James Proffitt

Frost says he founded the event because he wanted to give veterans with disabilities an opportunity to take part in one of his favorite activities, hunting, that they likely wouldn’t have otherwise. And he encourages veterans with all levels of disability to take part.

“They suffer daily with mental or physical things they have wrong with them because they served our country,” Frost says. “If you have any doubts about thinking you can’t go hunting because of your disability, whatever it is, I really want you to please reach out.”  

“The lake is a provider for paintings using propagation, waves, the stones it brings to shore, its movement, repetition, and variety,” he says. “The natural world is important to my soul and its creative juices.”    

Before he painted, Charles mostly sculpted, and the garden portion of the campus is home to about 150 pieces ranging from smaller works to massive creations 7 or 8 feet tall. Some are wood, steel, or bronze; others are pieces of glacial erratic (granite) and limestone, many quarried from the island.   

Photographer James Proffitt warns that some of the images that went into this essay were taken in what he describes as NSFW conditions — Not Safe for Wading. Following are some of the musings from his vast wanderings in 2024 and 25 while collecting his images.

We love it and we hate it. It cools food and drinks, we skate on it, fish on it. We slip and fall on it, crash our cars on it and it destroys roads and sometimes things around the house. It can be treacherous, unforgiving, and beautiful: Ice.

To be certain, spray-painting railcars is illegal and dangerous. Most graffiti is born near rail yards in larger cities, like the Queensgate yard in Cincinnati, where the cars are plentiful and often don’t move for long periods of time.

Bertovich notes that the approaches to the new Ottawa County roundabouts — at an exit ramp from Ohio Route 2/53 and an adjacent one at the intersection of Route 53 and East State Road — are posted 15 mph, but some drivers speed through, which throws off the rhythm for incoming traffic. “And then sometimes people come to a complete stop when someone’s coming around or even when there’s no traffic coming,” she says. “I’ve seen four or five cars backed up coming off Route 2 where people have stopped at the roundabout when they didn’t need to.”   

Perhaps the fiercest is Tom Korokney, a.k.a. “Doc Lyman.” He purchased the tooling, jigs, fixtures, and archived records from then-defunct Lyman during bankruptcy and moved it all to Lexington in Richland County. 

“I’ve used the tooling to duplicate parts through the years,” he says. “And the documentation — I’ve got all the original hull records.” Those records, Korokney says, are sought after by folks who desire historical papers, including certificates of authenticity, for their boats. 

While the Skeanses live in a home tucked away down a gravel lane in a quiet, peaceful, wooded area of the island, other spots on Kelleys — especially on those busy weekends — have an altogether different vibe, and the island’s roads can feature some chaotic twists and turns.

“[Riders] can be very happy and like to sing songs,” Natasha says. “One time I had a football team. They were like 55 years old, and they decided to share all the songs they used to sing back in the day.”

At one point, Miller says, a local coal company took note of all those nuts and briefly entered the chestnut game as a side-gig. It soon went bankrupt, however; the folks who bought up the land were looking for deer hunting sites rather than an agricultural specialty crop. 

Drivers in Ohio pass them by, often without a second thought — a small cross or a bouquet of flowers, a candle or a stuffed animal, any of a number of seemingly insignificant trinkets. But to the folks who have erected these roadside memorials, they mean the world.