Veteran’s Glass City Skyway Dedication Ceremony…
Despite some qualms in reading how things were going to be done, Miguel and I headed off this morning to see the new bridge and to be able to attend the Dedication Ceremony. When we pulled into the parking lot of the Sports Arena we were asked by a representative of ODOT if we would be interested in being flag volunteers. Our decision to say yes, I think made today’s experience the amazing one it was. One of the bus driver’s informed us that TARTA did not want the runs today, so Washington Local Schools and Oregon City School buses and bus drivers were the ones running the transport runs from the Sports Arena and Front street to the bridge and back.
The view is impossible to describe, and since pedestrians are not allowed on the bridge, today was one of the few days for people to actually have the chance to see up close and at their leisure the full impact of the bridge. We ended up behind the speaking area because that’s where one of the largest American flags ever was to be held by veterans, their spouses and volunteers and a very large flag for the State of Ohio as well would be held by another group. The number of elected officials was as expected rather large. It appeared a majority of them arrived in Lucas County Sheriff RV type vehicle. Governor Strickland arrived in his black SUV and he along with Peter Ujvagi, Marcy Kaptur, Teresa Fedor, Lt. Governor Lee Fisher and Mayor Carty Finkbeiner walked down the line of volunteers to meet and greet.
Then the huge flag was unfurled, as it was unwrapped volunteers were needed to go under the flag to ensure it did not touch the ground. The first two volunteers to take on that task were Marty Skeldon and Miguel, a few others joined them. Lisa Sobecki is a veteran as well as Marty, she was also one of the volunteers there today holding the flag. You’ll see when you view the video how large the flag was as well as what it looked like from Miguel’s viewpoint. Herb Shanahan was selected to sing the National anthem, and there were quite a few speeches. Jesse Gannon was there to represent Sherrod Brown, he did a great job (Hi Jesse!). I’d have to say that the best speech was the one given by Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur, and Oregon’s Mayor Marge Brown had people laughing when she told our elected state officials to keep sending money this way.
The most emotional moment was when the families of the five men who were killed during the construction of the bridge were called up on the stage with Amazing Grace being played by bagpipes and drums. (I’m not sure if it was the Toledo or the Fire Department band we couldn’t see only hear at that point of the ceremony.)
Then the official ribbon cutting aspect, then the race/walk began and we wandered around a bit with Miguel taking some more pictures until we decided to walk down to where the bus pick up was supposed to be. I saw so many people it would be hard to list them all, even some of the recall Carty bunch was there, deciding to place themselves near the front, I’m guessing in the hopes that media filming or photographing those giving speeches would see the three or four of them that I could see from where we were at.
It was hard not to feel a great deal of pride in the fact that this bridge could make a difference in economic development as the best outcome and as the very least outcome make life much easier for those who used to have to wait for the Craig bridge. The volunteers I was lucky to be with were awesome, and standing there with them made the experience a much richer one for me than had I just been out in the audience.
It was really hard to gauge how many people were there from our viewpoint. I don’t think it came close to the 20,000 that were expected and it went fairly well, transportation to the bridge seemed to go very smoothly. There was warm bottled water and this Special K protein drink available for free for those attending and they did move several port a lets on to the bridge, though they were only letting people who had a badge use the ones on the side we were on (which wasn’t a problem, people just let others borrow the badge so they didn’t have to walk all the way to the other side and wait.) Transportation from the bridge was another issue, a few people were not happy and the lines were kind of long. Since we were flag volunteers we were put back on the same bus that took us and I was happy to see Judge Michael Goulding was on the bus so we had a nice chat as we were being taken back to the Sports Arena.
The pictures are without captions though for those of you concerned Miguel didn’t find plants or flowers? He did…There were too many photos I wanted to share so I opted to include more photos and no captions and still wasn’t able to include all of the pictures taken but enough to have you share some of today’s experiences. This video/slideshow is a little over 6 minutes long and the song choice was mine.
I was there at 1:30 PM with my wife Xiaoyu and my nephew. The lines were still quite long to get on the buses, but the wait was reasonable. I did hear some people complain they stopped the buses during dedication. One guy said he went to the docks to have lunch. I also saw the walkers start over the bridge and they were a large group. As our bus was waiting to drop us off, a trooper cautioned everyone to stay away from the edges. Apparently someone held their kid over the side to take photos this morning.
Overall I had a positive experience and while I had to wait, the waits were reasonable. Weather was great, even at 2 PM.
June 23rd, 2007 at 5:51 pmWe left right before you got there, we got to the Sports Arena this morning about 8:30. Did you notice the drainage holes for water? Now those were a bit unsettling to look through for me.
June 23rd, 2007 at 5:56 pmI did not attend this morning, but will be downtown this evening. Know of any good bars downtown where we’ll get a good view of the light show?
June 23rd, 2007 at 7:22 pmProbably 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.
June 23rd, 2007 at 7:32 pmYes, 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.
June 23rd, 2007 at 8:51 pmHow 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.
June 23rd, 2007 at 9:53 pmThank 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!
June 23rd, 2007 at 10:00 pmThanks 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.
June 23rd, 2007 at 10:25 pmChris, thanks, Miguel said I was a baby but seeing holes like that straight down….
June 23rd, 2007 at 10:26 pmI 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.
June 24th, 2007 at 12:42 pmI’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.
June 24th, 2007 at 12:56 pm[...] 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. [...]
June 25th, 2007 at 9:54 pmWell, 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/
June 25th, 2007 at 10:26 pm