Yes. It was a beautiful place...

Our home before the tornado.

'It was a beautiful place' my son, Andrew, was quoted on the front page of the Cincinnati Enquirer today. And it was. Our home in Moscow was THE home. The dream house. A house to share with friends and family. Where we were going to grow old together.

Now we're tornado victims.

The south wall was sheared by the tornado.

Our backyard before the tornado.

Don't get me wrong. I am not complaining. I am grateful my husband and two dogs walked away from our destroyed home relatively unharmed. Jeff had a concussion but he's a little loony in the head anyway. I was out shopping so our car wasn't sucked into the vortex. We have a comfortable place to live while we drudge through the red tape of insurance policies, local bureaucracy, flood plain rules and contractors licking their lips for our insurance money.

Today marks one month since a tornado ripped through our quaint little village of Moscow.  We lost a friend and neighbor, Carol Forste. We lost many homes. Some lost personal possessions that can never be replaced. The beautiful old trees can be replanted but will never reach their 100-year-old glory in my lifetime. Some of our neighbors will not be back...not because they don't want to come back, but because they don't have the means to rebuild.

Our backyard after the tornado. That's our neighbor's couch.

We bought our house in 1999, two years after the 1997 flood nearly destroyed Moscow. The core of our house was built in the late 1800s and had withstood many floods before. And ironically it was the core of the house that withstood the tornado. But it wasn't just the charm and location of the house that attracted us. It was the spirit of the people that lived there.

In the summer of 1999, before we bought the house, we visited the house and the village dozens of times. We were moving from suburbia and Moscow isn't exactly in a metropolitan area. It would be a big change for us and our two sons.

So on July 4, 1999 we decided to visit the local pub to meet some of the local residents. We were curious why people would continue to live in an area that had been flooded over and over again.

Rivers Edge Pub was your typical local bar. Pool table in the back, a couple of tables and chairs and a long bar stretching half the length of the room. Jean Scott was behind the bar serving up cold beer. Janet Gragg, who managed the bar, and Jackie Wells were sitting at the end of the bar chatting and smoking cigarettes. We walked in and immediately felt welcomed.

We had a couple beers and chatted with the Ladies of the Village (as I came to call them over the years.) They were delighted we were considering moving into the village. Yes, they had been here when the '97 flood hit. Jackie, who had lived in Moscow all her life, even remembered floods before that.

They stayed after the flood because it's home. It's a place where everybody knows your name. Where people walk their dogs and stop to chat with their neighbors on the front porch. And, much to our delight that day, a place that stages an All-American Fourth of July parade and a pretty awesome fireworks show. We were hooked.

The Ladies of the Village are all gone now, passed away. And the pub has been closed for years. But new people have come and life-long residents have stayed. And if we can restore our home to its previous glory, we will be back. But it won't just be the kick-ass view of the river from my bedroom window, or the whish, whish of the waves lapping on the river bank, or the brilliant sparkle of the afternoon sun on the water that brings me back. It will be the spirit of the people.

There is no CARE in American healthcare

"I wish to be left alone (unregulated)," said Scrooge, aka American health insurance corporations. "Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don't make merry myself at Christmas, and I can't afford to make idle people, aka the American unemployed, merry. I help to support the establishments, private prisons, insurance corporations, Walmart, etc. I have mentioned - they cost enough: and those who are badly off must go there."

"Many can't go there; and many would rather die," said the gentleman in reply.

"If they would rather die," said Scrooge aka American health insurance corporations, "they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population aka the middle class."

Healthcare and Insurance. Two words that should never be intertwined. The United States is the only country in the world that has an industry in place that makes a profit from people being sick. In 2010 The Commonwealth Fund  published a report that compares the US to six other countries. We rank dead last.


"Despite having the most costly health system in the world, the United States consistently underperforms on most dimensions of performance, relative to other countries. This report—an update to three earlier editions—includes data from seven countries and incorporates patients' and physicians' survey results on care experiences and ratings on dimensions of care. Compared with six other nations—Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom—the U.S. health care system ranks last or next-to-last on five dimensions of a high performance health system: quality, access, efficiency, equity, and healthy lives." the introduction to the overview of the report states.

It is with facts like these that I am truly ashamed of the American greed.  Nuff said.

800 Broadway

Times-Star Building then.

I have lived in Cincinnati all my life but am starting to realize just how little I really know about the Queen City's history. When I worked for the Hamilton County Clerk of Courts we would refer many of our "customers" to 800 Broadway for domestic relation issues, probation and juvenile court. We referred to it as 800 Broadway.

But in all the fifteen years I worked for the county I had no idea 800 Broadway was originally the Cincinnati Times-Star Building built in 1933 and designed by the firm of Samuel Hannaford & Sons.

800 Broadway now

From Wikipedia: "Much of the decorated facade plays homage to the printing and publishing businesses. Two hundred feet above the street stand four pillars at each of the tower's corners, representing patriotism, truth, speed and progress.

The newspaper plant occupied the first six stories. The floors above were offices. The Cincinnati Times-Star was an outgrowth of several newspapers and was owned by Cincinnati's Taft family. Charles Phelps Taft was editor.

The building was bought by Hamilton County in the late 1980s, it is used for county offices."

It looks like I still have a lot to learn.