeons do that. I’ve learned, however, that it’s not a good idea to recommend a restaurant to anyone. The best place you have ever eaten will invariably screw up when someone you recommended it to eats there. But remember, if something in a restaurant is particularly good, compliment it, and if something displeases you, complain. We curmudgeons can’t do all the work.

Another Book Signing, This Time at Dunham

Just a quick note to mention that I'll be signing books (The Collected Old Curmudgeon, of course) at Dunham Recreation Center on the Price Hill/Westwood border tomorrow, November 8, from 1 pm to 3 pm. I could write a lot about Dunham--it was once the city's tuberculosis sanitorium, but it's been a local rec center since the 1970s. I was on the committee that steered it from its old life to new use, and some kids I knew started putting plays on there around the same time. Some of them are still at it--if you've ever seen a Sunset Players production, you've been to one of the old hospital buildings. Dunham's various groups have a Christmas craft show every year, and the Price Hill Historical Society is always there with their books and some crafts made by members. We raise a little more money to keep the museum going that way. Stop by to say hello or buy a book.

Some Thoughts on Scary Days

It's been awhile since I've added anything new to the blog, and I'm sorry about that. It's a little late to discuss one of my favorite holidays, Halloween, but I had a good one. I've been out of town visiting my daughter and her son, who dressed as a zombie rapper for Halloween. I'm not even sure what that means, but he seemed happy and impressively undead, so as far as I'm concerned, he got into the spirit of the holiday. The almost-full moon added to the fun on Halloween night, too. But I'd also like to talk about another sometimes scary day, Election Day. I know I get downright curmudgeonly when it comes to dealing with dozens of those robo-calls from candidates and both sides of the issues on the ballot. I thought it wouldn't be so bad this year, since it's only local elections around here, but the calls and junk mail have still been relentless. I'll bet my answering machine is filled with competing calls when I get home from out of town. The only issue I'm really concerned about is one that will pass a levy to support our local library system, the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County. As an author, I support my local libraries, because you can get my book there. They even let me have a book signing at the Covedale Library. And, as a reader, I support libraries everywhere. I hope you will too, but in any event, I encourage you to vote tomorrow, even if it is a little scary.

The Old Curmudgeon on the Airwaves

It’s been awhile since I’ve put anything on the blog. My minions—sorry, my “assistants”—were trying to upload video of the interview I did on local Channel 12/WKRC television a few weeks ago, but I think the file was just too big. So we’ve given up on that idea. But, if you are interested, you can listen to a radio interview with me and publisher Ari Buchwald of Edgecliff Press that was broadcast on October 4 on WVXU/91.7 radio—this link will take you to the archives of the show “Around Cincinnati.” My interviews and public appearances seem to have stirred up a bit of interest in the book, and I’m selling them out of the trunk of my car, too. I read that is how Dan Brown got started, so what the heck, I thought I'd give it a try. Speaking of Dan Brown, I’m reading his newest offering right now and I may have more to say about that later. I wrote a “Curmudgeon” column that sparked a lot of comment on the uproar over the movie version of his book, The DaVinci Code, so we’ll see what comes of that.

The Great Gatsby in Price Hill?

The presentation on George Remus last night at the Price Hill Historical Society had its usual technical difficulties, but we had a big crowd and I think everyone enjoyed it. If you didn’t make it, or are interested in finding out more about Remus, there are at least two books about Remus’s life, one called One Man’s Justice, by a Xavier University professor named Roger Fortrin, and another fictionalized version called The Jazz Bird by Craig Holden. And, many people say that George Remus was the inspiration for F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. Supposedly, the bartender at the Seelbach Hotel in Louisville had a photo of Remus with Fitzgerald and the mayor and police chief of the city. The Delhi Historical Society has a lot of photos associated with Remus, and at the Price Hill Historical Society, we have newspaper articles and a few photos of Remus and his estate, including a Sunday supplement article with pictures of the gates and the interior of his mansion. And Ken Burns has an upcoming documentary on Prohibition that will include Remus’s story; his production company has contacted the Delhi and Price Hill Historical Society for information. The documentary is due to be broadcast in 2011. Remus sure is a popular guy, more than 50 years after he died.

The Insanity Plea

I promised a few more details about the life of George Remus here, before the presentation at the Price Hill Historical Society on October 7. Well, Remus was never arrested or charged with bootlegging, but he was convicted of tax evasion and spent a year in a federal penitentiary near Atlanta. Stories are that he had maid service and fresh flowers every day in this cell there. When he came back, he found that he had been betrayed by his wife, Imogen. She had taken up with the federal agent who had investigated him for tax fraud, and together they had sold the distillery and all the movable objects in the house. No one seems to know what happened to the money, but she filed for divorce, and on the day that the divorce became final—coincidentally, 82 years ago tomorrow, on October 6, 1927—Remus chased down her cab when it left the courthouse and shot her dead in Eden Park. He threw away the gun he used, and it was found the next spring near the gazebo during a children's Easter egg hunt. Remus served as his own defense attorney, and the prosecuting attorney for the city was Charles Taft, son of President William Howard Taft. Remus was the first lawyer to ever use a plea of insanity to successfully avoid being convicted on a murder charge. He was sent to a mental institution in Lima, but was out within a year, using evidence from his own trial to prove his sanity. When Remus was released from the asylum, he came back to the Cincinnati area and married again, living in relative obscurity in Northern Kentucky until he died in the 1950s. He is buried in a cemetery in Falmouth, Kentucky. But his fame lives on locally as well as nationally—was Remus the inspiration for “The Great Gatsby”? Tune in next time (I sound like an old radio serial, which reminds me, that would make a good subject for a blog) to find out more.

A Visit to Findlay Market

I promised more about Price Hill's bootlegger, George Remus, and there is more to come, but first I wanted to mention that I'm going to Findlay Market in downtown Cincinnati tomorrow. I go there pretty often to buy cheese and vegetables, fish and bread, and lots of other good stuff. But tomorrow I'll be there to sign copies of my book, The Collected Old Curmudgeon. Jerry Dowling, a well-known Cincinnati cartoonist, will also be there to sign his book, Drawing Pete. (The "Pete" in the title refers to another infamous Cincinnatian with Price Hill connections, Pete Rose.) We'd be delighted if you stop by to see us, we'll be there from 11:00 am to 1:00 pm on Saturday. But back to the market itself--it's more than 150 years old, and began when General James Findlay, one of Cincinnati's earliest settlers (and, not coincidentally, a character in the book I am writing now, Hastings Way) left money when he died to establish a farmer's market in the Liberties, an area just outside the city limits at that time. Now it's known as Over the Rhine, because of the German immigrants who lived there in the later part of the 19th century. The old canal that ran where Central Parkway is today was "the Rhine" to them. But Findlay Market is still going strong after all these years. It's especially a bustling place on Saturdays when there are lots of itinerant peddlers of vegetables and other wares around the permanent shops and stands down along Elder Street between Elm and Race. I'm looking forward to being one of the "attractions" instead of just a shopper tomorrow.

Price Hill's Bootlegger

Next Wednesday, October 7, I’m going to be showing a presentation that the Delhi Historical Society has created about George Remus at the Price Hill Historical Society. Remus was an infamous resident of our neighborhood who lived in Price Hill during his brief but successful bootlegging career in the 1920s. People who remember his mansion talk about the covered swimming pool, the elaborate furnishings, and the horse barns. Remus’s base of operations for bootlegging was also on the west side, located in a big, undeveloped area on Lick Run (now Queen City Avenue) called “Death Valley.” Remus was born in Germany and came to Chicago as a child. He went to work as a pharmacist’s assistant when he was about 14. By the time he was 19, he owned the pharmacy, and then he went to law school and was a practicing lawyer by age 24. He was very successful, specializing in criminal law. When he saw how much money some of his clients were making in bootlegging when Prohibition was enacted, he decided to study the Volstead Act to find the loopholes that would allow him to make big money, too. He relocated to Cincinnati because it was more centrally located, and he was already quite wealthy when he moved here, so he bought the mansion in Price Hill and entertained lavishly as he began his bootlegging operations. He had a fleet of trucks to deliver the product and he owned a distillery that had closed at Prohibition where he made alcohol “for medicinal purposes.” At the height of his success, Remus is said to have employed 3,000 people and spent $20,000,000 in bribes to local police and officials—but his bootlegging profits have been estimated at anywhere from $45 to $75 million. (I’ll tell you more the next time I post a blog entry.)

On the Air with the Old Curmudgeon

We found out the other day that the Old Curmudgeon interview on WKRC, Channel 12, the CBS affiliate in Cincinnati, has garnered the 7:30 slot on the local news show this coming Saturday morning, September 26. That’s a little early in the morning on a Saturday for most people, but I suspect there will be viewers in my age cohort. The studio is located high above Cincinnati in Mt. Auburn, so if the skies clear, I can watch the sun rise over the next ridge, Mt. Adams, while waiting to go on the air. I recorded an interview on WVXU, 91.7, an NPR-affiliated local news radio station, about a month ago, though that one won’t air until October 11. I believe this television interview is live, and when we wrap that up (as they say), it’s off to the Covedale Library for my first official book signing. So, if you’re up early and not doing anything Saturday morning, turn on Channel 12 with your morning coffee, then come up to the Covedale Library to make it look like a crowd has turned out. (Sometimes they have snacks, too.)

Your Message Here

Years ago, my advertising company was sometimes asked to make buttons to promote a restaurant or event. A lot of customers didn’t want hundreds of buttons, which is what you need to make it realistic to get buttons printed, so we found a button maker that let you assemble the pieces, with a custom printed insert, to make a few buttons at a time. It was a clever device, made by the Badge-A-Minit company. You had to assemble several metal rings of different colors in just the right order, press and clamp, and eventually you had a nice button, about two inches in diameter. I haven’t thought about buttons in awhile, but my daughter showed up with some “Old Curmudgeon” buttons the other day, and I found out she still has a button maker. It’s not the same one—all the rings are plastic now, of course—but it still works well to make a few buttons at a time. And it is still made by the Badge-A-Minit company, too. So, look for these Old Curmudgeon buttons on a lapel near you soon . . .

The Book Tour (Such As It Is)

Now that The Collected Old Curmudgeon has hit the bookstores, I’ve got a book tour scheduled. That’s right, I start at WKRC television studios in beautiful Mt. Auburn, early on the morning of Saturday, September 26, for a spot on their local happenings show. Not sure if we have the 6:15 or 7:15 am slot, but in either event, I’ll be up early. Then, at 10:00 am the same morning, I’m scheduled to appear at the Covedale Library in Price Hill, where I’ll be signing books until 11:30 am. And the following Saturday, October 3, I’ll be at Findlay Market downtown, which is a great place to go even when I’m not there. But I will be there, signing books again—this time with Jerry Dowling, who will also be signing his Edgecliff Press book, Drawing Pete. That will be from 11:30 am to 1:30 pm. Finally, I’ll be at the Price Hill Historical Society & Museum on Wednesday, October 7, at 7:00 pm as the speaker for the regular monthly meeting. I’ll show a presentation from the Delhi Historical Society on our local bootlegging legend, George Remus, and I’d be happy to sign books—as well as answer questions—after the presentation. There’s so many stories about Remus, I can tell tales all night. That’s it—that’s the grand 2009 Old Curmudgeon book tour. (At least I don’t have to take off my shoes at the airport.) I think there are more details of all the book tour events at my Web site. If not, let me know and I'll have my people get right on it.

Happy Birthday, Skyline!

Skyline Chili is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year. Sixty years—that’s a long time to be making what some people don’t even consider to be true chili. When Nicholas Lambrinides opened in 1949, he had me paint some menu posters. This was one of the first sign painting jobs I had ever done for money. Since then I worked off and on for Skyline and the Lambrinides for more than forty years. In fact, I was in their 40th anniversary television commercial and my company had made many of the props used in the production. Being associated with Skyline was a lot of fun. It’s a little known fact that I, personally, invented the “Cheese Coney.” Nobody at Skyline believes me, but back in the early 1950s, I ordered some coney islands at the chili parlor on Glenway Avenue. It took some doing, but I convinced the old waiter to bring me a side order of cheese. I put it on my sandwiches and the “Cheese Coney” was born. Really! In the mid-1970s, Bob Hope was having a little party in Palm Springs and wanted to serve Skyline Chili. The guys at Skyline helped me send out a care package, and this was before the chili company packaged their product frozen. We surrounded the chili with dry ice and packed it all in Styrofoam. I then bought a seat on a flight to Palm Springs and left the chili in the care of one of the flight attendants. I had someone in California pick it up and Mr. Hope got his Skyline without a hitch!

A Luddite Encounters Technological Glitches

My show about Cincinnati's Inclines at the Delhi Library went off last night with just a few hitches. Most were technological, as usual. My thanks to Phil Lind, a fellow Price Hill Historical Society member and history buff, who helped me get the show started, and to my daughter Amy, who helped me to get the dang thing turned off. Phil has also been helping with the displays we put in at the Covedale Library. (As you can tell, I support my local libraries. Vote for the library levy on November 3.)
Phil has a lot of old photos of Cincinnati buses and streetcars that we’ve used in the library display before, but this month he loaned us some vintage photos of the Cincinnati Police Department to use in a display about the Cincinnati Police Museum, which is near downtown Cincinnati, at West Eighth and Freeman Streets. We just put in the new display yesterday. Stop by to see it at the Covedale Library, and you might want to visit the Police Museum, too. Speaking of museums, tonight is the monthly meeting of the Price Hill Historical Society. The snacks are always good, so if you are in the neighborhood, stop by our museum at 3640 Warsaw Avenue in Price Hill for the meeting.

Same Old Routine, Plus an Incline Show

The role of a renowned author is not all tea and skittles, especially around the house. I still have to do the dishes every night, take out the garbage, and vacuum ( I just put that in because I love to write the word vacuum.) What I am trying to say is that my life has not changed very much. For instance, several years ago I thought it would be nice if the Price Hill Historical Society had a Speakers' Bureau, a group of people who could go out into the community and give little talks on subjects of interest to the community. It did not prove to be very successful. So far I am the only one who has volunteered, and my only contribution is a one-pony show about the old Price Hill Incline. But the show has been pretty well received. I have done it twenty-three times, often with some mishaps, and never the same way twice. Should you be interested, I am bringing my pony to the Delhi Branch Library this Tuesday, September 1, at 7:00 pm. It will be about the Inclines of Cincinnati, and there won’t really be any tiny horses involved, but you can be sure there will be mishaps.

The Old Curmdugeon Is in Print!

The Collected Old Curmudgeon hits the bookstores today. Well, maybe just the virtual bookstores, but I am now officially a published author. The book is a collection of 115 columns written for the Price Hill Historical Society's newsletter, "Heritage on the Hill," from 1999 through 2009. The Society is in a neighborhood of Cincinnati, Ohio. The columns reflect my motto, "Never let history get in the way of a good story," and I hope the stories are all good--a lot of them are funny, anyway. I'll be at a book signing at the Covedale Library in Price Hill on Saturday, September 26, and I expect I'll be doing other things to promote the book, too. I'll be posting my experiences on this new blog. (Thanks, Julie, one more thing to keep up with . . .) By the way, if you want to buy the book, it's available now at the Price Hill Historical Society's online bookstore.