in search of Ohio presidents

[calimac]

On an earlier trip to Ohio, my brother and I visited the homes and museums of the two U.S. Presidents from the northeastern part of the state, James A. Garfield and William McKinley. On this trip, in a solid wad of time occupying most of the first week of this month, we collected all six of the others.^*

The best way to communicate our findings without drowning you in presidential trivia is with pictures.

1. Rutherford B. Hayes was born at a BP gas station in Delaware, Ohio. It may not have been one when he was born there in 1822, but it sure is now.

2. The informative plaque in front of the grandiose Warren G. Harding memorial in Marion, Ohio, contains a solecism so garish that my brother, who's a writing teacher, had to take a photo. See how quickly you can find it.

3a. Warren G. Harding campaigns from his front porch, 1920.

3b. I campaign from Warren G. Harding's front porch, 2010.

4. Inside the innocuous-looking cabin at left here, birthplace of U.S. Grant, awaits a woman who's been sitting there for 44 years waiting for the opportunity to talk your ear off about it.

5. Be even more grateful that you didn't encounter the folksy tales of the animatronic Charlie Taft, son of William H.

6. Holding an awful book about William Henry Harrison in front of the awe-ful tomb of William Henry Harrison. (And the site of the birthplace of Benjamin Harrison, only grandson of a President to be President, is nearby.)

*Ohio has so many presidents because the Republican Party used to treat it as a presidential farm lot. Of the ten men who served as Republican presidential candidates between the end of the Civil War and 1920, seven - including seven of the eight who won - were born in Ohio.