Shelby Oaks - Dave's Midwestern Ohio Memories

This is a guest post by an anonymous Fish Report reader as part of a series of periodic posts that will focus on cherished memories of growing up in Midwestern Ohio during the 50’s & 60’s.

Shelby Oaks Golf Course in Sidney was the first public course in the area. 

The Moose Golf Course in Sidney , a private club, existed prior to 1965.

Shelby Oaks

The first public golf course in the area was Shelby Oaks, which opened in the fall of 1965 with 9 holes during my senior year in high school. Our basketball coach Kremer was an avid golfer, so he recruited a bunch of newbies together from the seniors in high school and challenged Anna Coach Anderson to a golf match at Shelby Oaks. Coach Kremer had us practicing in the outfield of the baseball diamond. Fortunately, I had hit golf balls before, thanks to my uncle Gene from Chicago, who let us hit balls when he came to visit. I distinctly remember about age 12 hitting a golf ball with a 5 iron over the hog stable on our farm from next to the tool shed, a distance about 150 yards. That ball was never to be found, and it went farther by three times than any baseball I’d ever hit. So from that moment on, I was hooked on golf. Unfortunately for my wife, I’m still hooked almost 60 years later. Anyway, back to the story, the day of the big golf challenge arrived. I have no recollection of how our team did against Anna, but I do recall that I shot a 45, bogie golf my first time out, which I have a difficult time matching to this day. What a memorable round! Unofficially, I’d like to think this event was the first ever County golf tournament!

County Fair - Dave's Midwestern Ohio Memories

This is a guest post by an anonymous Fish Report reader as part of a series of periodic posts that will focus on cherished memories of growing up in Midwestern Ohio during the 50’s & 60’s.

The ferris wheel is a staple at any County Fair. The Shelby 

County Fair once made national news for their ferris wheel

County Fair

It’s late summer and County Fair season. So many memories come to mind about the fairs while growing up, from the rides, cotton candy, livestock displays and midway games. Although I never won anything like a stuffed animal for a girl, it was fun and exciting to give it a go, especially when I was rewarded with a kiss behind the livestock barn for trying! Many of my friends showed their livestock at the fair, so we literally stayed on the grounds for the entire week, sleeping on straw bales for a couple hours a night after a raucous day at the fair. The Deloye’s always had the winning Holsteins, the Pleiman’s the best Ayrshires and the Joslin’s the top beef cattle and sheep. And during the ’63 fair, I distinctly recall walking from the fairgrounds downtown to the theater to see the movie Cleopatra staring Elizabeth Taylor! But the rides at the fair were the best; in fact, a Guinness Book of Records for riding a ferris wheel was set during the 1964 fair. A 15 year old kid named Chuck Rogers from Botkins rode the ferris wheel for 25 straight hours. Then low and behold, the very next week, a 16 year old Sidney girl named Patty Jones reset the record riding 40 hours at the Auglaize County Fair. No, I didn’t remember those names but did recall the event. Google helped me find the details from a Tuscaloosa newspaper article, as the story went “viral” in it’s day! And as shown in the photo below, there’s a guy in Hamtramck, Michigan who just might have a part of that old record-setting ferris wheel displayed in his back yard.

Hamtramck Disneyland's creator passed away in May, but his

wacky structure just off I-75 in Michigan is American folk art

Summer Days - Dave's Midwestern Ohio Memories

This is a guest post by an anonymous Fish Report reader as part of a series of periodic posts that will focus on cherished memories of growing up in Midwestern Ohio during the 50’s & 60’s.

Summer Days

Summer brought family reunions and always a fun day. My parents had literally dozens of brothers and sisters so the affairs were quite a gathering and a bunch of fun. In fact to this day one side still holds a reunion each year. Besides the hotdogs, pop and games, the really best part of the reunion came afterwards, when my brothers and sisters would spend the following week with our cousins in Dayton. It was a fun-filled week away from milking cows, feeding pigs and gathering chicken eggs. We would swim in real pools, not the muddy creek running behind our place. And ride bikes on hard surfaces instead of our gravel lane. And they had air conditioning, not only in their house but in the car! I still remember my very first ride in an A/C equipped vehicle; all the way back in the third row of a station wagon. It felt so cool even back there. Who knows, but maybe that experience led me to take my very first job at Copeland’s (now Emerson’s) in Sidney to work on the A/C compressor machining line during the summer after graduation from high school before heading for college. For certain, those summer vacations with our cousins in Dayton likely lead me consider a life beyond the farm, but the memories of those farm days will never fade. 

Taken at St. Patrick’s School in the summer of 1947