The Turf Club, Bethel, and The Pops

It’s been a while since I updated you on our Cincinnati doings, and we’ve added a few new experiences to the docket this hot summer.

This post is mostly photos and is likely too long for email. If it is, pop over to the site by clicking the headline to open in your browser.

Last month, I moderated a Principles First event in Boone County, Kentucky, and while I don’t partake anymore, it was neat to see the Boone County Distillery.

It was a great event, and a heartening turnout. And a reader (or two) of this little weblog were there, and I met somebody from the neighborhood!

We went to Bethel for a day over in Clermont County for the girls to attend a one-day art camp event at “An Artful Gathering.” It was a blast.

While many towns in Ohio, like Bethel, have had destroyed main streets, Bethel’s seems to be doing fairly well all things considered.

A (now-completed) mural on the Ben Franklin 5-10, which is awesome.

There is a neat historical museum which I want to come back and actually tour at the Grant Memorial. Senator Thomas Morris was from Bethel, as is Steve Newman, the “world walker.” Go visit Bethel some Saturday. It’s a fun place.

We also finally got to The Turf Club, and while it was not crowded there, as you know if you’ve been there, they warn you about the wait for your food.

It is worth it.

And, for the fourth, we went to Riverbend to see the Cincinnati Pops. I had been to Riverbend for Summer Fair but not for any concert.

I did send a terse, frustrated email to Riverbend for not enforcing its chair policy: I spent $100 at Buc-ee’s getting stadium chairs to comply. I already had camping chairs.

You can’t (read: shouldn’t) post a policy you won’t fully enforce. Or be more explicit: classical music concerts? Yes, bring a chair with a canopy. Who cares? Do it show by show. Anything but this current shitshow.

Alas, they disagreed.

But, totally unrelated to me getting into a tizzy about enforcement issues—and I’m fine with camping chairs, really! I am just a rule follower—I posted a picture like the above on my weekend Overtime newsletter and some nice words about the Pops and its dynamic conductor, John Morris Russell. As I noted in my newsletter, he also hails from Shaker Heights, as I do.

This being a small mid-sized city, small in the small town sorta way, a reader or two of my newsletter is also friends with “JMR” (as he’s called) and told him he got a favorable mention in The Bulwark. And wouldn’t you know, he emailed to say thanks.

During the fireworks segment, they played songs from The Pops, and this rendition of Rolling River (Sketches on “Shenandoah”) was a favorite for us. (And not just because of Virginia!)