Traveling Ohio's backroads in search of the heart of America
Got a note from Mary saying she already has her reservations in for visiting RoundTown’s Great Punkin Show. I wouldn’t miss it for the world Mary said. I wrote back saying it was good she was so enthusiastic about her vegetables, but wasn’t she worried that maybe this year’s punkins were going to be smaller than usual cause of all the rain we had earlier this summer? She replied, “Nope. Like I always say, ‘Size don’t matter when you got friends!’ ”
Ain’t that the truth!
I have a small cottage up on the Marblehead peninsula and my wife wanted some new plants put in on the side yard. I told her no problem. She went over to Barnes Nursery on Catawba and picked up four boxwoods. It was a warm Saturday afternoon, I figured it would take no more than a couple hours at most. It took me about 5 minutes to dig through the extremely thin layer of top soil before I hit limestone. No matter how hard I tried to chip at it, nothing.
Then my neighbor Tom stopped by. “Those are going to look good, once you get ’em planted,” he said with just the hint of Kentucky twang.
“Yep,” I said. “the problem is that bed rock.” He peered into the shallow depression. If Tom was a spitting man, I’m sure he would have right at that moment… but he wasn’t and he didn’t.
“What you need is a spud bar.” I’ve been in the trades for a few years, but never heard of a spud bar and I never knew if ole Tom was kidding or if he was on the level. Sometimes Tom can really lay one out without me even see its coming. He could see I was puzzled.
“Yep. A spud bar. I don’t have one myself, but Bob Sachet–he’s got one. If you’d like, I could ask? He’s got just about every thing tucked into his shed. Yep, spud bar. That’s the ticket.”
“Spud bar? Sounds like some Idaho hangout?” I say with a little grin.
“Huh?” Tom says like I’m stupid. I guess I am since I’m the one that doesn’t know about a spud bar.
“Ole Bob, he sure is one that doesn’t do anything if he doesn’t have to do anything. His dog is the same. I think that ole mutt has to lean against a tree to lift his leg. I’ll go see if Bob can find that spud bar. That’s what you need. That limestone around here is always everywhere you want to dig.” And with that Tom started off down the road. I’m kind of new here (3 years now) but I’ve never heard of Bob Sachet, or his dog, but Tom seems to know him. Tom seems to know just about everyone and everything about everyone. I kinda like Tom– he’s what my grandpa would call a good ol’boy.
Forty-five minutes later I can see Tom walking back. He’s got a long metal bar slung over his shoulder. A spud bar no doubt.
“There you go,” he says handing me the long heavy bar. “I used that bar to dig some fence holes some time back. It’s not easy, but it works. Limestone– everywhere. I don’t know how a tree can grow here and stand up.” With that he takes the long bar and straddles the depression where my wife wants me to put the boxwood. “Use it like a jack hammer. Raise it up and slam it down. That pointed end will cut through that limestone in no time.” A few quick strokes, sure as he said, a big chunk of limestone came out revealing a deep chasm big enough for the boxwood with room to spare.
“Thanks Tom. I never would have thought…”
“Yep. Spud bar. I think Bob used it for ice fishing to chop a fishin’ hole. Sure as heck he never used it for diggin’ holes in the ground. That’d be too much like real work,” he paused a moment admiring the future boxwood home.“I don’t know where the name came from. Maybe it was used to plant potatoes.”
I thanked Tom and he turned and walked off down the road. “Let me know when you’re done. I’ll get it back to Bob.”
By the time my wife got back from shopping down in Port Clinton I had all four boxwoods planted in a neat row. I’m sitting in one of our Adirondack chairs admiring my work. “Well look at you. I thought you’d still be digging holes. You know there’s lots of limestone around here?”
“Yeah, I know.”
BUCYRUS: Connie G. reported that she hasn’t seen any hummingbirds at her feeders for about a week now. “It seems this year the little guys hung around a little longer than usual,” Connie said to her brother, “but, then I kind of hung around a little longer myself.”
From my perspective, it’s always better to be able to hang around a little longer, whenever you can without becoming too much of a nuisance or a tripping hazard.
This weekend I’ll be visiting the Bellville Street Fair. Local’s call if the Bellville “World’s” Fair. No one has yet been able to give me a good reason why they call it that, but I’ll continue my quest.
I was saddened to hear that this year’s truck and tractor pulls were canceled because of rain. Too bad. Usually a tractor pull is only enhanced with a really muddy field, in fact I think it’s a requirement for any farmer worth his seed to be able to push his rig through some muddy fields AND not have a neighbor pull him out! Oh well… maybe next year.
The Bellville Street Fair has been going on for a really long time. I thought the Circleville Punkin Show was old, but the Bellville Street Fair has it beat by about a half century. Some of the town’s old codgers might remember that Bellville had everything going for it to become county seat. So confident were they that that designation was all but written in the books, they went ahead and had a county fair. Low and behold Mansfield was chosen as the county seat, even though Bellville was more populated, had discovered some gold and had a bright future. The problem for Bellville was that one of those darned railroads decided to go through Mansfield. That little detail was enough to derail the whole county seat thing.
The following year with Mansfield claiming title to the county seat, demanded the Richland County Fair could only be held in one place: the COUNTY SEAT! Mansfield called and they want their fair. Poor Bellville, the beautiful citizens of Mansfield had a point. But (always a but), Bellville had gone to all that trouble of building a new fairground and everything, so they decided to just change the name and 165 years ago the good folks in Bellville had their first “street fair.”