Old Coney Island and the feelings that it brought as a child.
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Old Coney Island and the feelings that it brought as a child.
I haven't had Beuschl yet, but I've had plenty of Schmalzbrot.
And you're pretty much right about goetta.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goetta
Skyline and/or Gold Star cheese coneys
UDF Chocolate Malts
Schoenling Little Kings
Reds baseball...not just watching it, but talking about it with everyone and their fathers, brothers, and uncles.
Labor Day fireworks by the river at the end of a great summer.
My Mum & Da (God rest their souls)
Someone had to explain to me that there was only one Kwik brother.Quote:
King Kwik (and those horrible Kwik Brothers commercials)
Red one: Didn't you have any womenfolk in your family to yack about baseball with?
Blue one: Sorry about your folks. I attended the funeral of my late brother's father-in-law. My brother died six year ago and as I watched my sister-in-law walk down the aisle with her family, I was got off guard by the sadness I had about my brother being gone. That hadn't hit me in a while. Think I'll find some time for me and his son to head out to Gate of Heaven and say "hey".
I managed to avoid Beuschl, being that the main ingredient is calves' lungs. A nickname for cigarette in Austria is Beuschlreisser - "Lung ripper." I could use a beer vending machine right about now, though.
What I miss is actually not about Cincinnati per se, but I associate it with Cincinnati. I miss going down to my grandparents' house in Troy, picking up a pizza from Ording's Party Center, drawing a beer from the tap of my grandfather's "beermeister" and listening to Reds baseball and debating the world's problems until 3 am. I often sit at the kitchen table with my Grandpa Frank and discuss the Reds or the music of Kurt Weill and Berthold Brecht or any other number of topics. He would pull out a jar of homemade pickles, which he made hot, throwing garlic and chilis in to give them a kick. The beer would always be a Cincinnati brand, like Moerlein, Hudepohl, Oldenburg or Little Kings. If the whole family was over, my grandmother might make an angel food cake or a custard pie.
In the Cincinnati area, I've enjoyed taking trips to Jungle Jim's and, when I was a kid, my cousin and I would go to the batting cages over at Joe Nuxhall's in Fairfield. And I wish I would have made better use of my time when I visited my great grandmother on Beacon St. I have so many questions now that I would have loved to ask her.
The only woman I ever knew who liked to watch baseball was my mother, and being from England, she didn't really know how to play the game...I remember explaining strikes, balls, outs, and the four bases to her during the '75 post season. If I had ever met a girl like Creek, Kitty, or the TeamGirls when I was growing up, I probably would have proposed to her on the spot. It wasn't until RedsZone that I realized there were women who liked Reds' baseball. Of course, My 3 daughters ALL love Reds baseball!
Thanks. My condolences on your brother's passing. My mother died of ovarian cancer (not a good way to go) Dec 23, 2006 and my father died of a broken heart (heart attack after being hospitalized for a stroke) Feb 23, 2007...exactly 2 months later. Odd. They did a wonderful thing, though. Their dying wish was to be cremated and have their ashes spread where they met in Cromer, England...a little town on the North Sea. They left an insurance policy which paid each of us (my brother, sister, and me) enough to pay for about a two week trip to England. So we arranged everything and all met up in Cincy for cheese coneys and then flew to England. The ensuing days of touring the places where my mother grew up and where they met and frolicked as young adults with her sisters and our cousins and meeting people who knew them when they were young was absolutely priceless. It was something shared by just my brother, sister, and me (we each went without our spouses and children) that brought us closer to each other and taught us many things we didn't know about our parents. The stories were heart warming and enlightening and I'll never forget the sight of my parents' ashes swirling in the wind and intermingling on their way to the sea. It provided us closure and adventure, brought us closer together, and introduced us to people who are very much a part of us even though we had never met them. It was just another of the many truly meaningful gifts our parents gave to us in our lives. I can only hope to do something that perfect for my children.
Sorry for going waaaay off topic, but I got started and just couldn't stop. Thanks for indulging me. :)
Great story, WebScorpion. What a wonderful gift your parents left you.
I guess I'm qualified to post here since I live in Cincinnati but spend so much time away. The main thing I miss when on the road is being able to sit down and watch the games. When I'm home I schedule everything around watching a game or two while I'm there.
Other things I miss.
1. I had a great aunt who never married. In the 90s we used to live about three miles apart and I spent quite a few afternoons at her house sharing a coke and listening to her stories about the depression and life during WWII, especially how she felt when her brother came home after the war safe and sound. She was also an avid Reds fan and a golfer. In the summers we would talk a lot about the Reds and about our golf games. She was still playing in her late 80s. She passed in '98. I miss those conversations.
2. Marty and Joe. Also being able to turn down the tv and turn up the radio and the two would be somewhat in sync. I never realized how much Joe meant to the broadcast until he stepped down and did fewer games. I think he was a good influence on Marty, who was a better announcer when he was with Joe.
3. The skywalk downtown and all the shops and restaurants that used to be on it. One such place was a little bar called Scully's that had really good burgers. I used to go there for lunch when I worked downtown, at least until they did away with a lot of the smaller businesses in favor of the large department stores.
4. Seeing the CG&E train display as a kid. I know it's still there in the same place it's always been, but going downtown to see the Christmas decorations as a kid was downright magical. I think it loses something when you get older.
5. All the radio stations being different. @#%$ Clear Channel. Being able to get good jazz on the radio, WNOP and WVXU back when they played it.
6. When I'm on the road I think I want a UDF milkshake, but when I get home I rarely get one. I think there's something about knowing that I could get one if I wanted to that is comforting.
7. When on the road I always miss Jungle Jim's. I live ten minutes from there. We buy most of our food there and when I'm out it seems I can never find some of the things I get there, like cheap mangoes. They're so expensive everyplace else, except Texas.
8. Winning baseball
9. Sports coverage in the Post.
10. Canoeing and fishing with Thadd. He was a friend for several years and the best man in my wedding. I have a canoe. He had fishing poles. Darn near every weekend we would be at some lake fishing out of my canoe, playing golf, or attending a Reds game. Strangely enough, he just dropped off the face of the earth about three years ago. Phone was disconnected, apartment was empty, other people who knew him haven't seen him, etc. I was thinking about him this past weekend when I took my canoe over to Winton Woods lake and just paddled around by myself.
lightning bugs (at least that's what I called them when I was little)
Goetta- it's a funny thing. We have a family recipe for it, but my own relatives in Germany have never heard of the stuff. Basically, it's oats, onions, ground pork and ground beef. Our family recipe includes cloves, which makes it taste quite a bit different than what you'll get from Glier's or any of the dozens of butcher shops in town that make their own.
Anyway, about it's origins. Goetta is an evolved form of the low German word for grains and meat (götte). However, as I said, Germans don't eat the stuff. My own theory is that Goetta is actually a twist on Irish Pudding, made by German housewives for their Irish immigrant husbands in Cincinnati. I have tasted White Irish Pudding and it tastes an awful lot like Avril's or Humbert's Goetta. That certainly would explain a lot about our own recipe- my Cincinnati ancestors are German/Irish.
What do I miss about Cincinnati?
Knowing everyone
I grew up on the West Side and making friends was never an issue. And if you needed a plumber, you could always use the grapevine to find someone reliable. Or a mechanic, or a carpenter. I need something done now and I feel like I am at the mercy of crooks.
Family
Not only did I know everyone, I think I was related to half of them. And we all pretty much got along and hung out together. The only question about what to do on the weekend was "which relative should we invite over?" Invariably it would be many of them.
Church Festivals
I spent two summers delivering Edelmann's brats and metts to church festivals. I was treated like a conquering hero, only surpassed in importance by the guy with the Hudepohl truck.
High Quality Softball
The game just doesn't exist anywhere else like it does in Cincinnati.
Childhood
I grew up playing baseball at Boldface Park, going to the Fire Department Fish Fry in the Del Fair parking lot and the July 4th festival at Delhi Park. I knew all my cousins and second cousins and great aunts and uncles. I got spanked by a neighbor down the street for being a smart alec and that was just fine by my mom. I rode my bike everywhere. And I went to Reds games. Lots and lots of Reds games. I dreamed about playing baseball every night. In the seventies, there was not a better place on earth for a scrawny baseball rat to be than Cincinnati.
Marty and Joe
Sitting on the back porch at our house with my dad (drinking a 14K) on a hot as hell Saturday afternoon, listening to Marty and Joe.