Tag Archives: History

Logan Washboard Festival Plus

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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

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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.

Spirit of 76

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For the second consecutive year, I’ve created a post specifically for my birthday. I didn’t expect to. I did it last year to note a milestone in age and a change in appearance. I’m doing it this year primarily to record some thoughts. I ended last year’s post with the observation that “birthdays are good occasions for remembering all the folks I’ve known who have been denied the privilege of growing older”. I intentionally used “older” rather than “old” without knowing the significance that the difference would hold this year. During the year since my last birthday, a very close friend of mine stopped growing older. John was born a few years before me so the privilege of growing old was something we shared. Sure, lots of people live to be much older but lots more don’t.

The day before John turned seventy-six, he commented about having that number of trombonists serenade him for his birthday. On the day. I shared a Youtube clip of The Music Man‘s signature song.

I recalled that as my own seventy-sixth birthday approached but thought of a couple of other things associated with the number 76. One was (Union) 76 gasoline and another was The Spirit of ’76 painting shown at left. Probably because I would like to think I have some spirit left at age 76, I felt more of a connection with the painting than with the gasoline, and I felt more of a connection with the painting’s title than with its appearance.

Archibald Willard, who painted The Spirit of ’76, was an Ohioan. Some of his more notable work is in the somewhat nearby Fayette County courthouse. Apparently, Willard also liked the word “spirit”. The three largest of his 1882 murals are The Spirit of the U. S. Mail, The Spirit of Electricity, and The Spirit of the Telegraph. While those were no doubt high-tech futuristic subjects in 1882, today all three would probably be combined in something like The Spirit of the Internet, and Willard would have to come up with a couple additional ideas to fill all three walls.

The image with the old phrase on an updated background at the top of this post should now make sense but in case it doesn’t, I’ll explain. A few days ahead of my 76th birthday, I sat on a bench in Washington Court House, Ohio, gazing at the Fayette County courthouse in which there are three “Spirit” murals painted by the man who created a painting in 1875 that he called Yankee Doodle but which was soon renamed The Spirit of ’76. Happy Birthday to me.

A more readable version of the sign in that last picture is here.

Support Your Local Cryptid

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I can’t really claim to be a big supporter of cryptids of any sort but I can claim to support my local cryptids more than any of the others. I have taken a few pictures of Bigfoot signs and statues but I’ve never gone out of my way to do it, and I’ve never for a moment thought of going to Scotland solely to look for that critter reported to live in Loch Ness. I have, however, visited Point Pleasant, West Virginia, a couple of times primarily to admire the Mothman statue, and when I heard about the first-ever Frogman Festival, I figured attending it would just be proper. You can’t get much more local than a cryptid sighting a mile and a half from where I once lived and less than three miles from where I live now.

Some background, I suspect, might be in order. I’ll start with a definition. I now know what a cryptid is but I didn’t a few years ago and the word is not one I use daily. From Wikipedia: “Cryptids are animals that cryptozoologists believe may exist somewhere in the wild, but are not recognized by science. Cryptozoology is a pseudoscience, which primarily looks at anecdotal stories, and other claims rejected by the scientific community.” Mothman, which has been sighted about 120 miles from my home, is a cryptid and I believe the pictured inflatable is a representation. Here is a picture of a more solid, but not necessarily more accurate, rendition that’s in his hometown.

The Loveland Frog or Frogman is a cryptid that some cryptozoologists believe lives, or at least lived, in or near the Little Miami River around Loveland, Ohio. There are numerous descriptions floating around and even some reports of more recent sightings but essentially all descriptions mention sightings in 1955 and 1972. The creature is sometimes described as having webbed hands and sometimes as having human-like hands. Sometimes it’s very frog-like and sometimes it is basically a human with the face of a frog. Sometimes it’s about three feet tall but sometimes it’s closer to six feet. There are many other variations too. Legends and cryptids are often like that.

Vendors were a major part of the festival. It was announced at the start of the presentations that there were fifty-two vendors present representing twelve states. They filled the majority of the space offering clothing, books, games, a variety of craft items, and some really serious masks. Some very impressive works of art could also be found.

Here is an aspect of the festival that was a complete surprise to me. A company named MetaZoo was identified as the festival’s official sponsor. The name meant nothing to me but I soon learned that it is a gaming company and that a big tournament was part of the festival. I said that vendors had the majority of space but that’s because vendors were set up in the hallways. Space inside the main room was about evenly split between vendors and gamers. I don’t know much about the game itself but it looks like wizard hats, swimming goggles, and other paraphernalia could be important. I did learn from one of the people supervising the tournament that the play was one-on-one with winners advancing. The final rounds will be held at the tables with overhead cameras sending the action to the large screens. At the moment, all tables were being used so that random preliminary games were taking place at those tables.

I took in some but not all of the festival’s eight hours of presentations. The first picture is of one of the event’s organizers, Jeff Craig, introducing the first speaker. Dee Elliott talked about the effect of “hauntings” on three small West Virginia towns. Ashley Hilt’s presentation was entitled “Mothman” but it ended up touching on other sightings as well. I realize it looks like Mickey Mouse ears on the pair of audience members but they are actually frog eyes. Quite a few attendees were wearing frog eyes or something similar.

James Willis’ “Frogman of Loveland, Ohio” presentation was the main thing I wanted to see and I was certainly not alone. This was a standing-room-only presentation that was worth the price of addition. Willis dug into original police and newspaper reports to construct a rather thorough history of the legend. It’s the first time I’ve heard a version of this saga that makes sense.

The City of Loveland seems to have embraced its local cryptid. The picture at left was taken during the recent Hearts Afire weekend which I reported on here. That’s the city mascot greeting a young visitor on the bike trail.

I suppose it’s too early to know if this will become an annual event or was a one-time thing. It was clearly well-attended which I assume means it was a success. I had fun and learned more than I expected and will be on the lookout for a big festival or a big frog.

 

Book Review
Lost Treasures of Cincinnati
Amy E. Brownlee

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Amy E. Brownlee is a lifelong Cincinnatian. She naturally learned a lot about the city growing up here then used that knowledge and added much more during her ten years at Cincinnati Magazine. An awful lot of the treasures she writes about in Lost Treasures of Cincinnati were lost before she arrived but a rather frightening number have disappeared during her lifetime. Of course, an even larger number have disappeared during mine. Neither of us is responsible for that. I swear it’s coincidence pure and simple.

Lost Treasures of Cincinnati contains five major sections with several sub-sections in each. Most pages are split between two different lost treasures although more than a few treasures get a page all to themselves. Most descriptions are accompanied by images and these are usually of the actual treasure but there are exceptions to both. I believe that each treasure is described in a single paragraph although it is possible that an exception or two escaped me.

The book opens with “Food and Drink” in Section 1 then covers “Entertainment” and “Retail” in the next two sections. The smallest section, “Media”, is followed by the largest, “Community”. Definitions for those section titles are not particularly rigid and the size of the “Community” section probably indicates that it is the least rigid of all. It is where things like churches and breweries, of which Cincinnati had more than a few, appear.

Most, but not quite all, of the breweries mentioned in the book were gone before I got here. Likewise with restaurants and attractions which together comprise the biggest part of things that have disappeared during my lifetime. I caught one show, Hair, at the Shubert (“Entertainment”) before it was torn down. I also saw one movie at the Albee (“Entertainment”) but I don’t remember what it was. I had one meal each at The Gourmet Room and the Maisonette (“Food and Drink”) before they closed. There are quite a few places in this book where I ate one or more meals or watched one or more movies, plays, games, or concerts. Encountering each of them on these pages prompted memories that went way beyond the single paragraph of text. Reading about places that were already gone when I came to Cincinnati didn’t prompt any memories, of course, but it did make me appreciate just how many treasures have been lost.

I really enjoyed reading Lost Treasures of Cincinnati cover-to-cover front-to-back but as I did, two other ways of reading the book came to mind. With its fairly short standalone essays, it seems like a natural fit for that popular personal reading room with the porcelain furniture. Its use as a reference book also seems rather natural. I don’t mean an every-last-detail reference book to use in conducting deep-dive research but a great place to answer questions like “What was the name of that boat-shaped restaurant?” or “What happened to our NBA team?”. The full index will help the book play that role.

Lost Treasures of Cincinnati, Any E. Brownlee, Reedy Press (October 1, 2022), 6 x 9 inches, 192 pages, ISBN 978-1681063263
Available through Amazon.

Book Review
Cincinnati Curiosities
Greg Hand

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Greg Hand has been a man of letters — or at least a man of words — his entire adult life. He began as a newspaper reporter, moved up to editor, left to head up a university PR department, co-authored three books about the university while he was there, then retired. I was not even slightly aware of any of this as it was happening. I only became aware of Hand’s existence when I stumbled upon the blog he started post-retirement. His knowledge of local history and ability to dig up information to augment that knowledge was immediately apparent and I’ve been an ardent reader of that blog ever since that happy discovery. The blog’s name is Cincinnati Curiosities and it can be found here. That the blog would lead to a book by the same name seems pretty natural.

The book borrows more than its name from the blog. I recognize some of the book’s subjects from the blog and I suppose it’s possible that all have appeared there although I don’t believe that’s the case. Of course, there is a good chance that any topics appearing for the first time in the book will show up in the blog sometime in the future.

Cincinnati Curiosities (the book) begins with a definition of Cincinnati taken from Urban Dictionary. When I visited the source, I discovered that the definition was just one of more than forty that individuals have contributed. Most are simply excuses for hurling insults rife with misspellings and such but a few, including the one that Hand chose, make some attempt at being insightful. The Hand-picked quote begins, “A pleasantly bland and annoyingly conservative city…” Although there are some that disagree, I believe that’s a fair representation of the view that most non-residents (and many residents) have of Cincinnati. Hand goes so far as to state that, “We deserve this reputation.” Then, after agreeing that Cincinnati’s “bland” reputation is probably justified, he proceeds to show us that it wasn’t always so.

In fact, later in the book, Hand offers another very different capsulated view of the city. On December 12, 1890, he tells us, “The Palace Hotel had elephant steak on the menu because an elephant was executed by firing squad that morning at the Cincinnati Zoo. Hundreds of people watched. That pretty much summarizes Cincinnati in 1890.”

The book is not just some blog posts strung together. There are, in my opinion, two big differences between blog and book. One is simply the physical difference between holding a book and flipping through pages versus scrolling through items on a screen. The second is grouping. The book organizes the writings in groups so that a subject can be looked at from multiple angles or related stories can be read as a collection. The previous comment about the well-attended elephant shooting begins the chapter titled “The Sensational and the Senseless”. In addition to the tale of a pachyderm’s public demise, the chapter tells of the zoo’s annual Butcher’s Day, people leaping from bridges for profit, musclemen demonstrating feats of strength, and other assorted entertainments.

“The Sensational and the Senseless” is the fourth of ten chapters. Other chapters tell of monsters in the Ohio River (“The Old Weird Cincinnati”), Fanny Trollope’s visit during the “Porkoplis” period (“Tales From the Old City”), the possibility that striptease was invented in Cincinnati (“Freaks, Flesh, and Footlights”), and a large variety of other topics. The striptease claim is based on Millie De Leon’s orchestrated removal of several garters in 1901, and Hand cites the claim in suggesting that a Striptease Hall of Fame might be an “appropriate addition to our Over-the-Rhine neighborhood”. 

Hand’s usually light-hearted reports are often accompanied by contemporary illustrations. At left is a Pears Soap advertisement based on Lillie Langtry’s famous bath in Apollinaris water at Cincinnati’s Grand Hotel in 1883. It’s in the chapter titled “Nudity, Naughtness, and Negotiable Affection”, and if that doesn’t get you interested in the book I don’t know what will.

In addition to authoring this book and the aforementioned blog, Mr. Hand is a founder and mainstay of Stand-Up History which I reported on here. His stand-up presentations typically also fit in the Cincinnati Curiosities category. In a wonderful coincidence, the troupe is appearing at Muse Cafe on the same day that this review is being published. In a not-wonderful coincidence, I am committed to doing something else at the exact same time. Happily (for you, not me), my absence will mean more room for attendees. There is more info here.

Cincinnati Curiosities: Healing Powers of the Wamsley Madstone, Nocturnal Exploits of Old Man Dead, Mazeppa’s Naked Ride & More, Greg Hand, The History Press (November 14, 2022), 6 x 9 inches, 160 pages, ISBN 978-1467152822
Available through Amazon.

Stand Up History Live

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Historian Greg Hand and mixologist Molly Wellman dreamed up Stand-Up History a few years back but, due to a combination of ignorance and conflicts, it took me until January 2023 to actually make it to a performance. I liked the concept the instant that I heard of it, and the reality did not disappoint in the slightest. That January event was at the Muse Cafe on Harrison Avenue. The subject of this post, my second Stand-Up History experience, took place at the Mercantile Library in Cincinnati’s downtown. Not only would Molly be one of the evening’s presenters, she had made and was serving a big bowl of her Ginger Punch.

Stand-Up History is a wonderful learn-while-you-laugh program. As you no doubt guessed, the name came from “stand-up comedy”. In fact, searching for “stand-up history” will result in a bunch of links to the history of stand-up comedy pushing hits for this operation well down the list. The name isn’t all that’s borrowed, of course. A program consists of individuals standing up and talking. The subjects are all historical and the presenters are all experts but the presentations have a decidedly humorous focus and the subjects are chosen to assist in generating smiles, grins, chuckles, and guffaws. 

First up tonight was astronomer Dean Regas. Regas was also a presenter at that January show I attended. I’ve heard him on radio many times but that was my first time seeing him in person. Tonight’s topic was “How to Teach Grown-Ups About Pluto” which happens to be the name of Regas’ latest book.  It was a good use of his wonderful wit and his knowledge of both science and history.

Author and blogger Dann Woellert was up next with “Our Badass Sister of Charity and the Creation of Cincinnati Pizza Pie”. Sister Blandina Segale’s long life included serving her church in Colorado and New Mexico, dealings with a lynch mob and Billy the Kid, and establishing institutions such as Saint Rita’s School for the Deaf and San Antonio Parish in Cincinnati. One of the first places in America where pizza was served was at San Antonio festivals. It’s pretty amazing where the history of food will lead you if you let it.

As Cincinnati’s favorite mixologist, Molly Wellmann is an expert on the history of Cincinnati’s adult beverages and the places that served them. She sort of ventured out of her comfort zone tonight by telling the story of “How Hyde Park Became a Village Without Having a Tavern”. It was long ago annexed by the city of Cincinnati and now has taverns aplenty.

Greg Hand, of Cincinnati Curiosities, finished things up by poking holes in “Myths Cincinnatians Dearly Want to Believe”. There were myths about hills, chili, ketchup, and more. The final myth addressed was that Mark Twain quote about Cincinnati and the end of the world. “When the end of the world comes, I want to be in Cincinnati. It is always ten years behind the times,” has often been attributed to Twain but, as Hand pointed out, there is absolutely no evidence that he actually said it. I’ve always thought the quote presented Cincinnatians with a dilemma. On one hand, it’s kind of nice to have someone as famous as Twain notice your city but, on the other, very few people really want to live in a place that is ten (or, in some versions, twenty) years out of date. I don’t believe that Hand mentioned it but I’ve turned up a claim that the first reference to the quote in print was in 1978. A similar quote about the end of the world and Bavaria being fifty years behind appeared in print in 1886 and probably existed earlier. By 1978, Twain had been dead for 68 years and the Bavarian comment was 94 years old. That makes being one or two decades “behind the times” appear not so bad.

So here’s the whole crew including MC Mike Perrino in the middle of all the presenters. Having been founded in 1835, the Mercantile Library has lots of history. Perrino reminded us of that by noting that this was the 165th anniversary of an appearance by Herman Melville that local papers reported as “Earnest, though not sufficiently animated.” Tonight’s presenters seemed to be well aware of the importance of being animated. Some of them will be doing this somewhere on the third Thursday of every month for the foreseeable future. Next month, Molly, Greg, and Mike will be joined by Ann Senefeld at Muse Cafe. Details here.

Happy Imbolc Again

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I’ve made it known that I use canned posts when my world is “too busy or too boring for a current events piece”. Although my life was neither this week, the things that kept it from being boring were not the sort of things that make interesting reading. I was on the verge of scheduling a Trip Peek when I decided to instead reuse this article from 2016.

gknob2010Groundhog Day has long been one of my favorite holidays. In fact, attending America’s biggest Groundhog Day event in Punxsutawney, PA, was among the first things I did with the newly available time that retirement brought. The photo at right was taken at 4:58 AM, February 2, 2010. Sunrise was more than two hours away and the temperature was four degrees Fahrenheit. I had a good time and I’m glad I went but the experience did not lead to plans for an annual return. Standing outside in pre-dawn single-digit temperatures is something I prefer to discuss in past tense only.

I credited my original fondness for Groundhog Day to a belief that it had no religious connections and was basically folklore that had been adopted by some Pennsylvanians largely to promote silliness. While both of those claims are sort of true, there is more to it. I started to doubt the “no religious connections” when I discovered that America’s Groundhog Day shares its February 2 date with Christianity’s Candlemas. But sharing a date does not a connection make and there are no direct ties apparent between Groundhog Day and any of the three events (presentation of the child Jesus, Jesus’ entry into the temple, and Mary’s purification) Christians attribute to the day.

February 1 is also a day recognized by Christians. It is the day that Saint Brigid of Ireland is reported to have died and is celebrated as her feast day. Before Saint Brigid was born (in 451 they say) a Gaelic festival was celebrated about this time to honor a goddess also named, perhaps by coincidence though probably not, Brigid. I have to say “about this time” because man-made calendars had not yet taken over and feast days were not yet tied to specific numbers on pages. Brigid’s was associated with a point halfway between Winter Solstice and Vernal Equinox called Imbolc which happens near the beginning of what we call February. In 2016 it occurs at 4:30 EST February 4. (See 2023 comments at end of article.)

Without donut shops and corner diners, it isn’t clear where ancient Irish farmers gathered to talk about the weather but it’s a safe bet that they did. Around Imbolc, the coming spring would have been a big topic. Farmers without donut shops and cable television are quite observant of their environment and they no doubt noticed that bright clear days in the middle of winter were usually a little colder than cloudy ones. With Imbolc being the most “middle of winter” you can get, giving some special significance to the weather on that day was likely fairly natural. That’s about as close to science that the groundhog and shadow story gets.

I’m guessing that making a determination at sunrise was also fairly natural. Even if those early farmers were capable of determining Imbolc’s exact moment — and I’m not saying they weren’t — in those years when it did not occur during the daytime they weren’t about to get up in the middle of the night to see if the sun was shining. The crack of dawn probably seemed about right.

So there really are no direct connections between Groundhog Day and religion and there is plenty of silliness in its fairly recent (1887) use to bring fame to a small Pennsylvania town but its timing is firmly linked to the workings of the solar system and there is a tiny bit of logic in it being a day to make weather predictions. If nothing else, the days around Imbolc are most likely the coldest of the year meaning there’s a good chance that it’s all up-thermometer from here.

My 2010 Punxsutawney visit is here. I will, as usual, celebrate Groundhog Day on Tuesday by consuming pork sausage at some point. I have no plans to be awake at 4:30 Thursday to observe Imbolc.

I don’t know where I got the time and date for Imbolc 2016 but I know I did not calculate either. This year, my first searches turned up the date February 1 but no time was given. I decided to calculate it myself and came up with 11:48 GMT February 3. Of course, I initially doubted my math but quickly found reassurance at the Farmer’s Almanac that February 3 indeed is the midpoint of winter and eventually found support for that being the date of “Imbolc exact” in the Witches Astrological Calendar at Patheos. I cannot say for certain why so many sites give February 1 as the date but am guessing that some have decided that Imbolc is just another name for Saint Brigid’s Day. Regardless, I now have some confidence in my calculations being reasonably close and there is even a possibility that I’ll be awake when Imbolc 2023 rolls around (at 6:48 EST) with the previous day’s serving of pork sausage completely digested and sunrise not quite an hour away. 

Trip Peek #121
Trip #153
Kitty Hawk Holidays

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This picture is from my 2018 Kitty Hawk Holidays trip. It was a Christmas Escape Run so obviously the December 25 holiday was included but it started sufficiently early to include another holiday — the 115th anniversary of the Wright Brothers’ first flight on December 17. Stops on the way to Kitty Hawk, NC, included the National D-Day Memorial and Appomattox Court House. The anniversary was celebrated with ceremonies at Kill Devil Hill then I stuck around the area a couple more days in order to drive some of the Outer Banks Scenic Byway and check out other points of interest. Christmas was spent in Knoxville, TN, which I reached largely on US-64 and the Dixie Highway with several stops and side trips to Charlotte and Mount Airy. I reached home on December 27 following a last meal on the road at the since-closed Parkette Drive In in Louisville, KY.

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.

The House That Harry Built

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It had been several years since I last visited Chateau Laroche on the banks of the Little Miami River. I don’t know that I was ever what could be called a frequent visitor but I have been there quite a few times over the years. The first was in the mid-1970s and the last was, as I said, several years ago. Sometime last summer, when I realized just how long it had been, I decided I needed to stop by the well-known local landmark and have been waiting for an idle day with good weather. That combination finally appeared on the first Tuesday of October.

Chateau Laroche is more commonly known as the Loveland Castle. It is almost entirely the work of Harry Andrews who was born in 1890, began construction of the castle in 1929, and continued building until his death in 1981. I don’t know exactly when Harry moved into the castle but he had been living there for a long time — sleeping beneath the dome he happily reminded visitors had been declared impossible by professional architects — when I first met him.

Domed ceilings had been constructed entirely of stone hundreds of years in the past, Harry pointed out, and there was no reason they couldn’t be built today. He built this one by adding one row of stones per week. The office is where he did his writing and notarized signatures. It’s where one of my favorite Harry stories took place.

I’d used Harry to notarize a couple of car titles but this time I needed my signature notarized on an affidavit for some out-of-state legal difficulties. The castle website identifies Harry as the state’s oldest notary and claims he never charged more than a quarter. I don’t want to start an argument but I’m pretty sure he was charging fifty cents at the time of this 1978 visit. Four signatures were required and I handed Harry two dollars for his services. Having read over the affidavit and realizing that some sort of fine would be involved, Harry returned a dollar explaining that it looked like I was probably going to need some extra money.

The office and Harry’s living quarters are blocked off by gates and kept essentially as Harry left them. Much of the rest of the interior also looks pretty much the same as it did although it’s not maintained as fervidly as the personal spaces.

I was surprised to find a locked gate blocking access to the castle roof. The castle is owned and maintained by the all-volunteer Knights of the Golden Trail, an organization with origins in Sunday school classes Harry Andrews taught in the 1920s. There were about a hundred knights at Harry’s death. There are about three hundred today. Sir Fred and Sir Eric were working on the roof and explained that too many years of too many feet (“especially high-heeled shoes”) had created a crack and a leak that threatened the castle. They told me the crack was quite visible in the ceiling of the banquet hall (the room with the big table) and I checked it out when I went back down. Work is underway to seal the crack to head off further water damage but the roof will likely remain closed to the public permanently.

Protecting the structure is clearly of utmost importance but I was disappointed nonetheless. The rooftop deck was always a favorite spot of mine and was the scene of another Harry story. At the time, I lived just a few miles away and a neighbor’s truck-driving brother was visiting after dropping off a loaded trailer. For some reason, we decided to take his semi-tractor to the castle. For reference, it looked quite similar to this one that recently sold at auction. I rode in the middle of the cab and recall ducking reflexively as we approached low branches in the tall truck. We eventually ended up sitting on the castle rooftop chatting with Harry. The tractor could be seen from there and Harry asked just what that strange-looking vehicle was. “Why, that’s a White Freightliner”, its red-bearded owner proudly answered in his best West Virginia drawl.

With the castle’s tallest tower inaccessible, I grabbed a picture of the Knights of the Golden Trail logo from the balcony. Then, after exploring the garden area for a bit, I got a picture of the balcony itself.

The dungeon is actually reachable from inside the castle but the curved stairway is quite low and unwanted head-banging was all too common. Today visitors are encouraged to access the locked cell and its long-suffering occupant through an exterior door.

Steps leading from the castle to the road in front of it are currently closed so I walked up the road to take this picture. The archway marks the closed steps. The wide doorway beyond the steps is the garage. There can’t be very many castles around that were originally built with a garage. On the way back to the parking lot (nicely paved, BTW) I slipped down by the river to get the opening photo. Another memory l have is of canoeing past the castle and seeing it through the trees from a similar angle.

I was pleasantly surprised at the number of people touring the castle with me. At one point, I estimate there were as many as fifty curious folks exploring the building and grounds. Many were young homeschooled students from nearby. Apparently, even though the actual schooling takes place in small family units, much of it is somehow coordinated and medieval history is a common subject this time of year. Their parents were there, of course, and there were also several youngish couples without children including one I spoke with from Indianapolis. All seemed suitably impressed. The KOGT have done a fine job of taking care of Harry’s house and keeping it available to be appreciated by others.