On the Road: Fairlawn, Ohio

We drove up from Berea, Kentucky, to Fairlawn, Ohio, today. We made it in time to drop by Brandywine Falls (a 60-foot drop; Amicalola in Georgia is 730 feet) at Cuyahoga Valley National Park between Cleveland and Akron, Ohio. The most interesting thing about the park (so far) is that it's a large natural preserve in the midst of a heavily populated urban area. I suppose that's the reason it exists, but just why it should rise to "national park" status mystifies me. I guess some politicians could answer that one. Otherwise, it seems like an area that could qualify as a national recreation area. We will visit again tomorrow, get our national park passport book stamped, and then hit the road for Mackinaw Island, Michigan and, in a few days, the Upper Peninsula.

On the Road: Berea, Kentucky

Once you get past the usual Interstate highway trappings: McDonald's, Wendy's, etc., and reach "downtown" Berea, Kentucky, about a mile east of I-75, you find yourself in a town dominated by the local Berea College. It's also an artists' town, with lots of shops devoted to locally produced pottery, textiles, woodwork etc. A number of these encourage visitors to watch the artists at work. We're staying at the Boone Tavern Hotel, which is also owned by the college. Berea College dates back to 1855 when an abolitionist minister established a school dedicated to educating whites and blacks, men and women. He was driven out by pro-slavery forces during the Civil War but came back to establish the Berea Literary Institute after the war. It had an enrollment of 96 blacks and 91 whites. The college also emphasizes work so students must work at least 10 hours per week in college departments to earn a portion of their fees and to gain some spending money. The campus is beautiful and a bell tower announces the hours and the quarter-hours. All in all, a very charming place. I especially like the woodworking shop with its beautiful handmade dulcimers.

The Morning After

The election is over in Great Britain and the fun has only just begun. The UK vote has resulted in a "hung Parliament" (just curious: does "hung" have the same slang sexual meaning in England as it does in the States? ) This means the BBC will have nothing else to talk about for weeks on end. Endless speculation. Perfect for radio. Lots of words, signifying nothing. I have an easy solution: Turn the government over to the Official Monster Raving Loony Party. It seems they are the only ones capable of governing at this point. I was largely unfamiliar with the OMRLP until last night, but a check of Wikipedia (solid reference source!) provides the following as planks of the OMRLP's "Manicfesto." These positions make more sense to me than those being put forward by the major parties. For example:
Introduce a 99p coin to "save on change";
Any MP whose constituency sells off a school playing field for development will be required to relinquish their own back garden as a replacement sports facility for the school;
Traffic cops "too stupid" for normal police work will be retrained as vicars;
All motorways to become massive cycle tracks instead;
Drivers can go straight over a roundabout when there's no traffic coming "to make driving through Milton Keynes more fun";
Withdrawal of MP's 118,000 pound expenses allowances with the money "in future to be distributed to the poor and needy so that they can waste it instead";
and perhaps best of all:
Banning semicolons since nobody knows how to use them.

A Vote for Blowers

I was looking for coverage of today's elections in the U.K. when I ran across BBC Live Five Sports Extra coverage of the England-Pakistan test match cricket from Barbados. This is one of those Twenty20 matches and some sort of qualifier for something. I don't really follow cricket from abroad much, other than those big blips on the radar, such as the Ashes. But, given that the polls had not yet closed in the U.K., I listened in (on the computer). The announcing team included the wonderful Henry Calthorpe Blofeld, aka "Blowers." Blofeld is now 70 and a cricket announcing legend. He is well-known for providing commentary on all sorts of things other than cricket. But, given the length of a cricket match, an announcer needs to be able to comment on many other things. However, Blowers doesn't restrict himself to chattering on at length about the players, their statistics, cricket gossip etc. He can wax eloquent about buses on the street outside the stadium, umbrellas glistening in the rain, the travels of a beach ball or the progress of the "Mexican wave" in the stands, various birds (he's a big fan of pigeons) and other creatures that he might spot, or the quality of the food being served at lunch. Today from Barbados, he carried on a detailed discussion of the sound system that was amplifying the steel-drum version of "God Save the Queen." And, in typical Blofeld fashion, he quickly spotted a frog hopping across the pitch and provided ample commentary on its movements. Elections are a dime a dozen, but Blowers is priceless.