"We cannot escape history." A. Lincoln 12/1/1862
The Influence that Mickey Mantle Had on Our Lives
(editor's note: I wrote this story shortly after the death of Mickey Mantle)
How do you tell your wife that you’re crying about Mickey Mantle? I went to the other room and told her I had something in my eye.
I did. I had something in my eye, and in my life—it was Mickey Mantle--the personal Mickey Mantle, that each of us knew and loved, even though most of us had never met him.
It's true, that away from New York City, we all had our favorite baseball teams and favorite players. Mine was Ralph Kiner, who played for the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Chicago Cubs and finished out his career with the Cleveland Indians. He was my favorite baseball player. I followed all his games, his at bats, his hits, and his homeruns.
But, above and beyond Ralph Kiner and the Pirates or the Cubs, or the Indians or the Reds, there was Mickey Mantle.
When I close my eyes, even now, I can see him standing at the plate, and whether from the left or right side, I knew, my dad knew, we all knew he was going to hit another homerun.
Somewhere way back in the papers I remember reading a story as a kid about some psyche who said fans could have an affect on the hitting or pitching or fielding of a player by wishing it so. And especially if enough fans send their "vibrations" for a player to say, hit a home run, he probably would.
That's real crazy, but we did it, a lot of us did it, even if we didn't tell each other about it, especially when Mickey Mantle was at the plate.
Kids got to understand that we weren't all crazy about The Beatles or Elvis Presley, or coonskin hats or hoola hoops. But we were all crazy about Mickey Mantle.
When Mickey Mantle stood at the plate, or ran the bases, or chased a fly ball, we were Mickey Mantle. Especially, when he hit a long fly ball--"going, going, going--it's outa here."--then we were most emphatically Mickey Mantle.
How does it feel to be Mickey Mantle? Well, of course, we didn't really know--we weren't really Mickey Mantle, but we felt we were. And it felt great. When he was us, and we were him, the world was a better place. We felt better. We smiled more; we laughed more; and, like lovers, we floated just above the ground after another towering homerun.
I have read everything I could get my hands on about Mickey Mantle and have the last articles in Time and Newsweek and People. Articles entitled "The Mantle of Greatness," and "The Legend of Number 7" and "The Private Mickey Mantle."
But none of these articles nor the newspaper accounts come close to the eulogy delivered by sportscaster Bob Costas at Mickey Mantle's funeral.
I quote from it now. "I here not so much to speak for myself as to simply represent the millions of baseball-loving kids who grew up in the 50's and 60's and for whom Mickey Mantle was baseball.
And more than that, he was a presence in their lives--a fragile hero to whom we had an emotional attachment so strong and lasting that it defied logic....
Kenesaw Mountain Landis said every boy builds a shrine to some baseball hero, and before that shrine, a candle always burns. For a huge portion of my generation, Mickey Mantle was that baseball hero.
And for reasons that no statistics, no dry recitation of facts can possibly capture, he was the most compelling baseball hero or our lifetime. And he was our symbol of baseball at a time when the game meant something to us that perhaps it no longer does....
We didn't just root for him, we felt for him. Long before many of us ever cracked a serious book, we knew something about mythology as we watched Mickey Mantle run out a home run through the lengthening shadows of a late Sunday afternoon at Yankee stadium.
There was greatness in him, but vulnerability, too. He was our guy. When he was hot, we felt great. When he slumped or got hurt, we sagged a bit, too.
We tried to crease our caps like him; kneel in an imaginary on-deck circle like him; run like him heads down, elbows up....
It's been said that the truth is never pure and rarely simple. Mickey Mantle was too humble and too honest to believe that the whole truth about him could be found on a Wheaties box or a baseball card.
But the emotional truths of childhood have a power to transcend objective fact. They stay with us through all the years, withstanding the ambivalence that so often accompanies the experiences of adults."
As with Costa, I am trying to tell you about a feeling we had about Mickey Mantle, about how he influenced a whole generation of us, so much so that who we are is made up of bits and pieces of our parents and our friends and teachers and the heroes in our lives. People like Mickey Mantle who occupied so much of our thoughts, when we were awake and when we were asleep.
Someone once said that every American male goes to sleep imagining that he is at the plate, that it is the bottom of the ninth inning, that the score is tied, that the bases are loaded, and that the count is 3 and 2. "Here's the pitch" and in that moment of time--somewhere between being awake and being asleep, somewhere between the conscious and the unconscious, somewhere between the real and the imagined--we are Mickey Mantle, and he is us--and we doze off to sleep knowing we have just hit a grand slam.
And somewhere in time, like thousands of other fathers and sons, my Dad and I are listening to the radio as The Mick hits another home run. We smile at each other, slap hands, and enjoy the sense of success that he brought to us.
Thanks, Mickey. Thanks.
Mickey Mantle died in 1995. He was 64 years old.(ivanknapp/knappsnews)
March 4-March 21, 1961
Departure Cleveland Hopkins Airport March 4, 1961
Pan American DC7C 14 hours to London with stopover in Shannon, Ireland
Dr. Karl Roider directs ONU Choir in London
St. Paul's Cathedral in London
German Village near Struttgart
Gardens at the Palace of Versailles
Eiffel Tower, Paris, France
Boarding Plane in Paris for trip home March 21, 1961
Catcher in the Rye
Recently I had an opportunity to listen to some adults talking to area juniors and seniors about careers and I was reminded of J.D. Salinger’s “Catcher in the Rye,” published 50 years ago and still used in some classes, despite all the swearing but with references to the problems teenagers still face in growing up.
I was reminded, too, of this huge field of rye we had behind the barn that grew four or five feet tall. It made a great place to hide in, to make endless paths to no where, and was a great place for the pheasants—dozens of them. I haven’t seen as many pheasants in one place as they were in that rye field.
Careers—there aren’t any more noble, more worthwhile than to be, what Holden Caufield (Salinger’s main character in “Catcher in the Rye”) decides he wants to be.
Catcher in the Rye
“You know what I’d like to be?” You know that poem by Robert Burns, ‘If a body meet a body coming through the rye.’ I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody’s around—nobody big. I mean, except me. And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff—I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going. I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it’s crazy, but that’s the only thing I’d really like to be.”
I am reminded of the difference of jobs and careers—one focuses on the job, the other on the person. Careers include jobs, but jobs do not necessarily include careers. And through no fault of our own, no matter what we do for a living, situations occur where we, too, can be a “Catcher in the Rye.”
Someone once drew the following analogy when he said, “To get to heaven, you have to carry at least one other person along the way”—you have to be a catcher in the rye.
The accompanying photo shows a mother rescuing her small daughter from a field, another “Catcher in the Rye.”
The Glass Block Building after the fire
The Glass Block Building
Some memories of childhood remain as vivid as yesterday’s activities. For many people, including myself one of those memories is of the Glass Block Building, 120-134 East Spring Street, in St. Marys, Ohio. This building, which was recently destroyed by fire, held many different businesses over the years. But the business I remember the most was the Morris Store, with the basement full of toys. Thousands of people remember going as kids with their parents to that store.
And there was the long walk down the stairs with the water of the canal there outside the window. I always wondered what kept that water from coming in and drowning all of us before we were able to reach the top step—it was sort of a tsunami fear all of our own. Attorney Kraig Noble said what he remembered was the vacuum system whereby cashiers and clerks would send the bills and cash via a vacuum system to the main office where change was made and then sent back to the clerks. Several years later when the basement was no longer used, I remember being given a tour of the downstairs—one empty room once filled with all the toys a kids can imagine now empty to everything but our fond memories of that wonderful place.
Local Historian George Neargarder
A few days ago I had the honor and privilege of sitting down with local historian George Neargarder who also remembers the Glass Block Building, but he has done much more with his memory. He has compiled the history of not only this building, but all the buildings along Spring Street from one end to the other. The following is information about the Glass Block Building which George Neargarder shared with me.
The Glass Block Building, heralded in its day as “one of the finest buildings in northwestern Ohio,” was constructed by the St. Marys Woolen Manufacturing Company in 1902. Built of pressed brick and stone it had three stories and a basement, 75 feet by 125 feet with 37,500 square feet of floor space.
In October, 1902, the east side including the basement and three stories was leased to William Piper, dry good merchant from Sidney who already had his business at 134-136 East Spring.
At the same time, the west side of the building was leased to B.B. Bitzer Furniture who moved from 116-118 East Spring. The Glass Block Building was formally opened to the public in November, 1902. and became “the leading dry goods and home furnishing emporium in northwestern Ohio.”
On March 1, 2005, the dry goods, carpet and furniture business merged to form The Glass Block Company. There were eight large departments: furniture, carpet, stoves, queensware (china), dry goods, clocks, millinery, and pianos.
Officers and stockholders of the new company were: B.B. Bizer, president and general manager; William Piper, vice president; W.C. Fisher, secretary and treasurer; Albert Herzing (plant manager of the St. Marys Woolen Mill), L.G. Neely (oil contractor), William F. Brodbeck (building contractor), Tom A White (plant manager of the St. Marys Spoke Works), H.C. Zerbe (agent for the IE and W Railroad), M.K. Clover (oil contractor), W.D. Clover (oil producer), Mrs. Emma Bitzer, Bada Hoewischer (machinist), M.J. Mooney (manager of the Michigan Mutual Life Insurance Company), Louis A. Pauck (owner of Pauck Liquor Store).
In 1932, the basement and first floor of the west side were leased to Morris 5 and 10 to $1.00 Store. The Glass Block Building remained on the first floor of the east side and the second and third floors were used by the St. Marys Woolen Mill.
In 1936, the Glass Block Company focused solely on furniture, floor covering and household furnishing and discontinued dry goods, and ready to wear departments.
In 1946, the Glass Block Company went out of business, selling all furniture and fixtures to Huber Furniture.
The St. Marys Woolen Manufacturing Company sold the building along with the blanket factory to Fieldcrest, Inc. in 1957. The Woolen Mill closed in 1959 and all their buildings were sold to Leshner Corporation of Hamilton, Ohio.
Three merchants, purchased the Glass Block Building and opened in March, 1962, Johns Furniture, Slonkosky Studio, and St. Marys Decoration.
Joe Donnerburg purchased the building in 1990.
Probably the most interesting article about the Glass Block Building was the one that appeared in the Times Democrat published in Lima,Ohio, on November 20, 1902. Here are a few quotes from that article. “Piper’s Big Store and Bitzer’s Housefurnishing Store scenes beauty and elegance that are unsurpassed.”
“The magnificence of these departmental stores is incontestable evidence of the faith of the proprietors in the future prospect and promise of this flourishing city.”
“These establishments in the matter of size, taste, appointment, elegance, and equipment are unsurpassed in all this section of the state.”
“The opening of the Glass Block today is pronounced a brilliant success.”
“The two stores were beautifully decorated with palms and rich draperies, while most bewitching music was discoursed by the W.O.W. and Kid band of this city.”
Sometimes words will not adequately describe an event, a period of time, or a building. Fifty years later words could not describe that magnificent toy department down the steps along the canal even when Morris 5 and 10 cents became G. C. Murphy in 1951.
Even now, with the wind whipping through the remains, what a story could be told for so many of us if those walls could talk. Long live the memories of the Glass Block Building in St. Marys, Ohio.
Remembering Paul Clay
I knew Paul Clay and was saddened to learn of his death on July 16 at the age of 83. I especially knew him in regards to his and Merlin Winner’s efforts to co-found the Old Fashioned Farmers Association in 1976.
Just a year or two earlier he had stopped by our place and purchased a couple of old John Deere tractors we had—one on steel and the other on rubber.
It was 1973. I was still using the one on rubber, but the one on steel, both John Deere B’s, set behind the shed, rusting away with time. It was worth a few dollars just to sell the tractors.
A few days later they arrived with a trailer and some old Volkswagen tires, which they mounted on the one tractor. They hitched the trailer to the tractor on rubber and pulled the one on steel up on the tractor and went whistling down the road. I never saw anyone more happy that day than Paul Clay.
I found out a few years later what he had in mind for those tractors when my wife and I went to visit the first Old Fashioned Farmers Days on the Clay farm northeast of Rockford. That first show didn’t have a lot of tractors or equipment, but it was a start.
July 4th has come to mean not only a celebration for the nation’s independence, but a celebration of what it meant to be a farmer. The success of this annual event, which recently celebrated its 28th year, goes back to Paul Clay and Merlin Winner in 1976 who set up a show of old tractors and farm equipment with plenty of good food and a demonstration of threshing there on the Clay farm.
The family and I were there, but we had no idea (I wonder if Paul Clay and Merlin Winner did) how this show would continue to grow year after year, now how big a show it would become.
There among all those old tractors were both of the tractors they had hauled away that day. I will never forget there was that old John Deere B on steel, putting away on its two cylinders with the tractor resting on four Coke bottles we all know so well.
As historian Joyce Alig recorded, the show moved to the Van Wert County Fair Grounds in 1987, but kept the date to the July 4th weekend. As Alig pointed out, there are now over 250 members “all due to the dedication and caring for the preservation of our rural heritage.
It’s a good thing there’s enough of the last generation around who care enough to share with the present and next generation what farming was all about at that time in history when we first supplemented the family team of horses with a traction machine.”
Now I just barely missed the days of the threshing machine and the threshing rings, but I didn’t miss all those neighborly times when farmers worked together through the heat of the day and then gathered around a huge table full of all the best kinds of food imaginable. Three or four kinds of meat, a couple kinds of potatoes, fresh bread and rolls straight from the oven; pies and cakes, too. My goodness. I haven’t seen such good eating since.
Here’s the poem I wrote about that old John Deere that Paul Clay and Merlin Winner rescued and made a star.
She sat a lone, lonely winter
In the snow and ice, the gale and blow;
Rusting, rusting away
A little more everyday until I knew
There was nothing I could do,
But sell her.
So I did, for fifty bucks—that
John Deere B, we had had a lifetime.
And he hauled her away,
To the junkyard I knew forever.
Then in a year or two came
“Old Fashioned Farmers Days.”
I stood in a daze and I saw her,
Refinished, refurbished, rebuilt;
The pride of the guide who
Showed us around at the ground
Where she sat all in style
On four Coke bottles,
Bringing us smiles;
And rhythmically pump, pump, pumpin.
Out the sound of a well-tuned
Two cylinder she once had been,
And was again.
Area Residents Continue the Custom of Canning
When I think of August, I think of the late Frank Dennings. Not because school will soon start and he was the superintendent of the St. Marys City Schools for several years, but because Frank Dennings, especially after his retirement, had taken up canning.
I remember once when I stopped to visit with him and his wife, he showed me many of the hobbies he was involved in. A science teacher by training and by first love, he showed me the flower garden in the back yard, the large rock collection in the basement, and the canning he had recently completed--tomatoes and corn and green beans and carrots; peaches and cherries and apricots and pears--all in different colors, sealed up for a delightful opening on some cold winter day, ready for table, almost "right from the garden."
I hadn't seen so many Mason jars all in one place, filled with produce from the garden since I was a kid. But I know from the readers, that despite all the modern conveniences of "fresh" fruit and vegetables right from the store, Frank Dennings enjoyed canning just like a lot of other people still do.
Frank Dennings was proud of his canning
When I think of Frank Dennings I can see him diligently gathering in the vegetables and fruits for the canning process. I think I remember Mrs. Dennings telling me "I stay out of the kitchen when Frank is canning."
And in my mind I see him laboring over the pressure cooker, just like your mom and my mom (and maybe you still do). Canning was one of those jobs that sort of took over the kitchen and depending on what was being canned--like sour kraut or tomatoes, took over the whole house. During canning you learned to stay out of the way and don't bother your wife or mother with any dumb questions--like where are the clean socks? or when will supper be ready?
Canning is a time you keep your mouth shut and stay clear of the kitchen, that is unless you want to volunteer your services and/or end up in a can.
Of course the whole family helped get ready for the process, sort of like during threshing or butchering. Every body helped; and everybody had a job.
Ours was a typical "garden grown" family, right during and after the depression and World War II. It was the garden that saw us through the hard times of the spring and summer; and it was the canning (and the smokehouse) that saw us through the fall and winter.
Because everybody back then canned, everybody had a large garden. When I think about the size of those gardens, they weren't gardens in today's sense of the word--they were "truck patches."
Anyway, somebody had to do all that planting and hoeing--my, oh my! All that hoeing--a lot of us grew up on the end of hoe. Some readers tell me they "were born with a hoe in their hand." (I can think of a lot of worse things to have in your hand when you're born.)
Then, if the weather cooperated--not too much rain, not too little rain, not too much sun, not too little sun, and not too much hail, and not too much wind--then it was your and my job to "pick them green beans for canning." I can see my Uncle Irvie sitting out under the catalpa trees with my aunt and mother snapping green beans till this day--the last time I ever saw him doing anything, he was snapping green beans, getting them ready for canning.
And then there was sweet corn--how we did love sweet corn, that is, until is was time for canning. All summer long there was this contest between the coons and us over the sweet corn. Sometimes the coons would win; sometimes we would win; and sometimes it would come out dead even. But when it came to canning, a lot of us hoped the coons were the winners, the big winners.
And tomatoes--tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes. I haven't seen so many tomatoes outside of Osgood since I was a kid. Looking back, we can see all those women in all those kitchens all across the area there on hot August days,
sun up to sun down, surrounded by tomatoes. Tomatoes in hampers around the kitchen door step; tomatoes in bowls all over the kitchen table and counter; tomatoes in pans and kettles cooking of the stove. The smell, as good as it is in small doses, was too much. And there was tomato juice everywhere.
Sometimes in August, especially during canning, it seems we had complete meals of nothing but tomatoes. (maybe my memory is bad.) I can see my old sister Grace standing there on the front porch with a large meat platter stacked three high with fresh tomatoes--covered first with sugar; then with salt. And my sister Betty knew how to get her share--she loved green tomatoes, especially fried green tomatoes better than anyone in the family. Betty got the cream of the crop of the tomatoes before they turned red.
As a matter of fact she was so full of green tomatoes by the time canning came around she wasn't real interested--in the red ones.
Now as all gardeners know, there is the "tomato season"
and it's pretty much simultaneous with the canning season. During a wet season, you lose a lot of good tomatoes to ground rot. And if you don't pick tomatoes at the height of the tomato pickin season, you loose out to the grasshoppers and the crickets and all those other creatures who come to enjoy the garden, too.
I remember reading somewhere that "to easily slip tomato peels off, place the tomatoes in boiling water for one half minute, then place them in cold water until they are cool. The skin will slip off and leave a firm, full
unbroken tomato."
This rule of thumb may be true, but was not a part of the canning. There it was peel, peel, peel until all the tomatoes were peeled and then they were cooked. I can see a group of ladies sitting there in the corner of heaven peeling tomatoes, just like they did back here on earth.
Now before we leave the subject of canning, it's important to put this timely topic in perspective. Unlike Frank Dennings, I never took a likin to it, but I sure saw my share of canning. The biggest and strongest cabinet my father ever made an elephant could stand on, and he made it for canned goods. "Heaviest thing on the farm," he would say, "Yep, canned good. Ain't nothing heavier."
Anyway, remember Napoleon, and Waterloo--according to history the French emperor, who had a lot of troops to move quickly (and in the end not quickly enough) offered a prize to anyone who could figure out a way to preserve food by canning it.
In 1809, one hundred and ninety-five years ago, a fellow named Nicolas Appert was awarded 12,000 francs (which would be about $250,000 in today's money) by Napoleon for coming up with a canning technique.
Unfortunately, history tell us that Appert, who never understood why canning worked (he thought food spoiled because of the oxygen in the air), died a poor man. Not until Louis Pasteur discovered pasteurization did people realize that the spoiling was caused by tiny microorganisms.
Canning progressed slowly after Appert's discovery, primarily because canners used larger and larger containers but didn't heat the contents properly. Although Appert had used bottles and jars, tin containers called canisters (and eventually just cans) were used in England in the 1800's.
The cans were filled and then sealed except for a small hole in the lid. The filled cans were heated and then the hole was sealed with solder. And then the cans heated again.
Unfortunately for the canners, it was during this second heating that the cans would often explode. One account in an 1852 newspaper read "steam was generated beyond the power of the canister to endure. As a natural consequence, the canister burst, the dead turkey sprang from his coffin of tinplate and killed the cook forthwith."
After 1850, canning came into its own. John L. Mason invented the Mason jar, threaded top and rubber gaskets; machines to cut, shape, and seal cans were invented; and in the 1880's the Ball brothers invented their canning jar.
Gail Borden discovered how to condense and can milk, just in time for use in the Civil War. The Sprague Can Opener was invented in 1902; and in 1902 Alexander Kerr invented the "economy lid" which had the lid and gasket as one.
Talk about canning--in 1824 Admiral Perry took a four pound can of veal on his trip to the Artic Ocean. It was to be opened with "a chisel and a hammer." He didn't bother. Then in 1938, just 114 years later a curious museum scientist opened the can and fed some of it to a cat and some rats. They survived the tasting. The canning was good--114 years later.
When we go to the county fair and go by the canning exhibit, I wonder how long will the jars last; how long will canning last.
I don't know if Frank ever entered his canning in the county fair, but I know from the pride and care he took in his efforts, they surely must have come home with blue ribbons attached.
Cats and the Cream Separator
(Note: this is part II of Summer on the Farm.)
Before the world awakened, Bessie was flipping pancakes in one skillet, frying eggs and potatoes in another. The smell of coffee, brewing even before Jay Gould had come in (via the radio), gave way to smells of frying bacon, ham and eggs and potatoes. Surely, McDonald's Egg McMuffin is not only an effort at keeping up with today's fast pace, but an attempt to recapture yesterday's cookin, yesterday's kitchen.
After breakfast, a long stretch and then an unhurried walk across the meadow still wet with dew to the woods and the cows, now waitin, some were, around the gate, for their twice a day trip up the lane--ground feed for them, milk for us.
I can still remember--you, too--of fetchin the cows for milkin. There was no hurry, cows don't hurry up the lane, and at least they didn't then. And besides, it's rough going, especially after a rain through all the mud; with every inch a foot hole of some passing cow.
I jump from spot to spot, like crossing a mine field, attempting to miss the cow potholes and the paddies left fresh behind. A difficult task, seldom accomplished with the journey's end at the barn door, without one or two wet smelly feet, from places I'd missed and places I'd landed.
I can see those cows, Guernsey’s and Jersey’s, all with very personal names--Jane, Esther, Ruth, Bessie, Sara--all moseying slowly up the lane, all pausing at the stable door, to step inside to their place at waiting ground feed and fresh hay in the manger.
And when all was settled in, the stanchion blocks closed, the spraying complete, the sound of a dozen cows chewing, chewing, chewing--was such a peaceful, rhythmic sound, a calm settled over the place, before the work began.
On three-legged stools with buckets, the Jackson’s--all of them, sat down to "do the milkin," like they had done a thousand times before, like they would do a thousand times after that.
Then from somewhere came these cats, not a lot, maybe just special ones permitted in the stable, maybe a mother cat with kittens stashed away overhead in the haymow, maybe a big Tom recovering from a broken foot where he had been hit by a passing car, maybe also one or two favorite kittens.
Just a few cats to remind the milk cows, the milkman, and the milkmaids, that they, too, had their place in the social and economic order of the farm. After all, "rats were rare because cats were there."
And when the milk was gathered in those large pails, even when the cooperation was lax and buckets were bent and milkers kicked across the stable, it was taken up the drive to a small building that sat up by the house.
Here within, technology encroached upon the farm, reminding all of us of the world beyond the lane. Here, waiting for use twice daily, scrubbed down with a new pad inserted, was the cream separator.
Ah, the blessings of modern machines. Wonders never cease as the milk is poured in and the crank is turned. I remember how hard, as a boy, it was to get the crank to turning, at first, but how it whirled on around after you had let up on the handle.
There was a grinding feeling in the handle as the speed increased and a whirling sound as the milk flowed out one spigot and the cream another--all done by centrifugal force. What an amazing machine was the cream separator.
And when it was all done, and time to clean up for another milkin, it was time to feed the cats. Now every farm had cats. But there were always cats, lots of cats on the farm. A long time ago I learned not to even breathe the word "cats," unless it was after milkin time and the separator had completed its work.
I can see Uncle Frank now, or my aunt or cousins, as they took the bucket of separated milk, poured it into large flat pans, as they said one word, "Cats."
That was all they had to say. Cats came from everywhere. From the barn, from under the house and under the old Model T Ford, from the orchard, from the garden, from the meadow, from the chicken house, from the machine shed, from everyplace that is a place on the farm, cats came. They even came, somehow, from the sky. I've seen them fly in for that milk.
Cats, cats, cats. There were NO rats on that farm. And the cats, they all had a name. And a personality, and a disposition. Unlike dogs, as you know, cats choose you, you do not choose them. You may choose a dog, but not a cat.
And when they've had their fill, they'd go to find a quiet place to lick their paws and clean their faces. Until next time, when the milkin's done and the separator quits turning and buckets of milk are poured into large pans and someone says, "Cats."
Summer on the Farm
I grew up on a farm—almost. It was a distinct time, somewhere between then and now. In many ways, it was a time between times, what was to be and is and what was and soon would not be.
There was no television and radio had recently come into all its glory—when people actually gathered around to listen, when radio was not something just turned on to provide background music while we do something that for some reason we can’t do in front of the television—I’m not sure what that is anymore, but once radio was important, much more important in our homes.
Father was a truck-patch farmer who took his business very seriously, growing luscious melons, succulent sweet corn, red-ripe tomatoes, and bushels of new potatoes. The annual harvest of good things to eat was so rich, as kids we had no idea we were “poor” until he left home and the world reminded us.
Horses were an important part of yesterday's farm
Every summer I spent a good many days at the home of my aunt and uncle, John Frank and Bessie Mae Jackson. For us, it was always just “Uncle Frank and Aunt Bessie.” Always will be, as those wonderful summers return in our memories.
I reckon, when you look back, there was some where special that you liked to go each summer, each year that still remains special in your memory, whether you can return there or not.
The farm’s still there along 116 north of St. Marys. Uncle Frank and Aunt Bessie are both gone. She died in 1980 and Uncle Frank, a veteran of World War I, outlived a lot of people and died in 1991 at the age of 95. A grandchild, her husband and children live there now.
Families were a lot closer then. Maybe because they had to be to survive. I remember harvest and threshings, bug meals and delicious food. Cousins, aunts and uncles, and grandparents—were all family. Funny, now a lot of families (husband, wife, kids) aren’t even family any more. (I don’t mean laughable, but strange—and sad.)
Maybe because we spent so much time at the Jackson’s, these cousins, Anna Mary and Bessie Rose, were a lot more than cousins, they were family, our family, just as we were theirs.
Those of you who grew up before Woodstock was thought of, knew about stocking up wood for winter and wading mud up to your knees without feeling any urge to take your clothes off and spread mud all over your body.
So this family, made up of two families with interwoven lives, went through summer, spring, winter, and fall together.
I remember a lot of things from those times together. Pulling the little wood wagon up the lane through the dust to the woods where the Jackson’s lived beyond the big farm house which was Grandma’s home.
I remember long walks in the woods in the spring to gather flowers. Mother said when she was a girl, she and her sisters and the Banning girls wove the flowers together to form bracelets and wreaths.
I remember getting up early with Uncle Frank to listen to Jay Gould on “The Little Red Barn” program on WOWO out of Fort Wayne. I can hear Jay Gould now, and I don’t even have to close my eyes.
“Hello, World. I’ve never seen your face, nor have you mine. Yet here we sit across the room today; you so intent on making my heart glad; and I so willingly invite you to stay. Day after day you sit beside my hearth. Day after day I bid you welcome there. Ah, it is good we can be friends like this—can clasp, as neighbors, hands across the air.”
It’s funny how a person you knew only as a voice can become such a part of your life. Everyday, my uncle got up before five and turned the radio on. And there he was, day in, day out, year after year, season after season, Jay Gould and The Little Red Barn.
I still remember Jay Gould and his reassuring voice as he tied it all together with his homespun philosophy. Like marriage itself, “in sickness and in health, for better for worse, till death do us part,” he encouraged us to go on, to take time to enjoy the little joys, to overcome the big losses, to cry and to laugh, to live life to the fullest. I can hear him say, “Across the eastern sky the Almighty has begun to inscribe his greeting to the new world.
“From his throne in every farmyard the regal cock first hinted, then commanded that the re-created countryside awake, throw off the downy coverlid of mist, and bathe itself in the last of the dew that it might be prepared to receive the benediction of the first rays of the sun—the sacrament of the first song of the morning bird. A belated owl wobbled to his hiding place.
“All life lifted up its head in the turgid realization that it was part of a great unit that men called God. But to state the truth, no man was there to see all this, except the milkman, who paid no attention.”
The Legend of John D. Collins
"And the dog dropped from the sky," is what the article in the paper said a couple of weeks ago. Who said it couldn't "rain cats and dogs." Especially if you live in the hunting territory of a Great Horned Owl.
You recall the story of the owl that was driving the residents of a senior citizens residence in Greenville, Maine, up a wall. This owl cleaned out all the birds and rabbits, squirrels and cats in the neighborhood. It was not afraid of the elderly, either, as it would lunge down at them.
Finally, the death of a residence's dog was the last straw. According to resident Robert Shufelt, "the owl attacked his dog Bandit when he took him out for a walk....The owl lifted the 20-pound poodle-Pekinese mix into the air and out of sight. Moments later, the dog dropped from the sky."
Enough is enough. Game wardens called to the scene, waited for the owl's return, and sent him to the Great Beyond.
According to the Lincoln Library, there are over 400 species of owl in the world with 28 different species in the U.S. Most owls are helpful critters, ridding us of mice, rats, sparrows, and the like. The exception--the great horned owl--"very destructive to poultry" and apparently rabbits and squirrels, cats and dogs.
A few years ago we had a dozen geese who were better than a watchdog. Anytime anybody pulled into the driveway, you never heard such a racket. Then one fall day they started disappearing. I mean the whole goose--no feathers, no bones, no nothing. Whatever was getting them was either carrying the goose away or eating the whole bird on the spot.
One suspected a weasel--but normally they just suck the blood at the neck and leave the carcass. Another guessed it was a fox. Funny the geese kept disappearing, but we never heard much racket. I couldn't imagine them tolerating any wild animal in the pen.
We were down to a couple of geese and then one even as we drove in from a late dinner engagement, there was this giant bird--wings spread leaving the pen, his own dinner in toll. The next day I found a place in the haymow where the Great Horned Owl was feasting.
We penned up the remaining geese, but it wasn't much use, because in a couple of days, that owl had the rest of them. And we never saw him after that.
Much more common around the farm is that little fellow who comes us around the buildings in the fall letting out the painful wail that shoots right up the spine--the screech owl. Zoologists tell us he's a big help on the farm catching mice and rodents, snails and snakes, but that screech is enough to remind you of the witch scene in "Macbeth."
Now there's a lot of stories about owls and creatures that fly in the night, but nobody could tell the stories better than John D. Collins, former math teacher at Spencerville. Some folks are bigger than life--such was John D. Collins.
In his teaching career he must have taught several thousand students. Can you imagine the influence of that man? He had all the math books he taught memorized--I mean memorized. When you came into the room and sat down, he'd say flip to page 79, row 3, problem two--"What did you get for an answer?" "Come up to the board and show us how you did it."
Talk about focusing on the students. He knew the curriculum so well, he never had to take his eyes off the students.
Now John D. was a man of the night and he liked to hunt, especially creatures of the night. I remember one time he said he was in the woods looking for coons when he stopped by a tree to rest.
In a little bit he heard a big owl--hoot, hoot, hooting into the night, trying to stir some movement, some sign of food.
"So I commenced to hoo-hoo-hooting back," John told us with a sparkle in his eyes and a smile forming on his lips.
"That big fellow answered my call--who-who-whooting."
"And not to be outdone, I returned even a bigger call-who-o-o-o, who-o-o, who-o-o-ing!"
"He returned an abbreviated answer and then all was still. I didn't want to let the fun end there so I started to call again, when wham--something hit me on the back of the neck. About that quick I lost my cap and a chunk of hair as he swooped down on me and made just as quick for parts unknown."
For years, John D. was THE math teacher--so after a couple years of junior high and two-three years of high school, you got to know him, and he got to know you pretty well.
I remember this advanced math class with Jim Krindel, Jim Merricle, Leland Schnelle, and Alan Hubley. John knew his math; John knew his students, but he loved a good story; we loved a good story. So we always managed to work in one of his latest hunting or fishing trips and still learn about polynomials. I don't ever remember hesitating going to his class; I don't ever remember going away not learning something--about math and life, too.
I think one of the things that kept John at it so long was he liked kids and liked to see kids learn. I think his favorite time was physics class when we learned first hand about electricity.
We did all the typical experiments, like the electrostatic field where you form a human chain with the guy on one end holding a light bulb while the guy on the other end sticks his hand into the electrostatic field.
But John always did things in a big way--much bigger than most teachers and you knew that when you went in there. One time I went to the pencil sharpener to sharpen my pencil. The class got real quiet. I sorta felt everyone was looking at me and all I was going to do was sharpen my pencil when zap--I got a charge up my hand and arm. I let go of the sharpener and dropped my pencil all in the same motion. The class roared, John broke into a big smile, and I sat down, red face in all. I had my electricity lesson for the day.
Now I don't suppose anybody else, including John, recalls what I'm about to share. But for the full effect, there was a little wire that ran back in the floor boards to a couple seats in the classroom. Nobody knew what seats were wired, but there was a lot of good attention and good answering during electricity.
I still remember this one fellow who grapped a hold of an old sink faucet (bent in a semi-circle) and plum straighted that pipe into one long piece before he let go and the electricity let go of him.
Now John had a couple of boys, Bill and Skip (John Jr) and they were really into scouting. As a matter of fact some years ago I interviewed Bill who set up a Scout Museum across the road from Fort Amanda.
When I think about the tremendous influenced John D. Collins had on all us kids I think about what he taught me about math and what he taught be about life--John D. Collins taught me to "Be Prepared."
The Bungalow
Every morning on my way to work I cross Auglaize County from north to south through St. Marys, and New Bremen to the edge of Minster on my way to Maria Stein. Coming into St. Marys from the north, I am reminded that Route 66 is a part of many of our lives. I come up High Street along the canal and across the river to Front Street where I know early risers have seen the traffic lights turned back on at six o'clock.
As the light turns and I go on I wonder how many women, how many mothers and grandmothers, have climbed those steps at Lois' Beauty shop to "get their hair done." At the second light I turned south on Main Street, pass the Minster State Bank where once stood another landmark, the Henderson House, now long since gone. On most mornings, I will not make the next block, so I prepare to stop there at the corner of Main and Spring.
There as I wait for the light to turn, I look cater-corner across the street. Yep, its still there--"The Bungalow." I think about the local history project that Larry Shelby told me he and George Neargardner are working on--tracing the history of ownership and activity of each of the buildings on Spring Street--and wonder how they are coming.
It seems strange that "The Bungalow" could ever be other than what it was when we were kids. It was the corner hangout where we came after school to have a soda and a coke. To meet with "the gang" before heading home from school.
How many conversations began and ended with "See you at the Bungalow." For those of us who are older, "the bungalow" was a part of our growing up and was always supposed to be there--the meeting place. Some buildings, some places are like that--they just seem to fit a particular place--at least in our minds.
Now when I look across the street--signs about "Copies made here" don't register. Memories of the past outweigh the present and no matter what signs are hung in the windows and across the door; no matter if the building is torn down, the bungalow will always be there--a part of our fond memories of the past when we were growing up.
Sometimes in the interweaving memories of the mind, I see the bungalow and that "old gang of mine" and it becomes intertwined with other "meeting places" where "everybody knows my name."
Like the former popular television show "Cheers," places like The Bungalow and "Heine's" and "The Wooden Shoe" and "The Town House," and "Oh Baloney" and "Oak Tree" and "Bucks" and "The Dutch Mill Cafe" and "The Coffee Shop" and "The Farmers' Table" and "Fish-Mo's" and "The Corner Cafe" and "Speaky's Knotty Pine" all hold special places in the minds and lives of those who, present or past, frequented them.
Sometimes called "watering holes," what makes them special is not the food, though good food and drink are a prerequisite, it is the people who frequent them and the conversation and fellowship that is had there.
Like "Cheers," there are some unwritten rules that a stranger stopping by would not understand. So it was at "the bungalow." So it is at all meeting places. For example, although anyone could sat at the semi-circle of seats at "The Lucky Steer," in a very real sense at certain times in the evening these seats are at least in appearance "reserved" for certain regular customers who meet there regularly.
There was this table in the old "Coffee Shop" in Celina that was "reserved" for a group of town leaders who met there regularly. It was understood among the rest of us who ate there that this was "their table." Surely many would deny this--it was just understood.
Sometimes, by accident, you might find yourself a part of such a group. Othertimes, you were a part of this group, but never really gave much thought to it. It just was so. They were there day in, day out; you were there, day in, day out; and it felt good to be among friends--who would tease you; laugh at your jokes-maybe; make fun of you in a good sense; listen to what you had to say; slap your on the back; greet you when you came; "see you later" when you left.
Like Cheers these meeting places have different personalities each who are an important part of what goes on there and often times, the waitresses and bar tenders are a part of the dialogue.
It's encouraging to know that there are places like this today--where even the waitress and/or bartender care enough about you "to know your name." It's a pretty hooky world in most eating places today where you're greeted with canned speech "Hey, I'm Marilee and I'll be your hostess."
There's the "sassy, hard-edged waitress Carla Tortelli; lethargic,
beer-guzzling Norm Peterson; know-it-all mailman Cliff Clavin; dense and
adorable Coach Ernie Pantusso; the pretentious would-be intellectual
reduced to waitress Diane Chambers--who was replaced by the wonderfully
vulnerable Rebecca."
You
have your own watering hole; you have your own cast of characters,
including yourself. Sometimes as I wait for the light to turn there
across from "the bungalow," I think about another place where "we met
after school in Spencerville, up 66 to the north.
It was "Fryer's Drugstore." There, like the Bungalow, a whole generation of us grew up. Mr. and Mrs. Fryer are long since gone and they've renamed it "Canal Pharmacy." I understand the need to change a name, but sometimes some places should keep the name--there's so many fond memories attached to that name and place.
At Fryer's there was one corner in the back along the wall reserved for the soda fountain. I good still see Janice Degan standing there, waiting for the next order for a chocolate soda. There's must have been a dozen bar stools along that counter and a lot of times they were all full. It was such a busy place that old Mr. Fryer added a row of booths--which provided not only more room to seat, but for more intimate conversations.
You saw your date at the bar; but made the date in the booths. How many o-o-o's and ah's and sweet-nothings those old bar stools and booths heard in their lifetime.
Looking back I don't remember of a place that I was ever nervous more often than at the Bungalow or at Fryer's Drugstore. School's out and there right next to you is this person you've been waiting to talk to all day and you can't think of anything to say but "hello."
Frustrating, real frustrating. You get your big chance and you blow it as you look back down into the soda you are trying to make last long enough while you try to figure out what to say after "hello."
Most times, the words never came. After what must have been an eternity, she says "good-by" and leaves, or worst yet, the jock stops by and all the girls join him at a booth, leaving you alone at the counter. Thank God for chocolate sodas. I don't think I'd ever made it through this period of my life without those sodas.
Then Prof Kohler introduced us to Thorton Wilder's play Our Town and there was George Gibbs and Emily Webb sitting at the soda fountain at the local drug store, just as tongue-tied as were, saying all that foolish "important" stuff to each other--making decisions that will effect a lifetime.
George is telling Emily--"I always thought about you as one of the chief people I thought about. I always made sure where you were sitting on the bleachers, and who you were with. And we've always had lots of talks...and joking, in the halls, and they always meant a lot to me. Of course, they weren't as good as the talk were're having now.."
Then there was the music--you can't talk to someone of the opposite sex without music--maybe to block out the other noise; maybe to help give you courage enough to speak; maybe to say the things you're trying to say, but too scared to; to uncertain; too bashful; too naive and too foolish.
I don't remember the music arrangement at the bungalow, but I remember the jukebox. Thank God, for the jukebox. For a nickel, you could get enough music to carry you through a soda, sitting across from someone you were too scared to talk to, without ever saying a word.
And when the music stopped, someone else had already scrambled to add another nickel--probably for the same reason. I don't know which came first--the love of music, or the fear of silence.
The juke box with instant access to all the top hits, before we had tape recorders and CD players, was a part of our life, of who we were. Without the juke box there would have been a lot of dead silence and poker-faced kids looking across at each other at the Bungalow and Fryers and all across this area, wanting to say something to each other, but too afraid to speak.
That's what happens when we fell in love, thought we we're in love, or fell out of love, or just tried to communicate.
In their peak period (from 1937-1950), there were over 700,000 jukeboxes, including the popular "wall-o-matic" which let you put your money in while sitting at your booth. All the music was at your fingertips--middle of the road, classical, jazz, blues, hillbilly. There was even a record called "Three Minutes of Silence," so you could pay a nickel and get a little piece and quiet. This record was real popular with our parents, when they had nerve enough to come in to get us. (In 1960, you could buy a used juke box for about $150; today they will run as high as $40,000.)
Poet Kenneth Fearing said this about the juke box. "The jukebox has a big square face, a majestic face, softly glowing with read and green and purple lights. Have you got a face as bright as that? It's a proven fact that the jukebox has no ears. With its throat of brass, the jukebox eats live nickels raw; it can turn itself on or shut itself off; it has no hangovers, knows no regrets, and it never feels the need for sleep. Can you do that? What can you do that a jukebox can't, and do it ten times better than you?"
Like the Bungalow, that "coin-operated phonograph that could play up to 100 records, but has no ears" was an important part of our growing up and in turn, who we are today.
Walt Disney World in Florida had a very interesting display, that I think was called "The Wheel of Progress." Basically, the display consists of a large rotating wheel upon which are located by revolving sections, the way the American living room looked as well as a brief interaction among the American family at that particular period of time.
The Wheel of Progress was a fascinating site because it a few minutes, viewers could see not only the home environment, but what Americans did in the most important room of their home.
Some time ago, the most important room in our homes was called "the parlor." Now I missed out that period of time when "the parlor was THE ROOM," but I came along soon enough to see a few of them before they were all gone.
This was a very special room, reserved by most families for very special occasions. As a matter of fact, so special was this room, that some families used it only for funerals and for wakes when neighbors and friends gathered with the family to sit up all night with the body.
One of the most unusual pictures I have come across was that of some relative all decked out in his dying best, there in the casket right in the same room and same spot I later played as a boy. If I had known somebody had laid there dead in that spot when I was a kid I doubt that I would have had such a good time playing there in that corner behind the old wood stove.
Nobody living in the family ever talks about these wakes anymore, but several years ago they were fairly common, at least among us with a spittin’ or more of Irish in our veins. I did some research and found out that the wake "is a funeral celebration, common in Ireland, at which the participants stay awake all night, keeping watch over the body of the dead person before burial. A wake traditionally involves a good deal of feasting and drinking."
I don't think I ever participated in a wake, although sometimes I wonder. Surely, I would have remembered "all that drinking," although come to think of it I do remember some pretty big meals following the death of some relative.
Author William Langdon points out that because some folks only used the parlor for funerals, the room was pretty musty most of the time. Now, like I said before, I've been in a couple of parlors and I think there may be a few still around, and he's right--that's the smell I remember about parlors--musty.
Langdon further says that in some cases the parlor was used for other dignified occasions, such as weddings, "but the little airing-out it got, if any, did not eradicate the mustiness that maintained the continuing dignity of the chamber."
"Some folks used the parlor a lot for social purposes and therefore aired it out more often; others, only seldom opened this very special room, but paid no heed to the musty smell anymore than the difference of going from "into the house from outdoors."
Langdon further describes the parlor this way. "The parlor was always located at the front of the house, the parlor door opening into the hall usually to the right of the front door. The dining room was often on the opposite of the hall. In the Colonial Days, the parlor was one of the "fire rooms," i.e. had a fireplace in it.
"Over the fireplace, was always a marble mantelpiece, whereon stood, in the middle, a good-sized clock, also of marble. As the family got into the habit of using the parlor more and more, the convenience of having the time easily available in that room increased and the necessity for the great grandfather's clock in the hall decreased. At either end of the mantel stood one of a pair of large decorative vases, which might hold masses of showy flowers.
The chief piece of furniture in the parlor was the marble-topped center table. On this stood a large handsome kerosene lamp...Also, on the table were one, two, or even several books, which not only could be read, but could serve as symbols of literary standards and taste.
Among these books, and the one, when there was only one book, was the Holy Bible--large, impressive, and illustrated, insistently suggesting that there was no book with which the family was more familiar--and sometimes that was the fact.
This family Bible was also the place through which the stream of vital statistics originally flowed. Herein were recorded the dates and data of all births, marriages, and deaths in the family or among their kin. Whether the Bible was read or not, in the recording of American history, local or general, it was an important volume."
Often one or two large armchairs were situated on either side of the center table, where the best light was and which were reserved for the grandparents. Across the room and along the wall, between the windows, there was a large sofa which could hold three people fairly comfortably, or "holding two more comfortably with a certain amount of space between them, to ensure not being too forbidding for the conversation, and yet on the other hand not too informal.
The sofa was indeed will adapted to follow the progress of friendships between the stage when each on sat on one of the rather straight-backed side chairs, of which there were several at hand, and the stage when they didn't.
In some homes as time rolled on, there would be a "nice looking bookcase with four or five shelves six feet high and three feet wide. There behind lock and key were such classics as the Collected Works of Shakespeare and Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
Usually in one of the corners would be a triangular whatnot containing "all sorts of curios from all over the world--pieces of coral, sea fans, conch shells--anything that was not local and that might attest a foreign origin."
Family and visitors were reminded and assured that the religious spirit underlay the home by the framed mottoes which adorned the walls. "God Bless Our Home" worked in colored worsteds found a fitting place over the parlor door....In some homes the walls were also decorated with wreaths of human hair of relatives gone to join the dear departed."
Langdon's description of the parlor fits the memory I have of this room, which I was seldom, even when older, permitted into. I know from what others told me that this room, contrary to all appearances at other times, was sometimes a very lively place.
I remember what Nina Henne (whose father owned Hoverman's Miami-Erie Grocery in Kossuth, Ohio) told me about the parlor. Early dates included the Farmers' Institutes held at the local Grange Hall in Kossuth and dances at the Radabaugh farm just west of the junction of the Werner-Barber Road and SR 66 along the St. Marys River.
"Everyone knew the Radabaughs and what fine dances and good times they held. They would roll up the carpet and have a group of young people over to dance." Nina told me that Mrs. Radabaugh was from Germany and like limburger cheese. One of the guys got a hold of some of it and put it in her date's pocket. "The more we danced, the warmer we got. The warmer we got, the more the cheese in his pocket smelled."
One other story about the parlor comes to mind from our recent visit at the National Museum of American History in Washington. This is one of our favorite museums to visit because there is a lot of artifacts, like Archie Bunker's chair and Charlie McCarthy to remind you of another time you either knew firsthand or had read about.
In the hall of electricity, there are displays of 18th and 19th century electrostatic apparatus, including a globe machine designed by Ben Franklin, some Leyden jars for storing electric charges, and a twin-plate generator which is displayed as part of a parlor game called, "The Electric Kiss."
Know I don't know if you've ever formed a human chain in physics class, like we did in John D. (Collins, high school teacher in Spencerville) and Johnny VanCleve's (high school teacher in St. Marys).
As you remember, the last person would hold a light bulb and once the human chain is formed by everyone joining hands, the first person sticks their hand over the electrostatic field and presto--the light bulbs lights us.
I'm really not too kin on these kind of games, and I can't imagine what it must have been like to participate in the "electric kiss."
But before leaving physics class, I had a teacher who had the some of the seats wired with electricity and never had any trouble getting a response from the kids who happened to sit in the right seats.
I still remember how quiet it got when I got up to sharpen a pencil; and how the class roared when I grabbed the handle of the pencil sharpener and got zapped a real good one.
That class was a real lesson in electricity. I remember one boy, who I think still lives in Spencerville,
who grabbed hold of the curved water outlet pipe at the sink and bent in clean straight before he could even think of letting go.
I understand a good many of the parlor games are still going on, just moved out of the parlor, that's all. I don't know about the electric kiss, but Doris Imwalle of Maria Stein, Ohio, did tell me about a custom still carried out at weddings where older children who do not marry before a sibling have to dance in the hog trough.
I bet you know some parlor games, too; I reckon you could teach me a thing or two about what was or is or will be.
circa 1932
We have quit eating pie, we have cut out our cake;
We are minus our bread, and corn muffins we make.
Why we buy less groceries, there is one explanation,
And that is, my dear friends, this depressing depression.
We have quite eating candy, it is fattening, you see;
We have left off our desserts, for they don’t quite agree.
You ask why we’ve quit them, there is only one explanation,
And that is, my dear friends, the depressing depression.
We are living on soup beans, minus the meat;
They really are good, Boy! they cannot be beat.
You say everyone does it—yes, there is one explanation,
And that is, my dear friends, this depressing depression.
Our telephone’s gone, twas a buck and six bits
To dig up each month from under our mitts.
Why we miss all the gossip, there is one explanation,
And that, my dear friends, is this depressing depression.
We have one pair of shoes where we used to have two;
And last year’s clothing must certainly do.
You ask why we’re shivering, and there is one explanation,
Which is, my dear friends, this depressing depression.
We don’t drive the car, for gasoline, you know,
On grapevines and currant bushes doesn’t seem to grow.
You ask why we walk, but there is one explanation,
And that, my dear friends, is this depressing depression.
When I am much older and a lesson I’ve learned,
I’ll pocket my pennies, as my pockets won’t burn.
So I’ll squeeze all my money, for there is one explanation,
Which is, my dear friends, this depressing depression.
So with all my grandchildren around my armchair,
I’ll tell them a story—to spend money with care.
If they ask why I say that, I’ll give the explanation,
Which I’m sure you all know is the depressing depression.
Sometimes when things aren't going as smoothly as we'd like and we get frustrated and discouraged and want to lash out at the world, we often are jarred back to our senses at how good we really have it.
We are reminded of the many people who have given of themselves beyond what is expected, who literally have "given their shirt off their back" for us. It is humbling to be around such people. They surely put things in proper perspective.
Such a person is the General Practioner as we once knew him, and as he still exists in the best of doctors.
Dr. Guy E. Noble, who practiced medicine in St. Marys, Ohio, for many, many years, was such a man. He was a legend in his own time and too much a part of our lives to ever forget the influence he had on us.
I was a small boy when I got to know Dr. Guy. We always called him "Dr. Guy" to distinguish him from his brothers, Dr. Walter Noble and Dr. Harry Noble who were also doctors.
Dr. Guy had his office at 317 West Spring Street. It wasn't a very big building, but Dr. Guy made up for it. As I remember he wasn't very big either, physically that is, but he was so well-known and so well respected that it was like going to see God, or at least a very famous movie star or baseball player.
When I was 12 years old I got to meet Bob Feller, famous Cleveland Indians hurler, but he didn't impress me as much as Dr. Guy did.
I remember one time when I was about 8 years old or so, sitting in his waiting room with blood all over my face. We had been in a bad car wreck just east of Parker Hannifan and near where Paris Cleaners is now.
As some of you recall, there used to be a railroad track just east of there and there was an apple orchard just northwest of the tracks, where the parking lot for Parker Hannifan is now.
We were coming back from a fishing trip at the lake and a big semi truck’s brakes locked and he pulled into us. This was before seatbelts and the crash threw me up into the rearview mirror and sliced my head open.
I was lying on the ground under one of those apple trees, blood running everywhere, my parents were scared to death and I kept asking, "Is the car going to be all right?"
When I got older, I learned that sometimes the perception is more important than reality. And with the reassurance of my parents, I was finally convinced that the car, demolished as it was, would be all right.
There have been a lot of doctors before and since, but in my family in the 1950's, it was Dr. Guy. He was THE doctor for a whole lot of us across this area.
I don't remember how we got to his office. They weren't all those EMT's and ambulances. I think somebody stopped at the accident scene and drove us up to Dr. Guy's office. I was riding in the backseat with mother holding a blood-soaked hanky over my head.
There we were sitting in Dr. Guy's office, waiting for a miracle. In a few minutes he came out and the whole atmosphere changed. It wasn't that the wound suddenly stopped bleeding. I heard him tell my parents later "nothing bleeds like a head wound."
It got quiet real quiet. As he walked over to me, there was an air of anticipation. This man, who had pulled off so many miracles before, was about to perform another.
I looked up at him. He looked back at me and reached over to my ear and pulled a quarter out. That was it. If he could pull a quarter out of my ear, I would be all right.
And I was. Oh, it took awhile to stop the bleeding. He put a bunch of stitches in my head and sent me home. I kept the quarter.
I didn't know it then, but Dr. Guy taught me a whole lot that day about perception and attitude and positive action. Like a lot of other G.P’s., Dr. Guy was a giant among men. He isn't likely to be forgotten for a long time to come.
This is what I most remember about Dr. Guy E. Noble, but one day when I was a junior Prof Kohler sent me to the library to do some research and there I came across this little book Dr. Guy had published in 1958. The rest of this article is from that little autobiography.
I think some of Dr. Guy's character comes through in the brief preface when he says of the book, "I hope you find it interesting, but if not, discard the whole thing."
He also tells the reader in the positive attitude he had about life, "I lived in a wonderful age when things were changing fast." (Sounds like today, if you talk to a personwho is alert and has a positive attitude about life.)
To understand and appreciate Dr. Guy, you need to know that he began his practice locally by sitting up his office in St. Marys in 1905. He made house calls as far away as New Bremen and Minster in a horse and buggy. He first attended Ohio State in 1901 before the football stadium was built.
In the 1940's my family and others were quarantined with a highly contagious fever, visited only by my aunt who left the groceries out at the mailbox and by Dr. Guy E. Noble.
That precious black bag that Dr. Guy carried symbolized the General Practioner, the House Call, and the wonderful hope for health for all of us across this area.
Dr. Guy had a keen interest in local history and shares in his book a lot of the stories older folks shared with him, especially his grandmother, Eliza Berryman Whetstone Noble.
The autobiography covers both the stories she told him of the early history of this area as well as the things from his own life from 1881 to 1958, when the book was written when he was 77 years old.
Dr. Guy reminded me that the office where he found a quarter in my ear and sewed up my head was one of the oldest buildings in St. Marys. Built before the Civil War, a local attorney, Charlie Mott, at the request of the Federal government recruited local men for the war effort and swore them in the front room of that same office.
I was thinking about all the history that took place on the little piece of real estate on West Spring Street and a project Larry Shelby said he and George Neargardner were working on--tracing the businesses and owners of all the stores and offices along Spring Street.
Dr. Guy said he performed over 13,000 surgeries--so I reckon there's a lot more of you out there who were sewed up by him at one time or another. He further points out that he helped deliver over 6200 babies and that up until 1946 all the births he attended were in the home; half were in the home through 1952; and after 1953 they were all in the hospital.
Through 1910 all major surgery was done in the home; and in 1940 all major surgery was done in the hospital. (I think Dr. Guy would support the outpatient clinics of today.)
Dr. Guy said, "the kitchen was used for surgery and I would either take a surgical table to the home or take two leaves out of a dining room table and place them lengthwise on the table. The bed clothing was placed on the table and the patient was laid lengthwise on it."
In 1901 when Dr. Guy was 20 years old the first "movie picture" came to St. Marys. Tickets were a nickel and it was called appropriately enough "the Nickelodeon."
He tells the story of how he got started in life with "an acre of potatoes, jacks and $20 he picked up off the ground.
He was born on a farm off Fort Amanda Road northeast of St. Marys to Albion Van-meter Noble and Mattie Whetstone Noble. His grandfather, Henry Noble, looking for a money-maker, put out an acre of potatoes which he then sold to the Irish who were digging "Deep Cut" just south of Spencerville.
Grandfather followed this project with that of raising "jacks," which were bred to mares to produce mules, which were highly sought after because they "could get through the mud better than horses or oxen."
The $20 that Dr. Guy talked about came as a result of an attempted political vote buy. According to Dr. Guy a political convention was held at the Opera House in St. Marys to nominate a democrat for the House of Representatives.
In preparation for the convention, delegates were being selected at the Noble Township house along the canal north of St. Marys. Dr. Guy's father, A.V. Noble was on the ticket as delegate. One of the candidates called A.V. Noble out behind the township house and gave him a $20 dollar bill, which A.V. threw to the ground. Both men returned to township house. Dr. Guy reached down and put the $20 in his pocket, a secret he kept for many years.
Talk about house calls, Dr. Guy, who set up practice in St. Marys in 1905, even made "boat calls," calling on a couple families who lived on a boat behind the Woolen Mill.
He brought another legend to life when he talked about Johnnie Appleseed Chapman staying overnight at this grandparents' home. "He was a peculiar, uncouth and slovenly man....He traveled all the time and would solicit old clothes. He always wore two or three pair of pants even in the hottest weather and if he could not get an old hat from someone he would make his hats out of cardboard.
After staying all night, getting his supper and breakfast, he would either give his hosts apple seeds or plant some on their farm before he left. He was a harmless man, so my grandmother said, believed in God and you could not help but like him...He planted an orchard in St. Marys which was five to ten acres in size and extended from the end of South Street to the Dry Feeder."
Dr. Guy's first boss was C.C. McBroom, also his first teacher at Brewer School north of St. Marys. "I got five cents a morning for building fires for him."
His next official job was school teacher when at sixteen he passed the teacher's examination when another teacher explained to him how easily it was to confuse a 6 and 8 on the exam which was open only to those 18 years or older.
Dr. Guy began teaching in the Walnut Grove School district that fall in the home of Tom Schamp because a fire had recently destroyed the school building. He taught a six months fall term, followed by a two-week break, and then a two-months spring term. He was paid $38.35 per month for the fall term; and $20 per month for the spring term.
During the summer he continued his own education at a university in Indiana then took a teaching job in Moulton Township at Glynwood where he taught that fall. Then later he taught at the Elm Tree Hall school.
In 1901 in enrolled in Starling Medical College in Columbus which later combined with a second medical college and then ultimately became a part of the Medical Department at Ohio State University.
During the summer of 1902, he returned to this area and sold medical books to doctors. "There were so many mud roads in this area that it was nothing to see a doctor wearing gum boots, and wearing a Prince Albert coat and carrying a cane. Either white or black gloves were a part of his equipment."
During the summer of 1903, he traveled around selling the "new" rolling Globe Atlas maps to teachers; and in 1904 he taught a spring term at Yahl School, completing his teaching career.
In 1902 two prominent Columbus physicians selected Dr.Guy to assist them with their practice on afternoons and weekends, giving anesthetics and helping with operations at Mount Carmel hospital.
He graduated from medical school on May 5, 1905, with the highest honors in his class. He then set up practice in St. Marys on the following day, May 6. On the same day he made his first house call and "the patient happened to get well."
He recalls the great flood eight years later and how the Cincinnati Enquirer reported that "the St. Marys Reservoir had overflowed its banks and inundated the little town of St. Marys." Dr. Guy recalls being out in that rain when it began, operating on a woman in her home south of St. Marys. Because the water was so deep he could not return to check on her until the rain had stopped three days later. Fortunately a nurse stayed on to look after the patient.
Not being able to return to her on the New Bremen Road, he took a horse and buggy along the east bank of the reservoir. "I counted 17 places where the water was running over the bank. The reservoir bank, by means of the militia and volunteers throwing sandbags up at various places, held to the extent that it did not flood the town. As I drove along the bank that evening it was a sea of water on both sides of me and I was frightened."
Dr. Guy said he performed the last operation at home in 1940 two and 1/2 miles east of New Knoxville.
On April 17, 1916, Dr. Guy married Hazel May Kelchner, a nurse from Lima Memorial Hospital. Although the Nobles had no children, Dr. Guy said "I have had ten mothers tell me their sons have tried to pattern their lives after mine. I get more satisfaction out of this than any other. This makes me feel my life was worth living.”
Two hundred guests gathered at the St. Henry American Legion on Sunday evening, October 19, for a night to remember. The local Ohio Bicentennial Committee has been working diligently to provide both a celebration of Ohio’s 200th birthday and memorable events for the community.
The “Taste of History”dinner was definitely one of them. In addition St. Henry planted a Bicentennial Garden, designed and sewed a bicentennial quilt, provided carriage rides to historic sites in the community, and held a Ohio history trivia contest in the school.
From the moment you entered the hall, you knew that all was in place for a wonderful evening. Expert hands and careful planning with everything in place—with lights dimmed for dinner, antiques from yesterday arranged strategically about the room, beautifully decorated tables, and amiable guests ready to enjoy a great evening.
Hats off to all who helped plan the Taste of History Dinner including committee members Julie Niekamp, Kate Fullenkamp, Bill Woods, Jane Woods, Carla Clune, Connie Gast, and Jane Gast. (Others on the committee but not present for the photo include Rick Stahl and Joyce Alig, director of the Mercer County Historical Museum.)
Girls from the St. Henry Youth Group, wearing historical dresses and caps designed and sewed by some of the parents, served the meal. (In the photo they are front l to r—Mara Rindler, Alyssa Lange, Stephanie Albers, Tiffany Rutschilling.
Second row, Kelly Jo Delzeith, Chelsy Buschur, Ashley Bollenbacher, Kayla Lefeld, Erica Wilker, and Bethany Rutschillling.)
Guests were greeted at the door by committee members Bill and Jane Woods, who along with other committee members and many of the quests, wore Colonial outfits.
“Appetizers and libations” were served from 5:30 p.m. to six p.m. as the guests moved about the room, viewing a wide collection of antiques shared by community members for the occasion. Partial walls divided the hall into rooms with beautifully decorated round tables foretelling of the delicious meal ahead. Unique flower arrangements and table center pieces which also helped set the mood were designed by Ruth Nieport, Ralph Staugler, and Kathy Ontrop.
Near the entrance was a model of the old water tower, a landmark in St. Henry from 1909-1971, and buildings of the past.
In the far corner, a large photo of Henry Romer nodded his approval of the occasion from his place about the fireplace. Old photos of other family members and early pioneers also looked on peacefully.
At 6 p.m. emcee John Fullenkamp welcomed the guests and Father David Hoying lead the invocation. Strolling musician Jeff Sturgill sang, strummed his banjo, and told tales of the Colonial times and the sea.
Read now of that delicious historic dinner—King’s Arm Tavern Cream of Peanut Soup, Indian Bread with Honey Butter, Orange Cranberry Relish.
Glazed Roast Loin of Pork, Oven-Braised Pot Roast, Worthington Potatoes, Colonial Vegetable Blend, Sausage and Corn Stuffed Onions.
Blackberry-Peach Cobbler with cream, wine from Versailles Winery and ale.
Following the meal, Mr. Fullenkamp announced the winners of the wine basket and the quilt and told the group “you can stay and linger as long as you want—linger but don’t loiter” he jested as the beautiful evening came to a close. (photo 3 Jeff Sturgill; photo 4, Sue and Bill Freisthler)
"I sure was sorry to miss Prof Kohler's funeral. My wife and I were on the road and couldn't get back in time." I ran into Steve Cathcart the other day and we were recalling the influence Albert J. Kohler had on us and on several generations of kids who attended Memorial High School sometime in the period between the 1930's and early 1970's.
Let's see, just when did Prof retire anyway? Funny thing, I read about him in the paper on the last page where they put the obituaries, but that was just an offical account of his life that ultimately is put there for everybody. Prof Kohler, dead? No way. Some people never die. Oh eventually in a generation or two, people will say Prof who? But Prof's influence in terms of our attitutes and behavior, values and morals, goals and objectives goes on forever.
My mother had Prof Kohler in 1934 and my aunt, who was older than her also had Prof. Like the recent-announced retiring Eugene "Skip" Baughman," Prof was bigger than life, he was bigger than the institution; Prof Kohler and his counterparts were "the institution."
Sometimes in your life, if you're lucky, you meet someone who has a tremendous influence on who you are, what you believe is important, what you deem is right and what you are sure is wrong. Prof Kohler was that kind of a person.
I don't think Prof set out to be any more than a teacher, but because he had such strong values himself, he influenced everyone he met. Know I'm not saying everyone liked Prof Kohler, but everyone respected him. Maybe that's the best any of us can hope for--to be a person of strong moral character who is at least respected by others.
What I most remember about Prof Kohler's physical appearance was his eyes and big broad shoulders. I think they were gray or light green and when he looked at you, you had the feeling he could look right through you. And I remember his shoulders being wider than the desk he stood behind. I never remember him sitting down, although maybe he did years later after I had graduated.
Prof Kohler also served for years as Assistant Principal, but I never remember him in the role, except that handling the attendance sometimes made him late for class. He had a little stick about 18 inches long he used for a pointer, but often when he came in late from his attendance job and the class was talking loudly, he would stand behind his desk chair and take that stick and beat on the back of the chair until it was quiet. I never remember him ever raising his voice, but the sound of that stick hitting the back of the chair was very effective.
He also had a tremendous vocabulary, and like his co-hort, the highly respected Latin and English teacher, Emil Steva, he could cut you to ribbons with words--just words that you didn't know what they meant, but you knew by the way they sounded, you had just been chewed up and spat out.
Prof Kohler made teaching look so easy. I don't remember him ever looking at a lesson plan and he never passed out worksheets. He knew the subject matter; he knew the kids; and he knew how to bring the two together. He spoke in short, well-thought-out sentences that carried direct and indirect meanings. You quickly learned to pay attention to what he said for few words carried much meaning.
When I was a few years older and came back to begin teaching, I remember standing in awe behind the same chair and in front of the same board where Prof Kohler stood, I felt very much out of place. And when I go the band and choir concerts even now I know Prof is behind the door to room 26 or he and John Van Cleve are taking a break in the projector room.
I remember once, by chance, I went after school with Prof and Buhlea Kohler, Emil and Onalee Steva, John Van Cleve, and R. Jon McQuillan to Rowen's Cafteria. It was a very select group and I felt the bond that existed between these veteran teachers, professional in their jobs, with the kids, and with each others. I knew as I sat there, quietly listening, that that was special, that these half dozen teachers were unique.
I have often thought about Prof Kohler and these teachers, and the influence they continue to have on the lives of thousands of area residents. Sometimes when school was out, I would be pulled into the auditorium by the most wonderful-sounding music and there on the stage would be Emil Steva, a very accomplished pianist relaxing after a day of teaching.
Sometimes if you go into the auditorium when no one is there and close your eyes, you can hear the piano playing and if you open your eyes very slowly, there is Emil Steva at the keyboard.
Some day the walls will come down, but the halls will remain filled with the ghosts of these who once walked there.
Somewhere out there between St. Marys and Spencerville, Ohio, is a little town called Kossuth. And though it's long gone now, there once was a general store that was the gathering place for folks for in that neck of the woods.
Owned by E. R. Hoverman, and officially named the Miami-Erie Grocery, we always knew it only as Hoverman's Corner. When I wasn't big enough to see over the counter,
I remember the one-armed grocer, leaning over the counter and reaching me a stick of red licorice, which he had pulled from a glass jar on top of the counter.
For a small boy, the highpoint of that store was that jar of licorice on the counter, just out of arm's reach. But for the older men of the neighborhood, the center of Hoverman's Corner, summer, winter, spring, and fall, was the pot-bellied stove that set at the back of the store.
There the locals gathered every Saturday night, and some gathered every night, and a few every day, and I always imagined some never left there place, there next by that old stove.
Whenever I went in the store with my parents, and after I got my licorice, I wondered back there where my Dad had stopped and sat a spell to listen to the latest yarn.
It's funny, looking back now, what one remembers about those times. It seems like folks spent more time listening to one another, and I knew more than one good storyteller from that place around the stove at Hoverman's.
Now there was a lot of stories I only caught bits and pieces of, and there were other stories I didn't understand, being a kid; and looking back now, I reckon there were other stories told around that stove, that I never did hear.
When I got a little older and could get my feet to the floor off one of the barrels sitting at the back, I even sit a spell with that group of storytellers. What I most remember about that place around the pot-bellied stove at the back of Hoverman's was how relaxed, easy-going, and genuine warm it was--fall, winter, summer, spring--it didn't matter--it always felt the same.
I've been a lot of places since Hoverman's Corner, including K-Mart and Wal Mart and now the new Penny's store; I've met a lot of people including former Presidents, but I've never met any people that could tell better stories than that group at Hoverman's Corner.
In the process of aging, fact and fiction got pretty well twisted in my mind, but I had the good fortune of meeting up with someone who helped straighten out the particulars on Hoverman's corner--Nina and Bob Henne (daughter of son-in-law of that kind old man who always had a piece of candy or licorice for us kids.
Here for posterity, and for you if you're interested, are some of the facts about Hoverman's store. Hoverman's was the hub of Kossuth and the surrounding community from the 1920's through the 1950's.
Earl, who died in 1965, was a bricklayer by trade. In 1920, he lost his left arm in a corn shredder, one of the most dangerous pieces of equipment on the farm. Earl bought the building at the junction of State Route 66 and 197 in Kossuth, not far from the Miami-Erie Canal from which he named the store.
The building had served a variety of businesses. It was first a saloon (one of several in Kossuth) to serve the thirsty canal traffic). Later it was a creamery, tobacco and candy store, garage, and finally a grocery.
One story Nina shared with me that I'm sure was told over and over around that pot-bellied stove was about John Shivley. "Kossuth had the reputation of being the meanist town on the Canal from Toledo to Cincinnati." It was so mean that a lot of people refused to get off the canal boats in Kossuth, despite the fact that they were so thirsty and there were at least seven saloons waiting to serve them. They were dying for a drink, and some who got off the boat, did just that--died.
In 1901, Kossuth's infamous reputation was further ensured when a local saloon keeper, John Shivley was shot and killed. History says that on the fall election night at about four in the morning, Shivley heard someone about the store. When he went to investigate, the robber shot him in the alley between the store and the then-standing hotel to the south.
Legend is that the killer later confessed from his home somewhere in the West. Fifty years later folks still pointed to the side of Hoverman Grocery where the bullet went into the outside wall.
In addition to the seven saloons, there was an ice house, sawmill, stable for housing the horses and mules used on the canal, hotel for the canal passengers (where the Methodist Church now stands), Back Smith shop, town hall, and a doctor's office/residence .
At the center of it all beginning in 1920 was Hovermans. People came to visit, not just to buy groceries. Almost daily without fail as the evening approached, men folk and sometimes young folk would gather around the stove at the back to share a story, spin a yarn, or just to enjoy the company of another fellow human being.
The stove provided the warmth that drew the group together; the sharing of tales provided the warmth that kept them together. It was there I first learned about the huckster man--but that's another story for another time.
Judge Ingraham Addresses WORTH Graduates
by Ivan Knapp
Judge Jeffrey Ingraham, Mercer County Common Pleas Court
Jeffrey Ingraham, judge of Mercer County Common Pleas Court, recently gave the graduation address to residents graduating from the WORTH program.
The WORTH (Western Ohio Regional Treatment and Habilitation Center), which is located on Bluelick Road, Lima, was founded about 10 years ago to serve people in nine surrounding counties with the purpose "to reduce the number of felons committed to state penal institutions by participating jurisdictions, to increase the success of those individuals completing the WORTH program and to provide a 24-hours minimum security lock-up, which offers both incarcerations and more habilitation services."
Judge Ingraham, who serves on the Judicial Corrections Board which oversees the Center, graduated from Newton Falls (southwest of Warren and about the size of Coldwater) in 1968, Wittenberg College in 1972, and Ohio Northern University in 1975. He became acquainted with Mercer County and Celina when he came here on a visit with college friends.
Shortly thereafter he decided to move to Celina and became City Solicitor and began "with no office, no phone, on secretary." In 1977 he became law partner with Murphy Knapke and was appointed judge of Common Pleas Court by Governor George Voinovich in 1991. He and his wife Susie have two daughters, Elizabeth, a pre-med student at the University of Toledo; and Emily a senior at Celina High School who will also be attending UT this fall.
His father taught him as a boy mowing grass for neighbors to "have customers pay what it was worth to them."
Some paid "more than he expected, some paid less and some did not pay anything because they couldn't."
As a boy he had once given thought to becoming a judge and set out to "be a part of a community and someone helping people."
Judge Ingraham recalls another speech he gave in which he emphasized the F word--faith. And he speaks of the difference between knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge is what man learns, but wisdom comes from God.
Every time he puts on the robe of service and justice, he reaches through to a pocket to a small metal cross to remind himself of his service to God and his fellowman.
Here is address to the WORTH graduates.
I first of all like to thank Director Sandra Monfort for inviting me to speak with all of you today and acknowledge Ms. Davis and Mr. Brinkman for their efforts with the GED diploma recipients that we're here to honor.
You know each of us is different. We are different races, we come from different cultures, perhaps different nationalities, we have different social, educational, and economic backgrounds and status.
But it really doesn't matter where or when or to whom you were born or how you were raised, or the color of the T-shirt you happen to have on, the type of blue jeans or tennis shoes, or the fact that some of us are dressed in business clothing like I am.
You see we all have one thing in common--each of us is a living, breathing human being with the precious gift of life and freedom to choose how to use that gift. Like no other creature on earth we have the freedrom to choose.
Some of you may have the heart of Victor Frankl who wrote, A Man's Search for Meaning. He was a psychiatrist in Germany during the holocaust. He was a resident of Auschwitz, a death camp. He was tortured, deprived of food, clothing, even water and dehumanized to the point that he was castrated so that the Nazis could use his testicles for experimentation.
Somehow he survived the death camp when many of his colleagues did not, and when asked why he was able to survive, he responded, "During that terrible time I always knew that my attitude was my choice. I could choose to despair or be hopeful; but to be hopeful I need to focus on something I wanted.
"I focused on my wife's hands. I wanted to hold them one more time. I wanted to look into her eyes one more time. I wanted to think that we could embrace again and be heart to heart one more time. That kept me alive second by second by second. I recognized that above all else no matter what they took from me, I always could maintain one thing and that was my power to choose my attitude, my response to how I was treated.
That power to choose our attitude separates us from all other living creatures. Each of us was conceived by destiny, produced by purpose and packaged with potential to live a meaningful life. Deep within each of us is a seed of greatness awaiting germination.
Those of you we honor today for obtaining your GED have allowed that germination to continue. Each of has deep within us natural talents and gifts and those of you who have attained your GED have taken a big step in unleashing those talents and gifts. And each of us has deep within us potential. And all of you, including those we honor, have seen a bit of that potential.
But in order to achieve that potential, we must have one quality. We must believe in ourselves and have self confidence. Michael Jordan speaks about it this way--"You have to expect great things of yourself before you can do great things." I suspect that part of the reason that you are a resident of WORTH today is because you have not grasped that understanding that you have to expect great things of yourself before you do them.
But you know, it's never too late to change. No matter what someone's condition, a person is never without possibilities. No matter how much a person may consider himself a failure, that person can change the things that are wrong in his or her life anytime if he or she is ready and prepared to do it. Whenever a person develops the desire and perseveres, he or she can take away from his or her life those things that are defeating it. The capacity for reformation and change lies within you.
An interviewer once asked a successful businessman, "What has made you successful?" The businessman replied, "Two words." Anybody want to guess what those two words were--good decisions.
The interviewer ask how do you make good decisions.
The businessman replied one word--experience. The interviewer asked, "how do you get experience?" The successful businessman raised two fingers and said, "two words"--bad decisions.
We've all made bad decisions. Some of us have been held accountable and you are good examples of that. You need to remember that often those who win at the justice game that we play lose at life. They get off and therefore never confront the real problems of their lives.
In fact, winning in court can harden people even more. They're never forced to stop and truly evaluate their lives. In fact, by winning in the justice game, they lose in the game of life.
I first became a judge about 11 years ago and when I did, I went through the stages of change. The first stage was being unconsciously incompetent--I didn't know what I was doing, but I kind of enjoyed it because I didn't know that I didn't know what I was doing.
I then became consciously incompetent. That's a scary place to be. You're out in the world and you realize you have responsibilities and you're not quite sure how to make good decisions. But if you persevere through that stage, you're able to become consciously competent.
You've learned through the experience of making bad decisions how to make good decisions. You make lists, you follow through, you stay focused, you stay disciplined.
One day I hope to become unconsciously competent so I can truly enjoy the experience of helping people like you direct their lives in a positive way without the necessity of all the hard work that goes into it. That may never happen.
At our court we have three basic and simple rules by which we do our jobs. This includes the secretaries, the financial administrator, the assignment commissioner, the jury administrator, court reporter, bailiffs, magistrate, and even the probation officers.
I presented them a Lou Holtz motivational video. Holtz, the former football coach at Notre Dame is now coaching at South Carolina. He has three simple rules and we've adopted them at the court.
The first one is to be honest. The second is to do the best you can. And the third is to treat other people like you want to be treated. These three rules can get you through a lot and help you to be successful.
Following these three rules will allow you to continue to germinate that seed of greatness inside you. It will continue to help draw out the natural talents and gifts that God has given you, and will help you reach the potential that God has put inside you. It will help you expect great things of yourself so that you can do great things.
The reason these three rules can do all things for you is because they answer the three greatest questions of man.
The questions that you ask one another here in this institution, the questions that you ask your friends back home, your family members, your spouse, your children and what they ask you.
The first question they ask is "Can I trust you?" The answer is, yes, if you're honest. Can I trust you? Be honest, rule number one.
The second question people ask is "Are you committed to excellence?" It is answered by the second rule--do the best you can. If you're part of a team, and we all are, we can't get through this life without one another, we've got to rely on other people around us doing the best they can with what they have to give. And if they are, then we know they're answering that question for use that we want to ask and that is, "Are you committed to excellence? Do the best you can, rule number two.
Rule number three--treat others like you want to be treated. This answers the question--do you care about me?
If you truly do, you'll treat me like you would want to be treated, and I will treat you like you want to be treated.
The Golden Rule. So the question, "Do you care about me?"
is answered by treating other people like you want to be treated.
So be honest, do the best you can, and treat other people like you want to be treated.
I'm going to leave you with one question--tell me, when is the best time to plant an oak tree? Twenty years ago. And when is the next best time to plant an oak tree? Right now.
by Ivan Knapp
Bob Brinkman, Education Coordinator; Betty Fogt, Principal; Sandy Davis
and Marilyn Taylor, teachers; Don Bolinger, Operations Manager; Judge Jeffrey Ingraham
May and June are months of graduation for many students in the area. May was also a time for graduation for adults attending the WORTH Center near Lima, Ohio. On May 6, I traveled there with Judge Jeffrey Ingraham, who gave the commencement address, the second time he has done so this spring.
On hand for the ceremonies in addition to the graduates were staff members Betty Fogt, principal; Sandy Davis and Marilyn Taylor, teachers; Bob Brinkman, educational coordinator; and Don Bolinger, operations director. Director Sandy Monfort was unable to attend.
Mr. Brinkman welcomed the graduates and fellow residents to the program held in the commons area. He introduced Judge Jeffrey Ingraham, Mercer County Probate Judge, who talked about individual differences, attitude, decision-making, and the willingness to change.
Judge Ingraham told the graduates to be honest, do the best you can, and treat other people the way you want to be treated.
After the graduation ceremony, I had the opportunity to talk with the staff and the graduates. Sandra Davis, a 1965 graduate of Bath High School has taught the women residents at the center for seven years. She has an elementary education degree from Ohio State and taught three years at the Lima Correctional Center.
In regards to the residents of the center, Davis said, "They are people, too. They made a mistake. This program gives them a second chance."
Marilyn Taylor, who teaches the male residents, is from Cincinnati and says the most important thing in working with the residents is "to be truthful. Treat them the way you want to be treated." A former teacher in the Allen County Schools, Taylor was trained as a special education teacher.
Davis and Taylor agree that the focus of the 4-6 month program is on completing the courses the residents need to pass the GED and get their diploma--something they need in life, but for some reason missed the first time around. A related emphasis is helping the residents succeed in getting and hold a job.
Each of the residents is assigned a case manager who sits down with them, reviews the credits they have completed in high school, and helps them work out a schedule to meet
the courses they are short on so they can pass the GED before the leave the center. The number of residents vary but can be as high as 25 females and 75 males.
The WORTH program is an alternative to jail and residents are given this opportunity by the probate judges
of the nine participating counties and when space is available, other surrounding counties.
The graduating residents said they see this day as an opportunity to turn their lives around. "It's an opportunity to change and to start over, if you are willing to change. It's a chance to get back on your feet."
Another resident explained, "this gives you a chance that you will not get across the road at the prison."
"Taking the GED is a chance to better yourself. It's a chance to start over. I am glad I've had this opportunity; and I'm glad I took it."
In conclusion, there is life after the WORTH Center--both the residents, the staff, and Judge Ingraham agree that the success of the program rests heavily on the followup, when residents return to the communities.
In addition to the assistance and education they have obtained at the center and the GED, they most of all need a job when they return home.
Judge Ingraham encourages local employers to give these people a chance. "They are a good risk because of this program and the follow-up the court does through the probation department." The judicial system is working on ways to help residents when they return home and to develop
assistance in finding a job as well as a positive lifestyle.
As Sandra Davis said, "They are people, too, who need to be given a second chance."
The Western Ohio Regional Treatment and Habilitation Center was founded 10 years ago by nine surrounding counties to reduce the number of felons committed to state penal institutions and to increase the success of those individuals participating in the program.