Notes From My Knapsack 9-23-07
Jeff Gill

Hebron has seen a fair number of parades down Main Street over the years, with the breadth of the old National Road opening up a broad canvas for scenes of celebration.

Mostly, the celebrations have been baseball related, and involved bands and fire trucks and team members waving while cheerleaders leap and shout.

More somber are the Memorial Day occasions, with many of the same participants, but more subdued, from the Legion hall to the cemetery.

A new tradition may be at hand, with a parade from east to west, starting at the new Kroger parking lot, past the honored dead, into the village, and on through the historic crossroads to where Doc Walter’s office once was, and back to Refugee Road and a final turn into Evans Park.

The Hebron Business Association is organizing a Homecoming Parade this year, Thursday, Sept. 27, commencing at 7:00 pm with the autumnal sun casting long, low rays through the fields ready for harvest and shining on the faces of the band members and Grand Marshals.

Yes, they’ve got a Grand Marshal – actually, a whole raft of ‘em. The newly established “Lakewood Hall of Fame” has a first class of honorees, and confirmed to date for the parade are Ila Mason, Donna Braig, and of course the recently retired Doc Walters.

The parade will end at Evans Park on Refugee Road, on the northwest corner of the village, and a pep rally complete with bonfire will gather ‘round the Lakewood Lancer Marching Band, and led by the Lakewood Cheerleaders (Go, team, fight!).

Beth Walters with Crossroads of Hebron Floral is putting together a grand procession for this parade and Homecoming salute, and you don’t have to be from the Lakewood Schools to enjoy the spectacle and get caught up in the excitement.

This could be an ideal launch for the Fall celebration season, with the Buckeye Lake Fire Prevention parade on Oct. 7 at 1:00 pm down Walnut from Pizza Cottage, the Fairfield County Fair the week of Oct. 7, and the Circleville Pumpkin Show Oct. 17-20 (and Devine Farms on US 40 rocking out the pumpkin-ness all month).

Not to mention a few football games on Friday nights!

Apparently, there are some football games on Saturday, too. I’ve enjoyed some Denison football, which I still argue is the best value in central Ohio, and $2 hot dogs that are worth it (soft pretzels, though, you gotta bring soft pretzels back).

On the whole BigTen Network kerfuffle, I think there’s an assumption made here that could really backfire. Someone, say at an Ohio State, looks out over the 5 am crowd filling the tailgate lots, sees the sea of Scarlet & Gray ™ and thinks – everyone wants a piece of this, no matter what the price.

In the game of chicken with the cable companies, who had better not plead poverty or whine about price gouging (see entry Houses, Glass), both sides seem to think that in the end, we’ll pay a bunch extra to see all the games the Buckeyes play.
Not to be disrespectful of the religion of others, but they may not be that popular.

I’ve been out to stores and on the roads and even in non-sports bar restaurants during fairly major games (no, not Michigan or bowls, c’mon), and life has been going on without let up. No tumbleweeds down Main Street, no crickets in the big box stores, but shiny, happy people going about their business without regard to a football and young men in silver helmets.

Could they put the BigTen Network on premium, and have many fewer people end up caring? Is part of the appeal of “Buckeye Nation” the fact that it was an “everyman” (and some women) kind of experience, and you might have to check three or four different channels, but down in the basement workshop or up in the family room you could have the game on while, gosh, doing other things.

If it has to cost a bunch, however delivered or offered or extorted, I think a significant chunk of central Ohio will slowly, steadily, move on to other pastimes and interests for their Saturday afternoons.

The NFL tried a stunt like this, and found that people just shrugged, didn’t order up the “Obsessive Football Fanatic Channel” in the numbers they thought, and just changed channels to NASCAR. Could this happen to Ohio State?

Me, I’ll be enjoying the fall air this Saturday afternoon. Hope the Bucks win, but I’ll be content with checking the score on-line in the evening, after lighting a nice warm fire.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; contact him at knapsack77@gmail.com.