Zoar

Went to this amazing village today called Zoar. It was the cutest thing. They had their annual Harvest Festival and it was great. Zoar was a German town outside of Canton, OH. The population was around 300 at its highest. The town was a very important one, as McKinley sometimes held meetings there. Here are some pics of the fabulous place.

RIP Marilyn

Today marks the 48th anniversary of Marilyn Monroe's death. To this day, we don't know the exact circumstances surrounding her mysterious exit from our world. Was it suicide? Overdose? Murder? There are so many theories and many of us will never know the truth. In the meantime, here are some pics of gorgeous Marilyn to remember her.

Taggarts Ice Cream Parlor and Restaurant

My brother and sister-in-law took me to have dinner with his boss tonight and we ended up having ice cream at such a great place! Not only was the ice cream great, but the building is supposedly haunted! Right up my alley! There are two locations for Taggart's: Canton, and Magnolia, OH.

The location in Magnolia is the one we visited. The town is adorable and the building that houses the restaurant is an old stage coach stop and inn built in 1830. The structure has been used in the past as a hotel, tavern, restaurant, pharmacy, pizza shop and t-shirt shop. Druscilla and Isaac Miller ran the inn years ago, and legend has it that their spirits have never left. Here are some accounts of strange happenings by people in the restaurant:

--A maintenance man heard footsteps in the building when no one else was there.

--Ice cream originally stored in the freezer, would be found somewhere else in the basement, melted. This has happened twice. The ice cream is stored in five-gallon containers.

--Chocolate sauce that is kept in the cooler has also been found out of place in some other part of the basement.

--A female employee of Taggarts had her hair pulled as she was coming out of the basement cooler. (I talked to her tonight and she told me the story!)

--On one occasion, there was coffee in the main dinning room coffee pot brewing when employees came
to work.

--A Taggarts employee observed a “shadow lady” sitting on a chair in the employees bathroom on the second floor.

--While sitting in the “tea room”, a group of teachers from a local school, were seated at a table having lunch, when a ketchup bottle and sugar packet flew off another table toward them. This occurred after one of the teachers commented on how ugly the wife of Isaac Miller was. A photo of Drusilla Miller hangs on the first floor near the main entrance. (I was told to make sure I didn't say anything negative about her picture.)

Not a lot of great pictures, but what a cool place. You have to visit!

Shawshank Redemption

I'm going to be visiting Mansfield State Reformatory where Shawshank was filmed this Sunday, so I thought it was fitting I give you some trivia about the film. Here you go!

--The role of Tommy Williams was intended for Brad Pitt.

--The exteriors were filmed at the defunct Mansfield State Reformatory in Ohio. The prison was in such poor condition, renovations had to be made prior to filming. However, most of the interiors were shot on a sound stage, because they determined it would be cheaper to build duplicates of the interiors rather than renovating the interiors of Mansfield.

--In Stephen King's original story, Red was written as a white Irishman. In the movie, they left the line, "Maybe it's 'cause I'm Irish", in as a joke, even after they had cast Morgan Freeman as Red.

--The mugshots of a young-looking Morgan Freeman that are attached to his parole papers are actually pictures of Morgan's younger son, Alfonso Freeman. Alfonso also had a cameo in the movie as a con shouting "Fresh fish! Fresh fish today! We're reeling 'em in!"

--Although a very modest hit in theaters, it became one of the highest grossing video rentals of all time.

--Stephen King sold the rights to the movie very cheaply out of his friendship with Frank Darabont. They had originally become friends when Darabont adapted a short story of King's called "The Woman in the Room" (King has a policy stating that any aspiring filmmaker can adapt his short stories for a buck) and King was thoroughly impressed. They maintained a pen pal relationship and didn't actually meet until Darabont optioned Shawshank.

--After the film gained popularity, Ted Turner sold the television rights to TNT, his own network, for much lower than normal for such a big film. Because it is so inexpensive to show, the film is broadcast on TNT extremely often

--The town of Mansfield held all day open auditions for extras. So much interest was shown that they accepted no more people after 3pm.

--The role of Andy Dufresne was originally offered to Tom Hanks, who couldn't accept due to scheduling conflicts with Forrest Gump (1994). Hanks did, however, work on Frank Darabont's next film, The Green Mile (1999).

--Tom Hanks, Kevin Costner, Tom Cruise, Nicolas Cage and Charlie Sheen were all considered for the part of Andy Dufresne. Hanks turned it down because he was committed to Forrest Gump (1994). Costner liked the script a lot but was then embroiled in the filming of Waterworld (1995).

--For the sewage tunnel sequence, Tim Robbins initially refused to immerse himself in the muddy water at the end of the pipe after a chemist tested the water and dubbed it lethal.

--The prison that played Shawshank, the Mansfield State Reformatory, now serves as a museum. Because it was scheduled for demolition at the time of filming, several set pieces remain intact in the prison, including the tunnel Andy crawled out of and the warden's office.

-- The candy tin with money and a letter that Andy buries features a picture of the ocean liner The Queen Mary. It was issued in the 1950s as part of a series by a British company called Benson's.

Jim Morrison

When visiting the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Saturday, I was fascinated by all the material they had on Jim Morrison of The Doors. I had no idea his father was an Admiral and worked at the Pentagon. Morrison hated the strict lifestyle his father provided, and therefore decided to act out early on. The Hall of Fame had an actual letter from a police department to his father asking for help in taming Morrison after he was arrested for lewd behavior onstage at a concert.

I knew he died in Paris and assumed it was of a drug overdose, but no autopsy was ever performed. So sad that his common law wife of the time, Pamela Courson died just three years after he did of a heroin overdose. What a tragedy to lose someone so talented as Jim Morrison so early in his life.