Illustration by Lars Leetaru
This is silly, but please indulge me. I was away last election day, and for the first time since the 1980s I missed the results of Busken Bakery’s famous Cookie Poll. I know that Trump won, but I always like to see the actual numbers. Now I can’t find them. Please help me! —NUMBERS JUNKIE
DEAR JUNKIE:
Your obsession makes us suspect that perhaps you landed the role of an extra during Cincinnati’s 1988 filming of Rainman. The final results of Busken Bakery’s Cookie Poll, conducted during every presidential election since 1984, were 36,385 Trump cookies sold, 14,455 Harris cookies, and 2,703 Independents. The Busken Cookie Poll has correctly predicted every election since it began in 1984, with the exception of 2020. Yes, yes, we can hear everyone from here. In fact, the Doctor is grateful for having been prompted to view Busken’s 2020 Facebook archives and the dueling comments after election day. Yes, yes, they are exactly what you think.
Readers may be shocked to learn that voting via cookie can yield unreliable tallies. Some people get away with voting more than once. There’s no way to stop voters who live out-of-state or who may be convicted felons, underage, or unregistered. We feel fairly certain, however, that no one can buy cookies when they’re dead. So there’s that.
Please make sure to catch Busken’s results in 2028. We don’t want to go through this again.
There’s a flagpole at a very small park in Walnut Hills with a plaque at its base honoring a local soldier who died in the Korean War. I’m used to seeing war memorials with a long list of names, so just one name seems unusual. Who was this person? And who raises and lowers the flag every day? —RALLY ROUND THE PLAQUE
DEAR RALLY:
First Lieutenant James Van Hamm Dale, 24, was killed in action in Korea on April 13, 1953. He’d arrived in Korea only two months earlier. Born to a prominent family of Cincinnati attorneys, Dale was a graduate of Yale University and had intended to join his family’s law firm. In his honor, some friends and neighbors installed a flag and plaque in tiny Annwood Park across from the Walnut Hills home where he had grown up.
Who exactly performs the raising and lowering of this lone flag? One would guess that it’s an employee from the Cincinnati Park Board, which received a donation of the corner property from its owners in the 1960s. The Doctor, however, was not satisfied with a guess. He awoke an hour before dawn and dutifully drove to the park to see who would raise the flag at sunrise. It was already flying. The Doctor went home and back to bed. He is not Army material.
I not only can’t translate the large German words at the top of a building at 12th and Walnut streets in Over-the-Rhine, I can barely even see them! I assume they’re from Cincinnati’s German days before World War I. Seriously, who foolishly carved those words in stone so ridiculously high? —WAS ZUR HÖLLE IST DAS?
DEAR HÖLLE:
This building has suffered a lot of foolishness and ridiculousness, but please do not blame those who built it. The German Mutual Insurance Company of Cincinnati (that’s the translation, your guess was correct) opened its three-story headquarters in 1877, and at first those large words were easily seen from the street. But then came World War I and our city’s infamous purge of all things German. The suddenly named Hamilton Mutual Insurance Company covered up the stone words, and the iconic Germania statue on the building’s facade was crudely Americanized with a flag and eagles.
Some years later an entire fourth story was added, raising up the building’s ornate top cornice by several feet. Still, the German insignia remained obscured (another war, dontcha know). The entire thing was finally uncovered in 2014, but its visibility is now permanently compromised by its height. Various indignities have been visited upon other German buildings and streets in Cincinnati and, while many have been resolved, this particular problem may only be solved by stilts. Perhaps a drone.
Dr. Know is Jay Gilbert, radio personality and advertising prankster. Submit your questions about the city’s peculiarities here.
Facebook Comments