Pony Barn
This is another installment of Easterday Lore. Those that have been to our office have probably noticed the old barn adjacent to the main building. Internally this is referred to as the Pony Barn or the Red Barn (though it’s only vaguely red anymore). This is dates back to when this property was part of Great Grandpa (Russell) Easterday’s farm. At that time the property was at the edge of town. Back then there were a couple of cattle barns on the site as well. One had been swallowed up by nature back in the seventies and the other was replaced by a pre-engineered steel building around that same time.
By User Robert Merkel on en.wikipedia – US Department of Agriculture, Public Domain
In the early days, the Easterday farm included the property extending from the current site of Easterday Construction up to highway 10 and across 10 to 17th Road. In the 60’s, Russell’s Hereford cattle would graze in pasture at the end of Slate Street. Up until the construction of the high school in 1969, kids would ride their bikes up to the end of Slate Street to pet and feed the cattle grazing on the other side of the fence. The field behind the baseball and little league diamonds and the farmland directly north of the Culver Middle/High School are all that remain of this farm owned by descendants of the Easterday family. This is all leased property now. The working parts of the farm were sold off over time.
The Pony Barn truly housed horses & ponies in the day. Russell’s grandson, Larry Berger, had a pony housed there when he was a kid. Russell owned and rode a beautiful five-gaited horse that was also stabled there. (That was before the offices actually moved to that location from their original location in the State Exchange Bank. That’s another story for another time.) At that time, Russell and his wife, Wanda, lived at 309 Ohio Street. Between the farm and the construction company, Russell was successful and always drove a Cadillac. But as a farmer and contractor, that Cadillac was a working man’s car. There was often grass caught in the bumper and cow manure in the wheel wells from when he’d driven it through the field to inspect the cattle. And the day Grandpa Easterday bought his grandson Larry a pony… that pony road home in the back seat of his Cadillac!
Happy Constitution Day!
Happy Constitution Day! Congress created Constitution Day in 2004 and chose September 17 as the day to celebrate it based on that being the last day of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787. Check out this link for an article in the Imprimis titled “Reviving a Constitutional Congress” with Christopher Demuth, Sr.‘s take on where our nation has gotten off track with concern to the Constitution and what steps can be taking to put us back on the right path.
From the article’s first paragraph, “Our Constitution is often treated as a reliquary, worthy of reverence but no longer of much practical use. Yet the Constitution reflects, in many deep and subtle ways, the character of the people who established it and have lived and prospered under it for centuries. This is particularly true of its structural features of federalism and separated powers, which vindicate Americans’ democratic nature, our distrust of power, and our taste for open competition.”
Please take a moment today to remember the 39 brave men who signed that document in 1787. Their courage and commitment should be celebrated.
114 North Main Street
We’re working with Bob Nowalk on the the renovation of his property at 114 North Main Street in Culver. Sometimes buildings are historic and sometimes they are just old. This building does have some history, but not much of its facade was reminiscent of that history. Stepping back through time, this building was Michelle’s Head Quarters, Zeke’s Arcade, J’s 5 & …, The Dime Store and a Ben Franklin Store. (I tried to find Jeff Kinney’s “A Walk Down Main Street” story on this building, but finally gave up)
Early photographs that Bob found showed a wood store front which has been gone for decades. He considered going back to that, but not only would it increase the upkeep costs, it also would not have been in keeping with the character of the rest of the block. In the end, he chose to go with a new brick facade, but change the entrance location to provide a more modern, accessible approach. This also gives him more continuous window space for displays. A picture from the the Culver Union Township Public Library website shows the brick facade was there in the 50’s, but not the green aluminium store front we just removed.
A former student of Bob’s did the rough design for the renovation and this is what we based our construction on. It shows the entrance relocated to the left. It remains recessed. We are keeping the same stepped parapet at the top. In lieu of the named marker on the parapet, Bob chose to go with a more simple, address marker. Bob also chose to reduce the marker, so it won’t be quite as prominent in the picture.
Bob went with a natural, sandblasted limestone sign, so it will fit with some of the other building markers downtown. Unlike the one to the south on the Marmont Lodge Building, 114’s sign has the characters cut in relief. Sometimes you have to do what you have to do, so this is the marker making its way to Culver via car trunk…
Once the brick demolition was completed, we found a couple of additional issues. 1) The structural steel beam was in reasonable condition, particularly considering it was oversized, but it was not properly supported. The fact that it was supported by the facade brick probably contributed to some of the brick deterioration. There was no lateral support for the steel beam either. It was stabilized by a 2 x 12 which had been mitered down to only a 2 x 4’s worth of bearing. 2) The parapet had been constructed using ceramic block. When the block was uncovered, we found that they were severely deteriorated and had to be removed as well.
To correct the above issues, we installed structural steel columns. We used C channel columns to minimize the footprint. These were bolted to the columns and the existing beam. We were mainly concerned about bearing, not uplift in this condition. For lateral stabilization, we tied the beam back to the existing ceiling joists using 2 x 8’s. The ceiling joist were pocketed into the existing side walls, so they were stable. we attached the 2 x 8’s at 24″ o/c across four joists anchoring them at each crossing creating a gridwork and thus, a diaphragm frame. To replace the ceramic block we used 4″ concrete block to create a backer for the brick facade and to help support the limestone caps.
As soon as the brick work is done, we’ll be able to order the glass and proceed with the store front aluminum. Bob plans to open an art gallery and small event space here. 114 North Main Street will become The Unintended Curator. This should prove a nice addition to the downtown and I’m sure people will soon forget what the building even looked like before.
Easterday Lore
I thought I would stick some “Easterday Lore” up here occasionally. Some of this will be history, some of it will be stories, some of it will be tips… ALL of it will be suspect, based on hearsay and things passed down through the oral history of the Easterday Family, blood or otherwise. We also have a page here which is more direct history of the company.
Today’s tidbit may be a tip, but I cannot personally attest to its veracity. In the early days of Russell L. Easterday Construction and Supply Company, we did a lot of construction at the Culver Academies, then Culver Military Academy. That has continued throughout the decades. One of the early projects included some copper work. New copper comes bright and shiny like a new penny. This project was an addition to an existing building and the new shiny copper stood out next to the older existing metalwork. My great grandfather, Russell Easterday, received this as a complaint and was a bit flummoxed. There was nothing wrong with the craftsmanship, but the new addition looked too new… an unusual complaint at that time. As always, there was an event coming up and they didn’t want to wait for the copper to obtain a naturally aged patina.
Grandpa talked to painters, some paint suppliers and finally contacted some old-country sheet metal workers he knew. One older gentleman who had been in the trade forever said, “Ack, that’s no problem. Just douse it down with some horse p*ss!” Easterday Lore is that this worked. I’m sure the Black Horse Troop was the source, but there was no discussion of how it was collected!
Sweet Caroline Ban! YES!!!
I heard some great news today! Finally something good is coming out of 2020 Covid-19… Neil Diamond’s Sweet Caroline sing-a-longs are being banned at bars and sporting events around the world! YES!!!
I heard several weeks ago that Neil himself was trying to save the song by updating the lyrics. All that radical, pre-Corona B.S. about hands touching hands and reaching out touching me and touching you… NO TOUCHING!!! Stop it!!!
But now it’s been acknowledged that all the drunk yelling of the song into other drunk faces is not safe. To be honest, it was always just the chorus. No one actually knows the words to the song. Though groupthink has added “Bump-bump-bums” and repetitive “So Goods” sprinkled throughout the parts they do know. As stated in the article about the Irish Pub in Spain banning it, “Play it late into the night at any venue in either country and you are likely to get a vocal response from the intoxicated customers present. “
A quick Google search confirmed that I’m not the only Sweet Caroline Hater. Former Yankees Pitcher Joba Chamberlain Says “Sweet Caroline” Was Worst Part of Fenway. Way to go Joba! Thanks for having the courage to speak out against this atrocity. Catchy does not equal good…
I also found where it has been banned at Penn State football stadium, though that’s more about the touchy-feeling part of the song and the connotations revolving around Jerry Sandusky scandal. Though is “reaching out, touching me, touching you” really appropriate at Beaver Stadium anyway?
It’s just become annoying and part of that is because it’s so ubiquitous at bars and sporting events. To paraphrase what Mr. Chamberlain said in his interview on the Balk Talk podcast, “Is it catchy? Yes. I won’t deny that. But at the same time… I don’t want to hear it.”
The last time I enjoyed hearing it even a little, was when Pete & Wayne butchered it on stage at Sloppy Joes in Key West. They professed their hate for it when a paid request came to them to play it, claiming they didn’t even know the words. A bidding war ensued in the bar upping the ante on both the play side and the no play side with Pete & Wayne raking in several hundred dollars in tips though the good-natured melee. Their version was funny and proved the sing-a-long idiots only cared about bump, bump, bumping through the chorus.
Much like Covid-19, I don’t think Sweet Caroline will die out anytime soon. Both seem to be way too infectious and often spread by drunk crowds. But one can always hope that this could be one of the few good things to come out of 2020… That would be Sweet! Maybe even worth a So Good! But please, no Caroline…
