Sound Bite
In an eccentric travel book about America's flyover middle, a cynical old curmudgeon invites us on a humorous road trip historical photos and loony adventures included.
The man who bought the town of Story, Indiana, and its 19th-century inn, he highlights the historical landmarks and shares tales of the diverse folks who populate the region.
About the Author
Richard R. (“Rick”) Hofstetter enjoyed a successful career as a business lawyer and commercial arbitrator in Indianapolis, where he raised four children and developed a passion for German–American history and old architecture.
Rick saved the iconic Athenaeum building from a probable demolition in 1991 and served as the first President of the Athenaeum Foundation in 1991–4. He and a close friend, Frank Mueller, bought the entire 19th century town of Story, Indiana, in 1999, and undertook the massive effort of bringing its architectural treasures back from the brink while developing Indiana’s best-known destination B&B, the Story Inn.
In addition Rick, who holds a Juris Doctorate from Duke Law School, has taught business law classes at Butler University (Indianapolis) since 2002. By his own admission, Rick is a curmudgeon and a cynic, and his satirical and iconoclastic writing style is much in evidence in this book.
Jane Simon Ammeson, an accomplished travel writer, was Rick's accomplice in some of the adventures described herein, and in the adventure of writing this book.
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About the Book
Nestled discreetly along the border between the placid farmland and the hillbilly hills left by the last Ice Age in greater Kentucky - Indiana - Ohio, a specific culture has evolved in America's heartland. Actually, several contrasting cultures...
Nestled discreetly along the border between the placid farmland and the hillbilly hills left by the last Ice Age in greater Kentucky - Indiana - Ohio, a specific culture has evolved in America's heartland. Actually, several contrasting cultures that overlap but rarely mix. The author describes how this area became what it is today, a land of clapboard churches, limestone quarries, manufactured homes, Harley Davidson rallies, caves, distilleries, meth labs and gun stores, wine festivals and the bed-and-breakfast crowd.
The book explores caves, wineries, distilleries, grand hotels, secular and ecclesiastical treasures as well as monuments to human hubris. It highlights weird religious groups who populated this region, the buckle of the Bible Belt, including the Harmonists, Owenites, Amish, Mennonites, Pentecostals, snake-handlers, backwoods preachers who gather their brethren for a "blessing of the bikes" (Harleys), and, of course, German Catholics, and it explores cemeteries and superstitions of the people who inhabit Kentuckiana, the majority of whom believe in ghosts and think that God created the world 6,000 years ago, glaciers notwithstanding.
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This section of Southern Indiana is breathtakingly beautiful with its dense copse of woods, hills and hollows (they really do call them hollers here), century-old homes and barns, pastures filled with grazing horses and meandering creeks. There s a sense of it being a small moment in time preserved in amber, a sense which one feels more...
This section of Southern Indiana is breathtakingly beautiful with its dense copse of woods, hills and hollows (they really do call them hollers here), century-old homes and barns, pastures filled with grazing horses and meandering creeks. There s a sense of it being a small moment in time preserved in amber, a sense which one feels more intensely if you travel here as people did 150 years ago. I can understand why many people still travel to Story by horseback. I have always loved Story and the land around it, and I always will.
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Pages 210
Year: 2017
BISAC: TRV025080 TRAVEL / Kentucky
BISAC: HIS036041 HISTORY / United States / 19th Century
Soft Cover
ISBN: 978-1-62894-267-5
Price: USD 21.95
Hard Cover
ISBN: 978-1-62894-268-2
Price: USD 31.95
eBook as PDF
ISBN: 978-1-62894-269-9
Price: USD 21.95
eBook as ePub
ISBN: 978-1-62894-269-9
Price: USD 21.95
eBook for Kindle
ISBN: 978-1-62894-269-9
Price: USD 21.95
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