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Ricky's World
The Air Raid Siren ....In the early 50s Wilbur Wright High School had a huge air raid siren positioned atop the North East corner of the school school building and at noon it would blast away! I am not sure if it was everyday because I was so young but it would scare the hell out of me and was tremendously loud! I remember mom coming into my bedroom and tried to calm me down while I was taking my noon nap! There is a BIG difference between an air raid siren and the weak ass one tone rotating Tornado warning systems of today. To my way of thinking they need to replace today's storm warning sirens with the old fashioned air raid siren! One would definitely hear it for miles! When I was a cop in Wapakonetta that is precisely what we did! Does anyone else member the air raid siren on top of Wilbur Wright and how many years it was in use and how often it was tested?
Stranded!!!!........In the early 60s, dad took my brother Ron and I crappie fishing in a swampy area known as the pot holes early one morning. We used dad's speedboat to get there and the pot holes was in a tucked away area that was connected to the lake. Fishing was fantastic as I remember but the wind was picking up latter in the morning so we decided to head home. On Grand Lake St.Marys when the wind picks up the lake gets very rough and whitecaps easily. Dad tried to start the motor and it wouldn't start. He tried it several times and finally tore the cover off the motor to see what was wrong. Nothing seemed to help so we had no choice but to paddle home. Problem was was there was only one 30 inch paddle!!!!! Getting out of the swampy pot holes was no problem but once on the rough lake that was another story! I don't recall how long it took but it seemed like forever! The DISTRESS flag was useless as there weren't any boats around. Needless to say we made it and to this very day I kept the 30 inch paddle as a reminder! The picture above is the very paddle that came with the boat and used by dad.
A nice way to cool off......Takes me back to my childhood!
Lunch Money......Mom and gave us lunch money to buy our lunches at school during the Wilbur Wright days. Seldom did I ever buy a lunch there unless they were serving something that I really liked. Instead I would buy a pack of the peanut butter cookies and a carton of chocolate milk or a pack of caramel creams and save the rest of the money for smokes. A lot of the kids would eat off school grounds and go to the Pilot or Urbans and get hamburgers and fries. All in all it worked out quite well. We were allowed to smoke at school in designated area outside the school building. I usually smoked outside the band room and watched others headed out to Sandy's or elsewhere to eat. I suppose mom and dad would have disapproved but what the heck they never found out!
The Challenge......Grand Lake St. Mary's has been a part of my life since 1961. As a kid my parents bought a cottage there in 1961 at Bass Landing. In 1965 I helped dad build a house that would eventually be our new home in the late 60s. The lake when originally created was approximately 9 miles long and 3 miles wide and covered 17,500 acre's and had a 52 mile shoreline. That changed over the years when East and West Bank state parks oened. Over the years many new channels have been added and undoubtedly the the dimensions increased and exceeded the original measurements of the lake when the channels are taken into consideration. Dad owed a speed boat that we used for family fun and also gave Ron and I a rowboat and a five horse Mercury motor. My brother seldom if ever used the boat but I practically lived in the thing! Basically you could say it was mine. I always liked adventures and I'm here to tell you that I had many in that boat! I used it for fishing, I used it to explore all the islands, and I used it just to get away and have some fun! One day I was talking to my brother or somebody about possibly rowing across the lake without the use of the motor. Whoever it was really ticked me off and said I couldn't do it. That was the wrong thing to say and it ticked me off and I accepted the the challenge! I was not stupid enough to attempt to row the nine mile distance but said I would cross the lake to Celina which is three miles, and it would be a six mile round trip! That was a tall order for a little kid but I knew I was up to it. Well when I started the lake was relatively calm at least on our side but by the time I got close to Safety Island it was another story! Being a man made lake it is not all that deep and when a wind comes up the lake gets rough in short order. Another thing, one side of the lake can be relatively calm and the other side could be whitecapping. Well that's exactly what I experienced! Do I detour and pull in to Safety Island or do I keep going? I decided to go for it and keep going! Man it was really getting rough out there and it was hard to control the row boat. My hands were getting all kinds of blisters and that didn't help matters. Well the last leg of the first half of the trip seemed like it took forever but I finally made it! I jumped out of the boat to make it official and wrote my name in the sand. I felt exhausted but thrilled! It probably would have been a piece of cake had the lake not got rough on me. I looked across the lake and Bass Landing could hardly be seen. Gosh, only half the trip was accomplished now I had to make the return trip! Not to worry, however, I can do it and I did. I might add it was whitecapping the entire return trip! When I got home I was excited I had accomplished what I set out to do, but now I had to face the music with mom and dad! You see, like most kids do I did this without seeking their permission because I knew that they probably would say no. Yeah I got in trouble but it was worth it I proved something to myself!!!
The Water Rocket......This was another inexpensive toy that brought a lot of happiness to me as a kid. I can still remember the excitement that came over me that Christmas morning when I opened it up! ....Wow!!!!...It would fly 75 to 100 feet depending how much fuel you added. Fuel? That's the beauty of it it used compressed WATER!!!!! Gosh I can still remember going out in the dead of winter launching these things! My fingers and hands were froze but I didn't care! My first one was the red and blue one in picture two. Over the years I bought others like the one in picture one, which I still have! In the summer months I would catch bugs and put them in the filler and mount it atop the rocket like nosecone and launch them on a suborbital flight. They always returned alive and well and I would release them. Today you have to be on guard buying these as the cheap knockoffs manufactured overseas aren't worth a darn!
The Log Cabin......Westerns were all over the silver screen back in the 50s and we all had our favorites programs. For most kids Roy Rogers the Lone Rang, Hopalong Cassidy, and Davy Crockett topped the list. Evening programming was filled too for the adults with more programs then you could count, programs like Gunsmoke, the Riffileman and many many more. As kids we all had cowboy and Indian outfits, bow and arrows, air rifles, cap guns, and even potato spud guns.....and guess what? we didn't kill each other and we grew up as responsible and productive human beings!!!! One year dad bought my brother and me an honest to God real log cabin! We were the envy of the neighborhood and many battles and shootouts took place there. I can remember sticking our air rifles in the ground and shooting mud clods at each other. Ron and I use to sharpen the points on wood arrows on the sidewalk and shoot at each other. It was a fun time to be a kid!!!!! Pictured below is our log cabin with Ron myself and my cousin's Brenda and Mike. Ron is pointing his air rifle. Second picture is of Ron and I wearing our cowboy and Indian outfits on Christmas morning!
November 22, 1963.......November 22, 1963 is one of those dates that are forever etched in the minds of anyone who was around back them.....the day President Kennedy was assassinated. Forever we will remember where we were and what we were doing on that fateful day. For Me, I was a traffic boy on the intersection of Burkhardt Ave. and Garland. When I left school to go to my post it had not yet been announced and I only learned about it when kids came to my corner and informed me. Apparently it had been announced after I left the building. I like everyone else was stunned and spent a long sad weekend glued to the TV. In retrospect that was truly when America changed forever, at least for me! The days of innocence and naiveness was gone forever!
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The Duncan Imperial YoYo......As a kid growing up in Dayton a must have was to have an official Duncan yo yo! Boy there were so many styles and colors to pick from! My all time favorite was the orange Duncan Imperial as pictured. Kids would spend hours learning the long list of yo yo tricks like walking the dog, the cradle, and around the world to name a few. Amazingly you can still buy them! I still own one of my originals and also got a new packaged backup one as I still like to pull it out and play with it once in a while! Hey I'm still a kid at heart! By the way Snoopy is totally amazed by it especially when I walk the dog!
Thursday Night Rick's Meal......No matter how rough of a day I had at school Thursday night's was always my favorite. Why? That was my night that mom made a point to fix my favorite meal, cheeseburgers, homemade french fries and baked beans! Man mom could really make a mean cheeseburger, and to top it off we used Hunts pizza or hicory flavored catsup! Gosh that was so good! Man I was in heaven! When it came to french fries mom most always made homemade fries, good Lord they too were good especially with that flavored catsup!!!! Nobody could make baked beans like mom could, they were the best! I usually ate the bacon strips that she added for flavor. Another neat thing about Rick's Meal night was that my cousin Tim often joined us! Thursday night's more then made up for the times we had liver or eggplant, after all mom and dad were entitled to their favorite meals too, I just wish I wasn't forced to eat it!!!! Sadly those Thursday night meals are just a memory now, but I'll never forget them! Thanks Mom!
Going To The Lake......On Friday night Ron, Mom, and I would make sure the car was packed and ready to go when dad got off from work, destination the lake! Back in those days it really gave me something to look forward to spending weekends at the lake after a long week at school. It was kinda neat being a city kid during the week and a country kid on weekends, not a bad combination! Dad was always a workaholic and most always worked at the lake. After we bought the cottage he added a carport, and a screened in porch to it. Within four years we sold the cottage to my grandparents and built our permanent house, followed by two more houses to sell. He was just like the energizer bunny when it came to work, and I guess that made him happy. He did did take time out to fish and boat, once in a while but not as often as he should have. Thinking back on it now I just wish he would have learned to relax a bit more and enjoy what he had. The attached 1961 photo shows our old station wagon all packed and ready to go with the boat attached and you guessed it a load of lumber attached to the roof! Dad was a fabulous cook and oh how I can remember the Bar B Q chicken he made, or the homemade potato chips, and sugar popcorn, or the steaks he grilled out. Those were the days! I guess Ron and I are the ones that made out on those weekend trips, and latter my sister. We would fish, swim, explore, boat, and do all kinds of things that we couldn't do if we had stayed in Dayton. We had the best of both worlds!
Orville Wright Fall Festival......As a kid my favorite days during grade school was the annual fall festival, soft pretzel day, the puppet show, and of course field day! I also enjoyed the few times we had special outings and went to places like the planetarium. Field day was always at the end of the year and it was great fun, and it also marked the end of the school year! Soft pretzel day was really cool too because a local bakery brought in batches of fresh baked soft pretzels! Man I tell you that entire school smelled so good! The pretzels were outstanding! The annual puppet show was put on in the auditorium on stage. It was truly amazing! The special outings were neat, but there just wasn't enough of them! In the very early years we also had a Christmas Bazaar but sadly they discontinued it. Now I really enjoyed the annual fall festival, and most of all I enjoyed the fish pond! It only stands to reason since I loved fishing. The first picture in this post shows where it was located. They spread a giant black tarp across the corner of the building. There were numerous round holes where you stick your cane pole in and you always caught something! Usually it was either a whistle of some sort, a magic coin trick, a cap bomb or a cane or something. My favorite was always the wooden magic coin trick that was made in Japan. I would play with that thing for hours and show it to everybody! These events may not sound like much today, but when you were a kid growing up in the 50s they were highlights of our young lives!
Ricky's Anti-gravity Machine.....As I said in previous Childhood Memory posts this kid loved to tear things apart and see what made them go, and I loved to invent things. It was a huge part of my life as a kid and I guess I inherited that interest from dad as he would always fix our broken toys. Well one day I got bored with my electric train and hooked up it's transformer to a giant 12 inch speaker that I was given. The result was OUTSTANDING!!!! I put a spit ball ( a wetted piece of paper wadded up in a tight ball) in the speaker and as I applied power the spit ball would rise and fall as I applied or reduced power! How neat! I was fascinated watching that spit ball being suspended in mid air by the vibrations!!!! Well, what I didn't tell you, the speaker would produce an ungodly very loud weird type of outer limits sounds and I literally scared the shit out of mom and dad who came running!!!l Well, they were not at all impressed or amused with my invention and let me know it!
Ducks......As a kid I loved ducks and I still do. You talk about a loyal pet walk or runaway from them and watch who's running to catch up with you. As I explained in a previous post mom and dad were good to Ron and I and allowed us to have more then our fair share of animals! We lived within the city limits but that mattered not back then. Hell we could have called our place a farm or a zoo! It was neat! We learned to love and respect all animals and to care for them. A lot of times the animals were wild animals that you couldn't buy at a pet store. A lot of times Ron and I brought home injured animals and we tried to nurse them back to health with mom's help. Those that didn't make it found a resting place on boot hill in our backyard. In the 50s we did not have a cottage at the lake so we naturally had more animals. After we bought the cottage dad put his foot down as we were gone over the weekends and summer months! Well Easter rolled around and I was disappointed that there would be no more ducks! That was a big deal for me! Come Easter morning guess what? I found a real baby stuffed duck in my Easter basket!!!! 55 years latter I still have him as pictured below!.....Thanks dad!
The Potholder.....One Christmas mom and dad got me a Potholder loom and I spent all Christmas vacation making potholders for everybody. I wasn't a sissy or anything but I thought it was pretty darn neat and it kept me out of trouble!!! Gosh, I made them for practically everyone I knew! One day I decided to make a special one for Annie Glenn, John Glenn's wife. When I mailed it to them I used a standard envelope and a 4 cent stamp. I remember I had a difficult time sticking in the small mailbox because the envelope was so thick. I'll about bet that when they received it there was postage due. Thinking back on it now it's a wonder that it was ever delivered. Delivered it was and I received a very nice thank you note and a friendship that spanned over half a century!