Westerville’s Mortimer Ulysses Lemon is back
If you spend your time reading the Westerville History Facebook page (run by Westerville Public Library), you might be very familiar with Mortimer Ulysses Lemon. He’s the fictional figure created by former Westerville residents Joe and Daniel Cochran that pops up in post comments. And Lemon seems to have had quite the colorful history with the city.
A recent comment for the page’s post about the 1940’s Matinee Club (a horse racing club) goes like this:
Mortimer Ulysses Lemon, in advanced age by the 1940’s misread the name and brought live manatees to the Hempstead Racing track. When he was turned away by Track officials, he moved the operation to State St roughly near the site where the Ponderosa would later operate. Lemon would place the manatees on motorized carts and source the bookmaking for wagering. The operation was closed down by city officials after the cart driven by “Ruffles” jumped the track barriers and careened into traffic. Ruffles was fatally injured and traffic was stopped for hours while Lemon sobbed in the middle of the road. He would later memorialize Ruffles in a poem published in “Haikus and Dirty Limericks of Central Ohio”
So if you want a good laugh, scroll through the comments and check out Lemon’s eccentric antics in Westerville. And don’t worry, the library knows about him; and luckily they’re laughing along with the rest of us. (deb)
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