Ohio's little corner for odd hobbies & good company
A first-timer spends a Saturday with a small Ohio group that makes wax rubbings of 19th-century headstones — learning the kit, the cemetery etiquette, and why preservationists don't always agree. It's part history lesson, part art project, and part quiet potluck in the dew.
Every November, a volunteer crew of retired electricians turns a Newark-area garage into a walk-in clinic for tangled, flickering, and completely dead Christmas lights. We spent a Saturday shift watching Ohioans haul in boxes of mystery bulbs — and came home with a checklist for your own bin.
A retired machinist outside Mansfield is triaging 47 cracked and sour-sounding handbells before Advent 2026 begins on Nov. 29. The work is part metallurgy, part ear training, and part volunteer courier network — with Christmas Eve services waiting at the other end.
In Ashley, Ohio, the second Saturday of November 2026 turns raking into a bracket. I entered as a rookie, lost a pile to a wind gust, and learned why the cleanest curb might be the most serious event of the day.
Every October, a small Ohio town trades its quiet Saturday for the sour, bubbling chaos of the backyard sauerkraut championship. We spent an afternoon with the rival families, the church-lady judges, and the crocks that have been fermenting since before some of us were born.
Every December, a quiet network of Ohioans turns flat lawns into ice. In Wayne County, one family’s homemade rink has become a 19-year potluck tradition, complete with borrowed hose adapters and a lawnmower-turned-resurfacer. Here’s how the backyard rink underground works — and how to join it for the 2026–27 season.
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.
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.