A Visit To Lake Hope

Today I drove the hour and a half to Lake Hope State Park. It is a small lake within a state forest nestled in the hills of southern Ohio not far from the tiny town of MacArthur. Over the last ten years or so I have visited Lake Hope about every other summer. When I was between the ages of 10 to about 15, our family drove from Columbus the 80 miles to Lake Hope perhaps three or four times. The lake now holds sentimental value for me. In fact, I have paid a call on Lake Hope more times out of pure nostalgia than I did as a kid sitting in the family station wagon. That doesn't seem quite rational but I guess there is nothing wrong with it.

Back in the early to mid 60s when our family would go to Lake Hope, my three sisters and I would play around in the water and do silly jumps off of the two diving boards located at the end of a wooden pier that extended about hundred feet out into the lake. Usually sometime during the afternoon we would meander to the snack bar and get hamburgers, potato chips, and a Coke. Once my dad and I rented a row boat and some fishing gear. We ventured out onto the lake for some fishing. I remember catching a little blue gill.

The snack bar

I'm not sure why I am so sentimental for Lake Hope, but I have my theories. During that period of my childhood I was not a kid who enjoyed sitting still. Consequently, I would occasionally get into trouble, almost always for minor kids' stuff like ripping a pair of pants or perhaps just getting dirty. This was true especially in the summer. The other three-fourths of the year I was in school, where I was pretty much an abject failure. A trip to Lake Hope meant that I would not have to worry about wear-and-tear on my pants, or altercations with dirt, or bad grades in school. Giving it a little thought, it is no wonder I reflect fondly on Lake Hope.

Unfortunately Lake Hope, specifically the beach/swimming area, is not exactly as it once was those fifty years ago. There are no longer diving boards at the end of a wooden pier. There is no longer a pier. And I don't think there is any spot in the confined swimming area that is deep enough to do any actual swimming. But the boat house is still there, and the little snack bar remains there too, although the best a patron can do is the purchase a lukewarm hotdog. But through all the years and all the changes, the laughter of kids can still be heard, and that's a wonderful thing. I know it's wonderful; I once helped provide it.



 

Sporting Entertainment; Jim Style

To one degree or another I have been interested in sports my whole life. When I was playing Little League baseball or playing backyard wiffleball, I would pretend I was Mickey Mantle. All through childhood, and even into early adulthood I would dream of playing one of the "big three" professional sports, the big three being baseball, basketball, and football. Up until I was about 14, I actually had some hope I could make the grade. Reality, that is; the limits of my athletic talent, did not hit me all at once. I gradually figured it out simply by the observation of bigger, faster, stronger kids.

My enthusiasm as a sports fan peaked fairly early. I was a big Washington Redskin fan when I was about 18 or so. That was about as fervent as I ever got for one sports team. That did not last long. By the time I was in my mid 20s I did not know who was on the Redskin's roster. I was a Cleveland Indians fan when I was in my early 20s but my interest in that team never matched what I had felt for the Redskins. It is pure coincidence that the mascots and logos of both teams denigrate the American Indian. Hopefully that denigration will someday be rectified.

For some unknown reason I then went decades relatively indifferent to professional sports. I would watch sports, but passively. As a Columbus, Ohio resident, a bit of spirit was reborn with the debut of the Blue Jackets NHL hockey team. I never played hockey and can barely skate, but I have been a mid-level hockey fan since my teenage years when an NHL game was broadcast on TV every Saturday throughout the winter.

I don't mean to blow my own horn, at least I don't mean to blow it too loudly, but I consider myself a very good sports analyst. I will often forgo the audio portion of a game's broadcast, particularly if I consider one of the announcers annoying. I find I don't need the commentary. I can do just fine on my own. Sometimes I will be watching a Blue Jackets game on television and I'll see an illegal play, and the subsequent penalty being called, ten seconds before the commentators see it, or mention it. "Hey you guys, the referee just called a penalty," I'll mutter at the television. The announcers never seem to hear me. That's okay, I often have them on "mute" too. When you have more experience watching sports than the commentators do, you can do that.

For the last ten years or so I have been oddly bothered by the imperfection of many sports. I'm referring to the sport itself and not the players. The biggest problem is that human eyes, specifically the human eyes in umpires and referees, are not good enough to accurately officiate the action in many sports. I will see a ref make a questionable call in a basketball game, a call that likely alters the game by at least two points, and I'll think; let's see if the game ends with a two point differential, making that call game-altering.

I guess the umpiring and refereeing can't be that flawed. If it were, I would have been a professional athlete, and not just dreamed of it.