Random tech review: the APHBZGE Smart Keyboard Case

Ted Shideler 4 Comments
Read time: 6 min.

I’ve been spending a lot of time over at my parents’ house. Those are hours that could be spent blogging! Unfortunately, the charging brick for my MacBook went missing. At $40-60 a pop, they’re sort of out of reach for someone still looking for a job. Fortunately, I remembered my iPad. A quick Amazon search revealed several keyboard options for about half the price of the MacBook charger, and I’m going to review the one I got.

Continue reading “Random tech review: the APHBZGE Smart Keyboard Case” →

The Meetinghouse at Carthage

Ted Shideler Leave a comment
Read time: 4 min.

Not many people know this, but I’m a birthright Quaker. I haven’t regularly attended meeting since I was a kid, but I found myself unexpectedly drawn back to that part of my story a few years ago. My mom has an 1866 diary kept by our ancestor Mary Jane Edwards, and we set out to follow the trail she left behind. One of those places was Rush County’s old Carthage Friends Meetinghouse.

Continue reading “The Meetinghouse at Carthage” →

The state of Washington Square

Ted Shideler 7 Comments
Read time: 6 min.

There was a time when Indy’s superregional Washington Square wasn’t just a mall- it was a destination. Today, that version of the place feels almost impossible to imagine. It was real, though- I swear. I was in the area not too long ago and decided to see how things have changed at the sprawling property. It’s rough but, somehow the mall’s still open.

Continue reading “The state of Washington Square” →

It’s been fifteen years since Dad died

Ted Shideler 17 Comments
Read time: 8 min.

My dad died fifteen years ago today. I’d been batting around writing something formal to mark the occasion, but trying to compress his life into something tidy would require several volumes, a legal team, and a slew of affidavits to verify the most unbelievable parts. Dad was a story, or a series of them; layered, contradictory, and enormous. I’m not the raconteur that he was, but I’ll give it a shot with one of my favorite memories.

Continue reading “It’s been fifteen years since Dad died” →

Anderson’s downtown Big Boy

Ted Shideler 6 Comments
Read time: 4 min.

Ever stopped in at Frisch’s Big Boy for a Brawny Lad or a nice Swiss Miss? I sure have, at the Anderson, Indiana, location on Broadway Street. Believe it or not, though, Anderson once had three Frisch’s restaurants. One of them even sat right downtown, just across from the Madison County Courthouse. It must have been fun to smash a big burger in the heart of the city. 

Continue reading “Anderson’s downtown Big Boy” →

HUBRIS

Ted Shideler 13 Comments
Read time: 3 min.

A few years ago, people in a distant boardroom studied a map of Randolph County and decided that tiny Losantville, Indiana, was the perfect place to unveil one of retail’s newest concepts- a co-branded Family Dollar and Dollar Tree. It wasn’t one dollar store. It was two. Together. Next to an established Dollar General. In a town with two-hundred people. What were they thinking?

Continue reading “HUBRIS” →

Spotted in the wild: the first “Victorian” Village Pantry

Ted Shideler 2 Comments
Read time: 2 min.

As it grew across Indiana and Ohio, Yorktown-based Marsh Supermarkets wasn’t content to just dominate the grocery aisle- it wanted a foothold on the corner. In 1966, the company jumped headfirst into the booming convenience-store business with its Village Pantry division. Many of the oldest examples have found second lives as something else, and I can’t pass one without slowing down. 

Continue reading “Spotted in the wild: the first “Victorian” Village Pantry” →

Indiana’s Wells County Home

Ted Shideler Leave a comment
Read time: 5 min.

I’m still pretty early in my quest to visit every surviving county home in Indiana, but one of the first I tracked down was in Wells County. About three miles southeast of Bluffton along South County Home Road, the shuttered Wells County Infirmary and Orphan’s Asylum still marks the spot where people once cared for their most vulnerable residents.

Continue reading “Indiana’s Wells County Home” →

The shell of the old Pendleton High School Gym is hiding in plain sight

Ted Shideler 3 Comments
Read time: 4 min.

Some buildings don’t really disappear. Instead, they just learn how to hold new secrets. Pendleton’s elementary school campus is one of those places. At a glance, it’s a tidy, familiar part of town, reshaped over decades to meet modern needs. If you look a little closer, though, the outline of something older begins to emerge: the roof of the old Pendleton High School gym.

Continue reading “The shell of the old Pendleton High School Gym is hiding in plain sight” →