the Rural Image Cooperative

Maverick is originally from Columbus, Ohio but prefers to produce his offspring up in Canton, an hour and forty minute trip by car. The trip is quicker for Maverick, as he prefers to fly. He was born in 2000 and by 2003 his first girl was born. They named her Lady Justice. By 2004, Maverick fathered four more offspring but it was 2005 through 2009 that he found his true love. Priscilla caught his attention, maybe it was her long neck, or the way her dark eyes scanned his face slowly, meaningful; we can never know for sure. But what we do know is that in their four blissful years together, they added 18 little ones to the planet. 2010 was a bad year; Priscilla and Maverick ended their relationship, possibly due to the stress of raising such a large family. Maverick went back to is wilder ways and fathered 4 chicks with and unknown female. Possibly, she was simply a rebound to Priscilla, his one true love.

Every year Maverick’s mischief is celebrated by the good people of Canton, Ohio. Maverick prefers to birth his youngsters at the Chase Tower Canton Club on the corner of Market Avenue and Tuscarawas Street smack dab in the middle of downtown. He’s a bit of showman, Maverick, nesting his little home on the ledge of the 14^th floor. Maverick is a Peregrine Falcon, and he and his multitude of chicklets were considered an endangered species back in the 1970’s. This status is what kick started all the fuss these dedicated Cantonians raise each spring when the falcon’s eggs hatch. The Ohio Division of Wildlife are a sentimental bunch, so each year after the hatchlings prove their viability, they are displayed for the public in a sort of group birthday party. This year the little ones poked themselves into the world on May 1 and about 100 people watched the banding ceremony. Maverick has flown the coop, but is expected to continue to do his part to remove the Peregrine Falcon off the endangered list, bird by bird.

Periwinkle Glass Shoe from Fenton Glass

When we were little girls, my twin sister and I spent unnatural amounts of time playing with our grandmother’s miniature glass collection. Her menagerie displayed diverse and sometimes even adversarial little treasures. For example, I loved her tiny glass pig collection. She had four of them, each one smaller than the last until the baby pig was so small it was a wonder it held any form at all.  My twin went for the pretty maidens with the long full skirts, layers of heavy glass meant to look like ethereal petticoats.

The one item we both regarded with equal veneration was the periwinkle glass shoe in the picture above. It was delicate; its sensible heel nestled under the raised polka dots, the sharp pointed toe complimenting the wild ruffle of glass just where it would rest against a lady’s ankle. The shoe was too small to even contemplate wearing although we did, on one occasion, attempt to snuggle it onto my twin’s  baby doll Penelope. The results were absurdly disappointing. Penelope’s entire leg was consumed by the shoe and besides, we only had one shoe for two small plastic feet. We worried over the shoe’s mate, wondering if it found a cozy house to settle into, like its twin.

This glass slipper was a common sight in most of the houses we visited as children. It wasn’t until we turned eleven that we found out why they were so popular.  Apparently, nearby, all these years there existed a glass factory that manufactured pairs of glass shoes that were then sold independently, separated callously at the cash register.  One ordinary summer day our aunt announced that were going to tour the glass factory. My twin and I remained unimpressed. It was all the way in West Virginia, almost two hours in a hot car where we would squish up against our cousins in the back seat. And the idea of a factory conjured up images of men in blue overalls working above steam driven assembly lines coming home with grease under their fingernails. We lived a few blocks away from the Timkin Roller Bearing Plant so we knew a thing or two about factories. But no, we were assured this factory held elegance and finery.

But being eleven and holding as much authority in the family as the smallest glass piggy in grandma’s collection, we were placed into the hot car with our cousins for the long road trip to Williamstown, West Virginia to the Fenton Glass Factory. They offered tours twice every Saturday and apparently it was a big draw for the little town. Our tour group huddled close to the docent en masse and I grabbed my twin’s hand, lest we be separated like the glass slippers lined up for sale behind us. The tour itself was horrifying. For all its  fragile, detailed and intimate creations, the factory was brutally hot, full of indifferent men and women whose eyes were glazed over as shiny as the glass they produced. No special little tea room where young lasses in pretty dresses painted knowing eyes on the glass maidens my sister played with, no mischievous young children designing unfathomably small farm animals. We walked along a cement floor, the docent pointing out things adults might find interesting. “This station produces a gazillion vases a day”, or “Fenton Glass holds the patent for three of the colors produced in our blowing rooms.” The tour unceremoniously deposited us into the gift shop that held little magic, having seen the strings that manipulated the puppets.

Fenton Glass still offers tours, all these years later. They’re more sophisticated now, sexier, more appealing to pop culture, you actually get to watch glass being blown, witnessing its change from something so fluid and malleable into an indelible icon that sits on your grandmother’s shelf.

Strawberry Pickers

Way back, before it became all sexy and corporate, I worked for Vogley’s, picking strawberries for 16 cents a quart. I was 13 years old and Jimmy Carter, no stranger to field work himself, was president. Vogley’s was my first official job if you don’t count babysitting, which I don’t.  The strawberry fields were three miles from our neighborhood and even though it was summer, we had to wear mittens on our hands because at five o’clock in the morning, Ohio temperatures can freeze your blood stream. Or anyway, that’s how it felt on our bikes riding there.

I rode to work each morning with my girlfriend Lori.  Our route took us up Shepler Church Road, a winding, hilly affair with a railroad track crossing, a harbinger of the Big Hill just ahead. I always prayed for a train so I could catch my breath before the incline. About once a week I got lucky when a long train shouted passed us. We’d count the Chesapeak Railroad Cars, easy to spot with a kitten sleeping on that cornflower blue pillow, shiny and clean, despite the dust kicked up from the gravel train beds. A typical train that summer held 72 cars with as many as 20 Chessie Cats.

Lori ran on the track team at school and it seemed nothing winded her, including the ¼ mile steep incline just past the railroad track. I pretended to pedal nonchalantly, but the effort strained my lungs, a factor contributing to my status as Second Fastest Strawberry Picker at Vogleys. The first place, of course, went to Lori. I secretly competed with her all summer but was never able to pick faster than her. She was always one berry ahead of me.

The pickers in this picture are working in Louisiana. The heat must have been brutal. Even in Ohio, we stopped picking by one o’clock. We always thought it was because the sun was too hot on our backs, but later learned that the owners felt the strawberries were too easily bruised once warmed by the sun. Vogley’s held to a strict No Talking Policy in the fields, but we were allowed to eat as many strawberries as we wanted. After that long bike ride to work, Lori and I stuffed those cold morning berries into our mouths in equal motion to the ones we dropped into our baskets.

I was fired from that job, near the end of the season. My twin sister wanted to change jobs for a few days so we pulled the classic Twin Switcheroozie. It could have worked if she hadn’t been such a lousy picker. Despite my meticulous verbal training, she filled her baskets with the green tips (big no-no in the fields, even the pokey puppy pickers knew that). When she hauled the fruits of her labor up to the big wagon, where the field boss measured out the bounty into quarts,  he grew frustrated with her. He thought it was me being lazy.

He didn’t know I was being lazy, just not in his fields. I was sipping lemonade in an above ground pool watching the neighbor’s children who thought I was my twin. When I arrived back to work Monday morning, the field boss fired me for greeting one of the pickers across my row. “Hey, no talking!” He shouted from the wagon. He called me up to its edge and fired me for “general bad behavior”. In solidarity, Lori dropped her strawberries right there in field, not even bothering to have them counted, and quit. We rode our bikes home, holding our arms out straight as we raced down Shepler Church Road, our fingers red from the berry juice, our hearts bursting with freedom.

If you are a singleton (non-twin), this little town in Ohio may escape your notice. If, however, you are lucky enough to be one of the two births in every thousand that arrive as a twin, then Twinsburg, Ohio is a special place.  For 35 years,  twins from around the globe gather to celebrate their twinship. Twinsburg is the largest Twin’s Festival in the world,  drawing 1,700 sets of twins. The festival is always held the first full week-end in August (this year will be 5, 6 and 7). Twins are encouraged to dress alike and compete for a spot in the royal court. The twins all march in the Double Take Parade and compete in the Most Alike Twin’s Competition.

The festival includes line dancing in the Twinsburg High School Gym, golfing at the GlenEagles Golf Course (also in Twinsburg) and fine local entertainment. Last year’s festival showcased the Walnut Hill Cloggers. The twins themselves also host and perform in a talent show.  The festival, like its worldwide sister events, chooses a yearly theme. This year the event organizers have chosen a Circus Theme. The twins will sport costumes and create parade floats to interpret this theme.

Twinsburg, Ohio is named after a set of Connecticut twins who arrived to what was formally called Millsville, Ohio in 1819. They offered to fund the first school if the residents would change the name to Twinsburg. The twin boys, Moses and Aaron Wilcox, lived, married and were eventually buried in Twinsburg. They died within hours of each other, something quite common for identical twins.  Twinsburg boasts a population of around 17,000 people except in August, when it expands to accommodate almost five thousand twins.

The Boat House at Round Lake Christian Camp

My twin sister and I were privileged to spend one giddy week every summer at Round Lake Christian Camp. It was a lazy two hour drive from our church parking lot (the immutable starting point for our passel of girlfriends who all came with) to the beloved entrance of the camp. The parents of our little pack took turns driving the church van each year, eager to settle our child, then tween, then adolescent attitudes into the dorms and quickly drive away.

Our favorite driver was Karen’s mom who stopped at the Dalton Dariette found one hour into our trip. A salty sweet sojourn of summer. My twin ordered curly fries and I ordered a chocolate milkshake and we’d sip and crunch squashed into the back seat of the van whose sticky seats made the back of our legs slippery with sweat.

Our pastor held a contest one year to name the church van.The winner received a $25 gift certificate to London’s Candies, a local shop that sold candy buttons on long strips and peppermint sticks from big glass jars.  Our brother-the-genius entered “The Moving Spirit”. He grew red, then shy when his name was called at the Wednesday night potluck. Sweets were forbidden in our house and I never asked him if he was allowed to cash in his prize.

Arriving at camp was a paradox. All of us eager to jump out and play, most of us in desperate need of a bathroom, The Moving Spirit crawled down the endless dirt road to the camp, violently dodging large rocks and bouncing wildly into the potholes that dotted our way. Our own little version of hell on the road to heaven.

It was this modest boathouse, not the dining hall with its strict rules and eternal pans of lasagna, that held the heart of the camp. A short walk south from the boathouse, just before the amphitheater where we all sat dressed in our scratchy Sunday clothes for evening vespers, was a small shack that held numerous canoes, tossed in on their bellies to rest between adventures.The boathouse harbored the two motorboats on camp, used exclusively by the male leadership.

The boathouse was the only building in the camp to barricade itself behind a large padlock. When were young, we thought the two motorboats housed there held great value. As we grew up, though, we learned the secret of the lock. Nestled up in a loft above the boats was a space that smelled of petrol and damp socks. It was here that the