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Toledoan killed in possible hit-and-run in Kansas

By
Brigitta Burks
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At about 5:25 a.m. Aug. 25, Cynthia Weaver got a phone call, her caller ID displaying her son’s name “Bradey.” But the voice that answered the phone wasn’t her 28-year-old son’s. 

“It was a police officer at the other end of the line,” Cynthia said. A couple hours earlier, Bradey Allen Weaver, a Toledo resident, had been involved in an accident while riding his motorcycle on Interstate 70, about 13 miles east of Junction City, Kan.  

The officer didn’t know the extent of Bradey’s injuries at the time and told Cynthia to stay close to the phone. About 45 minutes later, she got a call from an ER doctor at Geary Community Hospital telling her that her son had died. 

Bradey Weaver

“This my second child that I lost. I lost Bradey’s sister nine days after Sept. 11. I’m just in disbelief. I fell to the floor [when I found out]. There’s no preparing for the first one, let alone the second,” Cynthia said. 

The Geary County Sheriff’s Department had responded to the accident, but due to heavy rainfall, officials weren’t able to determine an accident cause right away, said Lt. Barbara Smith. 

However, on Aug. 28, a representative from the sheriff’s department confirmed that the accident is being investigated as a possible hit and run. There are indicators that Bradey was struck by another vehicle from behind. He had been on the way to Las Vegas for a friend’s birthday. 

“I’m just stunned and in disbelief that there could be people who are so callous and disregarding,” said Randie Weaver Pearson, Bradey’s older sister.  

Both Randie and Cynthia said that Bradey was passionate about his life. 

“I know that it probably sounds clichéd, but I have never met somebody who took the sentence, ‘Live life to the fullest,’ the way that kid did,” Randie said. 

“He was a free spirit, full of life; lived life on his own terms; wanted everyone around him to be happy, very happy,” Cynthia said. 

Bradey, a property manager, graduated from Sylvania Northview High School and later Bowling Green State University, where he earned a degree in psychology and a minor in English. He also served as president of the men’s chorus.  

The movie lover and history buff also spent a lot of time with friends, Cynthia said.  

 “His friends and he would make up board game and they would play all night long and that happened many, many times and will continue with the friends he had,” she said. 

Bradey was also an avid motorcyclist who enjoyed taking solo trips out west, his sister said. 

Randie recalled going camping with her grandfather and brother on their spring breaks as children. Her grandfather would let Bradey and Randie wander ahead of him while hiking so long as he could see them. Once when they were about 9 and 10 years old, they went a little too far and were lost for hours. Bradey, however, told Randie he knew where they were going. Later he confessed, “Yeah, I haven’t had a clue for the last three hours.” Luckily, they were able to find a main road. 

“To this day, I can clearly see Bradey saying the same thing to me now. If we had been out in the woods today, Bradey would pull the same crap,” Randie said with a chuckle. 

Cynthia couldn’t pick a favorite memory her son. “Every memory of Bradey is a special memory,” she said. 

Services are set for 12:30 p.m. Sept. 1, 2012, at the First United Methodist Church of Sylvania, 7000 Erie St., Sylvania. People with motorcycles are encouraged to ride them there.  

Donations for funeral costs can be made at Fifth Third Bank locations under the Memorial Fund for Bradey Allen Weaver. Donations to Life Connection of Ohio, a nonprofit administering organ donations, are also encouraged. Bradey, an organ donor, will be able to help 50 people, Cynthia said. 

Anyone with information on the accident is asked to call (785) 238-2261. 

Restaurant Week Toledo returns Feb. 21 to March 2, 2012

By
Jeff
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Restaurant Week will return to Toledo for a third course.

The event, set for Feb. 21 to March 2, will feature new venues as well as returning favorites and will be three days longer than last year, said Becca Gorman, co-chair of Restaurant Week Toledo.

“Last year’s event was an overwhelming success. We received rave reviews from restaurant owners, some of whom ran out of food due to the response from the public, and we were also pleased with the feedback from patrons,” Gorman said. “We extended the event by three days due to a large volume of requests from both restaurant owners and patrons asking for more. People were begging for more time to be able to enjoy the amazing opportunities to try new restaurants they’d never been to or to try new menu items from their favorite restaurants.”

Restaurants participating so far include Burger Bar 419, Caper’s Restaurant, Fifi’s Reprise, LaScola Italian Grill, Manhattan’s, Maumee Wines and Bistro, The Oliver House (Mutz, Maumee Bay Brew Pub, Rockwell’s and Petit Fours Patisserie and Café), Plate 21, Registry Bistro and Rosie’s Italian Grille.

“We already have 13 restaurants signed on for the event, even though it is months away,” Gorman said. “This allows us to plan and promote and prepare people for what’s coming, but it also speaks volumes about the successfulness of the event. We are thrilled that Oliver House has expanded to include all four of its restaurants this year, and that we have two brand-new restaurants signed on, Registry Bistro and Maumee Wines and Bistro.”

Each restaurant will feature a special Restaurant Week menu priced at $10, $20 or $30. (Drinks, taxes and gratuities are not included unless specified.) A portion of the proceeds will benefit local nonprofit Leadership Toledo’s youth programs.

“People can feel good about going out during Restaurant Week Toledo because they are supporting local businesses while at the same time encouraging future leaders of Toledo,” said Cory Dippold, associate executive director of Leadership Toledo.

Erika Rapp, chef and co-owner of Registry Bistro, which opened Downtown in June, said she was familiar with the Restaurant Week concept from going to culinary school in New York City and working in Dallas.

“It’s always something I’ve admired in other towns and haven’t had a chance to be involved in,” Rapp said. “It’s good exposure for the public and good exposure for us. We’re just excited to be part of it.”

Neal Kovacik, general manager of The Oliver House, said Restaurant Week Toledo has gotten better every year. This will be the third year Rockwell’s has participated and the first year for the other Oliver House venues.

“It created a lot of traffic and a lot of interest last year,” Kovacik said. “It’s a great way to highlight local restaurants and a great way to get people in that may have not tried the place before, and of course it’s for a good cause.”

Kovacik said Restaurant Week Toledo encourages area residents to patronize local eateries.

“It’s great for local restaurants,” Kovacik said. “Toledo has a lot of unique places to offer. I just think it’s good for Toledo and it’s a unique local thing.”

Toledo Free Press is a media sponsor of Restaurant Week Toledo.

For more information, visit www.restaurantweektoledo.com.

Sun Burn 4: UT, RGP, Port lead Toledo into solar’s future

By
Toledo Free Press
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A field of solar panels. Photo courtesy Regional Growth Partnership.

Lloyd A. Jacobs, the 16th president of the University of Toledo, embraces the university’s role as a community leader. Since his appointment, Jacobs said his role as a solar research, development and manufacturing advocate has not wavered. However, he said the U.S. is a much different country than when he took office in July 2006.

“The economic recession and slow recovery have created trends in the solar industry that extend far beyond our region to all corners of the globe,” Jacobs said. “Northwest Ohio and the University of Toledo are certainly not immune to economic pressures, poor solar investments and flawed policy by the federal government and a discontinuation of many of the subsidies and research programs a young industry needs to build a foundation.”

Despite those trends, Jacobs said UT’s commitment to photovoltaics (PV) is as strong as ever, and the university will continue to invest in technologies that “will be an increasingly important part of this nation’s and this planet’s energy portfolio.

“It is UT’s commitment to solar despite the ebbs and flows of society that has placed us among the best institutions in the nation in the research and advancement of solar technology. We invested in solar when the price of gas was high in the late 1970s and early 1980s. We invested in solar when gas was cheap in the early 1990s. And we will continue that commitment through the rough period the solar industry is currently experiencing.”

Jacobs said that because the past three years have been as tumultuous or higher education as they have been for all Americans, he made personal appearance decisions that he acknowledged some may have interpreted as a waning of support for solar energy research and development (R&D).

“With a weak economy comes fewer resources,” he said. “It is certainly possible that I have delegated some of the media opportunities or solar-related meetings to faculty and administrators, but that speaks to the strength of UT’s solar team, not a lack of my or the institution’s commitment. UT continues to lead and be actively engaged in solar research, commercialization and public-private partnerships.”

Competing loyalties

Jacobs refutes the suggestion that solar energy R&D has taken a back seat to the University of Toledo and Medical University of Ohio merger and UT’s resulting commitment to medical research.

The assumption “presupposes that medical research and solar research are mutually exclusive in some way. No such zero-sum framework exists,” he said. “All federal grants across all federal agencies have become much harder to obtain as federal budget cuts have occurred since 2008.”

Since the 2006 merger, Jacobs said he hears from some UT main campus employees that he is too focused on the Health Science Campus (HSC) and University of Toledo Medical Center (UTMC) matters. At the same time, Jacobs said he hears from HSC and UTMC employees that he’s left them behind and only focuses on the main campus.

“I am always working to ensure this university rises as one entity and welcome any thoughts on ways I can improve that,” he said. “But it strikes me as worth considering that the belief that I am ignoring one part of this campus over another may also speak to some degree to the interests of the person who holds that belief.”

Jacobs also rejected the suggestion that UT’s commitment to solar has wavered in the past four years, pointing to, among other things, collaborations, plans for future activities, faculty and invited guests as evidence that the university’s support of alternative energy is unquestionable.

Jacobs said UT played a large role in attracting Isofoton North America to Northwest Ohio. He pointed to UT’s plans to host a booth for the fifth straight year at the upcoming World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

In addition, two new solar researchers began work at UT in 2011. Yanfa Yan joined UT-PIV staff after 12 years as a thin-film solar cell scientist at the National Center for Photovoltaics. Nikolas Podraza, who received his doctorate from UT in 2008, returned to the university after three years at Penn State University’s Materials Research Institute.

And in July 2010, Sultan Al Jaber, managing director and CEO of Masdar, Abu Dhabi’s renewable energy initiative, visited UT, addressed UT-PVIC’s alternative energy researchers and received an honorary UT degree.

“UT is committed to solar, and we will maximize our opportunities to advance the solar field whether the industry is in rough patches or is ascendant,” Jacobs said. “This technology will be a key part of our future energy portfolio and UT will continue to lead in its development.”

Academic leadership

After a career at UT as a distinguished professor of public policy and economic development and the university’s 15th president from 2001-06, Dan M. Johnson returned to the university to serve as its director of global initiatives.

Johnson has been a leading voice in the past decade in support of Toledo’s solar energy R&D and manufacturing.

Johnson said he believes Northwest Ohio’s   leadership in photovoltaics at UT and the glass industry make this region the perfect location to develop the solar industry.

 

“We had a head start on the industry in many ways,” Johnson said. “Toledo had the key players involved early on. The University of Toledo researchers — a very active and respected team of researcher — were early leaders of the solar industry in the region.

“We also had the active participation of our local economic development organizations and professionals. They played their roles and, in my view, played them quite well despite major changes in their own organizations and leadership. Local government officials did what they could, largely adding their moral support and talking up Toledo’s budding solar industry. Add to that the significant infusions of venture capital, grants and loans. And, finally, there were the individual entrepreneurs and investors. All the ingredients were in place.”

Johnson said that researchers, mayors, economic development organizations and investors alone “cannot make a budding industry successful.  The key players are the industry leaders themselves. In the end, the responsibility for success is theirs.

“They must know how to use the resources at hand. Gone are the days in this highly competitive market when the individual industry can do this alone. It really requires a team effort and a willingness to collaborate, form networks, share information and work together. We seem unable to take that last step in making things happen.

American solar companies have no control over China’s dumping of solar panels on the world market or the nuances of global demand for solar panels, Johnson said.

“But, in my view, we have stopped short of doing all we can to take full advantage of the existing resources,” he said. “This requires working together. Competing? Yes. But also collaborating, sharing information and asking for help. This takes a special kind of leadership. One scholar called it ‘the silent cry for leadership.’”

Johnson used the Olympic Games, specifically the track and field events, as a timely example of how American solar companies need to approach their businesses.

“The solar industry is sort of like the relay races where the first three runners of our team are leading the pack and the last runner drops the baton,” he said. “We can’t drop the baton and expect to win.”

Research & development

As the scientific co-director of UT’s Wright Center for Photovoltaics Innovation and Commercialization (UT-PVIC), Robert Collins said he is just as concerned as his fellow researchers with recent press coverage that focuses on just one solar manufacturing company. He believes the coverage hurts all 50 companies with which UT-PVIC works. He suggested local broadcast and print media coverage of Willard & Kelsey creates collateral damage. It leads people to conclude that if one company is struggling like reports say Willard & Kelsey is, then all companies must be struggling in the same way, he said.

“We know that the broad solar industry is struggling, but I think each of the PV companies in Northwest Ohio is poised to survive this,” Collins said. “But still, we all have to work together to make sure that happens. ‘Working together’ means the companies, along with [UT-PVIC] staff and faculty experts, must apply their expertise and work toward the same goal.”

Collins said UT’s interdisciplinary team approach to problem-solving will serve UT-PVIC in its research and development over the next 10 years.

 

“Second-generation photovoltaics is our expertise, but we need to collaborate with those who are doing first-generation and third-generation PV,” he said. “There needs to be a lot of collaboration among disciplines to solve problems for the future. That was the idea behind PVIC, to get groups of faculty members working together in research and development in photovoltaics.”

Collins said UT-PVIC’s goals for the future include collaborating with existing companies, using the Wright Center’s reputation and body of work as a “gravitational field” to attract new companies, and conducting the research that generates the advances in thin film technology that ultimately lead to new companies.

‘How do we do that?’

For UT-PVIC faculty, Collins said the questions become “How do we do that?” and “How do we map our job responsibilities with what PVIC would like to do?”

“And that’s actually easy to do because our No. 1 goal is teaching,” Collins said. “We would like to provide Ohio with people with expertise in photovoltaics. We want the people who come to Ohio for their education and the people who grew up in Ohio to actually stay in Ohio long-term and work in the photovoltaics industry here.”

Collins said that although he has had some out-of-state Ph.D. graduates stay in Ohio, “That’s really what we have to be better at. I believe we’re good at it, but I also believe we need to be better in our training of students to work in Ohio industry and academia to keep Ohio strong.”

In addition to increased manpower, Collins said researchers must continue to conduct advanced research to develop technologies that can be patented or used to establish companies like Xunlight and Xunlight 26.

“In the area of new technology, Mike Heben and Randy Ellingson (UT-PVIC faculty) are really good at integrating nanotechnology concepts into what will become third-generation photovoltaics, enhancing what existing second-generation companies like First Solar do,” Collins said.

He said research can also be focused on problem-solving for companies, like developing online monitoring equipment that can be added to a production line. Collins likened his team’s current research to a grocery store bar-code scanner that identifies a product passed over an optical scanner.

“The same type of thing can be done on productions lines,” Collins said. “Before you end up actually making a module, [the production line scanner] allows you to predict whether the material is any good and whether you should shut down the line when you’re having problems. It’s a way of improving yield.”

Collins said UT-PVIC is “well along that path” of providing manpower, developing problem-solving technologies and generating new technologies for startups.

A promising new area of research is in advanced materials, Collins said, and Yan, a recent addition to the faculty, is exploring “all types of materials technology, not just the conventional ones that thin-film people currently use.

“He has some of the really advanced, novel ideas in the field. Since he’s an expert in thin-film, second-generation photovoltaics, his real goal is to put a good semiconductor on a bad substrate.”

Randy J. Ellingson

As an advocate for research that will transition today’s PV technology to “even more ideal photovoltaics materials and technologies,” Ellingson is convinced that if researchers can advance the knowledge and technology to the right level, solar manufacturing companies “will jump on that” to improve their production line processes.

“My sense is that a company like First Solar is focusing on understanding its own material and its own technology, and that it’s not able to spend the kind of resources it would like to on other technologies,” Ellingson said. “Other technologies are up to other companies, or universities, or national lab researchers, and there has been a huge growth in interest in photovoltaics in university research programs.”

Ellingson, a UT-PVIC and School for Solar and Advanced Renewable Energy faculty member and associate professor of physics, came to UT in August 2008 from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

Ellingson said he believes UT-PVIC’s research during the next 10 years will motivate universities without UT’s credentials to begin research that will further the use of photovoltaics technology in the solar manufacturing industry.

“The University of Toledo has a lot of depth and breadth in photovoltaics research,” Ellingson said. “Other universities have many instances where faculty members who have been working in some other material science area will say, ‘I’m working in photovoltaics also.’

“Many of them do very good research. It’s an example of funding focus drawing more researchers to the field, which is part of the intent when the people who decide how funding is allocated for research decide to focus on clean energy materials and technology. Their hope is that the best researchers will come to work on that.”

Richard B. Stansley Jr.

In his role as chairman of UT’s Innovative Enterprises (UT-IE), Stansley Jr. is adamant that UT-PVIC must commit itself in the next 10 years to conduct research into more than just its specialty, thin-film PV technology.

He said UT-PVIC needs to explore all the different roles first-generation (crystalline silicon), second- generation (thin-film photovoltaics) and third- generation (nanotechnology photovoltaics) technologies play in solar product manufacturing.

Since crystalline silicon technology works best in direct sunlight and is significantly impacted by heat, Stansley said its use in the American Southwest supports UT’s partnership with Isofoton NA and its first-generation technology.

Thin-film PV technology operates better in diffuse light.

“Our [technology] will produce power from dawn to dusk while crystalline silicon is probably at its best in a four-hour window,” he said.

Development: RGP

Dean Monske, president and CEO of Regional Growth Partnership (RGP), said that his agency will continue to target what the State of Ohio has identified as Northwest Ohio’s major cluster industries: alternative energy, automotive, advanced manufacturing and materials, bioscience, and transportation and integrated logistics.

“Please understand that no one industry takes precedence over the others,” Monske said. “These industries were identified because of existing strength and capacity, as well as potential for future growth.”

Monske said that when the RGP meets with site consultants and other location decision-makers, his staff “touts many advantages of doing business in Northwest Ohio, including geographic location, transportation assets, a trained and educated workforce, a great number of institutions for higher education, local and state tax climates and quality of life assets.”

When prospective alternative energy businesses make inquires into Toledo, Monske said the RGP promotes assets including “pioneering research and development; core capacity in solar panel manufacturing; solar-related components like panel installation and inverters; and venture capital and business assistance for technology startups.”

Monske said RGP’s consistent sales message, regardless of what industry it targets, is unique to Northwest Ohio.

“We are close to many customers, no matter the industry, and we possess all modes of transportation to quickly reach customers,” he said.

Development: Port Authority

Developing solar energy projects has been, and will continue to be, more and more challenging for the Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority primarily because of Ohio’s Renewable and Advanced Energy Portfolio Standard, said Paul Toth, the agency’s president and CEO.

“The issue right now is that the utilities are doing everything they can to fight having to subsidize solar,” Toth said. “It’s become a huge challenge for those of us trying to implement solar. We can’t get any type of commitment from either the state or the utilities to be able to go out and finance these installations.”

The renewable portfolio standard requires energy providers to annually buy renewable energy credits.

“The utilities have been fighting that, and frankly, there’s queasiness around those of us that have looked at financing and trying to promote the solar industry in NW Ohio;” Toth said. “At any time, the State of Ohio could say, ‘You know what? We’re just getting rid of this.’ And every one of those renewable energy credit contracts that are written say, ‘If the state gets rid of the renewable portfolio standard, this contract is null and void.’ They no longer basically owe us any money.”As a result, Toth said, utility companies always negotiate very short-term contracts, a practice he acknowledged as smart business.

‘Uneasiness’

“Frankly, the [solar] industry can survive with that. It’s the uncertainty as to whether Gov. [John] Kasich or the General Assembly could wake up tomorrow and just simply get rid of the renewable portfolio standard. That’s kind of the difficult part of being able to go out and finance solar projects,” Toth said.

Despite the political uncertainty, Toth said the Port Authority has developed and financed projects like the one-megawatt solar project at Collins Park for the City of Toledo and the financing risk for the General Motors Powertrain project.

In addition, Toth said the Port Authority has conceptualized a $15 million five-megawatt solar project at the Toledo Executive Airport in Wood County, “going as far as getting the interconnection study done with Toledo Edison and having several large development partners work with us.”

The airport project would tie into Toledo Edison’s system, Toth said.

“The challenge is getting the renewable energy credits on any kind of a long-term commitment, or even a short-term commitment, knowing that the renewable portfolio standard is going to be there for a long period of time,” he said.

“The queasiness with investing $15 million is just producing electricity and selling it does not pay for the [development and construction] costs, even though the price of panels has come down over the years.

“We can’t generate enough revenue to pay off that debt just by producing electricity at five cents a kilowatt hour. We need that renewable energy credit to pay the debt service, and the uneasiness of knowing whether it’s going to be there long-term is why these types of projects haven’t happened,” Toth said.

UT’s incubator

Universities have long been driven by the faculty’s interest in the subject matter they study, Stansley said.

“That’s been true up until 20 years ago, when universities began to see a shift that addresses how industry interfaced with the university,” Stansley said. “And that’s where UT’s Clean and Alternative Energy Incubator (UT-CAEI) comes in. It acts as a portal to UT, a place where companies can access the resources of the university.”

Stansley describes the Wright Center for Photovoltaics Innovation and Commercialization as a piece of UT-CAEI that conducts applied research. “We talk about relevance now,” he said. “We do applied research, which is very different than basic or academic research. We work on real-world problems.”

UT-CAEI’s singular focus is building new business enterprises, Stansley said.

When a project moves into the prototype phase, a function that involves Rocket Ventures, Stansley said UT-CAEI can support that business enterprise in four ways: financial access to loans and grants; academic expertise in the business’ field; establishment of a physical location in the Greater Toledo area; and access to established production processes to save a business startup costs.

Risk-taking

Stansley said UT-CAEI, a nonprofit organization, works on “institutional entrepreneurial activity. In the world of Dr. Jacobs, entrepreneurialism is very important because it allows you to be a very nimble organization.” Stansley pointed to UT-PVIC and the Interprofessional Immersive Simulation Center as two of UT-CAEI’s projects with an entrepreneurial twist.

“Dr. Jacobs’ commitment, and the university’s commitment, to solar research and development are as strong as it has ever been. What’s happened is the glamour of PV, the shine of PV, has dulled. It’s like the automobile. When the automobile was first introduced, everybody made headlines all over the place. It was going to replace the horse and buggy.

“It was 30 years later before the automobile even had an impact on it. There are comparative cycles in every industry. One time, [there were] 68 car companies in Detroit, Mich. How many are there today? Three significant car companies headquartered out of the Detroit area.

“PV is the same way. There are lots of producers, people building it all over. There’s consolidation of the marketplace. It’s going to consolidate based on technology, based on cost, based on capital of investment required. That’s what you’re going to see happen.

“In thin-film technology,  Northwest Ohio companies are the lowest cost producers of photovoltaics anywhere in the world. I don’t care who, what, where and when. The costs we have, the technologies we have, are low cost. I am confident of that.”

Coming together

“I can’t help what happens in China with their subsidies. I can’t control that. Our government has stepped in to make a difference. I don’t think it’s enough because it’s not reflective of what it takes to level that playing back to what it should be. But it is a help,” Stansley said.

“You’ll see things start to play out. It’s tough right now, but the market for PV is increasing, double digits, probably one of the only industries where we see market increases like that.

“Employment opportunities in the PV area continue to increase. And they’re not necessarily low-paying jobs.

“We worry about creating jobs. And this is very important. Wealth and prosperity are the drivers of jobs. When you start to build things, you create wealth and prosperity.

“People laugh at me and they say, ‘Well, what happened to Solyndra? Xunlight’s in the paper. Willard & Kelsey isn’t doing well.’

“These companies were undercapitalized to begin with. It’s the story of Northwest Ohio. We have a trait of undercapitalizing our opportunity, and then going out looking for money.

“We have to get our arms around it and use it as an example where we really need to step to the plate and try to help companies. I don’t know how to do it, but I think we’re doing our part in trying to build these companies from the embryonic stage, from the concept. But we can’t do it all. And there’s no single organization in the community that can do it all. What we find is ourselves coming together to figure it out.”

Toledo police officer wins ABC’s ‘Glass House’

By
Toledo Free Press
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Sgt. Kevin Braun flies high during a challenge on ABC’s ‘The Glass House.’

The mental discipline Sgt. Kevin Braun honed during more than a decade as a Toledo police officer served him well inside “The Glass House.”

The 33-year-old Walbridge resident, a 12-year veteran of the Toledo Police Department, outlasted 13 other contestants on ABC’s 10-week reality show to walk away with the $250,000 grand prize Aug. 20.

“The game was a big mental game inside that house and people were breaking at certain points. They were breaking down mentally,” Braun said in a phone interview with Toledo Free Press. “After 12 years of police work, I’ve developed mental toughness and was able to keep a level head. I didn’t get wrapped up in the drama because I’ve seen it all before. Some things that were a big deal to the people in the house weren’t a big deal to me because I’ve seen real-life drama. So definitely being a police officer was the thing that helped me most in the game.”

Six of Braun’s years on the force were spent as a detective with the vice/narcotics unit. Today, he works as a supervisor in field operations and is also working on a degree in criminal justice. Not surprisingly, Braun said the best part of being on the show was winning.

“I had myself convinced there was no way I could beat [fellow finalists] Andrea or Erica. I was mentally preparing myself to lose and then when I won, it was like an out-of-body experience,” Braun said. “I was shocked. I didn’t know what to think. It was the craziest feeling to have gone the whole journey and be the last person standing. I can’t even describe it in words.”

Braun’s sister, Alisha Urbina of Walbridge, was on the set in Los Angeles when Kevin was announced as the winner.

“When his photo remained intact we just went crazy and ran on stage,” Urbina said in an email to Toledo Free Press. “It was all so surreal.  We were so excited for him.”

One of Braun’s friends organized viewing parties every Monday night at Wesley’s Bar & Grill, said Urbina, who maintained Braun’s “Glass City Kevin” Facebook page.

 

“We usually had 40 to 50 people. However, for the finale it was standing room only and the crowd went wild!” she said.

Braun, who described himself in his online biography as someone “very competitive who hates to lose,” said that competitive drive helped him on the show.

“My whole strategy for the most part was to win the challenge every week because that was the only way to save yourself from limbo for sure,” Braun said. “I wanted to give 100 percent every challenge.”

Braun found himself in limbo once, but got enough viewer votes to stay on the show.

“It was nerve-wracking,” Braun said. “It was the first week I was on the losing team in the challenge and the other side of the house voted to put me in. They wanted to guarantee Ashley would go home and thought the best way to do that would be with me, but that being said, I was completely stressed out. You convince yourself you’re going home. I didn’t think for one minute it was going to be a cakewalk. So that was a stressful time in the house.”

The ability to adapt quickly was another important factor on the show as drama flared, alliances shifted, new challenges were announced and contestants were voted off the show.

“It changed on a week-to-week basis,” Braun said. “We didn’t know who we were going to get back from limbo. Every week there were so many critical things: the limbo, the challenge, the bottom-two vote. You couldn’t really plan that much ahead. You just had to take things and deal with them.”

The show featured interaction not only with other house members but also the viewing audience, who were able to vote on what contestants wore and ate, where they slept and who got sent home each week.

“Some of them were more fun than others,” Braun said. “It was always kind of a welcome break from the monotony and gave us something to do in the downtime. We weren’t sure how weighted that was. Ultimately, viewers were watching and if they didn’t think you were letting them control the game, they were going to bounce you out.”

Braun said the worst part of the show was the downtime.

“A day in the Glass House was the equivalent of a week or a month in the real world. Time would just go slow,” Braun said. “There’s nothing but time to think. You have no TV, no newspaper. All you can do is talk or think. You can convince yourself of all kinds of things in the house. That’s where the mental aspect comes in. Some people, for all intents and purposes, thought themselves right out of the game.”

It was hard to be disconnected from the outside world, especially his 15-year-old daughter Samara, Braun said. The most surprising part was the intensity.

“It was way, way, way more intense than I thought it would be,” Braun said. “When I came out, I figured I’d just blend into the background and do good in challenges, but there was a lot of drama and I even got wrapped up in some of it. It was intense. I came out saying, ‘No drama. I’m just going to walk a path and not be involved,’ and lo and behold the first week I was going at it with Alex. It was unavoidable, the drama in the house.”

Even so, Urbina said she thought Braun managed to stay true to himself.

“We are so proud of the way Kevin played the game,” Urbina said. “He said before he left that he wanted his friends and family to see him on TV and say ‘Yep, that’s the Kevin I know’ and that is exactly what happened. He was true to himself and his character the entire time. He represented Toledo well.”

Braun, who regularly wore Toledo shirts and hats on the show, said he’s thankful to hometown friends and fans who voted for him.

“Toledo made this happen,” Braun said. “That’s why I’m very careful to never say, ‘I won this show.’ We won this show. It’s a great city and it’s the reason I won the show.”

Braun said he wore so much Toledo gear on the show that some contestants started referring to him as “Toledo” or “Mr. Toledo.” Urbina had “Mr. Toledo” T-shirts made, with proceeds benefiting the Keith Dressel Memorial Scholarship Fund. Dressel was a Toledo police detective killed on duty in 2007. For more information or to order a T-shirt, email Urbina at [email protected].

Braun said he had a great experience overall and even made some friends on the show.

“My core alliance, Mike and Andrea, are definitely friends and I will stay in contact with them, there’s no doubt,” Braun said. “Jeffrey and some of the early people — Holly, Ashley — they’re good people and on some level I’ll have contact with them in the future.”

But for now, it’s back to reality. In his show bio, Braun wrote, “My ultimate goals in life are to raise my daughter to be a good person and to continue to work hard serving the citizens of Toledo,” and he said that’s still the plan.

“Honestly, I’m going to take it real slow,” Braun said of his winnings. “There’s nothing I’m going to run out and buy. I’ll just put it away and see what happens. I’m going to be boring with it, to be honest. I’m back home and back to work tomorrow [Aug. 23]. I woke up this morning [Aug. 22] and took my daughter to school. So that’s the plan now. Back to normal as quick as possible.”

Pounds: Bell shakes things up

By
Tom Pounds
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Politics is a tough business; that’s not a new lesson for Tom Crothers, but the speed at which things can develop must stun even a veteran like him.

On Aug. 16, Toledo Mayor Mike Bell stood with Crothers, then deputy mayor, Toledo City Councilman Rob Ludeman and other officials to announce a development at the site of the former Southwyck Mall.

It was announced that MJW, Inc. was looking to transform the area into “somewhat of a sports village,” with each venue employing its own management. As reported by Toledo Free Press Staff Writer Caitlin McGlade, “The 58 acres might host indoor basketball, volleyball and hockey courts as well as outdoor stadiums and fields. The development firm is looking to fill the space with hotels and restaurants as well, to attract traveling teams not only to play, but to stay in Toledo for a few days.”

The Bell administration was planning to ask Toledo City Council to approve a $50,000 loan for MJW, Inc. to conduct marketing, engineering and architectural research to develop the concept.

But as first brought to the public’s attention by WSPD morning host Fred LeFebvre, proposed lead developer Cliff Gaston apparently has a history of financial and legal issues that would have precluded him from partnering with the city had he been properly vetted.

By Aug. 19, Bell had scuttled the deal. By Aug. 20, Crothers was relieved of his duties as deputy mayor and reassigned to the Department of Public Utilities, to, according to Bell’s office, “spearhead special projects, including the work to study a regional water system, implementation of the SAP computer system upgrade and focusing on customer service.”

Paul Syring has been named acting deputy mayor of external relations.

It is unfortunate that such a positive announcement went sour, and it is doubly unfortunate that a lack of simple vetting led to such a radical shuffling. But a lack of communication — Councilman D. Michael Collins had met with the same developers a year ago but let the matter lie because of the financial issues; he was not involved in the Aug. 16 announcement — led to an embarrassing situation for all involved.

Bell’s administration started with a flurry of activity and development, with international travels and a deal, still unrealized in terms of construction, to sell the Marina District.

Bell has shown two clear trends during his time as mayor. One is a tendency to trust the people he put in place, in terms of cooperation and development. Another is a willingness to make personnel changes when they need to be made, for the betterment of the city. Bell, to use a casino analogy, knows when to hold ’em and knows when to fold ’em.

That’s called leadership, and while Bell would be the first to say his administration has not been perfect, it is fair to say he has demonstrated a fluidity and willingness to adapt that had been missing from the mayor’s office.

Chalk this one up as a lesson learned, and godspeed to Syring in his new role in moving our city forward.

 

Thomas F. Pounds is president and publisher of Toledo Free Press and Toledo Free Press Star. Contact him at [email protected].

Baumhower: Tissues, Trapper Keepers and triumph

By
Jeremy Baumhower
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Aug. 23 was my Independence Day — the very day my beautiful children returned to school.

As I walk over the corpses of bawling kindergarten moms who can’t believe little Aidan didn’t cry and that he walked right in the classroom and never turned back … I admit it, I giggle. Every “First Day of School,” I see the huddled masses of moms with mascara running, handing Kleenex to each other like they just witnessed a train wreck. iPhones loaded with freshly snapped pics in hand as they wipe their eyes, with failed promises that they were not going to be the one who cried, often with a sarcastic consoling father nearby. Maybe they thought little Aidan would just refuse to go and they could swoop right in and be his hero one more time. Well, first-time kindergarten parent, I am here to tell you — you’ll be all right.

As a parent of four with my oldest going into her senior year and my youngest tackling the first grade, I have the parental résumé of a “First Day” veteran. Having a home office, I will admit that there is a slight adjustment and sadness that I go through. The newfound silence in the house can be maddening, it can create an emptiness. But rest assured, the silence slowly but always becomes refreshing. The house that just 24 hours before was filled with verbal spats over Wii remotes and constant reminders to wear shoes, or anything, on the bottom of your feet outside has now gone quiet.

First-time Kindergarten parents can also look forward to the house remaining tidier/cleaner. The breakfast and lunch buffet where you spend hours being a short-order chef is now closed and replaced with brown bag planning and management sessions the night before. For those of you who are in a single parent situation or who have both parents working, good news, your part-time summer job as your kids’ personal assistant has ended. You no longer have to worry about the camp costs, the carpooling nor the daytime playdates scheduling. Your kids’ days just became booked.

.

If you would like to capture a perfect picture of happy grown-ups in forced commerce, take a trip to the local Walmart or Target today. You’ll witness parents floating down the aisles, with smiles on their faces, clutching their children’s school supplies list, all dreaming of their first day back at school. If you see any sad faces, they tend to be on the future students themselves, especially the ones past the fourth grade. On the rarest of occasions, you might even spot the “golden unicorn” of back-to-school shopping: a teacher. Teachers are the easiest to spot because they often appear to be headed to a funeral. I actually giggled as I penned that.

Many school districts including Sylvania and Maumee hold an open house the night before the big day, so students and parents can meet the teachers, drop off supplies, etc. This might be one of my favorite nights of the entire school year. The pageantry, the desk placement drama, is all very similar to the season premiere episode of “The Bachelor.” One by one the families roll in and meet the new teacher and the other pupils, cliques start to form, alliances begin, it seems the only thing missing is host Chris Harrison and the “first impression” rose.

Toledo needs a savvy bar owner to plan a St. Patrick’s Day-like festival for parents on the first day of school. The “Back To School” street festival would start around 7 a.m. and would make the perfect place for every parent to dry their tears … while drinking a well-earned cold refreshing beverage. The hired band, hopefully The Bridges, would play their first song exactly the moment the first bell rang for the new school year. An omelet short-order chef would allow some needed retribution as he politely takes our orders, only to have them changed five times, just as our kids did to us the week before. Unused Wii remotes should be placed on every table as a reminder of the horror we just survived and maybe a “symbolic” unopened box of tissues to represent the moms still crying in the parking lot.

There will be a moment where I am sad with the thought of my babies getting older and growing up. There will just be many more moments of happiness occurring in my quiet house.

To read more of Jeremy Baumhower’s thoughts please follow him on Twitter @jeremytheproduc.

HipHop4Peace to benefit young victims’ family

By
Toledo Free Press
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Le’Ondra Hooks, photographed at Mercy St. Vincent Medical Center on Aug. 23, 2012. Toledo Free Press photo by Caitlin McGlade.

The sixth floor of Mercy St. Vincent’s Medical Center is a place for whispering.

It is a place where silence is broken by beeping heart monitors and adults who muffle their tearful gasps by pressing their faces into their palms. It is a place where children softly babble over the hum of machinery, unaware that they are the ones, with even just one smile, who comfort the adults.

The morning of Aug. 23, a groggy man pulls a little boy in a wagon from the Intensive Care Unit in the Children’s Hospital to the elevator doors. A woman walks down the hall holding a little girl’s hand, glancing down at the headwrap protecting the toddler’s head.

This place, where paintings of animals and sea creatures meet intravenous therapy carts loaded with plastic bags and tubes and cords, is where Quen’Torria Snowden has spent much of her August.

“She’s strong,” Snowden says, stroking Le’Ondra’s back as she sleeps in her hospital bed.

Clad in pajamas printed with monkeys and peace signs, Le’Ondra is attached to an IV cart by a purple, plastic tube that leads into her arm. She awakes and Snowden scoops her into her arms and holds her.

After rubbing her eyes and yawning, Le’Ondra scoots herself off her mother’s lap and off the bed. She tries to dance a little. Her IV tube gets tangled around her legs and caught in her leopard-print slippers.

“Go,” she said, rocking back and forth. “Wanna go.”

This week marked Le’Ondra’s second hospital visit within the past few weeks, following the shooting that left her injured and her 1-year-old sister dead. It was about 9 p.m. Aug. 9 and the girls were home with their aunt at Snowden’s apartment at Moody Manor, a Kent Street complex. Gunshots erupted outside, projecting bullets that whizzed inside and struck both Le’Ondra and her sister Ke’Ondra.

Snowden was not home. She got a call from her sister. Her two little girls had been shot.

Ke’Ondra, who was shot in the head, died in the hospital hours later.

Le’Ondra, shot in the torso, survived after one surgery and more than a week in the hospital. Snowden had to bring her back to the hospital this week because of a fever. And she’ll have to bring her back again within the next few months for another surgery.

When Le’Ondra cries, her bladder pops forward and pushes out her stomach.

Three arrested

The Toledo Police Department arrested three men for obstructing justice in connection with the shooting, but no murder charges have been filed, said Sgt. Joe Heffernan. The police are investigating further.

Snowden said she knows the three arrested: Keshawn Jennings, 20, Antwaine Jones, 18, and James Moore, 20. They were each placed on a $500,000 bail and were indicted for the felony charge.

She said she knows them from growing up in the neighborhood, and that they have never tried to hurt her. She assumed the shooting was gang-related.

“The world is messed up and I don’t think it’s going to get better until the world comes to an end and wipes everybody away,” Snowden said.

Since the shooting, Snowden hasn’t returned to her apartment. She hasn’t allowed any of her relatives to go either. She doesn’t know when she’ll be able to go back there, if at all, to retrieve her family’s belongings. It is difficult enough for her when Le’Ondra opens her mouth in her hospital room.

“Ke Ke! Ke Ke!” Le’Ondra says, banging her hands on the plastic hospital bed rail.

Ke Ke was her little sister’s nickname.

Just a month ago, Le’Ondra proudly pretended to be a parent, carrying around Ke’Ondra and playing goofy games with her. Just a month ago, Le’Ondra was carelessly dancing to her favorite hip-hop songs on the radio and scribbling down doodles on paper.

“I don’t think she knows how to talk about it, she just sees people wearing T-shirts with Ke Ke’s name on them and watches,” Snowden said, alluding to tribute T-shirts many of her family members have made. “She knows what’s going on though.”

Snowden’s other daughter, De’Ondra is almost 5. She lives with a different family and was not at Moody Manor during the shooting.

Snowden, 20, got pregnant with De’Ondra when she was 15. Le’Ondra came next and Ke’Ondra was her third. She and her boyfriend D’Andre Hooks have been together since they were about 14 years old.

Toledo rappers Jason Jensen, aka J360, and Sik Da Don Sikosa.

Snowden will move out of her apartment but doesn’t know where she’ll go next. She hopes to leave

Toledo altogether.

‘I feel it’

The bullets that killed Ke’Ondra and injured Le’Ondra are reverberating from Toledo to Detroit, bringing together rappers and activists to hit the streets with a positive message.

Toledo-native rappers Jason Jensen and Sik Da Don Sikosa don’t know Ke’Ondra’s family.

“I still don’t know them but I ain’t got to know them to feel it,” said Jensen, a father of three. “And I feel it, just like the whole community does.”

Jensen, known as J360 by the hip-hop community, and Detroit resident Sikosa composed a rap song about Ke’Ondra and Le’Ondra. They are pressing 500 to 1,000 compact discs to sell Sept. 1 to benefit the girls’ family.

Snowden said the extra cash will be a much needed help, especially because she was recently laid off.

“You can make excuses for people about why they got killed, like ‘Well they were doing this or doing that.’ It ain’t right to do, but you do. You can put an excuse on it if a drug addict gets killed,” Sikosa said. “But kids — you can’t make sense of that. You might have killed the first woman president or a doctor. And now Le’Ondra has to grow up hearing about all of this and knowing about this.”

The pair will perform their song at HipHop4Peace, a benefit for the victims’ family at Inez Nash Park on Sept. 1. The benefit will run in conjunction with the Warren Sherman Festival and will feature other performances, food and treats for kids and speeches by community leaders. Sikosa and Jensen’s CDs will be for sale for $5 and attendees will be encouraged to donate more to Le’Ondra and Ke’Ondra’s family for medical and funeral expenses. Jensen said he and Sikosa are spending at least $500 to bring all of this together.

“The hope is to create a unified effort to show that hip-hop isn’t violence … but violence has been associated with the music of the culture for quite some time,” said Albert “Mac” McCluster III, who proposed the event. “So this event and organization is a challenge to artists and performers to step up and say, ‘No more violence.’”

‘We’re just killing each other’

Sikosa moved to Michigan recently, but was touched by the news and wanted to help.

“I just thought that people cared more, period, than to shoot at a house that has children in it,” Sikosa said.

Titled “I Thought They Cared,” the song about Le’Ondra and Ke’Ondra laments senseless violence “getting out of hand” and asserts that the issue is “bigger than the neighborhood you trapped in.”

“I live in Lincoln Park, Mich., now and I get online and watch the news and, man, Toledo news is rivaling Detroit and it’s unbelievable to me. I’ve had so many friends die there and get murdered and killed,” Sikosa said. “There’s got to be something to bring us together, so we can stop killing each other and if two little girls can’t stop it, then there ain’t no hope.”

In 2010, there were 101 nonfatal shootings in Toledo. In 2011, there were 177. As of July 31, there were 106 shootings this year, said D. Michael Collins, city councilman and chair of the public safety, law and criminal justice committee.

Jensen and Sikosa’s lyrics ask God how to understand man’s actions and asks if there is a heaven because “there’s hell on these streets.”

Both Sikosa and Jensen know firsthand about the “hell on the streets.” Jensen spent time in prison following a fight at a rap concert, which only made him want to give back to the community once he was freed. Sikosa’s mother died when he was a child and his aunt and uncle raised him, but he constantly had to defend himself if he went to a store in an opposing gang’s territory. He was beaten up often, a violence that forces a kid to attach him or herself to a gang, he said.

“After you get whooped for crossing the street, you begin to be like, ‘Well hell, I might as well be bad,’” he said. “If everybody in this neighborhood is gangbanging, it’s a trap — you’ve got to be the ultra male.”

He was entrenched in that lifestyle for years, until his son told him that his mother’s boyfriend had said Sikosa was a drug addict. That was it. Now, he said, he’s dedicated to using hip-hop to spread a positive message.

“From the time you’re born, you can only be what you see … how can you dream to be a doctor or a lawyer when you don’t know none? When the only people you see with fancy cars and pretty girls are the people selling drugs?” Sikosa asked.

Sikosa said the shooting outside Moody Manor exemplifies a tragedy in the black community, which Sikosa’s lyrics refer to as “finally an issue that ain’t white and ain’t black.”

“The only time black people want to stick together is if it’s about something a white person did,” Sikosa said. “You know, my grandmother lived to be 97 years old — and after all the pain and struggle she saw and black people had — we died for each other before. And now we’re just killing each other.”

German-American Festival rolls out the beer and brats Aug. 24-26

By
Jeff
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A Swiss cheese-eating contest and a new flavor of bratwurst will be among the offerings at this year’s German-American Festival, set for Aug. 24-26, 2012, at Oak Shade Grove in Oregon.

The 47th annual event will also feature all the popular contests and favorite Swiss-German foods and drinks of past years, said Jack Renz, marketing/public relations committee chairman for the festival.

“We’re in our 47th year. That’s quite a statement,” Renz said. “For 47 years we have continually produced a quality product, and I think what we really strive to do is offer something different each time. Even though the public looks for their favorite things and relishes what they like, they also know that each year we try to do some new things. We’re very proud of what people get for the money. They get a heck of a bang for their dollar.”

The winner of the new eating contest, set for 7 p.m. Aug. 25, will be the contestant who eats an 8-ounce block of Swiss cheese the fastest, Renz said.

The new brat will be a Swiss cheese and mushroom bratwurst handmade by Tank’s Meats in Elmore.

“It has an absolutely phenomenal taste,” Renz said. “That’s what’s really fun about being part of the German-American Festival. Each year we try to bring something new to the community to try to keep it cutting-edge.”

The festival will be open 6 p.m. to 1 a.m. Aug. 24, with a parade and opening ceremonies set for 8 p.m. The event will continue from 2 p.m. to 1 a.m. Aug. 25 and noon to 11 p.m. Aug. 26.

Daily admission is $7. Advance tickets, available online at germanamericanfestival.net or at various area restaurants and bars, are $6 for one day, $10 for two days or $15 for three days. Children 12 and younger are free when accompanied by an adult. Active military, police, fire and EMS personnel with ID will be admitted free on Aug. 26 and senior citizens with a Golden Buckeye card will be admitted for $1 off admission Aug. 26.  Round-trip shuttle tickets are available for $6 and leave from several Toledo area locations.

The traditional Swiss Steinstossen, or Swiss stone-throwing contest is set for 3 p.m. on both Aug. 25 and 26. Men will throw 138-pound stones while women will throw 75-pound stones.

“That one is the most popular contests, followed by the Masskrugstemmen,” said Festival Chairman Timothy Pecsenye.

In the Masskrugstemmen event, which will take place at 7:30 p.m. on both Aug. 24 and 25, contestants lift a liter of beer with one arm stretched parallel to the floor and hold it as long as they can.

The Hummel Lookalike Contest for children age 2 to 10 will be held 4 p.m. Aug. 26. Prizes are awarded for the most authentic look-a-like with a focus on overall look, costume, props, pose and facial expressions.

There’s also the Brezeln Essen, or soft pretzel-eating contest, set for 9 a.m. Aug. 25 and the German dessert baking contest at 3:30 p.m. Aug. 25.

Each hour, festival organizers come on stage to perform a rendition of the scenes played out by the wooden characters in Munich’s Glockenspiel, or city clock.

“We come out on the hour and do a little performance to salute the hour,” Renz said. “There’s crowd participation. It’s kind of a crowd-pleaser. It’s really becoming something people look forward to watching.”

Bands include Austrian Express from Milwaukee and Phenix from Chicago. Children’s activities include rides, face painting, a clown and more. A German language worship service will be held at 10:30 a.m. Aug. 26. There will also be soccer matches on Aug. 25 and 26.

The festival, a fundraiser for the German and Swiss cultural center in Oregon, along with a variety of scholarship, athletic and philanthropic programs in the Toledo area, is operated by the nonprofit GAF Society and sponsored by the seven German-American and Swiss-American societies in Toledo.

“We’re probably one of the best-known festivals in the area. We’ve been in existence longer than the other ethnic festivals,” Pecsenye said. “People have a fantastic time. They enjoy themselves. You see a lot of happy people, a lot of smiling people with their friends or meeting new friends while exploring German culture, German music, German foods. Just bring a guest and come to the fest!”

For more information, visit germanamericanfestival.net.

Amango offers excellent Vietnamese, Asian fare

By
Glass City Gourmet
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When husband and wife team Tim and Q learned the former Charlie’s location (Monroe Street, just east of Talmadge Road), was available, they jumped at the chance to take it and open a Vietnamese and Asian restaurant. 

Putting all of their resources into securing the location, they quickly opened for business.   Amango/Pho Saigon is now open with a lighted sign and low priced grand opening specials.   

This is not a Vietnamese theme restaurant with a Buddhist altar, conical straw hats, incense, and waitresses in au dai (traditional Vietnamese costume). It is not intended to transport you to a dated version of Vietnam designed for Western tourists; Amango is simple and functional.  Keep your eyes on the food and your mind on the flavors and you will be magically transported to the humble atmosphere of a restaurant for locals in contemporary Vietnam. 

On my first visit, I ordered the banh xeo/sizzling pancake appetizer.   This dish is a great example of the effect of French colonialism on Vietnamese cuisine. It gets its name from the sound of the batter sizzling on the pan as it is prepared.  Banh xeo is essentially a French crepe filled with onion, shrimp, and seasoned pork.  It is accompanied by a plate of fresh mint sprigs plus a few leaves of curly lettuce.  To eat banh xeo like a native – use your hands!  Grab a leaf of lettuce, put in a few mint leaves and a piece of the filled crepe.  Then roll up the lettuce leaf like a burrito, while keeping the contents inside, and dip it into the accompanying fish sauce before you take your first bite. While I prefer a thinner pancake with more filling, Amango’s banh xeo is a good choice of appetizer to introduce a newcomer to Vietnamese cooking.  Order one for the table; it’s big enough for a family of four.   Don’t tell your kids the name of the sauce until after they’ve dunked their first roll and taken a bite.  They’ll love it. 

Another popular Vietnamese appetizer on the menu is the spring rolls ($3.95).    This is a delicious way to cool off during this summer’s heat wave.  It’s a chilled, soft, paper thin rice pancake filled with cooked vermicelli, mint leaves, chilled shrimp, and shredded lettuce.  Amango is serving it with Thai peanut sauce instead of a Vietnamese sauce.  The good news is that the table is stocked with hoisin sauce, red chili sauce and soy sauce you can use to enhance the flavor. We requested hot chili oil (tia chiev sate) and ignored the peanut sauce entirely.  There are three rolls in an order.  Your server will be happy to bring you a serrated knife to halve the rolls and create six hearty portions. 

For lunch, I highly recommend ordering the goi ga/chicken salad ($7.99).  The salad is a zesty mix of shredded chicken, carrots, lettuce, celery, cabbage, mint, and chopped peanuts tossed with rice wine vinaigrette.   It is presented with a plate of lime wedges and sliced jalapeno peppers that you may use to season your salad to taste.     

Another Vietnamese crowd pleaser is pho (pronounced “fur”).   Pho is a sweet and savory beef broth served with noodles and a variety of meats, fish or vegetarian ingredients.   The Vietnamese tend to eat pho for breakfast, but it’s good any time of the day.  It is served with a plate of bean sprouts, Thai basil leaves and lime wedges.  Squeeze the lime wedges over your soup and toss in some sprouts and basil before you eat it.  The table sauces at Amango are handy for adding additional spice.   Drop by after 10am on Saturday or noon on Sunday and discover the healing properties of a bowl of pho.  It will quickly become your preferred morning remedy for a hangover or the common cold.  

With the modest prices and extensive menu, I found myself back at Amango again and again over the course of a week just to check out more of the entrees I had previously enjoyed in Vietnam.   The bun tom thit nuong cha gio/vermicelli with grilled pork, shrimp and an egg roll ($8.99) is probably the best choice for people who want to get a feel for Vietnamese food but prefer mild and more familiar ingredients.  It is served with a sweet and sour sauce that you can add a little bit at a time until you like the balance of flavor and moisture on your noodles. 

If you’re familiar with Vietnamese food and know what you like, you will be delighted with Amango.  If you’ve never had this type of cuisine, this is an opportunity to broaden the horizons of your taste buds without risk.  Give it a chance! There are many options, so with a little persistence, you will be sure to find a dish or two you really like.  Alex, a waiter and friend of the owners, can be trusted to make a solid recommendation in any section of the menu.  Don’t be afraid to ask for him if you get a server who doesn’t speak much English.   If ambiance is a requirement for restaurant dining, rent a DVD copy of “Indochine” or “The Quiet American” and order carry-out.  Amango is too good to miss.   

NAME: AMANGO Restaurant/Pho SaigonLOCATION: 5228 Monroe Street, Toledo, OH 43623 419-517-0261RESERVATIONS: Parties of 8 or more 

DRESS CODE: Casual 

FAMILY FRIENDLY: Yes  

PRICING: Appetizers ($4-$8), Soup/Salad ($8-9), Entrees ($8-$12), Sandwiches ($3.50-$5.25)DON’T MISS: goi ga/cold chicken salad, banh xeo/Vietnamese pancake, bun tom thit nuong cha gio/vermicelli with grilled pork, shrimp and an egg roll, pho/rice noodles with beef broth.

RATING: Excellent Vietnamese food/school cafeteria atmosphere 

 

 

Miller: Wings in Heaven

By
Michael Miller
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J.P. Bender died Aug. 4, 2012. A peerless journalist and a flawed human being, he was a role model in both of those capacities. He had a teddy bear’s heart and an alligator’s disposition. He had the soul of a poet and the patience of a wolverine. He wore profanity like some men wear a $10,000 suit. He was dangerously overweight, a sloppy eater, an overalls-clad slob who took chauvinism to breathtaking levels and did not suffer fools at all, much less lightly.
He was fiercely loyal to his friends, extremely suspicious of authority and a fearless journalist who believed that investigative reporting is a righteous occupation that should only be practiced by those willing to bite the hands that feed.
I shared a newsroom with Bender in South Florida as the 20th century gave way to the 21st. He was a reporter and I was a mid-level editor, so technically I was his boss, but he and I both knew who was really in charge.
His back story was as simple as his personality was complex. He was born in Ohio in 1942, one day shy of St. Patrick’s Day. He was a paperboy in Cleveland, ran helicopter rescue missions in Vietnam and earned five Purple Hearts.
As Bender’s best friend, fellow journalist Ed Duggan, said, “His experiences in Vietnam made him somewhat fatalistic in that he knew any day could be his last.”
He was an entrepreneur in real estate, health care and transportation. He was married — and divorced — three times. As a South Florida journalist, with the Pompano Ledger, South Florida Business Journal and Pompano Sentry, he won numerous awards for his investigative writing and reporting.

J. P. Bender

He was a tough employee to manage. He swore, berated incompetent co-workers and made comments about women in the newsroom that probably deserved a stack of lawsuits.
In addition to learning a lot about how not to behave in a newsroom, I learned textbooks’ worth of lessons on the heart of journalism and the importance of, never, ever, letting the  bad guys get you down.
We shared a lot of lunches and story discussions; his appetites for both were voracious. Bender did not fear elected officials or industry bullies. He treated them like the chicken wing-sauce stains that often soiled his shirts; they were temporary inconveniences to be brushed aside, not fretted over. His reporting was honest, ethical and accurate to levels rarely found in modern journalism. He did not hesitate to ask, re-ask and ask again.

As a role model for stubborn righteousness, he was tops. I learned from Bender what many of us learn from thosewhose art we seek to emulate: Sometimes, the people with the lousiest personal habits and traits are the greatest professional artists.

My greatest adventure with Bender was a March 2001 tag-team interview with O.J. Simpson when he announced a new business venture.
Simpson and Bender were both late for the meeting, so a receptionist suggested I pass some time at an art gallery in the building. The gallery was showing an exhibit of Peter Beard’s photographs, “50 Years of Portraits” — images of naked women, torn bodies and bloody limbs, accented with snake skins, police tape and bloodstains.
As I waited to interview Simpson, Beard’s images of predators and death crawled through my brain. Simpson, then in his 50s, was fit and trim. He did not step out of the elevator, he exploded from it, his booming laughter preceding him from two floors below.
Dressed casually, and noticeably expensively, in a taut white undershirt and an unbuttoned purple shirt, Simpson was with several lawyers and 25-year-old Christine Prody, his on-and-off girlfriend.
Bender and I were seated in a conference room waiting for Simpson. I quickly told Bender what I had seen at the art gallery and how that would color the interview in my head.
“Listen to me,” Bender said, leaning in close. “You leave that stupid opinion s*** downstairs and face this man with a fair, on-topic interview. You write what you want to after the fact, but you do not sit here with a job to do and play ‘In Cold Blood’ when you have a business story to write.”
During the interview, which was supposed to be a business story, Simpson talked about being a single man who had quite the history with women, a man who could “have sex with whoever I want to.”

He alluded to experiences past, present and future, with simultaneous multiple partners, in front of Prody, with a boastful cavalierness that suggested he did not have much concern for her feelings.
Business questions were asked, but Simpson’s conversation drifted back to his personal and legal problems like the tide returns to the sands of South Beach — and just as fondly, with a caress of familiarity that might be termed loving, if that weren’t too hellish to contemplate.
Back in the newsroom, Bender and I discussed the interview and how Simpson had used the session, not to promote a business venture, but to wallow in the murder case.
“Those gallery images you talked about before the interview?” Bender asked. “Go for it.”
I did, and with Bender’s help pulled out some of the best, most visceral writing of my career.
In October of 2008, Bender emailed a document titled “Swan Song,” meant to serve as the posthumous summation of his life and career. He wrote it nearly four years before the
effects of a stroke and stage 4 cancer took his life.

Here are some of J.P. Bender’s final, written thoughts.
“I leave this life and my profession with some regrets but none greater than how I have seen our society degrade and the perverse gain a strong foothold over the media. Of one particular concern to me is how certain members of religious beliefs have used religion as a provocation. Today, the norm is religious fervor, and it is the nitroglycerin of the 21st century. It affects our daily lives in so many corners: from judicial appointments to formulation of social norms. Politics and religion — it doesn’t get more volatile than that.
“What I won’t miss is the indifference, the laziness, the monetary waste or the political good ole boy network of cover-ups. For sure I have learned that you can’t make excuses, alibis or explanations for this kind of behavior. Unfortunately, without a vigilant press these negatives would grow at a rapid pace and soon would be in complete control of the city.
Without the watchful eye of the press — only vague charges would surface and would quickly be ignored by those in power — as a matter of inconvenience rather than an issue to be resolved.
“I have spent a lot of my adult life in the service of honest journalism and its ideals. I have never lived a day, in good times or bad, that I wasn’t grateful for the privilege.
“As I leave the public eye — in pursuit for the ultimate personal challenge and investigative story — I am neither afraid nor concerned about the outcome. I have always looked to the challenge and found if it were easy, then there was no fun in the pursuit. I always believed that opportunity knocked — and when it did, I was never afraid to open the door — and release my hand from the doorknob — because I was always interested in the unknown and where it would lead me.”
J.P. Bender has opened that final door and walked through it. If he is in Heaven, I hope they serve chicken wings. And if Heaven has a newspaper, I hope its editors are prepared for a hostile takeover.

✯
Michael S. Miller is editor in chief of Toledo Free Press and  Email him at mmiller@ toledofreepress.com.

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