DAYS 124-126 - From Piqua to Columbus, OH - 2445 miles from home
- Esther Lisa Tishman
- Nov 7
- 5 min read
Updated: Nov 13
We're in the big city now: I write these words from an Airbnb in Columbus, Ohio. Today we walk through the rest of the city - ending up at our hosts for the next three nights and diving into a rich weekend of interactions with two different faith communities.
In Omaha, on the (as usual) good advice of my friend Bridget Keegan, I began reading Caroline Fraser's fascinating biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder - gaining more insight into the vast prairies and high plains through which we've been walking. Fraser talks about the influential 'frontier thesis' - the idea, popularized in the 1890s, that the vast and open expanses of the West had uniquely shaped the American character. Fraser explains: "Americans wanted to believe that grit, spunk, and the strength of their own axe-wielding arms had raised a democracy in the wilderness." According to this vision, the frontier was the vast blank page upon which the American character was written.
We're no longer in the prairies, but we did just finish walking through Darke County, Ohio - birthplace of Annie Oakley (1860-1926). We pilgrims - and perhaps our country as a whole - are still in the grip of the 'frontier thesis.'
The thing about the frontier, however, is that it was never truly a blank slate - never an open canvas. There's history everywhere - stories being told and stories not yet heard; griefs and joys waiting for remembrance and celebration; patterns to be noted, questions to be asked, prayers and blessings to be spoken. The countryside is not a blank canvas; instead, it's what book nerds like me call a palimpsest: a written page which has been reused - somewhat erased, to be written upon again, reinscribed... inscriptions and texts and drawings overlaid upon each other. That's the crazy quilt of this land. There are stories on top of stories.
And so I'm alert to things like the Millwheel Monument, on Route 36, on my way from Piqua to Urbana, Ohio. The millwheel is dedicated to Henry and Barbara Dilbone: husband and wife murdered in 1806 in front of their children by a Shawnee Indian called Mingo George. Mingo George was later killed by a posse in revenge. The pioneer settlers, with their fierce commitment to their homestead... The equally fierce commitments of the native peoples they had displaced. And so, what's been called the Dilbone Massacre.
And then, surrpisingly, walking along an industrial road into Columbus yesterday, I noticed a historical marker and a little park. The plaque tells us: "Shrum Indian Mound. One of the last remaining earthern mounds in this area of Ohio. Built by Native American people of the Adena Culture (800 BC - 100 AD). The land was deeded to the Ohio Historical Society in 1928 by the Shrum Family."
I noticed a path up the mound. It didn't quite seem right to walk to the top, but I did. How should our feet treat a palimpsest?
Time also has a palimpsest, crazy quilt quality to it. We find ourselves in places rich with meaning, at just the right time to be there. I'd love to say this is another instance of what hikers call "trail magic" - but I think the fact simply is that every moment, every inch of this world, contains layers upon layers of meaning. Of history. That's how interconnected we all are, always.
And so, on Day 125, we found ourselves sleeping in a warehouse full of groceries.
Here on the pilgrimage, Bob, Chris, and all the rest of us have been eating like kings - fed to the bursting by our generous hosts, and of course not without credit cards and wallets of our own. Gullets and wallets that we take to wondrous places like the Venezuelan restaurant Abuela's Kitchen in Urbana - and less wondrous places like the faux-Bavarian Hofbräuhaus in Columbus. So no matter what, you can bet Esty is going to be eating well.
At the same time, so many of our hosts are church and temple folk, staffing food pantries and worrying about food insecurity in their towns. Accordingly, the suspension of SNAP benefits has been very much on our minds. How extraordinary was it, then, for us to find shelter - just a few days after SNAP was suspended - in a literal food pantry. The Urbana United Methodist Church wanted to host us; kind Pastor Christopher Dinnell met up with me to explore the options. Their main building was unavailable - but across the parking lot was the warm and spacious "Wherehouse": the pantry and base of operations for the Church's expansive food ministry.
We'll take it!
Wherehouse Director Charlie Bosworth showed us around - we marveled at the freezer, freshly stocked with 10,000 pounds of turkey received as a donation from Cooper Farms just that day. A young woman drove up with a carload of private donations, including crates of chicken stock and boxes of canned goods. “A bunch of us families got together for this,” she said. The bounty received at the Wherehouse is shared with individuals, other community pantries, missions, soup kitchens in the area. Emergency help is also available; Charlie receives calls fairly routinely. And, yes, as we've heard elsewhere - the need has doubled in these past few weeks. Charlie is bracing for the holidays.
As befits a food ministry guy, Charlie also pointed us to one of the most memorable meals of this trip. Abuela's Kitchen, in adorable downtown Urbana, Ohio. Abuela is owned by Matt and Lizi. They met while both were working at Honda - but Lizi is from Venezuela. "I'd never even worked in a restaurant before," Matt told us - in the warm, colorful, delicious space of his and Lizi's restaurant. Lizi’s extraordinary cooking got the business going. And so, Bob and Chris and I ate arepas and fried yucca and drank Polar - a great Venezuelan lager. We asked about Lizi's family, and how folks are faring in this country and back at home. As with staying at the Wherehouse, eating Venezuelan food in the heartland also seems strangely, palimpsestically apt at this time.
And finally, can I just say: the horses. I didn't realize I'd fall so in love with so many of them on this pilgrimage. Yesterday one resolutely kept his jaw resting on the fence separating him and me... allowing me to approach just close enough to get the picture below.
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