Center Grove High School Class of 1971

I've been too busy to write.

Thanks to Facebook, I'm getting reacquainted with my old Center Grove classmates of 1971. That's right...get out your calculators and do the math.

Last Friday night I made a quick trip to Greenwood to meet up with two 1971 classmates and several 1972 and 1973 CG graduates. I took my yearbook to help me remember. I'd get the name of one of the younger classmates, then look it up. Then I remembered--well, most of the time I remembered. One of the "under" classmates needed no introduction. I'd have known Jan anywhere.

The Riley kids rode Harry Featherston's first busload to the school. Since we arrived at school super-early, we sat in the gym and waited for the rest of the students to arrive. Jan rode Harry's second busload. An hour or so later she arrived with the rest of the bus, and she looked pale as a ghost. I asked her what happened. She said that Harry died. They had pulled into the CG front parking lot, headed towards the old middle school when Harry just "went". He evidently never knew what hit him since he never had a chance to brake. The bus kept heading toward the middle school. A 12-year-old farm kid pushed Harry out of the way and got the bus stopped.

Harry was not only our bus driver, but a neighbor. In the country, a neighbor might live a quarter mile down the gravel road--just like Harry. The day we lost Harry was sure a sad day. Back then bus drivers didn't have to have buses equipped with cameras. We respected Harry and our school bus. We respected our school. I can't always say we respected each other, since my little brother and a goofy kid named "Gopher" nearly got into a fight on Harry's bus once. I stepped between them and stopped the fight before it began. That wasn't going to happen "on my watch".

Back to the three-class reunion...my two classmates looked way younger than me. They still had their figures and the same personalities they had as teenagers. I was so glad to see both of them. I used to be self-conscious about weighing twice what I did in high school. To heck with that--I've finally realized that nobody cares...at least nobody I graduated with.

This weekend I plan on meeting another couple of classmates. We've missed out on many years, and I am not missing out on any more. I haven't seen my best friend in 25 years, and that's a rotten shame. I hope God gives us many more years to enjoy each other's company from here on out. I won't let anything else stand in the way of a friendship again.

I also plan on a road trip to Arkansas to see another old friend and classmate. Life hasn't been too kind to her, but her old classmates are resurfacing to let her know she's always been loved and never forgotten.

We've found out that several of our classmates have passed on, and several others are not well. That makes me feel even more determined to make sure the rest of us get together as often as possible.

Thank you, Facebook.

Crazy Things We Did as Kids

If you have read my blog, you know that I spent my early childhood in Indianapolis, and moved to Smith Valley in 1962 when I was nine years old. Compared to what kids have today, in quantity and technology, we were in the stone ages. But I'm sure we had just as much fun with our simple toys as kids have today with Wii, Xbox, and that entire class of video game systems.

During my really early years, we lived in a duplex on North Rural Street in Indianapolis. On the other side of our duplex lived Ginny, Pinkie, and their son Ricky. Ginny had some neat stuff that we couldn't dream of having. She had an oven that had a glass door! Back in the late 50's, we had never seen such a thing. When Ginny baked a roast or anything, and one or two of us happened to be over playing with Ricky, we'd actually pull chairs up to the oven window and watch food cook! How's that for excitement?

She also had a deep fryer with an engraving of a chef where the temperature lights were. When the grease reached the desired temperature, the chef's eye's glowed red. Honest to God, this fascinated me to the point where I would sit near the fryer and watch the red eyes glow. A few years ago, Mom and I went to Illinois to visit Ginny--she moved there to be close to her sisters. I told Ginny how, as a kid, I loved that deep fryer because of the eyes. She went over to her cabinet, pulled out that same fryer and gave it to me. It still works like a charm, with the exception of the chef's red eyes. They no longer work. When you consider the fryer is over 50 years old, it's pretty amazing that it even heats up.

In our own home on North Rural, we had a place in the ceiling of our living room where a light fixture had hung. The light was gone, but the decorative "thing" it hung from was still on the ceiling. Something about that decorative thing caused us kids to place ourselves directly below it, look straight up at it, twirl around, and make this guttural sound as we twirled. Don't ask me why...it was just something to do. And if I'd been Mom, it would've driven me crazy.

Mom was great at keeping us entertained as well. She would put us (one at a time) in a pillowcase, gather up the opening, and then swing us around in a circle. Now that was a hoot! At times, she would hang us on the doorknobs by our shirts. What fun! Kids today have never been swung around in a pillowcase or hung from a doorknob. Today either one of those activities would probably be grounds to call CPS.

She also would get on the floor onto her back, lift her legs up (don't worry...this is clean), and one of us kids would "belly up" to her feet. She held our hands, then lifted us up in the air by straightening her knees and bending her legs at the hips at a 90-degree angle. Then we'd all yell, "Tra-dant!". And although I never swung my own kids in pillowcases or hung them on doorknobs, we did do Tra-dant quite often.

Another activity, probably dreamed up by my mom, was "The Quiet Game". That consisted of one kid yelling "QUIET". After that, the first one to make a peep lost the game. It kept us occupied for a few minutes.

Both of my brothers had hobbies that were horribly gross. (Kids, don't try this at home.) Mike liked to sit on the steps in front of our house and wait for a smoker to go by. If he threw his cigarette butt down, Mike picked it up and smoked it.

Now, if you think that's gross--hang on. Mark's hobby was to take one of Dad's big screwdrivers and walk up and down the sidewalk. When he found a *somewhat* fresh piece of ABC gum, he scraped it off the sidewalk with the screwdriver, stuck it in his mouth, and chomped away! To this day, I can still hear the grit in his mouth as he chewed! Mark must've had a mineral deficiency or something. Our back yard was nothing but dirt due to us kids grubbing around in it all day long. It was nothing to go out into the back yard and see Mark with a mud ring around his mouth. Yes, folks...the child ate dirt!

And for those of you that don't know what ABC gum is, ABC stands for "Already Been Chewed". Speaking of chewing-sometimes on a Saturday we'd walk through the alley to our alma mater, School 81. Since it was Saturday, we could walk through the alley to get to our school. We'd search the parking lot for some tar, scrape it off, and chew it! That was some pretty nasty tasting stuff. Luckily, we didn't do that often.

I know you're thinking that I must've been a more normal child than my brothers. But although I didn't smoke used cigarettes, chew sidewalk gum, or eat dirt, I did have my bad habits too. On a daily basis, I would stand up on my bed and stick my finger in the empty light socket attached to the wall. Heck, yes...it hurt! But now I could probably get struck by lightning and not blink an eye.

I also had a habit of swallowing nickels--no other currency--just nickels. It's not that I had a nickel in my mouth and accidentally swallowed it. Nope, I did it on purpose. A couple of days later, I would hear a *clink* and knew I had gotten rid of the last nickel I'd swallowed. I don't have an explanation why we did any of these weird things, but I guarantee you that your kids did some pretty weird stuff too--or if they are still young, they're still doing weird stuff. You just probably don't know about it. And no doubt you did too.

We three kids and Ricky formed a club. We voted on the name and decided on "The Dingbat Club". I imagine it was pretty close to being a perfect name for our motley crew. Our dues were ten cents a week. The main goal of "The Dingbat Club" was to beat the heck out of Marvin and Kenny, who lived a few houses down the alley from us. Marvin and Kenny were brothers, and if I remember correctly, their mother seemed to have a weird arrangment with someone the boys called "Uncle Cal".

When Marvin and Kenny) invaded our turf, that was reason enough to launch a full-scale war. Those two had no reason to be in the alley behind our house. They were just asking for it, and we gave it to them. After a sound whooping, they'd run home crying. If Uncle Cal was "visiting", he'd come out and yell at us. We didn't beat up Marvin and Kenny merely for being in the alley behind our house--we beat them up because they were creepy kids.

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Mom always said yes. I'd go get my PJs and head over to Ricky's. Ricky's mom and dad had a little bit of money and only one child at home. Ricky had toys lavished upon him. He had it all. I can remember a Hi-Ho Cherry-O game, a nice set of Lincoln Logs, a horrible stuffed chimp that I absolutely hated, and a very cool chemistry set. One day, I succumbed to temptation. On Ricky's chest of drawers was the coolest thing I had ever seen, purchased from a penny gumball machine. It was a silver plastic skull with red ruby eyes. That treasure would be mine before night's end.

Before I went home, I took the silver skull with the red ruby eyes and stuck it in my pocket. I didn't dream that Ricky would miss it--he had so many toys. But miss it he did, and it didn't take Ricky and Ginny very long to come over and ask for the skull. That was the last time I took something that didn't belong to me.

It's just a good thing that I haven't ran into another one of those silver skulls with red ruby eyes. I don't think I can take the temptation.

North Rural Street Memories

Dad and I were on the front porch of our duplex on North Rural Street in Indy. (Seems like no one else was home but us.) Dad didn't have kids merely to carry on his family name and DNA. He had kids to fetch his beer and cigarettes. That day, Dad told me to go down to the gas station and buy him some cigarettes. I was only five at the time, but back then a kid could walk around the block and not be worried about a drive-by or some pervert picking them up. And a kid could run down to the gas station and buy a package of cigarettes for her dad.

I got up from the porch steps, and Dad told me there was money on the kitchen table. As I walked into the house to pick up the money, he added, "...and get me a beer too". I picked up the money, stuck it in my pocket, and headed out the front door to go to the gas station. At the end of the block, I crossed 19th Street, making sure I looked both ways. Then I was in the gas station's parking lot.

I entered the station. Two attendants were at the counter. One of them leaned over to see what I wanted. I placed my money on the counter and said, "I want a beer and a package of Chesterfields!". The two attendants looked at each other and chuckled. One of them leaned over and said to me, "Honey, we don't sell beer here!". But he handed me the cigarettes and the change.

I walked back to the house and gave Dad his cigarettes. Then I told him that they didn't sell beer at the gas station. He gave me "the look" and said, "I didn't mean for you to BUY a beer. I wanted you to get me one out of the refrigerator!". Man, what a dopey kid I was. That was almost as embarrassing as the time I walked into the tavern where my grandpa bartended and sat down at the bar.

As you may have guessed, the top photo is the duplex we lived in on North Rural as it appears today. The next one is the gas station. I retrieved the photos from Google Maps, and am amazed that I was able to "virtually" walk up and down North Rural again. I was even more surprised to find that the old gas station is still there, and going a little farther north and across the street from the gas station, the old Garnett's market building still stands. It's evidently now a day care center.

The photo to the left is my mom walking home from Garnett's carrying her groceries. You can even see Garnett's in the photo. How cool is that? The cars give away how old this photo is.

Using Google Maps, I even traced my steps back to the school where I attended kindergarten. That was Public School 81. I think my teacher's name was Charity Showalter. We always walked 18th Street to the school. I remember not being able to tie my shoes for the longest time, and Miss Showalter said something about it one day. That made me determined to learn. In our classroom, we had a Fisher-Price "Old Woman that Lived in a Shoe" toy, complete with laces. I took that toy every day and played with it until I learned how to tie my shoes.

PS81 is also where I had my first crush. I was in love with David Qualkenbush, who had strawberry-blonde hair and freckles. I can still recall what he looked like--he was the cutest boy in the class. One day our teacher announced that we were going to have a field trip that day and we would choose partners. We all had to sit in a big circle on the floor to "choose up". Here's my chance, I thought. As soon as my name was called, I was going to pick David as my partner for the field trip. Little did I know until that day that EVERY girl in kindergarten had a crush on David Qualkenbush.
I didn't realize that, alphabetically, my name was way at the end of the pack--and that's how the names were being called. Sure enough, the first girl called ran over and picked David. My heart was broken. I remember hanging my head and tears going down my cheeks. Then at my deepest minute of despair, I saw a pair of shoes stop in front of me. I looked up and saw another little boy in my class. He asked ME to be his partner! Hey, maybe I was the cutest girl in the glass and every boy had a crush on ME.

I wiped my tears, stood up and took his hand. Who needed dumb ol' David Qualkenbush, anyway.