Comments on: Veteran’s Glass City Skyway Dedication Ceremony…

By: Craig

Craig — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 02:26:25 +0000

Well, you can see the pingback above, but here’s the link to my rendition of the day’s events.

http://ideatreks.wordpress.com/2007/06/25/veterans-glass-city-skyway-dedication/

By: Veterans’ Glass City Skyway Dedication « Idea Treks…The Journey of a Thought

Tue, 26 Jun 2007 01:54:51 +0000

[...] This group of volunteers held the American flag as a backdrop for the ceremony. There was a group on the other side holding a giant Ohio flag as well. Two of the volunteers were GlassCityJungle.com’s very own Lisa and Miguel. The ceremony was very nice. There were lots of publoc officials in attendance of course and each one had a chance to speak to the gathered (and captive-because the busses stopped for 2 hours) audience. Among the notable were Gov. Ted Strickland, Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher, U.S. Sen. George Voinovich and U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur. The local state senators, county commissioners and mayors of Toledo and Oregon as well as ODOT officials were there as well. Each took a few moments to speak and unless I misinterpreted the amount of time he spoke, Gov. Strickland only took up about 3-4 minutes of time. He certainly could have talked for much, much longer but he gained admiration from me for keeping it short. At one point they had the families of the five workers who were killed during construction of the bridge come onto the stage and release white doves in remembrance of their loved ones. This was accompanied by bagpipes and I’ll be darned if I didn’t tear up a bit. I feel for the spouses of course, but it’s always the thought (and sight) of children that lost their dads that makes me sad. Here’s the governor as he gave the local media an interview (I assume they were only allowing questions about the bridge and not about the missing data on thousands of Ohioans.) Here’s Toledo Mayor Carty Finkbeiner signing autographs for his citizens. There were quite a few volunteers for RecallCarty.com on the bridge gathering signatures on petitions and handing out (or selling, I dunno) t-shirts bearing the RecallCarty logo, do you suppose he signed any programs for someone wearingone of those shirts? ~ Here are Carty, U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur, Ohio State Rep. Peter Ujvagi and Oregon Mayor Marge Brown signing programs. Ohio State Senator Teresa Fedor’s back is turned, she’s wearing the tan suit behind Mayor Brown. And lastly here are Mayor Brown and Rep. Ujvagi cutting apart pieces of ribbon to distruibute to the guests that bore witness to the dedication ceremony of this grand bridge. If you are further interested in the details of the day, here is how The Blade covered the story. [...]

By: LisaRenee

LisaRenee — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 16:56:36 +0000

I’m sorry that we didn’t connect and I’m looking forward to seeing your pictures. I didn’t see the doves released from where I was at that point in time, but that sounds awesome and I was choking up just from what I could hear, so I can imagine how it would have affected me had I been able to see that.

By: Craig

Craig — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 16:42:29 +0000

I headed off to the ceremony as well and got on the bridge around 10am or so. I was actually going to take some pics and then grab a bus off the bridge before the ceremony started / busses stopped. But I stayed and it was an enjoyable time. I was pretty impressed that Gov. Strickland seemed to speak for only 2-3 minutes when he certainly could have had that microphone much longer. (Most of the other dignitaries, of course, took the “normal” time.) And I’ll be damned that I didn’t tear up a little when the familes of the workers that died went on stage to release the white doves. The bagpipes were playing and I got a little emotional. I feel for the spouses of course but it’s always the sight of children that lost a father due to an accident (be it construction, fire or war) that really makes me sad.

I took a ton of pics and I’ll have some on my blog hopefully sometime tomorrow night.

I was on the “special” side too Lisa.

By: LisaRenee

LisaRenee — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 02:26:26 +0000

Chris, thanks, Miguel said I was a baby but seeing holes like that straight down….

By: LisaRenee

LisaRenee — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 02:25:39 +0000

Thanks Jill, it was a huge project, they say the largest ODOT has ever done. Holly, it would have been cool to have had you there too, we could have had fun making the flag wave.

By: Holly

Holly — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 02:00:30 +0000

Thank you for the show Lisa, at least I was able to experience it through you. I wanted to be there so bad, but we were needed elsewhere. Looks like it was a wonderful event and I’m glad you were able to go!

By: Jill

Jill — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 01:53:39 +0000

How lovely. I just spent 10-15 mins. watching and then educating myself on the bridge and project. Congratulations. It sure would be nice to see the Cleveland area be able to move forward with its ODOT plans if the end results will bring folks together as it looks like you had happen.

By: Chris Myers

Chris Myers — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 00:51:56 +0000

Yes, the water drainage holes were well noted (yikes) as was the view rom the bus as we went up the ramp. We parked at the Front street casting yard.

By: LisaRenee

LisaRenee — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 23:32:55 +0000

Probably the Docks would be your best bet. We’re going back down to watch the light show but not sure where we are going to park yet. I don’t know if we’ll be able to park at the Marina or not.