BY JIM KNIPPENBERG
The Cincinnati Enquirer
We're going to have to begin this with a marital, er, clarification.
Referring here to the Frank Rosiello and Terry Arviv wedding Oct. 4 on Fountain Square (Psst! Sept. 13). Remember? It's the one with a 38-person wedding party and guest list of 750.
So anyway, we reported that it was the square's first wedding, and Psst's nosy editor said "Wait a minute." So Psst! made even more phone calls to the city recreation and public works departments to double check and kept getting the same answer: "Yeah, guess it is, as far as we know."
But it's not the first. Several have occured sans permit -- meaning the city doesn't "officially" know. And at least one had a permit but was a plenty long time ago.
Psst! heard from Linda Simon, married on the square April 2, 1983. "We had tried for a permit, but were told it was not permitted . . . that if we held the ceremony we would be arrested for unlawful assembly."
But husband John Simon had a cousin with the police department. Cousin Cop said go ahead, then alerted police who would be on duty downtown that day. Judge Albert "Mike" Mestemaker performed the ceremony in front of a small crowd and, get this, police officers.
Got word from Kathy Robinson, too. She and husband, Mark, requested a permit for a May 22, 1983 wedding but couldn't get one. Advice from the city? "Go ahead -- it will be over by the time someone tells you to move." So they did, with Judge Mark Painter presiding.
Dennis Rothweiler and Kathy Reigling married there Nov. 15, 1977 and did have a permit, says brother Eric Rothweiler: "It was a small, informal ceremony." And, obviously, not one the city recalls.
Then there were Mike and Lisa Zaret, who married on the square's ice rink in December 1993, Mayor Roxanne Qualls did the deed. No permit, but they did have permission from the city recreation department.
MERRY MARY:
Aw come on, it's too early to think about Christmas. Not if you're Mary Ellen Tanner. The singer (weekends at the Celestial) spent Wednesday mixing her Christmas album.
Merry, Mary Christmas was recorded at the home of producer Stan Hertzman, around his grand piano. Her Celestial trio -- Lee Stolar, Jimmy Perkins, John Von Ohlen -- backed her on songs such as "Christmas Song," "Merry Christmas, Darling" and Ruth Lyons' "Let's Light the Christmas Tree."
"And there's one, really beautiful song, by a Cincinnatian," she says. "Tom Schofield, a reed player, wrote "A Grandmother's Lullaby.' I just had to include it."
The album will be released around Halloween on the Struggle Baby label, same as her When the World was Young CD.
NO WINDS:
Well dang, here's a chance for a weather forecaster to be correct, but he isn't taking it.
Referring here to a letter the Downtown Council sent Ken Haydu, meteorologist in charge of the National Weather Service's Wilmington Office. The letter asked him to issue a weather advisory predicting "unseasonably windy conditions" for Saturday.
Because, see, it's Oktoberfest and the DTC is trying to get into the Guinness Book of Records with the world's largest kazoo band -- 30,000 of them, and that's a heck of a lot of blowing (hence, "unseasonably windy conditions").
Haydu said he would love to do it but "federal regulation dictates that I must refrain."
He suggested the DTC get one of the local media to play along. DTC is working on it.
Psst! appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Have an item to report? Call Jim Knippenberg at 768-8513; fax: 768-8330.
KNIPPENBERG ARCHIVE
