Series of Guest Blogs by an out-of-state Fish Report reader originally from this area about fond memories of growing up in Midwestern Ohio during the 50’s & 60’s
May 15, 1971
A very memorable day of my life occurred 50 years ago this coming Saturday, when my wife and I started dating. I’ve written about that special time in previous blogs but in light of the upcoming anniversary, more memories come flooding to the surface and are documented here. May 15th also happens to be my wife’s father’s birthday and the day her grandfather died, so for us, it has become an important date to circle on the calendar each year.
After my senior year in college at General Motors Institute, I returned to Dayton in mid-May to start work as an engineer for General Motors. Through the grapevine, I heard that a friend from high school was throwing a party at his place on the evening of Saturday, May 15. At the party, I ran into a girl from Russia who I had dated casually the prior summer and discovered she was now engaged to be married to a Minster guy.
She had come to the party with Debby, her best friend from high school, whom I recalled meeting during a double date at Cassano’s Pizza the previous summer on the occasion of my date's brother returning from Viet Nam. Since it was the first time the two siblings had seen each other in years, they were catching up on family matters, which gave the opportunity for Debby and me to chat and get acquainted.
Meanwhile at the party a year later, I noticed Debby setting on a big couch next to another partygoer, so I took the opportunity to sit down on the thick arm of the couch next to Debby to say hi, somewhat like this photo, but imagine me in hippy clothes and Debby in a short miniskirt! That eventful get-together began a wonderful conversation that has continued ever since! I had ridden a motorcycle to the party, so as the festivities were winding down, we took a memorable ride on that bike all over town and beyond.
It was a yellow Suzuki off-road bike that I had borrowed for the summer from a fraternity brother who had broken his leg at Mardi Gras ironically after being hit by a motorcycle. He’s the guy with the cast pictured next to me in the photo shown above. The bike was stuffed into the huge truck of another frat brother’s 1964 Chevy and hauled from college in Michigan to Dayton earlier that week after our last finals. We removed the bike’s front wheel and the car’s spare from the trunk to make room, storing both in the back seat. All his clothes and things were in my car as I followed closely behind him down I75 to Dayton.
After the party, that midnight motorcycle ride was a blur interrupted at the end by the sunrise, to both of our surprise! Somewhere along the way, Debby recalls a barbed wire fence we almost ran into! She was dropped off at her place shared with several other local girls as documented in
this previous blogpost. That was a summer of a lifetime, as we toured around in that motorcycle everywhere, including a trip to Russia and Ft. Loramie to meet our respective parents. My mother-in-law Hilda grew up on the neighboring farm next to my grandparents, so she knew my dad quite well. In fact, at our first meeting, Hilda told us about my dad taking his sisters and other neighborhood girls including Hilda to Lindhaus Dance Hall on weekends during WWII. Dad had a deferment to farm the home place because his father had died during the Great Depression.
Dad also recalled Hilda’s war time story, adding that the girls road in the back of the farm truck they nicknamed the Blitz. He had to meticulously clean the truck and add two benches for sitting before each weekend dance after hauling livestock and other such farm stuff in the back over the course of the week. For sure that connection between my future mother-in-law and my dad gained me quick acceptance to Debby's family, otherwise who knows what might have happened, as my garb and hair at the time were very hippy-like! Plus I had taken Debby’s youngest brother, Ken, who was about 7, for a zippy ride on the bike around the meticulously maintained yard. He loved it, but Hilda did not!
We were engaged 8 months later and married 10 months after our engagement, living happily ever after. I’m so lucky Debby didn’t go home to spent the evening with her father on his birthday!
Want to know how we are celebrating our 50 year milestone? A neighbor’s loaning me his bike and Debby and I are going to take a midnight spin for old times sake. Right!
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