OHIO - Dickens Missed Out on Ice Cream

If you ever want to see some farms and you're kind of bored with Suffolk then I heartily recommend Ohio. They have some truly nice ones. They also have, of course, an over abundance of Walmarts, K-Marts and the like belching all over the countryside but those things are so key to Americana these days that it really wouldn't feel like America *without* them. My hosts for the next week are the delightful Merry B and the rest of the lovely Briski family. We're close to CINCINNATI (got it right that time. Ya happy now, Merry?) and the Kentucky border, which means all sorts of interesting things just outside the door. Including the big whole in the front lawn where some men just came along and dug it up because they needed to check the gas mains. Without any sign of a relandscaping job to repair the damage. Only in America.


Cincinnati. Shiny!

First stop on the grand tour is Lebanon. Like many other small American towns everything looks so shiny and new you wonder if Disney employees are hiding in little nooks and crannies and coming out at night to paint a new coat of sheen on it all. Lebanon, though, is a town with a really cute sense of history which has clearly had a lot of love put into mantaining it. First of all there is the real history. The town is home to the Golden Lamb, Ohio's oldest pub and frequented by eleven presidents and a favourite of Charles Dickens (for my younger readers: that guy in the crazy ghost episode of Doctor Who) That means two things (1) A gift shop filled with more cutesy lamb imagery than is healthy for anywhere and (2) An excuse for overpriced non-food to be served. After soaking in all the atmosphere we could for free, we retreated to the local fifties recreation diner with its reassuringly cheap looking cups and soup bowls.


The Golden Lamb. Where Dickens ate. Not shown: the Ice Cream Parlor. Where we ate.

The most interesting threat of Lebanon's fascination with history, though, is the plethora of antique shops in its steets. Now, antique is a subjective word when we're dealing with America and, indeed, the mix of fifties dinnerwear and souvenirs from somebody's eighties holiday in Paris is a tad bizarre. But there were some real finds including a vast number of ornate tea sets. My wallet remained firmly closed but a cake dish complete with lid was good and practical enough to pesuade Merry to part with eight of her hard earnt dollars. Elsewhere in town there was a nice jarring reminder of Dorset with the local recreation railway. Just like Swanage. And it includes a Thomas the Tank Engine steam engine. Just like Swanage.


The golden age of rail... Shame that was a few decades ago, really, as the train is so nice and shiny.

All in all, a nice quirky mix of history and non-history proporting to be history which I love and the like of which America does a lot better than anyone else. My personal favourite: the chapter in Ghost Stories of Ohio in which the gift shop owner at the Golden Lamb reports on the series of strange occurances in her shop over the past few decades including the cash register printing of its own accord and an entire shelf of cuddly lambs leaping (not falling) to their floor. Without a note of irony in sight.