Dawn Patrol Rendezvous World War I Fly-In

Yesterday I attended the Dawn Patrol Rendezvous World War I Fly-In at the Air Force Museum in Dayton. This is a biannual event featuring full and seven-eighths size replicas of World War I combat aircraft. The pilots spent about an hour and a half in the air, during part of which they engaged in mock dogfights and precision flying maneuvers. Since I have been fascinated with World War I fighter pilots since I was a small child (my favorite song when I was six was "Snoopy and the Red Baron), this was an event that I couldn't pass up.

While I have been fascinated with World War I fighter pilots in general since I was a small child, there is one in particular who has always captivated my imagination. Baron Manfred von Richthofen was without question the greatest fighter pilot of World War I, and is the most famous fighter pilot in history. He was credited with eighty kills (and was responsible for several uncredited kills) before being killed himself on the morning of April 21, 1918 during a low altitude dogfight over Allied lines, falling victim either to Australian ground fire or Captain Roy Brown, a Canadian flying for the British Royal Air Force. Manfred was the eldest son of a father who had had his own distinguished military career cut short as a consequence of deafness brought about by his heroic efforts to save several soldiers from drowning in the Oder River and who had decided even before Manfred was born that his first son would pursue a military career. Manfred finished cadet school and joined the cavalry in 1911, three years before the outbreak of the war. He had been a star athlete while in school. He entered the war as a twenty-two year old cavalry scout in 1914, but transferred to the Flying Service in May of 1915, after barbed wire and machine guns had rendered mounted cavalry obsolete.
Manfred had been a national champion hunter prior to the war, an avocation influenced by his uncle, a noted big-game hunter in Africa and Asia. Richthofen had grown fond of trophies and ribbons, and soon became known for his custom of ordering a small silver cup engraved with his new kill total, type of aircraft shot down, date, and number of crewmen aboard the enemy plane after each of his aerial victories. He would also land near or drive to the wreckage of each of his kills and procure a souvenir, often a strip of canvass displaying the enemy aircraft's serial number, which he would then have shipped home to be stored in his room. In order to increase his fame by drawing attention to himself and to ensure that he received credit for his kills, von Richthofen painted his entire aircraft bright red, thus earning the moniker "The Red Baron". Von Richthofen was honored by being the only pilot in the Flying Service allowed to paint his entire aircraft red. Over the course of a single month, in April of 1917, the "Red Baron" scored twenty-two kills.
Germany feared the damage to the nation's morale should it's greatest fighter pilot and one of it's greatest national heroes be killed in action, and Richthofen was encouraged to retire on several occasions, a proposition which he steadfastly refused to consider, stating that as long as the average German foot soldier had no say in whether or to remain in the war he would continue to fly.
The aircraft pictured above is a full-scale replica of a Fokker Dr.I triplane, which flew at the show yesterday. This is the type of aircraft with which von Richthofen is generally associated with and which he flew from October of 1917 until his death six months later and in which he scored twenty of his kills. Below are a couple of pictures of some of the other aircraft that flew at the show. All of my pictures are from the Air Force Museum website (I lost my camera).

The show also had displays depicting other aspects of World War I military life, not all of them aviation related. One of the most interesting such displays for me, given that my maternal grandfather was an infantryman on the Western Front, was one pertaining to the gear carried by the typical World War I American infantryman. The average infantryman only weighed in at the surprisingly low weight of a little over a hundred and forty pounds but their gear tipped the scales at sixty-five pounds. They did make an attempt to ease the soldiers’ burden when possible. For example, in order to reduce weight and conserve space each soldier carried only half of a tent. You had a partner who carried the other half. When fully assembled these tents were only about the size of the smallest of the pup tents that children use today to camp out in the back yard. If your buddy got killed that day you had to find another soldier who also needed a new partner. Their uniforms were made of rough wool. This certainly isn't the most comfortable material in the world, but it is warm and it dries in a couple of hours when you hang it out in the sun, a critical factor given what the conditions were like in terms of both combat and everyday living on the Western Front. This was also about the time that canned foods were becoming popular and canneries were being established in the United States, so soldiers typically carried regular sized cans of corned beef and other canned foods. Canned tomatoes were extremely popular with the doughboys. Another of the most popular canned items was raw pumpkin!

World War I reenactor

The show also included an antique car show featuring automobiles of pre-1920 vintage. One interesting fact that I was not aware of prior to attending this show is that in the early years of the automotive industry in all American models the driver's seat was located on the right-hand side, as is the case with the Cadillac pictured above. After getting home and doing some research on the Internet I learned that while driving on the right-hand side has been the rule of the American road dating at least back to the time of the Revolutionary War, during horse and buggy days the driver sat on the right hand side so as to have a better view of the edge of the road so as not to run into a roadside ditch. However, once much faster moving automobiles made their appearance, it was deemed more prudent that the driver should be seated on the left in order to more effectively gauge the distance between his or her car and traffic moving in the opposite direction, thereby reducing the chances of a head-on collision. Moving the driver's seat from the right to the left was also in keeping with the concepts of chivalry in force at that time, as it allowed the front seat passenger to exit directly onto the sidewalk in times of wet or wintry weather, whereas if the driver's seat remained on the right side of the car the passenger would have to walk completely around the car to reach the sidewalk after exiting the car (at this time it was assumed that the driver most likely would be the male head of household while the passenger would in all likelihood be his wife or child). The following is an excerpt from a 1908 Ford catalog extolling the virtues of the switch.

"The control is located on the left side, the logical place, for the following reasons: Traveling along the right side of the road the steering wheel on the right side of the car made it necessary to get out on the street side and walk around the car. This is awkward and especially inconvenient if there is a lady to be considered. The control on the left allows you to step out of the car on to the curbing without having had to turn the car around.

In the matter of steering with the control on the right the driver is farthest away from the vehicle he is passing, going in opposite direction; with it on the left side he is able to see even the wheels of the other car and easily avoids danger.

With the wheel at the left, the hand levers are operated with the left hand leaving the right hand to do the more delicate work of steering the car."

It seems that all American manufacturers had made the switch prior to 1920.

Football Season Is Here!

This fall promises to be an exciting year of college and high school football for me. I plan to attend a game in every college football stadium in the area, including Miami, Cincinnati, the University of Dayton, Ohio University, Marshall University, as many of the area's small colleges as I can squeeze in, but definitely including Central State, a small school with a rich tradition. I am also considering attending a game at Mountaineer Field in Morgantown, West Virginia (a bit of a drive, but the Mountaineers do have two Heisman Trophy candidates and promise to be a national championship contender this year). Louisville, currently ranked in the top five, pays a visit to Cincinnati. I definitely plan on attending this game. I would love to see the Buckeyes play in the Horseshoe, the Holy Grail of football experiences in Ohio, but it is not in the cards this season.

I also plan to attend a University of Dayton volleyball match. I have never seen a collegiate level match, and the UD Flyers are currently ranked in the top twenty-five.

In addition to being the home of a large number of excellent college football programs, southwest Ohio in general and Cincinnati in particular are one of the true national high school football hotbeds. St. Xavier in Cincinnati is currently ranked as the number one high school team in the nation in the USA Today poll. I plan to try to catch one of their games this fall, as well as some of the region's other top rivalries. I also have the last game between North and South high schools in Springfield before they consolidate into the new Springfield High School next year circled on my calendar. A trip to the other side of the state to see my old alma mater, South Gallia High School, which is currently in contention for it's third consecutive playoff berth, is also coming down the pike.

I plan on doing the same thing during basketball season.

This week I decided to capitalize on an opportunity to see two of the premiere lower division college football programs in the nation battle it out and attended my first Wittenberg football game. It promised to be an interesting diversion for the weekend as I had never attended a small college game. The game itself and the atmosphere more than lived up to my expectations.

The 12th ranked team in Division III, the Capital Crusaders, shut out the Wittenberg Tigers, picked to finish second in the NCAC this year, 13-0. The Wittenberg Tigers are the winningest program in Division III history, having had amassed a total of six hundred and sixty three victories. They have posted a winning season an incredible forty-nine out of the past fifty-six seasons. Five of those seasons, 1962, 1964, 1969, 1973, and 1975 resulted in national championships, with runner-up finishes in 1978 and 1979. They have won a total of eight NCAC and fifteen OAC conference championships. They are truly one of the football gems in a state with a great football tradition. On this night, however, the Wittenberg offense was stymied, gaining only 153 yards of total offense. The performance of the defense, on the other hand, was exemplary. They surrendered only thirteen points to a highly rated opponent, and three of those points were the product of a goal-line stand that saw Capital unable to punch the ball across the goal line after having it first and goal at the the one yard line. This was one of several instances in which Capital was unable to capitalize on having the ball deep in Wittenberg territory. The defense kept Wittenberg in the game, but the offense was simply unable to get on track. The Tigers are young, with five freshman starters and ten first-year players in the two-deep, and the next few years should be promising.

Edwards-Maurer Field
Photo source: www.wittenberg.edu

Edwards-Maurer Field is an excellent venue in which to spend a Saturday evening taking in a football game. The hilltop on which the stadium is situated constitutes one of the highest elevations in the city, offering an excellent view of downtown Springfield. It is surrounded by trees, creating a feeling that the stadium is detached from the rest of the city in a country or park-like setting, although it is in fact surrounded by the campus and a residential neighborhood. My only complaint is that there was no marching band performance.
The combination of perfect fall football weather, partisan fans, the cheerleaders, the setting, and the excellent view of the city's downtown (especially after the lights in the buildings came on at night) made for a perfect beginning to the football season.

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Franklin Bike Trail: Start of My Aerobic Fitness Program

Today I walked about six miles along the new stretch of bike route between Franklin and Crain's Run Park just south of Miamisburg. This is one of the most interesting and beautiful trail segments in the Miami Valley. In downtown Franklin the trail runs along the riverfront alongside a street that is lined with historic streetlights. It passes the restored log cabin, built in 1805, that served as Franklin's first post office, a nice water fountain, and a highway bridge (not part of the trail) with interesting cast iron lion sculptures guarding its approaches. After you leave downtown the trail runs along the top of a levee with the river on one side and the dry bed of an old hydraulic canal that once served to provide water-power to Franklin's industries on the other. A couple of miles upstream from Franklin the trail passes the head gates of this canal and the ruins of the Chautauqua Dam. This dam once served to maintain the river's depth at a level sufficient to ensure a steady flow of water through the canal.

Old Franklin Post Office

Statue of lion on bridge in downtown Franklin

At this point there are also two bridge piers standing in the river, the only remains of a pedestrian bridge that once connected a station on the east bank of the river that served the old interurban line that linked Dayton and Cincinnati with the Chautauqua grounds on the west bank of the river. The Chautauqua was for decades one of the cultural and entertainment hot spots of the Miami Valley. It was a product of the Chautauqua movement that swept the country at the turn of the twentieth century and flourished for several decades. Groups of performers would follow regular circuits traveling from community to community presenting everything from Broadway plays to lectures to musical performances. Residents would turn out by the thousands for what for most must have been the highlight of the summer. In the 1920s over ten thousand communities participated in the Chautauqua movement with over forty-five million people attending (compare this figure to the total U.S. population in 1920 which stood at one hundred and six million). The Chautauqua near Franklin was also one of the favored swimming spots in the Miami Valley. It had the distinction of being the only grounds in Ohio purchased solely for Chautauqua purposes.

About a half-mile upriver from the dam is Crain's Run Nature Park. This park is a great place for a jogger or bicyclist to get a drink, use the restroom facilities, and rest. Across the road from Crain's Run Nature Park is a lock chamber from the old Miami and Erie Canal that was restored in 1990. This was a shipping canal that ran parallel to the Miami River and the Franklin hydraulic canal, and which represented the economic backbone of Dayton and the Miami Valley prior to the ascendancy of the railroads. Construction on this canal began in 1825. This particular set of locks dates back to 1829.

The scenery along the trail is outstanding. The entire route runs along the riverbank and most of it is heavily forested. There are numerous places were you can stop and lean against the wooden railing to rest and get a breathtaking view of the river. The best part for me, though, was getting to cool off with a banana split and Pepsi at the Tasty Freeze in downtown Franklin afterward! This has been one of my favorite stops since I was a kid.

This begins the aerobic phase of my new fitness program. I plan to alternate between strength training and aerobic workouts on a regular basis, lifting weights every other day and walking, jogging, or cycling on the other days. Saturday and one other day through the week of my choosing will be rest days.

Springfield Museum of Art

Today I decided to visit the Springfield Museum of Art for the first time. The vast majority of the works on display in this museum are the products of artists with a local connection. For a number of years Springfield was the national leader in the production of agricultural implements. Among the numerous manufacturers of agricultural equipment based in Springfield were Champion Reaper and a company that was one of the forerunners of International Harvester. The second largest industrial complex under one roof in the world was located on East Street. The mower was invented here by William Whiteley in 1851. In 1880 the William N. Whiteley Company produced more farm implements than all the factories in Chicago combined!
During this time period there was a great deal of prosperity in Springfield and this enticed a number of very talented artists to set up shop here.

The museum has on display several excellent Hudson River School paintings. Being the nature lover that I am, this was the part of the exhibit that I enjoyed the most. I also enjoyed several landscape paintings of scenes along Buck Creek painted in the nineteenth century by the Frankenstein brothers, Gustavus and Frank. They stand out for their exceptional clarity of detail and brightness of color. As a side note, I learned that Sherwood Anderson was a student at Wittenberg and while enrolled there lived with his brother Frank, a local artist, in a house known as “The Oaks” that once stood on South Wittenberg Street a few blocks from my home.

The museum is currently hosting a traveling exhibit of lithographs and etchings that were produced by artists who were participants in the Associated American Artists project. This was an intriguing endeavor launched in the depth of the Great Depression (1934) with the goal of bridging the divide between artists and the mass audience by making available signed works by highly acclaimed artists at affordable prices. The program initially met with a great deal of skepticism. Upon being approached for support one prominent businessman retorted “the people want food and you’re offering them art!” In spite of this the program proved to be a huge success. Catalogues were printed so that potential customers could browse through the available artworks at home and fifty department stores nationwide agreed to display and sell signed etchings and lithographs. The program filled a cultural void by making high quality art available to a vast audience that had previously been unable to afford it while at the same time also serving the interests of artists who had grown weary of being forced to deal with a small class of wealthy patrons. Most of the works on display at the museum feature scenes of everyday life, with farm and rural life being the dominant theme. Among my personal favorites were several lithographs by Grant Wood dealing with Iowa farm life and one work in partular by the Mexican artist Miguel Covarrubias.

My favorite work in the museum was the lithograph shown at the beginning of this post, “Rhumba" (1946). This was my first exposure to Covarrubias' work. When I got home I jumped on the Internet and did some research on Covarrubias. He was a twentieth century Renaissance man. Covarrubias made signal contributions in the fields of art, modern dance, archaeology, theater, and anthropology. As an anthropologist in Bali he was instrumental in documenting a vanishing way of life, a way of life that was also the subject of much of his greatest art. He was also an expert in the history of Mexican art and culture. His intellectual pursuits fueled his artistic endeavors and vice versa. The home that he shared with his wife, an accomplished master of modern dance in her own right, just outside of Mexico City was just as much of a favorite stopping point for traveling artists and intellectuals as the home of Gertrude Stein had been in Paris.

Ooh-rah!

Today I finally did it! After months of debating the issue I went to Dick’s Sporting Goods in Beavercreek and bought a home gym. It set me back about five hundred dollars after I factor in the weights, which were sold separately, but it is an excellent piece of equipment. It has a lat bar, bench press, apparatus for chest exercises, a leg developer, a v-bar, and a number of other options. I can use it to develop every major muscle group. It is a smith machine, so its safety features agive me the choice of performing bench presses alone if I have to. I did my first workout on it tonight.

I plan to begin an aerobic program this week. The plan is to gradually get my body accustomed to a higher level of physical activity by adopting a routine that commences with progressively longer walks on the bike trails and culminates in a combination of cycling and jogging by next spring. My goal is to be as strong as I can be and drop my weight down into the 175-180 pound range. It would be fun to be able to participate in a number of the 5K runs next year!

I set up an account with ActiveBody.org. This site allows you to record your workouts and goals. It includes charts, a calendar, and graphs that allow you to track your progress toward your goals.

Springfield’s Summer Arts Festival

One of the things I most enjoy about living in Springfield is its Summer Art Festival. This is a series of free performances ranging from Shakespearean plays to children’s choirs to country music acts to symphony performances that are staged over a six-week period every summer. The performances are staged in a new amphitheater located in a beautiful natural setting at the base of a cliff next to Buck Creek. The amphitheater itself blends into its natural setting in keeping with the principles of Frank Lloyd Wright (there is a Frank Lloyd Wright house that has been converted into a museum in Springfield)

My favorite performance was the National Player’s summer tour production of “The Tempest”. The National Players are the longest-running classical touring troupe in he nation. They feature young cast members drawn from the graduates of the top theater programs in the country. They crisscross the USA gaining experience in all aspects of theater production from the actual performance itself to erecting the set and setting up the lighting. It was a first rate production. One of the more interesting aspects of the play itself for me was Shakespeare’s treatment, rather sophisticated for his day, of society’s attitudes toward the more “primitive” peoples with whom Europeans were coming into increased contact in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Prior to the play the members of Springfield Stageworks treated the audience to a reading of Shakespeare’s sonnets, National Players cast members explained the background and significance of “The Tempest” as well as some of the themes explored in the play, and a music professor at Wittenberg and Cedarville universities and one of his students played the lute and two or three models of flute, all of which were popular during Shakespeare’s day. The lute is one of the more beautiful instruments I have ever heard. There were about two or three thousand people in attendance.

I was privileged to be able to attend a performance by Warren Hill, one of the top smooth jazz artists of the past twenty years. This was the first time that I had ever seen a professional saxophonist in person! The show really blew my socks off. I plan on buying his CD next month.

During the festival’s Irish Fest phase I got to see two excellent Celtic bands. The first of these, Cherish the Ladies, is the most successful Irish-American Celtic band. They have performed all over the world and received numerous awards, including the BBC’s Best Musical Group of the Year Award and a Grammy nomination. I was fascinated by the Irish stepdancing and the pennywhistle. This was the first time that I have ever heard what is surely one of the most beautiful instruments in the world.

The next night I got to see Homeland, a local Celtic band that travels extensively throughout Ohio and the neighboring states, often playing such local haunts as the Dublin Pub. I will definitely make plans to hear them in person again in the near future.

I also attended the performance by The India Children's Choir. This is a choir composed of children from the Hmar tribe of India. This is a former headhunting tribe that was Christianized by missionaries (a real-life cliché). Every year the children of this tribe compete for slots in the India Children’s Choir. The winners get a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to spend nine months touring the United States putting on shows. I enjoyed the program. At the end of the show the children, who are around nine or ten years of age, made their way through the audience hugging the attendees. For the audience the show is an opportunity to see that children from all around the world are the same.

Miami Valley Bike Trails

I have recently relocated to the Miami Valley and am bowled over by the quality of the local trail system. I do not think that the local people appreciate what a gem to the community that this is. The Dayton area is home to several hundred miles of trails with a wide variety of settings ranging from urban to rural. The local trail system is connected to the Buckeye Trail which circumnavigates the state. There is an excellent website, www.miamivalleytrails.org, which provides an excellent overview of this extensive system. I am particularly lucky in that I live just a few blocks from Springfield's Buck Creek Trail. While it is situated entirely within the limits of Springfield this trail winds along the creek for several miles through a couple of parks and a forested area, which appears to be a flood control easement. Along most of this route you would never know that you were in the city. A few miles downstream this trail intersects the Simon Kenton Trail, which crosses Buck Creek on an old railroad steel truss bridge. The Simon Kenton Trail connects to the Little Miami Trail, which extends all the way to Cincinnati. Below the bridge the creek waters tumble over a rocky area with a low level dam visible in the distance. i love to stand on this bridge and relax and get my nature fix before starting on the return leg of my journey.
I recently bought a bicycle, and once I bling it out with lights, carrying cases, and whatever other accessories happen to strike my fancy I plan to hit the trails pretty heavily. My father and I biked our way all over the Miami Valley when I was a kid, but when I was eleven we moved to a very hilly area and I gave up the hobby. I am planning on eventually participating in a GOBA event.