My brother, Jim's "High Notes" column for the coming Scioto Voice ... Thx Jim Keg!

High Notes 

 

   

  Louisianna Moore Ricker, kept a diary from 1862, when she was 14, and continued the diary for 70-years, most of which is available in the history department of the Portsmouth Public Library.  I was made aware of the collection by James Siberell, a published writer, who has co-written two books, and published one of his own.

     I found the diary collection, and was interested in the month of April, 1865 when she wrote about the U. S. Civil War, from a Portsmouth perspective.

     Her first entry of April, 1865 related to the war began with her Saturday, April 1^st, when she told of Union General Phil Sheridan’s attack and routing of the rebel forces at Five Forks, Virginia, and the capture of three rebel brigades.

     On Sunday, April 2^nd she reported that an “assault along the whole line at Petersburg, Virginia, by Union Generals Wright, Ord and Parker resulted in a brilliant victory of the north.

    April 3^rd she wrote: “There is a rumor that Richmond, Virginia has fallen.”  She added on April 4^th, Union forces under General Metzel entered Richmond, and Petersburg was evacuated by the rebels.

     April 6^th Louisianna wrote that General Sheridan attacked General Robert E. Lee’s forces and drove them across Sailor’s creek, and had complete victory.

     Friday, April 7^th:  This is a glorious day, about 8 o’clock we heard the local foundry whistle and then the steamboat whistles, before we heard the glorious news of the surrender of Lee’s Army.  The bells are ringing, the whistles are blowing and the cannon is roaring.  The people are shouting and everyone seems going wild with enthusiasm over the news.  There is a parade with the band.  Oh!  It is so exciting.  

     It was reported on Sunday, April 9^th that General Lee surrendered to General Grant at Appomatac’s Courthouse.

     Monday, April 10, 1865, there was extraordinary rejoicing in all loyal states over the surrender of Lee, and the end of the rebellion.  Wednesday April 12, it was reported that Mobile, Alabama was occupied by Union troops, and Union General Stoneman occupied Salisbury, North Carolina.

     Friday, April 14, Lousianna, and her Mom and Dad, Enos and Mary Moore, boarded the Steamboat Bostonia at Portsmouth at 9:00 a.m. and arrived in Cincinnati at 6 p.m. to join in the celebration of the end of the Civil War.  One hundred guns were fired at Cincinnati, Covington and Newport.  Church bells rang and there was great noise as the boat landed.  They walked uptown, and the place was covered with flags and the national colors displayed in every shape.  That night the city was illuminated and the sight was incredible. 

     The terrible news that President Lincoln was assassinated was announced, April 15^th 1865.  He was at Ford’s Theatre when the assassin came up behind him and shot him in the head, after which he leaped up the stage and flourishing a dagger, shouted “Sic Semper Tyrannies, thus perish the tyrant.  It was all done so quickly and unexpectedly that the audience thought it was part of the play until Mrs. Lincoln fainted, after screaming.

     Wednesday, April 19^th 1865 was the day of the funeral of our beloved President, Abraham Lincoln., she wrote.

    

My Brother, Jim Kegley's "High Notes" for next week's Scioto Voice Newspaper ... Thx Jim!

High Notes 04-12-2018

     "Growing old is hard work...the mind says 'yes' but the body says 'What the hell are you thinking?'"

     Tim Lawrence, a retired prison guard, uses a metal detector to find treasure...a recent find was a U. S. penny dated 1882.  Tim told me the coin is the oldest he's found.  It is 136-years old.  Tim now is a part-time guard at the Glockner family auto dealership a couple of nights a week.  

     "Kids today don't know how easy they have it.  When I was young, I had to walk 9 feet through shag carpeting to change the tv channel".

     

     Speaking of old, I turned 79 on April 1st, and I guess it's is about time to start bragging that "I'm in my 80th year!"  When I was younger, I was reluctant to tell my age, but here I am.  I've had a fatalists attitude toward age, and feel lucky that I've made it this far.  My fatalism was a result of losing my father, Forest Earl (F. E.) Kegley when he was only 54 in 1959.  But, I should have taken his age, his dangerous job as a railroad brakeman, and the fact that he was father to a family of ten children into consideration.  Dad died on a caboose while returning from Columbus.  He reportedly was offered the chance to stop the train and drive him to hospital, but he refused, thinking he could make it home. He died between Lucasville and Portsmouth.  

     Just a reminder...my first published book, containing several of my columns through the years, is available at "The Market Street Cafe", in Portsmouth. 

Mom's raisin Pie ... My brother, Jim Kegley's column he still submits for The Scioto Voice in Wheelersburg, Ohio. Thx Jim! Jeanie and I truly enjoyed this!

  Raison pie was a big treat at our McConnell Avenue Portsmouth home.  My brother Sam has always been a devotee of the scrumptious depression era dessert.  I say depression era, because raisons back in the early days were one of the cheapest, but more delicious fillings of my mother and grandmother made pies.  I can remember that Sam, who was serving in the U. S. Army in the early fifties in Japan, rarely failed to mention that Mom’s raison pie was what he wanted when he returned to the U. S.

     I believe that Sam must have some inner appreciation of gourmet foods, because he married one of the best cooks I’ve ever known.  Jeanette  (Weddington) grew up in New Boston and her Crisco-fried- chicken is the best I’ve ever eaten.  And, I am one who really loves fried chicken, whether it is the Colonel’s recipe, or the recipe of Blackburn’s Super Market in New Boston, I love it.  Jeanette’s fried chicken was a staple of some of our early family picnics back in the fifties.  Now, since her two boys, Jay and Jeff are married and away from their Westerville, Ohio home, she rarely fries her chicken, and since Sam has had a couple of surgical heart procedures, they watch their diets differently. 

     Sam met Jeanette when he worked as an usher at the Ohio Theatre in New Boston along with his good friend, Carl Clark. They worked the after school shift back in the late forties, while in high school.  Sam has told many times about seeing Jeanette, a dark haired beauty at the theatre, and deciding pretty quickly, that she was the girl for him.  Jeanette is the daughter of steelworker, Cottle and Opal Weddington , and they lived at 3853 Stanton Avenue.  

     Carl Clark, also met and married a New Boston beauty, Emma (Mills) Clark who is the daughter of Dr. Alfred B., and Betty Mills, and they remained life-long New Boston residents.     

     As for me, if I were a man who could have one last meal before leaving this time on earth, tell them to make it fried chicken, will you?

    Oh, Howard Chabot was justifiably proud of the “Heavenly Fried Chicken” he sold for so many years at Pop’s Place in Wheelersburg.  It was known far and wide, as "The best fried chicken on Rte. 52, from the Dakotas to North Carolina."

 

Thx my brother Jim K!

High Notes 04-07-2016 – various quotes

 

     Desmond Tutu said, “When the white man came to Africa, they had the Bible and we had the land.  They said ‘Let us pray.’  We closed our eyes.  When we opened them, we had the Bible and they had the land.”

      Howard Hughes said:  “I’m not a paranoid deranged millionaire. Doggone it, I’m a billionaire.”

     Jean Kerr said:  “The only reason they say ‘Women and children first’ is to test the strength of the lifeboats.”

      Jeff Foxworthy said:  “You know you’re a redneck if your home has wheels and your car doesn’t.”

     Harrison Ford said:  “Wood burns faster when you have to cut it yourself.”

      Jimmy Durante said:  “Home cooking… where many a man thinks his wife is.”

      Robert Benchley said:  “I have kleptomania, but when it gets bad, I take something for it!”

     I gleaned these from an email from someone who gleaned them from the internet!

     Henry B. McKee, was a one-legged barber, who had a shop at the rear of The Mound Park Pharmacy, on Grant Street.  He’d proudly rap on his artificial leg, which made a hollow wooden sound.  What I’m wondering is, why would a one-legged man choose a profession which demanded standing during working hours?

     Mr. McKee was one fine man though, with a good sense of humor, and he and his wife had a talking parrot at home, which I could visit sometimes when I passed their daily newspaper.  The McKee’s lived in a small cottage just the second door east of Hutchins on Grant.  

     Speaking of parrots, Lowell (Mouse) McLaughlin, turned 80-years young recently and his wife and family held a small gathering of friends at the Market Street Café.  A nice affair, and Mouse spoke and re-told his parrot story involving Nell Harry, who kept a big green talking parrot, named Polly, in her kitchen.  Mouse was a meter reader for Columbia Gas for many years, and said he knocked on the rear door of the Vinton Avenue Harry home, and he heard “Who is it?”  He forgot about the parrot, and when nobody came to the door, he knocked again, and again, getting the same result.  “Finally I peeked into the kitchen through a small window, and saw the bird!” 

     Come to think of it, I believe the Mckee’s parrot was also named Polly!

     Do you remember the store called Candyland, on the corner of Second and Market Street?  They kept a talking Myna bird in a cage in the store.

 High Notes 04-07-2016 – various quotes

 

     Desmond Tutu said, “When the white man came to Africa, they had the Bible and we had the land.  They said ‘Let us pray.’  We closed our eyes.  When we opened them, we had the Bible and they had the land.”

      Howard Hughes said:  “I’m not a paranoid deranged millionaire. Doggone it, I’m a billionaire.”

     Jean Kerr said:  “The only reason they say ‘Women and children first’ is to test the strength of the lifeboats.”

      Jeff Foxworthy said:  “You know you’re a redneck if your home has wheels and your car doesn’t.”

     Harrison Ford said:  “Wood burns faster when you have to cut it yourself.”

      Jimmy Durante said:  “Home cooking… where many a man thinks his wife is.”

      Robert Benchley said:  “I have kleptomania, but when it gets bad, I take something for it!”

     I gleaned these from an email from someone who gleaned them from the internet!

     Henry B. McKee, was a one-legged barber, who had a shop at the rear of The Mound Park Pharmacy, on Grant Street.  He’d proudly rap on his artificial leg, which made a hollow wooden sound.  What I’m wondering is, why would a one-legged man choose a profession which demanded standing during working hours?

     Mr. McKee was one fine man though, with a good sense of humor, and he and his wife had a talking parrot at home, which I could visit sometimes when I passed their daily newspaper.  The McKee’s lived in a small cottage just the second door east of Hutchins on Grant.  

     Speaking of parrots, Lowell (Mouse) McLaughlin, turned 80-years young recently and his wife and family held a small gathering of friends at the Market Street Café.  A nice affair, and Mouse spoke and re-told his parrot story involving Nell Harry, who kept a big green talking parrot, named Polly, in her kitchen.  Mouse was a meter reader for Columbia Gas for many years, and said he knocked on the rear door of the Vinton Avenue Harry home, and he heard “Who is it?”  He forgot about the parrot, and when nobody came to the door, he knocked again, and again, getting the same result.  “Finally I peeked into the kitchen through a small window, and saw the bird!” 

     Come to think of it, I believe the Mckee’s parrot was also named Polly!

     Do you remember the store called Candyland, on the corner of Second and Market Street?  They kept a talking Myna bird in a cage in the store.

 High Notes 04-07-2016 – various quotes

 

 

Jim Kegley's High Notes for the Scioto Voice ... Thx Jim!

 High Notes 03-10-2016 - More Austin Loop

     I've mentioned Austin Loop, the 6'4" senior guard for the Marshall Thundering Herd, basketball team, and the news just keeps presenting a pretty nice picture of a talented young South Webster graduate.  Austin made the front page of "The Huntington Herald Dispatch" newspaper on both Wednesday, January 6th, two-column full color picture, shooting his fabulous jump shot, with the headline "MU's Loop found his rhythm", and he made the front page again with a three- column full color picture of him with the headline..."Thrown for a 'Loop'" as he shot the winning goal in overtime.  The story recounted how Austin's last second three-pointer against Mississippi State gave the Herd a No. 3 seed in the upcoming C-USA Men's Conference tournament to begin this Thursday, when they will play Florida International at 9:30 p.m. in Birmingham Alabama.  According to The Dispatch, the game will be televised on American Sports Network.  The story, written by Rick McCann of the Dispatch Sports Staff, began - "Austin Loop almost didn't shoot the basket, but when he did, it brought the house down".

     Time was running out in overtime Saturday at the Cam Henderson Center in Huntington, when Loop caught a pass from Jon Elmore and was about to throw it back, but knew the clock was running out, so he fired in a jump shot as the final horn sounded, giving Marshall a 108-106 victory over Mississippi State.  We love those "Local boy makes good" stories.

     Recently I recounted how Val Minch, my long-time friend, from 19th Street, Portsmouth, and now of Hickory, North Carolina, blew me out of a tree with gunpowder, and I ended the story with the admonishment that I would get him back.  Well, I think this "prank" I pulled on Val back on October 13, 1976, 40-years ago qualifies as a "Gotcha" event. 

     At the time Val was a young business man living in Marietta, Ohio, and I was three-years into publishing "The Scioto Voice".  I had a neat picture of Val, taken when we were on a fishing trip to Lake Erie, and Val was sitting with his mouth open, sunglasses, and a bill-cap looking off into the sky from our boat.  I got the idea to write a fanciful story, and even print it as if it was the lead front-page story in The Voice that week.  But what he didn't know was that I made up a dummy front page with his picture and story, and substituted it for my real story after, I had already printed my regular edition.  I only printed about twenty copies with the Val story, and sent it to Val at his Marietta, Croy Lumber Company office, which he was managing at the time. 

     Here is a partial telling of the story:   Headlined, "Marietta Man, Val Minch, Discovers Oral Fly Catching Method"  

     "It all happened so accidentally!"s said Mr. Valentin Minch of Washington, Street, Marietta, OH.

     "We were fishing at Lake Erie last summer, and I was cleaning our catch after a day's outing.  The catch consisted of 4 ozs. of white bass, 48 lbs. of carp and 37 lbs. of catfish, and a few sheepshead.

     "I must have gotten a little fish odor on my mustache, because the flies just wouldn't leave me alone...they kept zeroing in on the left side of  my bristly auburn-hued brush.  Finally I caught one carelessly close to my mouth, so I nonchalantly closed my mouth on the litter booger...sure enough, I'd caught my first one.  From then on it was easy".

     "I was blessed with an extremely long nose, and it adds a certain amount of appeal to flies because of the shade it provides.  I always wear my Jaycee-of-the-year award cap with a bill while fly-catching.  The flies seem to have a natural inclination to want to spot and speckle it for me, which is a form of camouflage, and, too, it adds shade for my oral fly trap.

     "Sunglasses are standard uniform while I'm at work, because it cuts down the glare from approaching fly wings". he said

     Mr. Minch set a record last summer, he claims, by catching  687 flies on his first season.

    "Guiness is interested", Val said.

     Well, I went on to tell the fanciful and fake story, strictly with the intention of getting Val!

     It must have worked, because Cheryl, Val's wife, didn't consider my prank a bit funny. Val, ever the good sport, let me off the hook when I showed him my printing receipt for the small run, which I paid for, after the regular newspaper.was printed, and he explained to Cheryl the truth of the matter, and he was not held up to ridicule among his friends and co-workers.

     After these many years Val has softened, and when I asked him to send me his copy of the bogus newspaper, he did so, and I told him about wanting to write about it, and he was o.k. with it. "Hell at our ages, who care", I said, and he agreed.  

 

Jim Kegley's article for this week's Scioto Voice - Bombsoite Lawson ... Thx Brother Jim!

Thanks Jim,

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.

Jim Kegley	12:20 PM (20 hours ago)
to Scioto

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

Juxtaposition for Scioto Voice this week by Jim Kegley Thanks my brother, Jim K!

Great article involving Portsmpouth ohio and the world, Jim!

 High Notes 09-03-2015 - juxtaposition

 

Juxtaposition:  That is, according to Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary Tenth Edition, the act or an instance of placing two or more things side by side.  Juxta is a Latin word meaning, “near”.

That word came to mind while I was considering the coincidence of Nora (Morrow) Netzer, living at 3207 Forrest Avenue, next door to Cara Dobbins, at 3213 Forrest; their  front doors are face-to-face. I was reading Carolyn (Morrow) Hilliard, and Marilyn (Morrow) Schomberg’s, Morrow Family tree, and came across the two names Morrow/Robbins of Irish ancestry, having been connected way back in 1935 by marriage in Portsmouth, when a Joseph Morrow, Nora’s uncle, was wed to Alice Dobbins.  

That is an ironic example of “juxtaposition”, I thought.

Then I began thinking about my own abode; I also live in the A-Bomb plant housing development build in the early fifties, Forrest Heights (FH).

My address is 2214 Bihlman, which runs perpendicular (west to east) with Forrest (south to north), and I am amazed at the “juxtapositions” so prevalent in this community. For example, Selma Gannon lives across from me, and her son, David’s long-time girlfriend, Jean Carver, lives on Forrest, next door to Cara Dobbins.  Cora’s duplex apartment is in the same building with Christine (Multer) Sand, the widow of Danny Sand.  Christine, Mike and Suzanne Williams, who also lives in FH, at North Taylor Court, all graduated PHS in 1956 

 Dave Gannon lived two-doors from me when I lived on the river, at Burt’s lane. We are long-time friends and fellow card players.

Suzanne Williams is the daughter of Earl and Thelma Shumate, (both deceased) the brother of Ron Shumate, and they, while I lived at 1227 McConnell, lived around the corner, at 1920 Vinton.  Ron and I were at Highland Schooltogether in the forties, and were in the graduating class of PHS in 1957. Ron stole a package of his mother’s Viceroy cigarettes, and we shared them, clandestinely, in the restroom of the Mound Park Shelter House, located at the top of McConnell in 1949, when we were ten-years old.  Ron, a retired college basketball coach, now lives in Tennessee.

Oh, and for more juxta…Harold “Gib” and Linda “Crosley” Witter, live across the street from Cora and Christine, at 3220 Bihlman.  Gib graduated Notre Dame HS in 1956, and Linda graduated PHS in 1961.  Their good friend, Creed Milstead, ND 1958, lives just up the street on North Forrest.

I was thinking about Suzanne and Mike, and remembered when we were in high school together, Mike drove his Dad’s 1950’s black Pontiac, and we both frequented the Park Shoppe, as did Creed and his brother, Jon.  We all used to watch Cleveland Browns football, and drink Norge 3.2% beer on Sunday’s.  Norge beer?  That was usually Wiedemann’s, but we re-named it Norge after George Banchy converted that old Norge Refrigerator to accommodate his draft system.  The Park Shoppe pork barbecue special, with fries, was truly special, and Banchy brought the Kilcoyne Cod fish sandwiches with him from his time at his previous bartender gig.  Pizza too, was good!

Tokiko Rose Spencer, a former employee of the Big Bundle laundry, 2533 Scioto Trail, now lives at 1405 Bihlman.  I bought the laundry in about 1972, and Rose, who worked for the previous owner, began again, after I bought the place.  I eventually liquidated the equipment and rented the space before selling it after helping found “The Scioto Voice” with Doug Everman.  

Rose had met her husband, an American, from Grayson, Kentucky, and they lived in Carter County.  William and Betty Hart, were acquainted with Rose and her husband when they were stationed in Japan, while Mr. Hart was a career military man.  After Roses’ husband died, the Hart’s invited Rose to become a member of their household.

Another juxta-coincidence is that the Hart’s red-headed oldest son, Bill, also graduated PHS in 1956, and we communicate via email.

"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

My brother, Jim's Article for Christmas week's "The Scioto Voice with some KY basketball

High Notes 12-24-2014

Here’s is some sad news to report:  Tommy Dale, the 85-year old professional musician, born December 30, 1928 in Gallipolis, Ohio, and who played trombone with the Columbus Jazz Orchestra, along with local saxophonist, Gary Billups, in many local concerts in Oho and Tracy Park in the summertime, died on Wednesday, December 10 in Columbus.  Tommy had played music professionally since the age of 16, and eventually formed his own band, the Tommy Dale Orchestra as well as playing with the Jerry Kaye Orchestra for many of the Broadway musicals and other music events travelling to Ohio.

He also taught instrumental music in the Columbus Public Schools from 1949 to 1979 and retired as band director of Columbus North High School in 1979.

Mr. Billups, the semi-retired Scioto County music teacher, and professional performing musician, reported that a special Celebration of Life for Tommy will be held on Sunday, January 4, 2015 at 2:00 p.m. in the ballroom at the Aladdin Shrine Center, 3850 Stelzer Rd., Columbus, Ohio, according to Mr. Billups, a long-time friend of Mr. Dale.  Interment took place at Sunset Cemetery, Galloway, Ohio, with arrangements by SCHOEDINGER NORTHWEST CHAPEL.

An extensive obituary was published in “The Columbus Dispatch” Dec. 13, 2014 edition.

Way back in the 1950’s in what I call the Adolph Ruppazoic period of college basketball, I was able to listen to Kentucky Wildcat basketball as Cawood Ledford, soothed me to sleep with his wonderfully mellifluous, and indigenous-to-Kentucky, voice.  The word “mellifluous” broken down is interesting…mell in Latin means “honey”, and Ledford’s voice would flow like newly collected honey on a hot Kentucky afternoon.  His tonetic regional dialect was at once exciting, entertaining, and nearly hypnotic to an impressionable teenage Ohioan who loved the game, and Wildcat basketball.

I grew up in Portsmouth, Ohio, on the point where the Scioto River pours into the mighty Ohio River, and which historically the Shawnee Indians lived and made forays into their Kentucky hunting grounds.  In those 1790’s post-American Revolutionary War days, the Indians were still using the shores of both states to maraud against the thousands of pioneers who were floating down the mighty Ohio to settle.

Portsmouth, and for that matter, all of Ohio loves the game of basketball, but nobody, anywhere in the entire U. S. A., can match the intensity of the citizens of Kentucky, and the fondness for the U. K. Wildcats.  Oh yes, I remember when one of Portsmouth Ohio’s great basketballers, Mike Haley, after helping his 1961 high school win the Ohio State Championship, attended Ohio University at Athens, and in the mid-sixties played on a Bobcat team that upset the Kentucky Wildcats in the NCAA tournament.  I attributed that victory to Haley as pay-back for the fact his Portsmouth Trojan team lost to the Ashland, Kentucky Tomcats, in 1961.  Ashland, also won their state’s high school championship that year.  And, the Cincinnati Bearcats, without Oscar Robinson, defeated the Jerry Lucas, John Havilicek led Ohio State team to win their first of two straight NCAA tournaments over the Buckeyes, in 1961 and 1962

The Buckeyes won the NCAA tournament in 1960..

1961 is the year my brother, Sam, got his metallurgical engineering degree from the University of Kentucky, at Lexington and since that time, Sam has been a well known Wildcat fan, who now boasts his own computer blog with a decided round-ball bent.  If Ohio has a more ardent Kentucky Wildcat basketball fan than Sam, I don’t know who it could be.  Of course, Jeanette (Weddington) Sam’s wife, who has been with him since he met her at the Ohio Theatre (late 1940’s) in New Boston, goes to the games, and is nearly as passionate about Kentucky basketball as he.

I love Kentucky Basketball, but I consider myself a true tri-state fan, because I follow the Cincinnati Bearcats, the Marshall Thundering Herd, Miami at Oxford, OU, Xavier, OSU, Morehead, and West Virginia too.  It is a great year to be a Buckeye and a Wildcat fan, they are both top teams, and they both have great coaches. 

Because of the early deadline for the holiday newspapers over the next couple of weeks, I am writing this column early so it can be submitted by Monday, December 22.   It is Friday evening, and I am looking forward to both the OSU, and North Carolina, and Kentucky and UCLA games Saturday, the 20th.  I’ll keep this paragraph in if they both win, which I do expect to happen.

 Go Cats!

 Go Bucks!

D-Day in 1944 - Jim Kegley

My younger brother, Jim sent me this wonderful bit of nostalgia from his rememberances of D-Day in Portsmouth Ohio.  Thanks for sharing Jim.

High Notes 06-06-2013 – D-Day, WWII

 

One hundred eighty (180) years ago today, June 6, 1833, President Andrew Jackson boarded a Baltimore & Ohio train for a pleasure trip to Baltimore, Md.  Jackson, who had never been on a train before, was the first president to take a ride on the “Iron Horse,” as locomotives were known then.

One hundred years later, June 6, 1933, the first “drive-in” theatre, or “Park-In Theater” was opened for business in Camden, New Jersey.

Perhaps the most famous event in the modern history of the world occurred on June 6, 1944, when The Allied Forces began their massive invasion of Europe, known as D-Day.

As a five year, and two month old boy, I was at home at 1227 McConnell Avenue, Portsmouth, when the invasion took place.  My brother, Ted Dunham had already landed in Italy, and he, as a member of the 102^nd Infantry Regiment of the 94^th Brigade was making his way through Italy as a battlefield medic.  Ted was 19-years old at the time, born January 6, 1925.  His father, Theodore Dunham, had been killed in an accident while working for the electric power company, before young Ted was born.

Four of my uncles on my mother’s side, Bob Cullen, Floyd Miller, James B. (We called him Barb) McGill,  Hescal Cutlip, and thousands of other Scioto County men and women, were busy building the bombs and other armament used to defeat the Nazis in Europe, and the Japs in the Pacific, at the Wheeling Steel Corporation in New Boston.  Another uncle, my Mom’s brother, Charles Clark, of Lucasville, was fighting in some far off battlefield.  My Lucasville area cousin, Johnny Miller was in the army and his sister, Charlotte, was a member of the Woman's Army Corps (WAC) during the war.

As a child I remember the black smoky days of the forties…the days when most homes were heated with coal, and the mill and other local factories were busily supporting the war effort.  On summer nights the eastern sky would glow bright orange as the steel mill blast furnace would make a pour of red molten ore.  The hot strip rolling mill was going strong, and the smokestacks belched steam and smoke as the overhead cranes and slag-laden trains bellowed and clanged their nightly mission toward victory. 

Those were heady and deeply emotional times in the world.

Jim Kegley's column for the Scioto Voice

Salute to American Services- W.Va Marching Band

Subject: Fwd: Cool thing ever seen W Va marching band do.

 Makes you proud!

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Subject: This is the coolest thing I've ever seen a marching band do.   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjPmmCtHmfE  This is the coolest thing I've ever seen a marching band do.  Watch for the propeller on the submarine.