My brother, Jim kegley, and his partner, Doug Everman, started the Scioto Voice, a weekly newspaper in eastern Scioto County many years ago. I thank him for the Cycle Inn notes, Val Minch's response and Mimi Brodsky Chenfeld's parasprodokians.
I am liberally borrowing from Jim in this post.
Thanks brother!
Sam
High Notes 01-06-2011
My column last week about The Cycle Inn evoked some responses. One was from Val Minch, PHS class of 1956, now of Hickory, North Carolina. And, I made the correction that the National Guard of Portsmouth was the 216th Engineering Battalion, not the 116th as I reported. Kenny McCall actually met his wife, June, who is from England, while they were attending Portsmouth Interstate Business College in 1949. Their son, Colin, is married to Charles (Lee) and Mary Ann Lang’s daughter, Sara, who is an art teacher in Zanesville. Kenny and June’s daughter, Wendy, is Mrs. Christopher Johnson, of Columbus.
Regarding your last week’s column:
”Great stroll down memory lane, but you neglected to include my name in the "Eat five Cycle Burgers contest".
“I remember it well. Any young person who lived in Portsmouth at that time was aware of the Cycle Inn eating contest, as it was heavily advertised on WPAY radio.
“I was bound and determined to give this eating contest a try, so to prepare for it, I developed a strategic plan that would guarantee I would be hungry enough to consume all (5) of the Cycle Burgers, each of which, (if memory serves), contained about 1/2 pound of ground beef, along with the other garnishments.
“My plan was simple. To be sure I had an empty stomach and was hungry, I got up on a Saturday morning and skipped breakfast and lunch, (no food and nothing to drink, not even water). Then to further guarantee I would be totally beyond famished, I walked to the Cycle Inn via the most convoluted route I could dream up.
“I left 19th street sometime around 2-3 o’clock in the afternoon and hoofed it to the Cycle Inn via McKinley school, then up Cleveland avenue and up over the hill to the city water tower, from where I proceeded East along the ridge of the hill, descending at the point where the Cycle Inn was located. I figured that by skipping breakfast and lunch and exerting extra energy getting there, once I arrived at the Cycle Inn I would be hungry enough to consume dog pucky!
“Anyway, I ordered up and ate all (5) Cycle Burgers, (had a hell of a time getting the last one down), after which I waddled home via Shawnee and Micklethwaite Rds, where I spent the rest of the day lying on the glider on our front porch, moaning and groaning!
“It was certainly worth the pain and agony though, as the big prize was my name being read a number of times on WPAY as part of the Cycle Inn's advertising format!”
Val Minch, Hickory, NC
I doubt that Val’s name was the only Cycle Burger eater, whose name I omitted, but Val and I were close friends, and our fathers had been friends long before we came along, so I should have remembered.
A paraprosdokian is a figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected in a way that causes the reader or listener to reframe or reinterpret the first part. It is frequently used for humorous or dramatic effect.
Here are a couple of examples: How is it one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?
To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. To steal from many is research.
A bank is a place that will lend you money if you can prove that you don't need it.
A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. My desk is a workstation.
I would call that “irony”.
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