The Spice of Life

Placed by Cache Owner Pioneer Ts in 2010, this riddle recalls Yoder’s True Value Hardware, a Variety and General Store for 40 years.

While an Arctic storm hurtles toward us, we revel in today’s sunshine, hopping  from the 270 outerbelt onto Route 33.

Removed by one small 30-minute drive, and one giant time warp, from freeways and outerbelts, we are at the traffic light on Main Street, Plain City.

No geotrail through this town can resist the Gingerbread Castle, where chocolate flows and Mom’s cooking tantalizes.

The unique Dutchman mix of food and faith is selling well today. This workforce of deeply entangled ethnic culture wraps itself in religious and family histories. Completely rural roots look askance at communal constructs of town and township.

Family patriarchs keep track of grands and great-grands who intersect and interconnect on a giant Scrabble board of last names. Gingeriches marry Troyers marry Schlabachs marry Millers marry Yoders marry Hostetlers. Ethnic cousins from afar slowly transplant and blend in, blurring and reshaping cultural identity. A digital world burrows beneath and upends cultural roots in never-before-dreamed-of universes.

Full of gingerbread, we follow our geotrail. In 2021, Yoder’s True Value sold out to become Plain City Hardware. Mr. Yoder personally served his variety store for four decades, then, childless, his name capitulated to the town. Customers ponder the change, with a forlorn feeling of father lost and era ended.

As new generations are conducted into hardware heaven, our geotrail winds to the back of the building. No longer can cache hunters expect to encounter the adventures of past logs: poison ivy, a wild cat colony, or a doggy-paddling baggy struggling to keep its head above water.

In 2019, the CO moved the bounty to a tame and docile place within the sterile confines of a parking lot. Fully appreciating the expectations of Cache Nation, clever rascality makes up for removal of untamed wilderness.

The Cache Countess greets with brilliant, tiger-dyed hair and a fist bump.