If you’re not familiar with Meijer, it’s a Midwestern chain of superstores that are basically a much better Walmart. Be it said that I love Meijer! I’d probably get a Meijer tattoo across my bicep if it had the necessary real estate. I’ve written about the chain before, but today’s subject is a thirty-two-year-old VHS tape titled A Video Tour of Your New Meijer Stores!
Continue reading “Meijer on VHS: a nineties time capsule”
A house on Wheeling Avenue near the Delaware County Fairgrounds in Muncie has piqued my interest for years. It doesn’t take much imagination to see it as an old schoolhouse, and it sits just a few blocks north of where Center Township’s old District 9 building once stood. Could it be the old structure? I’m not so sure.
Continue reading “This home probably wasn’t Muncie’s old Mound schoolhouse”
The metal truss bridges I occasionally write about are archaic holdovers from another age. They’re relics, and we’re fortunate they’ve survived at all! Still, I wonder about the crossings that predate those steel structures. About fifteen miles north of my house in the Grant County community of Matthews, a covered wooden bridge still stretches across the Mississinewa River. It’s a celebrated survivor doing what it’s always done.
Continue reading “The New Cumberland covered bridge in Matthews, Indiana”
I’d imagine that driving from New Castle to Muncie on State Road 3 isn’t generous if you’re behind the wheel of a big rig. Only precious few places exist where a trucker can safely pull off for supplies! You’re doing pretty well if you can shoehorn a semi into the postage-stamp parking lot at the Shell on County Road 200, but you’re a downright wizard if you can hold out another fourteen miles to Muncie’s Murphy Oi!. Decades earlier, drivers had another option: just off the highway near Cowan, the Idle Hour truck stop existed for one simple reason: it understood the problem and answered it.
Continue reading “Cowan’s Idle Hour truck stop”
Sorry to break away from my typical topics, but the newest incarnation of the ’80s progressive-rock supergroup Asia released “The Traveller (Into the Light),” the first single from the band’s long-awaited Indigo album, back on July 6, . On August 12, Frontiers Records released a video for the album’s second single, “Echo of You.” As I was with the first release, I’m here with some thoughts.
Continue reading “There’s another new Asia single and I’m here to review it”
Old neighborhood schools still dot Anderson, Indiana, nearly everywhere you turn. Some are old and some are more modern, but if you asked me to pick the most striking of them all, I’d have a hard time choosing anything other than Shadeland Elementary. With its elaborate Gothic Revival styling, castle-like appearance, and commanding presence, it’s still one of Anderson’s architectural standouts a century after it opened,
Continue reading “Anderson’s old Shadeland School”
I guess it shouldn’t come as much surprise for a place that closed in 2018, but Mounds Mall of Anderson, Indiana, isn’t looking that great. It’s become one of central Indiana’s most visible examples of the decline of enclosed shopping centers, and every year it sinks a little further into decay.
Continue reading “Mounds Mall isn’t looking so good”
Longtime readers here know that I’m fascinated by tornado sirens. I’ve tracked down all of Muncie’s aging Thunderbolts, the Banshee on top of the old courthouse, and even some of the modern 2001-SRNs scattered around these parts. It’s rare that they actually become newsworthy, but the other day, they did! A little.
Continue reading “Muncie’s sirens still sounded after the flood”
I’d passed this statue for years. Once I knew it was a Kishel, I couldn’t believe I’d overlooked it. Skreee! That’s the sound my brakes made as they went from “kind of need replaced” to “tin foil.” I had to stop and learn more about it.
Continue reading “The Shepherd of south Muncie”
I was driving through rural LaGrange County when I saw a schoolhouse. As I pulled over for a closer look, I wondered if I’d have any luck researching the school and it’s history since its so far from where I usually roam. Fortunately, I have the archives of the old Topeka Journal on hand! They filled in much of the story.
Continue reading “Eden Township’s Thompson schoolhouse in LaGrange County”