Tuesday, April 06, 1999
Titles help pay for Arctic trip
BY JIM KNIPPENBERG
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Merciful heavens, look who's off to the North Pole in a dogsled.
It's Doug Hall, founder of Eureka Ranch, the Newtown think tank where major corporations (Disney, Pepsi, Nike) pay up to $150,000 to come brainstorm.
He and seven others are about to join polar activist Paul Schurke for a 250-mile celestially navigated trip to recreate Robert Peary's 1909 expedition.
No one who knows off-the-wall Hall is surprised. What surprises them is the way he's scaring up bucks for the trip and Great Aspirations, a non-profit group that trains parents to inspire kids.
Turns out Hall was at an auction in England in 1996 and bought himself a title. Lots of English aristocrats, short on cash but long on names, sell titles now and then.
So anyway, Hall paid $17,000 and became Lord of Threshfield, a title that allows him to confer non-hereditary knighthood.
Which is what his lordship is doing, mostly for corporations — Johnson & Johnson, American Express, Honey-Baked Ham. In return, he puts them on the tour's Web site (www.greataspirations.org) and promises an “appropriately pompous” knighting ceremony.
The tactic is working. According to April's Outside magazine, Hall has raised $25,000 for the North Pole Aspirations Expedition.
He leaves Sunday, begins the trek April 13 and is due home May 5.
SING OUT: Going to prove once again, it's a plenty small world indeed ...
Seems Dick Rosenthal, owner of F&W Publications, asked wife Lois what she wanted for her 60th birthday in early May.
Lois, an non-stop arts patron and editor of F&W's Story Magazine, knew straight away: A private Peter, Paul & Mary Concert at Playhouse in the Park, which the couple has supported for years — New Play Prize, Rosenthal Next Generation Theatre Series and financial support.
So Dick got on the case. He tracked down PP&M manager Martha Hertzberg and asked. Sorry, she said, PP&M won't do private concerts.
She also told him she had a Cincinnati tie: Her uncle, Ben Gettler, lives here. Do you know him?
Not well, Rosenthal said, but I dated his sister Mona years ago.
“Omigod, that's my mother,” Hertzberg said. After a bit of catching up, she agreed to see what she could do.
Which was plenty: PP&M are here May 17 for a birthday concert in PIP's Shelterhouse for Lois and 225 well wishers who will do dinner and cocktails in the lobby.
And, we're guessing, be drafted for a bit of a sing-along.
OUCH: Sorry, there's no way to say this delicately: Lose some butt.
That from the Wall Street Journal, which reports that new arenas and stadiums going up all over the country are shrinking seat sizes. The old standard was 19-20 inches; in new places it's 18 inches, thereby allowing more seats per row. And pinched butts.
Hmmm. So here's Cincinnati, No. 8 in 1997's 10 fattest cities survey, with Paul Brown Stadium going up. Is there a problem?
Nope, says Jeff Berding, Bengals' director of community affairs — seats in PB Stadium will be 19 inches for those of us who buy the cheap seats, 21 on the club level.
Being a classy soul, he's too well bred to say it's because Cincinnati is, well, fat: “It's for comfort. The seats are wider than Cinergy (seats) and there's more leg room too. You'll be fine.”
Whoa! Was that a fat joke at Psst!'s expense?
Psst! appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Have an item to report? Call Jim Knippenberg at 768-8513; fax: 768-8330.
Psst! appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Have an item to report? Call Jim Knippenberg at 768-8513; fax: 768-8330.
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