Rick Minerd:

The Haunted House Next Door

2011-10-26T22:44:00.000-07:00

The house next to mine has always intrigued me since the first time I saw it when I was five years old. The year was 1958 and our family was the new one on the block having moved in a few weeks before my sixth birthday in July. At the time there was an old Italian couple who lived in it and it was clear from the beginning that they were not fond of a family with three kids moving in next door to them.

As a matter of fact on our first night in the neighborhood the old woman next door snuck into our yard and stole some potted plants from our back porch that my mother had sat out, and within a few days I had my first scary encounter with the old man, one that would incite my dad to knock on his door and grab him by the collar and promise bodily harm to him if he ever spoke to me or anyone in our family the way he had to me.

What he said to me was that if I ever came into his yard he would throw me into his well and that no one would ever see me again. That well was barely visible beneath a creepy looking arbor heavily covered with grape vines. As the years would pass I would hear stories from other neighbors who believed that well was full of carcasses of neighborhood pets that wandered into his yard.

Aside from that early encounter I can still remember vividly when the huge stone stable that still stands behind that house still had a horse and wagon in it that the old man used to drive up and down the alleys looking for anything he thought was of value that he could either use himself or perhaps sell. One story told by a neighbor who lived behind us both was that sometime in the 1930s that horse raised up on its hind legs and kicked his little girl in the head and left her comatose for several weeks The rest of that story ended in a bloody fist fight between the two men.

In 1961 the old man died and his wife was taken away to live somewhere else and the house was sold twice before 1965. That year it was purchased by a woman who would pretty much keep to herself but who was not necessarily unfriendly. By the early 1970s I had gotten married and moved away but in 1997, following the passing of my parents I returned home and bought the house I grew up in.

And in all of that time the lady next door never married and her personality hadn't changed much. She still kept to herself most of the time but all-in-all I was happy she still lived there because most of the other neighbors who surrounded us in those early years had either passed on or moved away. I will admit that there was some comfort in knowing there was still a familiar being on my block. As a matter of fact she was only one of two still within sight or even walking distance of the people who were here in the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s.

Because of that I began mowing her lawn each time I mowed my own. I wanted to be a good neighbor and I also wanted to finally get a peek under that iron lid that covered the well in her backyard to satisfy a decades long curiosity. When I told her my reasons why and of the stories I had heard through the years she told me that if I lifted the lid I wouldn't see anything besides a bunch of bricks and busted up shards of concrete and rocks. She went on to explain that the privious owners filled it up with them.

She was right. When I opened it I was disappointed but no less curious.

As the years ticked away I began to notice that she was becoming less and less friendly. I never knew why but it was okay, I still felt good that a connection to my own past was still residing in the house that had a strange complex about it to me for so many years. One that every time I look at it even to this day seems to hold some sort of mystery as if maybe something tragic had happened in it long ago, or maybe just something very sad.

It wasn't until late September of 2011 that I decided to search the records of the Franklin County Auditor's office in hopes of learning something about the house and those who lived in it since it was built sometime in the late 1800s. What I discovered was that the old man who had threatened to throw me in a well more than fifty years ago bought it from a man named Silvio Paini whose death record showed him as an artist.

As I began researching Mr. Paini I learned that he was an immigrant who had come to this country in 1869 from Austria. He and his pregnant wife Terista and their one and a half year old son Amerigo landed at Ellis Island in August of that year. The auditor's records did not state the year that Paini bought the house next door to me but it did record the transaction to sell it to Francesco Longo in 1921. Longo was the old man whose well I had feared as a child.

Through my research I found out that Silvio was a painter who used to roam the neighborhood selling his paintings and that he would be spotted often in nearby Schiller Park sketching landscapes and then bringing them home where they would be turned into beautiful art works that he created in a second story art studio that he had built on the back of his house.

This was information that I now wish I had bothered to learn years ago. That studio, built over the kitchen of the home was something that always attracted my attention anytime I was in my own backyard. Of course until recently I never knew what it was but I did often find myself looking up at it and remembering when the aluminum siding wasn't there and when there were more windows that wrapped around all three sides of it.

I guess we all suspected that it was just a sun porch or maybe an extra bedroom. But according to the other neighbor, a woman in her eighties whose family has lived in her house since the turn of the century, it was where Silvio Paini would sit at an easel and create beautiful art. To me that meant that one hundred years ago he would be up there and he would have a spectacular view of my entire backyard. He would have seen the people who lived in my house that was built in 1907 as they went about their business and he may have even painted a picture of what he saw below.

His children, when they were small may have played with the kids who lived in my house. I found all of these possibilities especially interesting as I began to learn more about the Paini's. His death certificate and other documents I found show that he is buried in Greenlawn Cemetery here on the south side, as is at least one of his children who died young. And as I learned these things I began to wonder if any of this might be the reason I have many times felt like someone was watching me anytime I was in my yard. I'll get to that in a moment.

Having never been one to hold much stock in ghost stories I will admit there were times I believed someone in that room was "spying" on me because I have seen the curtains move as if someone was many times. Until recently I just figured most of the time that it was my neighbor who lived alone all of these years watching me for whatever her reasons might have been. But there were times when I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me because I can swear I have seen the curtains move in the dead of winters when she was not home.

You see, every year she leaves Columbus around the holidays and goes to her other home in Florida and doesn't return until the spring. On those occasions when I thought I saw the curtains move I allowed for the possibility of it being a draft coming in through a crack or a seam and I never really dwelled on any other possibilities. The whole ghost scenario never entered my mind but a few times I did find myself wondering if there might be a burglar up there. To my knowledge the house has never been burglarized.

In the photo that accompanies this story a light can be seen in the window adjacent to Paini's long ago art studio. Anytime my neighbor is gone she leaves that light on, I suspect to make it appear that someone is home, especially during the winter months when no one is there or should be there. I am used to seeing it and have never really thought much about it until tonight. I went into the yard for the sole purpose of photographing it for another story I was working on and for a moment the light went out and then came back on.

Over the years I wouldn't normally give that much thought but I know the woman isn't there. She left about two weeks ago. Not to go to Florida but to a hospital for a routine medical procedure that went very wrong and she died unexpectedly the following day. Before leaving for what would be the last time she turned on that light as she always has and it has been burning continuously since. That is until about an hour and a half ago when it flickered.

The last old neighbor still on the block now (besides me) told me recently that it is believed both of Paini's children died in that house but she never knew why. She also said that she remembered being told when she was very young that the Paini children died within a year of one another and it was upon the death of the second child that Paini sold the house. That led to years of speculation buy some in the neighborhood that it was indeed haunted. I have no reason to doubt what she told me and I am not suggesting that I believe the house is haunted and I am hesitant to say that when the light went off and came on again I felt something. But I did.

Maybe it was just a sense of sadness that my neighbor who I have been so used to seeing come and go from there for so long is gone forever. Perhaps it is in the irony that she died a few weeks after I began researching the history of her home or maybe it was only the chill of the damp night air and its accompanying breeze. Or maybe my eyes were merely playing more tricks. But maybe there is another explanation.

What I am sure of is that the light that she turned on is still on even if it appeared not to be for a moment. It will be sad when someone does turn it off. And if it goes out again before someone does I will have to believe the bulb has finally burned out. I think I will believe that.

Social Networking, and staying disconnected.

2011-10-26T10:45:00.000-07:00

I am not sure why I thought I needed a  "facebook"  page or even a couple of them, but I have them. And like hundreds of millions of others I sign on to at least two of them every day. I am still not sure why I do this because at the end of each day nothing of any importance has really been accomplished.

However I defend this activity by telling others that I find it a convenient method of keeping my finger on the pulse of what others are thinking and to stay in touch with people I would otherwise have no reason to. Like some I knew in past eras of my life such as high school and various workplaces throughout my careers.

But the reality is that most of those are people I really don't care about. I care about a few of them but my list of so-called facebook friends numbers in the thousands. Most of them I have never known and will never talk to verbally or see in the flesh. And most of them are people I have little to nothing at all in common with.

I am reminded of those facts anytime I read what so may of them are willing to post, often eager to share with a world I suspect is just like me in that no one really cares what they think or how they feel, what their mood is or even that they have a facebook page. In the beginning I joined the network for self serving purposes. That is, to sell myself to people who might be interested in reading the things I write. Not so much the silly facebook comments but things like my various blogs and the books I have published.

If that sounds selfish or narcissistic I would remind the readers of this post who have facebook pages of their own that we are all alike in that sense. Like other artists, be they actors, musicians, sculptors or painters who have something to sell or just want to announce to the world their latest accomplishments, I began my own facebook  journey for the purpose of hawking what I do.

That is not totally unlike very attractive people, especially very good looking women who never seem to run out of pictures of themselves in various poses or in circumstances they believe others will drool over. The network is heavily populated by people who refuse to go through life unnoticed. Almost as if it is a very basic necessity to capitalize on their appearance, their accomplishments or their talents, especially if they regard themselves as being a little more special than most others.

Among my many friends are cops, firefighters, military personnel and the the worst of the worst....politicians. Those running for political office or just campaigning daily to show everyone how devoted they are to their office, they are the ones who probably gain the most from their time spent on facebook, and who can blame them? It is a tremendous venue to talk about themselves and it is free.

However, even though my own workload throughout my lifetime has kept me in similar circles with those I have mentioned so far they are not the people that I find interesting. I purposely go out of my way to avoid as many of them as possible and rarely do I ever comment on someone's page besides my own. I learned a long time ago that no matter how many times you satisfy their urge to be complimented or patted on the back, very few of them reciprocate or even show any signs that they appreciate your efforts to stroke their egos.

It is as if many of them expect to be told how wonderful they are. And when it comes to such expectations I am not completely selfish, I mean I will throw them a treat every now and then if only to let them know that I understood what they hoped to receive. I won't go overboard to a level where it would appear that I am sucking up to them or even close enough to any point where they might think I am enamored by them or envious of who they are or what they do. In this regard I find that Television personalities seem to be the hungriest of the lot. Most of them are constantly trolling for approval and reassurances that they are special.

The politicians only want your vote while some of the cops and firefighters need to hear how appreciative others are of their services. On the subject of public safety forces I feel qualified to point out what I regard as the boring ones who wear uniforms to work every day. I am talking about those who constantly post photos and comments about how dangerous their job is, and even worse, those who cannot stop talking about their skills and qualifications to do what they are not only paid to do but what they chose to do for a living. Humble and unselfish as it may be.

Some of them talk only about their jobs and some only talk to others in their line of work. Fraternities and brotherhood is fine and I believe in the sanctity and merits of both, but 24/7? I need more than one stream chains of communication. Having been a cop for a number of years myself I am well past that time when all I wanted out of life was the job. I reached a point somewhere along the way when telling war stories about work became mundane and mostly uninteresting.

So these are not the people I hope to exchange verbiage with on a daily basis, no more so than with women who are on the prowl to meet men regardless of what they look like, be they former friends or old classmates or just some who are only on facebook trolling for new adventures.

No, the ones I find most interesting are the few who are not selling something, those who are not bragging about what they have or where they have been and especially those whose only purpose to even be on facebook is stay connected somehow to an environment they might otherwise not have access to.

I can be quick to let them know that I see them and that regardless of how insignificant their facebook involvement might seem to others I recognize their need to be heard or only noticed. I will always be more generous with my comments to these people than I will be to those who have come to expect all of the accolades they receive constantly.

With all of this said, and after nearly four years of "facebooking"  there really is no valid reason for me to even log on. But I do log on every day. Not because I expect to learn anything I don't already know, or even to see anything I haven't already seen day after day. I know that when I begin to peruse the shares of others I will see no shortage of other people's family photos that really mean nothing to me, I will learn about the aches and pains of total strangers and I will see the same people who cannot make it through the day without asking for or offering prayers. I will even find out what people ate or what they plan to eat and I will see the same folks who are in a constant state of lonliness and those who are just plain mad about something....every day!

Just as there is a lot of love or people who want you to believe they love every thing and every one, there are a lot of angry people on facebook. Those who have drawn imaginary lines in the political sand. The ones who are eager to strike up any kind of confrontation with anyone who doesn't share their political opinions...those who know what is best for everyone else. These are the people I refuse to banter with at all.

Like all of the "experts" who know every thing about every thing and the "philosophers" who have insatiable appetites to post all of those poems or quotes normally found on coffee cups and tapestries. And of course, the community of "comedians" who have never been paid to be be funny or who have never drawn their own cartoons but who have many examples of someone else's work to share as well as an endless repertoire of jokes to post.

If I didn't ignore these people I might just lose my mind. For every time I see opinions that clash with my own, or try to read something someone else thinks is humorous but isn't to me, or when someone shares their emotional feelings, be they good ones or bad ones, my head hurts.

So at the end of this story there is no valid reason for me to be on facebook at all, except to... as I stated earlier, keep my finger on the pulse of the world out there. The one I never bother to explore otherwise because I have no burning desire to. Thus the photo I have shared here; one that is not photo shopped or otherwise enhanced, nor one that would suggest that I am anyone I am not. I didn't dress up for it and I have no urgency for approval from anyone. Just a picture that closely resembles what the mirror sees when I stand before it.

I was just wondering...

2011-08-02T17:32:00.000-07:00

Did you ever build a scooter using discarded wood and old roller skates? A few things come to mind as the weather becomes warmer and the sun makes more frequent appearances. With winter going away and thoughts of ushering in springtime capturing my imagination I am again reflecting on how much more I used to anticipate the changing seasons.

As an aging man who regards the best of my life behind me now I have to revisit those times a little more often to insure they never completely fade from memory. So, much of my writing not only serves as documentation of what I think was a pretty good life I hope that it stands as a testament to that fact. Have you ever walked through alleys looking for discarded pop bottles to carry to a store and redeem them for extra spending money as a kid?

There was a time I not only did that as a mission but during that era of my own youth I rarely left an empty bottle on the ground. Even if I were busy playing with my friends or just riding my bicycle. So precious and valuable then I would go as far as to hide one that I may have found to retrieve it later, and I am sure I probably picked up a few and carried them to the store for the two cents they were worth even if that meant interrupting something else I was doing at the time.

And speaking of simple transportation, have you ever folded a piece of cardboard and attached it to your bike so it would rub the spokes and make sounds like a motor, or placed a balloon there to make it sound like a more powerful one? Have you ever decorated bicycle spokes with bottle caps? Ever ride a bike that had streamers in the handle grips or rear view mirrors or a bell to warn others that you were coming?

Did your bicycle ever have a metal basket on the handlebars or a pair of them straddling the rear wheel? What about a chrome headlight shaped like a rocket or a horn that sounded off-key when the batteries were going bad?

Have you ever ridden a bicycle through deep snow or on an icy road without worrying about having it slip out from beneath you and breaking a bone in the process, or on dry pavement and going as fast as you can and slamming on the breaks to lay rubber? Were you ever able to leave rubber from the rear tire on the ground by pedaling real hard going forward? Ever put decals or paint your name on your bike?

Have you ever painted a bike with a brush and if you did, did it look ridiculous? Have you ever tied a transistor radio to the handle bars? And before you learned to ride a bike did you ever ride a wagon by sitting in it on one knee while scooting your foot across the pavement of a sidewalk? Have you ever thought you could make it further than you did while hopping on a po-go stick or while walking on stilts? Have you ever had a pair of stilts that you or your father didn't make?

Have you ever had to end a game of bad-minton because the birdie went into a cranky neighbor's yard and you were afraid to ask them to return it, or stopped playing whiffle ball because the ball landed in a gutter on a roof? Ever tried to walk to school without stepping on a crack?

Ever heard the phrase "step on a crack...break your mother's back?" Have you ever worried that you would have a bad day or something horrible would happen if you walked under a ladder or stood under an umbrella when it wasn't raining? Did you ever wear a yellow raincoat that came with a matching hat or rubber boots with metal buckles? Ever purposely step in water puddles because you knew your shoes wouldn't get wet because you were wearing boots? Were you ever disappointed when the boot didn't do its job?

Have you ever wondered why the area in a classroom where you hung your coat and parked your boots was called a cloak room? Was there a time when you didn't know what the word cloak meant and never really pondered it? Did you ever think of the principal's office as a scary place? Did the inside of a school ever smell like crayons or modeling clay to you?

Have you ever felt special because the teacher asked you to erase a blackboard or did you ever get a face full of chalk by banging two erasers together? Did you ever feel like the school day was almost over the moment you smelled food cooking in a cafeteria?

Have you ever carried your lunch to school in a brown paper bag that had your name written on it in pencil?

Was part of that lunch ever a sandwich wrapped in wax paper? Did your mother ever give you a nickel for milk money and tell you not to lose it? Have you ever sat in a class room and stared a clock, especially before lunch time or near the end of the day? Or did you ever need to look at the alphabet above a blackboard because you forgot how to make a letter?

Did you ever feel silly or excited the night before Valentine’s Day because you had to print the names of all of your classmates on little greeting cards? Did you save the best ones for the kids you liked best and did it ever look odd to you or did you ever cringe when you had write someone’s name on one that you didn’t like at all? Ever feel like a mailman when you walked around the classroom and dropped them into little bags taped to the front of everyone’s desk?

Have you ever taken gum out of your mouth and stuck it beneath your seat or under a desk top? Have you ever written your name on a desk or the name of someone you had a crush on? Ever draw a heart around it with an arrow going through it? Have you ever drawn a mustache or blacked out someone’s teeth on a picture in a yearbook or class picture?

Has a teacher ever caught you doodling on a piece of paper or has one ever made you stand in a corner for some other insurrection? Did you ever feel like the entire class was staring at your back and laughing the whole time you stood there, even if you had to stand there for an hour or more?

Have you ever panicked while sitting in class because you had gas and had to struggle to hold it in? And speaking of anxious moments, was getting naked in front of classmates and taking showers together after gym class ever something you dreaded? Did you ever worry that the gym teacher would see you that way and think less of you, and if you did, did you ever keep a towel wrapped around you until the very last moment before stepping into the shower?

Have you ever played games at school called kick-ball, tether-ball or four square? Have you ever taken a plastic gun to school to share with the class or to aim at your classmates while playing army during recess?

Have you ever lied to your mother about being sick just to get out of going to school? Have you ever wished you could go to school instead of keeping a dentist appointment? Was a doctor ever someone who made regular visits to your home? Have you ever left your mark using something as harmless as a piece of chalk on the side of someone else's property? Today vandals use spray paint to that but in bygone years there was a sense of really getting away with something and in some cases even accomplishment to make your mark even though it could be removed with a water hose.

And speaking of water hoses...have you ever shared one with a friend on a hot day to quench a thirst? And if you did, did you worry about getting something called cooties if your mouth touched the end of the hose? Sort of like allowing a friend or a sibling to take a swig from your bottle of pop, if you did that did you wipe it off thoroughly before you took another drink?

Maybe going as far as to using your shirt tail to scrub it clean? Or maybe you asked for a drink from someone else's bottle and were offended when they did exactly what you would have done if it were the other way around?

The warmer weather has me thinking about pulling my bicycle out of the garage and taking a long ride around the neighborhood to again reflect on a time when doing that was how I got to every destination I wanted to be. Not just places I needed to go, but where I wanted to. Have you ever tried to ride a bike as far as you could go on just one wheel? And if you could do "wheelies " was there more of a sense of accomplishment if there were others watching you do it?

And speaking of such exhibitionism have you ever played basketball by yourself using someone else's rim without permission to do it? Like one nailed to some one's garage behind their house? And if you did that were you hoping someone saw you when you made a great shot? Were you a little embarrassed each time you missed, or did you hope that no one saw that one?

Regardless, did you usually win all of your games? Were some of those games ever played inside of your house using your mom's clothes hamper as a rim? Looking out at the ravages left behind from what has been a brutal winter I am not eager to tackle the yard work that needs done to transform my property from one of ugliness to something that shows that I care about what the neighbors might think.

In all honesty I don't care but I happen to be someone that feels a sense of pride when my yard looks good.

I do it for me, but have you ever mowed a lawn using a mower that had no motor? In recent years I would curse out loud if my mower ran out of gas before I finished the job but in the days when I had more energy than I could possibly burn up in a day I would walk the neighborhoods hiring myself out to make other lawns look great for about a dollar a yard using what was called a push mower. No cords to yank to get them started, no spark plugs to clean off or replace and best of all no gas can. And with the price of gasoline now soaring by the day... no grumbling that I would have to mow three yards just to buy a gallon of it if I were to charge that same dollar. With jobs as scarce as they are now I am thinking about it.

But speaking of that, have you ever raked a neighbors leaves for that same amount? And speaking of piles of leaves, have you ever burned them and if you did, did you savor the aroma that surrounded you? If you smell burning leaves now does it take you back to that time? Burning leaves was something that was very common around my neighborhood when I was a kid. I think everyone on my block did that and not just leaves...have you ever burned trash in a fifty gallon drum?

Was there ever a time in your life when taking out the trash would become an adventure? For me it was. Separating anything that would burn from everything that wouldn't and igniting it in a big can while imagining I was watching buildings on fire instead of milk cartons.

And speaking of such juvenile pyromania, have you ever placed firecrackers in a plastic model car and blown it up? Using the funds I would earn from my neighbors when I was small I would buy model car kits from a drug store called Sloan's Drugs a few blocks from my home for around a buck and a half and then spend hours lying across my bed gluing it all together, then painting it and eventually destroying it.

Have you ever poured lighter fluid on something and then lighting it just to watch it burn? Did lighter fluid ever smell good to you? What about pipe tobacco? Have you ever enjoyed being in the presence of someone when they lit there pipe to smoke it? My dad's favorite brand "Cherry Blend" comes to mind here. Have you ever called a store and asked if they had Prince Albert in a can? Do remember what you said to them if they did?

Did you ever buy a pack of cigarettes when you weren’t old enough that required nothing more than about thirty cents and a note from your father as an i.d.?

Of course that was in the days when lighting up indoors wasn't a criminal offense or when it wasn't regarded as child endangering if the kids were in the room. On the tobacco topic...have you ever asked an adult to save a cigar box for you? Or if you weren't shy about such things have you ever asked a store clerk behind a counter if he or she had any empty ones?

I don't remember exactly what I used them for but I seem to recall owning several empty cigar boxes as a kid. It would seem that I might have had a fascination for things that were either flammable or caused flames when I was a kid does it not? I don't think that was the case, I think that I was just a kid in a time when doing some of the things I did wasn't always a cause for alarm or worries of how I might grow up.

But that reminds me, have you ever tried to burn something with a magnifying glass? Ever focused one on your own hand to see how long you could stand it? Ever tried to burn a bug with one?

Speaking of making fire, have you ever wasted a book of matches by lighting them all at once without pulling them from their cover? Do you remember when a book of matches cost around a penny or when individual pieces of candy did? Have you ever stood in front of a glass case and pointed to pieces of candy and said “I'll take a penny's worth of those?"

Have you ever picked up a penny off the ground and thought that someone else's misfortune was a windfall for you? Did anyone ever tell you that placing a penny in your shoe would bring you luck? Have you ever seen one on the ground and not picked it up because you were afraid someone would see you do it?

I’m starting to sound like Andy Rooney! But have you ever gotten a dime for going to the store for your mother? Did she ever remind you..."don't forget my stamps?" Do you remember watching her lick trading stamps to place them into stamp books or perusing a catalogue to decide what you would get with those books if they were yours do what you wanted? Ever get a dime for a grade in school, I mean in addition to your regular allowance? Was your allowance ever withheld as part of a punishment for something you shouldn't have done?

Was missing your favorite television programs ever because there was only one television in the house? Was there ever a time when you pretended to hate the programs your parents watched but watched them anyway because you really did like them? Have you ever laid in front of a TV on your side with your head cradled in the palm of your hand while balancing yourself with your elbow resting on the floor? Have you ever wanted to stay up later to watch something only to have your mother remind you that it was a school night?

Do you remember when everything you watched was in black and white and there were just three channels and all of them signed off around midnight? Have you ever turned on a television in the morning and saw a test pattern instead of people? Have you ever put powdered Cool-Aid on your tongue and wondered why it tasted bitter? Ever eat a spoonful of instant chocolate and then looked at your tongue? What about Hershey's Cocoa? Ever done that and rinsed your mouth with water?

Do you remember when you needed a can opener to open pop cans or remember when they were made of metal that the average person couldn't squash with their hands? Do you remember when milk only came in glass bottles or paper cartons?

Have you ever heard the rattling of milk bottles early in the morning outside your window and looked out to see a man carrying them in metal baskets or watched him climb back into a truck that he drove while standing up? When you see or hear the words Battle Creek Michigan do you instantly think of cereal?

Have you ever cut off box tops and put them in an envelope to send away for a toy? Were you ever excited when the mailman brought it...only to be disappointed when you saw what it was? Have you ever been disappointed with the surprise that came in a box of Cracker Jacks?

Do you remember an animated kid with big ears shoving a giant spoon into his mouth after saying "I want my Maypo!" Can you finish this jingle..."You'll wonder where the yellow went when you brush..."? Or this theme song from a super hero..."Here I come to save the..."?

Did you ever think that a couple of guys named Spin and Marty reminded you of someone you knew who was older than you? Do you even know who they were? Have you ever named a dog after one you watched on television...I mean besides Lassie? Have you ever pretended to be someone from a television show by dressing like them or acting like them on a playground or in your backyard?

Have you ever hosted a tea-party without serving tea or fed a doll baby with empty baby bottles? If your play-time required the use of weapons did you ever have a bean shooter in your arsenal?

Have you ever shot your own tonsils with a squirt gun? Have you ever destroyed glass bottles and jars with a BB gun or by just throwing rocks at them? Have you ever been yelled at for not putting your dad’s tools back where you found them or for getting in to your mother’s make-up case? Ever refused to let someone use your comb because you feared they would leave cooties in it?

Have you ever stood on a sidewalk and watched televisions left on in an appliance store?

Have you ever gotten on a bus and watched nickels and dimes drop into a glass box and wished you had a key for the box? Ever heard a bus driver call out the name of a street and know what he was going to say before he said it? Remember when they were all men and they wore hats? Do you remember when the mail man wore a uniform and his hat looked like a policeman's? Do you remember when the cops on the street or in police cars were all men?

With the warmer weather fast approaching I am also reminded of bugs. Have you ever tried to catch honey bees or flies with your hands or placed lightening bugs in a jar to make a lantern only to be disappointed that they didn’t put out enough light to see anything but them? Ever been afraid to get too close to a praying mantis? Have you ever lost a piece of candy and found it the next day covered with ants?

Have you ever felt victorious about swatting a fly with a fly swatter or slapping a mosquito on your arm but felt terrible if you accidentally killed a lady bug or a butterfly? Has your mother ever told you not to scratch a mosquito bite because it would get infected? Have you ever sprayed your lawn before dusk so you could catch night-crawlers when it got dark? Ever seen two of them seemingly glued together and covered in slime and decided to leave them alone and look for another one?

Has someone ever taken you fishing at night but instead of watching a fishing pole hoping to catch a fish you spent the night collecting wood for a campfire and then stoking it all night? Did a bologna sandwich or a can of soup ever taste better along a riverbank than it did at a dinner table?

Have you ever stared at the sky and looked for clouds that reminded you of someone or maybe a favorite pet? Have you ever looked at a wooden fence and seen the natural formation of a dog or a cat? Have you ever walked across the top of a chain link fence pretending it was part of your high wire act? Ever dig a hole for no earthly reason or one to replant a dead flower?

I think about things like that when I ponder the yard work ahead of me. I am reminded of the years when playing with dirt meant sliding my hands on it to making dirt roads for my toy cars or to draw lines to play marbles. Have you ever done that? Have you ever thought that kids who stay indoors playing video games year-round are missing all of the wonders that await outside?

When it is raining outside and you are stuck inside have you ever thought about how you used to occupy your time on such days? Was a doll house or little plastic soldiers ever necessary to fill up a few hours? Did you spend time on those days coloring in a book or playing with an electric train? And if you did that have you ever placed toy cars on the tracks so the train would crash into them or read comic books you’ve already read?

Have you ever lain in bed at night with a flashlight and read a comic book? If you shared a bedroom with a brother or sister did your parents ever shout at you late at night and tell you to knock it off and go to sleep if you were talking too loud? And if they did, did you continue to carry on a conversation in whispers?

Have you ever lived in a home with just one bathroom? Did you ever have to ask your parents to order a brother or sister to hurry up and get out of it because you couldn’t hold yourself any longer?

Have you ever turned on a faucet in a bathroom hoping it would drown out whatever you were doing in there?

Have you ever wished you were older? How about now? Probably not if you answered yes to most of the questions I have asked you so far. However, was there ever a time before you were ten that you wished you were younger than you were? How about on the first day of a new school year, did you ever wish you were too young to have to go at all?

Reflecting on the past is what I do best, or at least it would seem that way sometimes. I do enjoy remembering things from my own youth and sharing what I think I remember. But sometimes it takes something someone might say or even a certain aroma to bring back a memory. Has that ever happened to you? Has the smell of a pesticide or some other foul odor caused you to reflect on something that happened long ago?

For instance, have you ever followed behind a vehicle that fogged for mosquitoes in the summertime? Like riding a bicycle in a thick cloud of white smoke pouring out of the back of it and making it nearly impossible to see where you were going? Do you ever think of some of the things that you did that were dangerous back then, or things that because they were have long since been outlawed. I have already touched on smoking tobacco but to revisit that subject have you ever sat next to someone at a dinner table who was smoking while you were eating?

Have you ever lit a cigarette in a hospital or inside of a courthouse? Ever seen someone else do that? What about in the waiting room of a doctor’s office? Did you know that smoking in a teacher’s lounge during school hours was once a common practice? I can recall seeing signs on the walls of hospital rooms that warned against smoking only if oxygen was in use.

Did you ever purchase a bottle of beer in a bar and then drink it without violating any laws when you were still a teenager? Did you ever fear getting paddled in school by a teacher? Do you remember medicine bottles that didn’t have safety caps or food containers that didn’t have nutritional charts or the ingredients printed on labels?

Remember when they couldn’t say any four letter word on television and when none could be used in songs we heard on the radio? Remember when most radio stations played music and none of them carried talk-shows? Do you remember when most radios were only AM?

Have you ever made a trip to a store to purchase just one song on a 45 rpm record? Ever sit down at a lunch counter inside of a small drug store or have something delivered to your home from a neighborhood carry-out store? Have you ever visited a store that was called a Five and Dime Store?

Have you ever had your shoes resoled in a repair shop or had a repair man come to your home to fix your television set? Ever accompany your dad to a store to test television tubes? Have you ever held a flashlight for your dad while he tinkered in the back of a television set?

Ever had a knock at the door and heard a man shout, “gas man!” Or had one delivering baked goods?

Have you ever seen a street sweeper on your street before dawn? Have you ever paid seven cents for a newspaper or a nickel for a candy bar? Have you ever gotten change from a dollar after you paid for a meal? Ever leave a dime on a table as a tip?

Have you ever seen a commercial on television or heard one on the radio advertising cigarettes or cigars? Do you know what beverage was called the “Champaign of bottled beer?” Have you ever tried to light your way using something called a carbide light?

Have you ever seen a commercial for something called “Geritol?” Do you know what that was? Have you ever drunk 3-V Cola? Ever filled your gas tank with Sun Crest or Pure Oil Gasoline? What about Humble or Sohio gas? Have you ever bought a gallon of gas for less than thirty cents?

Have you ever washed your face with "Lava" soap, and if you did, did it feel eerie? Ever carve something out of a bar of Ivory Soap? Do you remember a time when shampoo bottles were mostly made of glass? Remember how amazing it seemed at the time when a plastic bottle of "Prell Shampoo" was shown falling on the floor and it didn't break? Do you remember soap on a rope or who coined the phrase "rope a dope?" Ever get drinking glasses out of a box of laundry detergent? What about bath towels?

Do you know who Chet Huntley, David Brinkley and Howard K Smith were? Do you remember a game show called Concentration? What about one called Beat the Clock or how about a man named Bill Cullen? Do you know who he was? What about something called Midwestern Hayride? Have you ever had to adjust rabbit ears on a television? Do you know what they are?

Do you know what products were called Herbert Tarreyton and Sir Walter Raliegh? Their names were on products that had something in common with something called Bel Air, Lark and Chesterfield. Have you ever rolled a package of "Luckies" up in a t-shirt sleeve? Do you know what LSMFT meant? Ever splash on a little Jade East? Do names like Durward Kirby and Clem Kadiddlehopper sound familiar to you? Have you ever ate something advertised as "two all beef patties special sauce lettuce cheese pickles onions on a sesame seed bun?" Do you remember what business had a jingle that sang "You deserve a break today?"

Think fast! Have you ever seen a television series about a car that talked? Did your mother ever remind you of a TV mom? Have you ever felt sorry for Clarence Rutherford? Probably not, but more to the point do you know who he was? Have you ever wished that Lucas McCain was your dad? Have you ever had a crush on a TV star who was about your age before you were twelve years old? Do you know who the TV character Linda Williams was? Hint-Her father played a nightclub singer. Do you remember Uncle Tonoose? What about Uncle Charlie, Uncle Miltie or the Man from Uncle?

Ever tossed salt over your left shoulder to ward off bad luck? Ever said one, potato, two potato, three potato four? Do you remember why you said it? Have you ever heard of Boston Blackie or Joe Friday? Do you know what they had in common? Can you finish this jingle..."Wherever wheels are rolling, no matter what the load, the name that's known is....?" Or this one... "What walks down stairs, alone or in pairs, and makes a slinkity sound? A spring, a spring, a marvelous thing! Everyone knows it's ...?"

Have you ever snuck into a drive-in movie theatre in the trunk of a car? Just asking.

Have you ever built a house out of Lincoln Logs or played with Colorforms? Have you ever balanced a gyroscope on your fingertips or played Tiddlywinks? Do you remember when Mr. Potato Head sets were meant to be used with real potatoes? Have you ever loaned your sweater to a girl at school on a Friday or asked a boy if you could wear his? Ever wrap angora around a ring so it would fit your finger? Ever used a Band-Aid or a piece of tape to make one fit snugly? Have you ever worn a shirt with a Neru collar? What about a polka dotted one with a wide belt and tight jeans? Have you ever worn a Maltese Cross necklace? How about checkered dress pants? Ever worn a dickie?

Did you ever stick pennies in slots on a penny loafer? Ever pitch pennies? Do you remember Sky King? Do you remember his daughter's name?

Zach Scott, Franklin County Sheriff

2011-07-24T08:18:00.000-07:00

On July 11, 2011, I stood in the auditorium of the Franklin County Court House watching an old friend taking the oath to become the 52nd Sheriff of Franklin County. As I stood and listened to a few brief speeches that followed the pomp and circumstance of an entry by the sheriff's honor guard and a salute by the fife and drum brigade I was witnessing an historic day that I knew I some day would. I knew this several years ago actually, and now the moments that would make Zach Scott the top law enforcement officer in the county was here.

Before the gallery and dignitaries filed into the room where Sheriff Scott would stand in perhaps his proudest moment as a cop I had been mingling and being reacquainted with a number of old friends and a few former foes that I had worked with or just been near to during my own tenure as a deputy sheriff. I was as happy to see some of them as I was bewildered about the attendance of others. Some who had shown up to witness the official changing of the guard were people I was sure were only there just to be seen. It is like that sometimes.
It was as easy for me to pick out those who were as satisfied as I was that the right man had been chosen for the job as it was to recognize those with self-serving motives, or those who only came out of their own curiosity or on the behalf of someone else. One thing I have always believed I was good at is reading the faces of others.

Spotting a phony smile or chuckle is an easy craft to hone for anyone who has worked in political circles as long as I have. (More than 25 years.) And make no mistake about it... the sheriff's position may be the highest profile position of all elective offices on a local level because it it is often the most visible and often not without controversy. Sheriff Scott knew this long before this day and especially when it was first announced in the news media that he would succeed his former boss Sheriff Jim Karnes who had passed away just a few weeks previously.

Persons with old axes to grind came out of the dark crevices of anonymity to express outrage of Zach's selection to become the new sheriff. Responses to a story published in the Columbus Dispatch were filled with hatred and laced with pathetic insults aimed at him, his family, his supporters and even dead sheriff's personnel who had nothing to do with his appointment. Old wounds were opened and picked at like scabs and unfair phony accusations and comparisons to former controversial Franklin County Sheriff earl O. Smith and his closet supporters were being written by one or two disgruntled people who didn't have the spirit of conviction to sign their real names to their vitriolic opinions.

These one or two letter writers wrote several op-ed pieces and used different pen names on each one to make it appear as though droves of other people were writing them. It wasn't difficult to realise that it was the same person in most instances because the same tired old complaints were only reworded with the same mispelled words.

And on this day I suspected that one or more of these people were on hand to witness what I know will be a long and successful run for our new sheriff. I know this because I know this lawman. He and I graduated together from the sheriff's training academy as new officers before two and a half decades got us to this moment, and all through those years we have stayed in touch as friends and have worked in harmony for the same goals.

The obvious forced smiles and half hearted applause by a few inside that room were easy to distinguish between the heartfelt ones from those only doing it in the name of protocol. And sadly too many of those were from people I also knew and who unless zebras are sometimes spotted instead of striped were faking every emotion.

I have been following Sheriff Scott's dream of this day for a number of years and I know that he is acutely aware of the challenges that will come not just with the job, but from those he is surrounded by. Both the good guys, the bad guys and the bad good guys. The proverbial bandwagon is getting longer by the day because of the many who now know that it is probably a pretty good idea to get on it. Sheriff Scott will see a list of friends grow to a number that may boggle the mind. People who just six months prior to the reason we were all here today either didn't know his name or who did know it but wouldn't have bothered to greet him on the street.

That isn't just politics it is the way of people. We all celebrate someone else's success in our own way but some of us are a little more discrete in how we do so. Those of us who are truly happy for them usually don't have to tell them more than once while some who go over the top in their zeal to be reckoned with are only doing so to ensure they will not be forgotten.

Thankfully and to the benefit of all he serves Sheriff Scott will be a hard one to fool.

The Crystal Swim Club

2011-05-29T18:13:00.000-07:00

These homes sit on the site of the old Crystal Swimming Pool

I am remembering a time when I counted down the days until the end of the school year...when I would have what seemed like a life-time away from chalk boards, hardwood floors and school bells.

Three whole months of sleeping in and spending most of my time outside instead of cooped up in some hot classroom feeling like some teacher was out to get me every day. It did seem that way to me during my early school years and at times I think I believed that every teacher I ever had chose to become one just to screw with me.

Being expected to learn new things every day didn't make a lot of sense to me then and because I found it all very difficult to understand I was sure of it. So every year in late May I could almost smell the chlorine wafting from the waters that would soon fill two giant swimming pools at the Crystal Swimming Pool.

In the early 1960s it was customary for kids like me to save money year round for the opportunity to purchase a season membership to the Crystal, a pool in South Columbus located on the corner of Champion Avenue and Markison Avenue. I remember saving change in a jar and occasionally dumping it across my bed and counting it and the euphoria I felt knowing that when the tickets went on sale I would have enough to buy one. That was probably the first lesson my parents taught me in working and saving for what was important.

If I remember correctly the season "ticket" cost around ten dollars and a member could take along a pal who was a non member who would be allowed in for fifty cents provided that pal was a white person. (I'll get to that in a moment.)

And even though the facility has long been gone I can still recall vividly the lay of the land within its fenced off boundaries. Upon arrival following a two mile walk from our home a member would enter on the Champion Avenue side of it and show their ticket to an employee who sat at a window just inside the main entrance. Then proceeding directly to a changing room where street clothing would be placed in metal baskets and handed to a guy at a counter who would give you a coin shaped object with a number on it to track your property for retrieval at the end of the day.

After changing into swimming trunks and exiting that room you saw what we called the big pool with depths ranging from around three feet at the shallow end to nine at the deep end where there were two diving boards. One just a few feet above the water and a second high dive for bolder swimmers.

Next to that was a smaller pool that we called the new pool and was one that was only five feet deep and usually used more by older members. Near the larger pool was a snack bar that sold potato chips, sodas and candy products and beside it was a small basketball court and a slab of concrete with one wall where some played handball. And scattered around the grassy areas were several multi-colored triangular wooden objects we called dog houses.

They were perfect for sun bathers to sit on a towel on the ground with their backs against it and they served as mini retreats, like camp-sites anytime the life guards would blow the whistles to signal rest periods, usually lasting ten minutes when all swimmers were required to get out of the larger pool. Adults were allowed to remain in the smaller pool during rest periods and I remember thinking during those times as I did often that I wished I were older.

It was a time in life when the idea of ever becoming an adult and having that and other privileges seemed hundreds of years in the future. A time when being a kid was something many of us thought would never end. A time when us boys were surrounded by barely clothed females young and old who probably looked great in their bathing suits but when some of us younger ones only noticed their tan lines if a strap or a string wasn't tight.

Those of us who remember swimming at the Crystal also remember that it was a private club that operated before there were laws forbidding discrimination based on a person's race. It was a cooling spot for white people only.

However, following the civil rights movement of the mid 1960s it became illegal for businesses and private clubs to exclude people because of their race and instead of changing with the times and permitting non-whites entry into the Crystal Swim Club the owners elected to shut it down. The pools were filled with ashes and discarded debris trucked in from nearby Buckeye Steel Castings Company... like filling them with the cremated remains of a disappearing era.

For a number of years the location was operated by another organization as a private club but one without any sign of what it had been. The earth where those pools once were showed signs of discoloration from what was beneath it and the outlines of where they were was visible for several years but if one didn't know the history of the spot they probably wouldn't have known what it was.

The old chain link fence with barbed wire topping it that kept people out still stood rusting and crumbling and the concrete slabs where people used to play basketball and handball were still there, cracked and deteriorating with weeds taking over them.

But in recent years they too have disappeared and today there is no sign that any of it was ever there.

The deep end of the bigger pool where those diving boards were is now some one's backyard and the spot where the main entrance was is now some one's front door. On a recent visit there I could not help but see the irony... those homes are occupied by persons of color. Living in and probably owning the land where they were once forbidden to visit.

For a better look go back and click on the picture to enlarge it. The taller home in the center of the picture stands where the entrance to the Crystal Swim Club was. Everything shown here sits on top of what was a great deal of my childhood from about 1961 until 1965.

I do.

2011-05-14T15:01:00.000-07:00

When I took the oath of office to become the Village Marshall for the town of Obetz it was not without a flood of reservations on my part. Until this day I held a commission as Deputy Marshall and had been serving as a patrol sergeant.

Having joined its police department eight years earlier after spending ten years as a deputy with the the Franklin County Sheriff's Office I knew full well of the challenges I would be facing both in protecting the town of Obetz and navigating through what had always been a political hotbed within its government offices.

Obetz itself has long had a reputation for being governed by sometimes less than savory characters from the ranks of its city council all the way up to the mayor's office.

That is not to say that all of its elected officials have always been persons with bad reputations or reasons to keep an eye on. In fact during my tenure with the village I served under two very good mayors, first the man who hired me in 1995 Mark Froehlich who soon after bringing me in left his post to become a respected Franklin County Municipal Court judge, and his successor Louise Crabtree who before becoming mayor had served a number of years on city council. As council president when Froehlich left for his seat on the county bench she inherited the mayor's position and later ran successfully to keep it.

The one constant that both mayors endured on a daily basis was distractions from other office holders and key appointed personnel who reveled in chaos. Some of them had histories of being town bullies long before I ever pinned on a badge there. Serving the town as a lawman was never an easy undertaking anyway but battling the daily politics that oversaw the police department made some days nearly unbearable. Fighting the bad guys on the street and keeping them in line while constantly battling other bad people who held down elective offices.

Being a cop in Obetz has always been a job that required a tolerance for bad behavior and having the wherewith all to keep it in check regardless of the direction it was coming from. Bad behavior on the part of some was often rewarded instead of punished. It depended on who was connected to whom. Those with the most money had the most friends and too often they were the worst people in the entire town. Worse in many ways than the thieves and other bandits that prowled the streets at night.

So when I accepted the position as Village Marshall which also held the title of Chief of Police I knew from experience that my workload ahead was about to become the greatest lesson in personal fortitude I had ever had to endure. I had to accept that my family would also be targeted for constant harassment and that there would be assaults on their character as there would be on my own. Letters and phone calls to my wife suggesting that I was cheating on her became the daily norm. Snide remarks about my children and other manufactured distractions all designed to test my willingness to serve and hopefully derail my intentions to follow the letter of the law as I had sworn I would do.

Still, I decided to take the job and not only promise to do it to the best of my ability but to hit the ground running, to begin immediately efforts to change what we all knew needed to be done. First on my agenda was to rid the department of some of the officers who had been for years making a mockery of their badges by showing up for work only to collect a paycheck and incite others to commit chaos. That was a decision that the mayor warned me not to make for fear of personal ramifications. But it was one that had to be made if I had any hope for not only a better, more professional department but a better town!

The bad seeds within our ranks were the ones most connected to the shadiest of politicians and to their biggest campaign contributors, the real power brokers. Without going into great detail I was able to achieve most of what I set out to do and I have explained the full saga in my book "Deputy in Disquise" but the one thing I was unable to accomplish was to stem the tide of bad or questionable politics there. I am not sure anyone could have done that, nor am I confident that anyone ever will.

For that reason when the time was right for me personally I walked away from it all. Leaving behind some bad memories but also leaving behind some very, very good ones. I wouldn't trade those years and the experiences that came with them for anything else I ever did in life. Being a cop in a small town in Ohio where boundaries are only lines on a map provided me with more personal satisfaction than I ever would have found in the largest sheriff's department in the state.
(Franklin County.)

I have always said that in spite of its public service roster that is heavily contaminated with toxic personnel, Obetz is still one of the most interesting wide spots on any road that borders a big city like Columbus. Most of the people there are pretty amazing and most of them respect and support its peace keepers. During my tenure there I saw the town nearly double in size and thanks to the efforts of mayor's Froehlich and Crabtree and a few council members who really cared about it Obetz has become more than just that wide spot in the road with an eerie and mostly mundane past.

Where there were no hotels a few of them sprung up during their years of service and where there once was only one or two choices for commercial dining there is a wide variety now that includes most of the major restaurant chains. Those mayor's sparked something of an industrial revolution during my own years as part of its public service infrastructure. Today there is a public park that offers everything in the way of recreation that any park in any major city can offer and before I left we were all nestled into perhaps the most progressive and innovative municipal building of any town anywhere.

The police department more than doubled in size and more and more housing sub divisions offering newer, cleaner and safer environments for residents have been built and no longer do people from outside its borders see it as just another speed trap on their way into or out of Columbus.

So yes, I am proud of my service there and if I never again accomplish as much as I think I was a part of there I am okay with it. Like I said, I wouldn't trade the opportunities I had for anything I did before I took that oath. And anytime someone asks me if I ever miss the daily rigors of being a police officer I tell that I do but I preface that answer with a sigh of relief that I no longer have to watch over my shoulder or listen for the footsteps of well dressed, well paid public servants sneaking up on me from behind, intent on making me regret it.

It's not Manard, Sheriff! It's My-nerd.

2011-05-13T10:59:00.000-07:00

When I first heard that Franklin County Sheriff Jim Karnes had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer I thought about calling him at home to express my concern and offer support to him but the idea quickly dissipated. Not for any reason aside from knowing him as I think I do... he may not have wanted to engage in any conversation about it since the news was not only new but not good. I know that I wouldn't want to talk about it if I were facing the same challenge he is.

Karnes is a pretty tough guy and when the news broke he vowed to fight it vigorously. How his reaction to it was reported came off as if it were just another day at the office for him, just one more battle between himself and something evil.

This is the sheriff I know, as serious as he has to be when it is necessary and as devilish as he wants to be anytime the circumstances allow. My rapport with him through the years involved being on the receiving end of the latter more than it has been anything too concerning. Of course there were times I am sure he wanted to bury me deep beneath his doghouse, but usually my encounters with him were light moments that sometimes bordered on a real friendship.

In that regard I never flattered myself to believe that he and I were really friends. I mean I was never in what I considered a circle of his close friends but that brings up another point relating to my relationship with him, first as a fellow officer and later when he became my boss.

I first met him a few weeks after I joined the sheriff's office as the department's Public Information Officer. I was sent to a trucking company on Frank Road on the south side of Columbus where there had been a toxic chemical spill. When I arrived I found him at the front gate of the facility sitting in his cruiser blocking the entrance.

He was Lieutenant Jim Karnes then and probably because he heard me dispatched to the scene he was waiting for me. Waiting with what I believed was a rehearsed ice breaker to allow us to understand our respective roles. Meaning that he was the seasoned old guard and I was just some rookie that he and others probably questioned my ability to get past my probationary period. I had no law enforcement experience on my resume and in fact I was just a few weeks earlier just some long haired hippie who hosted a daily radio show to him and others around the department.

I got to see two sides of Karnes' personality that day, first what seemed like often practiced authority over new guys like me and then a softer and more helpful veteran who quickly saw the desperation I probably showed to just be allowed to do my job. He was that day and all of those that followed during my years with the department the most engaging, willing to teach supervisor I ever encountered. It may be presumptuous to say it but I think he actually liked something about me from the start. Because if he didn't he had a tremendous knack for acting.

I could tell immediately that my experiences in broadcasting was not a turn-off for him as it seemed to be by some of the other deputies. In fact after we concluded our business that day the conversation shifted to radio and television personalities that he had known through the years. He seemed to know all of them and that was something we could share and talk about.

He had been in community and media relations with the department long before I got there and his persona then and now has always been something of a showman. Quick with humorous one-liners, not shy about saying whatever was on his mind and seeing the world around him for what it was without allowing all of the bad to force what was good into the shadows.

Starting then and to this day Jim Karnes still mispronounces my last name on purpose. Even when he says it- it is with more than a grain of intentionalism. To him it isn't pronounced My-nerd it is Ma-nard. He knows it bugs me so he does it.

There was a time during our working relationship that I was as well received by him as I was by the man who hired me and who I answered directly to, Sheriff Earl O. Smith. However, there was also a time when I knew that he didn't exactly trust me because of my loyalty to Smith, that was when he decided to run for the office himself. The election year of 1992.

It was an ugly battle between two men that for what I think I know about them both were once very good friends. Decades before I met either of them Smith actually played a huge role in the hiring of Karnes when he (Smith) was a lieutenant in the office's personnel bureau. At least that is what Smith told me.

Before what ever caused such a serious falling out between the two Smith often spoke highly of Karnes and I can recall on at least one occasion when he encouraged me to trust him more than any other supervisor in the department. It was years before the election in '92 and during a sensitive investigation that I was having difficulty as the PIO gathering information for a press release I was writing. I wasn't receiving much cooperation from the other supervisors and the chief deputy over the unit that should have helped me wasn't. In fact he was doing everything he could to be in my way.

Smith told me to go to Karnes and said something to the effect of "he takes care of me."

What I do know is that Lieutenant Karnes was always more willing to share with me what he knew than any of the other supervisors under his command. But then came 1992 when I found myself in the middle of a feud that was as depressing as it was difficult to navigate. Karnes had retired briefly to run for sheriff and when that happened I could not have been placed in a worse spot. More than half of the department was in his corner and doing all they could to derail Earl and it seemed any of us who didn't jump on that bandwagon were regarded as enemies of the office.

That summer during the Franklin County Fair, which was one of Karnes' longtime commitments and an event that could have had his name on it for all he did for it every year, I was tested by Karnes himself. I was sitting in the sheriff's display tent with Smith and his campaign manager, a guy who never liked me anyway and who was often critical of my work (Ted Griffith.)

Unbeknownst to me Griffith had somehow convinced Smith that I was working behind the scenes and using my media influences to help Karnes' campaign against him. Griffith had been feeding the sheriff assurances that Karnes had promised me a promotion to the rank of corporal if I would help his cause. None of that was true of course and I was more than a little disappointed that the sheriff bought into it when he questioned me about it, but that day in the tent Karnes did something to fan those flames. He walked over to where I was standing and put his arm around me and said "let's take a walk."

I could see the iron in Earl's eyes and if the redness in his face had been embers I would have surely caught fire at that moment. The heat and intensity of seeing me walk out of the tent with the man who had topped his enemy list was grueling and his gritting teeth and curled fists made him look as if he were ready to charge at us both. Griffith had a cocky grin on his face that seemed to say..."See I told you so."

As Karnes and I walked away he was telling me that there was no way he was going to lose that election and that when he did become sheriff I would still have a job. Not the high profile and perks laden one that I did have, but as a deputy in the jail. He told me that he didn't need a Public Information Officer because he knew his way around media circles pretty well himself... but that I needn't worry that I would be left with nothing.

The idea of becoming a corrections officer was not appealing to me and I told him so. I then asked if he understood that my allegiance was to the man who hired me and he said he would expect no less, but that when he became sheriff he expected the same loyalty to him. That is all there was to that encounter but when I returned to the tent I could tell that Smith's suspicions about me had become real if they had not already been. He was very cool to me and Griffith wasn't helping by asking me what division I would be supervising in if Karnes won.

He wanted to stoke his own rumor. He was asking about secret meetings and dinners that he said he heard I was having with Karnes behind the sheriff's back and what I got him for his birthday. Each time I would battle his insults I could see that Smith was growing more and more suspicious. And within a few weeks I was no longer in a position where I only answered to or reported directly to the sheriff. He placed me under the command of Major Paul Fererra, a guy who wouldn't allow me out of his site or to talk with any media representative without his blessings.

What I will always believe is that Griffith had managed to place me under the watchful eye of the one he accused me of being all along. My warnings to Earl Smith that it was the major and not me who could not be trusted may have been without merit and it may have only been a coincidence but when Karnes did win the election Ferarra became the supervisor in charge of the transition team.

After he took office the major became one of the driving forces of management, one of his primary go-to guys. He was visiting me daily asking me to turn in my keys and other sensitive hardware to him. It looked to many of us that it was him and not me who was working behind Smith's back. I know that Karnes would clobber me for suggesting such a thing but it is what a lot of us felt. Ferrara even suggested to me that I should consider returning to my old haunts in broadcasting, asking often if I still had ties in radio if I were to get discouraged in my new assignment.

That planned new assignment never happened. A few days before Smith left office I typed up a resignation and forwarded it to the new sheriff. A few days later it was returned to me, denied.

Karnes really wanted me to stay. We met and talked about what I would be throwing away if I left the sheriff's office and returned full time to WCOL where I had been working part time all along. He pointed out the benefits and the retirement opportunities that I would probably never see again and when I convinced him that I really wanted to leave he sent my old partner Corporal Dennis Verbance to talk some sense into me.

On the evening before he swore in all of the deputies now under his command he called me and told me to report to the Jackson pike jail facility to renew my oath the following night. I thanked him and told him that my mind was made up and he accepted my decision. A few month's later I received a call from Verbance who said the sheriff wanted to hire me as a DJ to play records at a fund raiser for him. I accepted the job and when he asked how things were going in radio for me I told him they weren't going as well as I had hoped and that he was right, I made a mistake by leaving.

Within a week I was wearing a sheriff's deputy's uniform again and working in the the communications center as a radio dispatcher. Not the greatest job in law enforcement but one that rescued a nearly dead career. For that I will always be grateful to Karnes. When the opportunity to leave for a more promising job as a police officer in the Obetz Police Department came along I received his support and his encouragement to go out, and in his words do "great things.

I don't know whether or not I ever did anything that great in Obetz but I was able to work my way through the ranks and eventually retire from there as it's chief of police. And during my tenure as chief I had no greater supporter than Sheriff Karnes. Being a small department we could not have accomplished all we did without the resources he made available to us every day.

We had access not only to his communications system that dispatched our vehicles and provided all of the information about driving records and stolen cars, but to his records bureau that checked backgrounds and alerted us whenever we encountered a dangerous or wanted person.

His K-9 units were never more than a simple requests for their assistance away, nor was his bomb squad or his huge detective bureau with all of their resources. His detectives solved homicides that we never could have with our limited resources and they fed us information daily on investigations that were paramount to the safety of everyone in our jurisdiction.

We even relied on his Internal Affairs Bureau anytime it became necessary to investigate misconduct or alleged misconduct on the part of our officers. The gratitude I owe to Karnes is way more than I could ever impart in a simple essay such as this, so when I learned that he is battling a sometimes deadly cancer I was saddened and more than a little worried about how it would all eventually play out. I haven't said anything to him about it and I probably won't. I do know this about Jim Karnes, it is not a topic he probably wants to engage in with me. If we talk at all it will probably be about music. From that first day I met him to the last time we spoke the talk always seemed to turn to music.

He has regarded me as a source when there is some song playing in his head that he has forgotten the name of. One of my favorite stories regarding my relationship with this very powerful man in Franklin County, the top cop who has law enforcement jurisdiction over us all is a time when I was a patrol sergeant in Obetz. One of the dispatcher's called my car number and instructed me to call the sheriff at home immediately. She implied that it was an emergency and then a million things went through my mind, I feared the worst.

When he answered the phone he said "Hey Ma-Nard, who did the song called I'm gonna sit right down and right myself a letter?" "Billy Williams" I told him. Through the years we shared a few other similar emergencies like that. And after that one I hung up feeling pretty good about myself, confident that I never let him down. I hope he feels the same way.

A brick for your thoughts?

2011-04-30T09:23:00.000-07:00

"Can you tell me where Schmidt's Sausage Haus is?"

I can, and I can also tell you the little bit of the history of it and why I know it. And so can many others who live within a stone's throw of what has become an historical landmark in German Village, one of the oldest communities within the boundaries of Columbus, Ohio.

Any time a car stops in front of my house and someone in it shouts "excuse me"... I can almost always know what they they want. Directions to Schmidt's, and I always point them straight ahead just two blocks down the street. I can see it from my front porch. A man who I knew as a boy when his father opened it along with his uncle in 1967 now owns it and his family might be the most famous klan in the neighborhood because of this little restaurant that was born from the building shown in this photo. (The J. Fred Schmidt Packing Company.)

Geoff Schmidt and I are about the same age and we were both high school kids when his father George and his brother Grover Schmidt opened it in the summer of '67. He was a football star at Upper Arlington High School when he and I worked there along with his brothers John and Andy. I was a student at Columbus South High School and along with my best friend Dan Sauer we were among those first employees working in the old stable that sat across the street from the old packing plant.

That building was demolished in the late 1960s and replaced by condominiums but I recall the days when its trucks rimmed the limestone curbs along East Kossuth Street and Jaeger Street and when we knew it simply as "the slaughter house". I also remember many of my neighbors who worked there as well as some who worked in another one like it on the same street about six blocks east of it called The Village Packing Company. Some of those who worked for Schmidt's took jobs there when this slaughter house closed and the restaurant opened. And at least one old meat packer, and maybe a few others stayed on to work in the restaurant.

I never knew it at the time but I was living in what I now regard as the tail end of what was really great about the south end of Columbus. Not the fancy expensive homes that now dominate the area lived in mostly by people of well means, but because of those like the old meat packers who lived in what was then a blue collar neighborhood where it seemed everyone was somehow connected. Either by where they worked or by who their kids went to school with. It was a time when many in the neighborhood could walk to work and when every kid did walk to a nearby school. And not just a few hundred students that live within walking distance of this place now, thousands.

German Village and the neighborhoods that surround it used to be heavily populated by kids, it was an area where families layed down roots because of places like Schmidt's Packing Company and all of the schools that were once packed to the rafters with students in the area. Many of them have also closed in recent years for lack of interest or even a need to keep them open.

One of the reasons I love this old photo is because I remember this place, one that if it were still around would be out of place. I remember the bouquet that was in the air from the livestock that died in it everyday to become what the company called "Montrose Meats" (sausages and such.)

If the men in this picture were alive now they could tell you about the ball park they are facing, the one that saw a Big Bear supermarket spring up in the old infield around 1955, the one now called Giant Eagle. The field where the Ohio State Buckeyes played their first football game on and where some of these guys might have sat on bleachers eating their lunch from brown paper sacks on workdays. Al Capone may have eaten a sandwich made with the meat from this plant at the Mohawk Grill just a block west of this spot when folklore says he had ties there.

During prohibition it is said that Capone supplied the alcohol there and that he had a mistress who operated a whorehouse above it. One of these guys might have seen him there. Of course there is a lot of speculation here but that is another reason I love this picture. It represents many things to me and not least among them was the sadness I felt when Dan and I walked around in the rubble of it when it was torn down. Sifting through debris of unused sausage casings and printed meat advertisements that I wish I would have salvaged and hung onto.

Walking over a few broken bricks that I should have bothered to pick up and keep as memento's or thick shards of glass that would mean something to me today if I had them. Something to hold onto from the end a great era. Anything that was lying around waiting to be hauled away or bulldozed under.

Today all that remains is the limestone curbs that these guys and me stepped from to cross the street. That and the DNA that exists in Geoff's place.

What's in a picture?

2011-04-23T12:54:00.000-07:00

The tall man wearing the suit and hat and smoking a pipe was once one of the most popular men in Columbus, Ohio. His name was Walter Furness and although I know very little about him I do know that his was a household name and that he probably was heard on the radio by more people than any other announcer in the city on this day in 1951 when this picture was taken.

Walter was regarded as the city's most popular radio newsman in an era when there were more radios in people's homes than there were televisions. But this story isn't about this WCOL newsman it speaks to the photo itself and of some thoughts I have about it.

My guess is that Mr. Furness is counting the change for the purchase of a copy of the Columbus Citizen Newspaper visible in his coat pocket. This was in the days before it merged with the Ohio State Journal to become the Columbus Citizen Journal, a morning newspaper owned by the Scripps-Howard Publishing Company. The man smiling and wearing the ball cap is Dale Geddes who was a colorful vendor at the corner of Broad and High for many years.

Not visible in this picture is the State House grounds across the street from this transaction where then Governor Frank J. Laushe may have been conducting some important business for Ohio. If a photographer would station himself on this spot today something else that wouldn't likely be seen is the number of pedestrians on that sidewalk. In the sixty years since this day there aren't as many reasons for people to be in this area because there isn't nearly as much commerce nearby as there was then and probably not as many downtown workers.

The radio station Walter worked for isn't there anymore either, WCOL was located just a few blocks east of those trolley buses at the corner of Broad and South Young Street then and just one block down from this location is where WBNS radio broadcasted at 62 East Broad Street.

Back then almost all of Columbus' radio stations were within walking distance of this spot. Also gone from within sight of it is the Neil House Hotel (across from the State House) that Walter could have eyeballed if he turned around and the Deshler Hotel if he were to look to his left.

But back to what we can see. I find it interesting that here is a radio guy making a purchase from something else that seems to have vanished from the streets of downtown Columbus, a newsstand watched over by a vendor. A simple one that looks to be made of wood like so many others that dotted the busier corners or that stood in front of stores before those self-serve metal boxes with see-thru plastic windows that line them now. And clearly visible on this rack are copies of Billboard Magazine and Variety...both of them entertainment publications that could be found lying around in every radio station I worked for throughout the 1970s and 1980s.

Walt wouldn't have needed a copy of either because I am guessing that he read those editions at work. The contents of both would have been something that WCOL listeners would have been interested in because at that time the station was one of the main sources of entertainment for Columbus and besides the news that Walter delivered everyday it carried music as well as drama programs that starred some of the most famous names coming out of Hollywood and New York.

The contents of the newspaper in his pocket might have had the box scores of the Columbus Red Birds (now known as the Columbus Clippers) and a team at that time whose radio voice was Jack Buck another employee of WCOL who did the play-by-play for their games and was a man who would later become one of the most famous sports announcers in the country.

Old black and white photos like this one are priceless to anyone like myself who loves history, especially that of my hometown, and this one in particular is made even more special because the most popular guy in it is someone whose footsteps I walked in for nearly ten years when I worked at WCOL, some twenty five years later.

I never met Walter Furness but I worked with some who did and who knew him well and although there is probably no one connected to that station now who has a clue about him or his impact on the profession they count on to make a living, he was a pioneer of sorts.

When you consider that commercial radio stations didn't begin broadcasting until 1922 and that by the time this picture was taken in '51, old Walter's stock and trade had been in broadcasting for a number of years.

This photo could have been staged, perhaps planned by some promotions person at WCOL but I doubt it. I am guessing that the photographer worked for the old Citizen and was there for another reason. The picture appeared in that paper but I don't have enough information about it to explain why or to even speculate.

It is possible that they staged it as part of some expose written by their entertainment writer on the daily activities of Walter Furness, or maybe even for a story about Dale Geddes and Walt just happened to be there. As I mentioned, Dale was very well known among the daily downtown crowd. I wish I knew more about him aside from hearing a few stories others have shared about his colorful banter about the politics and other headlines of the day.

The man standing behind him with the cigarette hanging from his lip appears impatient to me. Maybe he is in a hurry or has something else on his mind, but to me he looks annoyed that the transaction going on before it is his turn is taking too long. The little guy sitting on the stoop of the rack just looks happy to be there, or maybe one of the other gents just said something funny.

And if that is the case I'm guessing it was Walter. Dale is smiling, as if reacting to something that was said and from what I have heard about Walter Furness he was pretty colorful himself, a man with a dry wit on and away from the microphone. A lot like nearly every radio newsman I ever met.

Click on the photo to enlarge it and fully appreciate it.

Theatre of the mind

2011-04-21T17:32:00.000-07:00

The photo shown here was taken sometime in the early 1900s. The man standing beside the wagon is someone I never met, but from what I know of him he worked hard all of his life... and what I know about this picture is that his wagon load may still be in the ground as part of the infrastructure that runs through Athens County Ohio.

This is Jacob "Jake" Minerd who died of a heart attack while picking potatoes in the 1930s, he is my great-grandfather and I would give anything to have known his grandson (my father) when he was a young man.

All I really know about him is what has been passed down by my mother and not a lot of what she knew of him was all that flattering. According to those stories and my own vague memories of him he was a hell-raiser and a free spirit when he was a young man and his experiences in life couldn't have been more different than mine. Aside from the blood in our veins and our last name not much else about us resembles the other.

But like I said, I wish I could have known him better, not so much as a son but as someone his age, maybe even hung out with him for a while if only for the chance to possibly understand not only who he was but why. I can only imagine the the type of men he may have called friends or running buddies. If a movie were to be made about him it would probably be one something like "Cool Hand Luke" about a guy who couldn't be tamed.

There would be a backdrop of dirt roads where he hot-rodded through the countryside in old jalopies, a lot of hard drinking in some rough Southern Ohio bars, some prison scenes and a lot of women who fell prey to his charms. Falling prey in the sense that he was a good looking guy with what has been described as a gift of bullshitting his way in and out of unsuspecting hearts, or as he described himself....God's gift to women.

Someone I would have found to be a very interesting man.

As I have often written I wish I could have been alive in the 1940s and old enough to take in all of what that decade was. To have had the chance to join the heroes who fought against tyranny in World War ll and to have experienced the culture of America during that time. My fascination with the big cars of that era as well as the movies and the music that were made then and the way people dressed and their attitudes toward one another has filled many pages of stories I hope to someday publish.

The man who married my mother before he was twenty-one years old was someone I am sure could have given me enough material for a great movie script, and if I could write such a script I would want to play him if that movie were ever made. Far be it from me to condone his early lifestyle but I have to believe the man had what he regarded as fun. Usually at the expense of others but I know that in his mind his life before settling down in his forties was one long joy ride that landed him in some very exciting scenarios as well as rivers of hot water.

And from what I think I understand about him he didn't mind... nor did he feel much remorse for the trials and tribulations he caused for anyone including himself.

I wish I could have peeked inside his brain when he found out that I grew up and became a lawman. I have often wondered if that made him proud considering that he spent a great deal of his youth running from guys like me. Petty offenses mostly, but offenses that did allow him to get to know life behind bars more than a few times.

Old faded black and white photographs of him show a cocky looking guy who seemed to enjoy showing that side of him in various poses. Pictures of him with a cigarette dangling from his lips or a bottle of beer in his hand and facial expressions of a man twice as big and way more important than he was.

He was guy who served in two branches of the armed forces during wartime, serving in both the United States Army and Navy, and his stock and trade after that was in iron works. A tough guy who wanted to be married and have children but one who never learned the ropes of either until after he was booted out of my mother's life and found his bearings with another woman and more children besides the ones he left her alone with. That's when I finally got to know a little more about him. By his own accounts he was the man my mother knew, one who made a ton of mistakes in life.

But how I wish I could climb into a time machine and go back and observe him as his equal. To see first hand up close and personal the things he did and how he behaved. If I could do that I would be right there in that era I only know from books and movies and from second hand accounts from those who were. I think if I could do that I might be able to change the course of this man's history. I may have been able to steer him away from some of the self destructive behavior that made his life such a challenge.

I know, that sounds like I may have more confidence in myself than I have a right to but I like to think that I could do it and I know that I would have found the experience worth it for us both.

In reality I know that any attempts to change who he was or how he acted would have been a frustrating endeavor in futility just as it was for my mother and a few others, but imagine being a part of something like that. To be with your father and see him as he was, not as a son but as someone who only knew him well...or at least as far as he knew your role in all of it.

To be there knowing that he's your father but being the only one on the planet who knew it and being someone who knew what he was going to do before he did it and having the chance to at least try to change his course in life for the better but knowing you would fail. Now that I have written these thoughts down and studied them I may indeed be onto a pretty good movie script.

And while I am back there I would want to look up the second man who married my mother and became my real dad. Totally opposite from Jacob's grandson. What Jake's grandson pretended to be my dad really was. My mother regarded him as a true gift from God and he was the best gift she could have given myself and my siblings. If I could go back in time and study both men before they married my mother and found myself in a position to pick one or the other for her the decision would be a no-brainer.

I can't think of a single thing I would change about my dad's life except to maybe make his work a lot easier than it was or to make his paychecks fatter than they were so he could have had more.

Here were two men who grew up in Southern Ohio approximately seventy miles from one another who couldn't be more different. And although I hold my dad in higher regard than I did my father his life wouldn't make a movie nearly as interesting. As far as I know he did everything right in his and by comparison to Jake's grandson a film about him just wouldn't be that interesting. Still I would love the opportunity to make one that had both of them in it.
Click the photo to enlarge

Boogie Men

2011-04-18T07:53:00.001-07:00

When you were small did anyone ever warn you about the Boogie Man? Aside from rounding a few of them up and locking them down during my twenty years as a sheriff's deputy and police officer I had a few encounters with him during my childhood as well.

At least one of them chased me in a car when I was on my bicycle after soliciting me for sex one predawn morning while I was making my rounds delivering the Columbus Citizen Journal, another one robbed me of some cash I had collected from that paper route in an alley one night and still another one grabbed me around the waist when I was eight years old and then tried to stuff me into the back seat of his car.

Today such encounters might be worthy of stories told on local television news programs but mine happened in the 1960s in a time when such occurrences didn't usually make headlines unless they ended tragically. I survived them with no more mental scars than memories of a few close calls. I have had many of those. Nonetheless, I think I am glad I experienced these things because I truly believe it helped mold the character I had to become.

Not that any of them made me a tougher guy or for that matter a different kid than who I was, but I am certain that these experiences helped hone my common sense skills. And aside from what they can teach in the schools or the lessons our parents try to impart to us about bad people, that's something that cannot be taught. The same is true no matter our age or where we go in life. As a cop I walked away from one bad scenario after another wondering if common sense was a quality few possessed or just some lost art.

Whether it was a victim of a crime who became one out of apathy or the criminal who had no regard for anyone but himself when the pay-off for him was a few moments of pleasure or simply a few stolen dollars in his pocket. The latter came into focus again recently when a man in Columbus was found burned to death after being electrocuted while trying to steel copper pipes.

He was burned so badly that dental records were required to identify who he was and when what was left of him was found he was still gripping a pair of bolt cutters. Pretty crazy.

Criminals like that guy are also willing to trade years of freedom for a life in prison and immediate retribution from their victims if they target the wrong one at the wrong time. More of them than what is reported in the news get kicked in the balls or beaten to a pulp and even shot while trying to help themselves to something they shouldn't have. Yet those so inclined know that there are many common senseless people out their primed for the taking.

However I am not suggesting that all victims get hurt because they let their guard down or because they did anything else wrong, usually that is not the case. But we can minimize our difficulties in life and learn from our experiences and I think those earlier encounters with the Boogie Man that live in my memory have helped me better understand the world I have navigated through since. As a father of five I do know that they made me a more protective dad over my kids when they were small and during my years in law enforcement I think I had a better understanding about those on either side of the crime tape than I might have had otherwise.

And now that I have landed in the circumstances of being the old guy on the block I have to accept the fact that I must still worry about those around me who are bigger and stronger and who have less to lose in any confrontation they may have planned for me. That's not to say that I change anything about how I live or that I fear going anywhere I choose to go. I still enjoy playing on the edge of danger now and then and my better years aren't so far behind me that I don't remember how to play. And through some unexplainable osmosis I have managed to stay in pretty good shape physically.

My diet isn't what my doctor would probably hope it was, I smoke cigarettes but I shy away from alcohol and I rely on everyday excercise instead of joining a gym or hiring someone else to give me tips on staying fit. In short, I pretty much live as I have all of my life. I am the correct weight for my height, no sagging belly or breasts, I don't need to wear oversized clothing to hide anything, I still have my hair and my teeth are still good. But maybe just important as all of that I still possess a cockiness that leaves others sizing me up before they take me for granted.

A great deal of my playtime now consists of pecking on these qwerty keys recounting and pounding out stories that draw the attention of some of my peers and a few others who enjoy reading what life was like for some of us in an era they call "back in the day." Because like all good things my life will end soon enough and like one of my favorite bosses when I was a radio DJ once said to me... "Why just do stuff? Make it count for something and leave something behind besides rumors and hearsay. Document it. And of course, beware of the Boogie Man. Lord knows he's out there.

But now he might take the form of a politician or other well dressed con men hoping to take away a lot of what many of us have worked for all of our lives. Or he may be somewhere in cyberspace snooping into our lives and hoping that we slip up with information he needs to steal from us from afar. It can even be someone posing as a man of God on some television show asking you to let your guard down and send him money in exchange for prayers you might not receive or some that you do that probably won't help anyway.

He could even be a family member or just someone you call friend . All of us have something someone else wants. And that brings me to wondering why I often receive invitations to places to meet up with people who in earlier years could not have cared less that I even existed. I get those more frequently now than ever before and usually I decline them. Not out of resentment or fear of anyone but more because I don't see the point.

I stopped going to class reunions and family reunions for these reasons. I am more comfortable where people are less familiar to me and where I might learn something important that I never knew. I prefer going to places where I'm not likely to engage in conversations with anyone I may have tried to talk to in years past but who blew me off then. I never again want to sit across a table from an old girlfriend to compare notes about how our lives have gone and I really don't want to see photos of some one's grandchildren, especially if I really don't know the person who is showing them or if that person is someone I never really cared for anyway, and I get bored very quickly when the discussion begins to be about health issues.

And I certainly don't ever want to be in the accompany of anyone who drinks alcohol to help them remember the good old days. I don't fare well socially with people who need that to express themselves. I have always been more of a one-on-one guy and I believe that sharing thoughts that are written are forever. So I write books and blogs to do that and I don't ever have to dress to impress others, or put on airs or laugh at anything that isn't funny just for the sake of expected protocol. I have survived the Boogie Man and a few other unknowns.

But with all of this said I enjoy hearing from all types of people, those I may have known or some I wished I had. And occasionally I will sit down with a few of them and talk about what might be important to either of us, but at the end of the day all that really matters is what comes next. And since I still have some years left before I become eligible for Medicare I plan to remain who I have always been. Someone with one eye on my surroundings and the wit to expect more from life... so that when all that's left of it nears an end I will have left what I hope are some good stories behind.

Those boogie men from my past who tried to harm me physically are probably dead now but the legacy they left behind lives in my work and within my very being.

Weekend Get-a-Ways

2011-04-16T05:42:00.000-07:00

Whenever I hear the sound of a car alarm late at night I know that another thief got away with something. And being more of a self preservationist than someone who loves thy neighbor I always hope that it isn't my car that got hit.

"C'mon, don't cock an eyebrow, when you hear one you're just like me in that regard."

But if you are not there is a house near mine that is for sale and I'd like to see you get it! If you would rather see your property targeted instead of mine I know that we would get along very well.

Most of the get-a-ways on my block seem to happen on the weekends but the thieves who roam the streets at night don't discriminate against week nights, they spread themselves around pretty well and rarely take a lot of time off. These are people who are generally self employed and very loyal ones at that. To themselves.

If the glass left behind in the street from all of the broken car windows in my neighborhood were swept up and placed in the same bag it would take a fork-lift to pick it up and haul it away.

These after hours workers are dedicated to their craft and if you stop and think about it they possess certain skills that not all of us have or would be very good at even with practice. Case in point; At my age I doubt that I would have the speed or endurance to run down alleys and hop tall wooden fences as I made my get-a-way after breaking into some one's car, especially if I had just stolen something that required me to carry a burglary tool in one hand and the items I stole in the other.

Also...I would regard the wherewithal to slide under a vehicle to avoid detection by the search lights of helicopters as a skill and I have nothing but high regard for anyone who is willing to dive into a garbage dumpster and use it it as a hide-out until frustration overcomes the hunters and they give up the hunt. To be willing to crouch among rotting food, yard waste and rats to avoid jail time wouldn't be an easy task to master for me but a good thief can do it.

Something else many of us no longer have as much of as we once might have had that would make this work a little easier would be the strength and endeavor to fight one's way out of physical confrontations should a victim be faster and actually caught one of us trying to get-a-way.

If you have ever been a victim of a crime where someone got away with it you probably lost your valuables or were harmed otherwise by a person who also knows and understands marketing things that didn't belong to them until they took yours. (Another talent.)

For example, no one on my block ever had a factory installed radio ripped from the dash. A good thief takes the time to peer into windows looking for the more expensive after market stuff.

They will also ignore vehicles that have cheap items like newspapers and magazines left lying on the front seat and look for ones that have laptops, cameras, purses and other valuables. I mean why cause hundreds or even thousands of dollars of damage to some one's vehicle unless there is a little profit in it? I mean unless it is for personal reasons.

But even there, a skilled vandal can do it and get-a-way!

A good weekend get-a-way can also be had by these people after breaking into the homes around here. Burglars who smash windows or kick in doors to gain entry into places they have no lawful business being in to steal televisions, jewelry and other expensive items probably revel in their get-a-ways even more than the thieves who break into cars or those who only settle for a few pieces of lawn furniture.

But like I said, I wouldn't be any good at this work. The last time someone broke into my car I chased him for a few blocks and he got away. I wasn't fast enough to catch him. I probably could have run him down twenty years ago and beat him to a pulp with the hammer he dropped when he dashed off but again, at my age I was no match for his speed.

All of this brings me to what I really want to talk about and that is how I manage my own weekend get-a-ways. I go places in my mind. After fifty-five it's easier to do that anyway and it doesn't cost me anything but my time, and since I am retired now all of that belongs to me. It is mine, I own it and I can do what I wish with it.

This weekend, like most others I will spend some of it writing stories that I will eventually share here in my blog. Some of them will eventually fill more pages of more books I plan to have published and almost all of them will relate to people I have known or places and times that have been important to me. A great deal of my work evolves around the area I have called home most of my life. An area that is one of the most popular get-a-ways in the south end of Columbus.

First Love

2011-04-13T05:26:00.000-07:00

I don't remember much about the first girl that I thought I had deep feelings for... not where I was when I first saw her or not even much about what attracted me to her aside from a pair of skinny legs. (That's another story for another time.)

But I do remember my first real love, and of all people it was my dad who hooked us up. It was May, 1968 and I was two months shy of my sixteenth birthday and probably spending most of my waking moments counting down the days to the one when I would take a test to receive my temporary driver's license. It was the only test I ever looked forward to, then and to this very day.

I had my eye on a neighbor's little British car, a 1962 Ford Cortina that was for sale for around two hundred dollars but my dad wasn't going to have any part of it. He was a Ford guy but he was strictly red, white and blue when it came to buying anything and having any foreign car around the house was not an option.

The garage behind our house was his playground and he loved tinkering with and fixing his own car whenever the need arose but he wouldn't even open the hood of something not made in America. And since I was something of an apprentice with tools back then he reminded me of that whenever I would drop hints about the one I had my eye on. I can recall him saying something about cars that were made over seas being one-nineties. "One day on the road and ninety days in the shop."

Another of my dad's sayings about such topics was "The only tool you can operate is a car key."

I was told that when I got a little older and more mechanically inclined, and when I lived somewhere besides home I could buy all of the cars that wouldn't start or break down daily that I wanted, but since we both knew that it was his money that would buy that first one he would have some say in what it would be.

It was he who found a 1960 Ford Falcon advertised in the paper for one hundred and fifty dollars and when he asked if that sounded like something I would want I probably said whatever any sixteen year-old kid would. Whatever it was I ddn't hesitate when he asked if I wanted to go with him to look at it. I think it was that Saturday afternoon that I first knew that love at first sight was a very real emotion.

In the years that have passed I have owned more than sixty cars, most of them Ford's and I have restored a number of basket cases and turned a few of them into show-cars, some of them in the garage that my dad built and I now own. And through the years I did learn to master more tools than a car key. But of those cars that included Thunderbirds, Galaxies, Fairlaines and a few other Falcons, none meant as much to me as that first one.

The photo shown above is a model made by the Franklin Mint. It was a gift from my wife that she paid one hundred and fifty dollars for, the same amount my dad paid for the real thing more than forty-five years ago. And because it isn't likely that I will ever find a white 1960 Falcon with a black and gray interior that looks exactly like my first set of wheels, right down to the same hubcaps and checkered trunk liner, this is one of my more prized possessions.

The Franklin Mint is notorious for getting it right with their small recreations and this one is a dead ringer for my first love. And by the way, that other first love with the skinny legs was a little neighbor girl whose father was selling that old Cortina and even though I didn't get that car she was the first girl to ride in the one I got.

Frozen in time

2011-04-12T06:52:00.000-07:00

The 1940s era truck shown here is parked in Rex Alley on the corner of Reinhard Avenue, and if this photo was taken when school was in session sometime between 1959 and 1964 there is a chance that I was sitting in a classroom inside.

If it were snapped in '59 I might have looked out of the window in the lower left corner of the first floor when I was in the first grade and saw the photographer, or if it were taken in 1962 or '63 I may have been milling around somewhere near one of those basement windows putting away my AAA safety flag after finishing up my duties as a patrol boy.

I love these old snapshots of moments frozen in time, especially those that depict something that is not only familiar to me, but one that reminds me of those days when my own life was better than it would ever be again. And even more stimulating is when it is of something I might have been a part of of. And since this one is undated aside from the one recognizable clue ( the truck) there is a very good possibility that I may indeed be in it somewhere, or at least in the vicinity of it.

I know, the odds are astronomical, but in an era when people drove vehicles like this one and when they hung onto them longer than most do now I am betting that I saw this truck somewhere, sometime when it was used every day. The south end of Columbus isn't that big and back in this time there weren't as many vehicles on the road. Certainly not as many pick-up trucks as we now see.

As a matter of fact I do recall quite clearly when most of them looked very similar to this one.

Given where it is there is even a chance that I passed it on my way to or from my assigned corner as a patrol boy because for awhile I was stationed about a block from it on Rex Alley and East Whittier Street. If it were to continue headed in the direction it is in it may have passed me and I may have held out my flag to stop it to allow my fellow students at Siebert Street Elementary School to safely cross the street.

As a photographer myself I can fully appreciate everything about this one. Not least among my reasons is a measure of gratitude for who ever held the camera that captured it, nor for whoever cared enough about it to save it so people like me could appreciate it decades into the future.

I do know this, at some point I sat on that concrete post where the wrought iron fence meets the wooden one and I scrambled around the playground here during many recesses. I also have a few bricks that I salvaged back in 1976 when they tore this beautiful and historic building down.

I could not point to them and be specific as to which ones they are but sometime in the 1980s they were used in building a patio in the backyard of the home I grew up in and came back to purchase in 1997. Those bricks might even be a few on one of the facades shown here.

If a picture is worth a thousand words than I can end this essay right here. I didn't count how many I used to write it but this one speaks chapters of a pretty great era to me.

Click on the photo to enlarge it.

Walls that talked

2011-04-09T04:57:00.000-07:00

This building located at the corner of East Broad Street and South Young Street in downtown Columbus is seen by thousands of motorists and pedestrians every day as they pass by it on their way to and from whatever brings them downtown.

There is an entire generation that may only notice that it is now the home of a tiny Subway Restaurant that is housed in the northwest corner of it facing Broad Street.

Most of them don't know and probably could not care less about the history of it, why it was built and why the commodity it provided was so important to millions of central Ohioans over several decades.

The photo shown here was taken in the year it was completed and probably near the date it opened for service. These beautiful cars that line South Young Street are possibly owned by the people who worked inside on this day in 1947. In 1983 my own orange Mercury Capri sat below the awning covering the entrance many nights as I worked on the second floor behind that window just above the second car in line.

By then I had followed in the footsteps of some famous people who labored in the studios of WCOL Radio and the commodity that we provided was breaking news twenty four hours of every day, the weather, and of course the music for generations.

This was Columbus' premier radio station and for a time was only one of a little more than a half dozen choices on the dial and for a number of years it was the only one that provided rock & roll music. In the years that have passed another thirty or so have joined them offering everything from all talk to every imaginable music choice, but there was a time when 1230 on the AM dial really was it. That frequency was so important then that most radio dials had a little triangle marking it. It was the symbol for civil denfense and an icon reminding listeners where to tune in case of disaters and other emergencies.

When the photographer snapped this picture there really wasn't much in the way of television, few people had them and the programming choices that were available then were few and nearly non existent, so aside from newspapers and movie theatres this was how people stayed connected to the world. And considering the ease and the many ways we can now hear the music we like, people then had three choices, they could listen to records at home or they could go somewhere to hear others play it live...or tune into one of only a few radio stations that played it.

WCOL, in one form or another has been on the air since the beginning of radio broadcasting itself. Hatched in a small storeroom further east on Broad Street as WMAN in 1922 and then moving to one on North High Street near Lynn Alley, and later called WSEN when it operated out of the Seneca Hotel a few blocks east of here, it adopted these famous call letters in the 1940s. By then its owners decided it was important enough to warrant its own building. More than sixty years after its christening the call letters are still etched in the facade facing Young Street above that small third story window in the center of it.

There still remains a WCOL logo on the sidewalk outside the main door and another one on the floor of the lobby just inside. Otherwise, I mean besides the sandwich merchant operating in the front of the building it stands as a tomb. All of the excitement that was broadcasted from it for a half century has been silenced as time and progress has seen the station move to a few new addresses in recent years. And with those moves a few more call letter changes for the one broadcasting on the 1230 frequency.

It's sister station on 92.3 megahertz is still called WCOL and is still a major provider of music for Columbus, now offering country music, but the old AM'er is barely noticeable any longer. I have even lost track of what its name is now. I haven't tried to tune it in for years but I'm told there is some sort of talk format being aired and I'm sure whatever it is it is one that I wouldn't be interested in hearing anyway. Whatever is there is probably fed to the transmitter by some satellite feed from some far off place by either conservative political wack jobs screaming Armageddon or by sports junkies offering biased opinions regarding their own favorite sports teams.

I doubt that any breathing souls actually labor in an actual studio broadcasting something on that historic spot on the dial any longer. It wouldn't be economically viable for the owners to pay anyone to do it.

So the tomb shown here still stands in the shadows of some of the taller and more sophisticated structures that surround it, and most of the people who pass by it now weren't even here when it reverberated all that it once did. Many of the great voices that made this place what it was are now dead or within ear shot of joining them.

But those of us who are still here and who remember listening to radios that were built into big beautiful consoles, or when we carried pocket sized ones everywhere we went that were powered by nine-volt batteries had the chance to hear the life that used to exist within it. Not the sounds of sandwiches being wrapped in paper or the fizz of soda machines in a small corner of it, but of historic events that mattered to the world and all of the music from Harry James to Led Zeppelin.

And from an era when people traveled in zeppelins and listened to local programming on big radios at home, in the car or at work, to one where a few can hover in space alongside other sattellites that send radio signals to millions of tiny little ear phones the size of hearing aids anywhere in the world.

Click on the photo to enlarge it.

Pick-up game

2011-04-08T07:17:00.000-07:00

On my final day as a full time radio announcer I was hosting my afternoon talk-show on WCOL and thinking about the night ahead. It was a Friday and I had shown up for work that day nearly unrecognizable to my colleagues at the station.

On the previous day and all of those before it they were used to seeing me as I looked for the past decade and a half. I don't remember what I wore on that Thursday but I know it wasn't a white shirt and tie and I doubt that I even wore socks. Prior to this day I was rarely clean shaven and my hair hadn't been above my collar in years. Before this day few people ever saw my forehead and no one at work ever saw me in a pair of dress slacks.

Cutting more than a dozen inches of my hair and shaving all but a neatly trimmed mustache and dressing in something more appropriate for a funeral instead of my usual attire was not in celebration of my last day on the job it was preparation for starting a new one. And since my show was over at six o'clock and I had to report to my new employer at seven I wouldn't have had time between gigs to rush home and get ready.

Unsure of what I should wear on my first day on the new job I decided to play it safe and show up for it looking better than I had since my mother dressed me for Easter Sundays. I hadn't put on a suit since those days. I did however show up once for a photo session to have my picture taken for a radio station, but even then I didn't wear a suit. I carried a tie and a sport coat in a plastic bag and put it on just long enough for the photographer to snap the picture.

But on this day I was dressed to the nines, even better than all of our sales representatives and our station manager. I took a little ribbing as I said goodbye to the industry that I loved and that had been where I earned my living since I was in my teens. My radio career would have to be placed on hold for awhile as I was about to embark on one that I had never anticipated until a few months earlier. I had been commissioned as a deputy sheriff for Franklin County and my first assignment was to become the department's Public Information Officer.

I had landed that job using a little smoke and a few mirrors while interviewing the county sheriff several weeks previously on my program when he mentioned that he was seeking someone to handle his media affairs. Someone who was willing to go through the training academy and to be his spokesman. Kiddingly he asked me if I might be interested in such an adventure and at first I told him no, but a few days later I began hearing rumors that WCOL was being sold and that the new owners were planning on changing the station's format and letting all of the talk-show hosts go.

I went into survival mode and called the sheriff and asked if he were still looking for a savvy media guy to fill this new position and I told him that I might be interested. He told me that he was and that he had scheduled an interview with a guy over at WTVN radio for that job... one of my competitors. Somewhere in that conversation I told him that the other guy had recently referred to him (on the air) as a black shirted, power hungry Gestapo. It wasn't true but it landed me an interview that went very well.

And now it was time to see what I had gotten myself into. My first assignment was to meet up with the sheriff's undercover unit at their sub-station on West Mound Street, located on the grounds of Cooper Stadium and accompany an army of deputies as they raided a strip club in town. My job as the PIO was to tag along and gather details of the investigation, prepare a press release and meet with the television and newspaper reporters afterward in a press conference to explain all that was happening.

The supervisor on that detail was a sergeant named Dan Casper and I could tell immediately that he and the other deputies didn't care much to have to share sensitive details about their investigation with someone they perceived as just another radio reporter, let alone have one tag along with them. None of them had ever worked with a PIO because there never was one until I showed up. Before I got that job it was the responsibility of the sheriff or a supervisor on the scene to decide what to share with the media. To these guys I was just some hippie with a radio reputation and a short haircut.

When Sergeant Casper asked what the sheriff wanted me to do on this mission I explained that he wanted me to report to him and follow whatever orders he had for me. I could tell by the sudden gleam in his eye and the smirk on his lips that I was about to be initiated into a world I knew less about than what I thought my purpose for being there actually was. Before the end of the night I was handed a brown paper bag and a pair of rubber gloves and told to gather used condoms from under the chairs and couches inside the club.

I must have picked up more than a dozen of them before placing them into the bag and then placing a strip of red tape on it marked evidence. And each time I picked one up another deputy would ask..."How do like the job so far?" I know that sounds disgusting and it was, but in the years that followed I picked up things that made that first assignment seem like an Easter Egg hunt. Things like body parts and bodies covered in blood and maggots.

I also picked up more than most people's share of germs along the way as well as a few murderers, rapist and other felons, not to mention a more hardened outlook on life before my law enforcement career was over.

Oh, that picture shown above? I mentioned that my first assignment at the sheriff's department began at Cooper Stadium. That was also where my office was located for a few years. During that time I could gaze out over the baseball diamond at what was once called Jet Stadium. The Columbus Clippers who played there were once known as the Jets. A few weeks prior to this night I was on that field participating in a media softball game for charity and I wore a hat not unlike this one.

And now, on my first night on the job...I was overdressed. I was working with a lot of long-haired undercover cops with scraggly beards who wore clothing that made some them look like thugs. Even Sergeant Casper was wearing blue jeans and a Cleveland Browns sweat shirt. That's all.

Catch me if you can. Okay.

2011-04-07T09:09:00.000-07:00

In the fall of 1991 I received a call from this girl who was working in Washington D.C. on the network television program called "America's Most Wanted."

As the Public Information Officer for the Franklin County Sheriff's office I was responsible for handling all things media related and we were holding someone in our jail that the show's host John Walsh was interested in.

Her name is Allyson Camerota and she was one of the show's producers. After concluding the business she was interested in she asked if our department had anyone on the run that John and his people might find interesting.

Her timing couldn't have been better for not only us, but for the people of Franklin County and for that matter, everywhere. We had an inmate who had escaped from custody while being taken to Doctor's North Hospital for treatment of a self inflicted slash on his wrist. His name was Timothy Brewster and with the aid of his son, Tim Junior who ambushed the deputies as they arrived outside the hospital ER, Tim Sr. was off and running.

He was a man with a lengthy record of violent crimes and was in our facility on charges of rape and kidnapping and now he was on the loose and had in his possession at least one firearm that he had stolen from one of the officers. At the moment of escape his son emerged from some bushes where he had been hiding and drew a weapon on the officer's and forced them to the ground threatening to kill them both if they didn't comply with his demands.

Luckily, and because of some very good police work the younger Brewster was apprehended the following day but his father was still out there. As I shared the details of this to Allyson she assured me that Walsh and the others would most certainly be interested and that arrangements would be made to send film crews and actors to Columbus within a few days where they could shoot reenactments of not only the escape but of Brewster's criminal past.

All of this required a lot of assistance on the part of our office also. We had to provide sheriff's vehicles, uniforms for the actors, deputies to appear in the segment as extras, carte' blanch to our jail facilities, cooperation from four other law enforcement agencies including the assistance of the Columbus Police helicopter unit, the state of Ohio department of Corrections and the Franklin Township police Department.

We also had to secure an abandoned home in a ghetto neighborhood for a scene that would resemble some place Brewster would have lived, and find a convenience store who would allow us to interrupt their business for several hours to reenact an armed robbery that Brewster had been convicted of.

In total more than one hundred people converged over three days to shoot a ten minute scene for the show. For my own labors I was flown by the FOX Television Network to Washington to appear on the program. Wasting not a minute of that... weekend of work meets pleasure, I teamed up with an FBI agent assigned to the D.C. bureau and went on a whirlwind historic adventure.

Landing in such venues as the White House, The Smithsonian and of course a grand tour of the FBI's main headquarters. I also feasted very well on someone else's dime in some high end eateries, stayed in a remarkable hotel on the border of Chevy Chase Maryland and the nation's capital and even spent a few hours clubbing with a few hired hands from the show following the airing of our segment. All in all it was truly a highlight of my days as a deputy sheriff.

Timothy Brewster was recaptured while hiding out in a trailer park in West Virginia shortly after being shown to the world on network television, and to my knowledge he is still in prison, while Tim Junior spent eight years there for his role in the matter.

I recently posed the question on my facebook page asking friends to name the most interesting job they ever had. This was one of mine.

Click on the photo above to enlarge it.

Monkey see...

2011-04-06T05:29:00.000-07:00

Having never been much of a bowler or even a fan of the game I found it odd that I was asked to be on a bowling team in 1983. I was working at a new radio station in town called Zebra 100.

In truth only the call letters WRMZ were new because the station was actually the FM band of a heritage country music station in Columbus, WMNI where I had been working for about seven years. Z-100 as we called it, was really the old WMNI-FM and had scrapped its easy listening format in favor of one that made little sense to those of us assigned to play the music on it. Our play list of songs was all over the road and included artists such as Dan Fogelberg, Sheena Easton, James Taylor and...Willie Nelson?

Let me explain that whole Willie Nelson thinking; In addition to him our music format also played every other song on the country music charts at the time. It was billed as "Three in a row Country" and for all intents and purposes we were another country station in town. Yet one that fell somewhere between WSNY, or as it is more commonly known, "Sunny 95" which played a format of syrupy pop love songs- and our own AM sister station known for its rowdy country format.

All of the DJ's on Z-100 were WMNI jocks so our names were more familiar to country music listeners than much of our music was. We might follow a song by Melissa Manchester with one by the Statler Brothers, or after something by Carol King we might play one by Waylon Jennings or Johnny Cash. It was the most insane radio idea I had ever been next to.

I had moved over from doing late nights on WMNI to host the mid-day show from 10:00 AM until 2:00PM and was never more confused in my life. I didn't get it and I absolutely hated it. The format and the hours.

I even thought our station mascot, an animated zebra was a little over the top of common sense or relativity to what we were putting out on the air. Had they made it look like Quick Draw McGraw and put a cowboy hat on it maybe I would have gotten that, but....never mind, this a bowling story remember?

I'll get to that soon.

Believe it or not this format change took a lot of planning on management's part and was actually months in the making before it was launched. And in those plans were intentional leaks to other media that a new country station would hit the airwaves on a certain date. Our rumors were true, but across town the rock station WNCI was putting out a few rumors of their own that they too were planning a format change on the same day and they were hinting that they were also switching to country music. The brain trust at our station feared they would do it so a few days before our announced change-over the decision was made to beat them to the punch.

So we started making announcements that we would move our launch date up one day. Not a brilliant move on our manager's part to tell the world when we were going to try to beat the competition to it. We even told everyone the exact time we were going to throw the switch.

Knowing as everyone else did what our plans were, WNCI announced the same thing, but they promised to do it one hour earlier than us. I kept telling our program director that they were bluffing, that I knew those guys over there and that when I worked there several years earlier we used to mess with other programmers heads in similar fashion. But our guys were worried, they were hoping to become the major provider of country music on the FM band and they feared that all of that work would go for naught if WNCI had the same idea. They feared they wouldn't be able to compete with the money muscle behind WNCI.

So an emergency DJ meeting was called on the Sunday afternoon we would change and there was some discussion that even though we had been telling the world that we were doing it on this day we might have to retool our plans. Then it was decided to move the time up one hour to be the first. At precisely 3:00 that afternoon one of our jocks in the control room played a song by the country band Alabama as the rest of us gathered around another monitor tuned to WNCI.

Their announcer said something like "Now the moment you have all waited for, a new era in Columbus radio begins..." and then he started the record "Take this job and shove it" by Johnny Paycheck. You could have heard a pin drop in our place. Our program director, Steve Cantrell and our music director Tim Rowe were staring at one another and saying nothing until the song ended and the DJ over there played a station jingle and went back into their rock & roll format.

It was a hoax.

But this really is a bowling story. We were invited to join a media bowling league to compete with other radio and television stations and for the next few months my Tuesday evenings were spoken for doing something I never really cared for. I was a terrible bowler with an average somewhere near the frequency of our new country station. But that isn't what this story is about, like I said, it is a bowling story but one that has to do with the photo shown above.

Years before my radio career I had a short-lived one as a bowling pin setter like these kids.

When I was fourteen years old I took a job at the local Moose Lodge that paid ninety cents an hour sitting in a cage at the business end of a bowling alley. The job of a pin setter consisted of picking up the bowling ball and rolling it back to the bowler after he knocked down the pins and then manually picking up the pins and setting them in a mechanical contraption that sat them neatly back down.

They called us pin monkeys... probably a reference attributed to the cages we sat in to protect us from flying bowling pins. Back breaking work for anyone, especially for a skinny kid like me who weighed something close to the bowling average I would develop in the years that followed.

And when that time did come I was telling this part of the story to our station programmer (Cantrell) one night while we were competing against some guys from, you guessed it, WNCI, and when I mentioned the pay I received as a pin-setter he remarked that if I didn't bring my average up I would see my wages fall back down to that level.

He obviously took the game more seriously than I did. And somewhere in that conversation he suggested that if we didn't bring the number's (ratings) up on the new station he helped create that we would all be taking pay cuts or hunting for new jobs.

WRMZ didn't last long as a country station and within months I left for what had always been my dream job anyway, playing rock & roll at WCOL. Today WRMZ is also a rock station and the zebra has long been retired. Now it is known as The Blitz 99.7 and is still being haunted in the ratings by WNCI.

If you click on that picture to enlarge it you will notice that these kids don't even have a protective cage to sit in. And considering that it is a photo from around the early 1900's I can only cringe when I wonder how many times they were beaned by flying pins or how much they were paid to even be there. I mean when I did it it was 1966 and ninety cents an hour wasn't that bad. To these boys that probably would have been more than their parents earned on their jobs. But whatever compensation they did get, they earned it.

Just as I did when I was asked to blend Willie Nelson songs with Barbra Streisand poems.

Derailed

2011-04-05T02:36:00.000-07:00

This is one of my favorite photos out of my personal archives for a number of reasons;

Among them is the 1963 or '64 Plymouth squad car. I remember when nearly all police cars and taxi cabs were early 1960s Plymouth's and this particular model year has long been one of my favorites.

1963-64 was good for all three major American automakers in that all of them produced beautiful cars then. Replace that sheriff's star on the door with a Columbus police badge insignia and this car would look exactly like the patrol cars that roamed my neighborhood on the south side. Another reason I like this picture is because of the two uniformed officers shown in it who remind me of how I looked up to police officers and respected what they represented when I was an eleven-year-old kid around that time.

These two in particular fit the image I remember for a couple of reasons. They are neatly dressed older deputies whose expressions tell me they have seen a lot. By their uniforms I am guessing that both are supervisors which would suggest a few more things, one that they had been on the job for a number of years and secondly that this may have been a very serious train derailment. One that involved more than just cars leaving the tracks.

There is a sadness on their faces as if they know that something else has gone horribly wrong here, possibly lives lost. And because I think they are supervisors that makes sense to me because from my own experiences I know that it is rare to see two of them on the same scene at the same time unless the call concerns loss of life or some other great threat.

And finally, being an amature train buff I love the vintage railroad cars. A few of them appear to be passenger cars, something that has all but disappeared from the Franklin County landscape... they are reminders of an era when people relied on the railroad to move more than freight. A time in my own life when I would fall asleep at night listening to the horns blasting as trains crisscrossed nearby intersections and wondered about the people in them, thinking that one day I would like to work as an engineer when I grew up. Instead I grew up and became a deputy sheriff.

Having returned to my roots when I purchased the home I grew up in I still hear them, only now there aren't as many and none of them carry passengers any longer. Like most of the people who were adults when I was a boy these men are probably gone now and like many others whose steps I have followed through life they look like people I wish I could have known. If only to pick their brains and hear their stories, to know what they saw during their tenure on this planet.

Having been a cop for twenty years myself I know their tales would have been fascinating peeks into the history of our surroundings and a tremendous comparison to my own experiences in that uniform. They were cops in a time when bad people needed to fear what they were capable of more than now. Before laws were adopted that protect criminals more than they do victims.

When the people they locked up were held more accountable for their deeds in a place that sat out in the country called the Work House, not the Corrections Center. Where there was a farm there with cattle to look after and gardens to grow their own food and where they were taken out of the facility with chains around their ankles to do manual labor like roadwork or picking up trash along the highways. Reasons for some to think twice about breaking the law or to at least behave a little better once they paid their debt to society. If for no more reason than to never want to go back there.

When I was a young deputy the highlight of my work days was hearing the older officers talk about an era when there existed something they called street justice. As awful as it might sound to more liberal thinkers those older guys sometimes took matters into their own hands without fear of being sued or vilified for administering their method of justice to some who deserved what they received for committing heinous crimes. And pity anyone who committed any violent criminal offense against children when some of those old-timers got there hands on them.

To me the stories that were told of showing a bad guy the business end of a black jack on the street- to thumping one into submission in the jail for resisting what was expected of them during their stay there, to even spanking young thugs before taking them home for another wallop from their parents for bad deeds they committed against polite society were fond reminders of a time when we worried less about being crime victims.

Barbaric behavior by law enforcement officers to most people these days, but that was a time when hurting others for the pain and suffering they caused to innocent and weaker persons than themselves was somewhat acceptable to the tax payers who expected more from their protectors.

The men in this photo probably could have told some doozies, and the people who rode in those railroad cars and survived this crash could probably do likewise. Click on it to enlarge it.

Ghost stories

2011-04-04T08:56:00.000-07:00

This room was known as the Death House in the old Ohio Penitentiary. Note the platform where the electric chair once sat, and where 315 people died between 1897 and 1963.

That's me in the center of this photo during filming for a segment for the long-running television program "America's Most Wanted" back in 1991.

The story behind that episode in my life is published in my book "Deputy in Disguise" and is just one of many personal experiences that are shared there. This blog, and for that matter most of my work is a collection of stories that I hope readers will find familiarity with. The title of this entry has a glimpse of realism to me because many of the people I write about have long passed from this life and have left people like myself behind to miss them and to celebrate all I have learned from them.

Click on the photo to enlarge.

Learn more by visiting http://www.rickminerd.snappages.com/

Are those my Footprints?

2011-04-01T05:54:00.000-07:00

I grew up in South Columbus Ohio the step-son of a meat packer who was a veteran of World War II and a stay at home mom whose own life was one of heartaches and triumphs. My Dad worked at the old Swift’s Premium Meat Packing plant at Lockbourne Road and Refugee Road in the 1950s and 1960s. He was a man who personified all that we would want our children to grow up and become.

A hard worker, a good neighbor to all and someone who knew the importance of being fair to everyone around him while being cautious of those who he needed to be. A guy who would give the shirt off his back or the food from his plate to anyone truly in need of either. And one who demanded from his kids to be grateful for what they had and to have empathy for anyone who did not have enough.

When he moved our family to the South end he was making about two dollars an hour and was able to not only support all of us on that, he managed to buy a home in the German Village area for around $10,000.00. One that he and my mother would budget and save for and eventually pay off the mortgage in less than ten years. This area was chosen for a number of reasons aside from being only a few miles from where he worked. The elementary school that I, along with my brother and sisters attended was less than two blocks away.

There was a Big Bear Supermarket and a bus stop a block away which made it convenient for my mother who never learned to drive. And there was a park just a few more blocks away that was the perfect playground for us and the many other kids in the neighborhood who would become our best friends.

My mother was a woman who endured more than I think I ever could and the threads that wove the tapestry of her life were like a blueprint for me to aim higher and to push a few envelopes to the edges to achieve whatever I was after. Raised in foster homes and later marrying an abusive man who neglected not only her but myself and a brother and sister she persevered and kept us together and taught us the importance of never giving up and to never stop setting goals or allow change or setbacks to discourage us.

Her story is documented in a book I wrote called “Honey, I Promise!” It was my way of telling the world how proud I have always been of her and how her personal struggles were not wasted, but instead served as reminders to others that before we are done living there is still time to make our lives better. When she married my step-dad in 1958 we moved to this place I still call home from the bowels of poverty where we lived in government assisted housing that was mostly populated by other desperate residents, some who did not always hold morals or lofty ambitions in high esteem and some who were just plain dangerous people to live near.

It was a move that without question allowed me to navigate through childhood into adulthood safely, surrounded by the best people I ever knew and with purpose to chase the dreams I was able to. I cannot present any argument that we are products of our environment. And because of this I have been able to accomplish much more than I could have ever imagined. From being able to soar without falter through nearly twenty years as a broadcaster by being given the opportunities to work at all of the major radio stations in Columbus, to having the privilege of serving in law enforcement for another twenty years.

My radio broadcasting credentials include working at WTVN where I started my career in 1972 as a disc jockey. From there I moved on to WNCI, then to WRFD, WMNI and finally to WCOL. My final stint in radio was hosting an afternoon talk-show where the guests on my program could be anyone from politicians to entertainers. It was because of that radio show that I made the decision to try a different way of making a living. A guest on one of my final programs was the very fiery and often controversial Sheriff of Franklin County.

Earl O Smith, a no holds barred lawman who encouraged me to trade my headphones for a badge he was offering. After leaving the broadcasting industry full time in 1986 I was given a deputy sheriff’s commission and appointed to the position of Public Information Officer. It was a job that placed me in charge of the department’s media affairs. That meant writing press releases and conducting press conferences while working with the sheriff’s detective bureau, jail operations, court services, administrative office, training academy, warrants and extraditions unit and the patrol division.

As the PIO for a large law enforcement agency I gained even more valuable communications skills by working with all phases of the media including radio, television and newspapers from around the country. Tucked away in my portfolio of experiences I have been recognized in various national publications including The New York Times, USA Today and Time Magazine. I have also appeared on nationally broadcasted television programs including ABC News, CNN and the long running FOX television program “America’s Most Wanted.”

Of the awards for service I have received one of my most coveted was from The American Police Hall of Fame for my participation in the capture and arrest of a kidnapping and rape suspect. However in 1992 I was assigned to the sheriff’s Communications Center as a communications technician where my duties consisted of being a radio dispatcher and 9-1-1 call taker. That assignment was the biggest lateral move in my law enforcement career.

Having had a very good job in a high profile position for a number of years I had become the victim of a political shake-up with the election of a new sheriff. The new assignment in the radio room was one of long days and little reward. Not to suggest that police dispatchers are not as important as any other law enforcement personnel, but having previously been dispatched to murder scenes, deadly vehicle crashes, fires and every other imaginable human tragedy to prepare news statements and mingle with reporters- the new job was not only mundane for me but it represented a significant reduction in my wages.

Like I said, as a career move it was one that went in reverse. So in 1995 I went looking for a new job, one that would place me back outside in a police cruiser doing real police work where instead of dispatching someone else to interesting situations someone would be sending me. I found that opportunity with the Obetz Ohio Police Department where I began working as a patrol officer and within a few years I was promoted to the rank of sergeant.

It was there where everything I ever hoped to find in police work came to fruition. I was finally in a place in life where every day at work mattered, a place where I really felt I was making a difference. Wrapping up the latter experiences as the Chief of Police was unquestionably the zenith of where that career could have taken me. However being able to pen a couple of books before this one that documents all of it certainly ranks high on my list of most personal satisfying achievements.

Because whether or not anyone finds them interesting or even well written they will always be around as a record that I took advantage of everything I was ever taught. And aside from what I write I will someday leave behind something else I am proud of; my children and their offspring to hopefully carry on all that I was able to pass on to them, the things that were given to me by my own parents.

That sense of never giving in and to never fold to the expectations of what others think you can do or what they may try to limit for you. And more importantly to never forget from where you came. To cherish and remember those who played the most important roles in your life and to protect what is dear. I have often defended my style of writing as being an extension of how I have lived my life and what it took for me to make the most of it. And because of that there are some who find much of my work offensive.

The fact that I rarely guard my language, and when I feel it necessary to disregard the protocol of good journalism (if that is what it takes to write good stories) I will do it. I am not as much of a wordsmith as I am a story teller and I make no apologies for that. When others point out the starkness of what I sometimes write or when they put on their copy- editing visors and look down their noses at how my work is published I can take their criticism, but not to the level that I will ever try to be anyone but who I am as a writer.

If the saying “What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger” is true than I submit that whatever offends us makes us strive to never allow it to change who we are. Be offended but don’t allow it to cloud what is important. And to me as a writer that means to tell real stories about real people and real things in language that may not be appropriate for some readers but it is language that leaves little to anticipate when trying to understand why I use it and why without it the true depth of the story would never be seen.

For anyone who is easily affronted by language that is born from the gutter I can only submit to them that they would never feel at ease either in the company of police officers who work the mean streets and deal with the frustrations no one else wants, nor would they if they could have been with me during what it took to write this book. And if some of the words crucial to reach deep into the stories here leaves anyone queasy than some of the photos displayed here might make them vomit.

If it is any comfort I have left out the harsher and sometimes more graphic in nature images that really show the degradation of people and how some of them live. It is what I believe a good writer and photographer should do to protect the integrity of any story. I will be judged in both categories with what I am sharing here and I will be fine regardless of how.

This book is not yet in print but is available for all eReaders at amazon.com

2011-04-01T05:47:00.000-07:00

My mother's story. (In her own words) A personal account of struggles and triumphs. Thanks to all who have made this a best seller.

2011-03-31T06:57:00.000-07:00

If you enjoy the stories that follow please check out my book.

Packed with stories about some of Columbus' most memorable radio and television personalities and how their lives influenced mine. Also, some up close and personal accounts of my experiences as a deputy sheriff and city policeman with murderers, rapists, local politicians and other bad guys.

"Deputy in Disguise" is a collection of short stories that looks at the best and worst people I have ever been close to.

Check out amazon.com, Barnes & Noble or contact me at imjustrick@aol.com.

What are the chances?

2011-03-29T07:32:00.000-07:00

When I first got the notion that being a radio DJ would be a goal worth pursuing it was not without a lot ribbing from those around me who thought I should count my blessings because I had a good job cleaning bathrooms and sweeping floors in a department store.

I was barely out of high school and earning one dollar and fifty cents an hour as a janitor at J-Mart. My nightly responsibilities included keeping the floors clean and shiny by sweeping and mopping the isles and then waxing and buffing them, emptying what seemed like tons of trash, scrubbing sinks, toilets, mirrors and polishing anything that had chrome plating, and of course I did windows. Lots of windows.

I was working with another teenager who had recently graduated from high school across town and had it not been for destroying his pitching arm in some sort of on-field mishap he may have gone on to become a major league baseball star with the Milwaukee Brewers who had drafted him just a few months earlier. But here he was, like me taking any job he could get because like me, he had a girlfriend at home who was expecting a baby around the same time mine was.

Mike Seufer's cup of coffee with the major leagues was as brief as our friendship. We knew each other for less than a summer. But during those few months we had a lot to talk about and a lot of time to do it. We were the only people locked in a big store from the time it closed at 10:00PM until the store manager and other daytime employees arrived at eight the next morning to open for another business day.

As Mike and I labored though the all-night hours we always had WCOL piped into the store's public address system, that seemed to make the hours pass a little quicker. And even though we both hated our jobs we were thankful that our buck and a half an hour came with free health care. Aside from the other financial responsibilities that we were both choking on we had all of those prenatal bills to contend with.

Both of us had lost whatever was left of our youth at the same time. Our conversations about our respective futures often consisted of things neither of us would ever do. That is until two nights after I first heard a song called "It's a shame" by a group called The Spinners while sitting in the break room at J-Mart on a Friday night. I called the radio station to ask about it and the all-night DJ, Beemon J. Black told me that it was a demo and wasn't yet available in record stores but if I wanted a cassette copy of it I could come to the station and get it.

The following evening was my night off so I went downtown and when I was let into the WCOL building I met Beemon and ended up hanging around the studio until his show ended around 5:30 in the morning. It was the first time I watched a radio DJ work and all I could think of was my own crummy job and how a guy just one year older than me had one I would have killed for. He and I went to White Castle for breakfast that morning and the more we talked the more I knew what I wanted to do for a living.

When I returned to work the next night I was telling all of this to Mike and he was laughing and saying things like "you'll never get out of this place." Not long after that we both quit our jobs and went our separate ways, I never saw or spoke to him again. After all, aside from landing in the same job and having a few things in common because of our ages and our circumstances for a few months there really was no reason to. He grew up and stayed on the west side of town all of his life and I remained in my own familiar territory on the south side.

Fast forward fifteen years when I am a WCOL DJ.

My son Ricky was a sophomore in high school and his best friend was a kid named Mike Seufer Junior. He told me that his dad had told him stories about working with a guy named Rick Minerd. He told him that several years earlier he worked at a store called J-Mart and wondered if it were just a coincidence, or if it were possible that two kids who were in the belly's of girls who never met, and who would never meet each other, but who had boyfriends whose paths had only crossed by happenstance would one day grow up, meet one another and become best friends.

Of all of the unlikely scenarios that have been my own life this one boggled my mind more than most. I wondered the same thing. What are the chances? Forty years have passed since I last spoke to my son's best friend's father, but I can still hear his laughter when I first mentioned to him that I would one day get Beemon's job. I remember him saying back then that he planned to become a policeman.

I did that too. After twenty years in radio I decided I had enough and became a cop. But unlike that J-Mart job I miss those radio days. I also think I missed a lot more in life besides what might have been a long friendship with Mike Seufer and a great deal of my youth. We both missed that and a few other things along the way. It's a shame that Mike never got another shot at the big leagues and that he never became a policeman. I know he would have been good at both.

But hey, those kids we worried about and talked about before they were born, when both of us were just kids ourselves made it through life just fine, mine is a deputy sheriff and a supervisor in the detective bureau and his is a big shot at the Ohio State University. Not bad for a couple of store janitors. I guess stranger things happen every day, but I haven't seen many.

Hard times and special feelings

2011-03-27T06:16:00.000-07:00

The photo shown here is a Minerd family. My great grandfather and great grandmother surrounded by their children. My grandfather who I really never knew is seated front row, far left. Even though I did not know him well I have stories about this family that have been passed down to me through the years and some that I was fortunate enough to hear from him in his latter years. Photo taken around 1895. What follows is not about these people, but some of them lived in times I will talk about and some of them did know people that I knew very well.

Some of us miss what we regard as the good old days even if a lot of them were not so good. That in and of itself is worth exploring the reasons many of us feel as we do. Certainly for most of us our lives are more comfortable now if not more difficult to manage.

The medical breakthroughs have made it a little easier to feel better when we get sick and we do seem to be living longer than the generations before us. The food we consume now, at least for some of us might be better for us but we have become a generation that seems to worry more about what is right for our bodies than we do about whether or not we can afford it or get enough of it.

For instance, we have gone from a generation that used to drink water from a hole in the ground by pumping it with a handle from a well to one that is willing to pay a dollar or more for a sixteen ounce plastic bottle of it. I won’t dwell on what we are now willing to pay for basic necessities but I have to wonder what my grandparents would think if they were alive to see what gasoline and tobacco products sell for now, or how much it would cost them at a grocery store to feed their family for just one week.

And because of what we have to pay for those medical breakthroughs I mentioned and how much of our income now goes to basic health care to keep us feeling well or just survive, I wonder what they would think about that. When I recall what I regard as the good old days I am not so old that much of what I now take for granted was not around then.

We didn’t have microwave ovens to shave off the time it takes to cook a meal but I think I would give mine up if the food I cook in it were easier to come by financially and if I didn’t have to think about all of the things I like to eat possibly causing me to die from cancer. Personally I hated having to go to school but I can safely say that if given the choice of spending eight or more hours doing that or the same amount of time working on a job I didn’t care for with people I had nothing in common with and for a boss who has allowed his position to go to his head, I might choose school.

I might choose that for the same reasons I might trade the circumstances of being responsible for other people for an era when someone else had to carry that burden for me. When I recall hearing my parents groan about having to spend more than thirty dollars a week to feed a family of six I have to smile.

When I think of the mortgage payment of ninety dollars they had to cough up each month to keep a pretty good roof over our heads my grin grows even wider. And even though I am in a shrinking minority of smokers who can offer no argument that it is a bad habit that may eventually kill me I wonder what my father would think if he knew I were paying around five dollars for the same pack of cigarettes he bought for around fifty cents.

My dad never worried about the dangers of smoking and it was not what killed him. Neither was any part of his diet that as a child included vegetables or meats that were not inspected by the government before they reached his plate. He and his parents before him were some of those people who killed things like groundhogs and other wild game because they had to if they wanted to eat.

Some of the stories he told about how it was when he was growing up are the stories we read about today when someone is being charged criminally for neglecting or endangering their children. But he never saw things that way. In his mind none of what it took for family survival back then had anything to do with either.

There were no child labor laws in the backwoods where he grew up but it was okay. He did not need in depth labels or warnings on what he bought and probably would not have read most of them if they were there. A picture of a skull and bones or a flame on the label of anything he bought probably sufficed.

He and those before him relied on something I think a lot of people have either lost track of or never had in the first place, common sense. I wonder what his parents would think if they could return from the dead and be told they could not express an opinion about someone’s sexual preference because it would offend too many people or that they might be arrested if they burned something they no longer needed behind their house without a permit they had to buy?

I wonder what anyone who has been gone for more than twenty years would think of the internet and how it can be used to pay ones bills or send mail across the planet in seconds. I wonder if they would trade the rights to live as we choose that many of us have given up through the years for it. I don't think I would, even though technology has advanced the way we live more than anyone could have imagined during what were my own good old days.

That is not to say that I would go back and live my life over again if it were possible. Because even though I have had what I consider a pretty good life there is still too much that I would not want to have to experience a second time, and I doubt that anyone who struggled through our country’s depression or its wars would want to experience any of that again.

Certainly no one who has had to grieve over a lost loved one would want to go through that again. I often wonder though what it would feel like to wake up just once more and feel the energy I had before I was an adult, before I ignored all of the good advice that was offered by those who came before me.

When we are asked if we would do it all over again most of us might say that we would if we could make some changes. I have often heard others say something I have thought many times myself… “If I could go back and know what I do now.”

So let’s play with that thought for awhile. If you could go back to a time when everyone you knew who has since passed away was still here would you do it if you could and know what you do now? Of course that would mean that your kids wouldn’t be on the planet yet if you have any and some of the friends you have now might be people you don’t know yet.

But if you could do it, would you? Hypothetically speaking, do you think your opinion of loved ones would be different? If you knew what you do now would you be as angry with a parent because they spanked you or grounded you? That’s an easy one, how about those days when someone cared for you while you were very sick. Do you think you would go through the worst illness you ever suffered through if you could have the days that followed back?

Would you be willing to endure all of the headaches, sprained ankles, cuts, bruises, broken bones, stomach aches and colds you had all over again? What about your most embarrassing moment?

Would you ever want to be in that spot again? How about experiencing every embarrassing moment you ever had? What about failed romances that broke your heart or the emptiness that came with missing a special event? What about the feeling of losing a pet? Did an animal ever break your heart when it passed away? Could you go through that again even if you knew then what you know now?

Could you face handing your parents a bad report card and see the disappointment on their faces again and feel any better about it the second time around? If you had to sit in all of the dentist chairs you did would that be any different? Have you ever lost something that meant a lot to you like a ring or some other keepsake and felt horrible about it for days? You would have to do that again too.

Have you ever had something important stolen from you? Think about that and remember, even though you know it is going to happen are you still willing to go back and do it all over again? If you could again speak with someone who was as old or older than your grandparents and know what you do now do you think you would want to ask more questions? What if you could do that but still had to play by the same rules you did then? Because remember, you’re only getting a do over, you can’t change anything except to pay closer attention.

Fast forward your life to adulthood. Have you ever wanted a job so much that each day your phone rang and it wasn’t that employer calling you felt discouraged? The jobs you had that were long on hours and short on pay, would you work them again? What about all of the days you had to go to work even though you were sick? What about all of the traffic jams you sat in through the years or all of the lines you waited in? Could you sit for hours in all of the hospital waiting rooms feeling anxious or worried about a loved one again?

If you had to pay for a return to the good old days by reliving all of the times you have moved from one home to another, or dating people you wished you never did or going into debt for something you never needed would it be worth it? Has your car ever broken down and left you stranded when you were broke? Have you ever had to tell someone they couldn’t have something because you couldn’t afford it? You have to do it again.

Have you ever been told something horrible about someone and then asked to keep it to yourself? If so, one of two things probably happened, either you couldn’t do it and had to break that person’s trust in you or you kept it to yourself and lived with the disappointment. What about the mistakes you have made that disappointed others in you? Have you ever broken the law and then had to face a judge? Traffic citations count here. Did you ever dread having to be held accountable for something you didn’t mean to do or something that was just a very bad decision on your part?

Have you ever faced a judge in a domestic proceeding such as a divorce or a child support issue? What about fighting for visitation rights of a child? Have you ever done that and been disappointed by the verdict? Could you even imagine going through it again, even if you could enjoy those good old days before you reached this stage in your life?

If your life wasn’t perfect and you had other discretion's you would rather forget would it be worth reliving your life if you had any of the following experiences; Have you ever had a utility disconnected for non-payment of the bill? Have you ever had a car repossessed? Ever been turned down for a loan for something you really wanted? Having lived as long as I have and having lived and worked among many different cultures and social standings I have learned that more people than you might imagine have experienced such pot holes in life.

So let’s stay on this theme for a moment. Do you think you might have jumped the gun in your zeal to leave the nest when you moved away from your parent’s home? For instance, was your first home or apartment something you would like to live in again? And if it was an apartment, would you want to experience living in a building with the same people again? Have you ever been annoyed by your neighbors noise on the other side of the wall? Have you ever had a neighbor that you were sure went out of their way to annoy you or one you couldn’t trust?

Did you ever worry that a neighbor’s poor living habits might cause bugs or rats to enter your home? Have you ever had a neighbor pester you for money or favors? Would you want the furniture you had in your first apartment back? Have you ever come home to your apartment to find an eviction notice on the door? Have you ever lived with someone like a significant other or just a roommate who was a slob?

Have you ever spent a day cleaning up your home and then gone away only to return to someone else’s mess? Ever had an argument over bills? Have you ever had to borrow money from a parent just to get by? Have you ever been beaten up or otherwise assaulted? Have you ever been robbed? Has anyone ever broken into your home and stolen things from you?

Have you ever been caught cheating or learned that someone was cheating on you? Have you ever wished someone would get out of your life who wouldn’t? I know, it’s getting a little nasty here but I’m trying to cover the bases of possibilities. Remember, I have been on this planet for a long time!

So, have you ever been in an automobile accident? Has anyone ever tried to ruin your reputation or destroy you financially? Have you ever had to defend yourself for something you didn’t do? Have you ever been wronged by a friend or a loved one? Have you ever gotten sick on a trip? Ever been lost or hungry with no one to turn to? Have you ever loaned money to someone when you couldn’t afford it and not gotten it back? Have you ever had a debt you couldn’t pay? Ever go bankrupt? Has anything in your house ever needed repaired or replaced but you couldn’t afford it?

Have you ever been laid off from a job or been fired? Have you ever felt pressured to have sex with someone who repulsed you? Ever had someone stalk you? Have you ever been an alcoholic or a drug addict? Have you ever lived with one? Ever been drugged on purpose by someone else but didn’t know it until it was too late? Ever been a passenger in a car with someone who scared you? Have you ever had someone call you to tell you that a child has been arrested or hurt?

Were you ever separated from a loved one because your parents got a divorce? Ever see your mother cry? Ever see the helplessness of your father because he lost his job or because he couldn’t come to your aid in your time of need? Has a doctor ever delivered bad news to you?

Have you ever had to have surgery that was so painful you could barely stand it? Have you ever wished you could take a loved one’s place when they had to have surgery for something? Ever feel nervous because there was a policeman at your door? Have you ever lost something because of a fire?

Okay, those were pretty tough ones, but on the chance that you experienced any of that, would you still go back to the good old days if you knew that any of that would be in your future? I am sure that I wouldn’t do my life over and mine has actually been pretty good. Somehow I managed to escape a lot of tragedy’s and heartbreaks but like everyone else my life has been far from perfect. I haven’t always made the decisions that were best for me and I have been on the short end of more than a few sticks. But overall I have been lucky. I still wouldn’t do it again, as much as I miss the old days and as much as I miss the people who are no longer here.

But wouldn’t it be great if we could pick and choose what we would do over? Have you ever wanted something so bad for Christmas that you couldn’t think of much else and received it? Do you remember that feeling? Have you ever made the honor roll at school or received an award there for something you accomplished? Have you ever had a friend’s parent’s take you along on their family outing? Has your parent’s ever allowed a friend to spend the night with you? Ever get more than you expected for a tooth you left under a pillow?

Have you ever received a pay raise or a bonus when you didn’t expect it? Have you ever been the guest of honor at a party? Birthdays count here. Have you ever graduated from a school? Ever get promoted on a job? Have you ever asked someone for a date who you thought would say no, but didn’t? Has anyone ever said something flattering to you for no reason at all?

Has anyone ever told you that they would like to be just like you or that you inspired them to do something? Ever been picked first to be on someone’s team? Have you ever had a reporter write something flattering about you in a newspaper? What about a nice note written to you in a yearbook? Were you ever excited to see a school year end and the start of a summer vacation?

Ever take a memorable vacation far from home? Do you remember how you felt the first time you learned to ride a bicycle or the day you received your temporary driver’s permit?

I haven't experienced all of these life moments, but I know people who can relate to them all and I have been closer than I wanted to be to more of these scenarios than I think I ever would want to be again, even if that meant I could relive all of my best days. I'm not sure the trade-off would be worth it. But if I have made you think, or if I only gave you a moment of fond reflection than read on. I have more questions to ask, because I think there is a very good chance that I know you. If you felt anything personal so far, I am sure that I do.

When I was your age...

2011-03-25T07:55:00.000-07:00

Have you ever seen your dad repair a flat tire on his car by patching an inner tube? Ever see him attach chains to the rear tires for traction in the winter? Do you remember little round lights that people put in the center of a car’s grille that were called running lights?

Do you remember when turn signals were usually called blinkers or when high beams of headlights were called brights? Do you remember when there were more American cars on your street than foreign cars and when many of them had white tops but the rest of the car was another color? Do you remember when it was easy to tell the make and model and even the year of most cars?

Do you remember when you could buy any brand of soda pop in a bottle and when they were delivered to stores in wooden crates and when you bought them you carried them home in six-pack cardboard cartons? Remember when pull tabs for cans were something you had to remove and discard?

Have you ever looked through old family photo albums and noticed many men dressed in suits and ties, like maybe around a dinner table when visiting relatives during the holidays or even at sporting events. Have you ever had to that?

Have you ever dressed up just to visit an aunt or an uncle or your grandparents? Have you ever owned just one pair of dress shoes that you were only allowed to wear on special occasions?

Have you ever owned just one tie or just one suit jacket?

Have you ever heard pants referred to as britches? Ever had someone warn you that they would warm your britches when they were talking about a spanking? Did a parent ever ask "where's my belt?" Not because they needed it to hold their pants up but because you were about to get your britches warmed.

Have you ever lived in a home where all the rooms had printed wall paper instead of painted walls, or where there was more linoleum flooring than there was carpet? Has your kitchen or bathroom ever had linoleum on the walls?

Have you ever pulled a chain to flush a toilet? Have you ever pulled a string to turn on a light in a room? Have you ever had a doorbell built into a door that you had to turn to ring it because it wasn’t powered by electricity? Have you ever heard your basement referred to as a cellar?

Have you ever had garage doors that swung open instead of lifting and that were locked from the inside with 2x4s? Have you ever had a glider on your front porch? Ever sat out there at night with a transistor radio listening to a baseball game before most of them were televised?

Have you ever had a wooden screen door that slammed shut by a heavy spring and then bounced a few times? Ever patch a hole in a screen with duck tape? Do you know what white washing a tree is?

Do you remember when bug killers came in glass bottles that had a skull and bones printed on the label to warn that it was dangerous? Was turpentine ever a regular staple under your sink?

Did your mother ever wear a diaper on her head like a scarf? Did she ever wear a scarf when she dressed up to go out for the evening? Were white gloves ever a part of her ensemble? Did your dad ever refer to his sport coat as a monkey suit? Were you ever warned “no monkey business while we’re gone?”
Was there ever a time when you ate more pizza from a box that came from a grocery store than from a pizzeria or more hamburgers that your mother cooked on a stove than were bought at a fast food restaurant? Did your mother ever serve you hamburgers on bread instead of on buns? Do you remember when catsup and mustard came in glass containers instead of plastic ones?

Was going on a family picnic ever something besides a family reunion? Was there ever a time when the entire family was supposed to be seated at a dinner table at the same time even if it meant coming home from something else you were doing?

Do you remember a television series that starred one girl who played two parts and the lyrics of the theme song included the words…identical cousins? Have you ever listened to Gunsmoke on the radio?

Have you ever had one friend before you became a teenager that meant more to you than all of the others, someone who seemed to help you understand things no one else could? A person you would continue to know for years but rarely see? Someone who no matter how far you drifted apart from after growing up will always be the best reminder from that time?

Do you smile because they were a lot like you and shared memories of something that only the two of you would carry through life?

Have you ever had a dog that makes you feel the same way? One that you would wish you could spend just one more day with just to show it how much you appreciated it?

Now that I have teased the fragile minds of Baby Boomers I will shift into another area of gray matter of memories. Okay, so maybe not all Boomers minds are memory challenged but let’s see;

Recalling what you think you remember when it comes to those who came before us have you ever been told stories by someone who often began a tale by saying… “When I was your age?” Did that sometimes make you think you were being compared in a less than favorable way to them?

Have you ever been told by someone that when they were your age they walked to school for miles regardless of the weather and that they were lucky to even be allowed to do it? Has anyone ever told you that they had to do their chores before starting off for school?

Has someone from the generation before yours ever said to you that if they misbehaved as a child they would be sent to the woodshed? Have you ever heard of anyone being punished by being whipped with a barber strap? Has a parent or another adult ever said this to you…“This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you?”
Have you ever thought that the problem with today’s younger generation behaves worse than you did as a kid? Has an older person than you ever told you the same thing? Have you ever thought that children today don’t respect their elders as you were taught to do? Have your elders ever told you that it was more common to do that in their day?

Have you ever heard them say…“Children should be seen and not heard” or “Children shouldn’t speak unless first spoken to?”
Have you ever heard a parent or someone their age describe food they had to eat and then made a face just thinking about it? Have you ever heard of anyone eating lard? Has anyone ever told you that they were lucky if they had meat on the table? Have you ever known anyone who regularly ate animals like opossum or groundhogs that they had to kill them self.

Have you ever heard someone talk about frying food using fat or making gravy from fat? Ever known someone who used bacon fat as some sort of medical remedy?

Ever seen anyone chop off the head of a chicken and then pluck the feathers from it so they could cook it for supper? Has anyone ever told you that they grew up drinking milk that came straight from an animal in their own barn?

Have you ever had someone tell you that most of what ended up on their dinner table was something they grew in a garden or raised from a calf or was the bounty from fishing or hunting? Did you ever know anyone who said they were lucky to make it to town once a week to purchase the other stuff?

Has anyone ever told you that once upon a time they considered an apple or an orange as a treat and that they were lucky to get one? Did anyone ever tell you that receiving a piece of candy usually only happened on special occasions or that if they received more than one piece they had to share it with someone?

Has anyone ever told you that when they were small all of their clothes were hand-me-downs or made at home?

Have you ever known anyone who lived in a house with no indoor plumbing? Has anyone ever told you that they grew up in a home where there was only an outhouse out back instead of a bathroom inside? Has anyone ever told you that when they took a bath they had to heat water on a coal stove to dump into a tub, or that when they did that they had to save the water for the next family member to bathe in?

Have you ever known someone who said they were only allowed one bath a week? Was Saturday night usually that one time? Have you ever known someone who used a wash board and whose washing machine was a wash tub? Have you ever known someone who washed their clothes with Ivory Soap Flakes?

Have you ever known anyone who said they felt lucky if they had more than one change of clothes?

Has anyone ever told you that when they were young they rarely wore shoes in the summertime? Have you ever known someone who received social assistance called relief? Have you ever known anyone who could tell stories about being employed in some place called a work camp?

Has anyone ever told you that their first car had a crank that had to be turned to start it? Have you ever known anyone who said they started driving before they were thirteen years old?

Have you ever known someone who never made it past the seventh grade but still grew up and was able to work a steady job and care for a family? Ever wondered why that person seemed smarter than you anyway?

Have you ever known anyone whose only mode of transportation to faraway places was a bus or a train? Ever know anyone who was born at home? How about someone whose entire family was born somewhere besides a hospital? Have you ever known someone who knew someone who was placed in an asylum because they couldn’t see or couldn’t hear?

What about someone whose only crime for being locked away was because they had mental issues no one could deal with? Have you ever heard someone talk about someone they knew who got sent away because they were unmarried and pregnant?

Have you ever known someone who was sent out to find work before they were twelve years old to help support the family? Or someone who sold eggs door-to-door to neighbors or anyone who said that they once washed clothes for other people to earn a few dollars just to get by?

Did anyone ever tell you that they lied about their age to join the military because they weren’t old enough to join? Have you ever known someone who said they once worked for less than fifty cents an hour and felt lucky to have a job?

Have you ever known someone whose mortgage payment was less fifty dollars a month? Has anyone ever told you that they remember thinking that a ten dollar electric bill was outrageous?

Has anyone ever described a machine as a contraption? Did you ever see someone roll their own cigarettes using some sort of contraption that had a rubber mat? Has anyone ever told you that their favorite cigarette brand was called Bugler?

Have you ever known someone whose favorite coffee brand was Postum? Have you ever known someone who drank more tea that was brewed using a root instead of a bag? Has anyone ever offered you Sassafras Tea?

Have you ever known someone who shaves with Barbasol? Ever seen a man shave with a butter knife? Ever had a grandparent take you to a barber shop that had cigarette butts scattered on a black and white checkered floor?

Have you ever heard the phrase ..."shave and a haircut two bits?” Do you know how much money two bits is? Have you ever been around an older man who smells like Vitalis? Have you ever known someone who used Lilac Water to smell nicer? What about Vanilla Extract?

Has anyone ever told you that when they were little they revered John Dillinger as sort of a hero? Has anyone ever talked about revenuers as bad guys? Have you ever heard someone talk about a cop who walked the beat in their neighborhood?

Have you ever known someone who grew all of their health remedies in a garden or rubbed a potato skin on a wart and then buried it in the moonlight to remove it Ever heard of St. John’s Wart? Has anyone ever talked about where they are from and called it the old country?

Have you ever seen a woman hang a large rug outside and beat it with a broom? Have you ever seen someone put up cooked tomatoes or other vegetables in jars that had two-piece lids with the name Ball on them? Have you ever known a woman who baked pies on Sunday and placed them on the sill of an open window to cool?

Do you remember when phone numbers had prefixes that were said by a name instead of numbers? Ever known someone whose phone number started with Hickory, Capital or Hollywood? Have you ever known someone who needed an operator to make all of their calls for them?

Have you ever been in someone’s home whose telephone was partially made of wood that needed to be cranked to make a call? Have you ever known someone who never had a phone or didn’t know anyone else who did? Has anyone ever told you about watching news reels in a movie theatre? Did you ever know someone who talked about buying popcorn for a dime in a theatre or only paying that much to go to the movies?

Ever known someone who only went to theatres they could walk to from home? Or someone who saw Shirley Temple movies when they were new? What about someone who remembers when all movies were silent?

Have you ever known a woman who sewed on a manual sewing machine? Ever known anyone who bought a house from a catalogue that had to be shipped to them? Have you ever seen a man use a drill that wasn’t powered by electricity? Have you ever known someone who said they had to make their own toys when they were little?

Has anyone ever told you that as a child their favorite past-time was kicking an old tin can or pushing a barrel hoop with a stick?
Have you ever known someone who played a game called stick ball? Have you ever known anyone who could mail a letter for two cents, buy a cup of coffee for a nickel? Do you know what a nickelodeon is?

Have you ever seen a tractor with steel tires? Do you know what Twenty Mule Team products were used for? Have you ever known someone who kept alum powder in their medicine chest? Do you know what it was used for? Did you ever know anyone who actually used a cookie jar for a bank?

Have you ever heard someone refer to your blue jeans as overalls? Ever known someone who thought it was unladylike if a slip wasn’t worn under a dress? Do you know what a petticoat is? Have you ever known an old woman who smoked a pipe or chewed something called snuff and then spit it into a coffee can?

Have you ever heard someone talk about buying vegetables from a man on a horse drawn cart who passed their house every day? Have you ever wondered what those big concrete blocks that still dot some curbs were used for?

Have you ever heard someone refer to any alcoholic beverage as spirits? Ever heard someone talk about Spirit of Ipecac as a cure for something or taking a dose of Epson Salts to feel better? How about sorghum to make something taste better?

Have you ever rode in a rumble seat or stood on the running board of a moving car? Have you ever heard old men tell stories of hopping onto moving trains or onto the back of a delivery truck to hitch a ride? Have you ever ridden on a trolley bus or talked to a motor man?

Has anyone ever told you that it was regarded as impolite to call someone you didn’t know personally by their first name or that it was an expression of disrespect for a juvenile to address any adult in any way other than Sir or Ma’am, or Mr. or Miss? Have you ever known someone who remembers when it was usually okay for a child to be spanked by a stranger if they misbehaved?

Have you ever known someone who earned extra money by shoveling coal through a metal door that led to someone’s basement or mowed a neighbor’s lawn for ten cents using a push mower? Has anyone ever told you about the days when black smoke poured from every chimney of every home on their street?

Do you know anyone who remembers when little girls were expected to curtsey when meeting an adult or when little boys were expected to either bow to a lady or shake a man’s hand, or when both were expected to sit up straight if they took a seat?

Has anyone ever told you that they were expected to wear a tie to sit down at the dinner table when they were a child or might be punished if they walked away from a meal without first being excused?

Have you ever known someone who actually did have their mouth washed out with soap for saying something they shouldn’t have.

Sound like anyone you know too?

Draw your own conclusion...

2011-03-24T16:20:00.000-07:00

Have you ever stared at the sky and looked for clouds that reminded you of someone or maybe a favorite pet? Have you ever looked at a wooden fence and seen the natural formation of a dog or a cat? Have you ever walked across the top of a chain link fence pretending you were doing a high wire act? Ever dig a hole for no earthly reason or one to replant a dead flower?

I think about things like that when I ponder the yard work ahead of me. I am reminded of the years when playing with dirt meant sliding my hands on it to make dirt roads for my toy cars or to draw lines to play marbles. Have you ever done that?

Have you ever thought that kids who stay indoors playing video games year-round are missing all of the wonders that they could discover outside like you did?

When it is raining outside and you are stuck inside have you ever thought about how you used to occupy your time on such days? Was a doll house or little plastic soldiers ever necessary to fill up a few hours? Did you spend time on those days coloring in a book or playing with an electric train? And if you did that have you ever placed toy cars on the tracks so the train would crash into them or read comic books you’ve already read?

Have you ever lain in bed at night with a flashlight and read a comic book? If you shared a bedroom with a brother or sister did your parents ever shout at you late at night and tell you to knock it off and go to sleep if you were talking too loud? And if they did, did you continue to carry on a conversation in whispers?

Have you ever lived in a home with just one bathroom? Did you ever have to ask your parents to order a brother or sister to hurry up and get out of it because you couldn’t hold yourself any longer?

Have you ever turned on a faucet in a bathroom hoping it would drown out whatever you were doing in there? Have you ever wished you were older? How about now? Probably not if you answered yes to most of the questions I have asked you so far.

However, was there ever a time before you were ten that you wished you were younger than you were? How about on the first day of a new school year, did you ever wish you were too young to have to go at all?

Reflecting on the past is what I do best, or at least it would seem that way sometimes. I do enjoy remembering things from my own youth and sharing what I think I remember. But sometimes it takes something someone might say or even a certain aroma to bring back a memory. Has that ever happened to you? Has the smell of a pesticide or some other foul odor caused you to reflect on something that happened long ago?

For instance, have you ever followed behind a vehicle that fogged for mosquitoes in the summertime? Like riding a bicycle in a thick cloud of white smoke pouring out of the back of it and making it nearly impossible to see where you were going?

Have you ever lit a cigarette in a hospital or inside of a courthouse? Ever seen someone else do that? What about in the waiting room of a doctor’s office? Did you know that smoking in a teacher’s lounge during school hours was once a common practice? I can recall seeing signs on the walls of hospital rooms that warned against smoking only if oxygen was in use.

Did you ever purchase a bottle of beer in a bar and then drink it without violating any laws when you were still a teenager?

Remember something called 3.2 beer that could be sold to eighteen year-olds?

Did you ever fear getting paddled in school by a teacher? Do you remember medicine bottles that didn’t have safety caps or food containers that didn’t have nutritional charts or the ingredients printed on labels?

Remember when they couldn’t say any four letter words on television and when none could be used in songs we heard on the radio? Remember when most radio stations played music and none of them carried talk-shows? Do you remember when most radios were only AM?

Have you ever made a trip to a store to purchase just one song on a 45 rpm record? Ever sit down at a lunch counter inside of a small drug store or have something delivered to your home from a neighborhood carry-out store? Have you ever visited a store that was called a Five and Dime Store?

Have you ever had your shoes resoled in a repair shop or had a repair man come to your home to fix your television set? Ever accompany your dad to a store to test television tubes? Have you ever held a flashlight for your dad while he tinkered in the back of a television set?

Ever had a knock at the door and heard a man shout, “gas man!” Or had one delivering baked goods? Have you ever seen a street sweeper on your street before dawn? Have you ever paid seven cents for a newspaper or a nickel for a candy bar? Have you ever gotten change from a dollar after you paid for a meal? Ever leave just a dime on a table as a tip?

Have you ever seen a commercial on television or heard one on the radio advertising cigarettes or cigars? Do you know what beverage was called the “Champaign of bottled beer?”

Have you ever tried to light your way using something called a carbide light?

Have you ever seen a commercial for something called “Geritol?” Do you know what that was?

Have you ever drunk 3-V Cola? Ever filled your gas tank with Sun Crest or Pure Oil Gasoline? What about Humble or Sohio gas? Have you ever bought a gallon of it for less than thirty cents?

Are the names Durwood Kirby or Clem Kaddilehopper familiar to you, or do you remember Uncle Tonoose and Uncle Charlie?

What about the man from Uncle? Did your brother or sister ever remind you of someone on a TV series? Ever had a crush on someone on a television show that was about your age before you were twelve?

Have you ever sat on the floor in front of a TV with your legs crossed? Did your mother ever warn you that you would ruin your eyes by sitting to close to it? Do you remember your family’s first color television set? Did you ever have one with a metal cabinet, or one that also had a built in radio?

Was there ever a television in your house that had a round channel changer dial that lit up or one that you had to turn manually to change the channel? Ever get “shocked” after walking across a carpet when you did it? Have you ever stared through holes on the back panel of a television at tubes that glowed?

Did you ever accompany your dad to a store with a bag of television tubes to have them tested? Was going to a hardware store with him ever something exciting? Have you ever gone shopping with your mother and been surprised that she bought you a toy just for being good?

Have you ever stood on a chair to get something from the top of a refrigerator? Ever use your bed as a trampoline or hide something under the mattress believing no one would ever think to look there?

Have you ever put a dime in a pop machine and opened a glass door to remove a bottle? Ever spend a penny to weigh yourself or one to have your fortune told? Do you remember who Sky King was? Do you know what his daughter’s name was?

Ever pitch pennies? Have you ever heard the phrase “Penny wise and pound foolish?” Did it ever make any sense to you?

Have you ever felt like a penny saved was one that you earned?

Have you ever counted pennies to wrap them and forgot your count and had to start over? Have you ever tried to win a friend’s nickel by flipping yours to match his flip?

Have you ever tossed salt over your shoulder hoping it would ward off bad luck? Has your key chain ever had a rabbit’s foot on the end of it? Did you ever have a hat that had an animal’s tail hanging from it?

Have you ever handed your mother a bouquet of dandelions that you picked in your backyard? Did she give you a hug and then put them in a glass of water? Did you ever have to dress up for Easter even if you weren’t going anywhere that day?

Ever scuff a patent leather shoe? Has your mother ever spit on a napkin to wipe something from your face? Has she or your father ever said to you “mind your manners?”

Has your mother or father ever asked you “what do you say?” expecting the answer to be either “thank you” or “excuse me?”

Did your dad ever seem like the tallest man in the world, or did you ever think you had the prettiest mom? Have you ever laughed so hard while drinking something that it came out of your nose?

Ever ask a question and shake an 8-ball to get the answer? Ever discard the answer and shake it again hoping for a better one? Did you ever write your name on 45 rpm record labels? Ever loan a record to a friend and not gotten it back?

Have you ever cracked a record but kept it and continued playing it anyway because you liked the song and didn’t want to throw it away? Can you still hear the sound in your head? What about the sound it made when the song was over and the needle bumped the label? Have you ever cut a picture out of a magazine and pinned it to your bedroom wall?

Have you ever accidentally said a curse word in front of your parents and then wished there was a hole in the floor you could fall into?

Has anyone ever asked you “did you fall in?” anytime they thought you spent too much time in the bathroom? Have you ever drawn eyeballs on a closed fist and then moved your thumb up down as if your hand were talking?

Have you ever doodled on the side of the pages of a closed book? Have you ever intentionally made teeth marks on a pencil? Ever use a fountain pen to write an essay for school?

Have you ever polished an apple or ate one with salt sprinkled on it? Did you ever have a Mr. Potato Head kit that required you to use a real potato? Ever had a Colorforms set? What about a vac-u-form?

Have you ever owned a plastic movie projector or looked at the sun through a kaleidoscope or talked to someone through a tin can?

Have you ever made a toy out of paper or wood? Ever kick a field goal with your fingers or build a house or a boat out of pop sickle sticks? Have you ever leafed through a coloring book that you thought was finished and saw a page that hadn’t been colored yet and got excited? Did you ever color a picture so poorly that you tore it up and hid in the trash hoping no one would see it?

Have you ever lost the key to your diary and had to cut it open?

Have you ever put paper clothing on a paper doll when your sister wasn’t around or played with plastic cars when your brother wasn’t home? Did you ever own a toy that lit up and thought it was a high tech gadget? Have you ever made something using paper mache and a balloon?

Have you ever pricked a water balloon and then drank the water? Ever rub a balloon on your head and then stick it on a wall?

Was your mom or dad ever your regular barber? Have you ever been someone else’s beautician even though you weren’t trained to do it? Have you ever sat under a big plastic hair dryer that looked like something from outer space at home? Ever wrap a plastic cover around your head that blew warm air to dry it?

Do you remember when women wore hosiery that had a black line going up the back of their legs? Do you remember when most of them owned less than five pairs of shoes?

Did your blue jeans ever need to be cuffed at the bottom so you wouldn’t walk on them? Have you ever worn your pants like that with a long sleeved flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up past your elbows? Have you ever owned a leather hat that had straps and a buckle or a jacket that was called a car coat?

Did your parents ever refer to the electric bill as the light bill?

Have you ever heard someone refer to electricity as juice? Did you ever hear anyone say “Give it the juice” when they wanted you to drive faster? Did you ever say “I’m out of juice” when you were tired? Have you ever heard of the liquid in a pickle jar referred to as pickle juice? Ever heard someone call a story juicy?

Ever heard someone call a cigarette a fag? Have you ever wondered why girls always kissed one another and held hands while skipping along a sidewalk but if boys did that they would be called a…never mind.

Have you ever wondered why girls like to tell each other that they are pretty and that they have beautiful hair but if boys said that to one another…never mind. Ever tried to hide a hickie? Ever put one on yourself just to see if you could do and then tell someone it was just a bruise?

Was there ever a time when only your father was allowed to change a glass fuse in the fuse box? And when he did it did he seem like a pretty smart guy for knowing how? Have you ever had bad luck after breaking a mirror? Have you ever said “bread and butter” hoping something else didn’t bring you bad luck?

Have you ever eaten powdered candy that came in a straw? Did you ever eat something that had Oleo on it? Have you ever sprinkled cinnamon on a piece of buttered toast or ate a handful of cereal before you poured it into a bowl? Ever drink milk from a carton and hoped that no one saw you or licked peanut butter off of your fingers?

Have you ever caught a marshmallow on fire with a match or by holding it to a flame on the stove and then ate it even though it was burnt to a crisp? Have you ever tried to make homemade fudge and then thrown away all but about a tablespoon of it because it didn’t turn out right?

Were you ever required to eat all that was on your plate at dinner time even if you didn’t like what was on it? Have you ever known dinner to be called supper? Has a parent ever reminded you that there are starving people in China when you didn’t want to eat?

Ever stick your tongue in a sugar bowl? Have you ever chewed Teaberry Gum or Black Jack or Clove chewing gum? Have you ever chewed five pieces at the same time? Ever rolled a wad of gum and thrown it against a wall to see if it would stick? Ever tried to scrape it from the bottom of your shoe with a pop sickle stick?

Have you ever bought a milk shake from a truck? Ever stood on a sidewalk after dark waiting for one to come? Have you ever thought someone named Mr. Softee was driving it? Have you ever tossed a baseball into the air to see if a bat would chase it? Did anyone ever warn you that a bat would land on your head and make a nest in your hair?

Did you ever do something even though Simon didn’t tell you to do it? Have you ever played hide and seek in your house? Have you ever really licked a mixing bowl (or did you lick your fingers after scraping them inside of one?)

Have you ever been licked in a fight or have you ever heard of a spanking as a lickin’? Ever used a metal garbage can lid as a shield or a broom handle as a lance while pretending to do battle? Ever use a garbage can lid as a sled or have you ever rode a horse made out of a broom handle? Have you ever tossed a garbage can lid and pretended it was flying saucer?

Have you ever knocked an ice cycle from a gutter and ate it? Ever had a waitress pop a balloon at a lunch counter to see if you won desert?

Have you ever felt warmer inside a snow fort than you were when you were building it? Have you ever decorated a snow man’s face and noticed the eyes were crooked? Did your mother ever warn you not to cross your eyes because they would stick they way?

Did your mother ever rub butter or grease on a wound or use a sliver of soap when she thought you needed a suppository. Have you ever feared a water bottle for the same reason?

Has anyone ever asked you…“jeet or want somethin’ teet?” when they wondered if you were hungry? Have you ever laughed when an old person referred to a car as a machine? Ever known someone who lived in a holler? Has anyone ever called your house a pad?

Have you ever had a crush on a school teacher? Did you ever believe they had one on you too? Have you ever read a teacher’s note to your mother before you gave it to her? Have you ever had to write “I will not...” several times on a blackboard?

Have you ever feared being punished at home for something that happened in school? Did a classroom ever look different to you after you returned from a field trip?

Have you ever made a wallet in shop class or brought home something made of wood with your house number on it? Ever make a spade or an ash tray in metal shop? Have you ever glued a picture of yourself to the bottom of a clear coaster in art class and given it to your mother as a gift? Have you ever made her a homemade greeting card out of construction paper? Have you ever sold popcorn fritters door-to-door for school?

Have you ever hung upside down on monkey bars and scratched your armpits? Ever climb up the slide instead of steps on a sliding board? Have you ever been scared to climb a rope in gym class?

Did you ever have to take off your shoes to walk across a dirty gymnasium floor? Ever been embarrassed because you had a hole in your sock when you did that? Did your mother ever warn you to always wear clean underwear in case you were struck by a car?

Do you remember when cartoons were only shown on television on Saturday mornings? Do you remember when Huckleberry Hound was gray instead of blue? (Black & white television of course?) And speaking of cartoon characters, do you remember Heckle and Jeckle?

Have you ever wished you could become a mouseketeer? Ever start your own club in your neighborhood? Ever actually build a clubhouse out of anything besides cardboard boxes?

Did your mother ever have something called a rag bag where all of the clothes your family outgrew or wore out ended up in? Have you ever gone to that bag to look for material you could cut up to make a tail for a kite?

Have you ever run down a sidewalk trying to fly a kite when there was no wind? Did your kite sometimes only crash into the pavement when you did that? Have you ever tried to make a kite out of newspapers?

Did you ever just run somewhere just to show someone else how fast you could do it? I mean even if you never had any thoughts of being on a track team or before jogging came into vogue.

Have you ever played touch football in the street? Have you ever climbed to the top of someone else’s garage just for something to do? Have you ever climbed a neighbor’s apple tree to help yourself to his apples without permission to do it?

Have you ever taken a picture with a camera that needed round flashbulbs? Have you ever had to use a hand crank on a camera to roll the film after the last picture was taken?

Have you ever had your picture taken while sitting on a pony in front of your house? Ever made toast in a toaster that had doors instead of slots? Have you ever called your refrigerator an ice box?

You do sound familiar.

You remind me of someone I know

2011-03-24T15:33:00.000-07:00

Looking out at the ravages left behind from what has been a brutal winter I am not eager to tackle the yard work that needs done to transform my property from one of ugliness to something that shows that I care about what the neighbors might think.

In all honesty I don't, but I happen to be someone that feels a sense of pride when my yard looks good. I do it for me, but have you ever mowed a lawn using a mower that had no motor?

In recent years I would curse out loud if my mower ran out of gas before I finished the job, but in the days when I had more energy than I could possibly burn up in a day I would walk the neighborhoods hiring myself out to make other lawns look great for about a dollar a yard using what was called a push mower.

No cords to yank to get them started, no spark plugs to clean off or replace and best of all, no gas can. And with the price of gasoline now soaring by the day... no grumbling that I would have to mow three yards just to buy a gallon of it if I were to charge that same dollar. With jobs as scarce as they are now I am thinking about it.

But speaking of that, have you ever raked a neighbors leaves for that same amount? And speaking of piles of leaves, have you ever burned them and if you did, did you savor the aroma that surrounded you? If you smell burning leaves now does it take you back to that time?

Burning leaves was something that was very common around my neighborhood when I was a kid. I think everyone on my block did that and not just leaves...have you ever burned trash in a fifty gallon drum? Was there ever a time in your life when taking out the trash would become an adventure? For me it was. Separating anything that would burn from everything that wouldn't and igniting it in a big can while imagining I was watching buildings on fire instead of milk cartons.

And speaking of such juvenile pyromania, have you ever placed firecrackers in a plastic model car and then blown it up?

Using the funds I would earn from my neighbors when I was small I would buy model car kits from a drug store called Sloan's Drugs a few blocks from my home for around a buck and a half and then spend hours lying across my bed gluing it all together, then painting it and eventually destroying it.

Have you ever poured lighter fluid on something and then lit it just to watch it burn? Did lighter fluid ever smell good to you? What about pipe tobacco? Have you ever enjoyed being in the presence of someone when they lit their pipe to smoke it? My dad's favorite brand "Cherry Blend" comes to mind here. Have you ever called a store and asked if they had Prince Albert in a can? Do remember what you said to them if they did?

(You should let him out before he suffocates!) Does that ring a bell?

Did you ever buy a pack of cigarettes when you weren’t old enough and when it required nothing more than about thirty cents and a note from an adult? Of course that was in the days when lighting up indoors wasn't a criminal offense or when it wasn't regarded as child endangering if kids were in the room.

On the tobacco topic...have you ever asked an adult to save a cigar box for you? Or if you weren't shy about such things have you ever asked a store clerk behind a counter if he or she had any empty ones?

I don't remember exactly what I used them for but I seem to recall owning several empty cigar boxes as a kid. It would seem that I might have had a fascination for things that were either flammable or could be smoked when I was a kid does it not? I don't think that was the case though, I think that I was just a kid in a time when doing some of the things I did wasn't always a cause for alarm or worries of how I might grow up.

But that reminds me, have you ever tried to burn something with a magnifying glass? Ever focused one on your own hand to see how long you could stand it? Ever tried to burn a bug with one?

Speaking of making fire, have you ever wasted a book of matches by lighting them all at once without pulling them from their cover? Do you remember when a book of matches cost around a penny, or when individual pieces of candy did? Have you ever needed a match to light a stove?

Have you ever stood in front of a glass case and pointed to pieces of candy and said “I'll take a penny's worth of those?"

Have you ever picked up a penny off the ground and thought that someone else's misfortune was a windfall for you? Have you ever seen one on the ground and not picked it up because you were afraid someone would see you do it? Have you ever picked one up and put in your shoe for good luck?

I’m starting to sound like Andy Rooney! But have you ever gotten a dime for going to the store for your mother? Did she ever remind you..."don't forget my stamps?" Do you remember watching her lick trading stamps to place them into stamp books or did you ever peruse a catalogue to decide what you would get with those books if they were yours do what you wanted? Ever get a dime for a grade in school, I mean in addition to your regular allowance? Was your allowance ever withheld as part of a punishment for something you shouldn't have done?

Was missing your favorite television programs ever because there was only one television in the house? Was there ever a time when you pretended to hate the programs your parents watched but watched them anyway because you really did like them?

Have you ever lain in front of a TV on your side with your head cradled in the palm of your hand while balancing yourself with your elbow resting on the floor? Have you ever wanted to stay up later to watch something only to have your mother remind you that it was a school night?

Do you remember when everything you watched was in black and white and there were just three channels and all of them signed off around midnight? Have you ever turned on a television in the morning and saw a test pattern instead of people?

Have you ever put powdered Cool-Aid on your tongue and wondered why it tasted bitter? Ever eat a spoonful of instant chocolate powder and then looked at your tongue? What about Hershey's Cocoa? Ever done that and then rinsed your mouth with water because it tasted bitter?

Do you remember when you needed a can opener to open pop cans or remember when they were made of metal that the average person couldn't crush with their hands? Do you remember when milk only came in glass bottles or paper cartons?

Have you ever heard the rattling of milk bottles early in the morning outside your window and looked out to see a man carrying them in metal baskets or watched him climb back into a truck that he drove while standing up? When you see or hear the words Battle Creek Michigan do you instantly think of cereal?

Have you ever cut off box tops and put them in an envelope to send away for a toy? Were you ever excited when the mailman brought it, only to be disappointed when you saw what it was?

Have you ever been disappointed with the surprise that came in a box of Cracker Jacks?

Do you remember an animated kid with big ears shoving a giant spoon into his mouth after saying "I want my Maypo!" Can you finish this jingle..."You'll wonder where the yellow went when you brush..."? Or this theme song from a super hero..."Here I come to save the..."? Did you ever think that a couple of guys named Spin and Marty reminded you of someone you knew who was older than you? Do you even know who they were? Have you ever named a dog after one you watched on television, I mean besides Lassie?

Have you ever pretended to be someone from a television show by dressing like them or acting like them on a playground or in your backyard?

Have you ever hosted a tea-party without serving tea or fed a doll baby with empty baby bottles? If your play-time required the use of weapons did you ever have a bean shooter in your arsenal?

Have you ever shot your own tonsils with a squirt gun? Have you ever destroyed glass bottles and jars with a BB gun or by just throwing rocks at them? Have you ever been yelled at for not putting your dad’s tools back where you found them or for getting into your mother’s make-up case? Ever refused to let someone use your comb because you feared they would leave cooties in it?

Have you ever stood on a sidewalk and watched televisions left on in an appliance store?

Have you ever gotten on a bus and watched nickels and dimes drop into a glass box and wished you had a key for the box? Ever heard a bus driver call out the name of a street and know what he was going to say before he said it? Do you remember when they were all men and they wore hats? Do you remember when the mail man wore a uniform and his hat looked like a policeman's? Do you remember when the cops on the street or in police cars were all men?

With the warmer weather fast approaching I am also reminded of bugs. Have you ever tried to catch honey bees or flies with your bare hands or placed lightening bugs in a jar to make a lantern only to be disappointed that they didn’t put out enough light to see anything but them?

Ever been afraid to get too close to a praying mantis? Have you ever lost a piece of candy and found it the next day covered with ants?

Have you ever felt victorious about swatting a fly with a fly swatter or slapping a mosquito on your arm but felt terrible if you accidentally killed a lady bug or a butterfly? Has your mother ever told you not to scratch a mosquito bite because it would get infected?

Have you ever sprayed your lawn before dusk so you could catch night-crawlers when it got dark? Ever seen two of them seemingly glued together and covered in slime and decided to leave them alone and look for another one?

Has someone ever taken you fishing at night but instead of watching a fishing pole hoping to catch a fish you spent the night collecting wood for a campfire and then stoking it all night? Did a bologna sandwich or a can of soup ever taste better along a riverbank than it did at a dinner table?

I thought so, but wait! There's more! Read on...

What makes me think so?

2011-03-24T13:01:00.000-07:00

As an aging man who regards the best of my life behind me now I have to revisit those times a little more often to insure they never completely fade from memory. So, much of my writing not only serves as documentation of what I think was a pretty good life, I hope that it stands as a testament to that fact.

Have you ever walked through alleys looking for discarded pop bottles to carry to a store and redeem them for extra spending money as a kid?

There was a time I not only did that as a mission but during that era of my own youth I rarely left an empty pop bottle on the ground.

Even if I were busy playing with my friends or just riding my bicycle. those bottles were so precious and valuable then I would go as far as to hide one that I may have found to retrieve it later, and I am sure I probably picked up a few and carried them to the store for the two cents they were worth even if that meant interrupting something else I was doing at the time.

And speaking of simple transportation, have you ever folded a piece of cardboard and attached it to your bike so it would rub the spokes and make sounds like a motor, or placed a balloon there to make it sound like a more powerful one? Have you ever decorated bicycle spokes with bottle caps? Ever ride a bike that had streamers in the handle grips or rear view mirrors or a bell to warn others that you were coming?

Did your bicycle ever have a metal basket on the handlebars or a pair of them straddling the rear wheel? What about a chrome headlight shaped like a rocket or a horn that sounded off-key when the batteries were going bad?

Have you ever ridden a bicycle through deep snow or on an icy road without worrying about having it slip out from beneath you and breaking a bone in the process, or on dry pavement and going as fast as you can and slamming on the breaks to lay rubber?

Were you ever able to leave rubber from the rear tire on the ground by pedaling as hard as you could going forward? Ever put decals or paint your name on your bike?

Have you ever painted a bike with a brush and if you did, did it look ridiculous? Have you ever painted the word Ford or Chevrolet on a bike? Have you ever ridden a bicycle and imagined you were driving a car or a truck?

Have you ever tied a transistor radio to the handle bars? And before you learned to ride a bike did you ever ride a wagon by sitting in it on one knee while scooting your foot across the pavement of a sidewalk?

Have you ever thought you could make it further than you did while hopping on a po-go stick or while walking on stilts? Have you ever had a pair of stilts that you or your father didn't make?

Have you ever had to end a game of badminton because the birdie went into a cranky neighbor's yard and you were afraid to ask them to return it, or stopped playing whiffle ball because the ball landed in a gutter or on a roof? Ever tried to walk to school without stepping on a crack? Ever heard the phrase "step on a crack...break your mother's back?"

Have you ever worried that you would have a bad day or something horrible would happen if you walked under a ladder or stood under an umbrella when you were indoors? Did you ever wear a yellow raincoat that came with a matching hat or rubber boots with metal buckles?

Ever purposely step in water puddles knowing your shoes wouldn't get wet because you were wearing boots? Were you ever disappointed when the boot didn't do its job? Have you ever jumped into a swimming pool and the water was colder than you thought it would be even on a hot summer day?

Have you ever wondered why the area in a classroom where you hung your coat and parked your boots was called a cloak room?

Was there a time when you didn't know what the word cloak meant and never really pondered it? Did you ever think of the principal's office as a scary place? Did the inside of a school ever smell like crayons or modeling clay to you?

Have you ever felt special because the teacher asked you to erase a blackboard or did you ever get a face full of chalk by banging two erasers together? Did you ever feel like the school day was almost over the moment you smelled food cooking in a cafeteria?

Have you ever carried your lunch to school in a brown paper bag that had your name written on it in pencil? Was part of that lunch ever a sandwich wrapped in wax paper? Did your mother ever give you a nickel for milk money and tell you not to lose it?

Have you ever sat in a class room and stared a clock, especially before lunch time or near the end of the day? Or did you ever need to look at the alphabet above a blackboard because you forgot how to make a letter?

Did you ever feel silly or excited the night before Valentine’s Day because you had to print the names of all of your classmates on little greeting cards? Did you save the better ones for the kids you liked best and did it ever look odd to you or did you ever cringe when you had to write someone’s name on one that you didn’t like at all?

Ever feel like a mailman when you walked around the classroom and dropped them into little bags taped to the front of everyone’s desk?

Have you ever taken gum out of your mouth and stuck it beneath your seat or under a desk top? Have you ever written your name on a desk or the name of someone you had a crush on?

Ever draw a heart around it with an arrow going through it? Have you ever drawn a mustache or blacked out someone’s teeth on a picture in a yearbook or class picture?

Has a teacher ever caught you doodling on a piece of paper, or has one ever made you stand in a corner for some other insurrection? Did you ever feel like the entire class was staring at your back and laughing the whole time you stood there, even if you had to stand there for an hour or more?

Have you ever played games at school called kick-ball, tether-ball or four square? Have you ever taken a plastic gun to school to share with the class or to aim at your classmates while playing army or cowboys and Indians during recess?

Have you ever lied to your mother about being sick just to get out of going to school? Have you ever wished you could go to school instead of keeping a dentist appointment? Was a doctor ever someone who made regular visits to your home?

Have you ever left your mark using something as harmless as a piece of chalk on the side of someone else's property? Today vandals use spray paint to do that but in bygone years there was a sense of really getting away with something and in some cases even accomplishment to make your mark even though it could be removed with a water hose.

And speaking of water hoses...have you ever shared one with a friend on a hot day to quench a thirst? And if you did, did you worry about getting something called cooties if your mouth touched the end of the hose? Sort of like allowing a friend or a sibling to take a swig from your bottle of pop, if you did that did you wipe it off thoroughly before you took another drink? Did you ever believe that cooties was a real disease?

Maybe going as far as to using your shirt tail to scrub it clean so you wouldn’t catch it? Or maybe you asked for a drink from someone else's bottle and were offended when they did exactly what you would have done if it were the other way around?

The warmer weather has me thinking about pulling my bicycle out of the garage and taking a long ride around the neighborhood to again reflect on a time when doing that was how I got to nearly every destination I wanted to be. Not just places I needed to go but where I wanted to.

Have you ever tried to ride a bike as far as you could go on just one wheel? And if you could do "wheelies” was there more of a sense of accomplishment if there were others watching you do it?

And speaking of such exhibitionism have you ever played basketball by yourself using someone else's rim without permission to do it? Like one nailed to someone's garage behind their house?

And if you did that were you hoping someone saw you when you made a great shot? Were you a little embarrassed each time you missed, or did you hope that no one saw that one?
Regardless, did you usually win all of your games? Did you usually win by making a shot as the buzzer in your head sounded? Were some of those games ever played inside of your house using your mom's clothes hamper as a rim?

Have you ever peeked at someome's blog and read something that triggered a memory or just made you think?

Just asking.

There's the doorbell, see who it is

2011-03-23T05:45:00.000-07:00

Click image to enlarge

I remember the day my family moved into the house I bought in 1997. I actually remember the living room when it was empty, before any furniture was brought in and when the hardwood floors were still uncovered and shined like the banister that lined wooden steps that were also naked. As a matter of fact, all of the floors in the house were bare except for the green and yellow tiles in the kitchen and some sort of matching linoleum in the bathroom that covered those . If I only remembered the day when I bought it you might wonder why that is worth noting, but as I said, I remember the day my family first moved in... when my dad bought it. I am the second owner since the page shown here was current. On the fourth Saturday of this calendar I turned six years old and was too young to be thinking about starting a new school year as a first grader at Siebert Street Elementary School in just two months, but I wasn't too young to know that I was finally home. On the second Sunday shown here my mother married my new dad and before this month was over my brother and sister and I would begin making friends on the street I have come home to. Of all of the friends my parents made around here in the days that followed that day in 1958 only one is left on this street. An elderly woman who is in her eighties who still lives three doors down from me to this day. Before I came back in the year my mother passed away I had lived in different places around Columbus but nowhere did I ever feel the sense of really being home like I do in this old house. My work as a writer often documents where I have been and what I have been doing since I first walked into it, and one of my books, "Honey, I Promise" offers readers a very personal and candid look at what brought a poor and struggling family here in the first place. It is a story filled with abuse and heartbreak but it is a family history that I am very proud of. Another of my books, "Deputy in Disguise" talks about everything else. If you click on this picture you will notice that it is a calendar from one of the largest employers on the southside at the time, the Omar Bakery Company. Home of The Omar Man who delivered bread and pastries to the same door steps that surround this house. Omar, like so many other businesses around here is gone now, as are most of the people on my block who remember this era, but I'm still here and I hope you will spend some time perusing my blog sometime to share in some memories that may be familiar to you also. And when you can, please visit www.rickminerd.snappages.com/ or write to me at imjustrick@aol.com. As a writer I am no James Thurber, but he was a great influence on me and what I hope to accomplish someday, and believe it or not he once lived within walking distance of this old house. Perhaps the Omar Man delivered the bread for his table too.

Get it yourself

2011-03-22T07:01:00.000-07:00

From the days when doctors made house calls and when you could call your neighborhood grocery store and ask them to bring you a pound of lunch meat and a loaf of bread, trucks like the one shown here driven by men wearing uniforms would bring the milk. Usually very early in the morning just before dawn. When I think of all of the people who are out of work because jobs are scarce I am reminded of all of the jobs that no longer exist, and then I face the reality that all of the jobs that have left, either by farming them out to other countries or because certain services are no longer practical are gone for ever. Then I find more reasons to revisit a better time and I have more fodder for my catalogue of short stories. The sound of the truck stopping in front of your house before 6:00 AM was silenced sometime before the late 1960s but I swear I didn't notice it until years later. Like everything else I guess. Things we take for granted go away without much fanfare sometimes and then one day we wake up and wonder when it happened. The disappearance of the milk man and his truck came years before the disappearance of the careers I chose before becoming a police officer. In my book "Deputy in Disguise" I shared stories about planning a career as a printer, hopefully landing a job at the Columbus Dispatch Printing Company or even a smaller shop as a press operator. To prepare for that I enrolled in vocational printing classes at Columbus South High School and studied the craft for three years and learned to operate a variety of presses. Today everything I learned then has become obsolete because anyone with a computer and a printer can master their own printing needs. I never pursued that dream and I'm sure I am better off today for deciding on a broadcasting career instead. Even more secure because I left that industry when I did to become a cop, because even most of the broadcasting jobs I held through the years are gone now, replaced by technology. Instead of disc jockey's like me manning radio studios twenty four hours a day stations are serving up satellite feeds from faraway places and offering that as entertainment. A good economic move for them to eliminate all of those jobs but tough on people who worked long and hard for years as radio announcers. There are still a few of them around who actually do work in local stations and who are really live at the moment we hear their programs, but like the way we get our milk now we usually have to get our music ourselves also. I am speaking of course of persons like me who are over fifty, and especially anyone still on the planet who was around in the 1940s. And if you were here in the 1930s or anytime before that forget it. There isn't anything left. There are a few stations scattered about that play small doses of pre 1965 music, usually ones with weak signals that are difficult to tune in, but because the choices for music radio are so limited to the so-called baby boomer generation it is sometimes easier to drag out old records and CDs, or with technology as it is just google song titles and listen to you tube postings. Nevertheless, something that is abundant on radio now is talk. Lots of talk, and if you enjoy hearing others tear down our country and sing the praises of people who are at the root of job losses and other miseries than you are in luck! Sometimes it is all politics all the time. A lot of what stations are offering now is programming that features pissed off people like Rush Limbaugh and a guy named Hannity. They are satellited right to your radio to remind you everyday how bad things are. That's their job. To bitch and moan about everything and everyone they don't like but offer no solutions to make things better. Great listening if you scare easily and enjoy being sacred, but if you turn on a radio hoping to find something to make you feel good, well...

As a popular radio announcer who worked for decades in Cincinnati recently said when asked if he might one day return to the airwaves..."You have to be pretty angry to want to be on the radio now. I'm not that mad at the world"

I'm not either, just a little sad when I look at it now.

Visit www.rickminerd.snappages.com/

The Falcon and the Snowbirds

2011-03-21T08:15:00.000-07:00

Whenever I talk to my brother who lives in Arizona I get the sense that he envies me for living someplace he couldn't wait to leave. A globe trotter for years who has traveled to faraway lands all over the world just to see it, he took his wife's advice and fled our hometown of Columbus, Ohio to live out his days in the year round warmth and sun just outside of Phoenix.

Leaving behind everything that was familiar to begin what will be the eventual end of his days, like the rest of us in the so-called baby boomer generation. But I think when I hear him rave about the weather out there and when his words carry the sound of relief to be far away from what can be a challenging community to the personal safety of everyone still back here, I get the feeling that he is a little homesick. Maybe not homesick enough to want to return to what is here now, but for the days when everything here was...well, still here. My book (Are those my Footprints?) speaks to both then and now and although I am sure he hasn't read it I know that it would make him smile and feel good about his decision to leave. Yet I also believe that it would make him smile for other reasons. This book outlines the reasons that he and hundreds, if not thousands of others have left but it is also something of a history book that showcases all of the reasons I am sure he wishes he could could come home. He would never say it but I think he would race back and tolerate not only the weather here but even the people he has such disdain for if he only could. It is no secret that our neighborhood is one that is far less safe than where he is now. Here he would worry about his car or his home being broken into as well as being assaulted if he wandered onto the wrong block within walking distance, while in Mesa he has no such concerns. There he lives in a community of mostly white older Americans, most are retired and all are there for the same reasons. They want to live out their days surrounded by people like them and they no longer have the tolerance for other people's bad behavior or the challenges and discomfort of harsh winters. But although I am only a couple of years younger than my brother, I still can. I tolerate a lot but I don't succumb to anything. Although the troubles I might encounter are within walking distance of my home I remain diligent to compete with them when it is necessary and to survive them if they have other plans for me. I understand my brother's reasons for not wanting any of this on his plate but I know that he is homesick. Our telephone conversations are always long and our dialect is similar to listening to an old time radio show. Our conversations often play out our past, and even though a lot has changed over the years he knows that I still sleep in the same bedroom he and I shared as kids and that every day of my life I am surrounded by everything that he was when we were living the happiest years of our lives. He knows that on holidays I am keeping the same traditions that we enjoyed for all of those years alive and that every day of every year I am where he could find me in an emergency just by picking up a telephone and dialing the same number he has been dialing since he was nine years old. I have kept even that. I can think of nowhere else on the planet I would rather live the end of my life than where most of it all began. I wouldn't want to follow his footprints anywhere he has been even though he has seen all of the wonders of the world and visited every place he was ever curious about. And I would never want to be surrounded by what he is now. Even though I would fit in with what I consider a bunch of old geezers living in some retirement community like him, I just couldn't do it. There are still a few old souls that we knew when we were kids still living on my block or elsewhere within walking distance, but aside from age and what we remember we have little in common. I do enjoy talking about the past and remembering a better world than we have now but I cannot retreat from who I am out of fear of others or because the snow gets too deep around here. And I cannot participate very long in conversations about sickness and the death of those we care about or even discussions about my own health or my eventual demise. I will die soon enough from something and I am okay with that. I have no desire to be the last man standing in a world of strangers anyway and I don't see any signs that our world will ever be any better than it is now. So as my brother ran away, or was dragged away by his wife to what is her panacea to be surrounded by community gatherings, yard sales, pot-luck dinners and warmer weather I am content to just be home. Home, not only the address where I live but really home. And when my brother shares his concerns about my personal well being in an area that has changed but remained the same to me I try to calm his fears by telling him that I am more than just okay, I am happy. And when he wonders what it will be like for me when I am too old or too weak to survive in a tough place I remind him that when that time comes, if it does, I won't be making any travel plans to escape. Those that are able to overpower me and take away what I have will have to do it when they can. But for now that is a bigger challenge for them than my brother believes. And it is one that I anticipate, but one that if it goes as I hope it does will take my last breath. I'm not leaving. I will go to our kitchen and pour myself a cup of coffee and later sit on the same porch he and I sat on when we were young, just talking and trying to predict the future. So what does the title of this story mean? Well, aside from my brother who soared off with a flock of like minded baby boomers...I just like Falcons.

Contact this author at imjustrick@aol.com or visit http://www.rickminerd.snappages.com/

The new face of South Columbus

2011-03-19T07:09:00.000-07:00

Just a police sketch of another wanted man is shown here, but this is only one of hundreds that are drawn every year based on the information provided to police by crime victims. This guy doesn't look that bad compared to many I have had taped to the dashboard of my police car through the years.

Last year I wrote and published my fourth book "Are those my Footprints?" A book that I spent a year putting together by just hanging out in neighborhoods close to my own home in South Columbus.

And like much of my work it is a collection of stories that reflect on the past, but this time it is a weld of what used to be good... to where we are now in some of these communities.

Welding what is ugly and dangerous now to what was beautiful and more innnocent not so long ago. I have stood the people who now call my block their home beside many who have since moved away or passed away and shown the differences in how we now have to navigate among one another and how it was before we gave up on each other as neighbors.

The south end of Columbus is still a pretty great place, but there is some trash to step over and plenty of reasons to keep one eye on your surroundings, and if you look close enough you can still see the images of what made this area what I have always regarded as the heart of the city. And sometimes when I look I swear I can still see the footprints of the people who are long gone as well as the shadows of those who have taken their place. It is those shadows and how they got here that inspired me to write this book.

Available in eReader at http://www.amazon.com/ and other book retailers.

Search books/Are those my Footprints?

Cowboys to Girls

2011-03-16T07:34:00.000-07:00

Before the mid 1960s the Schmidt's Packing Company located at the corner of East Kossuth Street and Jaeger Street had been a south side landmark for decades. When I began writing this book I was thinking about the days when I was a kid when some of us would hang around and watch the delivery of animals to be slaughtered there and fantasizing ways to set them all free and spare them from the butchers inside.
I could not help but to feel sorry for them especially when I saw the Schmidt's employees milling around with blood soaked white coats and when I heard the screams of the animals inside. Slaughterhouses still depress me when I think of them.
My Dad worked at one at Lockbourne Road and Refugee Road called Swift’s Premium Meats and I used to hate the stories he told of how the cattle were barbarically slaughtered there. He liked telling those stories at the dinner table to aggravate my mother.
At fifteen years old I joined my best friend Danny Sauer working at Schmidt's but by this time the packing plant had been torn down and the business moved across the street into an old stable and became known as Schmidt's Sausage Haus. We were among the first employees of the restaurant when it opened in the summer of 1967.
Located just two blocks down the street from my home the commute was the only easy part of that wake up call for both of us to the working world.
Going into my sophomore year at South High School was probably the year that I actually morphed from a kid into an adult, partly because of that job but mostly because of the year ahead. In this sense Danny and I grew up together, even though we only knew each other since 1964 and by our senior year in high school we would slowly drift apart.
It is odd sometimes when I remember what seemed important to him and me during those years. Hormones had something to do with our zeal to earn as much money as we could because we were both egotistical enough to think we would go into high school as the most prolific of all girl chasers and owners of the coolest cars in the south end.
Giving up our paper routes and going to work at Schmidt's for $1.00 an hour gave us an edge because even though we were students that had to be in school at 8:15 in the morning we worked from 4:00 PM until midnight most days and after taxes would earn something like $35.00 a week. High cotton for the times.
Danny and I were as good of friends as anyone could be and I have often said that if I had a second brother it would be him.
Getting up at 7:00 each morning for school wasn't the easiest thing either of us did because in addition to working late on school nights we would walk about a block going home and stop across the street from the old packing plant and talk.
Sometimes we would hang around on the corner for an hour or more and occasionally draw the attention of a passing cop who may have wondered what we were up to. One time one did stop to question us. I was placed in the back seat to be interviewed by one officer while the other one questioned Danny outside.
We were able to convince them that we were not up to any mischief and that we were just walking home from work. My parents might have thought we were running the streets after work and getting into trouble but they knew that Dan was the least likely person to do anything outside the law. I knew it too and that had a lot to do with why we were friends for so many years.

I cannot imagine that in any of those discussions was any talk of what our neighborhood would be in the future, how it would become the ritzy area it now is and because of the money that has flowed into the village how that has caused it to become a target for the worst of criminals.
I doubt that we could have imagined that if we came back at midnight sometime in the future and stood on that corner we might be mugged or shot. German Village was a quiet area in those days and thoughts of robberies and shootings could not have been be further from our minds.
Instead, we were thinking and discussing girls and our dream cars. For me it was a 1960 Ford Falcon and for Danny a 1963 Chevy ll. Our first cars when we turned 16.
When I think back on those days I remember that just walking around at night talking and making plans for our futures was what we did most of the time before we got those jobs at Schmidt’s. There were nights we probably walked for miles regardless of the weather, or nights when we rode our bikes even further, sometimes one or the other sitting on the handlebars as we rode double.
In addition, when I think about all of that it becomes clear to me that that is how friendships are built and how they survive. Spending great deals of time talking. Maybe I was honing my future employment skills then.
By the time Danny Sauer and I stopped being close friends there really was no reason to stop knowing him. No fall outs, nothing that would cause two best friends to drift apart.
In the years since we left high school we spoke to each other only a few times even though we lived within ten miles of each other. I guess we just ran out of things to talk about.
But in August, 2009 we did bump into each other at the annual St. Mary’s homecoming festival in our old neighborhood, and although I was thrilled to see him I was saddened that he wasn’t feeling well. Something about that visit told me that I should spend every possible second with him rehashing our happy past.
I showed him the only copy of the book this one was born from before it was edited for final production and I explained that it was a rough draft, full of grammatical errors and punctuation challenges and I told him that I had written a story about us that would be in it and that even though it still had a lot of work yet to be done I wanted him to have the only one that existed at the time.
I wanted to write a short note in it apologizing for the work not yet done on it and thanking him for all he was to my own childhood but he wouldn’t take it. He said “I’ll wait till you get it right.” And when I insisted that he take it he still refused, saying “I don’t want one that needs work.” Only a good friend could say that and not hurt my feelings. I laughed with him.
When the book was in its second printing there were still bugs to be worked out but I decided to have it published anyway because I worried that by the time it got to where I was one hundred percent satisfied I might not be able to write that note in it to him.
So I had the publisher print it and nearly six weeks later I scrolled those words I wanted to say to him and mailed it to him. A few days later I received a call saying that I should come to visit my friend, the sooner the better.
When I asked the caller if he had received the book and if he read my note to him I was told that it did arrive and that the note and the story was read to him and that he smiled when he heard it. That was really all that was important to me, I could fix the book later.
I never got the opportunity to go see him again but in a way I think I am better off to have seen him one last time somewhere familiar to us both. The playground at St. Mary’s school, and when there was still a chance to walk with him.
Danny never got to read this edition but the copy he did receive said more to him than I am willing to share with anyone else. I loved that guy and had I told him that back in the 1960s he probably would have smacked me in the mouth.
But I want to believe that what I told him in the end was something that made him smile and that he saw past the mushiness of it all, and that he was as glad as I was that we experienced all that we did together before life took its toll on us both. His failing health and my loss of the best friend I ever had.
In that last conversation we did have we talked of the days when we were 14 or 15 years old roaming those same festival grounds full of energy, spending our paper-route money and trying our best to get noticed by girls. We talked about cars of course and he walked me over to his pride and joy, a shiny late-model Corvette. A car that he often swore he would own when he grew up.
His dream car when we were teenagers and even earlier when we were building wooden ones with lawn mower wheels and ropes to steer them in my back yard. I couldn’t have been happier knowing that my best friend from childhood was able to show me that car. And when he left in it I watched until it rounded a corner and was out of sight.
I was wondering if that might be the last time I would see him or the last time we could look at each other and expect to someday take one of those walks around the south end, or maybe just stand on a corner late at night and talk.
It was a very unsettling thought and for the next few days I could think of little else. And even though my worst fears did come true when he passed away a few months later I still couldn’t believe that a friendship that had been on hold for all of those years was actually over.
My last walk with my old friend was on October 30, 2009 when I was asked to serve as a pall bearer. A mere forty five years after our first walk together. Time no longer mattered, nor could it cloud my happier thoughts of better times. It was a walk that if someone had said back in the 1960s that either of us would someday take would have seemed like a million years into the future but instead was one that came in the blink of an eye.

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Living in the past, surviving today...

2011-02-27T04:18:00.000-08:00

In 2010 I wrote and published my fourth book "Are those my Footprints?" a collection of reflections and comparisons of life in South Columbus from the 1950s through present times. While writing that book I spent a great deal of time wandering through familiar neighborhoods that once upon a time was like a huge playground for those of us who grew up attending schools within walking distance of our homes and where most neighbors not only knew one another, it mattered. They respected each other even if they didn't like one another. I wrote that book to show the differences in not only the landscape but in the attitudes and behavior of some of the people who brought changes that none of us could have imagined when most of our mothers didn't have to work for strangers like our fathers did. When they could choose to stay home and always be there when we needed them and where they were the ones that kept the landscape beautiful and made sure that we respected everyone and everything around us. They were also the ones who made sure we took full advantage of those nearby schools by being in them when we were supposed to be so we could learn the other things we would someday need to continue living and working in a polite society. While walking the streets and alleys of my old neighborhood nearly sixty years after we moved into it I was reminded constantly that it was foolish of me to be in such a hurry to see the future when I was a kid. What I probably imagined back then was an environment that would be better; one that would look better and be populated by amazing people doing amazing things. I knew when I began that project that I would be risking a measure of personal safety but I never imagined that it would also leave me more at peace with the thought that my time on earth is getting closer to being over. The fact is I am packed and ready to go even if 2011 would be my last year. Not that I hope to die anytime soon, but even if today is that day I think I am okay with it. When I look around at where we have been and think about where we are as a community, not only here but everywhere, I know that I lived in an era and in a place that will never again be as good as it was. There will never again be people nearby who resemble in any way those that used to surround me and who cared about more than just themselves. It is not that I have given up hope- it is that I no longer expect much more from others than what they demonstrate every day. On the Southside of Columbus there seems to be no middle ground, or like the rest of the country if there is such a thing as a middle class society it is becoming more and more difficult to find. In the area I have known all my life there exists just two kinds of people, those who have more than they need and those who have nothing. And the latter are people who will stop at nothing to prove that observation. The fact that the home my family has lived in for more than a half century still has lights on inside and has all of its windows, a fence around the yard and hasn't yet been spray painted with vulgar graffiti leaves it vulnerable to those who have nothing. Like a beacon drawing the attention of those who have no respect for anyone else, no sense of pride in who they are and seemingly no ambition other than to wreak havoc on others so they can maintain their miserable existence. The one they accept as the only way they know how to exist. Writing "Are those my Footprints?" brought into focus for me how much I miss that era when every home within walking distance of mine was occupied, even by some that I may not have cared much for but had no reason to disdain or fear. I wrote that book using language that wouldn't be suitable for anyone offended by words that described my emotions when I saw vacant burned out houses and buildings that once flourished as businesses. I used words that although vulgar in terms of social acceptance were words that are used every day by the people I encountered, even when engaging in casual conversation or when trying to get something for nothing. I described people who thought nothing of exposing themselves either in an attempt to make a buck or to relive themselves in public.
Men masturbating, prostitutes lifting their shirts and even an incident where two teenagers were urinating on a man sleeping on a bench. I shared a conversation I had with another man who was squatting and defecating in an alley in full view of an in session elementary school. The words I used to tell those stories were the only ones I could think of to describe my anger and my disappointment in what we have come to accept and even expect from those who weren't here fifty years ago. The people who transformed the streets and sidewalks that used to be thoroughfares that took us from one safe block to another into battlefields and landfills. Where I tripped over trash and walked through broken glass left on the ground from broken car windows.
"Are those my Footprints?" was named because as I walked around the area that has been home all of these years I was repulsed daily by not just the people who replaced those who used to be here, but saddened and left sickened by the number of structures that stand like tombs, only reminders of what they once represented. That is, an area that was also home for people who were as proud as I of where they lived. Even the buildings still standing and still occupied, be they residences or places where people worked and shopped have fallen into disrepair, and by the attitudes of those in them and around them that's okay. It is as if that is all they know and that it is enough.
People who are content to exist in filth and squallier and whose idea of recreation is taunting or hurting one another. People who are so used to the sirens of police cars and fire trucks that they barely look up when they pass by. So the question that is the book's title isn't just a tongue-in-cheek metaphor it is more of an expression of disbelief that I have remained grounded somewhere where so many others have been forced to leave. Yes, forced to leave, either because they feared what they saw coming more than thirty years ago or because they weren't willing to fight back to keep the riff-raff out. The riff-raff that was forced on this and other communities in inner cities when our judges ordered barriers that kept them out removed. The acts of desegregation in the name of civil rights. Of government deciding for all of us what is best for us. Oh really? No. Not what is best for us, but what we must tolerate in the name of being a society that accepts someone else's interpretation of documents written and signed hundreds of years ago before our forefathers could have imagined what they were signing off on.
Our very constitution that guarantees certain liberties even to people who may not be deserving of them. When I laid the blame on those responsible for allowing us to become a dumb-downed and morally cheapened society in how we live and what we expect from others I expected more criticism than I received. I expected some to call my opinions racist in nature and I expected others to cringe at the thought that I would write in such blunt terms. However I haven't experienced any of that yet and in contrast I have heard from many who share my thoughts. Especially some who were here before things changed. People who have said they would come back, even long to do so but can't. What is most gratifying to me as a writer is when someone tells me that my work incites fond memories for them, even if the stories that tell of a different environment now breaks their heart. But that is precisely my mission and was with every step and every diary notation that became "Are those my Footprints?" I wanted to document what was and still is good about South Columbus. What it took to make it great then and the preservation that goes on still today to ensure that some of it will always be here, if only to visit for some, but where I hope to take my last breath. After writing an entire book about what is wrong with the Southside of Columbus I decided to write what is still good about it and some of the reasons why I have no intention of ever leaving it. The previous photo was taken on a winter morning in 2010 in Schiller Park and when I took this picture the temperature was in the teens, but even with a biting wind that probably made it feel colder I swear I didn’t notice it.
For regardless of the elements outside I am somewhere much more comfortable, not physically but emotionally. I love this place and I never tire of being here no matter the season. But there is something a little more special about seeing it covered with snow and walking across the pond on days like this one. A day not unlike those in winters past when as kids my friends and I strapped on ice-skates here or drug our sleds up the hill nearby.
When I am here now my mind becomes a theatre where only I am seated among row after row. of empty places. My own home is about three blocks from this magnificent spot so regardless of the weather I can return with ease to a simpler place and time. I can stand on a wooden bridge and gaze over a frozen lake and forget that it is 2011 and imagine the images of faces I know I will never see again.
This is indeed one of the reasons I know that I will remain in South Columbus for the remainder of my life. I mean even if I wanted to leave how on earth could I? Why would I even consider such a thing when this is all that is left from that wonderful time in my life when I was never more than walking distance from the people who cared more about me and this terrain than anyone ever would again?
This park, with all of the appreciation for its beauty now will never again be as important as it was in years past. Now a playground for dogs, tennis players and a venue for outdoor drama, it can never again be what it was for the thousands of people who grew up knowing it as I did. In the years before video games and parents who fear allowing their children to wander anywhere out of their line of site.
So I rely on my imagination and my camera lens to document all I have said about what is still good and hopefully will never be lost about this great area of Columbus, Ohio…my Southside. Because with all of its faults and the negative remarks people have made about it through the years it is still where people like me are supposed to be. Like those rows of empty seats once occupied by better people than I see milling around now, and this photo image are the background scenes of what races through my mind like a movie with no script. A reality show based on real people and real places... then and now... like a time machine that I have the keys to.

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Excerpt from "Deputy in Disguise" published in 2009

I have written other essays on the topic of trying to go home again partly because I have always rejected the idea that one cannot do it.

Moreover, because I have always been a sentimentalist. Sometimes that is a good thing to be while other times it is a very sad thing and I am sure anyone who does not have a sentimental side is probably better off emotionally.
People who either forget or just do not care about the past have an advantage on those of us who do. If the past is meaningless than it is smooth sailing into the future. Easier to get where one wants to go. More money or more toys, all adding up to more friends or a version of what one considers friends.
But then there are people like me. Sometimes it seems I cannot take one step forward without remembering where I was. And as I look back I tend to see only the good stuff.
Somehow I have trained my mind to do this.
What were difficult or horrible events in my life now live somewhere in a fog and I try not to dwell on them but I am ever mindful that life itself is fragile and that we all need to slow down from time to time and just reflect. If for no other reason than to avoid making the same mistakes we already have or to remember the best of ourselves and of those around us and those who have gone before us.
So I guess it was inevitable that I came home to purchase the house I grew up in after my parents passed away. “The House” as it has been frequently referred to is still in the family. The bedroom I used to share with my brother Bob is again the place I sleep.
The bathroom door I used to pound on to yell at my sisters Patty and Susie is the same one I lock behind me now, the kitchen my mother prepared every meal in and the garage out back where my dad repaired many cars in are still sweet reminders of not only something familiar but of where I somehow know I am supposed to be.
And it is here where I will attempt to explain how I did go home again.
Even though everything inside and around the outside of the home is familiar I find myself thinking about really being home when I go to bed. Maybe because it is at the end of my day and I do not have the distractions that occupy my thoughts most of the other times.
I can walk around the neighborhood that my family has resided in for more than fifty years and still see what used to be here. Cosmetically a lot has changed, homes have been remodeled and some businesses have either left or have become something else.
American made automobiles that used to dominate the area have all but disappeared and have been replaced by the ones made overseas. Gone are the two-tone cars of the past when it was easy to tell the difference between a Ford and a Chevy and when such trivia mattered. My street was prettier when it was lined with green and white Bel-Airs and red and white Fairlanes.
The people are not as friendly now and those very few who still live in the area who were here back in the late 1950s and early 1960s are either too frail to come out and mingle or are too scared to do so.
Crime in this area of the south end is worse than it ever was. In no small part because it has become one of expensive homes where people are eager to display their fortunes for those willing to walk the five or six blocks from the toughest streets in Columbus to see.
As if daring them… here’s my stuff.
Thugs and thieves routinely take that short walk from the ghettos to break into their fancy homes, their garages and their vehicles and it is not uncommon to learn that a neighbor or just someone visiting the area has been physically attacked. In recent years the neighborhood made headlines because of the home invaders who beat and tied up victims, stripped them naked and then robbed them.
Nearby Schiller Park where as kids in the 1960s we played little league baseball and fished in the summer, ice skated and sledded in the winter recently became a place where people have been beaten and robbed, some of them severely.
The days of leaving anything left unsecured are over, as are the days when it would be safe to walk alone at night or even allow persons under the age of eighteen to deliver newspapers. An experience that was common for kids in the past and one that I cherish as fond memories from my own childhood. Growing up with responsibilities of earning money and learning to save it for the things I wanted.
The smells that I remember as a kid are also gone. Nothing in life ever smelled better to me than the stench of burning leaves in the fall. I even enjoyed the chore of separating trash by putting glass and metal garbage into one can and anything flammable into a fifty gallon drum to burn and then watching and whiffing little infernos. Early recycling. Do that now and it is a criminal offense.
The neighborhood itself used to smell different too and even though I prefer the aromas of the past there were many that were less than pleasant bouquets. The south end back then was an area that often reeked from its many factories belching black smoke and the stench of the Scioto River, once similar to an open sewer.
There were a few slaughter houses where livestock being delivered to the neighborhood left their air mark also. All of that was a part of this area as recently as the early 1960s.
A few people still had chickens in their yards, neighborhood dogs wandered freely and no one walked them with a retractable leash in one hand and a bag of poop in the other.
Dog poop did not seem to be an issue then. Thankfully some of the yuppies in my neighborhood do carry the bag now while others just leave it on my lawn and go on. Perhaps they are missing the old days too.
So as progress has changed a lot of that we became more polite, yet more cautious, more sophisticated but less friendly. However one thing that has not changed is the sounds of the many trains that crisscross through various neighborhoods, some within a mile of my home.
Back to the bedroom I shared with my brother.
I remember lying in bed as a kid and drifting off to sleep with a symphony of train horns off in the distance. I used to wonder where they were going and whether they had passengers or carried freight. The horns sounded like they were miles away and because my world did not extend much further than a few blocks from the house I guess they were.
And now when I go to bed I hear that familiar music, almost on the hour most nights. Distant train horns-sounding much as they did in 1962. And when I hear them I really feel that sense of being back home. In no other neighborhood I have lived in did anything sound this friendly. What is different now is they sound closer, and because my world is bigger I guess they are. Same railroad tracks, closer trains.
So even though many things around me have changed I know that I did go home again and the hourly blasts of those horns late at night are a welcome reminder. What is not welcome is the music that wasn’t as prevalent here in the decades past. The police helicopter has become something of the official Columbus bird. I have named it the ghetto bird and like those trains I hear its engine almost nightly, most nights in concert with relentless sirens from police cars and fire trucks.
Yet I am home and with all of its problems it is still the place I think I belong. As I mentioned earlier the stories I am about to share are in no particular order, instead I have mixed them up to reflect not only different eras and various experiences but to show the multiple facets of what has been something of a mixed up existence.
Mine.
Starting at the beginning would have been too easy and had I done that I would have had to call this project part 1 and part 2, and I would have had to write an ending as well as an epilogue and make it a novel. That’s not how I see the past half century.
As a diary I will be able to share more of what it was like to not only live in these stories, but at the same time show the differences of not just those I write about but how I had to adjust my own personality to coexist with them.
Writing scenarios to make people smile has never been much of a challenge to me but to write the ones that do that and immediately follow them with ones that allow them to shift into a completely different emotional gear can be more difficult.
Sort of like writing about police work when trying to articulate why so many cops look at things differently than some others. Or trying to make someone understand why that work can be gratifying and frustrating at the same time.
And why once upon a time some radio listeners thought that most of us behind the microphones lived charmed lives by earning buckets of money while surrounded by only excitement and adoring fans, but when many of us worked for low wages, dodged bill-collectors and sometimes found it impossible to remain in relationships.
Welcome to what was my world.

Missing Dan...

Before the mid 1960s the J. Fred Schmidt's Packing Company located at the corner of East Kossuth Street and Jaeger Street had been a south side landmark for decades. When I began writing this book I was thinking about the days when I was a kid when some of us would hang around and watch the delivery of animals to be slaughtered there and fantasizing ways to set them all free and spare them from the butchers inside.
I could not help but to feel sorry for them especially when I saw the Schmidt's employees milling around with blood soaked white coats and heard the screams of the animals inside. Slaughterhouses still depress me when I think of them.
My Dad worked at one at Lockbourne Road and Refugee Road called Swift’s Premium Meats and I used to hate the stories he told of how the cattle were barbarically slaughtered there. He liked telling those stories at the dinner table to aggravate my mother.
At fifteen years old I joined my best friend Danny Sauer working at Schmidt's but by this time the packing plant had been torn down and the business moved across the street into an old stable and became known as Schmidt's Sausage Haus. We were among the first employees of the restaurant when it opened in the summer of 1967.
Located just two blocks down the street from my home the commute was the only easy part of that wake up call for both of us to the working world.
Going into my sophomore year at South High School was probably the year that I actually morphed from a kid into an adult, partly because of that job but mostly because of the year ahead. In this sense Danny and I grew up together, even though we only knew each other since 1964 and by our senior year in high school we would slowly drift apart.
It is odd sometimes when I remember what seemed important to him and me during those years. Hormones had something to do with our zeal to earn as much money as we could because we were both egotistical enough to think we would go into high school as the most prolific of all girl chasers and owners of the coolest cars in the south end.
Giving up our paper routes and going to work at Schmidt's for $1.00 an hour gave us an edge because even though we were students that had to be in school at 8:15 in the morning we worked from 4:00 PM until midnight most days and after taxes would earn something like $35.00 a week. High cotton for the times.
Danny and I were as good of friends as anyone could be and I have often said that if I had a second brother it would be him.
Getting up at 7:00 each morning for school wasn't the easiest thing either of us did because in addition to working late on school nights we would walk about a block going home and stop across the street from the old packing plant and talk.
Sometimes we would hang around on the corner for an hour or more and occasionally draw the attention of a passing cop who may have wondered what we were up to. One time one did stop to question us. I was placed in the back seat of the patrol car to be interviewed by one officer while the other one questioned Danny outside.
We were able to convince them that we were not up to any mischief and that we were just walking home from work. My parents might have thought we were running the streets after work and getting into trouble but they knew that Dan was the least likely person to do anything outside the law. I knew it too and that had a lot to do with why we were friends for so many years.

I cannot imagine that in any of those discussions was any talk of what our neighborhood would be in the future, how it would become the ritzy area it now is and because of the money that has flowed into the village how that has caused it to become a target for the worst of criminals.
I doubt that we could have imagined that if we came back at midnight sometime in the future and stood on that corner we might be mugged or shot. German Village was a quiet area in those days and thoughts of robberies and shootings could not have been be further from our minds.
Instead, we were thinking and discussing girls and our dream cars. For me it was a 1960 Ford Falcon and for Danny a 1963 Chevy ll. Our first cars when we turned 16.
When I think back on those days I remember that just walking around at night talking and making plans for our futures was what we did most of the time before we got those jobs at Schmidt’s. There were nights we probably walked for miles regardless of the weather, or nights when we rode our bikes even further, sometimes one or the other sitting on the handlebars as we rode double.
In addition, when I think about all of that it becomes clear to me that that is how friendships are built and how they survive. Spending great deals of time talking. Maybe I was honing my future employment skills then.
By the time Danny Sauer and I stopped being close friends there really was no reason to stop knowing him. No fallouts, nothing that would cause two best friends to drift apart.
In the years since we left high school we spoke to each other only a few times even though we lived within ten miles of each other. I guess we just ran out of things to talk about.
But in August, 2009 we did bump into each other at the annual St. Mary’s homecoming festival in our old neighborhood, and although I was thrilled to see him I was saddened that he wasn’t feeling well. Something about that visit told me that I should spend every possible second with him rehashing our happy past.
I showed him the only copy of the book this one was born from before it was edited for final production and I explained that it was a rough draft, full of grammatical errors and punctuation challenges and I told him that I had written a story about us that would be in it and that even though it still had a lot of work yet to be done I wanted him to have the only one that existed at the time.
I wanted to write a short note in it apologizing for the work not yet done on it and thanking him for all he was to my own childhood but he wouldn’t take it. He said “I’ll wait till you get it right.” And when I insisted that he take it he still refused, saying “I don’t want one that needs work.” Only a good friend could say that and not hurt my feelings. I laughed with him.
When the book was in its second printing there were still bugs to be worked out but I decided to have it published anyway because I worried that by the time it got to where I was one hundred percent satisfied I might not be able to write that note in it to him.
So I had the publisher print it and nearly six weeks later I scrolled those words I wanted to say to him and mailed it to him. A few days later I received a call saying that I should come to visit my friend, the sooner the better.
When I asked the caller if he had received the book and if he read my note to him I was told that it did arrive and that the note and the story was read to him and that he smiled when he heard it. That was really all that was important to me, I could fix the book later.
I never got the opportunity to go see him again but in a way I think I am better off to have seen him one last time somewhere familiar to us both. The playground at St. Mary’s school, and when there was still a chance to walk with him.
Danny never got to read this edition but the copy he did receive said more to him than I am willing to share with anyone else. I loved that guy and had I told him that back in the 1960s he probably would have smacked me in the mouth.
But I want to believe that what I told him in the end was something that made him smile and that he saw past the mushiness of it all, and that he was as glad as I was that we experienced all that we did together before life took its toll on us both. His failing health and my loss of the best friend I ever had.
In that last conversation we did have we talked of the days when we were 14 or 15 years old roaming those same festival grounds full of energy, spending our paper-route money and trying our best to get noticed by girls. We talked about cars of course and he walked me over to his pride and joy, a shiny late-model Corvette. A car that he often swore he would own when he grew up.
His dream car when we were teenagers and even earlier when we were building wooden ones with lawn mower wheels and ropes to steer them in my back yard. I couldn’t have been happier knowing that my best friend from childhood was able to show me that car. And when he left in it I watched until it rounded a corner and was out of sight.
I was wondering if that might be the last time I would see him or the last time we could look at each other and expect to someday take one of those walks around the south end, or maybe just stand on a corner late at night and talk.
It was a very unsettling thought and for the next few days I could think of little else. And even though my worst fears did come true when he passed away a few months later I still couldn’t believe that a friendship that had been on hold for all of those years was actually over.
My last walk with my old friend was on October 30, 2009 when I was asked to serve as a pall bearer. A mere forty five years after our first walk together. Time no longer mattered, nor could it cloud my happier thoughts of better times. It was a walk that if someone had said back in the 1960s that either of us would someday take, would have seemed like a million years into the future but instead was one that came in the blink of an eye.

Signs- Writing about back then as my son Todd calls the era when I was small is akin to leafing through old photo albums that exist only in memory. Sometimes when I am trying to describe a certain person, place or event from years back it is like dreaming in black & white.
I can recreate mentally what I am writing about; moreover my minds eye often sees it as if it were newspaper clippings or old television images before the days of color media.
Many of my family’s old photographs are black & white prints so maybe a lot of my memory is derived from that. But even without different colorful hues to see against that flat screen in my head my memory still seems good. And not everything is colorless up there.
This story is about playing touch football with the neighborhood kids in the old Big Bear parking lot on East Whittier Street back in the early and mid 1960s. When I think back to that activity I am seeing the games in black and white images but when I think of the surroundings I do remember the color. Like the store itself.
Its facade was a pale cream color with large red neon letters spelling out "Big Bear" above a bank of huge glass windows beneath a wrap-around chrome awning and at the edge of the parking lot in front of the store stood a mammoth sign with the same neon lighting and a huge outline of a big brown bear also trimmed in red neon lights. At night it illuminated the entire parking lot.
However, what really made that sign special was the large chrome hole in the center of it, one that was big enough for even the largest person on earth to climb through. The sign was a south side icon for years. It was also something of another playground for the neighborhood kids. Few, if any who grew up in this area did not play on that thing.
It was a vessel with numerous possibilities because its cement base that was elevated a few feet off the ground was like a concrete balcony that encircled the entire structure. The body of it was made of the same pale yellow porcelain as the front of the store.
Folk lore that some of us didn't quite comprehend in the early ‘60s suggested that it was also used as a “back seat” from time to time. I can recall someone telling me that they got laid for the first time in that hole in the center. By the time I was old enough to fornicate on it-it was gone.
Now called “Giant Eagle” and looking nothing like it did in those more glorious days when it was “Big Bear” I can still walk through that parking lot and visualize the kids that used to play there.
Look over where that two-story tall sign once stood and recall what it was to us and wonder how I got so old so fast. Instead of a sign there is a historical marker showing that on that very spot was where Ohio State played its first football game back in 1897. Who knew that as kids we were playing our games in the footprints of who we probably pretended to be.

www.rickminerd.snappages.com

Tough guys and Pussycats

2011-02-25T06:58:00.000-08:00

From time to time I have written about some of the brightest guys in radio and it is probably a given that I admired several of them and learned something from all of them.
When I went to work for WRFD I was hired by Dave Winters, a laid-back guy who never interfered with what was going on in the studios. As program directors go....Dave was perfect! I remember showing up about 5:00 AM on a Saturday so he could train me on the equipment and show me how to take transmitter readings and all of the new adventures of learning policies and procedures of a new station and Dave had the studio monitor on mute but had WCOL-FM 92.3 FM cranked up.
How he could listen to one station while operating another was amazing. Stereo Rock 92 as it was known played hard rock music, while we were easy listening. Dave told me my biggest challenge was to stay awake. His advice was to keep 'COL-FM on to help do that, even while I was responsible for playing our records and paying attention to my show.
I only saw him two or three times during my stint with the station because he didn’t stick around very long. Moreover I never received a negative memo or heard anyone say anything negative about him.
He was invisible and for a program director not to be in my face that would be something like watching a political commercial and hearing a candidate say anything that was close to the truth. This helped make working there an absolute panacea.
WRFD was located on a picturesque piece of land at Route 23 and Powell Road back before they turned all of Delaware County into a zoo. That corner was actually rural and peaceful. Today it is more like Polaris Parkway on steroids.
We had a lake outside of our studio window to gaze at as we played and listened to smooth music and for the most part, any song we wanted. Dave didn’t care. Our play list was almost whatever we wanted it to be provided our selections came from whatever records were in the studio.
There was something very serene about WRFD. The sales staff was laid back, the engineers were forgiving, our news staff was friendly and the jocks all liked each other. I didn’t know it then but that was a once in a lifetime combination.
And the fact that Spook Beckman was there only added to the good Karma. Spook was like our grandfather. All of us grew up watching him on television and hearing him on the radio. I was fortunate to work with him twice. He and I hooked up again at WCOL in the early '80s.
After Winters left he was replaced by Jim Keyes. And that too was a good thing. Jim was another guy who liked bending traditional radio rules and allowed us to be creative.
If WRFD was considered the Rural Farm Delivery station for Columbus radio that was okay, because we were relaxed. Without the stress that came with the more powerful ratings leaders back in busy downtown Columbus. For me working there was an opportunity to stop and smell the radio roses.

Among some of the brightest minds I have ever worked for were a few other radio program directors.
E. Karl from WNCI was by far the most outrageous planner of them all. A brilliant hippie who designed exactly what was right for progressive FM radio in the 1970s. E. was not only a radio genius he was one of the most likable people I ever knew.
But there were others who poured their collective hearts and minds into making their stations as competitive as possible. Among my favorites were a few from WTVN. My first PD, Jim Lohse I have already discussed. The man who followed him into the role of guiding that great station was John Potter. And although I was too young and too immature to know it at the time John possessed many of the same qualities had by E. Karl and Jim Lohse.
However he and I did not click very well when I worked for him. He was my harshest critic and it seemed I was always in his doghouse. And as a result I quit, but like I said I was young and for years I held a grudge against him. But age and maturity has a way of bringing immaturity into focus. Leaving WTVN over hurt feelings was a huge mistake.
I didn’t get it until years later but thank God I eventually got it. As time went along my appreciation for John grew into a friendship that I now cherish. We do not see each other much but when we do communicate with one another it is priceless and what we have to talk about is even more so. A time when we were young and before it would rob us of the many other wonderful people we knew as colleagues who have long since passed from this planet.
John Potter is still out there making good things happen in broadcasting. And because of the things he tried to teach me when I was too stubborn to comprehend I became better at understanding my craft.
Those earlier lessons became knowledge I would later come to fall back on when working with people in law enforcement, especially the politicians who did their best to hinder or weaken the roles of police officers by trimming budgets and offering input that further reduced effectiveness. Learning in that field that it too was like a business only as good as its leaders.
Another pretty good boss was Steve Cantrell, WMNIs programmer. Steve was more like one of the guys than a boss. That sometimes landed him in hot-water like the rest of us. What I liked most about him was his acceptance for outrageous behavior. My own comes quickly to mind here.
But I never ended up in his doghouse, or if I did I managed to wiggle my way out of it because like myself he enjoyed exploiting country music performers and its listeners too. I think he tried to make our product somewhat of a radio version of TV's "Hee Haw" and I was following his lead with my own country sarcasm. I have often argued that if it weren't for my own sometimes sarcastic demeanor I would take life too seriously and be disappointed by almost everyone around me. I have never fared well in any environment where people think they have all the answers or around anyone who doesn't have a sense of humor. And God protect all who can only accept those striving to always be politically or morally correct...they are my favorite targets. And finding myself in a country music environment I almost always found it necessary to follow my own advice. (Just be yourself.)
Remember, before working there I cared little if anything at all about that genre, I showed up there with pop music all over my resume. My hair was long and my wardrobe looked out of place when surrounded by guys dressed in cowboy string ties and wearing what I called shit kicker boots and rodeo hats. But on the radio and anytime we were out promoting ourselves, whatever it was we were doing it worked. Listeners to our station seemed to adopt all of the disc jockeys into their families.
It was not uncommon to arrive for work and find presents sent in by listeners or listeners waiting in the lobby of the hotel. Steve’s forgiveness of my own learning curves into the world of country music probably had a lot to do with my becoming something of a fan of it. Never my favorite form of entertainment, but I did grow into it and found myself wanting to hear more and more of the older classics.
To this day, more than twenty five years after playing my last country song on a radio station I still haul out a few of those old Waylon songs once in awhile and mix them with Hank and a few others while I relax.
Moving on up the dial... there were three amazing PDs at WCOL. First, the guy who hired me, Bob Mitchell, not at all unlike E. Karl, he reminded me of him in many ways.
He looked a little like him, acted a lot like him and he programmed with the same zeal to make the station as good as it could be. I found irony in that when E. Karl was trying to knock down WCOL while he programmed WNCI a decade earlier, Bob had come to Columbus to raise it back up after it was reborn from a failed adult contemporary station by building another rock format.
His mantra was to create as much fun on the radio as possible. He said something like…"If you aren't having fun then neither are the listeners." That made going to work at 'COL a pretty good thing to do. After he left he was replaced by another passionate broadcaster, Mike Perkins.
Mike was a walking thesaurus. His vocabulary was just advanced enough to keep some of us confused and feeling a little under-educated. But he couldn’t help it, he was a scholar. In addition probably one of the most artistic people I have ever known.
Not just with radio ideas, the guy was an artist; he could draw as well as any cartoonist out there. His artwork used to appear on station literature and music surveys. And in the production studio he was the master. He could make any commercial sound like an exciting saga. A lot of what Mike Perkins did was innovative pop-culture.
And the last of my favorite program directors was the man who replaced him, Kevin Young. Kevin was a little bit of every PD I ever knew. He was likable yet difficult to understand. His ideas all made sense but not until they grew on you. He had a temper when things went wrong but somehow was able to make his subordinates get it.
After being balled out by him several times I got to where I enjoyed it because although I did not always agree with him I somehow knew that he was right. Other times it was a coin toss.

The Big One

2011-02-24T18:46:00.000-08:00

One of the greatest radio stations of all time as well as one of the oldest in America is still up and doing its thing in Cincinnati. But like most AM stations it may never be the standard of broadcasting that it was. WLW 700 AM, known then as “The Big 700.”
I have been a radio fan since I was about ten years old and like many kids in the early 1960s I carried a transistor radio just about everywhere, including under the covers when I went to bed at night. Back then Cincinnati seemed thousands of miles away. Later in life it may as well have been a million.
Throughout the 1960s and 70s I was a regular listener to that station, even as I worked my way through various Columbus stations. I always hoped that I would one day work there but it never came to fruition for me. But not for lack of trying. I probably mailed dozens of auditions tapes to them, none that received a response much more than a polite thank you for your interest.
However, I did make friends with some of the station’s iconic names just by calling them to chat and pick their collective minds. These guys were in my opinion the best in the industry. James Francis Patrick O’Neil (JFPO), Jim LeBarbra, Nick Young, Jockey Joe Kelly, Chris Cage and my all-time favorite DJ anywhere, Bob Martin who often called himself (Martin Startin’.) I used to run up long distance phone bills calling him at night and picking his brain about radio.
Next to WMNI’s Jim Davis, Bob probably had the only believable laugh on the air in those days. If he laughed you knew that he just said something hilarious, not just a reminder that you should giggle. Even WLW’s eye-in-the-sky traffic reporter, Lieutenant Jim Stanley was an entertainer.
In 1972 a book was published called "Not Just a Sound, the Story of WLW." It coincided with the stations 50th anniversary. I got that book and kept it with me like a radio Bible hoping that I would derive some sort of inspiration from it as well as a little fortune and possibly find a way onto their air staff. It only brought me inspiration and a reason to keep dreaming of working on a 50, 000 watt clear channel station in Cincinnati.
The one owned by the AVCO Broadcasting Company then. Often calling itself “The Big One!” That was because of the power and clear channel status, their signal crossed into several states. They were almost a network in and of themselves. To put it in perspective when I was at WTVN we were 5000 watts and one of the most powerful stations in Columbus.
WLW was the only radio station on the 700 frequency, anywhere.

As my own radio career eventually wound down for good in the early 1990s I walked away from the business with only that regret. That I never made it to Cincinnati. I would have traded a fulltime job at WTVN for a weekend shift down there. Hell, I would have worked there for free.

An anchorman, a flagpole and TV memories

2011-02-24T07:40:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite stories from Larry Roberts a guy who worked in Columbus for a number of years as a television news anchorman at channel 4 and who is himself a broadcasting historian concerns his father and the early days of television.
Larry's dad owned one of the first television stores in Chillicothe back in 1949 when the medium was still new and he would leave one turned on in the window after hours for passer-bys to see, even rigging an outside speaker so viewers could hear what they were watching. Some would bring lawn chairs and sit on the sidewalk to marvel at it.
It’s funny how when we look back on things like this we can sometimes relate and say to ourselves "I did that too." What Mr. Roberts was doing in Ross County was being done on East Whittier Street here on the south side of Columbus at a small electronics store called Buckeye Radio Lab when I was a kid in the early 1960s.
Although by 1961 and ‘62 most people had television sets in their homes few in this area had color sets. In fact, I did not know anyone who owned one and we didn’t get our first color TV until 1964. Color television was something just a little short of amazing in those days and the programs broadcasted in "Living Color" were few and far between.
It was so new that stations would announce at the beginning of programs the fact that they were in color much like today when they make a big deal if it is in High Definition.
HDTV is nothing compared to the phenomenon that color television was when compared to black and white. Going from black & white to color vs. going from color to better color doesn’t even come close.
So to experience the thrill of it some of us would trickle over to Buckeye Radio Lab and stand on the sidewalk, sometimes in the cold and watch a few minutes of programs that we would not otherwise bother with but to see what they looked like in color.
One morning my fascination and appreciation of the sets left on in the window there got me in trouble at school. I was in the fifth grade at Siebert Elementary School and I was a patrol boy assigned to that corner. My responsibility was to hold other kids back from crossing until the street was clear of traffic and then hold out my flag to signal safe passage.
I had leaned my flagpole against the side of the building and walked over to see something on television and when I turned around a woman, probably someone’s mother was using my flag to help kids cross the street. The incident was reported to the school and as a reprimand I was reassigned to a less busy corner.
Nevertheless, this story has a successful conclusion for me.
After performing so well on a corner that might have seen just two or three cars during my shift I was promoted to the rank of Sergeant. That equated to doing nothing but walking the district to check up on, and tell on the other patrol boys if they were caught goofing off or misbehaving. Within a month of that promotion I was elevated to the rank of lieutenant when ours withdrew from school and moved away.
To be in the right place at the right time! Like standing on the corner of East Whittier and Bruck Street in 1962 watching the wonders of color television. Or much later in life to meet the county sheriff at a time he was looking for a mouth-piece.

Who we watched...

Those of us who grew up on such innovative television programming such as Casper the Camel might remember the piano player for that show, Bill Palmer. Bill also had his own early morning talk show on channel 6 at 8:00 that featured interviews with the popular celebrities of the day including the best of them all Johnny Carson, fitness guru Jack LaLanne and Virginia Graham among them.
I also remember the Virginia Graham talk program that like Spook Beckman’s "Coffee Club" was one of the most popular of them all among the day time offerings.
I have vivid memories of one particular show she did when Columbus Mayor Maynard Sensenbrenner was her only guest. The Mayor might best be remembered by his signature slogan, "Columbus is the most dynamic city in America."
Our mayor made many television appearances not only on the local channels but on a few nationally broadcasted programs. I met Bill Palmer’s daughter through the internet and I learned that he, like so many others in early live television got his start in radio. He began his radio career in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.
My own heritage, the Minerd family migrated this way from there. A web site authored and managed by a distant cousin, Mark Miner called Minerd.com details some amazing historical facts about that side of my earliest roots including a strange family bond with the infamous General George Armstrong Custer.
Bill Palmer would have also known one of my favorite early TV personalities, Chuck Nuzum, a guy I had met when I began my radio career at WTVN. In fact I am sure he knew all the local TV people… those guys were a close fraternity.
His daughter Pam told me that following his television days he returned to radio at WHOK in Lancaster, Ohio another station that has sent many well-known announcers in and out of television here in Columbus.
Not surprising to me that these guys who made names for themselves on the video box made their moves back into radio later in their careers. I remember Spook Beckman saying often that after his long run on local TV that it was good to return to what he called, “the theatre of the mind," when he returned to radio. It was in radio he said that one could really be themselves, be more creative and leave more to the audience’s imagination.
Pam talked about her own childhood with a famous Dad and of what it was like when she was out in the public with him and how people would approach him for an autograph and what it was like to meet other great "stars" of the era such as Gene Fullen. I had totally forgotten Gene's days of playing Santa Claus for the kids at Christmas (she reminded me of that) but not of his days of hosting “Bowling for Dollars."
For anyone who remembers him, who else but Gene could have hosted that kind of show except maybe his TV partner Sally Flowers? Who in today’s TV world could make something like a local bowling show be as popular as it was then? As boring as something like that now sounds I think I would prefer reruns of it over just about everything on day time television now.

So who is Larry Roberts?

Ex WBEX radio man Larry Roberts whose father was introducing Chillicothe to televison back in the 1940s was that city's version of our Doctor Bop, (who I will also discuss in great detail later) the famous DJ who launched a radio revolution in Columbus back in the 1950s.
Like Doc, Larry was introducing Chillicothe to rock & roll back then. He played the first rock & roll record on the radio down there about the same time it was being introduced in Columbus.
Had I known about his past when I used to watch him anchor the news here on channel 4 I would have paid closer attention to his news-casts. This guy's resume makes my own look empty.
Reading his abbreviated bio I have learned that he hung out with some of the people I met along my own journey, like Roy Orbison, Gary Lewis and the Playboy's, the Turtles, Rick Derringer and others, but he met these guys when they were in their prime. I caught up with a few of them during their nostalgic tours.

Then of course there was The Beatles.

Larry interviewed them three times and was there for the Toronto interview with Lennon over the Jesus controversy when John commented that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus.
I was only seven years old in the late 1950s when Larry was doing his thing but I am hoping some of his radio past is locked somewhere in my sub-conscience. I’m sure I heard him on those trips to Ross County that I mentioned earlier. I hope to someday unlock that thing and review what might be stored in it. Then I’ll really get serious with my book writing adventures.
When I talk to Larry now he mentions people like Maurice Jackson, the long-ago morning voice at WTVN, Johnny Dollar who I knew as Jim Pidcock the sales manager when I worked there in the early and mid 1970s. Roberts knew them all including my old friend Dave Logan, another WBEX alumnus.
It is strange to think of the many connections I have to former WBEX personalities who have made their way up north. Strange for example to think of the smooth talking, laid back Logan playing rock music down there years before I knew him when he was playing Striesand songs at WTVN..
Larry has been a good source of information for this book, sharing personal stories of those he knew, including the late Jim Runyon from WTVN, Rod Serling (The Twilight Zone) and Jonathan Winters who both worked at WBNS.
Nick Clooney from WLWC who brought his young son George to work with him when he was just a toddler. George Clooney may have looked up at Larry one day and wondered to himself…“Gee, maybe when I grow up I can be like him…”
Spook Beckman, one of the most remembered personalities in Columbus broadcast history was another of Larry’s friends, (mine too) and if Spook were alive I would love to be in the same room with the two of them and listen to them exchange stories.
I would love to ask him about the circumstances when he and Roberts met each other for the first time. When Larry walked up to where Spook was sitting at a table having dinner and as he leaned over to shake his hand he dumped his drink into Spooks lap.
I would rather have seen that up close and heard the Spook’s reaction!

A long time ago

2011-02-23T10:15:00.000-08:00

"They built their fences high but they couldn't hold me in." Waylon Jennings

Ohio country music legend Johnny Paycheck provided one of my more memorable moments as a country music DJ back in 1978. I was working for WMNI and was given the assignment of emceeing his concert at the Ohio State Fair.
At the time the big shows were held at the racetrack on the fairgrounds and this one drew what became the largest crowd for a concert in the state fair history. (At that time) more than 80,000.
It broke a record previously held by Bob Hope. Emceeing a concert is not that big of a deal, walk out on stage for a previously agreed amount of time, welcome the crowd, introduce yourself and spend a few minutes doing what you hope will be an entertaining monologue. Then introduce the act and walk off to thunderous applause. Easy work for fifty bucks a pop, good money then.
So there I was on perhaps the hottest afternoon of the summer wearing my best Waylon Jennings leather cowboy hat, a white long sleeved shirt and a leather vest and sweating bullets.
I was doing what I was supposed to be doing out there when I noticed a stagehand off to the side holding a blackboard telling me to stretch; Paycheck was going to be late. I was done with my prepared material and all I could see was the 80 grand stomping their feet all pumped for some country twangin'.
I really don’t remember much of what I said after telling them there was a slight delay but whatever I continued to babble about made the foot stomping more intense.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity I could tell by the crowd’s reaction that the star had made his way onto the stage behind me. And as I turned around to welcome him again he tripped over a guitar cord or something else on the stage and stumbled right into me and either spit or threw up. This pleased the record crowd even more.
I had a little puke on the front of my white shirt, and try as I might I could not find the crack in the stage to fall into. It was very humbling. And as I left the stage I could hear the first shout of his signature song, "Take this job and shove it!" I thought, "Amen brother."
The year after that memorable Paycheck show I was sent to introduce Waylon Jennings on the same stage. I experienced a day I will be forever thankful for a number of reasons. Not least among them I got to not only see the greatest country singer ever up close and personal, I got to spend time with him. More special even now that he has passed away.
Meeting Waylon ranks right up there just ahead of meeting Johnny Cash the following day. Two super-stars who make today's country giants look very, very small, at least to me.
When Waylon stepped out front to perform he had his tremendous rock band, ”The Waylors" behind him and as an added bonus, members of Buddy Holly's original "Crickets" sitting in for an unbelievable Holly-medley.
I stated that his group was a rock band because that is exactly what they were.
Even though Waylon was in his prime on the country charts in the late 70s-his live performances rivaled those of any rock group of the era. They were loud, fast and driven hard just like their front man.
Waylon was labeled an outlaw by the power structure in Nashville because of his unwillingness to have his brand of music tampered with to conform with the more traditional country "twang" and because he insisted on making it his way. Something he may have picked up from his old friend Holly.
He didn't buy into the glitz of the Country Music Association and their silly awards programs. He stopped greasing his hair and slicking it back, opting instead to wear it long and unkempt, he grew a beard, dressed like Jesse James and took his act back to Texas to develop what today's country artists are still trying to play.
His "Outlaws" album with Willie, Tompall Glazer and Jesse Coulter is still regarded by many as the greatest country album of all time. Like the “Rubber Soul” of country music.
Emceeing his show was probably among the brightest high-lights of my own venture into country music. A time when I didn’t always understand why I was in it, but in retrospect was a time when it was probably in its purest form as I think I might have been.

His song "A long time ago" reminds me of that era and was one that I could most identify with as a country music DJ and as a man just trying to find my own way through some pretty good times, a few bad ones and a lot of living.

Visit my website @ www.rickminerd.snappages.com

Dr. Jimmy Davis

2011-02-22T23:29:00.000-08:00

Click image to enlarge

Fans of the 1970s sitcom "WKRP in Cincinnati" might remember that the producers of the show did in fact loosely base it on a real life radio station in the Queen City with similar call-letters. WKRC.
When the planning for the comedy show began the writers and producers explored WKRC and picked their brains for ideas that could resemble realism. Actually when all of this was going on former WTVN programmer Jim Lohse was the PD at WKRC. On the TV show the character of WKRP’s program director, Andy Travis did sort of remind some of us of Jim.
As some of the others on the show also reminded us of people we knew. Even Mr. Carlson was not unlike some General Managers all of us have known.
No disrespect to the news directors I worked with but Les Nesman reminded me of a few here in Columbus. Herb Tarlik was a carbon copy of some of the salesman I have known. Venus Flytrap had common personality traits of a few of the soul brothers working the Columbus airwaves and every station had a few hotties like Bailey Quarters and Jennifer Marlowe.
But I only knew one guy who could hold a candle to Johnny Fever.
I was working nights at WMNI when I walked into the vestibule one night on my way into the studio and noticed this guy who appeared to be in his late 30s, he had long salt and pepper hair, scraggly whiskers and a well-worn t-shirt with some sort of rock n' roll logo on it.
He was asleep on the couch and there was a brown paper sack on the floor that contained what appeared to be his worldly possessions. My first thought was that someone had forgotten to lock the door and perhaps a homeless man had wandered in.
I thought about calling the police to have him escorted out but instead I woke him and asked if he was lost or confused or if there was something I could do to help him out.
He asked if my name was Rick and then he explained that he was the new guy and he was waiting for me to train him. My program director did leave me a memo on this but I made it a habit of checking my mailbox at the end of my shift.
That gave me an excuse to argue new policies and such. Anyway, we got things worked out and I quickly learned this guy needed no training. He was about the best disk jockey I had ever heard. In fact he turned out to be someone I idolized as a kid.
He had worked at WCOL back in its heyday and had a voice and personality that was truly amazing. Jim Davis was not only tremendous on the air he was amazingly funny off the air. His off air persona was a mirror’s reflection of Doctor Johnny Fever.
He dressed like him, had similar sarcasm and a track record in the business that included gigs at stations from coast to coast. A rocker from the old school stuck in Columbus. And like the character on WKRP Jim hated rules.
He broke them all.
I remember sitting in a DJ meeting after the PD had finished a rant and rave about guys not following the format and when he asked if there were any questions we all looked around the room and broke into laughter. Jim was asleep, and when someone nudged him he farted. Even the PD couldn’t contain himself and quickly ended the session.
We all walked out thanking Jim for saying all that needed to be said.
Another fond memory was a contest idea that our PD had come up with. It was called "Make-It-Or-Break-It." The idea was for Jim to play two new songs and allow listeners to call in and vote on which one should be added to our play list. He would play the songs then let the phones ring off the hook without answering them. After a few minutes he would come on the air and break the loser.
He would smash it on the table and play glass-breaking sound effects and tell the listeners that they voted it the loser. What was really going on was Jim was the only voter.
One time he smashed a George Jones record and declared an obscure song recorded by an unknown artist that sounded like crap the winner. The Jones record went on to become a smash hit and Jim's winner was in the trash when the PD showed up the next day.
Because of his talents and likability on the air, women were always coming to the station late at night to meet him. However, he usually ignored the attention unless one showed up that was hard to look at or smelled bad, then he would greet them at the door and tell them that his name was Bill Weber. Bill was our morning man.

When I first went to work at WMNI the station was not yet 20 years old. To put that in perspective I have been around 5 years longer than those blinking towers in Grove City along Marlane Drive just off Interstate 71.
In retrospect I guess I didn’t think about such things when I was in my mid twenties. The studios we worked out of at The Great Southern Hotel and the equipment we used had to be older than the towers and me.
Our control console, turntables and tape recorders were like dinosaurs when compared to the equipment I had used earlier in stints at WTVN and WNCI. For example our seven second delay that was used to screen on-air no-no’s was accomplished with two old tape recorders stacked on top of one another.
The tape deck on top to record the comments, the other as a playback machine where the comments were played several seconds after being recorded. The tape would make its way down to the play-back head on that one by-passing the first recorders take-up reel and being collected on the second one.
Sound confusing? I thought it was insane but it worked! Listeners of WMNI could not have known any of this because our station sounded great. Old tape recordings of my own show sound better than I ever did.
Station president and general manager Bill Mnich even came into the studio once and offered advice on how to work on my voice to bring it down from sounding like a tenor to something more manly. I never thought of myself as a tenor but he said I sounded like a castrato.
(Ouch!) Mnich had a "man’s" voice, one of the deepest I ever heard, one that could shake a room. The voice exercises he suggested actually worked and before my second of about seven years there I noticed a difference. On the other hand maybe I just thought I did.
Throughout this book I have written about my own life and some of my experiences with WMNI and I have often said those were probably my best years in radio. Decades have passed since I left the station and since then WMNI moved out of the hotel to their studios on Dublin Road.

But I cannot go through the intersection of South High Street and East Main Street without looking up at that building and having the memories flooding back as if they were mere weeks ago.

Today the station could not sound more different with his adult standards format than it did when Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty helped me make friends, get laid and take my mind off of the personal struggles of being broke, in debt, getting married, divorced and remarried.

Broadcasting friends I met then are some of the best I have still today. Moreover, Bill's surviving family members still treat me like one of their own anytime our paths cross. I will forever miss Mr. Mnich and the opportunities he gave me when he took a chance by hiring me, at first for three dollars an hour because as he said at the time, I was coming in with experience.

Bill Mnich worked in Chillicothe when he was young and he brought Carl Wendelken to Columbus from there. Others would eventually follow. Carl was a fixture at WMNI for about three decades and when he finally left the air I was his replacement, a position I will discuss later.
Another announcer from there was a girl named Tonda Vanover, the first female DJ to work for WMNI. Tight jeans, a cowboy hat and boots, she arrived in Columbus in a black Smokey and the Bandit Trans AM and with an attitude that matched her car. She called herself Cherokee. A gifted announcer and a good fit for our format. As she might say, a little bit country and a little bit watch yourself.
I have lost touch with many from that era but I still communicate regularly with business guru Eddie Powell who has remained closely tied with local broadcasting.
Eddie was a kid who began showing up at the station as a friend of a friend of another friend of mine and he still blames me for his radio career, or at least for talking him into pursuing one. Not exactly how I remember it but it’s fun to hear him say it.
He became our nighttime announcer and a life-long comrade. Immersing himself in everything from square dance calling, hosting television shows, live concerts, motivational speaking, teaching and a host of other adventures, including radio announcing and commercial voice-overs.
He has somehow found his name on virtually every “Who’s Who” list there is. His book, “How to Get the Job You Have Always Dreamed Of” accents a career of helping others find work and to fine-tune business adventures.
Then there was Joe Higman, a guy with a big heart to match his physical frame. A gentle giant. One of the nicest people in radio and the guy who grabbed the console for me when I had to abandon my radio show one night to rush to Mt. Carmel Hospital for the birth of my son Kevin.
That night after I got the new arrival to sleep and the nurses and his mother Patti settled down I returned to the station to relieve him but I nearly had to wrestle the microphone away from Joe. He insisted I go home and get rested. He genuinely cared.
The man with the biggest ego I ever met was a guy named Bill Weber. Bill was the morning man at WMNI and his invisible sidekick was his dog named Spot.
He would talk to that dog that wasn’t there and bark answers back to himself as if it were. He encouraged his listeners to send mail to it and he even called his program “The Bill and Spot Show.”
It wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow to see him at work wearing outrageous outfits, even a dress or some other costume preparing to go out on some broadcast remote. When he went out he wanted to be noticed.
He was also our station Santa Clause during the holiday season. Every year he would do a show where kids would call in to talk to Santa and give him their list, and even though it was radio and no one would have know the difference he got into full Santa dress to do that show.
Sometimes the studio would be decorated with pictures of him (that he would plaster the walls with) and it would be pictures of him wrapped in telephone cords, balancing numerous phones as if there weren’t enough in the studio to keep up with all of calls, making faces, surrounded by celebrities, pretending to be asleep, slumped over a microphone or buried in fan mail and stacks of records. Typical radio publicity shots, a guy with a surprised expression, mouth wide open, eyeballs popping out... you’ve seen them.
Just a few co-workers from the mid '80s who were like a family; albeit dysfunctional at times but still a good group to have shared parts of my life with. I would like to believe that we all left lasting impression not only on our listeners, but also with each other. Good, bad or indifferent… impressions.

Learning the ropes

2011-02-22T05:50:00.000-08:00

Our bicentennial year was a strange one for me, especially on a professional level. In the fall and winter months of that year I found myself working as an instructor in a broadcasting school. It was another one of those cases where networking with colleagues produced strange results.
I had left WTVN to pursue this new adventure and it nearly ended my radio career. A friend of mine who happened to be the program director for WBBY-104-FM had introduced me to the school’s director with a recommendation to replace him on the teaching staff.
The friend was Robin Goode and the director was a guy I had admired for years when he worked for WNCI, Mike Raub.
Also putting in a good word for me then was another friend who was working at the time for 1460-WBNS and who was also an instructor at the school, my old buddy Joe Gallagher.
The President and CEO of International Broadcasting School was Don Gingerich who for lack of a better way to say it was a business maverick.
Anyway, I was hired to teach a class of 25 students, about 23 of them should not have been enrolled. But as was the case in those days if you had about $1400.00 and time to kill you could enroll in just about any broadcasting school in the country. My own arena for "higher learning" was Career Academy School of Broadcasting. Similar mess.
IBS was located on West 5th Avenue in Grandview in a building that once was home for either a flea market or maybe a revival meeting house, I forget. Whatever it once was it was a smelly, drafty excuse for a schoolhouse.
The heat rarely worked and the equipment in our studios looked like something that a radio station might have thrown away in the 1940s. More importantly, our weekly paychecks rarely showed up when they were supposed to. And by the end of the semester the school locked its doors and moved to Dayton.
Luckily for me I still had a little something going with WRFD where I was working part-time with guys like Spook Beckman, Bill Stewart and Denny Nugent and I was gearing up for a seven year run with WMNI. So when the school closed I was still positioned to survive in this crazy business. Through the years I have lost track of both Robin Goode and Mike Raub and sadly my friend Joe Gallagher passed away several years ago at a young age.
And aside from two of my students, I have never heard any of the other 23 on the air anywhere and I am still not ready to accept any responsibility for that last stat. I had nothing to do with taking advantage of these kids by taking money that should never have exchanged hands.
However, I do hope they all found gainful employment in broadcasting. Who knows maybe some of them ended up in bigger markets and went on to make millions of dollars. Stranger things have happened. My own radio career was a glaring example of that and as I continue to reflect back on my own experiences and of almost everyone I ever knew in that business I have to believe we all went through some strange times somewhere along the line. Recently a popular New York disc jockey, Robin Marshall published a very funny book about radio people from around the country and their strange experiences and was kind enough to include me in it. The book is called "Is this thing on?" and my contribution to it has to do with my first day in radio and some of what I struggled through to survive it. But unlike some of those those kids in that broadcasting class at IBS I believe all of us who had the good fortune to be a part of radio and to make it work for us can look back and smile and know that we were a part of something special.

2011-02-21T07:34:00.000-08:00

By the mid 1970s Bob Smith had become one of the most celebrated stars of radio and television as the legendary Wolfman Jack. His Friday night TV show on NBC, “Midnight Special” shared the TV music spotlight with ABC’s “Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert.”
Wolman’s nationally syndicated radio show was on WNCI and it seemed every taxi-cab in Columbus had a neon lighted sign on its roof advertising his program, as well as every COTA bus and anywhere else the station could advertise.
In 1975 the station brought him to Columbus for a Valentine's Day promotion that was held in the Scotts Inn Motel at Sinclair and Morse Road-also the home of the radio station.
The night that he flew into Port Columbus International Airport I got a call from E. Karl and he told me to mess up my hair and put on anything with a WNCI logo and get to the airport.
The Wolf was due to arrive within the hour. It was late at night and since I received the call while I was in bed my hair was already a mess so all I needed to do was to find my cleanest “Go to bed with a friend" t-shirt and make tracks for the terminal.
When I got the there it was clear that the other station staffers had gotten the same surprised phone call because we were all wearing different WNCI themed shirts. When Wolfman entered the terminal I remember being in awe of his seemingly bigger than life presence. He was taller than I thought he would be, even a little stockier.
Dressed casually in a blue denim shirt and jeans and wearing turquoise necklaces, bracelets and rings, the man was impressive.
I had already met some of the other syndicated radio stars of the era including Casey Kasem, Dr. Demento, and Flo and Eddie- who were actually Mark Volman and Howard Kalen of the rock group The Turtles. WNCI carried their syndicated programs as well. But meeting the Wolfman was special. The guy was absolutely likeable, a lot like the other DJs working for the station, just more famous.
The staff at WNCI then was Dave Anthony our mid-day jock- who also hosted a Sunday night jazz program, which was another radical idea that Phil Sheridan, our general manager allowed on his rock station.
Our morning guy Charlie Pickard aka "The Chaz" who was considered for years the best production man in the market. Mike Metzger our resident philosopher and afternoon drive host, Jay Michaels and "Easy Ed" Hayward at night, and myself.
Compared to those talented hippies I was just a kid still honing my craft.
Another member of our radio commune was our music director-Damon Sheridan. I was surrounded by the guys who helped WNCI in its early assault to knock off the great and powerful WCOL. This by the way was E. Karl’s mission in life at that time.
He used to say that he would someday turn 22 South Young Street- the site of the 'COL studios into a parking lot. Today they are sister stations, and instead of a parking lot the Young Street address is a sandwich shop.
The night Wolfman came to visit us he was taken at his request to White Castle where he ordered something like thirty burgers. And after ordering he asked the rest of the group… “Do you guys want anything?" Thirty burgers somehow did not seem like enough for a guy like that and it was truly a great rock & roll moment for us younger guys hoping to one day become the next big radio thing.