Clermont County, Ohio

With my class at Life-Long Learning over Thursday, meetings and yet another medical appointment  this week, a bar mitzvah at our synagogue Saturday, and then Thanksgiving, I thought that if I were going exploring this month, it should be this weekend. There were a few problems. Our Suzuki wouldn't start Thursday morning, and we had someone come and jump start it. It works now, but it always sounds like it doesn't want to start, so we are worried. And there was a threat of snow and cold weather. Fool that I am, I booked my regular chain motel in Union Township, Clermont County. Morgantown to the county seat, Batavia, is 280 miles. Clermont County is just east of Cincinnati and runs from the suburbs south to the Ohio River and out into farmland and small towns.

It was pouring down rain most of the way, and when I got to Batavia around 4 P.M. (from 10 A.M.) it already looked dark out, although I had checked that sunset wasn't until 5:28. Although all of Ohio is in the Eastern time zone, much of the state is far enough west to be in Central. I looked around Batavia, then headed to the motel for a much-needed nap. I couldn't find the place. It's in Union Township, adjacent to Hamilton County (where Cincinnati is located) amidst a jumble of shops, a crazy interchange and three streets named "Eastgate." I finally figured it out, and a Russian-accented young woman checked me in.

I probably didn't sleep more than a few minutes. I ate at Bob Evans, a chain diner based in Ohio. I sat at the counter with a few chatty single men, and a waitress who called the men "honey." I liked her. The advantage of that place was that I only had to cross one street, then walk through a shopping center parking lot. I didn't see crosswalks or pedestrian signals anywhere.

I was back early to the room, where I plotted out where I would go Saturday. There are 28 places on the National Register, but many of them are Native American burial mounds, which, if not identified by a sign, are easy to miss. I had a brochure from the library with a map and the locations of ten branches. I figured visiting all of them would give me a view of the towns in the county, with the added bonus of a public bathroom in each one. From what I had seen near the motel, I figured the rural areas, far from Cincinnati, and especially along the Ohio River, would be more interesting than the malls and shopping centers in the more urban areas. As I went to sleep, the forecast was for cold, windy weather and snow.

It was 21 F. in the morning, but bright sunshine and no frost on the car window. My first stop was a nearby Kroger (based in Cincinnati, but with stores in Morgantown) for gas and a pair of gloves, the one thing I forgot to pack. I had mapped out the order for the libraries, and a few historic sites, plus a giant park with a reservoir used as a recreational lake. I was on the road early, but the idea that I could visit all these places in a day seemed far-fetched, especially with the car sounding like it didn't want to start.

I had looked for a synagogue in Clermont County, but apparently there never was one. Cincinnati is heavily Jewish, with the original headquarters of the Reform movement, plus many other synagogues. It also has a large African-American population. Clermont is the third county I've visited bordering Hamilton County, where Cincinnati is located. I was in Butler County to the north in May 2016, and Campbell County, Kentucky, a short walk across the Ohio river from downtown in December of that year. Both counties are nearly all white, and aside from a small Conservative congregation in the city of Hamilton in Butler County, almost free of Jews. In Baltimore and Washington, Jews and African-Americans live in large numbers outside the two cities. I was also surprised that there are 1950s-style suburbs like where I grew up in Baltimore, but not much newer building. The small towns that are relatively close-in seem untouched in fifty years.

I ended up late afternoon in Miami Township, at the library, and in the nearby city of Milford, the county's largest, and although the signs say "Historic Milford" I noted lots of big-box stores and a cinema. I made it the Cincinnati Nature Preserve near Milford just after 4:30. It closed at five, and though I offered to pay the $6.00 fee to look around for twenty minutes until closing, the man in the kiosk said "No." By five, I was at the hotel, looking for a nap. The weather had remained sunny and pretty, the temperature had gone up to 36 F.

I thought I should hit the mall near the hotel, so I was there about 7 P.M. I got a plate of teriyaki with rice and vegetables, and got to explain, in Spanish, to the worker that I wanted less rice and more vegetables. Eastgate is a pretty mall, not doing well, like most of the malls I visit. Still, their Sears looks like it will stay open, They have Penney's and Kohl, and Dillard, although that closed early. Lots of people were out shopping in the evening. I was in the room by 8, and asleep early.

Sunday was warmer, and still sunny. I had a relatively easy drive home.

Clermont County is 95.9% white according to the 2010 census, and 67.5% of the voters went for Trump in 2016. It's not generally a wealthy county. I saw lots of dollar stores and pizza parlors. Usually I see fast food Asian restaurants, but not here. I had lunch at a pizza place in Williamsburg, a pretty little town. My eight-inch pizza with mushrooms was only $5, but I had to go the grocery up the street for a 50 cent can of "pop." I chatted up the proprietress who said she avoided the Eastgate area where I was staying because it was so confusing, and in a refrain I hear often from small-town and rural people, she said "I can't imagine living in a big city. It must be terrifying, " I had told her about Morgantown and I think she considered a city of 30,000, with an additional 30,000 students, to be a big city. Yet Williamburg is only 37 miles from Cincinnati, which must seem like another world. Still, there were Mexican workers at the mall, African-Americans working in the hotel, Russians at the front desk, and when I told the manager of the hotel that I was going to West Virginia, she said "Oh! The Golden Temple!" So she knew about the Hindu temple in Moundsville. I think she is from India, as many of the hotel managers are. I suggest that change is on the way. Maybe Cincinnati isn't growing as fast as other cities, and is less of a magnet than those places, but there is an internationalism that is bound to spread. More description follows with the pictures.

Older part of the Clermont County Courthouse, Batavia

Newer (but older looking) part of Clermont County Courthouse

A collection of ceramic bells displayed at the library in Batavia

Main St., Batavia

A collection of Western figures from the library in Amelia

Ross-Gowdy House, early 19th century, New Richmond

Along the Ohio River in New Richmond

Front Street along the river, New Richmond

Birthplace of Ulysses S. Grant, Point Pleasant

Williams House, Williamsburg

Bethel  Methodist Church, after 1810, now used for community events, East Fork State Park

The lake, a reservoir, in East Fork State Park

Elk Lick Mound, a burial mound from the Adena people, from the first millennium of the common era. I felt a vibration from the mound, as if these ancient people still had a presence.

Stonelick Covered Bridge, Stonelick Township, 1878

Promont, near Milford, now a museum, 1865

The food court at Eastgate Mall, probably 1990s

Tree of Life Pittsburgh

I am the spouse of the rabbi here in Morgantown, West Virginia, Joseph Hample, "Rabbi Joe." Our congregation is called "Tree of Life"; we are eighty miles south, an hour and a half drive, from Tree of Life in Pittsburgh. The news tonight is that eleven people were murdered by a man at this morning's service in Pittsburgh.

I was at a meeting today with City Councilors and other local officials and the three men on the Monongalia County Commission. I am on Morgantown's City Council. Rabbi Joe has Torah study every Saturday, which I don't attend. I got the news from one of the Commissioners about the shooting.I stepped out of my meeting and called Joe to tell him the news. I tried to concentrate on the meeting, but I was too freaked, and left early to be home with my husband.

This wasn't the first time I was upset about an event in another Jewish community. Last summer, Nazis carrying swastika flags and guns demonstrated in front of the synagogue in Charlottesville, Virginia, about 230 miles from Morgantown, over the mountains. They have a small synagogue on a main street in the middle of a college town, just as we have. I was already on the City Council and suggested we have a plan in case something like what happened in Charlottesville happened in Morgantown. I couldn't get anyone excited about "doing something" including the rabbi.

Two bouquets of flowers were left at the door of our synagogue today and both Rabbi Joe and I have gotten notes of support on social media and concerns for our safety and well-being. I was in Squirrel Hill in Pittsburgh, the neighborhood where the shooting occurred, just this past Wednesday, and posted about my trip on Facebook.

I've heard lots of cries of "How can this happen here?" People who go to Europe are always surprised that synagogues are often unmarked, that someone has to vouch for you to be allowed in. Here in the United States, synagogues sit boldly on main streets with little or no protection.

Of course, it has already happened here. People were murdered at Emanuel A.M.E. Church in South Carolina by a white supremacist in 2015. Someone with a grudge shot up a high school in Parkland, Florida last year. And in just the past week, pipe bombs were discovered mailed to figures in the Democratic Party, and another white supremacist killed two people at a Kroger near Louisville, Kentucky, because the African-American church he originally targeted was locked, and he couldn't get in.

The shock is that this could happen to us, to Jews, as if we were somehow on a different plane than African-Americans and high school students. We are not exempt, not even in the United States, and despite our wealth and the relatively conservative political bent of many Jews in Pittsburgh, we are not "better than" any other religious or racial minority.

Even though there are still many Jews in this administration, there is a prejudice against anyone who is not "white" and "Christian" pushed by the right-wing ideologues who are now in power, and despite their denials, anyone who is a Republican has signed on to that. And we still need sensible regulation of firearms, desperately.

Thoughts and prayers are something we, as religious people, can do. We can also call out prejudice, not just against Jews, but against Muslims, African-Americans, immigrants, and certainly against gay and trans people. There is an election coming up. I've already voted here in West Virginia. It might help, but we need to form alliances and be out on the street with all people of good will. There will be a vigil on WVU's downtown campus, at Woodburn Circle, Monday, October 29, at 7. I will be there.

Rabbi Joe at Tree of Life Morgantown, with flowers left at the door on Sunday after the shooting in Pittsburgh

Clearfield County, Pennsylvania

I was burned out by the whole Brett Kavanaugh thing and by politics in general. I thought I would get away from here over Columbus Day, Sunday and Monday. Clearfield County is about 150 miles north and a bit east of Morgantown. It's been way too hot here in Morgantown, while climate change is still "debated." I thought maybe I'd see some leaves changing color.

There is one city, Dubois, in the county, and the county seat, Clearfield, a borough, which typically means "City" in Pennsylvania. I decided to stay one night in DuBois, the bigger of the two places, and a more-or-less straight shot from Morgantown on US 119 north, where it ends at US 219, the most interesting, but not the fastest way to go. It was about 145 miles to DuBois. I booked The Usual Chain, in this case next to a country club, on a little lake. It looked like an old wood-frame hotel, but it is actually of newish vintage, built when the clubhouse from the country club burned down, and they decided to make it a destination resort for weddings and such.

I left Morgantown at 8:20, and arrived in town just about noon. I decided to start at the mall, east of town on PA 255, the main road to I-80, which runs through the county at the top of the Allegheny Mountains. The mall was half-dead, but still has a Sear's and Penney's as well as a chain bookstore, a Ross Dress-For Less, and a consignment store with CDs and records, although nothing I wanted to add to my vast collection. The restaurant is a stir-fry place, where you put ingredients and sauce in a bowl, pick a meat, and they stir-fry it for you. I would do less sauce and more vegetables next time, but I like the idea.

I visited S.B. Elliott State Park, where there are buildings built by the W.P.A. in the 1930s on the National Register. Penn State DuBois campus, just a few buildings for commuters, is on 255, the same road as the mall, on the way back to town from the park. I looked around in town, which has a downtown historic district. There wasn't a lot going on, but there were anti-abortion protestors lining the streets just north of downtown, waving signs like "Abortion is bad for women" and "Jesus will forgive you." So much for avoiding politics. I should have known. Clearfield is a classic rust belt county, overwhelmingly white, older, with decaying factories and a declining population. Seventy-three percent of voters went for the current president in 2016. The county population peaked in the 1920 census with over 120,000 people; now it's under 80,000.

I checked into the hotel, not expensive, but comfortable and quiet, with views of the golf course. I felt better after a nap. There was still time before dark, so I headed back south where there are a number of sites on the National Register. I had divided my one afternoon and one morning by West (DuBois) and east (Clearfield).The two towns are in the northern part of the county, but there are many historic places in the southern part of the county. I made it only to one before dark, the McGees Mills covered bridge, in Bell Township, built in 1873. There is a little park there along the west branch of the Susquehanna River.

It looked like most of the restaurants were on State Road 255, the route out of the city to I-80. I was going to eat at Eat 'n' Park, a chain diner out of Pittsburgh, with a branch in Morgantown,when I saw a sign at a strip mall for Napoli's, and stopped in there for chicken parmigiana, delicious, although with spaghetti and bread, not exactly on my diet.

In the morning, I started out to Parker Dam State Park, northeast of S.B. Elliott along the same road. The morning was cool, and there is a lake with a boardwalk around part of it. I thought I could walk all the way around it, but a spillway prevented that. There is a W.P.A. museum, and an octagonal cabin that was damaged by a tornado in 1985 and rebuilt. Walking back to my car after checking out the dam, four kids came by on bikes, two with training wheels attached. Two moms were walking behind them. I was in jeans and a purple Ralph Lauren t-shirt of many years wear. One of the training wheel kids said "I like your shirt" as he rode by. That made my day. I said "Thanks! I like your bike." It was emerald green and sparkly. Leaves were turning color uphill in the park.  A sign pointed out that the W.P.A. men had planted most of the trees in the park, as the area had been logged over by that time. I thought about those men planting those trees, and how they were not likely around to see the beautiful forest they had created.  I related that to the politics of our day- how we have to work for justice, even if we don't live to see it come to fruition. I know leaders of the civil rights movement, like Dr. King, talked about that often, but seeing the forest, started eighty years ago, reminded me. I went looking for, and found, St. Severin's, a wooden church farther east off I-80 and past a sign that said "Highest Point on I-80 East Of The Mississippi," built by German settlers in 1851 and a National Historic Landmark

I ended my tour in Clearfield Borough, a somewhat smaller but more fixed-up town than DuBois. I figured a fast look around, then lunch. There was once a synagogue in town, in a former telephone company building, now owned by a community theater. The synagogue merged with the one in State College, over the next hill to the east. I found the courthouse with the ten commandments in stone in front, and a district of historic homes along the west branch of the Susquehanna, then headed to lunch at a restaurant on Main Street. I ordered a salad, which took so long that I had to go out and put money in my parking meter, which was only a quarter for an hour. So I left town at 1:20 and arrived home after five, driving courthouse to courthouse on the recommended route, less scenic, $3.40 in tolls, but faster.

The temperature both days reached well into the 80s, warm for Morgantown, even more so for north central Pennsylvania. I also noted, traveling over hills and winding roads, that I want a nicer car than the Suzuki SX 4 I've been driving the last six years and 98,000 miles. I want more power and a  quieter ride. This week, I talked Joe into buying a used Honda Civic, 2015. We're keeping the Suzuki, but traded our 2001 Civic, which I typically do not take on trips. Other than being banged up, nothing was wrong with our old Honda;, and the Suzuki, as it approaches 100,000 miles, drives as it always has. I just wanted something else.

I did get away, but for once I enjoyed the open spaces and parks more than the towns.This week is already cooler, and the leaves may reach peak color in a week or two. People I spoke to in Pennsylvania were annoyed that most of the leaves were still green and the temperature twenty degrees above normal for October 7th and 8th, but I don't think anyone put a political spin on it, as I did.

Day-Use area, S.B. Elliott State Park

Rental cabin, S.B. Elliott State Park

Penn State DuBois campus

1889 Hotel, DuBois

Former railroad station, DuBois, under renovation

DuBois Historic District on Brady Avenue (U.S. 219)

The park outside my hotel, DuBois

McGees Mills covered bridge

north of the covered bridge, along the west branch of the Susquehanna, at dusk

Parker Dam State Park

Parker Dam State Park

Parker Dam up close

the spillway at Parker Dam

Octagon Cabin, 1930s, Parker Dam State Park

W.P.A. Museum, Parker Dam State Park

St. Severin's Old Log Church, Cooper Township, 1851,

Clearfield County Courthouse

Dimeling Hotel, Clearfield, 1904-05. I'm not sure what it is used for now

The ten commandments outside Clearfield County Courthouse

Downtown Clearfield

Telephone company building, once a synagogue, now owned by a theater company. Note the stained glass over the entrance.

Historic homes backing on the west branch of the Susquehanna, Clearfield, mostly offices now

Clearfield Library

View of the golf course over the roof of the country club from my room, DuBois

The new car

Four Hours in Clay County, West Virginia

If you follow this blog, you know I visit a different county every month, within three hundred miles of Morgantown, and in alphabetical order. This month's county was Clay, West Virginia. It's more than a hundred miles, less than two hundred, which normally means I would spend one night. But Clay has fewer than ten thousand people, down from more than fifteen thousand in 1940. It's located southwest of Morgantown, on I-79. The county seat and only city, also called Clay, is about ten miles off I-79, along Elk River. It's about forty-five miles north of Charleston, our state capital and largest city, where the Elk River meets the Kanawha.

Besides City Council in Morgantown, I've been busy with the High Holydays, Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. I chanted in Hebrew from First Samuel, about Hanna on Rosh Hashana, and from Deuteronomy 29 and 30 in special trope on Yom Kippur. I also sang a World War II-era partisan song in Yiddish on Yom Kippur afternoon. I was glad to do that, and it's easier than singing the whole holiday liturgy, as I used to do, or leading the service. Preparing for that kept me home most of the month, and after, since last Wednesday night, I've been running on low energy.

But  Saturday was a home football game, late afternoon, and I figured I could get out early in the morning and come back during the game, before the crowds left the stadium and Morgantown's roads became impassible.That's how I came to be in Clay yesterday.

I know two people from Clay: Chrissy Packtor, who I met in my first campaign for office in 2016. She was an undergraduate then and now lives in Boston, and my primary care doctor at WVU, Lucas Hamrick. I mention them because the three most famous people from Clay are the FEMA worker who called Michelle Obama a racist name and her friend, the former mayor of Clay, who, on receiving that comment, said "You made my day," and more recently a school bus driver who kicked a kid off his bus, saying "I don't want  (insert anti-gay slur here) on my bus." Chrissy and Doctor Hamrick are exemplary intelligent and compassionate people. If you read the news, you would imagine Clay County to be full of screaming bigots.

I arrived in Clay County about 11:15, and turned off I-79 to the town of Clay. Other than the Interstate, which runs across the northern edge of the county, I think all of the roads are two-lane. I didn't see any traffic lights. It's certainly pretty, driving through the hills, autumn having not quite reached that far south. Elk River looked placid, and except for the empty lots along Main St., you wouldn't know that the whole town was badly flooded in 2016. There is a chain drug store, a dollar store, the old courthouse, the only place in the county on The National Register of Historic Places, vacant, I think, and a new, modest courthouse building across the street, a local mid-century modern bank building, as well as a health department and other government buildings.  There is a library, open only a few hours on Saturday morning. North of town, past the intersection of State Routes 4 and 16, there is a small branch of a chain market, three chain restaurants and another dollar store. That's about it. The town has fewer than 1,000 residents, houses being uphill across Main Street from Elk River, or scattered along the main roads.

I checked all of this out, then headed for lunch at the chain place that makes subs. There was an older and a younger woman working there, and the older gal (younger than I am) joked that I needed cheese on my sandwich because "cheese makes the sandwich." There was a gentleman, heavyset and bearded, sitting across from me, wearing a t-shirt that said "Joey 'Wolfman' Varrella" with a picture of a wolfman on the shirt. I asked if he was "Wolfman" and he said he was. He photographs high school football games for a living. We talked geography (he was originally from Washington, D.C.) , the weather and football. I only said that I was in town to avoid WVU's game that afternoon. I mentioned my spouse, Joe, in an anecdote, and he didn't flinch. I'm glad I talked to a "real" person who still lives there. Everyone in Clay clearly does not have horns and carry a pitchfork.

Roger Hanshaw, a Republican, represents most of Clay, all of Calhoun and parts of Gilmer County in our state legislature. He has just been appointed Speaker, as the previous speaker, Tim Armstead, resigned so he could be appointed to the state supreme court. It's actually more complicated than that. Hanshaw, like many Republicans in the state, has a billboard up, that says "Born and Raised In West Virginia, "Real West Virginia Values" and one other thing I don't remember clearly. These burn me, as a politician in this state. "West Virginia Values," when used by a Republican, seems to mean kowtowing to the coal and gas industry, hating unions, immigrants, environmentalists, African-Americans and "outsiders" generally, not necessarily in that order. I saw many signs for Hanshaw's opponent, David Walker, who was previously in the House of Delegates and lost by a very slim margin in the 2016 election. Clay County went 76.8% for Trump, according to Politico. I'm sure Walker is not a flaming liberal, but it's good to know he has a fighting chance.

I didn't see many people out until I tracked down the high school, just south of town. People were gathering for, apparently, a football game later in the afternoon.  I followed Route 16 south to Bickmore, a dot on the map, but with a restaurant open, advertising ice cream. I stopped in for a chocolate cone. They had a real food menu as well, so there are places to eat in the county besides the three chains.

I also found, across Elk Creek, what I had read was to be a rails-to-trails project, put off by the flooding in 2016 along Elk River and Buffalo Creek. The rails are still there, and a sign says there was once a booming little town, now gone, where coal and lumber were shipped to Charleston and other places. Now they have four-seater rail cars that you can move manually along the tracks. I saw the cars, but not anyone out there.

I followed 16 north, the long way out of the county back to the interstate. There was a park along the Elk River, not much, but something. I was home by 5:30, well before the football game ended. I'm glad I went to Clay. It's a real place, with many nice people, not awful, as I had expected. People nodded "hello" at me wherever I went, and seemed to know each other. My lesson is to not judge a whole place by a few idiots who may live there.

Old Clay County Courthouse

Present Clay County Courthouse

Main street, Clay

Clay Elementary School

Clay County Bank, Main Street

Old gas station, not currently in use

Clay library

"Restaurant Row" north of Clay

market, north of Clay

Clay Middle School

Clay High School

Chocolate cone at Ramsey's , Bickmore

Buffalo Creek, north of Clay

mural on Main Street, Clay