Illustration by Lars Leetaru
Once again, this year’s Riverfest has a “virtual” Rubber Duck Regatta. I can understand why it turned virtual in 2020 during COVID, but it’s been that way ever since. Do actual rubber ducks factor in this at all anymore? I’m still donating for the charity, but I want to see ducks! Where are they!? —WHAT THE DUCK
DEAR WHAT:
The Doctor is delighted to assure you that if it’s ducks you want, ducks ye shall have. Just don’t expect to see hundreds of thousands of them dropped into the Ohio River during Riverfest. The Rubber Duck Regatta, the Freestore Foodbank’s annual fund-raiser, is now the world’s largest and longest-lasting event of its kind—celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. You can blame COVID-19 for forcing the Regatta to go virtual in 2020, but other factors have prevented the analog version from returning. One is the event’s success, which now exceeds 200,000 ducks (thanks, everyone).
The weight of all those ducks now poses a structural threat to the Regatta’s traditional launch site, the Purple People Bridge. Ongoing repairs to the bridge currently can’t allow for such heavy lifting.
But fear not: You can still purchase your own duck at many of the Freestore Foodbank’s companion events before and during Riverfest. If you read this before September 1, get details and please donate at rubberduckregatta.org. Or we’ll see you next year. Quack on!
Why does Rookwood Pavilion have a large French fleur-de-lis emblem on its entrance sign? The shopping center is in no way French; it’s in Norwood. Was there some kind of French store at Rookwood Pavilion when it opened in the 1990s? Otherwise, what is the fleur-de-lis doing there? —POURQUOI?
DEAR QUOI:
Norwood is generally a place where there ain’t much French. And Rookwood Pavilion isn’t really Rookwood, either—that’s in Mt. Adams. But the answer to your question is easily found if you look inside Rookwood Pavilion itself. Most of the sprawling mall was originally occupied by the LeBlond Machine Tool Company, a major player (and polluter) in Cincinnati’s industrial past. The property’s transformation—just imagine that environmental cleanup—left behind a single LeBlond smokestack, on which you can still see the company’s logo. Voila! The logo includes the fleur-de-lis!
The Doctor can’t help wondering, though, why the company’s founder chose that symbol for the logo. Despite his French-like surname, Richard Le- Blond’s lineage was entirely British and Irish. Perhaps he resented his father not naming him Robert as every LeBlond patriarch had done for seven straight generations. Even Richard’s few ancestors with names like Pierre and Jacques were born in England, back in the 1600s when England and France hated each other. This all seems ripe for psychoanalysis. Oh, wait, that’s German.
I drive past the remains of a Walnut Hills church every night. There’s only the steeple, because of a 1970s fire; today it’s part of a cluster of upscale homes. Why isn’t it lit at night? It looks so bleak in the dark. If those people can afford those homes, they can afford lighting such a glorious old steeple! —LET THERE BE LIGHTS
DEAR LET:
Your question suggests a class struggle with which we hesitate to engage. Remember: Americans are supposed to be lowering the temperature. The Doctor visited the lonely steeple of the former Seventh Presbyterian Church in Walnut Hills, which now lives among an enclave of nine fine homes. Because you pass there at night, you can’t see that the steeple actually does have lights. They just aren’t used. It could be a maintenance issue. Or maybe, as you suspect, it’s an expense dodged by gentrified capitalist pigs.
But we’re lowering the temperature here. The Doctor attempted to find a Homeowner Association that might, as they say, shed light on the situation. Anyone who has ever tried to find an HOA can guess how that turned out. If it’s any consolation, there’s another steeple on the next block that not only has the lights you seek but adjoins an active church: St. Francis de Sales. Try selling them on the idea of going condo.
Dr. Know is Jay Gilbert, radio personality and advertising prankster. Submit your questions about the city’s peculiarities here.
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