Book Review
Southern Ohio Legends & Lore
James A. Willis

Posted on July 19, 2023 by Denny

I met James Willis in March at the first-ever Frogman Festival which I reported on here. In fact, his “Frogman of Loveland, Ohio” presentation was one of the main festival attractions for me even though I almost expected to be disappointed by it. One reason for that was just my general skepticism of all things paranormal related but I also felt I had reason to be skeptical of Mr. Willis specifically. An online bio utilized for the festival begins with “Not since the Headless Horseman went charging through Sleepy Hollow has something come out of the Hudson Highlands of upstate New York as thrilling and chilling as author and paranormal researcher James A. Willis.” That struck me as rather pompous and I more or less anticipated an arrogant fellow demanding I believe in spooks and oversized frogs because he said so. That was not at all what I got, however.

Willis is not exactly timid or unsure of himself but his confidence is solidly backed up by knowledge. He is a long way from arrogant and even farther away from pompous. His presentation did not focus on how weird and mysterious a creature referred to as a “frogman” was but on verifiable facts behind the stories about it. I enjoyed his talk so much that I sought him out when it was over to buy this book containing more stories about my area of Ohio.

As its back cover tells us, Southern Ohio Legends & Lore is filled with “scary, mysterious and just plain weird stories” but Willis’ telling of those stories is, just like his festival presentation, replete with verifiable facts. I do not mean to imply that Willis solves every mystery or debunks every myth. There is a section titled “The Unexplained” and there are plenty of questions that remain unanswered in other sections as well. But those questions are not unanswered due to a lack of trying and I’m fairly confident that no known explanation is intentionally omitted. In addition, Willis does not resort to hyperbole or loaded language to make the stories scarier, more mysterious, or weirder than they already are,

The stories are divided into six sections: “Ghostly Legends”, “Legendary Characters”, “Legendary Villians”, “Legendary Places”, “The Unexplained”, and “Legendary Events”. Having lived my entire life in southern Ohio, I was already at least somewhat familiar with most of them. There are exceptions including all four “Ghostly Legends”. It is the only section where every story is new to me and it is the only section dealing more or less directly with possibly supernatural phenomena. I’m thinking those two facts might very well be related. I’m also thinking that this is the right place to mention that Willis is the founder and director of the paranormal research group The Ghosts of Ohio. I find it somehow reassuring that this is also the only section where that comes into play and even here there is no straying from the “verifiable facts” approach.

I don’t believe I learned anything new about any of the “Legendary Characters” but I appreciate the concise and complete descriptions. Willis’ reporting on John Symmes and his hollow earth theory is among the most even-handed and comprehensive I’ve read. Likewise, his tale of “Legendary Villian” George Remus where I did learn a few details for the first time.

“Legendary Places” combines a place I had never heard of (Athens Pentagram) with three that I am quite familiar with. That somehow makes it my favorite section. One of the three familiar places, the Loveland Castle, was the subject of a blog post here just last fall. “The Unexplained” includes the Loveland Frog that had been my introduction to James Willis. Three major disasters including the 1979 Who concert tragedy appear in “Legendary Events”. All are certainly legendary and make for interesting reading but do not really seem scary, mysterious, or weird.

Maybe I did not learn about a bunch of new places to visit or encounter shocking revelations about people or places not new to me but I did learn that James A. Willis is a stubborn researcher and a straight-shooting reporter even if he doesn’t seem as chilling as a headless horsemen. Those who have not spent three-quarters of a century in southern Ohio will almost certainly be able to expand their list of places to visit or add to the stock of stories they share with friends.

Even I have added something connected to this book to my schedule. Another of the “Legendary Places” with which I am familiar is the site where three nineteenth-century attempts to establish Utopia failed. I read the chapter on Utopia while out to breakfast then, within minutes of returning home, I was presented with an online advertisement for Utopia: A New Musical premiering in a couple of weeks. I immediately bought a ticket because that is most definitely “just plain weird”.

Southern Ohio Legends & Lore, James A. Willis, The History Press (August 15, 2022), 6 x 9 inches, 144 pages, ISBN 978-1467151115
Available through Amazon.

My Memories — Chapter 4
Denny’s Drums

Posted on July 16, 2023 by Denny

The Rogers drum show I recently attended brought back memories of my one and only visit to the factory in Covington. Ohio. I was there to pick up a very small but personally awe-inspiring drum kit. I have one advantage over any real drummers who set out to describe their gear. I don’t have to select a few significant pieces from a long list of equipment used over a long career. I have owned just three sets of drums in my life, and two of them are in the picture at right. I am not in the picture although someone who has appeared in this blog is. Lifelong friend Dale Baird, whom I’ve mentioned in tales of cars and mopeds, is at stage left of the front row.

The picture of the high school stage band is from my senior yearbook. I was in the regular marching and concert band but not in the stage band. I was never asked, which I attributed to my already being a little too much rock and roll. However, since the school did not own a trap kit, my drums were asked to join. When the picture was taken, I no longer owned the Slingerlands on the photo’s right but did own the Rogers on the left.

Of course, real drummers also have many advantages over me. One of them is photos. The stage band shot is the only one I’ve found of either of those kits. Because I’m absent in that picture, I’m including this one from the same yearbook. I’m on the photo’s left side next to the drums. Dave Thornhill, seated at the Rogers in the stage band photo, is on the other side of the drums. At the photo’s far right of that row is Ed Van Vickle who was seated at (and I believe owned) the Slingerlands.

I bought the Slingerland kit from one of Dad’s coworkers. I don’t recall what I paid or the seller’s name but do recall that his offer to replace his initials with mine on the bass drumhead helped clinch the deal. The aging Slingerlands got me into my first band where I played standing up. That was partly because that’s what future McCoy Randy Zerhinger did and partly because I couldn’t afford a drum throne. I didn’t really need to sit down because I couldn’t afford a hi-hat either.

Memories of the next purchase were initially awakened a few months ago when I discovered the order at right. The drum show stirred them up considerably. The “Drums + equipment” covered by the bill was a blue sparkle three-piece set with no stands. There was a bass-mounted rod for a ride cymbal and both the single tom and the snare were mounted on the bass with Swivomatic ball joints. Swivomatic snare mounts were not unheard of (Here‘s one at the Covington show.) but were typically used on standup “cocktail” kits. I have never seen another bass-mounted snare like the one I had.

The detail at left is taken from the yearbook photo in an attempt to show this unusual arrangement. I don’t recall whether I chose the bass mount because it was cheaper than a stand or because I just thought it was cool. I will note that being so close to the factory made custom orders like this rather easy. It also made it possible to pick up orders there. It seems like I’ve forgotten a lot about the experience but I remember a fair amount too.

The guy from the Greenville Piano Salon (Eugene Brown?) picked me up (probably at school) in the store’s station wagon. I’m thinking 1960 Chevrolet but am far from certain. At the factory, we chatted briefly with someone I think was the plant manager. Since then, I’ve often wondered if that could have been Rogers and Covington legend, Joe Thompson. There was a set of drums in the office which I thought made it the coolest job in the world.

Somewhere along the way — probably even before I made the upgrade — I’d sprung for a throne and hi-hat. I played those blue drums through high school and the summer following graduation. As I wrote this, I recalled coming across that bass head cover a few years ago and I took a look inside a box marked “mementos”. There it was, a reminder that I need to empty that box pretty soon and of some good times in years gone by. The Coachmen was the group that Randy Hobbs left to join the McCoys and which I joined in the reorganization following his departure.

After sitting idle through my freshman year of college, the blue Rogers saw some action during the summer then went silent again. But I guess I had decided I really wanted to play so it wasn’t too long before, in addition to all the other stuff going on — new wife and challenging classes, I accepted a former bandmate’s invitation to join his new group. I had outgrown the little kit with the bass-mounted snare and traded them in on my second and final set of new Rogers. These weren’t custom ordered from the factory but were still made to be just a little bit different. A common arrangement has two mounted toms of differing sizes. 12 and 13 inches were popular. A friend was playing in a band with a drummer who used two same-size toms with one just tuned a bit higher. I thought that looked cool. As I negotiated the purchase, I said I’d like two 13s rather than a 12 and a 13. I really expected this to be instantly shot down but it wasn’t. Without even attempting to change the agreed-upon price, the salesman swapped the 12-inch tom from the set I was buying for the 13-inch tom of a matching set. Whatever sense of uniformity I had was gone when I added a completely mismatched Gretch bass that I picked up really cheap. I guess it seemed like a good idea at the time. The marriage lasted just a couple years longer than the band and the black oyster (and white) drums were sold during the financial maelstrom of the divorce. My sporadic run at rock stardom was at an end. Rogers, over and out.

Although the title of the post is a near-perfect fit, it’s not the least bit original. I know it from the name of a track on an early Beach Boys album that I used to try to copy as a teenager. I suspect I’m not the only one to remember this Denny’s Drums.

Happy 247th

Posted on July 9, 2023 by Denny

There are twenty “Underrated Attractions in Cincinnati” identified in the CityBeat article that motivated me to visit the Lucky Cat Museum last week. With that museum visit, I could count thirteen of the twenty as things I have seen. There are a few more that I will probably get to before long and a couple of others that I have little interest in. I thought it highly unlikely that I would ever experience one listed attraction despite being interested in it very much. “Stricker’s Grove“, the article said, “is closed to the public…”. It could be rented for private events but, unless I could get myself invited to somebody’s company picnic, it seemed I was out of luck.

Then, barely a week after the CityBeat article appeared, I saw another article announcing that the park would be open to the public on July 4th. I had, I now realized, stopped reading that opening sentence too soon. “Stricker’s Grove is closed to the public for most of the year”, is what it really said. It is actually open to all on a handful of days each year and Independence Day is one of them.

But the amusement park next to cornfields and a two-lane state highway would not open until 2:00 o’clock. I filled the morning and put myself in the general area by attending the Fourth of July parade in Hamilton, Ohio.

This parade was significantly different from the only other parade I recall attending in Hamilton. That was the Short, Sweet, Wet, and Irish inaugural Saint Patrick’s Day parade held earlier this year. That parade had just one fire engine and, with a route length of approximately 575 feet, barely had room for it. This parade route was well over two miles long with several fire department vehicles including a couple of real classics.

The Corvettes and firetrucks did not surprise me but the low riders did. And it wasn’t just one or two. The number of these incredibly tricked-out cars rivaled the number of Corvettes and they jumped higher, too.

I was also surprised by this group’s . They had already passed me when the word “militia” caught my eye. I snapped this belated photo then looked up The Last Militia at the end of the day. They describe themselves as “a preparedness organization that focuses on the needs of families during times of strife” and dispute their classification as an antigovernment movement by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Their camouflage-patterned vests display the motto, Molṑn Labé. Greek for “Come and take them”, the phrase is often considered an expression of defiance but in this case is probably just an invitation to avail oneself of some of the bottled water pictured on their website.

I had no trouble Identifying the hot air balloon burner and gondola in the bed of this truck but sorting out the headgear took a bit longer. Only when I saw the Hops in the Hangar sign did I realize they are foam-topped beer mugs.

Getting inside the structure behind the four-foot flame was a bonus. I am fairly familiar with the Butler County Soldiers, Sailors and Pioneers Monument from the outside but had never been inside. It is even more impressive than I anticipated. Built on the site of the original Fort Hamilton, it honors all county residents who served in wars fought before its construction in 1902. Non-military pioneers are also recognized on the second floor. Original stained glass copies of the seals of the State of Ohio and the Grand Army of the Republic are opposite each other on the first floor.

Even larger stained glass windows on the second floor honor Civil War nurses and mothers. A clear glass window provides a wonderful view of the Great Miami River.

This is the place the day was organized around. Stricker’s Grove opened at 2:00 with the rides beginning at 3:00. Admission is free. Parking is $5. The pictured pavilion filled with picnic tables is just inside the park. There are also lots of tables outside the pavilion. Picnicking is not just tolerated; it is encouraged. The one-hour lag between opening and the rides firing up might actually be part of that encouragement. Reasonably priced food is available for anyone not packing a cooler at home. I had actually started the day thinking of a place to eat but when I learned of the parade I had just enough time to drive directly there. I now had time for breakfast — mett $4, chips $1, pink lemonade $2. Hotdogs were available for $2 and a 14 once draft beer for $4.

Eating was not the only thing available for filling in that rideless hour. A couple of Skee Ball areas and a large arcade filled with video games and pinball machines were in full swing as were other games of skill.

The rides had been operating for a while by the time I made it to the midway and purchased tickets. The best deal was clearly the $20 armband that let you ride anything all day. Single tickets were $2.50 or 5 for $10 or 20 for $25. That last option only makes sense if the tickets were to be shared by multiple riders. The only thing I really cared about riding was the Tornado roller coaster which was one of the very few rides, or possibly the only ride, that required three tickets. $7.50 seemed like a lot for one ride so I went for the five-ticket deal which made it seem like a bargain. It was then that I saw the coaster in motion for the first time ever but I decided not to get in the line just yet.

I had already decided to start off with a ride on the train (1 ticket) thinking it might give me a better feel for the park layout. Disappointingly, it did not go through the park but around its periphery of which corn and the Great Miami River are major components. It did give me a different view of the Tornado, however.

With the train ride behind me, it was time to join the queue at the Tornado. Reportedly there has been only one man in the United States to build his own roller coaster That man was Ralph Stricker and this is that coaster. Al Collins designed it and Stricker built it between November 1990, and June 1993.

The line was fairly long but it moved with reasonable speed. I used to ride roller coasters quite a bit but it has been a while. It felt good to climb into the car and start through that first slow curve past that corn. Being “homemade” and all, I kind of expected this to be a little wimpy. Not so. It was a good ride and all the coaster this old man needed. Nicely done Ralph and Al.

I used my one remaining ticket on another ride with a view. The extra fallout protection blocked the view to some degree but I could still see the corn and some people seem to always find a way to live life on the edge.

I submit these pictures not as examples of good fireworks photography but as evidence that I did expose myself to Independence Day pyrotechnics as required of all U.S. citizens. Fireworks were scheduled at Stricker’s Grove but I left long before that happened. I watched these from the parking lot across from King’s Island. Note that I live close enough to the park to hear these every night. The structure at the right edge of the first photo is the Drop Tower which I assume was closed during the fireworks.

The show also included the synchronized drones that the park introduced during last year’s 50th-anniversary celebration. I reported on my first viewing of them here. Formations not shown here included the Liberty Bell, the Statue of Liberty, and more. A good con man might be able to convince you that the lights in the middle of the map are there to mark King’s Island’s location but they are really lights on the replica Eiffel Tower standing between the camera and the drones.

Lucky Cat Museum

Posted on July 2, 2023 by Denny

I am not a cat person but I am a museum person. I suppose those two facts have been quietly duking it out in my head since I first heard of the Lucky Cat Museum several years ago. The museum is in Cincinnati and it is unusual which are both strong come-ons for me but it had no regular hours. Visiting it was by appointment only which, combined with that “not a cat person” thing, kept me away. I am not at all an ailurophobe but my interest in seeing a collection of things is not at its highest when those things are cats. A recent Citybeat article brought it back to my attention and an online sign-up system for visits solved the appointment issue. I finally paid a visit to all the lucky cats and their keeper, Micha Robertson, and I am so glad I did.

Before arriving at the museum, I read several online descriptions. The earliest talk of “over 700” cats. Some that are a bit more recent say “at least 1000”. The latest guess I found was from 2019 and that guess was “over 2000”. It doesn’t take much time inside the museum to realize just how ridiculously safe that estimate is. As with many large collections, there is a point following the initial exposure when you are struck by the sheer size of the display or the number of items it contains. That certainly happened with me and the Lucky Cat Museum. Not surprisingly, that is something I failed to capture with the camera but maybe these three photos will provide some sense of just how many items are on display.

I’m always reluctant to call a number on a locked museum door or dive into “by appointment” arrangements partly because I’m uncomfortable having someone make any effort for the benefit of just one person. The online system for the Lucky Cat Museum allows just six participants in each tour and shows how many openings are in each slot. I had picked a slot with just two or three openings to avoid being the only person taking up Robertson’s time but it didn’t work out that way. All the others cancelled so I had the benefit of a one-on-one tour without any feelings of guilt. The tour began with some background information. Lucky Cats are more properly known as Beckoning Cats or Maneki Neko in Japanese. They have probably been around since the 1600s but first appeared in print in 1852.

My attention was then directed to some of the “…est” items in the museum. The oldest is a long ago repurposed zushi from the 1800s. The smallest is the tiny kitten on a wire. The miniature toy shop is neither the oldest nor the smallest (although the tiny maneki neko it contains is pretty darned small) but it is probably the one most at home in a Cincinnati setting. It was purchased in 1929 by Cincinnatians visiting Japan.

There are naturally plenty of “Don’t Touch” signs among the many rare and fragile items on display but there are several hands-on items as well. One is a coin-operated cat that meows (we think) in Japanese and says some other things too. The slot machines have been converted from coins to tokens as required after being retired from Japanese casinos.

This sneaky fellow and his identical twin did charm me out of a few coins and, yes, others have placed videos online if you care to look.

It should not come as a surprise that some of the cats have found work in advertising or that their manufacture has expanded beyond Japan or even China. All the cats in the second photo were made in Spain by Lladro.

In my pre-visit poking around, I had seen references to “the cat that saved a train station” but had not pursued them. The claim turns out to be 100% true and the story well worth reading. Tama, the cat, was instrumental in keeping a Japanese train station open after it was scheduled to be shut down. With the official title of Station Master, she took her salary in cat food.

By this point, I was well aware that I was in the presence of someone with an encyclopedic knowledge of her subject but Robertson’s answer to a question about the box-headed cats drove it home. The tour was a combination of Robertson pointing out things of interest and me asking questions about random objects. In both cases, she provided in-depth details straight from her memory. The box-headed cats come from a Japanese cartoon that Robertson knew the name and history of. I just wish I could remember what she said. I had earlier been impressed by learning that she taught herself enough Japanese to survive in online auctions.

The cat in the opening picture wasn’t always glittering with a skin of mirrors. It has led a pretty rough life which is documented in the discs hanging next to it. In 2010, while on loan to the Krohn Conservatory for its Japanese butterfly exhibit, it was dropped in the last days of the exhibit. Damage also occurred in 2014 and 2018. On one occasion it was dropped by Micha’s husband but I don’t recall what the other accident was and I don’t remember which was which. Repairs were made every time with the mirrored surface apparently appearing in 2014. With that sort of history, I suppose some might question whether or not Disco Cat deserves a spot in a Lucky Cat Museum but I don’t. Sometimes Beckoning Cats bring luck to their owners and sometimes it’s the other way around. There is an awful lot of the latter going on here.

SunWatch Summer Fest 2023

Posted on June 25, 2023 by Denny

There is a spot just a few miles southwest of Dayton, OH, where a village stood many centuries ago. Archeologists have determined that a cluster of tall posts stood near the center of the village and believe those posts were used in astronomical observations, especially observations involving our sun. Because of that, they call the site SunWatch Village.

There is now a museum at the site and a few of the village structures have been recreated. The outlines of others are marked by short posts where taller posts that were part of the structures once stood. The first picture at left is of a model inside the museum that is meant to represent the entire village. The second picture is of the actual site as seen from the large deck behind the museum. In the second picture, the tall poles can be seen just to the right of the skeleton building.

The northern hemisphere’s summer solstice, that instant when it hits its peak tilt toward the sun, occurred last Wednesday. Assuming that the scientists are correct about those poles, that would certainly have been a major event for SunWatch Village’s original inhabitants. It seems quite reasonable to think they might have held some sort of celebration to recognize the longest day of the year. Although no one lives there these days, there are people responsible for the site and they may very well have also wanted to celebrate the summer solstice when it happened but they couldn’t. Sadly, sometime in the last 800 or so years, somebody invented the work-week so most of our celebrating now gets put off until the weekend. Something called Summer Fest took place on Saturday, June 24, the third full day of summer. Summer solstice falls on a Friday next year so Summer Fest and the first full day of summer can align.

A level and well-graded path leads through the site with numerous signs explaining what you are looking at as well as providing some general archeological information.

Here is a closer look at the group of extra-tall poles. The original poles were charred at the base to help prevent decay and remove insects. That helped archeologists not only locate the poles but estimate their height. A sign at the hut across the way explains that the shadow of the tallest pole would fall on its hearth on the winter solstice.

The interior of the thatched hut offers some idea of how it might have looked when occupied. The hearth’s alignment with the tall pole can also be seen from inside.

Book Review
Philippines, Palau, and Guam – Fine Art Travel Photography
Matt Cohen

Posted on June 21, 2023 by Denny

In the prologue of Philippines, Palau, and Guam, Matt Cohen says he considered but discarded the idea of organizing the book along the lines of the Philipines’ four ‘B’s — basketball, beauty contests, boxing, and beaches. I guess that was on my mind as I scanned it for the first time and found myself registering three ‘C’s — color, culture, and composition.

That last ‘C’, composition, is an obvious element of all photographs. Sometimes composing a photograph really means physically posing the subjects and I don’t doubt that there was some of that employed here. But I believe that most of Cohen’s composing consisted of positioning the camera and framing subjects he had limited, if any, control over. Mountains and buildings never move in response to a photographer’s instructions and the same is often true of people. In some cases, composing continues after the shutter clicks with selective cropping and such and Cohen seems to be adept at this as well. Given the book’s title, it is probably also obvious that culture has a big role. One of the attractions of these islands is the fact that their culture is different than that of mainland USA and one of Cohen’s goals was to document those differences. The bulk of his photos contain some aspect of island culture. That island culture is filled with color is pretty obvious too. The most common sources are brightly colored food and clothing but bright splashes are frequently supplied by the land itself.

Although it is not presented as such, the book really is a travelogue of sorts. Most if not all of the travel photos were taken during a single extended trip taken by the author and his wife in early 2023. After deciding not to use the four ‘B’s as organizing tools, Cohen went with a fairly straightforward geographical organization. The Philippines gets three chapters covering the three areas where they spent the most time. These are Manila, North Luzon, and Cebu/Bohol. Palau and Guam each get their own chapter. Each chapter begins with an actual postcard that the Cohens mailed to themselves from the region covered by the chapter accompanied by a brief description of the region. A map, with locations of interest marked, follows.

The chapters are then filled with pictures of people, places, and things accompanied by text ranging from a few words to a few paragraphs. Most questions I had when first encountering a photo were answered in nearby text. The places pictured range from mountains to markets. Things range from colorful new balloons offered for sale to an abandoned Japanese tank slowly being claimed by foliage. People include unnamed workers, islanders in native dress, a mayor, a governor, a president, and a would-be bride left at the altar.

Had I really wanted to include a fourth ‘C’ in my list of components, I guess I could have used cockfighting. I was surprised and maybe even a little shocked to come across two photos of fighting cocks in the book. The photos are not particularly graphic but they nonetheless gave me pause. At the end of that pause, I accepted them as part of the documentation of a culture and a reminder that not every aspect of every culture — most definitely including our own — is pleasant.

Philippines, Palau, and Guam includes an appendix where Cohen provides more technical information on the photos and even shares the itinerary of the trip that produced them. The book is self-published and at present the best way to learn how to acquire it is to contact the author through his website at MattCohenTravelPhotography.com. I will update this review when other information becomes available.

Logan Washboard Festival Plus

Posted on June 18, 2023 by Denny

Once upon a time a friend and I mentioned to each other that the Logan Washboard Festival seemed like a good thing to do someday. Flimsy plans came and went until we finally pulled it off this week. By then, of course, the plans had, as simmering plans tend to do, grown. By the time Terry and I hit the road on Thursday, our agenda included one furnace, one mill, and at least one walk in the woods along with time at the festival.

Even after the road was hit, our plans continued to grow. An earlier than hoped for departure and the realization that the Leo Petroglyphs were almost on the way, led us to make a stop there. And yes, we did see the most popular of the glyphs, man-with-horns.

The mill and the furnace had scheduling requirements so walking in the woods had to happen during our open time on Thursday. We followed the fairly level Gorge Trail at Conkle’s Hollow past ferns and rock cliffs to a very cool waterfall. That’s Terry gazing at it in awe (I assume) in the third photo.

Next was Rock House. I had never been here and Terry’s memory of the amount of elevation change was tempered by time. This was closer to a climb through the rocks than a walk in the woods but that Rock House was quite the reward.

In the morning, with all of our walking in the woods/rocks behind us, we headed to Buckeye Furnace State Memorial. The building in the first picture is of the charging shed. This also housed the boilers which powered the steam engine that forced hot air into the furnace. The third picture shows the furnace from which molten iron once emerged.

We had found one website stating that the museum was open on Fridays and one stating it wasn’t. A sign in the park agreed with the one that said it wasn’t. We were leaving after exploring the furnace when we spotted a car parked near the museum and the museum door appeared to be open. Reality, it turned out, matched the website saying the museum was open on Fridays. There are many furnace-related exhibits here including samples of the ingredients and the finished product. Although it’s not exactly furnace-related, I found the Chuck Wagon Kitchen Pantry in the second picture rather interesting. Text hanging next to it is here.

On Friday afternoon, we actually reached the Logan Washboard Festival. If there were any doubts about where the opening photo came from, they should now be gone. The festival fills about four blocks of downtown Logan with opening ceremonies taking place on Thursday evening. Both Friday and Saturday have music on three stages. Saturday is the biggest of the two but Friday fit our schedule best.

It should not be a surprise that the “last manufacturer of Genuine usable Washboards in the USA” is right in the middle of the festival. The Columbus Washboard Company has been making washboards since 1895 and has been doing it in Logan, Ohio, since around 2000.

Music doesn’t start on the outdoor stages until 4:30 but we found some in the back of the washboard store/factory well before that. Washboard Wizard and festival mainstay Bill Bailey (blue vest) anchors things here with other musicians coming and going.

Most of the company’s standard washboard models are displayed on a wall with prices. Another wall holds examples of many custom models including one from that big band in southern Indiana.

We did not join one of the guided tours through the factory but we did explore all of the manufacturing area and Terry did get some personal instruction on the process.

The official festival music program got underway with Washboard Hank on the Mulberry Street Stage and we also watched Nicole Dicken perform on that stage. The two washboard players at stage left were not actually members of Hank’s band and moved on about halfway through the set.

We caught Washboard Shorty & Reverend Robert and Williamson Branch on the Main Stage. Robert and Shorty invited all washboard players to join them for their last couple of songs and had three takers.

We wrapped up the excursion with a Saturday stop at Rock Mill. The mill was opened to visitors in 2017 after an outstanding restoration project was completed. It reopened this spring following a shutdown to build a support wall to stabilize the building. The mill grinds grain on the last Sunday of every month.

The phenomenal accomplishment of restoring this mill is documented in Rock Mill: Saving an Original.

Trip Peek #124
Trip #50
Boone’s Lick Road

Posted on June 11, 2023 by Denny

This picture is from my 2007 trip on Boone’s Lick Road. The picture is of some of the chairs lined up in front of Crane’s Country Store in Williamsburg, Missouri. The store is still there so the chairs might be too. I sure hope so. As I reviewed the original journal to make this post, I realized that a disheartening number of things mentioned in it are gone. It’s a realization that started with a bang in the first paragraph of the first day. The east end of Boone’s Lick Road was in St. Charles, MO, a little northwest of St. Louis. I had learned that Vandalia, IL, was a reasonable drive from home and a good starting point for doings in the St Louis area. I spent the first night of the trip in Vandalia at a place I was familiar with, Jay’s Inn. I say that in the first paragraph and mention the restaurant next door although I ate dinner that night downtown at The Depot. Jay’s restaurant would be closed in less than two years. Within three years The Depot would burn, reopen, burn again, and close permanently. Jay’s Inn is now shown as closed permanently.

It was Nathan Boone that was involved with the creation of Boone’s Lick Road but his more famous father, Daniel, eventually moved to Missouri and was buried near the road. The large bronze plaque at his grave which I photographed in May 2007 was stolen barely a year later. A black granite plaque has replaced it. The journal tells of eating my second dinner of the trip at Trailhead Brewery in St. Charles. It closed, I just now learned, in January 2020. Stein House in Boonville, which sported a really cool neon sign and where I had dinner on the third night, is listed on Yelp as permanently closed. With so many things mentioned in the journal closing or disappearing, finding the Crane’s Store website active was a real bright spot. The delightful Marlene Crane, who is pictured in the trip journal, died in 2015 at the age of 84 but the family business continues under son David. And Boone’s Lick Road can still be found along with its DAR markers.

The trip occurred during a period when I was regularly writing articles for American Road Magazine’s “Our National Road” department. It resulted in an article in the Spring 2008 issue. In writing this post, I revisited that article which triggered a couple of memories and a couple of smiles. Articles I submitted were naturally edited before publication but I was rarely consulted about changes or even aware of them before seeing them in print. I don’t recall exactly how I described the Corps of Discovery’s departure from St Charles aside from calling it “the last bit of civilization” they would see. Whatever I said was not, apparently, sufficiently energetic and it was changed to “galloped into the unknown”. The Corp had floated away from civilization on the Missouri River with not even a pony aboard their boats. I was kind of upset over what I considered an inappropriate change but I was also a bit amused by the image of Lewis and Clark galloping away in their pirogues. The second memory involved the last sentence of the article and the only “fan mail” I ever got through American Road. The preceding paragraph talked of the actual Boone’s Lick Road which had previously been described as initially traced by “eighty men on horseback”. Maybe that’s what was on the editors’ minds when they put in that “galloping” phrase. It was certainly what was on mine when I closed the article with “Calvary saddles, after all, didn’t have cup holders.” The “fan” correctly pointed out that mounted soldiers are called cavalry and that Calvary is the name of a spot near Jerusalem. It would have been cool if whoever tossed in galloping had noticed and fixed this instead.

Trip Peeks are short articles published when my world is too busy or too boring for a current events piece to be completed in time for the Sunday posting. In addition to a photo thumbnail from a completed road trip, each Peek includes a brief description of that photo plus links to the full-sized photo and the associated trip journal.

Trip Peek #123
Trip #140
My Fiftieth: Hawaii

Posted on June 4, 2023 by Denny

This picture is from my 2017 trip to My Fifieth: Hawaii. I had to fly there, of course, and I also did some flying between islands while there. On my seventieth birthday, I did some flying in a helicopter over volcanos on the Big Island which is when the picture at right was taken. Oahu and Maui were the other islands visited. On Oahu, I made it to the USS Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor, climbed Diamond Head, and strolled on Waikiki Beach. I did enough driving, including Maui’s Road to Hana, to allow me to call this a road trip of sorts. I watched surfers but had enough sense not to try it myself. In fact, I did nothing on top of the water but did go 111 feet beneath it in a submersible with plenty of windows. I ate SPAM at McDonald’s, Fleetwood’s mac & cheese at Mick’s place, one Mix Plate, one Loco Moco, and quite a few macadamia nut pancakes. I made it to within 300 feet of the southernmost point in the USA, had a couple of brews at the country’s southernmost brewery (Kona), and a few more at breweries that were pretty far south. Every state in the union is unique but this place just might be uniquer than most.

As the trip’s title indicates, Hawaii was the fiftieth state I’d visited. The trip cleared the way for me to publish 50 @ 70 which includes some coverage of trips that took me to the final sixteen of that fifty. Not too surprisingly, Hawaii and Alaska (my 49th) get the most attention.

SCA and JHA Conferences

Posted on June 2, 2023 by Denny

The sun has set on the first day of the first “normal” Society Society for Commercial Archeology conference since 2019. The 2023 conference started Wednesday, May 31, in Erie, PA. The 2023 Jefferson Highway Association conference begins next Wednesday. The JHA’s first post-COVID conference took place last year but the site of this year’s conference (Mason City, IA) is where the pandemically postponed conferences of 2020 and 2021 were to take place. The Lincoln Highway Association also broke out of the COVID pause last year and will have things ready to go this year in Folsom, CA, starting June 12. There was a brief moment when I thought I might make it to all three conferences but reality soon set in. The logistics of getting to California following the conference in Iowa were just too much of a challenge for me. With apologies and sadness, the LHA conference was dropped. I will be attending the other two and there’s not a whole lot of time between them. What time there is will be spent in a fairly direct crossing of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. They have separate journals with a switch to the JHA trip planned after the last day of the SCA conference.

This entry lets blog-only subscribers know about the trip and provides a place for comments. The SCA trip journal is here and the JHA trip journal here.

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