Ohio's little corner for odd hobbies & good company
Forget the Doppler. In a handful of Ohio towns, winter predictions come from a painted rock, a repurposed bowling ball, and the retired folks sworn to maintain them. I spent a season visiting the keepers to find out why the tradition won't die.
We asked you to call in, write, and flag us down at gas stations to tell us where Ohioans still light their fall brush piles. The result is a hand-drawn map, a few legal surprises, and a surprising amount of pride in a dying ritual.
Most music stores stopped stocking jaw harps sometime around the Carter administration. One Ohio shop never got the memo — and the touring drummers, jug band revivalists, and fourth-grade teachers who shop there are grateful.
I showed up to the American Legion hall expecting a nostalgia exhibit and left with chalk dust on my sleeves and a whole new respect for the state's most patient athletes. Inside the surprisingly cutthroat world of competitive marbles, where the velvet rope is — literally — a rope.
Every Tuesday from April through August, a dozen retired machinists and school bus drivers gather at the county fairground pits to throw horseshoes the way their fathers taught them. This year, for the first time in recent memory, a teenager signed up.
A little bell, three initials, and a mystery spanning four decades and forty counties. We dug through Columbus archives, called a few collectors, and now we need your photos.
In most states, aerial fireworks come from a warehouse. In Ohio, they come from a bowling alley in Marion County that also sells nachos and rents size 9s. We spent a July Saturday with the clerk, the regulars, and one very skeptical league bowler.
Three Ohioans have been gluing gasoline receipts, matchbooks, and Polaroids into travel scrapbooks for decades — long before anyone thought to photograph their lunch. We sat down with them, scanned a few pages, and now we want yours.
We spent a full Friday evening inside a decades-old bingo hall in western Ohio, where the caller is 94, the brats are five bucks, and the daubers come in colors you didn't know existed. What we found wasn't just a game — it was the glue holding the town's whole social calendar together.
Most Grange halls in Ohio answer to a state chapter. The one outside Mechanicsburg answers to nobody — and its 81-year-old bingo caller likes it that way. We spent a Saturday night learning the rules, the rituals, and the 54-year-old beef that keeps the whole thing running.
Church basements, VFW halls, and one heated argument about a lawn tractor — we spent three weekends at Ohio's smallest swap meets to figure out why people keep showing up. Spoiler: it's not the merchandise. Mostly.
Every second Sunday, four retirees in a Dayton basement broadcast full-cast radio dramas over ham frequencies to whoever happens to be listening. We spent a month with the Miami Valley Wireless Players to find out why anyone would still perform for an audience made of static.
It started with one reader's letter about a sealed milk can buried under a shuttered elementary school in Marion. Three months later, we've got a spreadsheet, a lawyer on speed dial, and a list of 61 capsules nobody seems to own. Welcome to the Great Ohio Time Capsule Hunt.
We asked our members for the words only Ohioans seem to use, and you delivered — 214 submissions, three near-brawls in the comments, and one very patient linguistics professor. Here's the first-ever OH Wa FG glossary, and how to get your word into next year's edition.
Ever wonder how a site with no budget, four volunteers, and a shared Google account chases down stories across eighty-eight counties? Pull up a chair. We're showing you the whole messy operation — including the trespassing incident we're still not proud of.
Somewhere between legend and elaborate prank sits the story of a shadowy 1970s cycling crew whose initials match our own site's name. We spent three months chasing old trail markers, retired archivists, and one very stubborn skeptic to find out if they ever rolled at all.
We drove 640 miles in one weekend, ate gas station jerky, and scored every oversized oddity in the state on photo potential, detour value, and gift shop quality. Here's the definitive ranking — plus a printable itinerary you can steal for your own Saturday.
A Columbus letter-writing circle deliberately routes mail through the state's tiniest post offices, turning a simple note into a week-long scavenger hunt. We followed one envelope from Mars, Ohio, to see why forty people refuse to let the mail move fast.
From the world's largest basket in Newark to a brass bed bolted to a barn roof, Ohio's roadside oddities deserve more than a drive-by glance. Here's my top ten — and a case for why every town should fight to keep its weirdness standing.
Hand-painted letters in the same careful block style have been showing up on barns, silos, and one very confused feed store between Columbus and Delaware. We talked to the landowners who've decided the mystery can stay, and to the county clerk who checked the records twice.