"An Eagles Nest, Gyros & the 12% Chance I’m Alive” The Last Week of June
Gathering 10 curious, the heartfelt and the beautifully random experiences. Curated & Shared Weekly by Julie Jordan Scott, the Creative Life Midwife.
Welcome to the first edition of a new weekly series where I share 10 curious facts, unexpected lessons, and tender synchronicities from my wanderings and wonderings.
This week we will meander from eating gyros at a picnic table before a James Taylor concert to spotting an eagle’s nest on the Cuyahoga River plus a startling statistic about my odds of even existing, I’m inviting you into a collection of true things- fun facts - I wouldn’t know if I had not been alert to life as I lived it.
Altoona, Pennsylvania was once considered the Railroad Capital of the World. It also has my new favorite museum, “Railroaders Memorial Museum”
Eastern Ohio has some breathtakingly beautiful spaces, places and people. My guess is most people who haven’t been to Ohio have no idea of this beauty.
3.According to Fabrice Sargeant with Bandsintown.com, 33% of rock fans would go to a concert alone. 13% of alternative fans would go alone and 10% of country fans would go alone.
I wonder what the percentages would be by age? So many people at the James Taylor concert said to me, “You’re here alone?” and when I said yes, they said “You’re brave!” I heard this over and over again. This may be because the restaurant I had found to go to was actually a butcher shop, so I waited until I was at the Blossom Music Center and got a gyro and iced tea instead. I sat at a picnic table and wound up hanging out with an assortment of brand new temporary best friends.
Continuing with the Fabrice Sergeant thread is a quote: “Being a fan is being alive, period. Fans needed to reconnect with their favourite artists regardless of the social experience.”
Naturally, like everything else, synchronicity was once again my friend. When I went to see James Taylor in concert last week for the first time in more than three decades, I went alone. I traveled from New Jersey to the Blossom Music Center in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. The person who sat next to me at the concert was also there by herself. Two James Taylor fans, separately together enjoying the concert. Perfection.
People, in general, could all benefit from learning to be better communicators (me included).
The majority of the people you meet want to help you if you arrive in their presence with a problem you need to solve. You simply need to let them know you have a problem. (See #4)
People get very enthusiastic when you are willing to help them. They may ask to take a selfie with you. The best response to a selfie request is to say “YES!” enthusiastically, even if you feel like you look lousy. It will make the other person even happier that you were their friend for five minutes of their life. “Remember that lady at Hocking Hills State Park? She was the best!”
Morgantown, West Virginia was where Don Knotts got his start. They even have a statue of him by the theater where he once performed his ventriloquist act. (He didn’t mind when I took a selfie with him.)
I knew nothing about Morgantown, WV when I chose to stay there overnight. I found a lot of interesting things to do including spending time with Don Knotts. Such a surprise! 8.Ohio has a lot of places that end with “ville” including the town where my maternal Grandfather was born: Zanesville. Interestingly enough, Zanesville was named after its founder, Ebenezer Zane, an ancestor of Zane Grey on his mother's side. Grey was inspired by his ancestors like Ebenezer who established what is now Zane's Trace and Betty Zane, the subject of his first novel which was also named for her. Synchronistically, Zane Grey also lived not far from me in Lackawaxen, Pennsylvania. This is the home where Zane Grey’s professional writing career got its start.
At one time, Ohio’s Cuyahoga River was so polluted, it would routinely catch on fire. Now, it is making a comeback thanks to the founding of the EPA and the Clean Water Act. This week I saw an enormous Eagles nest on the banks of the Cuyahoga River and last fall, a team of conservationists released a few dozen lake sturgeon into the Cuyahoga River. Incredible.
The river was quite muddy when I was there because of recent rain. It was, however, teeming with life. 10.A poetry prompt nudged me to imagine alternate versions of my life—those quiet “what ifs” that change everything. In the process, I learned I only had a 12% chance of being conceived. This also means the odds were 88% odds that I wouldn’t be here. And yet, here I am. Proof I was a scrappy, wildly improbable, and relentlessly full of hope zygote and will most likely continue this way until the end of my days.
Thanks for reading the first installment of this new weekly feature. I’ll be back next week with more things I didn’t expect to learn but am so glad I did.
Have a fun fact of your own? Hit reply or leave a comment—I’d love to hear it.