The Corner of the Turkish Redoubt Captured on May 30 but Abandoned on May 31, 1877
His sorrowful eyes remind me of the greatest moment of rock ‘n’ roll in the history of southwestern Ohio.
Jim Tressel’s favorite painting is Vasily Vereshchagin’s “The Corner of the Turkish Redoubt Captured on May 30 but Abandoned on May 31, 1877.” A reproduction of it hangs in the corner of his office, and as he ages he spends more and more time staring at it. He trails off into muttering and silence when I ask him why he likes it so much, but after a few minutes he collects himself and says to me, “I’ve come to know the men who died taking that redoubt. Those brave boys come to me every spring, let me tell you.” But coach trails off again, “No, don’t pay me any mind…”
Coach Tressel’s countenance is illumined by the sun coming through his window. He looks like a widower sitting down to his first meal alone. I stare into his eyes, and his sorrowful eyes remind me of the greatest moment of rock ‘n’ roll in the history of southwestern Ohio.
I stop paying him any mind and think instead of the rock ‘n’ roll. Let me tell you. It is May 30th, 2002, the evening of the Seven Hills Middle School talent show in Cincinnati, Ohio. The students sit in the assembly room and wait for the third act to begin. Jonathan Crushman, Isabella Gramble, Matthew Johnson, and Ben Greenfield call themselves The Spring Souls. They plug in their instruments and arrange themselves before the small audience. Jonathan and Isabella are usually reserved and quiet, but the moment the band is ready to play a change comes over them. Jonathan barks into his microphone, “Arise! Arise sons and daughter of the Midwest! Death flees before the dance of fury! Get on your feet!” The students, in the shock and confusion of being addressed with authority for the first time in their lives, jump to their feet. As the guitars descend into screeching feedback and the drums take up a blast beat, Isabella screams again and again, “Un-dam the river! Un-dam the river! The Great Miami rises tonight!” The feedback resolves to heavy riffs and chords, the most chaotic Holy Terror Hardcore this side of Gehenna, and Jonathan’s voice comes in clear above the cacophony with a chilling verse about the logging of the last great forests of southern Ohio. The standing students are thrown into a dance, awkward at first, then crazed. At the height of the song, just before a teacher pulls the plug on the PA system, Isabella climbs atop the drum kit and stares out into the assembly room. In her eyes there is no madness. Only sorrow.