Sling Shot - Dave's Midwestern Ohio Memories

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

Sling Shot

As a kid growing up, at the first sign of spring, we’d always make homemade sling shots to shoot small stones at various targets around the farm. The crude weapon was easy to make out of a forked tree branch and a slice of rubber inner tube. The tricky part was attaching ends of the the sliced inner tube to the two forks so that they didn’t come loose. The first one was usually pretty flimsy and typically broke after a few tries, then we’d learn from our mistakes and create a better version, a pattern that was repeated until we made one that could fire a pebble over the barn. That was our test. This tried-and-true trial-and-error approach honed as a kid helped me tremendously as an auto engineer later in life.

Typically each spring, there was usually a heavy rain that would flood the bottom land in our pasture next to the creek allowing large carp to spawn along the edges of the shallow flood plane, making perfect targets for our sling shots.

Dad never liked the carp because they were bottom feeders and were considered inedible trash fish, so he encouraged us to go after them with our sling shots; better than shooting out windows in the farm buildings, I guess.

That occupied our time for a while, until the water receded and we were off to our next target, usually a tin can on top of a fence post. But shortly thereafter, the land was dry enough to till the ground, so no more time to goof off - as it was planting time, and on our dairy farm, that meant sunrise to sunset work for the next six months through the harvest season. Tough but rewarding work, but not as much fun as being an auto engineer - build it, bust it, fix it!

Check out this old timer by the name of Rufus Hussey using his sling shot to hit some amazing targets:

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Funny Quotes - Dave's Midwestern Ohio Memories

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

Funny Quotes

Fish Report readers are all no doubt going stir crazy staying at home for over a month now. So a little humor seems appropriate. Here are a few quotes that tickled my funny bone and hope do the same for you:

This coronavirus quarantine has allowed me to tackle my honey do list to some extent, but reserve your thoughts and prayers for the coronavirus victims and all the caregivers.

Nothing to add here! Say it fast.

Man, this is definitely true, especially noticeable now as we eat in all the time. I remember as a kid the bags of chips were 10 cents and fully loaded. Now indeed mostly air. Has this pandemic ever created the need for comfort food. So thankful for that light in the frig!

Here’s another one that hits home, as I’m expecting a tax refund this year but my CPA is not that computer literate so can’t work from home, plus the deadline has been extended to July 15th. The refund will have to wait. To make matters worse, it will now arrive well after my property taxes are due. Time for a new CPA who hopefully can count.

Speaking of computer literate, the auto correction tool always seem to come up with some bizarre interpretations.

Lent is over, but this is so true. No more excuses till Advent!

Sent this one to a close friend from high school and he said none of our friends had bail money anyway!

Good ones!

These got me thinking!

Yep, this is my favorite!

On a side note, I had sent this video to some of my high school friends asking if we did something like this from the hay mow in the barn. 

Here’s a response I got back: "No, we just fell thru the hole above the stables into the fresh manure."

Stay safe, Fish Report readers.

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More on Loramie-Minster Rivalry - Dave's Midwestern Ohio Memories

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

More on Loramie-Minster Rivalry

My recent blog about the Loramie-Minster rivalry over the years yielded several interesting responses. Check them out.

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From a high school friend:

Good blog! The saga continues:

https://fortloramieathletics.com/recap/in-overtime-again-fort-loramie-knocks-off-minster/

Never happened but oh the thought of it:

https://pressprosmagazine.com/ohsaa-tourney-area-lucks-out-with-minster-loramie-possibility/

Tom

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From a friend originally from Botkins:

Dave
Great history and pictures. Being from Botkins and also living in the UD ghetto, I can totally relate to many of the stories. Botkins had a similar rivalry with our neighboring town, Anna.

Buds in Minster was a favorite hangout, and of course Eagles nightclub was quite the hotspot to find girls.

Thanks for the memories!
Cheers
Al

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From a college friend originally from Dayton:

Otis (my nickname from college, named after a bar in Buffalo, NY),

I enjoyed your Animal House story so much I read on to your Ft. Loramie - Minster rivalry post and found it just as enjoyable. I particularly liked the story at the end about your dad and his neighbor in the Nursing Home arguing over which town had bragging rights for their church steeples.

It was pretty obvious from the included pictures that Paul Stukenborg was right that St. Augustine's had two steeples, but not so obvious that your dad was right about St. Michael's being taller. So I did some research and am happy to report what you already knew -- of course, your dad was right.

St. Michael, consecrated in 1881, was 64 feet wide by 170 feet long, with a bell tower that rose 200 feet off the ground. St Augustine, when originally consecrated in 1849, was 60 feet wide and 120 feet long with a single steeple that rose 160 feet from the ground. That steeple was removed in 1874 and replaced in 1876 by the Gothic twin towers that are still there today. The new towers rose to an impressive (but not impressive enough) 190 feet. Given the rivalry that has long existed between the two towns and the fact that St. Michael was built 5 years after the new steeples were installed at St. Augustine's, I'm guessing it was more than just coincidence that the St, Michael steeple ended up being ten feet taller.

Well, all of that got me thinking that at some point far in the future, like your dad, you might find yourself in a nursing home room right next to another old guy from rival Minster. And that, as guys do in a rivalry as old and as strong as Ft. Loramie - Minster, you might be tempted to brag about the size of your organ as compared to his. I WOULD CAUTION YOU NOT TO DO THAT! In further research I discovered that while the organ at St. Michael is impressive, originally installed in 1881 and later enhanced to a total of more than 1,100 pipes, it shrivels in comparison to the organ at St. Augustine's. Their behemoth was originally constructed and installed in 1896 by Henry Pilcher Sons of Louisville, Ky. and was enlarged in 1939 and again in 1968 to its glorious total today of 2,287 pipes in 37 magnificent ranks. Impressive, indeed, and not an organ to be trifled with.

St. Michael’s Organ

St. Augustine's Organ

As you can see, I have way too much time on my hands in the current circumstances.

You are welcome to use the organ research I shared for a future post — if you think your audience shares my interest in organs.

My own interest in your rightly named God’s Country region centers around The Wooden Shoe Inn in Minster where my father bought me my first legal beer to celebrate my 18th birthday (actually my 453rd beer by my count as I had already completed my first semester of college with you, but I had the good sense not to share that tidbit with dad.)

Take care,

Jim


Editors note: Legal drinking age back then was 18. And coincidently, St. Augustine’s organ is currently under refurbishment as outlined at this link and as rendered in the photo below. The pipes will be exposed like St. Michael’s rather than currently hidden to give the organ a “symphonic flair”.

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From an avid Fish Report reader from Russia:

Dave

Keep ‘em coming, not only do I love them but I hear other people talk about them... i.e. did you see Dave’s blog this week? Which spurs a discussion about similar but different memories.

We’re truly small town people!

Doug

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Animal House - Dave's Midwestern Ohio Memories

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

Animal House

While hunkering down during the coronavirus pandemic, we binge watched several TV shows, most specifically This is Us and Virgin River. After watching several episodes of each, there was a character on both that looked vaguely familiar. For Virgin River, when the doctor in the show was shown in casual clothing while fishing and when the father of Mandy Moore on This is Us was shown golfing, it dawned on me that this same actor was in the 1978 classic movie Animal House.

The actors name is Tim Matheson, nicknamed Otter, who portrayed the president of DTX fraternity in Animal House. The movie depicted college fraternal life in the 1960’s, the heyday of fraternities. I was in a fraternity during the same time and agree it was a fantastic era to be in college.

The DTX house was on probation for several violations, but after a toga party initiated by Bluto played by John Belushi got out of hand, the fraternity was threatened with dissolution and expulsion. The fraternity officers had to pitch their case in front of the Student Court and college administration. Otter gives the closing appeal in this clip. He’s the one in the red plaid coat and it didn’t go so well.

Shortly after being shutdown, a fire broke out in the Delta house, so it was in shambles as well. But the movie ends well after Otter, in his own inimitable way, appeals to the dean's wife (who was at the infamous toga party as shown on the right) to extend the fraternity's probation rather than a full suspension.

My fraternity in college was Theta Xi and our nickname on campus was Theta Zoo, so you can definitely imagine the similarities to Animal House. My fraternity brothers and I all felt the show represented with some exaggerations how things really were back in those days. Like Animal House, everyone in our fraternity had nicknames. As pledges we were all given nicknames as shown below, many after bars in Buffalo, NY, the hometown of a crazy brother with the real name of Wackerman who used the excuse he couldn’t remember our names.

During my sophomore year, the fraternity officers felt it was time to improve our image on campus, so we dramatically cleaned up our act. Annually, the university recognized the Most Outstanding Fraternity, an honor we had never won. So that became our goal. The award was based on academics, athletics and activities To enhance academics, we had what was called a crib room, to bin every test that had been administered in all the various classes. Those prior tests as well as some aggressive tutoring by upperclassmen were a great help for us underclassmen. Whenever a test given matched exactly the sample test in the crib, we called it a dead-nuts crib (DNC). To enhance our activities score, we had members join every campus club and volunteered for all community service projects imaginable. We were already pretty strong in athletics; in fact we had the not-so-famous version of the Fab Five, in that our pledge class as freshman handily beat the house team made up of upper classmen in basketball and other sports. However, to rake up even more points for athletics, we made sure someone participated in each and every intramural sport on campus.

For example, I recall signing up for horseshoes, a game I played as a youngster. Turned out winning the event to garner more points towards the top fraternity award, which we ended up earning by a thread. But it didn’t last, as we created an irreverent button after the award that exhibited an abbreviated form of Theta Xi is Tops In The School! Plus, over the years our house has been on probation several times, and there was a fire as well. And of course we had countless toga parties just like in Animal House.

My fraternity brothers from that era get together for lunch several times a year to relive the old stories and enjoy some camaraderie; always a great time. Times haven't changed much; as for example, below are photos from recent get-togethers with such activities as hatchet throwing, go cart racing, exploring an Escape Room, bocce ball and football bowling, just to name a few! Theta Zoo through and through.

Back to binge watching until this pandemic is over so we can hold another frat get-together. Or maybe we try paintball now - looks safe!

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