Grit

As a boy growing up in Ohio, I remember trips upstate to Sidney, to visit my paternal grandparents. One of my pastimes on lazy days was to read the weekly newspaper that circulated the Midwest in those days, a newspaper known simply as Grit.

I learned a few years ago, after an exhaustive search, that it was still around as a bi-weekly magazine. Today, I see it is now a monthly, and like most periodicals today, it has a website. Looking at the current issue, there is a story of "Chateau Larouche," a curious landmark situation near the place where I grew up:

"The banks of the Little Miami River in Loveland, Ohio, is probably the last place one would expect to find a 10th-century Norman castle. However, that is exactly what people will find in the small Cincinnati suburb.

The castle is the work of the late Harry Andrews-newspaperman, scholar and castle builder for more than half of his 91 years. It was his dream to build a real castle, and until his death in 1981, he labored nearly every waking hour to make his dream a reality..."

I remember a stone marker near the castle, where the old man claimed there was once an end to a rainbow. No pot of gold, just a marker. The castle today is maintained and overseen by members of an order of knighthood which the builder founded for boys -- and in the current day, for boys-at-heart.