Kim’s (Is) Back

Posted on September 12, 2021 by Denny

Not only is Kim’s Classic Diner back in operation, owner Kim Starr is back at the helm. After years of wanting to own a diner, a few more years shopping for the right one, and another year moving and rehabbing a 1946 Silk City, Kim seemed to be living her dream. That dream, however, was put on hold about a dozen years ago so that Kim could devote all of her energy to helping her daughter deal with life-threatening heart and lung issues. Now it is those threats that have been put on hold — hopefully forever — as daughter helps mom bring her diner back to life.

There were attempts to keep things going without Kim’s involvement. Over the years, the diner was leased to three different operators but all three failed as a business, a responsible leasee, or both. I remember two of them but must have missed the third one entirely. I know it can’t be easy to make a classic diner go in a town of well under 3,000, but every time I drove through Sabina and past the closed business, I thought to myself that this place would be hopping if Kim was still here.

Well, Kim is here now, and while the place may not yet be hopping all the time, it apparently is some of the time. Employees spoke of being “swamped” on occasion and a scan of the diner’s Facebook page shows that the daily specials have “SOLD OUT” more than once since the August 20 reopening. I was there on Friday for breakfast. It wasn’t swamped but I sure was not alone. I did my normal dawdling while other customers came and went and I think there were always between five and ten people eating with me.

My Friday visit was just one day shy of the eighteenth anniversary of the original opening. One of the reasons Kim had picked the second anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks for her opening date was the diner’s New York history. I was happy to see articles about that history back on the walls and especially happy to see that three mugs from those days (delivered to Kim by a visiting waitress) were back on the shelf. These were among the items that had gone home with Kim for safekeeping during her absence from the diner.

In addition to being one of the coolest diners within my extended neighborhood (It’s about 40 miles straight up US-22), Kim’s is special to me for another reason. It was the subject of the first of four Diner Days articles I wrote for American Road Magazine between 2006 and 2008. It was, in fact, the very first thing of mine published to the general public. In that article, I spoke of the use of car names for breakfast selections, and I am happy to report that that is once more the case. This time I had a Mercury.

The Berlin Masterpieces in Cincinnati

Posted on August 15, 2021 by Denny

This post’s title is a take-off of the title of an exhibit at the Cincinnati Art Museum the full and accurate title of which is Paintings, Politics and the Monuments Men: The Berlin Masterpieces in America. At the heart of the exhibit is the story of a wildly popular, though somewhat controversial,1948 tour of paintings with its own title: Masterpieces from the Berlin Museums. The tour did not reach Cincinnati although two of the fourteen cities it did reach, Cleveland and Toledo, were in Ohio and there is a major Cincinnati connection.

The picture of General Eisenhour looking over some of the paintings that the Nazis had hidden away is at the entrance to the exhibit. On the other side of the wall it is mounted on, there is a timeline of the Nazis’ rise and fall that ends with the Masterpieces from the Berlin Museums tour. Two items from late 1943 are “Allies invade Italy”, in September, and “Monuments, Fine Art, and Archives section (Monuments Men) of the U.S. Army is established”, in December. The Monuments Men (the subject and title of a 2014 movie) set out to locate and protect artworks at risk of being destroyed by the Nazis.

Thousands of items were located, some in a large salt mine, and brought together at Wiesbaden, Germany. This is where the Cincinnati connection comes in. The director of the Wiesbaden Central Collecting Point was Cincinnatian Walter I. Farmer. By itself, his work in documenting pieces of art and preparing them for return to their owners would have been noteworthy but there was something more.

When he became aware of plans to ship a large number of paintings to the U.S. for safekeeping, Farmer organized thirty-two Monuments Men to produce the Wiesbaden Manifesto which protested what Farmer feared was “spoils of war” type treatment of the European treasures. Smithsonian Magazine calls this “the only act of protest by Army officers against their orders during the entirety of the Second World War”. Although it was eventually published, the manifesto was initially suppressed by Farmer’s superiors. The paintings were shipped to the National Gallery in Washington, DC, and placed in storage. As plans formed to return the paintings to Germany, it was decided to put them on display before their departure. An exhibit at the National Gallery was so popular that the U.S. Congress took notice and actually legislated the tour of thirteen additional museums. All 202 paintings were returned to Germany at the conclusion of the tour.

Photos of “The Berlin 202” are displayed on a wall near the center of the exhibition. Four of the actual paintings, on loan from the State Museums of Berlin, are on display. The exhibit is fleshed out with other paintings in CAM’s possession by some of the artists contained in the 202. Paintings, Politics and the Monuments Men: The Berlin Masterpieces in America runs through October 3, 2021.

Third Time Was Charming

Posted on August 8, 2021 by Denny

I finally got myself back to the garden. On Friday, I made my third visit to the Hartman Rock Garden in Springfield, OH. It took two nudges. One came from that source-of-many-things, Jim Grey’s blog. Jim makes a weekly “Recommended Reading” post that I always scan but confess to not clicking as many links in it as I used to. That’s no reflection on the quality of Jim’s recommendation but a combination of his (and his readers’) increased interest in film cameras and my decreased unallocated reading time. I clicked through on one of his July 24th recommendations and got hooked on a blog that I fully expect to quickly lead to at least one more post here along with a fuller story. I subscribed to the RSS feed which instantly brought me several recent articles, including one about a visit to the Hartman Rock Garden. That article is here. Thanks, Jim and Brandi.

The second nudge came from an issue of Echoes, the Ohio History Connection magazine, which I had received but not yet read. Inside, a six-page article titled “Channeling a Creative Spirit” told of Ben Hartman’s creative response to finding himself jobless in the 1930s during the Great Depression. I don’t credit that pair of nudges with anything magical or supernatural but I do credit them with making me think of Springfield when an idle Friday and an open blog slot came along.

The garden started with the cement fish pond in the middle of the first photo at right. Ben was an accomplished molder at the Springfield Machine Tool Company when the depression hit. He was laid off in 1932 at age 48 and built the pond to fill his suddenly empty days. He moved on from the pond to figures and structures made of stones and other found items. Once he started building, he never stopped. His creations came in all sizes. These pictures are of some of the largest. At fourteen feet, the cathedral at the back corner is the garden’s tallest structure. A model of Da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” fills one of its many niches. The castle beside it is only a couple of feet shorter. It is believed to be based on a picture on a postcard that his wife, Mary, received.

Ben returned to the foundry in 1939 but died of silicosis just five years later. Mary maintained the garden until her death in 1997. What followed was about ten years of neglect. The deterioration was nearing its peak when I made my first visit in 2005. The picture at left is from that visit. The deterioration ended just a few years later when preservation-minded Kohler Foundation purchased the property in 2008. Following restoration, ownership of the garden was transferred to Friends of the Hartman Rock Garden, and a grand reopening was celebrated in June of 2010.

Two of the garden’s most iconic structures are the Tree of Life and the Hart(heart)MAN logo.

Today the Tree of Life was somewhat obscured — quite beautifully — by tall canna lilies. Here it is on my second visit in 2011. The cactus-like structure promotes the three things that Ben thought important in life. One arm holds a school and the other a church. In the center, the shield and eagle represent country. Ben estimated that this structure contains approximately 20,000 stones.

This is probably the most underappreciated structure in the whole garden. That’s because it looks exactly like an ordinary wooden picket fence but it isn’t. The entire fence — all 410 pickets — is concrete and Ben said it was one of the most difficult of the garden’s structures to build.

The structures in the garden look every bit as good as they did immediately following Kohler’s restoration and the landscaping looks even better. Those “friends” are doing a wonderful job. In addition to maintaining and enhancing the garden, they have produced an excellent “Guide Book and Map” that is available near the entrance. There is also a “Kids Tour” booklet available on site plus it and both pre- and post-tour worksheets can be downloaded. Admission is free but there is a donation box and this is certainly a place that deserves your support if you are able.

You may have noticed that the Hartman Rock Garden was not the primary reason I was in Springfield in either 2005 or 2011. Since I included some then-and-now garden pictures, I’m including a then-and-now of my reason for the 2011 trip. The 2005 trip was to see a temporary exhibit so there is no then-and-now. The 2011 outing was to check on the progress of the Ohio Madonna of the Trail monument’s move from its location at Snyder Park to downtown Springfield. In 2011 she was still at Snyder Park but was all packed and ready to go. I’ve since photographed her several times in her new home and today I did it again.

Book Review
Tracing a T to Tampa
Denny Gibson

Posted on August 4, 2021 by Denny

Just like all but one of my previous books, Tracing a T to Tampa is a travelogue. Unlike any of those books, it is not about following a specific road or reaching specific destinations. It is about following a single specific trip. That trip is one made by my great-grandparents in 1920 in a Model T Ford. Throughout the 1920 journey, my great-grandmother sent a series of letters to her daughter in which town names were often included in her reports of what they were seeing and doing. Those town names allowed me to roughly reproduce their route. There are multiple reasons why my reproduction is a rough one. One is that roads have changed in the intervening years and another is that I usually had to guess at the path they took between the towns my great-grandmother mentioned. Some of those guesses are almost certainly wrong but proving it, should you be so inclined, would not be easy. Parts of the 1920 trip were clearly on the Dixie Highway and National Old Trails Road although neither is identified by name in the letters.

Frank and Gertrude, my great-grandparents, headed south from their western Ohio home and entered Florida almost directly south of Valdosta, GA. They reached Jacksonville and Miami on the east coast then crossed the center of the state to check out Tampa. Despite the book’s title, Tampa was not their stated destination when they left home but it was more or less where their exploration of new Flordia territory came to an end. The rest of their time in Florida would be spent mostly revisiting places from just a few “base camps”.

I began the trip chronicled in this book on the exact 100th anniversary of the original: November 4, 2020. The original was four months long; the recreation a little less than four weeks. My great-grandparents reached Tampa after a little more than a month on the road. They would leave Florida a little more than two months later and spend just over two weeks getting home. Although they left Florida on the same path that brought them there, they would move away from it in the middle of Georgia to visit the nation’s capital in Washington.

Tracing a T to Tampa is illustrated with more than 100 photographs; primarily from the 2020 trip. There are, however, several historical photos mixed in. A transcript of the original letters is included.

1920 and 2020 can both be considered “interesting times”. Both contained a presidential election and were in a period of considerable racial unrest. 2020 was in the middle of a major pandemic and one had just ended in 1920. 1920 was also made interesting by the recent ending of a worldwide war and the passage of the 18th and 19th amendments to the U.S. Constitution. All of these are noted, but not dwelled upon, in the book.

Tracing a T to Tampa, Denny Gibson, Trip Mouse Publishing, 2021, paperback, 9 x 6 inches, 217 pages, ISBN 979-8739822550.

Signed copies available through eBay. Unsigned copies available through Amazon.

Reader reviews at Amazon are appreciated and helpful and can be submitted even if you didn’t purchase the book there. Other Trip Mouse books described here.

Trip Peek #114
Trip #159
Corner to Corner to Corner II

Posted on July 11, 2021 by Denny

This picture is from my 2020 Corner to Corner to Corner II trip. The corners involved are the southwest and northeast corners of Ohio and the II identifies this as a repeat of an earlier outing. The first Corner to Corner to Corner was in 2001. It was just the third trip documented on this site and was partially a practice run for a much larger trip that would follow in four months. Similarly, this trip, the first of the COVID-19 riddled 2020, could be considered a test run for a larger trip planned for two months in the future. Pretty much by coincidence, the larger trip being prepared for in both instances was a retrace of a trip taken by my great-grandparents in 1920. In what was perceived as a way to limit exposure to COVID, the trip was organized around two nights at a motel near Medina. I reached the motel on the first day by following US-42 north and returned home on the third day by following OH-3/3C Highway south. in between I followed those same roads in and out of Cleveland and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

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 #112
Trip #21
Impromptu PA

Posted on June 27, 2021 by Denny

This picture is from my 2004 Impromptu PA trip which was exactly what the title says. It started with an impromptu work trip that put me in the middle of Pennsylvania a few days ahead of the Memorial Day weekend and finished with a drive home that filled the weekend. On Friday, I headed north through some interesting small towns to reach US-6 which I would follow west until it crossed US-62. US-62 took me to Ohio where I hugged the north bank of the big river till I was back in home territory. The photo is of the Sterling-built diner in Wellsboro, PA, on Route 6. The just-completed World War II memorial was being dedicated that Saturday and a real treat was attending a ceremony in Smethport, PA, that was coordinated with the events in D.C. On Memorial Day, I saw the very tail end of the parade in Portsmouth, OH. In between, I checked out the reconstructed Fort Steuben and the Ohio River Museum in Marietta.

Trip Peek #111
Trip #4
Little Miami

Posted on June 20, 2021 by Denny

This picture is from my 2001 Little Miami River day trip. As this was only my fourth documented trip, I was still sorting out just how I wanted to handle things. In fact, this trip was undertaken primarily for practice and experimentation rather than for sightseeing and discovery. My starting point was near where the Little Miami River enters the Ohio River and I followed the smaller stream from there to its source. That source is not too far from the pictured Historic Clifton Mill.

I really got a kick out of reviewing the twenty-year-old trip to produce this Trip Peek. Of particular interest were glimpses of the abandoned Peters Cartridge Company and the rustic-looking Train Stop bar. The long-empty factory was recently given a new life with the opening of Cartridge Brewing and the Train Stop got a new owner and major improvements a few years ago and is now a popular riverside stop called the Monkey Bar.

The Wall That Heals

Posted on May 30, 2021 by Denny

I have seen the real Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington, DC, multiple times and a traveling version once. When I heard that a wall replica would be on display in Columbus over the Memorial Day weekend, I didn’t really feel an overwhelming need to see it. However, when I woke up Saturday morning, that’s exactly what I wanted to do.

The Columbus display is hosted by the National Veterans Memorial and Museum. I have long been annoyed by people confusing Veterans Day and Memorial Day, and arrangements such as this may inadvertently contribute to the blurring of the two. They are not, of course, completely separable. They are two sides of the same coin or two branches of the same path. Everyone who joins the military will someday be honored by one — but not both — of these holidays.

“The Moving Wall” is a half-sized replica that began touring in 1984. At some point, a second copy was created. It was one of these that I saw in 2008. The replica displayed in Columbus is a different one called “The Wall That Heals”. At 3/4 the size of the original, it provides a rather realistic experience. The openness of the museum grounds combined with the fact that I was there before much of a crowd appeared, allowed me to get the entire wall into a single photo. These pictures were taken a little before 9:00 AM. The museum opens at 10:00 and I’m sure the number of people on site picked up considerably then.

I visited the museum shortly after it first opened in 2018 and described the visit here. I did not enter the museum today. I did walk some of the paths and ramps that surround it. Although officially a place for and about veterans, even without the wall, the museum has several reminders that many who set out to become veterans never make it.

Any morning in Columbus is a good time for breakfast at Tommy’s Diner, but that seems especially true when the day’s destination is less than a mile away.

Trip Peek #104
Trip #102
South from the Wrong Turn

Posted on February 21, 2021 by Denny

This picture is from my 2012 South from the Wrong Turn day trip. In 2017, the Robert E Lee – Dixie Highway marker in the picture was moved to private land a couple of miles to the north but in 2012 it stood where two Dixie Highway alignments separated just south of Franklin, Ohio. I was aware of both alignments and thought I had driven them both but I had not been aware of the marker and had not seen it. Learning of the marker led to me realizing that my idea of where the alignments split was incorrect. I had made a wrong turn when I’d driven the Dixie Highway in this area, and I made this trip to correct that.

Trip Peek #103
Trip #41
Zane’s Trace

Posted on January 31, 2021 by Denny

This picture is from my 2006 three day trip over Zane’s Trace in southeast Ohio. Now called the Olde Wayside Inn, the pictured building was named the Bradford Inn when it opened in 1804. It’s where I spent the first night of the trip. East of Zanesville, the National Road generally followed the 1797 Trace when it entered Ohio in 1825. Even so, there are many remnants of Zane’s Trace that are distinct from the National Road. I scheduled this outing to coincide with an open house at the National Road Museum east of Zanesville where a new guide to the road, written by Glenn Harper and Doug Smith was introduced.

Denny G's Road Trips Blog

A DennyGibson.com accessory

Tag Archives: Ohio