Skiing Memories - Dave's Midwestern Ohio Memories

A 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

Skiing Memories

Even though basketball was by far my favorite winter sport, I ventured into other recreational activities each winter as documented in last week’s blogpost about skating pursuits. Skiing is the focus this week. My first attempt at skiing came around age 16 at Valley High Ski resort near Bellefontaine that had just opened a few years before in 1962. At the time, it was the only ski lodge in Ohio (now there are 5). The slopes have a vertical drop of only 300’ so the runs went rather quickly! Its name had been changed to Mad River Mountain Ski Resort before the original ski lodge that I recall was destroyed by fire in 2015 as shown in this photo.

A totally rebuilt lodge pictured below with slopes in the background opened in 2016.

Starting college in Michigan in 1967 exposed me to the larger slopes in that area like Alpine Valley at 380’ vertical drop.

But eventually we headed up north to places like Boyne Mountain, with a vertical drop of 500’. I distinctly recall going to Boyne with my girlfriend, now wife, who had never skied before. After a few trips on the bunny slope, we ventured up the ski lift to the top of the mountain. We literally rode the entire slope down on our butts, laughing but a little scared all the way!

After college, there were ski trips to Snowshoe Mountain in West Virginia where the vertical lifts were 1500’, the highest this side of the Rockies. By then, we could ski quite comfortably and really enjoyed the resort.

After our son was old enough to ski, we’d take him to local ski resorts in southeastern Michigan like Mt. Brighton and Mt. Holly, all nicknamed Mt. Trashmore because they were on former landfills. Such places were good for one day ski outings as opposed to driving hours up north to the larger mountains.

There was one memorable ski outing to Mt. Brighton with some friends and relatives who were visiting from Ohio. One of the skiers by the name of Dale forget his gloves so on the way to the ski resort, we stopped at a local store near the resort to buy a pair. Unfortunately, the only gloves available were yellow Handy Andy farmer's gloves like pictured below. Dale obviously took a lot of good-natured ribbing from the rest of us all day long, as you could see him in those bright gloves all over the slopes.

Although I’ve never skied out west in the Rockies or the Alps in Europe, summertime visits to both were very special and memorable. The Aspen trip involved a fraternity national convention described in this previous Coors Tour blogpost. Aspen's vertical drop is quite an increase at 4030 feet from the “bunny” slopes I was used to around home. Too bad it wasn't winter at the time.

Seeing the Alps was included in an alumni tour organized by my university in July, 2004 to Italy and Switzerland. We took a cogged railway to the peak of Jungfraubahnen in the Swiss Alps. It’s the highest train station in Europe at 11332 feet, with a vertical drop on its ski slopes of an astounding 5591’. Check out the following photos.

My skiing days are long gone due to bad knees; however, snowboarding does look interesting and likely a lot less stressful on the knees than conventional skis. Wonder if an old dog can be taught new tricks?

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Ice Skating - Dave's Midwestern Ohio Memories

A 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

Ice Skating

The recent dramatic weather swings brought back memories as a kid in winter when there would be a rainstorm followed by a hard freeze. The creek running through our farm would overflow its banks and flood the bottom land shown in blue on the above aerial map of our farm. Then the sudden dip in temperature would freeze the water creating a wonderful, albeit temporary, lake for us to skate on.

The following print reminded me of helping my little brother learn to skate for the first time on that frozen flood plain. Also, there was a nice hill adjacent to the bottom land that we’d take our sleds down and onto the ice, traveling a long way before coming to a stop. Great fun!

The water in the bottomland would be several feet deep right about where my sister is in the photo below. However, the depth of the water in the creek to the right of her would be about 20’ deep, so we’d steer clear of that area. It never froze over as the water was running too fast. Eventually the water would subside, leaving the ice all jagged and broken up in the bottomland. Sometimes the fragmented ice would stay there all winter until the spring thaws.

Invariably, the flooding would bring in carp that we could see swimming under the ice. I recall Dad shooting them with a .22 rifle right through the ice. He called them bottom-sucking trash fish, among other such terms of endearment!

The creek flooded frequently because it was getting silted up from upstream erosion that restricted the flow. So when I was about age 11 or so, the creek was dredged from one end to the other to improve flow and mitigate flooding. This allowed the farm land in the creek’s watershed to also drain more rapidly enhancing timely crop planting and harvesting. Seeing those big steam shovels and bull dozers in action was a real treat. After the operators would quit for the day, I’d climb up on to those big rigs and pretend to run them.

Dredging the creek had another advantage during winter in that I could ice skate all the way down to Newport after it was frozen. If you look closely on the map below, you’ll see the creek ran parallel to the old Miami-Erie canal that I had written about in this previous blogpost. During the time of the canal, the creek supplied water to two old canal feeders named Basinburg and Lickety Lakes. Lake Loramie served a similar purpose, as did Lake St. Marys. Basinburg Lake was about half way to Newport and Lickety Lake was right at the intersection of State Routes 66 and 47 in Newport. Legend has it that Lickety Lake was named after some skinny-dipping escapades, but who am I to know?

My first pair of skates were the old clip-on style that did not work too well and were a real pain to install. Finally, I saved enough allowance money @ $1.25 per week to buy some figure skates. Then later hockey skates.

Hockey was fun but the ice was always very ragged and had to also be cleared of snow. We made makeshift goals out of two-by-fours and always seemed to lose the puck and break our sticks. To this day, the whole rigamarole turned me off to ice hockey, and that’s even after living in the suburbs of Hockeytown for 43 years.

Next week, look for another post about winter sports memories.

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Cracker Box Gyms - Dave's Midwestern Ohio Memories

A 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

Cracker Box Gyms

It was fun watching via live stream Loramie’s game Saturday night at the historic Hoosier’s gym in Knightstown, IN.

Loramie played great and won the varsity game 56-49. JV lost a heartbreaker in OT 51-50. You can see the highlights here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbAdwvDcHBQ

The old gym brought back many memories of playing basketball in “cracker box gyms”, our nickname for the small basketball courts prevalent back then.

As is evident on these photos from the old Loramie gym, the backboard was mounted right to the wall and the sidelines were also walled off from the elevated bleachers. The courts in those days were so small, the foul circles intersected with the center jump ball circle. The shorter court made the game much slower, which helped prevent injuries of players banging into the walls.

The backboards were wooden as well, and they all seemed to have selective dead spots. All these factors really gave the home team a distinct advantage. On the other hand, it was a huge disadvantage for those of us used to playing on the smaller gyms when we played on a regulation-size court with a glass backboard, especially during the tournament. We could never master that “kiss off the glass” shot, plus we'd run out of gas in a hurry!

The scoreboards in the cracker box gyms were also ancient - no tenth of seconds showing on those old antiques!

All the SCAL teams had smaller gyms except Fairlawn, as the schools in Green & Perry townships had consolidated in 1952 and eventually built a new school with a regulation court. Russia’s gym was probably the smallest in the county while Botkins had a regulation size court, but with a tile floor since it also served as the cafeteria. That floor had absolutely no spring. Fortunately, all those cracker boxes are now long gone, having been demolished. But the memories go on! In fact, I have a piece of Loramie’s gym floor among my keepsakes appropriately stored according to my wife in a box of memorabilia in the attic!

Here’s an interesting article about cracker box gyms that you might enjoy.

Back to the Hoosier’s gym to wrap up this blog, it became famous in the 1986 movie called “The Hoosier’s” about a team from a small town in Indiana that won the state basketball championship in the 1950’s. Back then, all the high school basketball teams in the state played in the same class, so a small school winning it all was a rarity. Here’s a short segment from the movie:
https://youtu.be/A0VVTCnBM_I

And better yet for me, here’s my niece’s son Deegan playing point guard during Loramie's JV game on the Hoosier cracker box gym - doesn’t get any better than that.

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Serving Mass - Dave's Midwestern Ohio Memories

A 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

Serving Mass

Three years ago, I had written this blogpost about my memories serving high mass on Christmas Day. The above photo taken after that mass came into my possession recently. That’s me on the front right and the alter boy behind me is my first cousin Denny, the same cousin I played K of C basketball with as described in last week’s blogpost. The server standing next to me is John, aka Spike, a classmate and close friend. Nelson, a distant cousin, is standing next to Denny. Coincidentally, I had an opportunity to get together with Nelson last week in Florida where we are both spending the winter. Joining us were several other snowbird Loramie alums pictured below, L-R, me, Frank, Doug, Tom & Nelson.

As a young boy, it was a real honor and privilege to serve mass at St. Michael’s church. We were all trained to be mass servers by our parish priest at the time, Fr. Raterman, who’s pictured below with our family (note even in the presence of our parish priest, I had my ball glove!)

Back then, being an alter boy was a lot different than today. First of all, there were no alter girls! Also, all the masses were spoken in Latin, so Fr. Raterman focused his training on the Latin responses as well as the many activities required before, during and after mass by the altar boys. Click on this video link to get a sense for the training Fr. Raterman provided.

Fortunately we did have a “cheat sheet”, sample shown above, to help us with the Latin. But an alter boy in training had to memorize all the responses in order to qualify. Fr. Raterman was also a stickler for reciting the names of all the various items the priest used during the mass as indicted in the graphics below.

At Christmas, Fr. Raterman always gave the servers a small gift. For example, we received this pin one year and another year, a small nativity crib, both of which I still have.

The most challenging aspect of serving mass was paying attention so the proper activity could be performed at the correct time. In those days, the servers had to ring a chime at the consecration. Picking up the chime without it accidentally ringing was a real challenge.

During high masses and funerals, an incense burner called the turibulum was used to sanctify the altar and body of the deceased. More than once, I recall the smoke from the incense causing a server holding the turibulum to pass out! The incense didn’t bother me; in fact, I rather liked the smell.

What caused me the most problem were the hard kneelers near the altar that made my boney knees very sore.

To this day, while attending mass, I tend to observe how the servers are doing. Without the Latin, their duties are a cakewalk. Plus they get to serve with girls!

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