Reflections

 

REFLECTIONS—BY Henry D. Ackerman

 

Who remembers the old Greenwood grade school? From what I remember John Geer, Dick Bracy, Nancy Rutherford, Robert Snow,, Bob Cunningham, Dan An­drews,, Mary Lou Jacobs, Dick Lewis & myself went there. A1though they aren’t as clear in my aging memory I think Carol Titlebaum, Gary Snouffer, Fred Smith, Suzie Olewiler, Dick Fields & Joanna Jacobs also went there. I can remember wearing my knickers on the cold days. My 1st grade teacher was Miss Edwards & the 6th grade teacher/Principal was Mrs. Irey who also dealt out all the punishment for those who were naughty & unruly. Every Friday night the janitor would pour oil on the wooden floors & then mop it in. The fire drills & coming down the metal fire escapes. The annual May-Day festival with the girls going in and out with their colorful ribbons around the May-Day pole. The p1ayground was all stones & concrete with the boys on 1 side & the girls on the west side.

 

When I was in the 7th & 8th grades I would mow Miss Edwards’s yard on Cummins Ave with my dad’s old hand mower for 35 cents and she would usually bring me out some of her cookies of her home made lemonade & 2 of her sugar cookies; That 35cents usually was spent at Jimmie Bull’s Market on Elm St. or Reiser Market on Indiana Ave. (between Summiit & Hane) for some jaw breakers,, guess what’s; licorice, base ball bats rootbeer barrels, malted milk balls, etc.

 

  Also remember playing softball, with Tom Polley (moved after 10th grade), Mary Hamor & her brother & Billie Ann Baldauf (HHS ‘49)on a big vacant lot behind Hamor’s on King Ave. Living nearby was Sue Swink, Marilyn Bachman & Judy Reichenstein.

 

I loved getting those milk shakes at Crispin’s (E.Center & Grand), Sabbach’s (S.   Main St between Center & Church) & Shirk’s.. I remember my dad sBtanding in line” at Schulete’s (Main & Center) for cigarettes during the war years & quite often they were “sold out” by the time he reached the counter. It always seemed strange to me how they would have some strange cigarettes from Turkey (Fatimas) or other countries but not a Camel or Old Gold.

 

Can you remember going to the Gra—Y basketball games at the YMCA across from the Ohio Theatre on State St.? My older sister would always take me.

 

Did any of you ever go biking to Indian Mounds (end of Durfee & Brightwood Drives). Those mysterious trails & the deep “sugar bowl” in the middle where only the bravest could go down the hill & make it up the other side without falling off their bikes.

 

 

I remember going fishing with Dick & Ralph Bender out to Kings Mill in Mr. Bender’s Chevy coupe (1936) & riding in the rumble seat, Quite often on a hot day we would take off our clothes & jump in & cool off in the river.

 

  AS we got a little older & during the winter time (you know they never

plowed the streets)we would catch a ride a ride on the back bumpers of the city buses as they made their stops in the evening. It was fun to see how far you could ride. Usually it was till you hit a bars manhole cover or inhaled in enough exhaust fumes that you would get off. My dad never could figure out how I wore out soles more in the winter than summer.

 

In the early 50s I was out by Meeker and stopped by Spangler’s Station. That was where I met my wife but that s another story. They still had 1 gas pump (some customers would ask for regular & some for Ethyl but got the same thing) out front. Also out back was a working outhouse. Inside they had the best assortment of penny candy & an old pop cooler with all sorts of glass bottled pop. In the back of the store was an old coal & wood burning stove & there usually was a couple of Old timers setting around it. Every so often a hobo or vagabond would be traveling down route 3O & stop in and ask Mrs. Spangler for a handout & She would always give him a bologna sand­wich. Her meat counter was an old refrigerator & she could always cut the thinnest bologna by hand of anybody I ever saw.

 

When I went in the service (with Dick & Ralph Bender, Rex Bills (‘52), Bill Maloney (Marion Catholic)& John Schlingof of Kenton I think it was Harry Appiegate’s mother (secretary of draft board) who watched us board that bus to Ft Hayes on that cold morning.

                                                   

Henry D. Ackerman (Hank)

 

 

Let me see---Spring.....cold rain, blowing snow, forsythias bright yellow

buds showing through, tulip trees abloomin', lilac buds getting bigger, and

finally the gentle odor of lilacs on the breeze. Daffodils waving bravely or

flopping over if it gets too cold and they freeze.

 

New clothes--for Easter, or just to celebrate spring time. Baby doll shoes,

full skirts, peasant blouses.

 

A game we nice (?) little girls played and played at Olney was 1. You threw

the ball in the air. 2. you threw it at the house or brick wall of the school

and let it bounce on the sidewalk or pavement once. 3. You threw it at the

wall and clapped once before you caught it. Anyway for 1 you did it once, for

2 you repeated the action twice, and so on. One 5? 6? you had to lift your

leg and throw the ball up and catch it(under and up you know--quit

snickering) I think 7 was throw it against the school wall and clap front and

back and catch the ball. I can't recall all the actions or how high in

numbers we went but I know I got the dickens if I threw the ball against the

house at my Grandma's and got the paint dirty.

 

Little girls also had jump ropes, mostly I turned the rope, had 2 left feet,

and still do.

 

Little girls and big girls watch the boys in the spring time. Mothers of that

far off time opened doors and windows and cleaned houses from top to bottom

or bottom to top. Remember those old rug beaters. I can recall my grandma

using one on some piece of rug or carpet on the clothesline.

 

The house smelled of tri sodium phosphate, which in gram's opinion was the

only decent product to buy to use for washing walls, cupboards, baseboards,

and taking most of the skin off one's hands. She bought it in little bags at

Henney and Cooper drug store downtown.

 

Schools smelled less of smelly feet, and more of fresh air. We chased each

other like idiots on the school playgrounds. Big fat cigarettes fell from

some of the trees, or at least we called the funny looking wormy things

cigarettes.

 

It was time to freeze in light weight jackets and go watch baseball games and

track meets.

 

time to fall in and out of puppy love, maybe once a week. By the time our

Central X-Ray (the school paper) came out it was way behind on the love

affairs of the kids in school. Our claim to notoriety at Central was buying

squirt guns and having them confiscated by W. E. Orcutt.

 

Time stood still, or nearly so. The teachers droned on, and we watched the

clouds out the window and dreamed of what we'd do after school let out. Time

never stands still anymore, and we wander back to those idyllic days.....I

hope they were as great as we recall. sue

 

 

                       SPRING

 

Spring is the time when a young boys fancy turns to?

 

Trying not to step on an earthworm after a fresh spring rain.

 

Breaking off a pussy willow twig to put in a glass and checking daily for

it's roots to sprout.

 

Pleading with mom that it's too warm to wear a coat to school.

 

The first bicycle ride of the new season.

 

On the side walk the rule was-Step on a crack and you will break your

mother's back!

 

Where did I put my ball glove?

 

Climbing a tree to check out a new bird nest for eggs.

 

Wishing that school would be over.

 

(Little boys are extremely complicated creatures.)

 

                                               

 

 

We are children of the Great Depression, born to parents who were the youth of the Roaring Twenties.  Our cirmstances are as vaired as our number, but our memories reflect images of life from common times. Most of our roots are close to a rural life style. We had

Grand Parents or Aunts and Uncles that lived on farms. Many of our Grand Parents or Great Aunts and Uncles were born around the time of the American Civil War.  We knew

Relatives or neighbors who had served in World War One.  It has been our privilege to share the memories of those that we have known that spans a period of possibly over a century and a half.

Having reached a time of life when senior moments find me entering a room forgetting the reason that brought me there the memories of my youth become more vivid. Problems were few and every day the task before me was the exploration of the surroundings of a small and uncomplicated world.

I thought it my be fun for us to share some of these memories from times past, and ask Jack to put them on the web. Since it is minus ten degrees outside winter seems like a

Good subject to start with.

 

WINTER

 

Do any of you remember of school closings or delays due to the weather? City streets were not plowed and the trip to school was a series of runs to slide on the slick spots.

 

In grade school I can only recall a few times we stayed in for recess. We built snow forts

and had a slide in the drive way. We had snow ball battles until someone’s glasses got broke or someone snitched to the teacher.

 

Every snowman had eyes made from lumps of coal and a carrot nose if you could sneak one out.

 

You came in the house so cold you had tears in your eyes—put you mittens on the stove

or register, and when they were dry did it all over again.

 

You had time to pet every dog in the neighborhood and knew him or her by name.

 

You felt compelled to snow ball every cat that was with in range.

 

You broke off every icicles that was in your reach and one was bound to end up in your mouth.

 

Boys and parents could not see how girls could stand to go bare legged.

 

Cream raised the cap up several inches off of round milk bottles.

 

If you will send me some of your reflections we will add them to this list

 

 

                                                                                    Bruce

 

Remember Grand Ave (for those of you from Vernon) when so many guys would hang on the rear bumper of a car to hop a ride on the icy street that the car would slide sideways.

 

The first experience with a frozen door lock on the car and the remedy for it.

 

Hopping cars with our sleds and hang on for dear life.

 

Ice skating on the lake at Lincoln Park. Bud Kneisley frustrated me cause he was the only one who could skate good.

 

Getting bundled up for a snowball fight and then remembering that you had to go to the bathroom. (That still happens today)

 

Takes too long to go down memory lane, Bruce.  Enough for now.  good idea

 

Dan

 

I remember one Thanksgiving parade with air so cold I wondered how the

girls in strapless prom gowns could survive the length of the parade. 

Another winter memory finds yard high mounds of snow down the centers of

the streets so that crossing became an adventure in balancing on top and

leaping down to cross to the other side before the cars came again.

Dec. 8, 1958: Marion temperature -8; I was departing, carrying our seven

week old son, by train for New York on my way to join Mel in Germany.

That cold, dry, sunny morning was the last I saw of Marion until late

August 1961.

Anna

 

 

Dear Bruce,

I remember those times.

"Jack Frost" painted on our window panes at night. I don't know if he came to everyone's house, but mother always insisted you had to have fresh air and raised the window an inch or two when we got tucked in.

 

From a girl's point of view you had to rush outside to get fresh snow to make "snow ice cream" before the coal smoke residue soiled it.

 

While you boys were making snow forts we were making "snow angels" and playing "fox and geese "in the wheel we had made in the snow.

 

And fess up.  Some of the boys who were sweet on you, or disliked you, (I never figured out which) would wash your face with snow and stuff some down the front of your coat when you were walking home.

 

Girls wore "snowsuits" until they were in Junior High. They were two piece, made of wool, and were often decorated with fur.  Then, it was not feminine to wear "pants" so you had to go bare legged in the winter. I remember wearing a pair of slacks under my skirt, planning to take them off and put them in my locker when I got to school.  The principal saw them sticking out from under my coat before I had a chance to take the coat and slacks off and said,"Nancy, I can't believe a nice girl like you would wear slacks to school!" He gave me a withering look and walked on down the hall before I could explain.  After that I always arrived bare legged.

 

I think he must have gone to the same school as my great grandmother Thombs.  Mother gave in and let us have a pair of blue jeans in high school and grandmother Deal called and warned that Grandmother Thombs had come down from Youngstown and was on her was to our housel We had to run upstairs and change into skirts before she got there.  She had let us know that women who wore "men's clothes"  (i.e. slacks) were going straight to Hell.

 

When girls played basketball we had to stop at the center line, we were too delicate to run all the way down the court, so we had to pass to a player on the other side of the midline.

 

There were no girls sports in junior high school, but as I approached 5' 9 I wished to play football. The varsity quarterback was a friend and I had expressed my wish to him, so as I hung around one afternoon after practice, with slacks on, and with the coach watching, I was told I could play tackle. They explained the rules about when you could use your hands and when you couldn't but I professed an inability to remember. So, coach Whitehead watched as I played for a while, ripping the shirt off one player's back.  I guess he didn't want his uniforms ruined because he called me over and told me I couldn't play anymore, without equipment.  But, he softened the blow by saying that he sure wished he had me on his team.

 

We had to help with the War, too. We squeezed the tooth paste tubes to get another tube, took the ends out of cans and flattened them, had paper drives, and went around the neighborhood collecting scrap metal.

And this new generation thinks they invented "recycling."

 

We bought war stamps to paste in our booklets while our parents bought war bonds. We, girls in the Red Cross, collected and bought soap, razors, playing cards, toothbrushes, tooth paste and other things on the list they gave us and put one of each item in the special boxes the Red Cross provided to us, to give to our soldiers. We also cut cartoons out of magazines to paste in photo albums to send to the military hospitals to cheer the wounded. 

 

We had inkwells in our desk with corks in them. We carefully removed the corks to dip our pen in the ink.  The pen, which most people think of as the whole pen was just the metal piece.   The wooden part that held it was the pen holder.  We had to hold the pen in our mouth, between our lips, like wetting a reed to play a clarinet.  That took the oil off the new pen so that it wouldn't "skip" when you wrote all those sets of connected"oooooooo's" or maybe series, "ooo,ooo,ooo,ooo,"

 

When the teacher came in the classroom she said, "Good morning boys and girls."   And we rose and replied, "Good morning, Miss McMahon."

( I dedicated a Marion County History in her memory to the DAR Library in Washington, DC It is inscribed "From the William Hendricks Chapter of the DAR.")

Then we remained standing for the pledge to the flag and a verse of a patriotic song.

Oh, yes. A bible society came in and gave us bibles. JoAnn still has hers and we had religion class once a week.  I remember being asked to read a favorite hymn or religious Psalm. Another time we were given red covered new testaments.

 

That quarterback also ran track and I ran with him for practice, sometimes.  I didn't have anyone to time me, so Dave McWherter drove his car down the street beside me and said I was going 18 miles an hour. I guess I would have had to become a marathon runner because that wouldn't be very fast in a sprint.  That was when I was in Jr. High School. Dave was two classes ahead of me.

 

Well, my mind has wondered off the topic. I remember when the snow was higher than our 39 Chrysler when dad pulled us across Campbell's Road with a bobsled tied to the back of the car. My mittens had green leather on the palms until I got off the bob sled. The green part stuck to the metal rails on the sled. Today they would have arrested him for child endangerment.

Got to get off Jones Computer.

 

Edit away!

 

Nancy Curren Keggan

 

 

 

 

 

Hi Bruce,

 

I enjoyed your reflections which stimulated a whole sequence of childhood

memories for me, not all of them dealing with winter. Here are some of the

things that flashed into my mind as I read your note. Thanks for sharing

and starting my memory glands salivating.

 

I too remember the cream pushing the cap off the top of the milk bottle and

forming an ice plug which stuck up out of the bottle. You had to wait for

it to thaw before you could have milk. I also remember drinking the warm

milk fresh out of the cow on my friends farms.

 

In addition to icicles I remember taking ice from the ice wagon as it

went through the neighborhood and eating it.

 

I recall the beauty of both ice (and snow) on trees, street signs, etc.

when the sun would shine through it or glisten off of it

 

I recall the long hike in the evenings (the days too, but somehow the

evenings held magic) to the park to ice skate. The fires to keep us warm

and the long lines of linked skaters cracking-the-whip.

 

I recall coming in cold and wet and my mother fixing warm chocolate to

speed the warming process and then sitting with us on the couch and reading

a story to my brother and me 'till we were warm and ready to go again.

 

I recall the town's sledding hill (which started only an empty lot away

from my house). The town would close 3 blocks of Chestnut street to

traffic. Two blocks were a fairly steep hill. At the bottom was a block on

the flat at the end of which they would spread coal ashes to keep us from

going into the cross street traffic. From the first good snow onward

Chestnut hill was covered with snow and was a sledding mecca. The game for

us was to run as fast as possible, do a belly slam on our sled, and see if

we could get up enough speed to blast through the ashes at the end of the

run. The winner was the one who went farthest into the grave yard across

the street. I recall one winter I bent a sled runner making a sharp turn to

avoid a car coming down the cross street.

 

Not a winter thing, but I recall playing marbles. (I never see marble games

these days.) We played two games, one in a very large circle. Everyone

anteed marbles into the center but held back an especially favorite one as

a "shooter". On your turn you got to keep as many marbles as you could

knock out of the ring. If you hit a marble you got another shot. The other

game was an obstacle course. We dug little pits and you had to go from pit

to pit with obstacles in the way. First one to the end won all the other

players' marbles.

 

Do you remember playing mumbly peg with your pocket knife?

 

I remember climbing Mount Pleasant (the indians called it  Standing Stone)

which was in the same park as the skating pond. This was an all-year

activity. You could still find the old indian footholds carved into the

rock face and it was fun to climb and explore the caves and walk through

the woods. About once a year someone fell off and occasionally someone was

killed but that didn't stop us.

 

Another year round activity was to sit on my front porch and shoot pigeons

off the roof of the three story school building across the street.

 

I remember chasing the cows away so we could swim in the watering hole in

the creek on my friend's farm.

 

I remember sneaking into the barn and drinking the hard apple cider (an

especially favorite winter activity). In later years I loved mulled cider

on a cold fall or winter day.

 

Across the street from the school was a park where we played the marble

games. We also played a lot of pick-up baseball games there. We played a

combined hide and seek, tag game called kick-the-can and a stick ball game.

You leaned a twig against a tree and with a stick you launched it and then

it was treated like a baseball and you ran bases.

 

My father had put a pool table in our basement and when we were too cold to

play outside we'd move inside and play pool or cards for a while when we

got too old for mom to read to us anymore. Our basement was always full of

school friends because we lived so close to the school.

 

In retrospect, childhood wasn't all that bad was it? It was mostly carefree

fun in spite of school and chores and work.

 

 

 

Bruce,

 

Writing to you started the memories flowing again and I just have to add

one more winter scene to the list.

 

Do you recall building snow forts and having snowball wars? The wars were

as much about the  "enemy" knocking down your fort as it was about anything

else. We tried making an igloo once but weren't successful. I recall we

tired of trying to make snow building blocks by filling boxes with snow.

 

Bob B.

 

 

 

 

Reflections

I remember walking away from Olney Ave school and Bobbie Beaver threw a snow ball and hit me in the back and knocked the wind out of me. Was I scared (mostly because I couldn't talk)

I remember pushing kids in the bushes --the all snowy and prickly bushes at Olney, now the playground is all concrete

We played red rover red rover won't you come over and tried to break each others arms

Bertha Thomas our third grade teacher got mad at the paper cutter one day and said Sh-- real loud and horrified us that a teacher would say such a word

Playing doll house with Miriam Kinney, who had a much grander doll house than mine

Junior high

Bert Myers drug store and standing on his register in the floor to de-numb the toes before walking the rest of the way to Blaine Ave.

Skating (or a semblance thereof) on McKinley Lake

Buddy Kneisley and Ozzie Hill would build a fire under the little bridge thing to get warm. Bud and the other guys were wonderful skaters. I spent more time sitting and falling than skating

Kissing guys after a date on the front sidewalk when your breath blew out in a great cloud, no dilly dallying around

Walking home from the Armory at the corner of Olney and Church St. after a basketball game

Running up and down the bleachers chasing Loren Heiser and John Ruhl when they would grab Joyce and my scarves and literally wipe up the floor with them, also at the Armory

riding with Lee Henninger once on David St. on the ice and we turned completely around (a first and last experience--must have been high school --Peggy thought it was funny)

Going to a dance at the little American legion hall on High St. Can't remember who I was with but I had a new blouse and necktie thingy.

High school, the skirts got longer in our sophomore year 1948-1949 and you could barely walk for you couldn't stretch your legs out very far. May's Jewelry must have sold a ton of little silver footballs that we girls wore on chains.

Going to Club CoEd after the football games, we had marched from Central jr high to the stadium, wore those dumb hats and our hair was a mess long before we got to CoED

The dance at Edison one year that we called one French Night and Sherry Case and Dean Ludwig wore berets

Watching my grandpa curled up by the radio in a wicker rocker listening to Fibber mcGee and Molly or enduring the Saturday night hit parade, he thought Frank Sinatra was awful and would never make it as a singer.

Night time snack was an apple or maybe once in a while we'd cook up some Smith College Fudge or pop corn, remember pop corn before corn poppers came out and you stood and shook the pan around

Enough for now, gotta go read the rest of the stuff I downloaded

Nancy Keggan's reflections sure triggered some memories! Sue

 

 

 

More

Every night my grandma, mom and I walked to the depot to put a letter on the outbound train to my uncle who was in the service. The old rail road wagons made of wood would be sitting there, with freight on them, sometimes containers of chickens. clara Jane Fredericks dad worked there in the freight office.

Used to see a lot of troop trains go through and the ladies would be there to hand out stuff to the arms sticking out of the windows. Sometimes one of the soldiers would wave to me or say something. I was in grade school in those years and shaped like my nick name (Bobbie Beaver again, they called me tank)

We'd stop in Bianchi's and the smells in there of the candy that Carmella made was wonderful. All you could buy in the war years was Baby Ruth bars, all the rest went to the War Effort. Wires were stretched across the store and comic books were hung on them. Once in a while I got a Porky Pig one for 10 cents or a Mickey Mouse comic. Mother would not let me corrupt my mind with Superman or Dick Tracy comics. Gracie Totaro had a grocery store on W. Center right across from where Blaine Ave intersected it. We would go in there and get a loaf or bread or something and Gram would talk about the War with Gracie, she had a son serving in the Navy.