May 22-23, 2008 - Indiana and Ohio

Had a nice leisurely drive to Richmond, IN. We had a little rain but not too bad.

May 23, 2008 - Dayton, OH

Today we drove from Richmond, Indiana to Dayton, Ohio. We arrived around 11:00 at a Walmart where we disconnected the car and left the RV. We drove to David and Carolyn Schoeff’s house about 15 minutes away. David and I had worked together for several years at the D. Appleton Company. We hadn’t seen him for about 12 years. Carolyn (who we hadn’t met before) greeted us in the front yard. She made us feel right at home immediately. Their house is about 90 years old and has two floors and a basement. They were having the walls in some of the rooms redone to get rid of some of the cracks so the furniture was covered and the art work was off the walls. You still could visualize how it would look and the house was charming. Lots of dark wood and beautiful old-style windows. They had recently redone upstairs bathroom . It is absolutely gorgeous. They have used unique materials and designs to create a wonderful room. We enjoyed our tour of their house. They took us to lunch to a very nice restaurant in their community. We caught up on old acquaintances and family members. We had a wonderful visit with them and hope to keep in touch.

We left Dayton and drove to Columbus, Ohio where we had an appointment for a tour of the American Whistle Company. It is a very small company, only 10 employees. It was a quick tour. All the whistles are made out of brass because it helps give the whistle a better tone. The whistles are gold plated, brass, or nickel plated. They make 24k gold plated whistles for the Super Bowl referees. The New York Police Department orders 10,000 whistles every year. Some of the whistles are made for Walmart. We saw how the whistles were assembled and how the little ball gets inside the whistle. The ball used to be made of cork from Portugal. But, it got too expensive so they created their own synthetic cork. A machine squishes the ball and inserts it into the whistle. Once inside it expands to its original size. The company makes 5,000 whistles a day. We were very impressed with the creativity of the marketing and sales staff as to the different ways they have marketed their whistle.