Category: Western Ohio

Placed by Cache Owner Ray_and_Dog just two years ago, we will look high and low for Riverside Police & Firefighter Memorial.

Breathing deeply the tang of early fall, we hop on the south outerbelt and I-70 West, hoping for blue sky out there somewhere.

These skeletons gaze down as we pass. Now marking vast areas of territory, the cell tower empowers global shopping, watching, talking, listening, consulting, learning, commenting, gaming, and blogging. At one and the same time, by scrutinizing individual thoughts, feelings, and beliefs on countless platforms, surveillance capitalism strives to dictate consumer behavior .

Beside us, truckers are trucking. Ever indebted to these Knights of the Lonesome Highway, who transport civilization day and night, we glide along beside them and hop off at Dayton.

Our geotrail leads through the US Air Force Museum, where the first motor-powered flight has hatched incalculable fleets of airborne machines.

Adding bombs to airplanes allowed far-flung campaigns throughout two global wars.

Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles created a manufacturing and cyber bonanza in the business of warcraft. Satellites took the stage as the newest covert agents, weaving an interstellar web of scrutiny.

Upon retirement from their momentous journeys across the skies, the presidential planes rest here. Along with the Oval Office, Air Force One reigns supreme as keeper of the succession of Presidents.

We stand on the spot where Kennedy’s casket rested and Johnson was sworn in. Where Nixon, Ford and Carter traveled together to Egypt. Since Number 1, American presidents have risen and fallen, determined to share power among those who could win it, rather than yield to a monarch who reigned supreme through right of birth.

We retrace our path through neatly labeled epitaphs of millions of lives lost.

Nodding to the past and future, we get back on the trail.

Bench, says the hint. This park has a lot of benches. One ponders where to begin.

Then whether to run fingers through cobwebs, nesting bees or worse.

Tricky.

With gratitude, we realize this memorial park is next door to the Riverside EMS, and those who will clean up our worst messes and mistakes today.