Blossoming Spring
Athens’ Sakura Festival celebrates the blooming of the cherry blossoms and the blending of cultures
By: Mary Reed
One day in the spring of 2002, professor Hiroyuki Oshita (Hiro) was sitting in his office in the linguistics department at Ohio University. His daughter wanted to have a picnic, so they grabbed lunch and went down to a pretty spot along the Hocking River, where Hiro had seen some trees in bloom. To his surprise and delight, the trees were Japanese cherry trees, known as sakura. “I didn’t know about (the sakura trees), and I wondered how many people knew about them, so I came up with the idea of the Sakura Festival.”
The festival is held at Baker Center on the Athens campus and celebrates a combining of cultures along with the beautiful trees. Find out all of the details (including information about the trees being lit at night) in the current issue of Over the Back Fence.
Cincinnati celebrates baseball’s opening day with the Reds.
By: Alison Bour
A city that gave the world its first all-professional baseball team can’t plan just any old opening day festivities. And Cincinnati doesn’t.
On Monday, April 5th, the organized chaos will begin: marching bands will line up in formation, last-minute finishing touches will be put on floats, streets will be closed, and the stadium will be prepped for the tens of thousands of fans lucky enough to get seats. People will take off work and some kids will even skip school (don’t tell anyone that part).
Why all the excitement? “It’s tradition,” says Ed McMasters, marketing manager for CincinnatiUSA.com (Regional Tourism Network). “Reds’ fans are die-hards. Other cities are overwhelmed by the atmosphere here in Cincinnati centered around opening day.” The March/April issue highlights the history of the Reds’ opening day celebrations and how you can be a part of the action.
Pick up a copy of Over the Back Fence to get the whole story.