Ohio
requires seatbelts to be worn. I didn’t as I wanted to move about in the
van. Once when I was 16 as I didn't have the belt on I was able to move
and squat as the roof caved in on us and that survival story makes me reject
the usage of belts even tho i read that most injuries could have been avoided
by being belted in.
We drove thro very flat land, mostly farming communities with lots of large
red painted barns and pleasant meandering creeks frequently in view. Shortly
now past the border we went by the Phantom Fireworks plant, it was on the
corner of route 20. Their website is www.fireworks.com
Old Graveyard on the corner of Williams County
road “P”..
Massive caved in barn around Williams
County road “M-90”.
Cool house with a wicked looking carriage
house & stables for sale on West Jackson street
in West Unity. The carriage house was much cooler than the modern
house. Perhaps one could buy the lot and rent the house cheaply and live in
the carriage house/barn. Scrap the house, give me a barn anytyme!
The town of Bryan has a perfect old downtown, old brick
buildings that seemed alive with people, an Amtrak station, old skool diners,
thrift shops, etc. On the outskirts south of town is the Plaza Motel $38,
just past this is the Newcomer Homestead from 1867
with a cool octagon barn for your well spent gazing.
The good sized Maumee river
looks frozen and cold but probably not safe to walk on nor skate. It reminded
me of the Souhegan river of Merrimack, New Hampshire.
At this point I smoked a joint and also
noticed the heavy amount of truck traffic on this small highway. I wonder
if the lack of weigh stations encourages this.
Northside of
Paulding is the Sprow Motel $25.
Paulding downtown has old brick buildings,
the downtown reminds me of Mason, Michigan. I noticed a cool looking used bookshop & a drive thro
liquor store right past the river south of downtown. As we travel it becomes
apparent that the few liquor stores we do see all have a “drive thro”. They
have either a window on the side of the building or a
entry so you drive your car through the building
and they hand you the order and then you drive out the otherside
of the shop. We wondered if Ohio
law required liquor to be purchased from your car? In New
Hampshire all liquor sales are from state controlled shops, typically located
on the state hiways.
Just south of Paulding we passed a shooting
range and also noticed that we had seen many old 1970’s muscle cars on the
roads so far.
The stretch south of Maddox creek we noticed
that mailboxes along route
127 mounted large metal shields on the northside
of their mailboxes. We assumed this was to keep the traffics slush out of
their mail?
Downtown Vanwert has some great
old brick buildings, a large downtown “square” and awesome old houses.
We also noticed that many of the barns
would paint white curved outlines around the doors. Some looked very old so
perhaps this was early barn fashion that still persists today?
Just north of Junction 33 is the abandoned
MOTOR INN & EAT.
Just south of Celina near the road that
cuts to Montezuma is a huge Motel & Lounge ala las vegas
stylee. It is totally abandoned, many doors and
windows wide open, it’s the SOUTHBAY
MOTEL & LOUNGE.
Near the corner of 274 is a huge stone palace with sprawling grounds, cemetary,
powerplant, etc. The sign said, “Society
of the Precious Blood of St. Charles”. I think this was
formerly called “Shrine of the Holy Relics”. I don’t know what is going on
here but no doubt filled with mystery & intrigue for the daring adventurer.
Perhaps there is an underground bunker where the monks perform top secret
rites & tortures of ye with little faith?
North of Northstar
a farmer created his own homemade Drive In movie theatre called the “Starlight”, I bet that’s phun in the summer
tymes.
Just
north of
Northstar the highway is renamed “
Annie
Oakley Memorial Pike” She lived here and
became known as a sharpshooter. She later toured around the world in circus
acts showing off shooting stunts such as shooting the ashes off her
husbands cigar.
North of Cohee
road is the memorial for her, and check out the house near this that is built
underground, into a side of the hill.
North of Medford Road near marker 27 is
an abandoned house.
Old Brock Road Cemetary. 1851.
Annie Oakely’s
grave site is just north of marker 23, north of junction 47.
Abandoned cinderblock constructed restaurant
on the corner of junction 47.
Near junction 242 is an abandoned farmhouse.
In
Greenville we stopped and checked
out the Goodwill shop located on
Main street.
Found a few books & records but most stuff was lame yet cheap. As it was
getting dark out we thought we may stop at the downtown motel but the thrift
shop clerk said it was roach infested and a troublesome place so she advised
us to move on.
Which we did. Before we left we went to one of the drive thro
liquor shops and bought “Bourbon Supreme” 750ml for $8.90 and some cheap beer.
So we drove onwards into Cincinnati
and stayed at the Budget Host Motel & Lounge at 3356
Central Pkwy. It was $45 and a trashed room but
after a few beers, whiskey shots and another joint we relaxed and lucked out
as from the three TV channels one was showing “simpsons”
& “king of the hill” which are our favs. After
a bit we ended up questing out for supper. Just a bit south of our motel we drove past a
venue that had a line of punks waiting to get in, we wondered if this may
be the “void”.
After getting lost and driving up and down the streets in the city we never
found any cafes, diners, pizza, or sub shops etc so we eventually found the
motel again and crashed out snackless.
In
the morning we awoke as the couple in the other room were going at it and
banging the head board with mucho gusto. For some reason this aroused us both
and soon we were going at it. I then started off the day right with another
joint, a beer and a few swigs off the “Bourbon Supreme”. At this point we
had a few hours before we had to check out of the motel. I
attempted to download our emails on a laptop but I stupidly
had forgotten the power cable and the battery was dead, so instead I showered
and watched TV. Once again the TV
ghods blessed
us with a wacky cartoon called THE RIPPING FRIENDS which is obviously made
for stoners or very freaky kids.
We then set off and explored Cincinnati.
Once again we drove by the venue, checked the address and it was the “VOID”
which would host the Rock & Read zine fest later that nite. Now we had all day to explore, find a pub, find
thrifts etc.
By mistake we ended up over the bridge
into
Covington, Kentucky.
We continued up the curvy mountain road and went thro a small town that totally reminded us of a
Colorado stylee
mountain town. In the southern part of Ohio and these northern Kentuckian
towns, every corner has a "chili restaurant" so we checked one out
and were mystifed as the place was packed and the menu was really just hotdogs
covered in chili and shredded cheese. We snagged a table and chowed on this
and baked potatoes smothered in more cheese.
We tanked up on fuel for our van and then we ran across a sub shop so
we prepared for our phuture and bought some subs to stash for dinner. Next
up we secured a cheap room in Kentucky for after the zine fest.
We then went back to downtown Covington and spent the afternoon checking
out differ pubs and eventually visiting the Goodwill thrift on 7th
street where I was very pleased to acquire a huge stash of old reggae &
island records that rock!
Around dark we returned to our hotel room and relaxed with
another joint and we polished off the whiskey. Around 8pm
we drove down and over the Ohio river
and found the VOID in Cincinnati.
Hannah went in to see if they had a table for us while I hauled out a milk
crate of zines and a suitcase of shirts we had silk
screen printed.
The street had a bit of hustle and bustle,
bars and traffic. At the door the door guys opened the door and actually took
the gear from my hands and helped me get set up at the table. The organizers
(from Kentucky) welcomed us
and gave us a table with a “Iron Feather Journal”
tag and within minutes we had our zines set up and
our shirts on display.
We
took turns manning the booth and walking around checking out the other
zines.
The building was a large empty shop place that a crew of punks had rented
to throw shows, its called
THE VOID. Anyone
could sign up and throw a show here as long as you followed the basic rules.
No drinking & drugs, no fights and don’t trash it. 50% of all shows goes
to help pay rent.
In the front there was a stage with continuous music, mostly punk rock and
one noise/gabber crew. The zine turn out was awesome, many
zines on display and their creators there to answer questions,
trade, network, etc. I think we ended up
buying
or trading for every zine there and also picked up some shirts & CDs.
Everything was cheap! Most
zines were free, trade
or like $1-$2. Recluse zine sold their shirts for $2 each! The bands sold
their CDs, I picked up the
THE SATURDAYS
CD for $4.
Read the Iron Feather Journal #18 for full zine
reviews & contact
infos.
As it was dark behind the bands I hauled
in the 16mm film projector and cut and taped a few film loops to project overhead.
For some reason the focus of the loop was phucked so I bailed on that and
then brought in the slide projector and set that up showing different wacky
slides I had dumpstered in boulder Colorado
much to my own pleasure.
Everyone
was very friendly, social and into networking. We were welcomed back to the
big zine fest in
Bowling Green OH
this summer and I think we shall go for sure. We quizzed the locals about
the ancient “Serpent Mound” which is 1,330 feet in
length
and was built by prehistoric
Adena
people (1000 BC-AD 100). We inquired about printers (their printing is way
cheaper than we have
known in Colorado).
We met Arthur who rode his bike 20 miles to be there, turns out he is a hacker
and used to read
IFJ in the old
days and was a past promoter of gigs in the VOID space. He subscribed for
the new IFJs and we sold two issues, so we made $14 the whole
nite.
No problem as this was expected, any zine is for phun, not for $ or biz. We
traded shirts and
zines and made some friends and hope to check out the next
event this summer for more zine phun.
BANDS ::
Oil Can Boyd (
cincy
athleti-core)
autoshape
(
cincy experimental electro
awesomecore)
sump
pumps (
indianapolis new wave punk rock)
shadyside
(
Dayton heartcore)
introversion
(
Madison, WI
powerpop)
noarmsnolegs (
cincy
experimental
screamo)
A local zine crew invited us back to their
place for after party, this sounded awesome but since we stayed to the end
of the event and we were wiped we ended up afterwards packing it up and just
getting back to the motel and crashing out.
.
The next morn we checked out and drove
to downtown Cincinnati to find
a greasy spoon to have a tasty breakfast for our big drive
home. We drove about for hours and found nothing except fastfood
places which we don't notice. The ohio river
was grand and the downtown had many huge old brick & stone buildings.
We wandered by the HUSTLER magazine HQ & shop. Would have been interesting
to check out the Larry Flint scene but we were too hungry and bemused and
since HUSTLER doesn't turn us on, I didn’t want to waste too much time.
On the corner of Frytown Road and route 4 we saw
an abandoned Motel and on into Dayton
was an abandoned supermarket. We
drove on thro Dayton without stopping.
Hungering for a bacon sarnie, flapjacks, breakfast or now lunch we
drove about 3 hours north till we found a pool hall & grill. After a beer
and some cheap hot meal consisting of hamburgers, french fries, soups &
schooners of draft beer, we continued up route 75 till we arrived home about
5 hours later.
Note:
there was a weigh station located on south bound 75 around mile marker 163,
weigh in motion scales & cameras on the hiway.
The same was on northbound around mile marker 176.
-
- Send $4 to receive the fantastic
IRON FEATHER JOURNAL, PO BOX 21157, LANSING, MICHIGAN, 48909 for
the new IFJ#18 with this article and all the zines reviewed & listed.
Cheers to the pholkz who threw this event!!!! Thanks for inviting us!
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