Slightly Off the Mark: Albion and Noble County

Showing posts with label Albion and Noble County. Show all posts

Colorful Carnival Photos

When I was walking home from work Saturday night I decided to take a few photos of the Chain O' Lakes Festival rides. It rained (a lot) earlier, as kinda/sorta shown in this photo I took during the storm.

That's when the rain just started coming in; it turned into a real gully-washer for awhile. During the Festival, the only choice of weather is usually either wet or hot. After the sun came back out, we got the hot part.

This one was when the rain was coming down harder, and some lightning drove everyone off the rides. A lot of them came right back as soon as it lightened up, though.

I didn't have a lot of hope for taking pictures outside. I don't traditionally have a lot of luck with nighttime pictures using my iPhone. Not only that, but it was so humid my lens started fogging up.

But honestly, I kind of liked the effect. It kind of smeared the color out in a way I liked. Maybe I'll try to post the video I took on here too, although I really have trouble with video.

The last two are essentially the same photo, with the rides changing color between them. I'm a big fan of color and light. I'm not much of a festival goer anymore, but I do like watching them. Unless there are clowns with balloons.

Notice the double exposure effect. Not on purpose, although back in the film days doing something like that was a huge pain.

You can find us, whether indoors or outdoors, here:

· Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO

· Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

· Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4898846.Mark_R_Hunter

· Blog: https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/

· Website: http://www.markrhunter.com/

· Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ozma914/

· Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkRHunter914

· Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markrhunter/

· Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarkRHunter

· Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MarkRHunter

· Substack: https://substack.com/@markrhunter

· Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/ozma914

· Audible: https://www.audible.com/search?searchAuthor=Mark+R.+Hunter&ref_pageloadid=4C1TS2KZGoOjloaJ&pf

Remember: Reading is always a good thing, except when you’re on those rides.

The Chain O' Lake Festival--In History

To help celebrate this year's Chain O' Lakes Festival in Albion, I thought I'd post some photos from previous festivals. (As always, this is Indiana--there are at least three more Chains Of Lakes that I know of in other states, in addition to the dozen or so Albions.)

The original celebration was called the Albion Street Fair because, well, there was no Chain O' Lakes State Park. This photo even calls it the "Lawn Street Fair", and as you can see, the Noble County Courthouse lawn is being well used. A few years ago, someone used a metal detector to find a few coins there that might well have fallen from some of the pictured people's punctured pants pockets.

What does one do at a street fair in the early 1900s? Well, you could watch the Mars Duo, a pair of acrobats who seem unfairly low to the ground. The building behind them was the Worden House, a hotel that was later moved in pieces to become homes. One of those homes may have been haunted, according to my research for Haunted Noble County, Indiana. The gas station most of us Old Timers call the Corner Stop stands there now.

At one point Albion's Street Fair happened in September ... or maybe it was a second town festival? It's not like people were home watching The Price is Right. The truth is, I can't trace the lineage of the original town celebrations directly to today's festival until after these older photos were taken.

But there were still rides--the Merry Go Round and the Ferris Wheel, for instance.

As you can see if you read sideways, the Ferris wheel photo was taken in 1909. There were three photographers operating in Albion at the time that I know of: Joseph M. Harkless, John Inbody, who worked out of Ekhart, and M. C. Beck. Harkless passed away in 1909, so these probably weren't his. In any case, a lot of photos were taken around Albion that year.

Then there were the Chain O' Lakes Festival parades, of course. I hate the word problematical, so for this Campfire Girls photo I'll just stick with "politically incorrect". I'm guessing it was taken in the 20s, but it's a pretty wild guess.

In any case, it wouldn't be a parade without horses. We're jumping forward some for this photo, which is from the Grace Leatherman collection, as is the next one.

More forward jumping brings us to this photo. The photographer had a bad habit of not writing down dates and should probably be whipped for it, but I think I took it in the late 80s. 1980s. Which, my aching body tells me, makes it awfully close to historical.

I've posted this last one before, but I added it now because it's one of the few parade photos I know of that actually has me in it. I was a last minute replacement for the Color Guard, and had absolutely no idea what I was doing--that's me on the right, shouldering an ax in a way I usually wouldn't.

After you’ve enjoyed the Festival, look us up online:

· Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO

· Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

· Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4898846.Mark_R_Hunter

· Blog: https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/

· Website: http://www.markrhunter.com/

· Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ozma914/

· Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkRHunter914

· Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markrhunter/

· Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarkRHunter

· Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MarkRHunter

· Substack: https://substack.com/@markrhunter

· Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/ozma914

· Audible: https://www.audible.com/search?searchAuthor=Mark+R.+Hunter&ref_pageloadid=4C1TS2KZGoOjloaJ&pf

Remember: I would advise against reading while on a festival ride, but the books will be waiting when you get home.

Roadwork? It Must be Spring in Indiana

With spring comes--that's right--road work! Since I walked right by it on my way to work, I naturally took a few pictures.

This is State Road 9, called Orange Street as it passes through Albion. Being an INDOT project, the official detour is over state and US highways, making it dozens of miles out of the way. This is why I predict lots of lost/idiot drivers on Albion streets over the next couple of months. It should be pointed out that lost drivers are not always idiots and vice versa, although plenty of intelligent people have been known to get behind the wheel and do stupid things.

They're grinding down the entire road, taking it right down to the bricks that were once the surface and, from what I've heard, removing the bricks. I have a brick from when they removed them from the Noble County Courthouse square several years ago--they're heavy and well made, as you might imagine.

Of course, I could just show you the bricks.

There are warning signs in the next friggin' state alerting drivers that the roads will be closed, but some moron will still drive around everything and try to go through. To make matters worse, we had high winds today that blew over some of the barricades--although this one's still effective in blocking people from coming out of the alley.

As I was walking past it a dust devil rose up from the gravel parking lot and hit me so hard, I thought I saw Munchkins for a second. I had to spit out some dirt and irrigate my eyes, but otherwise no harm done.

This is the first of what appears to be a three part job--and one part of that runs in front of my house. Since they've closed the road entirely, my question is: How do we get to and from home? Specifically Emily, who has to either drive or camp out at the state park for the rest of spring; as seen by the pictures, I can walk (or stay home on the laptop). The driveway I share with a neighbor is a vacated alley, and there's no back entrance. It's the street, or do some Top Gear type four-wheeling down the hill into another neighbor's yard.