High Notes 02-13-2014 – my story
It was February 8, 1973, 41-years ago, that The Scioto Voice was published for the
first time. If I were numbering my columns, this week would mark about the two
thousand one hundredth time it has been published. This week’s newspaper is the two thousand one
hundred thirty second in the long history of the weekly newspaper. I say “about” regarding my column number,
because I have missed a few publications in which “High Notes” did not appear
for various reasons. I’ve already missed
one newspaper without a column in 2014, due to my personal computer foul up. But, what the hell, I’m 75!
I plan to continue writing a
column for as long as Debbie and Mark Allard, the current owners, keep
accepting them. Now and then somebody
will tell newspaper management they read what I write.
I saw Marty Belcher, Raymond
Belcher’s son, and he told me that Raymond, now 81, spends a lot of time at
home…something about a trick knee??? Ray
and his wife, Fern, now deceased, were long time supporters of The Scioto Voice, as owners of the True
Value Store in New Boston. Ray lives on Dickson-Mill Road,
in Eastern Scioto County. Marty inherited his Dad’s gentlemanly, but
sweet, and friendly disposition. Marty
is a Union Boilermaker, and works away from Scioto County
often.
Speaking of True Value Hardware,
Mark Harris, who bought the New Boston store and moved it to Portsmouth when he bought the old Market
Street Hardware is one of those “do-anything” guys who is both accomplished as
a business owner/craftsman, and talented as a self-taught musician. He has a shiny black grand piano in his
store, and many times when he catches a minute away from customers, he will sit
down and pound out some fine old ragtime tune. I admire anybody with such talent. Stop in and see Mark. He is a model railroader too.
I heard Sam McKibbin, the
venerable WNXT Radio broadcaster, on Monday, February 10, 2014, as I was preparing this
column. Sam was sitting-in for Barb
Pratt’s Community Corner, a regular 8:00
a.m. program. Sam, another
75-year old, (he graduated PHS in 1956) is the do-everything dean of radio
broadcasters in Scioto
County. Sam is another of the railroad buffs who
happens to live in the town which boasted the Norfolk and Western railroad classification-yard,
the largest in the world during the forties and up into the early sixties, Portsmouth.
Sam was talking with John Lorentz,
professor emeritus, at Shawnee
State University,
another PHS grad, (1958). They were
discussing the two documentary films, John and his son, Nathan, produced and
directed, River Voices, and Beyond These Walls. Beyond These Walls is to be aired on the
Public Broadcasting Company, Ohio, Channel 4, this coming Sunday, February 16,
at 8:00 p.m. and River Voices is scheduled for the following Sunday, February,
23, at 8:00 p.m.
I telephoned Johnny Rowson, one of
John Lorentz’s fellow 1958 graduates, to tell him about the two program
airings, and John agreed to meet Val Minch and I for dinner this coming
Saturday. In talking to Johnny, I was
reminded of the time, he, John Lorentz and I camped-out under the stars in about
1953, in the woods off the horseshoe curve at Timlin Hill. We got to the site early enough to build a
small dam out of field stone, to make a small pond in the wee-stream that ran
through the valley.
Johnny reminded me that we had
lain in our sleeping bags beside our “pond” that beautiful summer-night, and
star-gazed longingly. We saw many shooting stars, and he said we saw a set of
four stars that were perfectly placed and seemed to be moving in the sky, like
the four dots on one die of a dice set.
The next day Johnny was telling his mother, Lillian, and sister, Carolyn
about the stars, and Carolyn said, that one of her co-workers at the Standard
Oil Company office, on Gallia
Street, had remarked about seeing the same four
perfectly aligned stars the same night. Johnny
reminded me that we had soda pop, which had gotten warm, and we walked up to
Judge Ralph Stevens house built in the hollow and he gave us some ice, and even
gave us a can of potatoes, which we fried for breakfast with our eggs and
bacon.
The place where we camped was part
of the Louise Micklethwaite property, on which Hugh Callahan had his
horse-boarding farm, and where SOMC is now.
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