CBF Morning Run: What you need to know today and watching Buckeyes behaving badly

Courtesy of Columbus Business First
By Regan Olvey
April 20, 2021

Happy Tuesday morning, Columbus.

Look, I am a proud graduate of Ohio State, where my father taught for decades and three of my siblings got their degrees, too.

It is a fine school.

But there are days when some students there make it hard for me to call it my alma mater. For more, see The Last Word.

Here’s what else you need to know today:

Promising new initiative
A partnership between the Columbus Urban League and the Columbus Chamber aims to boost sales at Black-owned businesses by $1 million. Here’s how they plan to do it.

Restaurant confidence grows
About 60% of restaurants in the Ohio Restaurant Association’s regular survey expect to break even in 2020. Here is a breakdown of the latest responses from restaurant owners.

Newsmakers: Harley Blakeman

Blakeman’s LinkedIn profile is one of a kind. The founder of Columbus tech company Honest Jobs LLC lists one prior job and the book he wrote, then drops this attention grabber: “Drug dealer, January 2009 – November 2010.” Here’s how he turned his life around and aims to do the same for others.

Open in Atlanta
Real estate broker and developer Equity LLC is adding a new office in the Peach State, hoping to break into the ongoing business and development surge there. Here are the details.

This Day in History

1836, a big day in the future of dairy-state cheese, cheeseheads and those squeaky little curds that you can’t stop eating.

On this day, the territory of Wisconsin was created.

And it would only take another 12 years before the territory gained statehood, an event that was celebrated by rolling gigantic wheels of cheddar, Swiss and Muenster from one end of the state to the other.

Of course, those giant wheels were turned into the famous bubbling fondue pits of Sheboygan.

(I only added that because Sheboygan is one of the most satisfying words to utter in the English language.)

1912, a big day in new ballparks.

On this day, both Fenway Park and Tiger Stadium hosted their first baseball games.

The Red Sox beat the New York Highlanders 7-6 and Detroit beat Cleveland 6-5.

Of course, only one of these shrines to baseball still stands. Tiger Stadium came down in 1999.

1961, a big day in personal rocketry.

On this day, Harold Graham became the first person to test pilot a rocket backpack for Bell Aerosystems.

He went on to test pilot 36 tethered flights and 87 free flights.

And just like that, everyone on Earth figured it would just be a matter of time before all of us were zipping around using rocket packs.

Sigh. And by the way, where in Icarus’ name is my flying car?

Let There Be Songs To Fill The Air

Let’s lament the fact that we’re not all jet-packing around with a song that perfectly captures this theme: Expecting to Fly by Buffalo Springfield.

“There you stood on the edge of your feather,

“Expecting to fly.

“While I laughed, I wondered whether,

“I could wave goodbye.

“Knowin’ that you’d gone, by the summer it was healing.”We had said goodbye.

“All the years we’d spent with feeling,

“Ended with a cry.

“Babe, ended with a cry. Babe, ended with a cry.”Weather Report Suite

Ooh. Another warm day. How long will this last?

Look for a high of 67 degrees today, mostly cloudy skies and a 20% chance of rain.

For more on your daily and weeklong forecast, check out NBC4, where the weather experts know whether it will snow this week.

Please say it won’t. I mean it. Really.

The Last Word

For the past year, most of the people I know have stayed at home.

And when they do venture out, they wear a mask and do everything they can to maintain the proper social distancing.

Me? I haven’t eaten inside a restaurant for more than a year. I haven’t flown. I haven’t been to a wedding, a party or even a cookout with more than four people. I haven’t seen my mom in Tucson or my brother or sisters in New Mexico, Washington State, Colorado, Wisconsin or Arizona.

I avoid crowded parks, stores and shopping centers. I wear two masks.

Why? Because I don’t want to get Covid-19, or worse, give it to someone else.

I couldn’t live with myself if I was responsible for someone’s illness or, God forbid, hospitalization or death.

That’s too much.

So we listen to the scientists and doctors, play it safe and stay isolated. We follow the mandates and restrictions, hope for the best and pray things will get better soon.

Sure, it’s been a terrible year. No one wants to be cooped up and away from friends and family. But it is the right thing to do. It just is.

So when I saw the images from the Ohio State University campus area over the weekend, I was livid.

Some 1,000-plus people packed into the block of Chittenden Avenue between North High and Summit streets for the annual “ChittFest” party that commemorates the OSU spring football game.

I was speechless.

And then I was angry.

The images showed an orgy of mask-less kids ignoring anything that resembled safety protocols, dancing around like it was 2019 the Buckeyes had just won a huge game.

And some of these morons had to go the extra mile, flipping cars and damaging property. You know, a bit of spite icing on an already ugly cake.

The police didn’t stop this, and you have to wonder what the response would have been like if this was a Black Lives Matter protest. My guess is that there would have been tear gas and arrests, in the least.

Yeah, I get it Joe Buckeye. It’s not fair. Your social life sucks. You can’t party. You can’t dance in clubs and drink with your buddies in crowded bars. And you have to wear a mask and follow way too many rules that kill your college buzz.

You know what? I don’t feel sorry for you in the least. In fact, it’s stupid stunts like that that will prolong this pandemic hell for everyone else.

It will hurt the shops and restaurants desperate for loosening restrictions, put more people at risk of infection and, God forbid, put someone in the hospital or grave.

If I was in charge of the university, I would track you down, toss you out of school and send you packing for home, where your parents can deal with you.

As your mom or dad might say, I’m not mad, I’m disappointed.

No. Strike that. I’m mad as hell, too.

Have a safe and terrific Tuesday.

Download Article Here