The National Museum of the US Air Force is about 35 miles away from my home. I drive by it at least a couple of times a year. Almost the instant I retired I told myself I’d get up there soon on a weekday and avoid those weekend crowds. So, over two years after telling myself that and well over two decades after my last visit, I made it to the museum on an unseasonably warm February Friday. I’ve posted an Oddment page here. Comments may be made to this blog entry.
I was tricked (probably by myself) into going downtown on Thursday. A story on the morning news told of artifacts unearthed by an ongoing major development of the Cincinnati riverfront, The Banks. It mentioned the articles being transferred to the Cincinnati Museum Center’s Research Center and gave a time of 9:30. Somehow I read into that the idea that the artifacts would actually be on display for the day. By the time I learned I was wrong, I had enjoyed a delightful breakfast,
I thought seeing the artifacts would be good and decided that, if I was making an earlyish trip downtown, I ought to take in a new breakfast spot. Annabel’s doesn’t have its own website but has been getting rave reviews at places like Yelp and Urban Spoon. In addition to praising the food, almost all of those reviews mentioned a crowd and a long wait. But many also mentioned brunch and quite a few also mentioned Sunday. Although brunch is certainly not restricted to Sundays or even weekends I hoped that the reviews were and I now think that likely.
Annabel’s is small. Reviews that talked of a wait almost always mentioned this. There is seating for exactly two dozen people. Today, three two-tops to the left of the picture were full or, in the case of mine, half full, as was a two-top to the right. The restaurant is open 9:00 to 2:00 Thursday through Sunday. One of those reviews suggested getting there at 8:00 AM on Sunday to be sure of a seat. I suggest getting there just about whenever you feel like it on Thursday. No long wait for me but the food was just as awesome as the reviews claimed. I had the Carrot Cake Faux Toast which the menu describes as “French toast without the French” and which I describe as delicious. As I told the waitress, I was almost as impressed with the honey/syrup server as I was with the food. The top bit lifts off of the bottom bit and pressing the lever dispenses syrup through a hole in the bottom. Even if it dripped, which it didn’t, it would drip into the base and not in your lap. Brilliant!
The Thursday evening news also had a segment on the artifacts. Some of the items, such as nineteenth century bottles, were shown but the segment ended with a clear message that, though a public display of the artifacts is planned, that’s not yet the case. The morning version might have been somewhat misleading or I might very well have mislead myself. In either case, on Thursday morning I found myself on the west side of downtown Cincinnati in need of a new plan. Not a problem. Some conflict had interfered with recent plans to visit an exhibit at the nearby Betts House so that became a perfect substitute.
The Betts House was built in 1804 using brick made on site. It started as a two-room farm house and grew to a two-story eight-room residence as the city grew around it. The house that was once far beyond the settlement’s boundaries, now has to include the qualifier “downtown” in its claims. The website identifies it as “the oldest residential structure in the downtown Cincinnati area”. The house was restored in the 1980s and opened as the Betts House Research Center in 1996. The “Research Center” part of the name came from plans to establish a reference library in the house but that turned out not to be feasible. Director Julie Carpenter calls the Betts House a “museum without collection”. The house itself is certainly a worthwhile exhibit and it usually has something else, like a photo or painting exhibit, going on, too.
Its current exhibit is The Big Shake – How the 1811-1812 New Madrid Earthquakes Rocked the Ohio River Valley. When I first read about the exhibit I wanted to see it but I really didn’t make any particular connection with the house. I thought of it as simply a display and a space coming together. The exhibit — and Carpenter, who organized the exhibit and provides an introduction — soon straightened me out. Though the series of earthquakes was centered more than 300 miles away near what is now New Madrid, Missouri, they were huge. The tremors were not just felt in Cincinnati; They did some damage. No large structures were destroyed but houses were severely shaken and chimneys were toppled. A brick summer kitchen behind the Betts House was made unusable and it’s felt that a toppled chimney was the likely cause. So the house is a survivor and a rare one. Other area structures certainly survived the earthquake but they didn’t survive the two centuries of progress that followed. In that, the Betts House is alone. It is a most appropriate setting for this exhibit which provides information on earthquakes in general and the New Madrid Earthquake in particular including its connection with the Betts family.
On Saturday the 14th, I stopped in another new eatery that had been on my list for awhile. It’s Olive, an urban dive in Dayton, Ohio, and, yes, it really was once a Wympee’s. I never ate there when it was actually part of the Wympee empire but I did eat there a few times while it was an independent diner/’burger joint. The outside may look the same but the inside, as photos on the restaurant’s website show, has been totally redone. The menu is slightly Mediterranean but everything else is local. “local over import, labor over convenience and service over everything else” is their published motto and I can vouch for the service part. The service was excellent, the food quite good, and the prices OK. That local streak extends through the music, too. It comes, at an unintrusive volume, from an iPod (or something similar) that contains nothing but local performers. A nice touch that I particularly liked.
Back in November, I stopped at Fort Recovery specifically to pick up a copy of Wabash 1791: St Clair’s Defeat and to hear the author speak. There’s a blog entry about that visit here. John Winkler began his talk that day by briefly describing the circumstances that preceded the battle then, while frequently pointing to a projected map of the battlefield, he stepped through November 4, 1791, by locating key figures and events in space and time. He spoke from memory and it was obvious he knew his stuff. The knowledge he demonstrated in that talk fills the pages of Wabash 1791. In fact, the book could be considered a hard copy version of that talk — with a few thousand-fold increase in detail.
Winkler begins the book, as he did that presentation, by talking of things that led to the battle only here he is not quite so brief. The world at the end of the eighteenth century can be pretty tough for modern-day readers to imagine. When the Battle of the Wabash took place, the United States constitution was barely three years old and our very first president was only halfway through his first term. The Ohio River was the nation’s border. England was still very much a military presence in North America and would officially be at war with the US in another twenty years. In 1791, there were plenty who thought England just might be picking up the pieces of her old colonies once the US collapsed.
After Winkler describes what he calls “The Strategic Situation”, he moves on to describe the opposing forces. The leaders of the two armies were certainly different but all were among the best of their time. St Clair, Butler, and Darke are just a few of the proven officers leading the Americans. On the Indian side, an equally qualified group of leaders surrounded chiefs such as Little Turtle, Blue Jacket, and Buckongahelas and the hated renegade Simon Girty. Also present were some out-of-uniform British officers. At the level of individual combatants, however, different meant unequal.
Recruiting had not gone well and continuing supply problems made it worse. Delays in supplies resulted in expiring enlistments and lack of supplies hampered training. In a sad “For want of a nail the shoe was lost…” style example, a shortage of paper led to a shortage of musket cartridges for training and target practice. As hard as it is to believe, some new recruits marched out of Camp Washington without ever having fired their guns. By contrast, fighting was part of every Indian’s life. Winkler quotes an officer who wrote, “…war is their principal study, in this they have arrived at considerable perfection.”
I hesitate to use the word “scholarly” but it really is appropriate for portions of the book. In particular, some of this early background information reads like a textbook and can be rather dry going. But there’s lots of good information being conveyed and the payoff occurs when the battle begins. Winkler can report the action without the need to repeatedly explain why one side did this and the other that. And report the action he does and it is brutal. Though the two armies were roughly equal in size, approximately 1700 soldiers and militia versus 1400 Indians, most of the experience and all of the surprise was with the Indians.
Two types of illustrations augment Winkler’s battle descriptions. Color-coded diagrams show three stages of the battle and artist Peter Dennis has produced three “snapshots” to help visualize the scene. The one used for the cover shows Captain Henry Carberry shouting at the demoralized soldiers to charge the encircling Indians simply in order to escape. Numerous photographs and drawings illustrate other sections of the book.
More US soldiers died that day than in any battle prior to the Civil War. This battle was the greatest victory American Indians ever achieved over US forces. The loss nearly eliminated all United States military capabilities and had the potential for destroying the young nation. In fact, a proposed investigation into supply chain corruption was abandoned to avoid that very risk. With the passage of time, this clearly significant battle has been largely forgotten by non-historians. How much success Winkler’s book has in reviving the memory is yet to be seen but it seems to contain all of the details needed for filling in the blanks.
Wabash 1791: St Clair’s Defeat, John F Winkler, Osprey Publishing, November 2011, paperback, 9.6 x 7.1 inches, 96 pages, ISBN 978-1849086769
Available through Amazon.
I’ve seen other accounts of St Clair’s Defeat. Allen Eckert’s fairly short one in That Dark and Bloody River is a pretty easy read. Eckert writes in the style of a novel with the factual base of a text book. In my youth, as I was first learning of the battle that occurred just about fifteen miles from where I grew up, I formed the impression that St Clair was a bumbling idiot and was almost single-handedly responsible for the disaster. As I learned more about the supply and equipment problems, my view softened. Eckert blames St Clair for not aborting the campaign in light of the huge recruiting and supply issues but little else. Winkler hardly blames him even for that. That could just be the result of Winkler’s even-handed reporting where he presents facts and holds back opinions.
As I read Wabash 1791 with the internet at my fingertips, I learned of a 1896 Harper’s Magazine article on the subject written by Theodore Roosevelt. This was just over a hundred years after the battle. A slightly edited version was included in volume 5 of Roosevelt’s Winning of the West published in 1905. Roosevelt doesn’t think much of St Clair and describes him as possessing “none of the qualities of leadership save courage.” Perhaps he was a bumbling idiot after all. ‘Tis a puzzlement.
Thumbnails of scans of the Roosevelt article appear in the archives section of the Harper’s website. Accessing full-sized readable copies requires a subscription. However, there is another section of the website, apparently sponsored by Balvenie Scotch whiskey, which contains articles written by folks such as Lewis Carroll, Mark Twain, and… Theodore Roosevelt. Maybe they’re all Balvenie drinkers. The 1896 Roosevelt article is available there. A far-from-full bottle of The Balvenie sits in my liquor cabinet and I poured myself a wee dram to drink a toast in thanks for the article. You can read the article here but you’ll have to supply your own whiskey.
I missed it. I missed an exhibit I really wanted to see. From April through November, the Ohio Historical Center had a display entitled Controversy: Pieces You Don’t Normally See. Of the five items it contained, the retired electric chair seemed to be the main attraction with a KKK outfit, a thumb mitt, an adult crib, and a nineteenth century condom rounding out the bill. I’m sure I drove by the building more than once while the exhibit was in place but, as we often do, I assumed there would always be another chance. It wasn’t until I visited the Ohio Historical Society’s website to sign up for Dickens of a Christmas that I realized that I’d blown it.
Dickens of a Christmas is an annual festival sort of thing that takes place in the recreated nineteenth century village adjacent to the Historical Center. I registered to attend the first night of Dickens of a Christmas and, even though there was no electric chair or condom to be seen, headed to Columbus in time to visit the Historical Center in the afternoon. That’s how I got the picture of the entrance to the recently closed Controversy exhibit.
In addition to the many worthwhile permanent exhibits, the Center currently has a captivating temporary exhibit called The American Soldier: A Photographic Tribute From The Civil War To Iraq and several of the 434 Civil War battle flags in the museum’s possession are on display. Plus, although it’s a poor substitute for an adult crib from an insane asylum, there was, once upon a time, at least a little controversy associated with the two headed calf.
The Ohio Historical Center is certainly a cool place to spend an afternoon but the title of this entry is “Dickens of a Christmas”. My evening at Ohio Village is covered in a separate Oddment page here. It is only the second Oddment page added since the start of this blog. While there is no precise definition of what qualifies one subject for an oddment page and another for a blog entry, it seems likely that I’ve completely covered a subject in a blog entry that might have appeared as an Oddment in pre-blog days and it is all but certain that some of the existing Oddment pages would have instead been blog entries had the blog existed at the time they were created. I believe one of the things that helps decide Oddment or blog is number of pictures. I haven’t posted a huge amount of pictures from Dickens of a Christmas but there are more, sixteen, than I feel comfortable with in a blog entry. Look them over at the Dickens of a Christmas Oddment page.
I know some who see this will have heard of Kickstarter but I’m guessing not all. It’s a method for funding projects with large numbers of small contributions. Learn more about it at the Kickstarter website. Kickstarter depends a lot on word of mouth. Friends tell friends, usually in an indirect Facebook/Twitter/newsletter sort of way, about projects they like and that, in case you haven’t guessed, is what I’m doing here. I’ve contributed to a couple of projects that I liked and blown off a couple more that didn’t quite click with me. I recently learned of a documentary project that I like and, since you’re reading about it here, there’s a chance you will too.
I heard of the project from Dirk Hamilton. It isn’t Dirk’s project but he is in it. I was inclined to give it a couple of bucks ’cause I like the general subject and, of course, I like Dirk but I was hooked for sure when I read the “Part music documentary and part road trip movie…” line. The documentary is called Folk. Check out its Kickstarter page here.
A TV commercial has been running for the last several weeks that begins by urging viewers to mark December 7 on their calendars. It grabbed my attention the first time I saw it because I knew the significance of December 7 or thought I did. It is the date of one of the most important events in our country’s history. I anticipated some news about a Pearl Harbor Day observance or maybe just a PSA about the attack’s upcoming 70th anniversary. But the spot went on to explain that December 7 marks the end of open enrollment for Medicare.
Medicare enrollment is certainly important and I’m not faulting the ad in any way. It stresses the need to do something by a certain date and stresses what that date is. Although I’m sure it’s entirely accidental, the fact that the date is December 7 may really increase the ad’s effectiveness. The majority of people who need to be concerned with Medicare are exactly the same people for who December 7 is a date which continues to live in infamy. The full date is December 7, 1941 but just December 7 is enough. To my generation and one or two on either side of it, December 7 means just one thing.
I wasn’t around in 1941 but I showed up just as soon as I could after the war. December 7 and June 6 were two of the very first dates I learned about. However, despite an almost instinctive connection between December 7 and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, I don’t believe I’ve ever attended any sort of commemorative service for the day. I don’t recall even seriously considering it until a few years ago when I became aware of a ceremony conducted in New Richmond, Ohio. New Richmond is an Ohio River town that I tend to visit fairly often. Just about everything I learn about the town, which is home to that cardboard boat race I wrote about here, makes me like it more. So I’ve thought about going for a couple of years but this is the first time I actually made it. This year’s New Richmond Pearl Harbor Remembrance was held on Sunday, December 4.
New Richmond has been doing this for twenty-plus years. In the past, it has been held at the park near the river and may still be on dry days. Today wasn’t one of them. Things began with the entrance of a sizable color guard followed by the singing of the national anthem and the pledge of allegiance to the flag. The anthem was sung solo by a fellow who I know nothing about beyond his name. John Hale‘s a cappella performance of The Star Spangled Banner was right up there with many big-name auto-tuned renditions I’ve heard. A very nice job. There were speeches, of course, but all were brief and pertinent. More nice jobs. Then we came to a point in the program labeled “Introduction of Pearl Harbor Survivors”.
When New Richmond began holding this remembrance, it was attended by approximately twenty-five area residents who had survived that horrible day in Hawaii. Just three remain. Two are in nursing homes and unable to attend. Joe Whitt stood alone. Joe enlisted when he was seventeen and turned eighteen just a couple of months before the attack. People familiar with pictures of Joe from that time say that he looked fourteen. The math is fairly simple. This is the seventieth anniversary. Joe is eighty-eight. He stood straight and recounted events of that day with frightening clarity. He and others fired at the planes with rifles. Because his ship, the USS San Francisco, was stripped for maintenance, these were the only weapons available to them. One of his shots, which he doesn’t believe did any real damage, was at a pilot whose face was clearly visible at “about the height of the ceiling” of the high school gymnasium. Even though Joe went on to fight in seventeen battles and do a lot more shooting with much bigger guns and a lot more impact, there is no doubt that his memory of that pilot’s face is vivid and crystal clear.
The left hand picture shows local Buckeye Boys State representatives presenting a wreath to Joe Whitt as Ralph Shepherd of the American Legion looks on. Today, the actual anniversary of the attack, it will be placed at the riverside monument and another will be cast into the Ohio River.
As far as I know, this is the only Pearl Harbor observance in the area. Someone said that Addyston, on the west side of Cincinnati, may still have one but I could find nothing online. In some respects, having the horrible events of December 7, 1941 recede in our collective memory is a good thing. Unfortunately, they are not receding so much on their own as being pushed back by more recent and equally horrible events. Yes, we should never forget events such as the attack on Pearl Harbor but it would sure be nice if all such memories were really really old ones.
With the Remembrance scheduled for a Sunday, my first thought was to make it the subject of the blog post for that same day. As Sunday approached, I realized that I would not have a book review ready for Wednesday and that I had a small herd of electrified horses trotting about my brain. It would be better, I surmised, to post the horse parade stuff on Sunday, the Remembrance stuff on Wednesday, and hope to have a book review by next Wednesday. Sorry to disillusion anyone who thought this was all carefully planned weeks in advance.
Last night I completed the trifecta of southwest Ohio horse parades. I just happened to be in Greenville on the occasion of their parade two weeks ago. I blogged about it here. Last week I was again in Greenville and came home through Springfield with a goal of getting some pictures of the recently relocated Madonna of the Trail statue. (More on that later.) I was surprised to see downtown Springfield blocked off and more surprised to learn that it was for the city’s first ever horse parade. I certainly had to stick around for that.
Carriage rides were available before the parade and, yes, I took one. Neither the carriage rides nor the parade actually passed the Madonna. The picture at right shows one of the “public” carriages leaving the blocked off area in anticipation of the parade itself. The parade formed behind where I stood to take the picture and turned right to reach the parade route proper.
As mentioned, this was Springfield’s first year for a parade and there were just fourteen entries. All were “hitches”. In other words, there were no horseback riders. The portrayal of the Christmas story in a setting where eighteenth and and nineteenth century covered wagons (albeit with pneumatic rubber tires) was the norm was simultaneously shocking and 100% fitting. I liked it. Future generations of Springfieldians may have a very unique take on the whole Christmas-pioneer-Madonna-covered-wagon thing.
So, after attending Springfield’s first and Greenville’s eighth more or less by accident, I felt almost obligated to attend Lebanon’s twenty-third horse parade. It’s not only the oldest of the three but, with 122 entries, far and away the biggest. It’s also the only double header. There is a daylight version at 1:00 and an in-the-dark illuminated-carriage version at 7:00. Other commitments kept me away from Lebanon until something after 1:00 but I headed there anyway thinking I might catch the tail end of the matinee. I couldn’t even get close. I whiled away the afternoon on the far side of town then returned thinking it entirely possible that I would just pass through again and head home. But I found a parking spot about three blocks from the Golden Lamb. In the Lamb’s Black Horse Tavern, I ran into some friends I hadn’t seen in quite awhile and managed to while away another couple of hours until parade time was near.
I’ve attended both light and dark versions of the Lebanon parade before but it’s been a long time. Both the parade and attendance have had time to grow and they certainly have. All of downtown Lebanon was pretty much shoulder to shoulder and withers to withers.
Several of the parade participants had been at Greenville and a few had been at Springfield but with more than eight times Springfied’s entries and nearly double Greenville’s, Lebanon obviously had some exclusives. Foremost among these were a nineteenth century fire engine and a team of Clydesdales. Both of these actually brought cheers from the crowd when they charged down the street.
During the parade I managed to somehow walk to it’s origin and back. Some of it was pretty awkward but in the end I just stepped into the street and paced the parade. I recall my father once telling me that the secret to getting around a military base is to carry a clipboard and walk briskly. The same technique works with parades using a camera. The friends I had met in the bar told of past success in watching the parade from the balcony at the Golden Lamb. Even though that appeared to be a bit more challenging than in prior years, they were going to give it a try. As the parade wrapped up, I snapped this picture of the hotel’s balcony just in case they were up there. No, I later learned, they had been blocked from the balcony but found an empty third floor dining room where they and another couple watched the parade in relative privacy. The only intruder was a hotel employee who stopped by now and then to take drink orders.
Now, about that Madonna. In 1928 and ’29, as the era of named auto trails came to an end, the Daughters of the American Revolution placed a Madonna of the Trail statue in each of the twelve states through which the National Old Trails Road passed. The one for Ohio was placed in Springfield. Two of the four sides on each statue’s base were inscribed with information specific to the statue and its placement. On Ohio’s Madonna these concerned the end of federally funded construction, which was quite close to the statue’s original placement, and George Rogers Clark victory at Peckuwe which was about three miles from the original placement as noted in the inscription. In the mid 1950s, highway construction caused the statue to be moved about a half mile east. The inscriptions were no longer as accurate as they had been but they weren’t off too much. A bigger problem with the move was that, once US-40 became four lanes wide, there was no convenient access to the statue. Reaching it involved either pulling over on the busy highway or parking in a safe spot and walking along the busy highway.
In September, the statue was again moved. This move was about two miles distance to a park in downtown Springfield. The setting makes the statue much more accessible while making the inscriptions much less accurate. Some consider this a net win; Others don’t. During the hour or so I hung around the statue last Saturday, I saw about twenty people take note of the statue in some way. There was a lot of foot traffic in the area Saturday and the majority seemed oblivious to both the new park and the relocated statue. Of those that noticed it, about half recognized it including one fellow who arrived with camera and tripod to photograph the old gal in her new home. Quite a few of those who had no idea what it was did read at least one panel. Several read them all. Whether or not any of them develop even the slightest interest in any aspect of the history that this Madonna of the Trail represents is anybody’s guess.
A newspaper article about the September 22 move is here. The Madonna can be seen thirteen days before the move here and here.
There’s no doubt that Thanksgiving and road trips go together. One of the most wonderful trips in the world is a drive home for a meal with family. As a kid, I remember riding in the backseat as we traveled to my grandparents for the big day. The distance wasn’t much but the presence of seldom seen aunts, uncles, and cousins made it an exciting outing. After moving to Cincinnati, I returned to my grandparents’ Darke County home several times for Thanksgiving. The distance was now greater and so were the odds that I hadn’t seen those aunts, uncles, and cousins since the previous Thanksgiving or Christmas. The excitement, though subdued by the adult me, was still there.
Hosting Thanksgiving sort of skipped a generation in my family. By the time my grandparents passed on, I was married and participating in my wife’s family events and my sister was on her way to a sizable family of her own. She became a Thanksgiving host pretty much without even thinking about it. I even made the trip there a couple of times while my parents joined the group at my sister’s or visited other relatives. My sister’s brood reached seven with six being girls who inherited her mothering and cooking talents. Somewhere along the line, Sis moved into a hostess emeritus role and spends the day stopping by meals hosted by her offspring for their offspring. Her itinerary this year included three different households.
While I was between wives and significant others with cooking skills, I managed to fumble my way through a couple of Thanksgiving meals. All three of my kids moved out almost as soon as they could and I’m thinking those meals might have had something to do with that.
There was never a shortage of invitations to spend the holiday with friends though I think they may have increased just a bit when I went from head of household to sole occupant. Nature abhors a vacuum. Wives and mothers abhor a bachelor. Not abhor in a we-don’t-like-you sort of way but abhor in a we-can-fix-that sort of way. Friends and coworkers who were wives and/or mothers along with the wives and/or mothers of friends and coworkers who were neither wives nor mothers assured me I was more than welcome at their celebration. I like to think I was polite while declining most invitations.
In 2005 I hit upon the idea of a road trip to avoid the drama and trauma of turning down invitations without a note from my doctor. I suspect I was partially driven by the desire for a break from a heavy work schedule but the whole world seemed simpler once I could honestly tell people I’d be out of town for Thanksgiving. I hit the road early on Thanksgiving day and had pulled pork for dinner in Nashville. I repeated the escape in 2006 by going to Bryson City, North Carolina. This was also the first year I went on the lam for Christmas. I returned to Nashville for Thanksgiving 2007 then drove the Dixie Highway to Asheville, North Carolina, in 2008.
Things changed in 2009. I retired in the middle of November, drove to Illinois a week later, and found myself in the unusual position of driving toward home as Thanksgiving approached. The Nawrockis, close friends who I had actually enjoyed a few past Thanksgivings with, had some changes, too. Their two daughters had moved out and the idea of a big at home feast was not as attractive as it once was. I’m not entirely certain that ’09 was the Nawrockis’ first time at the buffet in the old hotel but I believe it was. In any case, it was my first. For the unemployed, the need to wring pleasure from a four day weekend doesn’t exist. In fact, four day weekends don’t exist and you have to watch carefully to pick out weekends at all. Though I continue to scurry out of town for Christmas, Thanksgivings since 2009 have found me home and at the buffet. My daughter and son-in-law live nearby and they attend too so I even have some real family there.
The old hotel I mentioned is the General Denver in Wilmington, Ohio. If it wasn’t for that city in Colorado, the hotel might be the best known namesake of a fellow who left Wilmington to become, among other things, a California Representative to the US Congress, the US Commissioner of Indian Affairs, and Governor of the Kansas Territory. The hotel is named after James W Denver. His son, Matthew R Denver headed up the group that built the first-class four-story hotel in 1928.
Mark and Molly Dullea own the place now and live on the top floor. It has an abundance of old time charm which makes it the perfect place for Thanksgiving dinner and the buffet table is filled with all the appropriate goodies. For motherly cooks responsible for feeding a family every day, orchestrating a holiday dinner might be no big deal. For empty nesters and others who don’t feed even a small flock on a regular basis, it can be stressful. I’m quite happy leaving the orchestrating to professionals, eating my fill of turkey, stuffing, and pie, and going home thankful that I didn’t impose on anyone.
On Thanksgiving day I posted a link to a video on Facebook. I’d seen the video just a few days earlier on a blog that I follow. Ara Gureghian is an accomplished chef and photographer who sort of dropped out of the main stream about five years ago. His blog, which he has described as “My daily therapy, published weekly or so…”, includes some great photographs, some soul searching, and some travel. Until quite recently, all the travel was on a BMW motorcycle with sidecar. In September, a Honda based ECamper, which will allow some cold weather outings, was added. The video isn’t his. It’s the creation of filmmaker Louie Schwartzberg and Ara just passed it along as I’m doing. I believe that most readers of this blog will like the six minute video. Many may also like the blog.
Gratitude (Louie’s video)
The Oasis of My Soul (Ara’s blog)
Last week’s visit to Fort Recovery was triggered by a book. That book, a new one on the 1791 Battle of the Wabash, was available (pre-release) and its author, in addition to autographing copies, gave a presentation on the battle. As I wrote the blog entry about the visit, I was simultaneously struck by the idea of reviewing the book and the realization that book reviews might make good subjects for blog entries. I’ve recently picked up a few new books including some by people I know and to whom I’ve promised some feedback. Reviews, it seemed to me, would be a good way to feed the blog and focus the feedback. So here is the first book review entry. I promise there will be more.
The subject of this review is a book I picked up from the author, Jim Hinckley, when I passed through Kingman, Arizona, in June. Ghost Towns of Route 66, is the second Hinckley product I’ve read. The first was Route 66 Backroadswhere I was at least as impressed with the photography as with the writing. That is true of the newer book as well. …Backroads used photos from Kerrick James and Rick & Nora Bowers along with some from outside sources. James is the only photographer listed on the cover of Ghost Towns… although there are a few by others including Hinckley. My praise for the photos is not intended to diminish Hinckley’s writing but to recognize some wonderful images and acknowledge a huge reason that these books get a second look when spotted on a store shelf or counter.
Ghost towns is a subject where photos and words can truly complement each other. By definition, a ghost town is a place that was once thriving but is no longer. When you visit a ghost town, you look at what remains and try to imagine what once was. James’ pictures let you see what remains and Hinckley’s words help you imagine what was there once upon a time.
Hinkley’s words are the result of some serious research. The man definitely does his home work. Facts about a town’s beginning are usually given and the events and circumstances leading to its rise and fall are discussed. Some of the falls are complete while others are far from it.
A few towns on Sixty-Six do match the far west ghost town image of complete desolation with nothing moving but tumble weeds. Those that do, like Allanreed in Texas, Endee in New Mexico, and Glen Rio on the state line between them, tend to be a bit to the west themselves. Other towns that Hinckley has included, such as Galena in Kansas and Afton in Oklahoma, ain’t dead yet.
In fact, Galena and Afton are current must-stops on any Route 66 trip through the area. In Galena, 4 Women on the Route has become a major roadside attraction in just a few years and in Afton, Laurel Kane’s Afton Station, established a bit ahead of 4 Women…, is a true Route 66 icon. But Hinckley isn’t to be faulted for including these towns. Both are mere shadows of their boom time selves. The decline has currently ceased and maybe even reversed but there was sure a lot of it and there is no guarantee that it isn’t just paused.
This isn’t the first book one should acquire when planning a drive down Historic Route 66. In my opinion, that spot belongs to Jerry McClanahan’s EZ 66 Guide and there are other route related books offering a broader view of the road and the attractions at its side. But, if you are attracted to clusters of dilapidated buildings and often wonder what a wide spot in the road used to be, Ghost Towns of Route 66 could be just the book you want. You’ll get lots of history and some great photos of many un- and under-populated
settlements along the historic highway.
Ghost Towns of Route 66, Jim Hinckley and Kerrick James, Voyageur Press, June 2011, 10.25 x 8.75 inches, 160 pages, ISBN 978-0760338438
Available through Amazon.
Viva la Mush or rebellion in the heartland. I like fried mush. It reminds me of my childhood. The fact that Bob Evans restaurants served this breakfast staple accounted for many — perhaps even most — of my visits there. Last month, when my local Bob Evans informed me that mush was no longer available, I was heartbroken. When this came up in a conversation with my sister, she told me that, although it was no longer on the menu, fried mush could still be had at the Bob Evans in Greenville, Ohio, if you asked. I stopped in to make sure she wasn’t just teasing me and found that, not only was it available, it had been returned to the menu. I told the cashier how I had been forced to come there because my own Bob Evans had dropped my favorite and she told me they had tried that, too, “but it didn’t go over very well.” After a week or two mush was returned and it reappeared on the menu at the next printing. Viva la mush and viva the small town restaurant manager who keeps her customers happy in spite of corporate directives.
That’s my sister and me in the lock-up at Fort Recovery sometime in the mid-1950s. From about age six to age ten or so, the site of the 18th century fort was my favorite “vacation” spot. During those years, a summer was not complete until I’d talked my parents into taking us to this far away and ancient attraction. In time I learned that the log structures were not the originals from 1794. Those were already long gone when a 1938 WPA project produced the one-third sized replica that was there on my first visit. The building we’re peering out of was part of the replacement constructed toward the end of my fascination. A worker at the museum thought 1957 or ’58. Eventually I even learned that this particular “far away” was something less than fifteen miles north on the very road we lived on. Figuring that out took me awhile since all other travels — school, shopping, relatives, Dad’s job — were in some other direction. I still greatly appreciate my parents taking me there even if the effort wasn’t quite as extreme as I once thought.
I mention this now because I stopped by the old fort today. I was near my childhood home for other reasons and there were some happenings at the fort centered around a new book titled Wabash 1791: St. Clair’s Defeat. Yesterday John Winkler, the book’s author, led a walk around the site for educators. Today he gave a pair of talks. I was there well ahead of the first talk at 3:00 but didn’t move to the lecture room until it was filled to overflowing. I did get a good seat for the slightly less crowded 4:00 presentation.
St. Clair’s Defeat, a.k.a., The Battle of the Wabash, occurred 220 years ago last Friday. On November 4, 1791, St. Clair’s 920 men were attacked at the future site of Fort Recovery by a slightly larger force of Miami, Shawnee, and Delaware Indians. The result was pretty much a massacre with 632 soldiers and all or nearly all of the approximately 200 camp followers killed. I’ve seen conflicting statements that the dead soldiers represented a quarter of the U.S. Army at that date and that the battle reduced the U.S. Army to around 300 men. I’m guessing that the discrepancy comes from varying counts of deserters and the sick. I picked up a copy of Winkler’s book so maybe I’ll find the accurate numbers there. Regardless of how much Army remained, much clearly didn’t. By several different measures, this battle was the worst defeat in United States history.
Just over two years later, troops under “Mad” Anthony Wayne began construction of what they would name Fort Recovery. It was completed in March of 1794 and in June of that year survived attack by what has been called the largest force of American Indians ever gathered east of the Mississippi. That was followed by Wayne’s victory at Fallen Timbers which was followed by the Treaty of Greenville which was followed by the state of Ohio.
When I did an Oddment page for the 2010 Fair at New Boston which included a reenactment of the Battle of Fallen Timbers, I discovered that a song existed about St Clair’s Defeat. A recording by Roger McQuinn, complete with lyrics, can be heard or downloaded here.
Anthony Wayne was my childhood hero. I imagine part of the reason was the “Mad” in his name but I was really impressed with that cocked hat. When I saw my first picture of a bare-headed “Mad” Anthony, the general came near to losing me as a fan. But I overcame the shock and stuck by my hero and still enjoy knowing that he and I ran up and down the same roads separated by just a couple of centuries.
Of course, sis and I did eventually get out of the frontier hoosegow but it happened again.
I was alerted to the Fort Recovery doings by a Ohio Historical Society newsletter. Just a couple of days prior, the Lincoln Highway Facebook group had a link to this article on Balyeat’s Coffee Shop in Van Wert, Ohio. I’ve eaten at Balyeat’s multiple times but have never had the “Young Fried Chicken” advertised on their wonderful neon sign. The Facebook post reminded me of that and, since Van Wert and Fort Recovery are only about thirty crow miles (or forty Subaru miles) apart, I decided to correct that gap in my experience. Today the chicken is baked rather than fried but I’m sure it’s still young.
I have now removed the forum that was added in 2010. I said I would do that in the very first entry of this blog but I saw no need to rush. Until this week, it has sat there idle exactly as it had for the seven preceding months. Every now and then some spammer would attempt to set up an account but they were few and far between. But this week there has been a mini-flurry (6) from folks with names like “Okkgeiwk” and “horrhyday” which prompted me to finally delete the thing.
