I enjoyed speaking with Bombsite a few years ago. Y believe he played on some excellent basketball teams for Coach Skinny Preston at Wheelersburg and maybe alongside Gene Bennett. Oor older sister, Joan used to go to Wheelersburg and New Boston when she was at PHS. She knew Bombsite.
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12:20 PM (20 hours ago)
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Anybody with the nickname, “Bombsight” in 1947, surely had been one of the daring-do guys of the United States Air Force, and had fought in the recently ended (1945) WW II. But, no, this “Bombsight” was so named because of his exceptional ability to shoot, and make, long-range basketball shots as a member of the Wheelersburg Pirate Basketball team of the mid 1940’s. His real name is John Lawson, and rather than dropping bombs on Naples, Italy, or Tokyo, Japan, John was dropping basketballs into the hoop as a forward on the Pirate basketball team. His Naples is in Florida where he now lives. John’s military experience was during the Korean War while serving the U.S.A. in Tokyo.
John is a reader of “The Scioto Voice”, and he telephoned me recently about a column I’d written about Harold Micklethwaite, who graduated Portsmouth High School in 1946. John said he graduated from Wheelersburg High in 1947, and remembered Harold’s sister, Marian (Caskey) who was an English teacher at WHS for a short time. Later after Marian’s husband died, she returned to Portsmouth and helped-out at Harold’s restaurant. While I was talking to Phyllis (Pidge) Fuller recently; I had called her to verify whether Marian had taught English, and Pidge said, “I’m pretty sure she was a teacher, and she worked for Harold as cashier after her husband died”.
Mr. Lawson told me a story regarding Mr. Smith, who was WHS principal during those days of the 1940’s and John said, “I was in Miss Micklethwaite’s class one time and a couple of Wheelersburg student pranksters (Harry Chastain may have been among them) had caused a ruckus in the classroom and Mr. Smith came in. After surveying the turmoil, he just turned and walked back out”.
I telephoned Marian, with whom I had become acquainted during her time at Harold’s Restaurant, and she verified that she had student-taught at WHS when she was in her early 20’s. Marian is 90-years old now, and she lives at Hillview Retirement Center.
John Lawson’s wife is Bernadine R. Shumer Lawson, who graduated Portsmouth East High School in 1946. Bernadine was attending nursing school at Portsmouth General Hospital in 1947; which I gleaned from my 1947 Polk City Directory.
Speaking of long-range-basketball shooters, South Webster Jeeps graduate, Austin Loop, a senior on the Marshal Thundering Herd, basketball team is making his mark as a three-point shooter specialist. A bold 4-column headline on the front page of the Huntington Herald Dispatch Sports section for Wednesday, January 6, read: “Marshal’s Loop found his rhythm”, and he is ranked among the best 3-point shooters in Conference U.S.A., and scored 26-points in Marshal’s recent victory over Western Kentucky University”.
More: “Best sermons are lived not preached” as sent to Dottie Watkins, and shared with me. She got them in an email from RayJean Wagner, of Columbus. “Today, after I watched my dog get run over by a car, I sat on the side of the road holding him and crying. And just before he died, he licked the tears off my face.”
And: “Today, after a 72-hour shift at the fire station, a woman ran up to me at the grocery store and gave me a hug. When I tensed up, she realized I didn’t recognize her. She let go with tears of joy in her eyes and the most sincere smile said, ‘On 9-11-2001, you carried me out of the World Trade Center’”.
"Medicine, law, business, engineering. They are noble pursuits, and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for." -Tom Schulman, screewriter
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