Washboard Festival: feet tappin’ fare for Father’s Day

by Jamie Rhein on

Here’s another Father’s Day weekend option. Not to pull you away from the Duct Tape Festival plans you may have made, but the Washboard Festival, June 13-14 would make a fun day trip if you live close enough to Logan, Ohio. The Washboard Festival celebrates the music traditions that stretch from Appalachia to the Louisiana bayou. Dating back to the mid-1800s, this is the kind of music that is guaranteed to put you in a happy mood.

The musicians are renowned, and if you’ve ever heard a Zydeco band, you’ll know that it’s impossible to stay still once the music starts. Dixieland Jazz and Jug Music are part of the two day event. If you haven’t been to town-run festival, you’re missing out on one of the greatest parts of summer. This one is particularly special because tours of the Columbus Washboard Factory are included. This is the last washboard company in the United States.

Logan is at the threshold of Hocking Hills, one of the most beautiful areas in Ohio. If you can stretch your weekend into another day, take some time to see where your exploration takes you.

Drives to pies and what’s nearby: Converse, Indiana

by Jamie Rhein on

Herschberger Essen Haus is another worthy stop on the fabulous pie hunt. This restaurant, according to Aaron who left a comment on the strawberry-rhubarb pie post, serves up a strawberry-rhubarb pie to drive for–even though it’s 40 miles out of his way. When going from Indianapolis to Detroit, Aaron swings by Converse where there’s a slice of this very pie with his name on it.

The red dot in the white rectangle is where you’ll find the pie, or therabouts. The red rectangle in the map of Indiana marks Miami County where Converse is located.

I’m curious how Aaron found Herschberger Essen Haus. Was this a pie tip someone gave him? Converse isn’t exactly a tourist hot spot. I’m sure it’s a terrific place to live, but the population is teeny. At 1,147 in 2006, that’s smaller than most high schools. The Oak Hill Winery, also in town, looks like another worth-the-effort palate pleaser. Housed in a 1895 carriage house, the winery offers a pie wine chaser to fill out a decent afternoon.

If you pair your trip to Converse with a visit to the rest of Miami County, more specifically, Peru, Indiana, there are more reasons to travel this unbeaten path.

Cole Porter, for example, was born in Peru. You can see the house where he lived from 1891–1901, but restoration on the building isn’t finished. Unfortunately, it was divided into apartments and left to disrepair. Even worse, one of the apartments was used as a meth-amphetamine lab by a tenant. Tsk, tsk. The building, however, is lovely and worth saving. The committee that’s in charge of the project is in the process of turning it into a museum and bed & breakfast. The before and after pictures show progress. This is a project to root for. A big hurrah to the folks who are pouring their energies into it.

Also in Peru is the Grissom Air Museum at the Grissom Air Reserve Base. There are 25 aircraft and a F-4 you can climb into, plus little known details about World War II history.

Another stop is the Miami County Historical Society Museum where there is something to learn about everything. You can see some of Cole Porter’s belongings, including his Cadillac, plus learn about the rich history of the area. For starters, Miami County has a past linked with Native Americans, Tom Mix and the circus. As a fan of historical society museums, this one looks like it’s one of the best and the hours are plentiful.

Because Peru is the “Circus Capital of the World,” in the spirit of circus love, there is an amateur circus each July which includes the Circus City Festival. In addition to the displays at the historical society, you can learn more about Peru’s circus past and present at the Circus City Museum.

While in Peru, also check out the Crane’s Nest Store operated by the Miami Nation of Indians. There are affordable crafts like handwoven baskets and proceeds help out the Miami Nation of Indiana.

Whatever you do in Peru, don’t forget that pie in Converse–it’s the reason to head to Miami County, at least if you’re Aaron.

World’s largest kaleidoscope near Woodstock, New York

by Jamie Rhein on

While on a road trip, you’ve probably passed many an attraction that you’ve wondered about. Perhaps, you’ve thought, “Should I stop?” but didn’t because there’s that feeling of getting sucked into a tourist trap that’s not worth the effort of pulling over and parking.

The Kaatskill Kaleidoscope is one that is worth the effort, if you happen to be on your way to Woodstock, New York, or to the Museum of Bethel Woods at the place where Woodstock, the music festival happened–or just tootling around just outside of Kingston, New York. It is literally right off Rt. 28. The kaleidoscope is part of Emerson Place (formerly called Catskill Corners), a collection of higher end shops where you can pick up Catskill Mountain-made type products and a lot more besides. You can’t miss it.

A few years after my kaleidoscope experience, the connected Emerson Resort & Spa opened. The inn that used to be here was destroyed in a fire. From the resort’s description, it sounds like upscale has come to the area. If you’re looking to bask in luxury in the Catskills, this is it. Consider spa treatments, well-appointed rooms, 4-star rating, etc. etc. But back to the world’s largest kaleidoscope.

The kaleidoscope came about when the original owner wanted to do something spiffy and imaginative with a barn silo. Some sort of shop geared for tourists was in order for the attached barn, but the silo was calling out for something different. The size and shape, 38-feet-tall and 50-feet in diameter said, “kaleidoscope.” The result of the idea is a visual/sound experience for folks of all ages. When you step into the inside of the silo, you are stepping into the kaleidoscope. The top of the silo is where the magic happens. Through the use of projected moving images and mirrors, the world’s largest kaleidoscope replicates the kind that you hold against your eye and manipulate by turning your hand. The world’s largest is more fun, though, since you can lie on the floor and look up. If you don’t want to lie on the floor, you can lean against the wall and look up as well.

I remember lying head to head with my mom, my daugher, who was eight at the time and my mother’s best friend, splayed out in a circle like we were getting ready to do a June Taylor dance routine. I don’t remember exactly which show we saw, but I do remember that the images changed rapidly, just as if I was turning them myself. Very cool.

The show changes seasonally and each reflects the theme of the Catskills. While prices in most places tend to rise as years pass, the price of seeing the kaleidoscope show has gone down since I was there. It’s now $5 for adults. I paid at least $8. Children 12 and under are still free. You can’t get cheaper than free.

The reduced price does give you more dollars to spend in the gift shop which has probably the largest collection of kaleidoscopes in the world. They range in price from inexpensive to extremely pricey. Since my mom was along, my daughter got a better one than she would have been able to wheedle out of me.

Back when we were there we ate at the restaurant that was part of the complex, but according to Roadside America, the restaurant is no longer there, unless this has changed since 2004.

Crime and punishment museum where the good guys win

by Jamie Rhein on

The National Museum of Crime and Punishment has nothing to do with the novel by the same name written by Fyodor Dostoevsky, but about one of the U.S.’s favorite past times, fighting criminals. In this museum that has just opened in Washington, D.C., according to this L.A. Times article by Sara Wire, it’s not the criminals that get the glory–Al Capone, move over, but the people who fight crime. No, no, no, not Batman or Superman or even Indiana Jones, but law enforcement officers and detectives–the good guys, the people who are sleuthing experts who save the day.

John Walsh, the man who hosts “America’s Most Wanted,” will broadcast the show from here once a month. Visitors to the museum will get a history lesson of crime and punishment in the United States from colonial times to present day. There are interactive features where folks get a true picture of what fighting crime is actually like–not the CSI version, but what really happens.

One of the messages throughout is that crime doesn’t pay. This is a museum to show off the good guys and down play the bad guys.

One of the exhibits that caught my attention is the car used for the movie Bonnie and Clyde. Even though Al Capone is not glorified here, a replica of his cell at Eastern State Penitentiary is. Both show the end of the life of crime, not the “fun” stuff of getting by with bank robberies that tend to get a movie audience to root for the get-a-way, at least for awhile.

Ode to hamburgers, but mostly White Castle

by Jamie Rhein on

Since this is National Hamburger Month, they are on my mind, particularly since Ohio is home to three hamburger chains: Wendy’s, White Castle and Max and Erma’s. Max and Ermas started with the gourmet burger as a focus, but morphed into more over the years.

Here is a bit of hamburger history to help you dazzle your friends with hamburger know-how:

  • In 1921, White Castle became the United States’ first hamburger chain when Billy Ingram, a real estate businessman type, and Walter Anderson, the man who first flattened hamburger into a flat patty with a spatula and grilled it on a bed of shredded onions, formed a partnership.
  • The company moved its headquarters to Columbus, Ohio in 1934.
  • White Castle’s name and signature building were designed to evoke the image of purity, cleanliness, stability, permanence and strength.
  • In 1930, White Castle commissioned a study through the University of Michigan to prove that White Castles are good for you. A college student ate nothing but White Castles for 8 weeks. He was fit as a fiddle after wards.
  • The hamburger was considered low-class food before White Castle changed the public’s mind about it through targeted ad campaigns and PR initiatives. One initiative was printed coupons that offered 5 White Castles for 10 cents.
  • White Castle is credited to making the hamburger America’s first ethnic food. Up until White Castle, people tended to eat their own ethnic background food. As more people ate White Castles, beef production went up.
  • In 1961, White Castle was the first chain to sell a billion hamburgers.
  • Wendy’s is credited as being the first restaurant to have a drive-through, pick-up window. That restaurant is on Henderson Rd. in Columbus. The original Wendy’s that was located in downtown Columbus closed last year, partially because it didn’t have a pick-up window so that adversely affected its sales.
  • This year marks the 50th anniversary that a Max and Erma’s has been in the historic building in the German Village section of Columbus. Max and Erma Visocnik opened the original Max and Erma’s as a bar/tavern back in 1958. It was bought by Todd Barnum and Barry Zacks in 1972 with the intention of turning it into an eatery that sold gourmet hamburgers.
  • Of the three chains, the only one that is still family-owned is White Castle.

As you are eating a hamburger sometime this summer, thank Billy Ingram. If you are my cousin, Brad you can thank Billy and Walter for starting off the path to your wife. Without the Slyder® hamburger, there wouldn’t be White Castle, and without Billy, the chain wouldn’t have existed.

My cousin and his wife first met in a White Castle parking lot in Florence, Kentucky in 1977. They are still happily married. Now, that’s a real hamburger story.