One Day a Year Ironton Shines

Growing up in the town of Ironton, Ohio you will have a few things pound into your skull; Ironton football is the greatest thing in the area and you have to go to the Memorial Day Parade. I know what your thinking, really, a Memorial Day parade? Well there's a little history behind it. This year marked the 141st consecutive parade. That is not a typo, 141 straight years. No other town in the country can say that, since 1868 we have had this parade and this year there was an estimated crowd of about 30,000 and I was one of these people.

As all parades you have things like all the little league teams, a bunch of pageant winners that should be on Tots and Tiaras, horses and old cars. Then there are a few of the "Ironton" things you can see in the parade. Every year the rider less horse rides by, our Civil War reenacters and the Shriners.

I love the Shriners in this parade, we have a group of hillbilly Shriners that look like they came straight from the "haller." Then the favorite of all, the El Hasa Oriental Band. Just watch the video above, most will not understand the fascination, but to those of us from the Ohio River Valley will know the draw. This years sword guy was not the best, but in years past at every symbol crash he would run up to a random lady and give a huge pelvic thrust. I even believe one year my grandmother was a recipient. It's great fun to watch and I wish I was the sword guy. I would so rock that sword and thrusts that they would have to retire the sword and pants. The things I remember from my childhood. this is high on the list.

Ohio Round Trip

We are getting ready to hit the road for the lovely three city run in Ohio; Ironton, Columbus and Troy. With the whole lay off thing this trip has been a burden and a blessing all in one. The good thing was I didn't have to work Christmas Eve or Day so we decided to leave earlier. This will be the first time since I left ONN that I will have Christmas off, I don't have to go to a movie theater and ask people why a movie on Christmas or any other stupid news angle to fill time. I feel so excited, I'm like a normal person again!

We will have some internet black holes when we are in Columbus (I think that's hilarious, when we are in the biggest city on our trip we will be without internet), but I will try and do a trip blog. I may even try and figure out how to mobile blog and do that on the road.

Come On!

Last night Boston Stevie and I were sitting in a live truck waiting for a press conference when he got the idea to look at the competitors websites. We did find any new info on our story, but we did find this story. If you don't want to go to the link, the quick version is this old woman took an insurance on her grandson worth $100,000. Come to find out she has done this in the past to her other husbands and now they are looking into see if she killed them for money. Boston Stevie saw that she has a connection to Ohio and immediately thought that she had to be from Ironton.

Back in June he did a blog post on a rock from the Ohio River and the man who dug up the rock just happened to be from my home town. I wrote a response about how every time something news worthy comes out of my home town. He thinks this is funny and did a search using only these three words: Ohio, Woman and Insurance. The first item on the list was from the Herald Dispatch with this title Ironton native with 5 dead spouses 'obsessed with cash.' CRAP! Why did she have to be from Ironton? Boston Steve went into hysterics and I started down a shame spiral... yet again. How can this continue to happen, you never hear about Van Wert, Loveland, or somewhere like Versailles it's always Ironton. Why not national coverage on our Memorial Day parade? Ironton needs an overhaul and has to stop getting all this bad press. I'm probably blowing it out or proportion because I'm from there, but twice withing a month is way too much bad press.

Long Trip

It's Saturday and I am very tired. I am currently in Ironton, Oh for my nieces graduation from college. I'm not tired from the graduation, I'm tired from the stress of driving Thursday night. You see that picture, I had to drive through the area where that happened.

To maximize out time with my family, we thought to was a great plan to drive after I got off work at midnight, stay overnight in Beckley, WVa and drive the last three hours on Friday morning. Well, there were a storms a comin' and I heard it was a bad one. Come to find out it was storm that had large amounts of hail and tornadoes. I decide to slow down and hope we miss it. Luckily we missed the hail and tornadoes, yet we had to deal with the aftermath. Over turned semis and trees on the interstate so we lost an hour and a half from that. By the time we got to Beckley it was already 5AM and I said screw it, I want to get there and I'll sleep for a few hours before the rest of the family makes it. Well, yet again fate was against us. A semi jack knifed going south bound and they decided to close our lanes to clean it up. We had to sit there for an hour and a half.

We finally made it to Ironton around 9AM. It took over 9 hours for a trip that takes 6 and a half. I hope the trip back goes a lot easier than the way up.

Random Insomnia

As I sit here at 1:30 in the morning I am tired, yet I can not sleep. I've had a lot on my plate as of late and I'm starting to feel the effects. Work has been all over the place, my church has asked me to do a lot and I had a little family situation:

Work Front

I don't know what it is about Raleigh, but nothing interesting will happen for a long time and then all the sudden we have major news events every day. I blame Duke vs UNC for the start of my work stress. As I have mentioned I do not like Chapel Hill and yet JDOG-17 saw it fit to send be there to cover the possible riots if the Tarheels won the game. For the most part the night went smooth... except that I got hit by a car. I had a guy want to park next to the live truck and we put cones up so no one couldn't. Lets just say he started off on the wrong foot with me and I didn't make things easier. I started to move my cones and he guns it and swipes my arm. I am still not sure how he missed my foot. Luckily for me Shawn was there as well as two reporters and an intern. Come to find out later he was running late for a radio interview. That's ass, for nearly running me over so you can go to another media outlet.

After the brush fires, there was an explosion outside downtown Raleigh. Someone tried to take live mortar shells to a scrap yard and two went boom. As the night side crew Boston Stevie and I got to baby sit the scrap yard as the military decides what to do with the other 40 shells. Well the military gets the great idea to start blowing them up on site. Yeah that went over real well with all the locals who had to be evacuated or kept hearing explosions all night long.

One Church Two Locations Not Enough J Dog

I go to a church that meets in a movie theater, it's different, but The Wife and I like it. Since land is getting very expensive here, and we are out growing the current theater, we are opening in a second site. The new expansion is in Wake Forest, so now we only get to drive 10 minutes instead of 30. But there is a catch here, they are not increasing the ministry staff. How is that possible you may ask? That's where I come in, they are currently going to tape a sermon in advance, so I have been tapped to help. I have spent the majority of my off time at the church trying to help them figure out how to make this work. It's not that bad, except at times I feel like I'm trying to move a mountain. They want to save money, yet make it high end; use my skills, but use an editing system I've never touched; try lighting with 5 times the light needed, adjust it to make it work. I don't mind this extra work load, it's that my normal job has started to see a little bit of an effect from it. Hopefully after the opening this week everything will calm down.

Family

I was working Sunday and The Wife called and told me that my grandfather is not doing well. He is starting to have kidney failure. After talking to my mom, I guess it got to the point where she didn't think he was going to make to the end of the week. He's 94 and has led a full life, but he's my grandfather! He lived next door and I would go over every Monday and Friday and stay till my parents got home. When I was young and we moved around a lot. I would stay with them as the family packed. I still haven't gotten over the death of my grandmother and that was 6 years ago. I just can't imagine not having him here. Over the last few years I have taken him forgranted, I hate seeing him in a nursing home, it's just hard and makes me realize his mortality.

He did make it through and is getting better, no longer are we 100% worried (more like 50%) yet I am still shaken by this. I am actually wanting to get back home and currently there is no way to make that seven hour drive and not kill myself even more. With this news we were planning a trip to just Columbus in June and now we may have to include Ironton, just so I can visit.

Enough random ramblings for the night, hopefully I can get to sleep soon.

Finally theChristmas Trip Wrap

Christmas has come and come and everything has settled down, well almost, we still have the bowl game trip next weekend and Kim the sister in law is coming the weekend after that. To think about it, this is just the calm before the storm... CRAP!

Well, the trip was a good one, we only got to see about half of the people we wanted. Most were in Columbus and it's hard to see people because we were there during the week. The biggest thing I learned on this trip is the differences on how we act while in Columbus and Ironton. In Columbus we are always moving and if feels like we never stop moving. In Ironton we hardly did anything. Examples, Thursday in Columbus;I worked on a church project, drove to see Kim the sister in law in Hillard, saw a friend of The Wife because she was selling candles, met more of her friends for dinner, met my sister for desert and finally made it back to her parents house at 11. Saturday in Ironton; took some pictures of the town, met Tiffany for a couple of hours, helped The Dad put in a new dryer and ate dinner. It's just different areas and how things are done. It always amazes me that when in Ironton I can sit there and do nothing and enjoy it, but I always have to be moving in Columbus.

The Wife and I had a good Christmas over all, she liked all her gifts (a pearl necklace and a jewelry box) and I enjoyed mine (Brian Piccolo rookie card and the Simpsons Movie), we also did get the BCS Championship tickets and we are also still going to Mobile for the GMAC Bowl. We are in the second level of the end zone in the Superdome and we will be dead center 13 rows up in the west end zone with a Bowling Green flag.

Also I have made a gnome blog, I've called it Gnomadic Gnome. I've got enough pictures to get me to the bowl games and the bowl games will get me till February.

Yes, This is Where I Grew Up

So I'm editing the mid day webcast like any other day when I get to a story about a duct tape robber. I look at the slug with curiosity and grab the video over to my computer. I start looking at the idiot (that's him to the left) and laughing at how stupid he is. I start trying to find video of the store in the package and I see a name Shamrock Liquors... that sounded familiar and that's when I noticed the street sign in the foreground, 13th street and also a city logo... Ashland.

OH NO! THAT'S ASHLAND, KENTUCKY! I KNOW WHERE THAT STORE IS!

For the people that know me I grew up in the small river town of Ironton, Ohio which is near Huntington, WVa and you guessed it Ashland, Ky. I've even been to that store with Wilson. I had a friend live down the street from there.

The Story goes that Kasey Kazee walked into Shamrock Liquor store with his face covered in duct tape... you know to conceal his identity. The owner of the store hits him with a bat covered in (sweat irony) duct tape while an employee chokes out Mr Kazee.

I start of laughing and then it hits me: Why is it that all the idiots from back home are the ones to make national news, ney INTERNATIONAL NEWS! I am dumb founded and hoped it was just the photos. I was not lucky there, WSAZ interviewed the guy in holding and he, get this, denies being the "Duct Tape Bandit." His reasoning was that during the interview he says "Look at me, do I look like the Duct Tape Bandit baby, I ain't no Duct Tape Bandit, you hear me..." Hello moron they have you with the tape on your face, then a picture with the tape off. You are not going to fool any one, I don't think the Chewbecca defense is even going to help you.

Just once I would love to see a story come from the Tri-State that is good. No more triple homicides, guys burying his daughter in a trash can, and no more duct tape fueled mayhem. I might be asking too much.

Memorial Day

Memorial Day has for the most part turned into a nothing more than a day to cook out. As I scanned the newspaper and all the local news for a parade I noticed that, well there wasn't one. It seems the thing in North Carolina to do is have a observation ceremony. I grew up in a town where memorial day was well an event. Back in 1868 the town of Ironton decided to celebrate what was then known as Decoration Day with a parade. Every year since then the town has had a parade rain or shine, which has given the town a the distinction of having the longest continuous Memorial Day parade in the country.

The parade is not why I am posting, since it is a day or remembrance, as I watch Band of Brothers I am remembering my Grandfather Everett Eaches. Just this past week he has turned 93 years old and this will be the first that he will not be able to go to the parade. Back in January as the Chicago Bears found their way into the Super Bowl I call home with joy. My dad seemed a little out of sorts and I asked if I could talk to mom. "She's at the hospital right now." After some prodding I find out that paw paw (as we all call him) had a nasty fall in the parking lot of a tire shop. The worst par was he was having problems remembering where he left his car and how he got to the hospital. This scared me the most, a few years back I lost my grandmother to Alzheimer's and the day she forgot who I was still haunts me.

Luckily he recovered, but we had to do something none of us wanted to do, we put him in a nursing home. For paw paw this was the worst thing in the world. The one thing he had left was his independence and now this was being taken away from him. he rebelled as a scorned teenage, but slowly he has started to settle in. I don't think he will ever get us to it, but that is his nature.

He is a man that has done some much with so little. He grew up in the era of the Great Depression and was born in the small blip on the map known as Superior, Ohio. It's so small most Ohio maps don't even have it listed. He dropped out of high school during his sophomore year because a fellow classmate stole his shop project and that was going to make him fail. So he thought, I might as well drop out. Then came WWII, he enlisted and served time in Korea as a cook. One of my favorite stories was about a typhoon that hit and all they had to eat for a week was strawberries and bananas, to this day he refuses to eat either.

After the war he found his way into the local Oldsmobile shop as a mechanic and worked his way to head mechanic. One of the best perks was going to Detroit to see the auto show and look at all the new cars coming out. Then the city of Ironton came calling, they needed a new head of the city streets. He was now in charge of all the streets, the city fleet of cars and trucks and since Ironton sits on the Ohio River he was in charge of the cities flood walls. I still remember a call not to long ago, where the city contacted him because there was no one who could remember how to set up the walls so they called the man who knew them best, mind you he retired back in the mid 70s.

While I was in college I remember my grandfather getting a physical. Something he did every few years. They put him on a treadmill and had him walk. He was suppose to tell them when he got winded or tired. After 10 minutes they ask him if he wants to stop, "No I'm fine." they kept going "Are you out of breath?" "No, I'm still good." as he continued to walk. Finally they made him stop. They asked what kind of exercise he did every week. "Well, I mow the lawn twice a week, I play golf three times a week." For a man in his 80s they said he was fit as someone twenty years younger.

To see this great man no be able to do as he wishes is hard. I know he's 93 and will not live forever, but if one man could I'd say it is Everett Eaches.