The Bookmobile - 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.

The Bookmobile

As a youngster growing up in a small community, exposure to world events was relatively limited, maybe thankfully during the Cold War and the fear of the atomic bomb - outta sight; outta mind! However, thanks to the bookmobile from the Sidney library that routinely visited our grade school, we were somewhat exposed to outside thoughts and ideas via the books and magazines stacked inside the large vehicle; much better suited than the comic books we were reading! 

Some of my favorite novels were 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne, the Iliad & Odyssey by Homer, Julius Caesar by Shakespeare, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee and Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. Of course, I read westerns, war stories, mysteries, sports and adventure books as well, such as Shane, the Hardy Boys, Call of the Wild, Grapes of Wrath, Lou Gehrig - Pride of the Yankees, The Longest Day, Robinson Crusoe, Robin Hood, Last of the Mohicans, just to name a few (my favorite comic books may be the focus of a future blog, who knows!).

Because the bookmobile came every week, it was always my goal to have the book read by its next visit, so I could get another one. The bookmobile driver was very knowledgeable, and would get a copy of any item requested by the next week’s visit. Occasionally, I'd check out a book about a saint, such as St. Patrick or St. Francis, that I was invariable late in returning because my Mother would always want to read it, too.

For several years during grade school, we had split classes; in other words, the same teacher taught two grades. That type of class structure was great because I had a chance to read while the teacher was providing lessons to the other grade. Whenever a movie came out about a book I had read, it was fun to see the movie and observe how the screenwriter depicted the book compared to my interpretation. And regarding magazines, Look, Time and any issue about sports were my favorites. I especially enjoyed the Normal Rockwell covers of Look magazine (example shown below that pretty much depicted me back in the day, except Mom would never let the dog in the house, let alone on my bed).

All this reading helped me later in life as my jobs at Ford involved comprehending lots of reports, technical research and detailed proposals. The volume of reading material became so large I actually took a speed reading class that interesting enough used the book Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien, supposedly the best selling novel ever written at 150 million copies. It, too, was made into a series of movies.

Now that I’m retired, my reading seems to be migrating to historical biographies, especially about Winston Churchill or US Presidents. So far, I’ve gotten about 2/3rd’s of the way through the list, reading them in no particular order, just as I run across them at the library. And books on CD are a listening favorite while driving. Plus now our local library has what seems like an unlimited downloadable on-line list of offerings that should keep me occupied and out from underfoot for a long while.

Baseball On The Radio - 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.

Baseball On The Radio

The start of baseball season and my recent blog about "The Knack” brought to mind listening to major league baseball on the radio as a kid back in the 50’s. With the advent of television, the old tube-type radio that was in our living room was all mine to use. It was similar in style to the model shown above, but obviously after many years of use, was in much worst shape. But that did not bother me a bit, as I could then listen to baseball in my bedroom all to myself since my only brother had not been born yet.

Waite Hoyt and Joe Nuxhall, pictured below, were my favorite Reds broadcasters. Nuxhall followed Hoyt in the broadcast booth after his 22 year playing career with the Reds. Joe’s favorite saying near the end of each game was “This old left-hander is rounding third and heading for home”.

After listening to to Waite or Joe for a few innings, I’d then try to find the broadcast of the team they were playing to hear their side of the game. That was easy if the Reds were playing the Pirates or Cubs, because those teams were in range of the radio’s built in antenna if the weather was right and there were no thunderstorms around. But to reach the Reds opponents further away took some ingenuity. That’s where having the “knack” paid off, as I noticed the reception was better if I touched the back of the radio. It improved even more if I used my other hand to touch the metal bed frame. After taking the radio apart, I noticed the antenna was located inside the back cover, so a wire was run from the antenna to the bed frame and suddenly the NY Dodgers, NY Giants and PA Phillies games on the east cost and the SL Cardinal’s and MIL Braves games to the west were all within range. In those days, all the baseball games were broadcast on 50,000 watt AM stations that were much easier to pick up than today’s low power FM stations. I recall using adhesive tape to mark around the dial the frequencies of each of the NL teams so the games were easier to find. Plus after the Reds game, I’d tune to the teams in the west who were in a later time zone.

That worked fine until 1958 when the Dodgers and Giants moved to California; so back to the drawing board. By this time I was a little older, so with some allowance money, new vacuum tubes from a mail order catalog were ordered to improve the power. Plus I hooked up a larger speaker from my grandma’s old console radio after mounting it in a separate plywood box. Then the radio antenna was connected to our TV antenna mounted on a tall pole just outside my bedroom window, as my room was right above our living room. Reception improved dramatically, but I never was able to pick up any of the west coast teams. I do recall getting minor league baseball in Colorado and Texas, and just once, hearing Wolfman Jack, a famous west coast radio personality.

With no inter-league play, I had little interest in the American League teams, except during the World Series, when I’d listen to the teams in the Series, like in 1961 when the Reds and Yankees played. Mel Allen was the Yankee announcer, whom I couldn’t stand, cause he was such a homer (as if Waite Hoyt and Joe Nuxhall weren’t). Allen never gave the Reds their due, likely because the Yankees blew them away in 5 games, so there wasn’t much of anything good to talk about. In those days World Series games were played during the day, so I recall distinctly helping my dad build a new corn crib while we listened to that disappointing ’61 Series. They even announced the score during school for that Series, resulting in lots of moan and groans as the Yankees killed our beloved Reds. The only good news was keeping Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris from hitting any home runs after they had hit 54 & 61 respectively during the season. There was a lot of controversy over Maris beating Babe Ruth’s 60 home run record for a season, as the number of games had increase to 162 games versus 154 for the Babe. But that controversy paled in comparison to the Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds steroid-induced home run records years later.

Eventually my brother was born so we shared a bedroom together until I went off to college, and the radio was likely junked for some newer model, probably along with my baseball card collection and Erector set (another “knack” thing!), as all are now "long gone”.

The Knack - 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.

The Knack

Our two adjacent neighbors on the farm where I grew up are shown on the photo above riding their hand-buit vehicle. The photo was taken well before my time in the 1930’s during the Great Depression. The guy driving is my wife’s uncle, while the one following on his bike is my uncle. They built the vehicle from scrap material around their farms.The two were very creative and it was fun growing up around them as they, along with my dad, would help each other out during harvesting season. I recall one such occasion while combining wheat in about 1955 when a cast iron part broke on the harvester. To obtain a replacement part from the implement store in Minster, the part number was needed, which typically was molded into the casting. So my dad and the two neighbors went about removing the broken part, cleaning it thoroughly in kerosene to remove the grease and searching for the part number for some time without success, when my mom called everybody in for noon lunch,. So dad and the neighbors cleaned up and went to lunch in the summer kitchen, an additional room on our farm home that had lots of windows so was much cooler in the summertime than the kitchen with the heat from the cooking stove. However, rather than go in for lunch, I stayed back to search the broken casting for the elusive part number. Once I pieced together the various broken parts, I found the part number that was difficult to see because the part broke right along the seam of the part number. I immediately grabbed the parts and ran into the summer kitchen just as everyone was finishing the meal to tell them that I had found the part number. Needless to say I was full of grease and smelled like kerosene. So my Mom shewed me out the door to clean up. As I was quickly departing the summer kitchen after receiving the appropriate reprimanded from mom, I heard her say that Dave has a "knack" for such talents, but exhibits little common sense when it comes to proper manners! Dad and our neighbors soon also left the lunch table to see the part number for themselves, as they didn’t believe a 6 year old kid could find it when they couldn’t (what’s somewhat disconcerting these many years later is why no one even missed me a the lunch table)!

Fast forward many years later after obtaining an engineering degree, working at Ford and getting married, my wife was surfing the Internet a few years back and found this Dilbert video about the “knack” that she said “explains everything”. I’ll let you be the judge.

Had my dad and our neighbors been given an opportunity to receive a college education rather than having to quit school as teenagers to help on the farm, no doubt any one of them could have been an engineer or just about anything they wanted to be. They too clearly had the “knack”. But they were extremely happy owning their own farms and raising their families in such a nurturing environment, for which I’ll be eternally grateful.