Down in the Boondocks

nothing says “Southern” food….in America…like a big pile of pulled pork, BBQ ribs, sweet potato fries and Coleslaw. (Yes, Coleslaw, is one word if you’re speaking Southern.)

this beautiful plate sat in front of me earlier today in McConnelsville, Ohio, at The Boondocks BBQ and Grill.

I am not in the habit of singling out restaurants, but in these times when the Great Fear has hurt businesses, I am featuring The Boondocks as a must visit if you venture south of Columbus, Cleveland, or Pittsburgh, or are out and about like so many uncaged birds now flying free from the restraints of the past several months.

October has arrived, and the drive is worth it. Along the Muskingum River and into the hills of Moco (Morgan County, Ohio), yellows, oranges, greens, and reds stick out in splendor, as the leaves change, and Autumn whispers in the wind. About a half hour south of Zanesville, Ohio, off of Ohio State Route 60, the restaurant is about a mile north of the town of McConnelsville. McConnelsville is a small, surprisingly busy town along the Muskingum River. If you are coming from West Virginia, it is just north of town on the left hand side of the road.

Whenever I travel within the area, I will purposely stop to have a Wasabi Burger, a steak, some pulled pork, the Fat Elvis, or another creative invention from the mind of Chef Bobby.

Slan go foill… maybe I’ll see you there.

May Flowers

big pile of dirt

moving around a pile of dirt into ridges, leaving the trenches the dirt came from next to the ridges…well, even to the most ardent archaeological student, the said formations are about as exciting as watching toast burn.

…and this is an important cultural site for a pre-Columbian people group? Random ridges some people imagine are shaped like a figure or ring or….I mean, you have to really, really stretch the imagination to believe this dirt pile was an important site to any civilization.

but that is what the people at Newark Earthworks would tell you.

sure it is one of the largest piles of organized dirt in America…but really, who cares? any group of people can put together an endless stream of ridges…just for fun, or out of boredom. remember, they did not have Netflix, selfie sticks, or smartphones to mindlessly tap…they had to find something to do, after a hard  day of sitting around making sharp pieces of flint.

I can imagine….

“Hey, let’s build a bunch of wiggly ridges over the next ten years. everybody who comes through here will leave us alone because they will think we are super-geniuses.”

and if you throw in some chipped pottery, some jewelry that looks like it was made in China… what have you got? a civilization? sadly, theories of civilizations have stood the test of time on such fodder.

meanwhile, there are other archaeologists who have found piles of treasure in old garbage dumps, in caves, and tombs throughout the world. the question for my friends in Newark is this- how much material does one need in order to constitute a sizable enough number of artifacts to say we have the “authority” to call  anything a historic site of this people and that culture during this time?

it is a question for the layman, enthusiast, and professional all to ask. especially when the people of the future are presented with random ridges of dirt.  

 

 

flowers in a May garden

the burning earth

somewhere between New Straitsville, Murray City, and Shawnee, a fire is burning, burning the earth beneath, unquenchable. way back in 1884, a group of striking miners, sent a “take-this-job-and-shove-it” message to their bosses by sending several coal cars with oil-drenched timbers deep into the mine. at that time, the known vein of coal there was at least 14 feet thick, but nobody knew where it stopped, where it branched off, nor when nor how it would die out…

finding the evidence of the still-burning fire is like a patchwork mystery, especially since much of the surface now is under the authority of Wayne National Forest, and the government would rather you not off into the woods hunting for signs of it…

….but it is still burning. I know, I smelled the sulfur coming from what at first looked like a cave…

but when I stepped near the entrance and took a look inside, I knew I had discovered a mine. so now, over a hundred years later, I knelt down near white sand and saw a tree limb covered in an ashen-like material inside the mine opening.

less than a mile down the road, mounds of coal still lay exposed on the ground, and I caught a whiff of the pungent scent of burning coal…

a few locals- descendants of miners- told me over the years that you could tell where the fire was if you went looking for steaming patches of ground not covered by fresh snow in the winter time. but asked if I could find remnants of it any other time of year, they said that it was unlikely anyone would find it today.

do you think they may still be embarrassed that their ancestors set the earth on fire?

 

 

Yer Random Stones

out in the forest…here in an out of the way part of America..

sure now there probably was a building here at one time, but what were they doing organizing these large stones in such a way. Were they fans of Stonehenge? Or, was there a barn here?

what do you think?

table for one

the warm weather is fading with the green…with views unspoiled by the summer crowds. many of the tourists have tucked their bags away for another season, leaving me with a wide menu of table options.

table for one, with a view of Kentucky…

…until a guest arrives in the trees….

 

 

touristic interlude

if you have thirty minutes for lunch, you can be a tourist. I know, I was one today.

I was looking for a place to eat. something not so deep fried. Not so bun-enriched. Not so western de-civilization. instead I chose to drive 8 miles to the next town and pop out to see a giant clock, visit a museum, and catch 12 minutes of a local film. after a literally cheesy sandwich, I slipped back into my vehicle and drove to my next appointment with destiny (ie, the next line in my appointment book).

The World’s Largest Cookoo Clock (or however you spell it)

An old Swiss cheesemaker used this cauldron-like kettle (or whatever it is really called)

Is this the old cheesemaker?

Slan go foill…

 

the edge of something greater

He asked me if i was taking pictures of the backpack trail…

“Yes,” i said, scanning the map.

He studied something inside the posting board…where maps, rules and regulations, and various other government printed fodder suffocated, unable to breathe the moderate breeze skipping across the dock parking lot.

“I was looking for a trail map,” I admitted, though not in chronological, nor priority, order.

“Nice day.”

“You could say that.”

Quickly in the car, quickly down the drive, and out again to a table- picnic table- sitting at the edge of the lake. No trail here. No signs here. Only the feel of something greater…pulling at the tides of my heart. I sat. Alone with the sound of the waves, the wind, and a pounding in my head..

As when spring arrives suddenly, so the hardwoods faded across the water. The chill would come, and fires at this side would light the night with warmth. But none would ever be this warm again.

Looking behind me, my inquisitor saddled up like a pack animal, herding with four or five others, as they made their way for the far parking lot edge where the backpack trail resumed northward toward the lake’s end. They filed into the thicket, but like a run on sentence.

They vanished, just as a boat outfitted with senior citizens veered south, entering my camera view…

and like college students out for a weekend party, they squealed and exclaimed in the unintelligible language only a suddenly-going-senile crowd might understand.

timelessness washed over the shore, and over me, and I bathed in it, washed in it, and dried off in the wind. memory etched in my soul, it was time to move on. time to get back to work. more time to pursue the sweat of your brow, longing for another moment of timelessness, on the edge of something greater.

A peace of tranquility

a tranquil slice of the natural…on a day hot enough to boil an egg on your automobile…