Reflections Archives - The Log Online

Remarks for the Riverside High School Hall of Fame Banquet

July 1, 2022July 1, 2022 Staff

Guest Author: Dr. Peter A. Lillback ’70 Editor’s Note: Because Peter Lillback was unable to attend the Hall of Fame ceremony, the Log is providing his speech below. Since his family and friends might not have attended the ceremony, the Log editors, along with Hall of Fame Committee Chair Marijane Watson, feel people should have the opportunity to appreciate Peter’s thoughts. Fellow alumni, administrators and friends of Riverside High School: I am grateful and deeply honored by the opportunity to address you at this auspicious occasion. Congratulations to all as you…

Search and Rescue Dogs Serve Community Part 1

July 1, 2022October 1, 2022 Staff

Guest Author: Debbie Sorber Rosch ’80 (Hall of Fame 2019) On a glorious Sunday morning in May 2022, several members of Burning River K9 Search and Rescue met at Pheasant Run Airport in Leroy, Ohio, to train search dogs. One of our teams, John Swaney and K9 Hogan, were also attempting to earn certification from the National Association of Search and Rescue (NASAR) in live find area search. Other team members would have different training objectives. Sheila Hullihen, RHS class of 1978, would be serving as Hogan’s search subject, hiding…

Revisiting “The ’22 Winter of Our Discontent”

April 1, 2022July 1, 2022 Gretchen Reed

(with apologies to John Steinbeck) A recent comic strip, “B.C.” by Mastronianni & Hart, used extreme anachronisms to produce humor during the 2022 January “snow event” in the northeastern United States. The strip’s only character was Grog, who is always portrayed as a ball of hair sitting on top of two skinny legs and having a large nose and rudimentary arms. Grog was looking at Wiley’s dictionary searching for the word “dusting.” The definition was “What people in Buffalo call snowfall that everyone else would call a blizzard.” If this…

Heroes of the Pandemic

April 1, 2022April 1, 2022 Karen Holp

For the past two winters, which coincide with the two worst COVID-19 surges in Ohio, I have comfortably lived inside my house. Here, I listened to the wind howl, the snow driven to the ground, and knew there was nowhere to go, people to talk to only over the phone or on Zoom, and thought about how I was warm, not hungry, had the internet and TV, and was safe here in my house. Not only safe from the storm, but safe from the virus. Living alone, keeping the house…

One Photo, One Painting, Multiple Coincidences

January 1, 2022January 1, 2022 Gretchen Reed

For many years I had a photo of a pretty blonde young woman in an ornate frame in my attic: my paternal aunt. I also had an oil painting that had hung in my aunt’s home; my father and I retrieved it when he was executor of her estate. I moved the painting to various places around my house, but only recently did the photo and the painting become the center of a remarkable set of events that started when I was a child and have just recently surfaced through…

Childhood Bliss

October 1, 2021December 26, 2021 Gretchen Reed

Summer days filled with walks through fields of roses with their wonderful fragrance and myriads of color were only part of my childhood memories. My parents had lived in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, when I was born but seemed to be on a quest to move farther east starting when I was a baby. They left Cleveland to move first to the south of Willoughby; but when I was almost five, they bought seven acres in east Mentor and built a house in what was then a rural area. Proof of…

Through the Eyes of Children: Beautiful Ohio: Marietta Marano Lipps

July 1, 2021September 30, 2021 Gretchen Reed

Guest Author: Marietta Marano Lipps Introduction and Afterword by Gretchen Reed Gretchen: Imagine four children ages, 12 – 4, who had spent their entire lives as residents of Las Vegas, now living in Northeast Ohio. On April 21 they awakened to a “fairyland” snow of about 5 inches. The evening had been wind- free, and the snow had built up on tree branches and caused many fallen limbs and drooping shrubs in the area. Throughout March these children had enjoyed an unusually warm, sunny month at the home of their…

Saving Memories: Skip Cohen ’67

July 1, 2021October 1, 2021 Karen Holp

Guest Author: Skip Cohen ‘67 “This is what I like about photographs. They’re proof that once, even if just for a heartbeat, everything was perfect.” Jodi Picoult I’ve been active in the photographic industry my entire adult life, which kind of makes me a one-trick pony when it comes to career paths. But there’s that old line about if you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life. Well, that describes my career and the incredible experiences I’ve had over the years in photography. When the pandemic hit, photographs…