Memories

I enjoy remembering the people, places and events which link me forever to my hometown.  When the cold wind blows out of the canyon, and the snow falls abundantly around the perimeter of the house I live in "on the bench" of the Wasatch Mountain range, I often find myself sitting in front the fireplace, a roaring fire warming my surroundings.  At that time, I can usually be found with a notebook and pen in my hand, writing down those precious memories which may one day appear as blogs on this site. Sometimes, I wax poetic, and take a few minutes to pen an appropriate poem - there's a burning desire within me to someday publish a volume of my thoughts and poetry. 

In this brief blog, I want to share a short poem with those who enjoy my writings.  I think all who read it will find themselves in agreement with the message I have attempted to relay.

Memories

Looking back, I wish I had access to a camera

To record those many precious moments

Which are, fortunately, locked away somewhere

In the recesses of my mind.

While I can recall them in my mind's eye

At any time I want,

I would love to be able to share them with others

So they can understand why I laugh or cry.

(c) 2005  Ralph Lowell Coleman, Jr.

All Rights Reserved.

~

Some folks have asked me about the swimming fish which appear at the left side of this column. 

 This is a very interesting - and fun - animated graphic created by Adam Bowman
which I've posted here for fun. 

When the reader places his/her cursor in the box with the fish and clicks,

a bit of "fish food" is deposited on the surface of the "pool." 

The hungry fish then swim to the treat!  

 Click in several different parts of the "pool," and watch the activity!
Click on Adam's logo in the upper left corner of the "pool," to access
more information about this clever illustrator.



Characters In My Play: Goldie Millice

She was a short, dainty lady with a visible physical handicap, a raspy voice, sparkling personality, and no-nonsense approach to what she considered important - getting the news out to the people.  Golden "Goldie" Millice was a friendly, sweet lady who was the voice of North Lewisburg for about 40 years while serving as a correspondent for the Urbana Daily Citizen.  Her column of tidbits and facts about the day-to-day activities of the town's residents appeared weekly in the newspaper.

Goldie worked primarily out of a small retail store on the ground floor of the old Town Hall, which stood at the southeast corner of Maple and Sycamore Streets.  It was interesting to enter the building, and to hear Goldie as she conducted business with patrons, or as she haggled on the telephone with some member of the Urbana Daily Citizen staff.  She could "tell it like it is" and get her point across in no-nonsense terms.

She was born in North Lewisburg on November 3, 1889, a daughter of Thomas and Adra Hudson Heston.  She married George Millice, who died in 1947.  They were the parents of two sons, William and Charles.  Goldie was active in the community all of her life, and probably knew everyone in town.  She stayed in constant contact with people in order to have the latest news to be inserted in the pages of the Urbana Daily Citizen.

She died on Saturday, January 23, 1960, after two years of failing health, and serious illness during her last two months.

On January 27, 1960, the editorial staff of the Urbana Daily Citizen posted a beautiful editorial to Goldie's memory in the newspaper.  The full text of that editorial follows:

Only One Goldie

"In all likelihood, ther will never be another "Goldie" as far as those of us at The Citizen are concerned.  Her death leaves a place vacant in our heats which no one will ever fill.

"We venture to say that this same situation exists in North Lewisburg.  Goldie Millice was something special in that community as she was to all her friends everywhere - and she had a lot.  She will be sadly missed as one of the most colorful personalities in a community which has more interesting personalities than many towns of its size.

"In spite of a physical handicap which may have done much to shorten her life, Goldie's energies and enthusiasms were a strong influence for good in her town.  Her little shop was a meeting place for small talk and one of the first places to get the news of more importance.  While it was the best help The Citizen had in getting news of North Lewisburg, it probably was also our biggest competition.

"The fact is that it was important to most good causes to enlist Goldie's aid early in the game.  And she was usually free to give it and could raise a fuss with the newspaper if she felt we weren't doing our share to help out, too.

"As a matter of fact, for about 40 years Goldie was The Citizen in North Lewisburg - and she frequently made this point to members of the newspaper staff who were in touch with her.  In recent years she was proud of the fact that she had the longest tenure of anyone on The Citizen and lften let more recent members of the staff know that she considered them johnny-come-latelys.

"But this was probably what made us enjoy her so much.  Goldie was forthrightly honest and always let us know what she thought.  She seemed to enjoy it most when her viewpoint didn't exactly coincide with ours.  And her "now, sweetie," could preface some pretty devastating arguments - and some pretty winning remarks of appreciation or affection.

"There is a special bond between a county newspaper and its small town correspondents which made us feel as sad about Goldie's retirement a few weeks ago as she felt herself.  She told us she'd miss us and we knew she meant it as we did when we said we'd miss her, even though we both appreciated that the job should be turned over to more vigorous hands at last.

"We won't forget that crispy, crackly voice coming through the phone.  We won't soon forget the sparkle of those eyes which had seen so much.  We won't forget Goldie."

Golden C. "Goldie" Millice rests from her labors, beside her husband George,  in the old section of Maple Grove Cemetery, off Gilbert Road, about a mile outside of North Lewisburg.

She was always, and remains, one of the characters in my play.

The Porch Light

My Mom and Dad were truly in love.  Both had experienced previous marriages which had not proven to be what they had expected.  There had been precious few "good times," and both of those marriages had ended in divorce.  In 1943, however, they found each other and by year's end had pledged their love to each other. 

After the simple marriage ceremony in the little town of Unionville Center, in Union County, they had returned to an old farmhouse on the outskirts of North Lewisburg to take up their lives together.  They enjoyed just a little over a month of wedded bliss before notification came that Dad could expect to be drafted into the military for service in World War II.  He made an effort to enlist in the Navy, but during the physical examination learned to his sorrow that he was color blind.  He enlisted in the Army, determined to be the "best marksman" that the Army had ever seen.

By March 1944, he was prepared to leave North Lewisburg for training at Camp Blanding, Florida.  Mom walked with him to the old depot where he boarded a train for Urbana, where he was to link up with other young men who were leaving for service.  Mom and Dad said their good-byes, tearfully to be sure, and waved to each other as the train pulled away from the platform.

That night Mom began a nightly ritual which she maintained all of the time that he was gone.  Before retiring for the night, she walked to the front doorway of the old frame house, opened the door and the screen door beyond it, and stared out into the night, hoping to see Dad walking toward the house.  Disappointed, yet still hopeful, she turned on the porch light, and let it shine through the night.

Dad was permitted to come home unexpectedly in late May 1944 when his mother, Eva Marie, died suddenly at the age of 52.  Dad was home to provide support to his father, William Smith Coleman, as well as his siblings, and to serve as a pall bearer at his mother's funeral.  He remained at home for a few days (fortunately for me as I was conceived during his brief reunion with my mother) before he had to depart again for training.  Mom once again walked him to the train depot, hugged and kissed him, and sadly said goodbye to him.  Dad leaned out of the passenger car window as he waved back to her, and continued to do so until the train was out of sight.  Mom returned home (she had moved back into town to a small apartment on Maple Street), and once again renewed her nightly ritual.  Before bed she opened the front door, looked out into the darkness, closed the door again and turned on the porch light.

Dad wrote to her regularly over the next ten months or so as he completed training at Camp Blanding, Florida, and departed for service in the Pacific area.  He traveled by train from Florida to California, and passed through Wyoming in the meandering process.  He fell in love with the West, and mentioned it often in his letters to Mom.  In the back of his mind, a dream formed that he would one day have the opportunity to move to Wyoming.

He crossed the ocean via troop ship, stopping for a period of time in Hawaii.  He was an experienced swimmer, and loved the short period of time he had to enjoy the beaches there.  He wrote that he loved the sweet smell of the air, heavily scented with the fragrances of flowers.  He marvelled at the twin rainbows which generally appeared in the Hawaiian skies after the gentle rains, and at the lush, green foliage which covered the mountain peaks.

He was assigned to Company H, 185th Regimental Combat Team, 40th Infantry Division, as an infantry scout.  Equipped with an M-1 carbine, he trained extensively upon his arrival at New Britain, near New Guinea.  In January 1945, he boarded his troop ship as part of the invasion force which landed at Lingayen Gulf as part of General Douglas MacArthur's pledge of "I shall return" to the Philippine Islands. 

After the landing, he participated in the drive from the northern point of the island toward Manila.  In the area of Bamban, he was awarded the Bronze Star Medal with "V" device for bravery under fire.  In the weeks which followed, he also earned three Purple Heart Medals for wounds received in action.  I was born on February 23, 1945, the very day that a contingent of Marines raised the flag above Mount Suribachi, on Iwo Jima.  Mom wrote to Dad immediately with the news, but her letter had not yet reached him when another friend from North Lewisburg, Jake Evans, linked up with Dad in the Philippines to tell him he had a son.  A couple of photos taken that day show both men, smiling for the camera.

Tasked later with the duty of participating in the invasion of Panay Island, Dad fought there until he was wounded for the fourth time in early March 1945.  Unconscious, he was evacuated by hospital ship to Tripler General Hospital, Honolulu. 

The War Department advised Mom of his most recent head wound.  He was in a coma, and the prognosis looked bleak.  She maintained hope, and each night walked to the front door, checked the darkness, and turned on the porch light.

Dad died on May 7, 1945, at the age of 32.  He was originally buried at the Old Post Cemetery, Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, with full military honors.  He was postumously awarded his second Bronze Star Medal and his fourth Purple Heart.  Burnice Hill, telegraph operator at the old train depot in North Lewisburg, was given the unpleasant task of delivering to my mother the official telegraph from the War Department announcing Dad's death.

Mom's sadness knew no bounds as she struggled as a sole parent to maintain a family life for four children...three from her first marriage and me.  Although she knew it could never come true, she went to the door each night and turned on that old porch light, hoping against hope that Dad would someday appear at the door.  She petitioned the War Department (now known as the Department of Defense) for a number of years, hoping to have my Dad's body disinterred and brought home for burial in Ohio.  She finally gave up the fight in 1948 when she was informed that a new, National Cemetery of the Pacific was to be dedicated in Honolulu, in an old, extinct volcano crater.  Dad was to be reinterred there with full military honors.  He rests there today under the beautiful Hawaiian sky, in Plot O-480, with more than 20,000 other comrades.

I never knew my father.  It was thirty-five years from the time of Dad's death until my mother died of cancer in 1980.  Although she had remarried in 1950, by force of habit she still maintained her nightly vigil for the balance of her life.  She opened the door, looked out into the night, and turned on the porch light before closing the door once again.

In the years since my father's death, I have gone from baby, to toddler, to boy, to teen, to man.  As I grew older and more understanding of my past, I maintained some old, ingrained customs and traditions.  Even now, at the age of 65, each evening before I go to bed I cross to the front door, open it to peer out into the darkness, and turn on the porch light - hopeful, ever hopeful, that one day that door will open and my Dad will stand there. 

The Hiway 559 Coffee Shop

The gathering spot for most of North Lewisburg's teens in the 1960s and 1970s was The Hiway 559 Coffee Shop, located on Sycamore Street in the business district of the town.  The site was previously occupied by a restaurant which went by several different names over the years.

In the 1940s, Jake and Vada Lease were the owners-operators.  The place was well-known for its homemade pies, and home-cooked meals, carefully prepared by Vada.  The restaurant of this era holds a special place in my heart - it was here in 1943 that my father first met my mother (who was a waitress there) over a piece of Vada's famous chocolate cream pie.  One thing led to another, and on December 15th of that year my folks were married in a small private ceremony in Unionville Center, Union County, Ohio.

As a young boy in the late 1940s and early 1950s, Mom took me to the restaurant on a regular basis, although she had not worked there for a number of years.  (My father died as a result of wounds received in action in the Philippine Islands during World War II when I was just a little over two months old).  Mom had maintained a friendship with Jake and Vada, and they always seemed happy to see us when we stopped by.  Often, Mom purchased one of Vada's pies to take home with us.

The Duffy family operated the restaurant later in the 1950s.  I was a schoolmate of Delores Duffy for a few years, so I stopped occasionally at the restaurant for a quick cherry or vanilla Coke, served from the soda shop area of the establishment, while walking from school to my home at the north end of Sycamore Street.

Claudine Dunham, daughter of Claude and Dorothy Dunham of Woodstock, took over ownership of the restaurant in the late 1950s, remodeling the place a bit, and changing the name to The Hiway 559 Coffee Shop.  The place was named for the state highway, State Route 559, which bisected the town via Sycamore Street.

Claudine had married a fellow named Vallery, but they had later divorced.  She and her two sons, Mike and Tom Vallery, lived in an apartment directly above the restaurant.  Mike was several years older than me; Tom was about three years older than me and became a friend over a period of time.  In later years, he helped teach me to drive in his old 1949 Chevy convertible.

Claudine was later married to a guy named Kenneth Burlisle, so she went by that last name for a number of years.  I believe that marriage ended in divorce, but the details of the time escape my present-day memory.

The restaurant was a busy place, providing breakfast, lunch and dinner meals, as well as catering to the teen traffic of hamburgers, cheeseburgers, fries and fountain Cokes.  A regular crowd of men, primarily made up of area farmers and nearby factory workers,  gathered in the restaurant for breakfast or at least a hot cup of coffee.  At lunch time, the men who were employed at the Louden Brothers Tool & Die Company, a local business which was just a block or so away from the restaurant, stopped by.  At this time, I was a student at  North Lewisburg Elementary School, a few blocks away on Maple Street.  Kids who went to school there had a few options when it came to lunch:  they could bring a sack (or metal lunchbox) meal from home, walk across the street to take their meal in the basement cafeteria of the high school, skip the meal entirely, or walk the short distance "downtown" to The Hiway 559 Coffee Shop.  I chose to do the later because I cared very little for the idea of a sack lunch, or for the bland, tasteless meals which were served in the cafeteria.  Besides, I was more than a bit intimidated by the older high school students who ate (and bullied) in the cafeteria.  So, I opted to make the walk to the restaurant, eat a quick lunch, and return to class at the school.

Mom had a good, friendly relationship with Claudine, whom she had known for many years.  In the 1950s, my Mom and stepfather, Putt Forsythe, operated the local movie theater which was located on south Sycamore Street, beside Lionel Grauman's auto repair shop.  Their supplier for the popcorn kernals used to prepare the theater's popcorn was purchased from Claudine's father, Claude Dunham.  We made a weekly trip in our car to Claude's home in Woodstock to pick up that week's popcorn supply.

Mom was able to establish a "charge account" for me at The Hiway 559 Coffee Shop.  When I went there for lunch, Claudine would take my order and write it out on a small pad.  She kept the daily sheets until the end of the week when Mom would stop by to pay my lunch "tab."  It was a great arrangement, and I felt very privileged.  I was such a regular customer of the restaurant that once Claudine saw me enter the front door, she immediately began preparing what she knew would be my order - a cheeseburger with mustard and pickle, french fries, and a large cherry Coke from the fountain.  I merely walked to one of the booths, took my seat, and waited just a few minutes for my order to be served.  Often, I followed it up with a slice of one of Claudine's coconut cream pies.  My mouth salivates to this day with the memory of those pies!

Once in awhile, when Mom went to pay my bill at the end of the week, she would find that there were no charges for one or two lunches.  She asked Claudine about this, and learned that other regulars of the lunch time crowd - namely the guys from Louden Brothers Tool & Die Company - picked up the tab for my lunch those days.  I didn't know this for a long, long time until I was a few years older.  I learned then that Orley Mesler, one of the tool and die machinists, often paid for my lunch.  It was a nice gesture, not appreciated until a lot of time had passed by.  Orley was a great guy, a truly skilled worker, and exceptionally good at his hobby - woodworking.  Some homes in the North Lewisburg - Urbana area are graced with furniture pieces, wooden bowls, or other items which were handcrafted by Orley Mesler.  Still later, Orley, a widower,  married my cousin, Betty Ruth Evans Dixon, a widow. 

There was a juke box in the restaurant, and it was usually alive with the sounds of rock and roll during the afternoons when teens began to gather there.  Claudine was kept busy preparing the many orders of burgers and fries, Cokes and other fountain drinks which seemed to go well with the music.  There was a constant level of chatter as teens talked about school, friends, girl or boy friends, upcoming events, the most recent football or basketball game, or other conversations about current events.  At the end of the seating area, near the kitchen, Claudine had installed a pinball machine.  There was usually a waiting line of guys who were anxious to drop their nickels into the machine and take their turns at the flippers.  It was a busy place, and one of the few places where teens could gather to while away the weeknights and weekends when there were no activities at the school.

Romances budded and bloomed at The Hiway 559 Coffee Shop as dates were made for upcoming sports events, or school dances, or those occasional trips from town to Urbana to catch a movie at the Gloria Theater or Salem Auto Drive-in Theater.  Pizza was introduced to the kids' tastebuds about this time.  Most people had been content to enjoy them at home, created from "scratch" using one of the popular Chef Boy-Ar-Dee pizza kits.  Pizza parties were popular on Friday or Saturday nights at local homes, a few guys and girls gathering to savor the delightful tastes.  Claudine introduced pizzas to her restaurant, and they soon became quite popular.  Hot slices of pepperoni or cheese pizzas could be found in booth after booth during those nighttime hours.

Claudine operated The Hiway 559 Coffee Shop for 35 successful years.  Many hundreds of customers passed through the door and consumed untold quanties of 'burgers, fries, Cokes, coffee, home baked pies, chili, and the other wonders which came from her kitchen.  A couple of generations of patrons helped to make the restaurant the place to be at all hours of the day or night. - Claudine died in 1997.

In recent years, others have attempted to operate a restaurant from that same location.  Operators have come and gone as tastes have changed, and as motor vehicles have compressed the distances from North Lewisburg to Marysville or Urbana.  Sadly, the restaurant caught fire in 2009, and most of the interior was destroyed.  As of this writing (December 2010) it has not reopened.  I'm sure there are many folks in town who miss the accessibility of the place, and the good times they enjoyed there.  Hopefully, some new entrepreneur will see the need for creating a new dining facility in town. 

Other Driving Adventures

After my experience with Bucky Sheehe's old red Jeep, it was a long time before I got to drive a "real" car.  I was about 15 years old, and in the company of my good buddy Mike Chamberlain, when another friend - Tom Vallery - came driving by us in his old, beat up 1949 Chevrolet convertible.  It was a real "rag top," with most of the convertible top flapping in the breeze, the rear window busted out, and the rest of the car looking like it was ready for the junk yard.  But at least it had four wheels, and could move from point A to point B.

Tom asked Mike and me to hop in, and then drove us down to the local ballpark.  He drove past the infield barracades - some poles which were laid out on the ground - and drove onto the outfield.  We then drove around the area, circling the upright light poles which were spread out in a semicircle at the far end of the outfield.  Round and round we went, covering every area of the grassy playing field, in and out, back and forth between the poles.

Tom stopped the car and asked Mike if he wanted to drive.  The response was positive, so Tom and Mike exchanged places.  Soon, Mike had us running around the field again, maneuvering between the poles and flattening the grass.  When we came to a stop, Tom told me it was my turn.  I jumped from the backseat into the driver's seat, and took control, exchanging seats with Mike in the process.  Once again we were off and running, working our way across the outfield, back and forth between those ever-present light poles, dodging here and there and otherwise acting crazy.  It was an absolute thrill, and our laughter filled the air!

But, all good things must come to an end.  Tom had to soon go home, so I stopped the car and exchanged seats with him.  He drove us away from the ballpark, down familiar streets, and stopped at the Cities Service gas station, where Mike and I got out of the car.  Tom drove away in a "cloud of dust, and a hearty Hi, Ho Silver!  Away!"

Fast-forward a month or so:

My stepfather, Putt Forsythe, had been looking for a good, used car for me.  He found one he thought I would like, and drove Mom and me to Urbana to see it.  It was at a used car dealership, with a $400 price  printed on the windshield in white shoe polish.  I fell in love with the car the first time I saw it.  It was a 1954 Plymouth two-door coupe, metallic brown in color, with wide white sidewall tires.  The car's front end had been lowered so the car had a strange look to it as it moved down the highway.  Even sitting still, it looked like it was moving.  It had a functioning radio and a heater, both considered "options" back in the day.

I was working at Arthur's IGA market in North Lewisburg, making all of 85 cents per hour as a grocery clerk and stockboy.  I had no other expenses, so I knew that I could pay for the car.  Putt and Mom signed a note to finance the car at the old City Loan in Urbana.  In return, I was to pay $39 a month in installments until the car was paid for.  The deal signed, Putt drove the car home - me riding shotgun - because I did not yet have my driver's license.  Mom drove the family car home, our 1956 Dodge Royal Lancer.  Within an hour both cars were sitting in front of our two-story home.

Mike Chamberlain, who already had his license,  became my chauffer in that car until I got my driver's license about a month later.  We travelled all of the roads around North Lewisburg, Woodstock and Cable.  Eventually, I earned my license, and decided to drive the old Plymouth to school.

In the early morning hours, most of the young boys I knew would gather at the Cities Service gas station, owned and operated by Cat and Daisy Parker, on Maple Street.  There, the guys would bum rides to school.  Those who drove their cars would pull into the station parking lot, and those who wanted rides would come streaming out of the building and pile into the cars.  Off the caravan would go to Triad High School, approximately 3 miles outside of North Lewisburg.

This particular morning, I got up earlier than usual, went through the morning ritual of preparing for school, left the house, and then strolled over to my car.  I admired it once again before I opened the door on the driver's side and got in.  The car roared to life as I inserted the key and turned the ignition.  I made a little u-turn in the street, and drove back toward Maple Street.  I made the turn, and drove the short distance to Cities Service.

I was full of myself at the time, so proud to be driving my "new" car.  I turned off the street and began to pull into the service station, planning to fill the fuel tank before heading out to school.  I could see several of the guys looking out the building's windows and doorway as I maneuvered the car to pull up adjacent to the "regular" fuel pump.  "Pride cometh before the fall!"  I just knew some of the fellows who did not have cars were envious of me and my newfound independence and mobility.

Crash!  The right side of the front bumper of my car struck the gas pump with enough force to move it slightly backward and "off center."  The glass plate which covered the meter fell loose from its mounting, and dropped to the ground, shattering into a million pieces.  In that instant I had visions in my mind of the gas pump line rupturing and catching fire, and the whole station exploding into an inferno.  Fortunately, that didn't happen.  Instead, a chorus of catcalls and jeers erupted from the throats of the many, many guys who were by now all standing both inside and outside of the building.  Cat and Daisy Parker quickly moved through the throng to see what damage had been done to the pump, and to determine if there was any danger.  Cat shook his head, and Daisy began to laugh once they determined that outside of the broken glass there was little damage.  Still the chorus of laughter filled the air as guys pointed at me and the car, grabbed their laughing bellies, and otherwise made me feel embarassed. 

I got out of the car to assess the damages to my car, and to offer up an apology to Cat and Daisy Parker, offering to pay for the glass in the process.  My face was red as I removed the gas cap from the car, and filled the tank with fuel.  I remained the butt of the jokes all during the process.

I paid for my gas, Daisy extracting the huge leather wallet she always carried near her ample bossom, and gave me my change.  A bit reluctantly, I asked if any of the guys would like a ride to the school with me.  That opened up the opportunity for yet another round of laughter and wisecracks at my expense.  Someone shouted he had no intentions of riding with "Crash" Coleman.  Sadly to say, that became my nickname for a short period of time.  And, guys would laugh with glee and waited expectantly each time I drove into the gas station for fuel in the future, wondering if I would repeat the "and then he hit the gas pump" fiasco.

Three or four of the more daring guys rode with me to school that first morning.  Word of my misadventure quickly spread throughout the school, adding once more to my embarassment.  By days end, I was anxious to get home.  Fifty years have passed since that school morning.  I am told that time dims our memories, but I'll bet there are some guys still around who remember the morning that "Crash" Coleman almost blew up the Cities Service gas station.

Fast forward a year or so:

I drove that old '54 Plymouth for another year.  One day I drove to Basil Spain's Pure Oil station, at the east end of Maple Street, to fuel up.  While there Basil, the owner, opened the hood and checked the oil, washed the windshield, and filled the tank (attendants used to do all of that stuff "back in the day!").  Basil closed the hood, I paid for the gas - about 17 cents a gallon, if I recall - and drove back west on Maple Street, and out State Route 275 (it has since been renumber State Route 245) toward Urbana.  When I got to the city limits on the west side of town, I "opened" up the throttle on the car and watched the speedometer needle move up to 50 miles per hour.  Suddenly, there was a terrible noise, and the windshield in front of me went black.  It was all I could do to slow down the car and keep it on my side of the road; I could not see anything in front of me!  I was finally able to stop the car without losing control, just short of the Milo Gilbert home.   I got out to examine the car.

The hood had popped up and wrapped itself back over the windshield!  It was bent almost beyond recognition, folded neatly over the top of the car.  I found a piece of rope in the trunk of the car, pulled the mangled hood back down toward the front grill, and tied it in place.  I turned around, and limped my way back to my house.

Mom and Putt were really upset when they saw the car!  I told them it was not my fault, that Basil Spain had probably failed to close the hood latch properly after checking the oil.  Putt drove me down to Basil's place, and told him what had happened.  Basil was sorry to hear about the trouble with the hood, but did not accept responsibility for what had happened.  Disappointed, Putt and I returned home.

The Plymouth sat in front of the house for a couple of weeks while I looked for a hood to replace the mangled one.  Eventually, I found a man right there in town who had a junked Plymouth which was similar to mine - except that his car was blue.  I offered him $50 for the hood, and he accepted the offer.  He even disconnected the hood from the car so I could return in a truck to carry it away later that day.

Soon, the old Plymouth was on the road again, although it looked pretty peculiar with its metallic brown paint and an unmatching baby-blue hood!  Still, the car provided me with dependable transportation to and from school, work, and the occasional trips to Urbana. 

On Monday evenings, a gang of guys would pack into the car, and we would drive the 16-mile distance to the old Salem Auto Drive-in Theater for Guy Spangler's "Dollar A Carload" night.  On one trip, there were eleven of us crammed into the car!  We made it to the movies, and were on our way home when my fan belt broke midway between the drive-in and home.  I drove the car until it overheated, and then did the steering while my passengers got out of the car and pushed it up and down the hills.  Then, everyone would hop back into the car, and we'd drive down the roadway until the car overheated yet again.  We repeated this process for the better part of eight miles, and arrived back home much, much later in the wee hours of the morning than we had intended.

Once the car was fixed, I continued to drive it for several more months, trying to decide if I wanted to get that old blue hood repainted.  My old scoutmaster, John J. Tomlin, approached me and asked me if I would be interested in selling the car.  He made me an offer, and I accepted it.  For long, long time after that, John could be seen driving around town in that brown-and-blue 1954 Plymouth.

That old car was my first, but it was far from being my last.  I've owned many, many others over the 50 years which have passed since then.  And there were adventures with several of them - which leaves me with stories yet to be told.

How I Learned to Drive

Putt needed some help in the late fall and winter when he went to farms in the area to "glean" the corn which had been missed when the fields were harvested by machines.  There were always a great many stalks and ears of corn which had been missed, and pressed down into the soil in the process.

One of the farmers, Bucky Sheehe, had an old Willys Jeep - a red-painted and battered vehicle with an enclosed cab and a cargo bed at the back.  The gear shift mechanism was on the floor with a long, slender lever rising up between the two seats.

I was about 8 years old when Putt took me to the fields one day in the borrowed Jeep.  He taught me the fundamentals of starting the Jeep, putting it into gear, and steering it down the fallen rows of corn.  He taught me how to use the clutch and the brake.  He gave me instructions on what I was to do with the vehicle as he, and his father Tom Forsythe, walked down the rows on either side of the Jeep while tossing ears of corn into the back cargo area.

I spent hours that day pushing in the clutch, shifting gears, braking, and driving the Jeep slowly down the rows.  It was cold and frosty, and the Jeep had no heater to keep me warm.  It was strenuous and stressful as I tried to focus on driving the vehicle just as Putt had instructed me, while at the same time shivering from the cold.

At the end of the day, my first day of driving completed, we bagged up the corn into burlap bags.  We took these to the local grain elevator to be weighed and redeemed for cash.  We made quite a haul that day, as I remember it, and Putt rewarded my driving expertise with two one-dollar bills.

We repeated that same process at several other corn fields over the course of the winter months, before the deep snows arrived.  Each time I sat behind the wheel of that old Jeep, clutching and braking and gearing while Putt and Tom walked the rows gleaning the corn.  Funny how some childhood memories remain with me.

My Life In A Grocery Cart: Chapter Two

I began working at Arthur's IGA store in North Lewisburg when I was 16 years old.  It was a great job for a high school boy.  It provided me with a much-needed income (at 85-cents per hour) at a time when I was learning that life could be expensive.  While I maintained my paper route, it was occupying a great deal of my "after school" life, and not generating as much money as I thought necessary in my new-found status as a consumer.  I suddenly wanted "things," and needed to generate more income in order to achieve them.

I'd rush home after school each day, change from my school clothes, and hop on my Lambretta motor scooter - I had progressed upward from my old Schwinn bicycle a couple of years before this - to quickly complete my newspaper route.  Then, I'd either drive the Lambretta to my real job at Arthur's, or park it at home to walk the few blocks from home - we lived beside the old high school building at this time - to the store on Sycamore Street in the town's "commercial district."

I'd get to the back storage area of the store, grab my fresh, clean full-length clerk's apron, and find out what my duties were to be for that night.  Generally, on Tuesday evenings, I'd remove the previous week's sale posters from the store's front windows, and then wash the glass inside and out before posting the new banners for the week.  Other duties followed, primarily consisting of restocking the shelves with merchandise with intermittent stops to bag and carry out some patron's groceries. 

Retocking the shelves was a multi-tasking chore.  It usually involved two stockboys, working in tandem.  My good buddy Mike Chamberlain, or Bob Impson, or Larry Foster, or Robert Short - or whoever was part of the designated restocking time that night - would take up one of two duty positions.  One worker would walk the store's aisles, as the second worker in the back storage area would call out the product to be checked on the shelves.  The floor-walker would shout out the number of cans, bags, canisters, or boxes of the product which were needed to refill that spot on the shelves.  The guy in the backroom would load that quantity of products into a grocery cart.  When the cart was filled, it would be wheeled out through the store's swinging storage room doors and onto the floor for distribution to the appropriate shelves.  This was a quick process, and was generally confined to one particular area of the store at a time or on a designated evening.  For example, the guy in the backroom might be busy getting down all of the containers of cereal boxes from the top loft.  He'd call out the product, and the floor worker would call back the number of boxes of Rice Krispies, Life, or Quaker Oats which were necessary to fill the shelves.

At another time, or on another evening, the area of choice might well be the canned goods.  In this situation, the backroom was filled with half-cases of canned goods which were stacked from floor to ceiling in neat rows.  Working from the top down, the backroom worker would pull down a half-case (the original cases had been modified by the use of a handheld box cutter blade to hold 12-24 cans of products).  That guy would then shout out the name of the product (Campbell's Tomato Soup), the floor worker would shout back the number of cans needed, and the backroom worker would put that number of cans into the grocery cart.  The guy on the floor merely had to run around the aisle and quickly count.  The poor guy in the backroom had to be a little more cautious in what he was doing - he had to carefully extract the half-cases from the stacks, moving across the rows.  If he pulled all of the half-cases from one stack before moving on to the next, the subsequent stacks were prone to tip sideways and fall over.

Yet another night might be devoted to restocking the laundry detergents, household cleaners, and so forth.  Or, canned and bagged dog food.  Or any of the other thousands of products which filled the store's aisles.

On top of all of this restocking, there was the weekly resupply truck - a semi loaded with boxes and bags of products to keep the store fully stocked.  Each week Tom and Evelyn Arthur hosted special sales, with greatly reduced prices on particular items.  One week, the specials might be canned tomato soup (10 cents per can), or 5-pound bags of sugar (39 cents), or seven loaves of white bread ($1.00).  Another week, the specials might include flour, or liquid bleach, or laundry detergent.  The store printed and mailed a flyer to area patrons for the "specials" of the week.  As a result, the store was one of the busiest in town - especially on Fridays and Saturdays when most area people did their shopping.

Tom and Evely Arthur were great bosses.  Tom was generally gruff, detail-oriented, and totally committed to providing customer satisfaction.  He was a real task master, but also had a great sense of humor and truly appreciated a good joke, or prank.  Evelyn was a bit more serious; there was little frivolity while she was supervising the store.  While she normally manned one of the two cash registers at the front of the store, she would occasionally walk the aisles and check to see that all of the clerks were earning their pay.

At Thanksgiving, the Arthurs were the most-generous of people to their employees (and to a lot of other people throughout the community).  Each worker usually received a turkey, or a ham (or sometimes, both) as well as other foodstuffs for the table.  Tom and Evelyn hosted a Christmas party at their home for the employees, and distributed nice gifts to each of us.  They also invited everyone to their home on New Year's Day, so we could watch the Rose Bowl Parade and game on their color television - one of the few in town at that time.

I can close my eyes and picture Tom standing at the front of the store, black trousers and white, long-sleeve shirt, and full-length apron.  He generally held an unlit cigarette in one hand, a wooden match in the other, always looking like he was ready to strike the match and light the cigarette (which he rarely ever did!).  I once asked him about his long-sleeve shirt.  He confided to me that he had once had some tattoos added to his arms, but he was now a bit embarassed for the public to see them.  As a result, he kept them covered with those neatly-starched, pressed long sleeves.  (A trivia tidbit:  his full name was Thomas Jefferson Arthur, named by his parents for the former president.  He had a younger brother, Theodore Roosevelt Arthur).

The Arthurs' son Tommy was the store's butcher, and managed the meat department.  He was ably assisted by Christine Quinton, who was responsible for packaging the chicken, beef, pork, and other products in plastic-wrap.  It was an efficient, clean, and busy area of the store.  Folks in the town and outskirts consumed a great deal of meat which they  purchased at Arthur's IGA.

Don Woodruff was a jack-of-all-trades who helped to manage the store each evening and on Saturdays.  He worked during the day for the County Highway Department (eventually becoming the superintendent of highways before his retirement), but I truly think he liked the grocery business even more.  He had an outgoing way about him which appealed to customers - and fellow workers - alike.  He had a one-in-a-million sense of humor, full of jokes and pranks, and truly enjoyed a good laugh.  He was knowledgeable about every part of the store, and could easily fill in for any task when called upon.  He was a joy to work with (and has remained a dear friend for over half a century).

"Ham" (nickname for Mr. Hamilton) was in charge of the produce department.  He ordered and maintained all of the fresh fruits and vegetables to be found in the store.  He was a conscientious man, dignified in his appearance and demeanor, and proud of his responsibilities.  The produce department was always clean, neatly organized, and well-maintained.  Fruits and vegetables were proudly displayed, and were literally the best that money could buy for the time.

The worker-bees of the store were the stockboy/clerks.  Tom and Evelyn employed several teenage boys during their many years of operating the store.  In most cases, their jobs there were the first wage-earning responsibilities those young men ever had.  The work provided income for clothes, school expenses, entertainment, car payments, insurance premiums, and all of their other needs.  Most opened their first charge accounts at Artur's IGA.  Tom and Evelyn kept small, retail sales books for each regular customer and all of their employees.  When we needed a candy bar, or soda, or ice cream to take home and enjoy, Tom or Evelyn would record the purchase in our account books.  At the end of the week - Saturday - when we each drew our wages, we'd "settle up" by paying off our accounts.  Money in hand, we'd leave the store for the weekend's adventures.

There are many memories of my life in a grocery cart - the three years I worked at Arthur's IGA.  There will be more tales to tell in stories yet to come in this blog. 

When I Learned to Ride A Bike

My folks bought me a bicycle even before I knew how to ride one.  It was 1953, and I was about 8 years old.  It was a beautiful bicycle - a theme bike.  I was such a fan of the television series "Hopalong Cassidy," starring William Boyd, that they bought me a "Hopalong Cassidy" bike.  It was a sleek black color, with white trim and accessories, and white sidewall tires.  There were white streamers hanging from the handlebars.   There were two leather holsters on the support bar, complete with operating cap pistols.

They rolled the bike to the end of Billy Curl's driveway, where a dirt road led into a corn field.  There was quite a bit of distance between the graveled drive and where the dirt trail ended at the field, and it was covered mostly with grass.

Putt, my stepfather, held the bicycle while I mounted the seat and placed my feet on the peddles for the first time.  He gave me a running push, followed by a quick shove and release.  The bike carried on for just a few feet before I lost my balance completely and crassed, my butt landing on the bike's rear tire sprocket bolt.  It hurt like hell!  And, the whole episode surprised and disappointed me, as well as the family members who had watched it.

I dusted myself off, lifted up the bike, and pushed it back to the starting point, a bit humiliated.  Three more times Putt and I tried the process, all three times ending in even worse crashes.  By this time, hot tears were welling in my eyes.  Family members were taunting me for my failures.  Disgusted with my inability to master such a simple task as riding a bicycle, they turned and walked away, back toward the house.  I was left alone, humiliated, bruised and battered.  But, I resolved to ride that damn bicycle even if it killed me!

By the time I got back to the starting point, there was no one left to watch me.  I steadied the bike, mounted, and gaining my balance pedalled for all I was worth.  I made it off the gravel, onto the dirt road, and all the way to the corn field.  It wasn't a picturesque ride as I wobbled and swayed side to side, and it took me a few seconds to learn how to use the bike's brakes without falling down, but I did it!

I was proud of myself!  I walked  the bike back to the starting point, put down the kickstand to hold it up, and went to fetch some witnesses for my next ride.

They came back outside reluctantly, sure they would see yet another castastrophe.  Instead, I got on the bike, set the sprocket to turning, and rode the bike to the end of the trail and back again, passing the spectators on my return trip, and continuing on to the gravel driveway until I reached the hardpacked asphalt of Sycamore Street.  I heard the cheering ringing in my ears, and the sound was oh, so very sweet!

That beautiful bike was my "set of wheels" for the next few years, until my long, skinny legs outgrew it.  By that time, I was a paperboy distributing the daily "Columbus Dispatch."  The bike passed on to my sister, Cheryl, a little bit worse for wear after being "ridden hard and put away wet" for a number of years.  Most of the white accessories were gone, the holsters had long before lost their luster (and cap pistols), the white streamers no longer dangled from the handlebars.  "Hoppy" was no longer to be seen on television, and I had moved on in the world - the proud owner of a brand, new, chrome-studded, shiny full-sized Schwinn, which I purchased with money saved from my paper route.  And therein lies a story for another time.