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Have you heard about the 1938 Lafayette grave robbery?

Posted by Staff on Sunday, July 30, 2023

Grave robbers were apparently seeking a valuable ring

By Fred Steiner
www.BlufftonForever.com

Grave robbers in LaFayette?

It occurred in October of 1938 and became headlines in many Ohio newspapers. This tale involves the grave in the LaFayette Cemetery of Tully Rumbaugh, a pioneer in the village who was born Aug. 6, 1875, and died Jan. 17, 1896.

One LaFayette story claimed that Rumbaugh, only 21 when he died, was buried with an expensive diamond ring. No one knows when or how that story took its roots. But, even in 1938, 42 years following his death, the story continued to spread.

The appraisal of the ring was simply described as “valuable.” Apparently, three young boys, or young men, overheard the Rumbaugh ring story being told in a LaFayette pool hall. Soon after hearing the story, but not knowing the exact location of the grave, the three took digging tools and matches and headed for the cemetery.

There they found the Rumbaugh grave. The story continues that they dug at the gravesite and after a few hours reached the top of the decayed coffin. In their exciting and no doubt frightening search of the corpse, they found a ring and took it.

Click HERE for the rest of the story.

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The Wizard

Posted by Staff on Thursday, July 13, 2023

By Robert McCool

If this was a novel it would be titled “The Wizard.”

But this isn’t a work of fiction. It’s about a real man that I have known all my life, and I’d like you to know him too, as I wanted to be him or like him my whole life, but could not measure up to his natural abilities.

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Building my own backyard mini golf course  

Posted by Staff on Friday, July 7, 2023

The yard course is more reminiscent of the British Open than Augusta

By Cort Reynolds

ADA–Having been a lifelong athlete and gamesman, I was looking for something constructive and fun to do this summer to help fill some of my sports void.

The regular basketball game at ONU that I organized and played in for years came to a screeching halt during the pandemic and has yet to be resuscitated despite my so-far fruitless efforts to start it back up.

I decided to put an idea that had been gestating for over a year in my head into action and create something the area lacks, something which used to be a fixture in many towns. An activity to add to my backyard basketball hoop and croquet set-up that would sharpen concentration skills.

Armed with a small spade, my imagination and determination to make up something fun and challenging, I created my own backyard miniature golf course this past month. 

I was only going to make 18 holes, but I am up to 22 and counting, although I am starting to run out of good real estate spots despite the fun of creating them. I might get to 27 holes, but not 36.

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Book review: Station Eleven

Posted by Staff on Monday, June 26, 2023

This is not a new book by Emily St. John Mandel (“The Singers Gun,” “The Last Night In Montreal,” “The Lola Quartet”). It was written in 2014, long before Covid-19, but not as long as apocalyptic dystopian stories have been around. Think about Noah's story, and the end of the world as he knew it. And all the dead unbelievers after the end of civilization. So many lives taken away in so short a time. It is unconscionable.

While the concept isn't new, this author has a new, modern story written in a new and interesting way. It is a brilliant telling of a now all too believable scenario in our modern age of air flight and a pandemic disease from which there is no hiding .

“Station Eleven” (Thorndike Press, ISBN 978-4104-7417-9, ISBN 1-4104-7417-8) is such a tale.

A swine flu mutation originating in Georgia, Russia spreads so easily and quickly that there is no time to avoid it. It spreads everywhere, killing anybody who comes close to it. The disease kills 99 percent of the human race and leaves the survivors in a place without any modern civilization to guide them; no police, no phones, no computers, no food after the stores have been robbed of anything edible. Nobody that was in the world they used to know, much like Noah's old tale of woe.

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Book Review: The Book of Magic by Alice Hoffman

Posted by Staff on Monday, June 5, 2023

Book Review by Robert McCool

I'm back with a classic. It’s been quite a few weeks since I've submitted a book review for the Icon. It's been quite a few weeks since I have had the motivation to read a new pop-fiction release.

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Book Review: Our Missing Hearts

Posted by Staff on Tuesday, May 2, 2023

Review by Robert McCool

Words can be weapons; whether written or spoken, or the more dangerous implied threat by authority.

Poetry has to be words too; a light illuminating the darkness in some human souls.

Such is the premise in the new masterwork by Celeste Ng, titled Our Missing Hearts ($34.00, Random House ISBN978-0-593-63267-3).

The story begins after the collapse of the United States economic system (which is blamed on the Chinese, of course). This is the time of PACT (Preserving American Culture and Traditions), a totalitarian authority that controls the whole country. PACT has the power to suppress any activity that is considered UN-American or seditious. PACT has the power to read all mail, wiretap any phone, or impose an ongoing curfew, which the breaking of brings down the law. Big time.

They also have the right to remove any child from its family if the parents do not follow PACT constraints faithfully to protect American values. These PACT laws were passed unilaterally by the House and Senate in an effort to bring America out of the Crises.

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