A reminder to all of you book lovers and readers out there: the Ohioana Book Festival is today, at the Fort Hayes Metropolitan Education Center, downtown.
The Ohioana Book Festival is free, easy to reach, and open to the public. Parking is free, too.
It is one of the great, yet perhaps underappreciated, things about living in America — our country and our communities are chock full of civic organizations that put on street fairs, speeches, church festivals, neighborhood bazaars, and other activities that don’t cost a cent and are open to whoever would like to come. The events tend to be put on by charitable groups and hard-working volunteers who support what the groups are doing. They are the kind of quirky, non-cookie cutter activities that can give a weekend more flavor, introduce us to new friends, and draw communities closer together.
We’re lucky to have interesting events that are free and open to the public. And speaking of which — the doors to the Book Festival open at 9:45, with panel discussions, a book fair, author signings, and other activities continuing throughout the day.
It’s like old times — or, at least, it’s like the run-up to the 2012 election, when the President and Mitt Romney and Joe Biden and Paul Ryan and their minions seemingly were somewhere in Ohio every day. Since then, Ohio has dropped off the political map a bit, and that is fine by me. It’s been nice to return to our daily lives and get to the point where a visit by the President is once again a big deal, rather than a tiresome cause of another pre-election traffic snarl.
It was an exciting season for the Blue Jackets, and even non-hockey fans like me had to appreciate this team that wouldn’t quit and ended the season playing as well as anybody in the NHL. Still, I’m not much for moral victories. The fact remains that the CBJ didn’t quite play well enough to make the playoffs, and that is the bottom line.
This year, no one except the most ardent fan had any reason to expect anything different. The Blue Jackets had traded their best player, Rick Nash, and had a grab bag roster. But the team has jelled under the stewardship of coach Todd Richards and has a hot goaltender, Sergei Bobrovsky, who has instilled confidence in his teammates. To the delight of fans, the team has been terrific in April and has been especially good on its current west coast road trip, on which the Blue Jackets have won four out of five games. With 
