In early April, I spent three days in Cincinnati working in a booth at a convention. My room was on the 27th floor of the Millennium Hotel looking out over the western end of the city and the Ohio River.
I could see two railroad bridges, two highway bridges, a stretch of the river, and a whole lot more. There were occasionally three moving trains in view at the same time, and towboats regularly pushed barges up or down the river. A couple firetrucks raced by one night, and I saw several police cars. It was like having my own model train layout. I turned the couch in my room to face the window and spent all my awake time looking out through the filth on the glass.
I had Thursday morning free, so I went for a walk past Great American Ballpark where the Reds play, across the Ohio on the 1866 John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge into Covington, Kentucky.
I had gotten in very late the night before, so I texted my wife to let her know I was alive. I sent her this photo and informed her that this was what I was looking at.
A few minutes later she sent me a photo of the foot of our bed and told me that’s what she was looking at.
Back on the Ohio bank, I walked east through a series of parks for about a mile. The city is named for Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus. the Roman warrior who gave up his position of power and returned to farming.
The Roman statesman became dictator for a time when Rome was attacked by its enemies. As soon as the crisis was over, he surrendered his power and went back to farming.
When George Washington gave up his power at the end of the Revolutionary War, he was compared to Cincinnatus, and all this somehow led to the city in Ohio taking on the name Cincinnati.
A nearby statue of a pig in Roman soldier’s armor lessened the impact somewhat.
There are flying pig statues scattered all about Cincinnati due to Cincinnati’s history in the pork processing industry, which once caused some people to refer to the city as Porkopolis.
A pig actually did fly in Cincinnati on November 4, 1909. Lord Brabazon of Tara, holder of the first pilot’s license in the United Kingdom, took a piglet for a short joy ride over the Queen City. The pig was in a basket tied to a wing strut of Brabazon’s Short Brothers biplane. A sign on the basket read, “I am the first pig to fly.”
A pole in the park marked the height of floods in Cincinnati history. A small ark on top of the pole added a nice touch.
The rest of my adventures, such as they were, can be found in the next posts.