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.  

 

Portsmoiuth Ohio Nostalgia by my brother, Jim K ... Thx Jim!

High Notes 08-15-2013 Wylie Binns

 

“Nothing is ever lost by courtesy.  It is the cheapest of pleasures, costs nothing, and conveys much.”  Erastus Wiman

 

I first published that bit of advice in my August 16, 2012 High Notes column, and I dredged it up, to remind myself of the importance of courtesy.  Now that I’m in my seventy-fifth year of life, I, as some of we older folks do, tend to be somewhat less patient with others.  If one were to ask me straight out if I like people, I’d certainly say, “Yes, and I try to be courteous!”  But, and here’s the rub, I can be saucy and short at times.

I tell this story about my early friendship with, Wylie W. Binns, the erasable old antique dealer who held forth at 604 Second Street, Portsmouth.  It was October, 1960, and I was 21-years old, Mr. Binns was 60, he’d been born in 1900.  My six-month stint of basic U. S. Army training, and “advanced” combat engineer training, which qualified me as a Private in the 216^th Engineering Battalion of The National Guard on Seventeenth Street, Portsmouth had ended in April, and I had just started my newspaper career at The Portsmouth Times. .  I got that job as one of the “outside want ad salesmen”, as we were called.  I was replacing Eddie Gemperline, who had taken a job with John Irwin, at The Auto Club.

Eddie, I found out later, had replaced Erwin K. (Dutch) Dodenhoff, and I was to join legends in the business, Carl Adams, and Joe Keller in beating the bushes for our large five and six page daily want ad section. 

Now I know the age of 60, is not so old, but Wylie’s reputation, I found out, was that he was “hard of hearing”, as we used to say.   I had inquired about the man, after Kenny Long, the Classified Advertising Department manager, assigned Binns Antiques as one of my list of regular contract-customers.  I soon found out that the Binns’ account (thanks to Carl Adams for clueing me in) was always given to the newest member of the staff, as sort of a “baptism under fire”.  They figured that anybody who could get along with Wylie, should be able to handle anybody. 

When I found out about Wylie’s hearing handicap, I remembered my Speech teacher at PHS, and his admonishment to the class, to always speak loudly and clearly to older folks.  On that first time to call on him, I walked right up, extended my hand, and in a loud voice said, I’m Jim Kegley and I’m going to handle your advertising account. 

Wylie told me later, that he liked me right off, because “Most young people talk too fast and too softly.”

I was truly interested in the Binns’ store, because I had developed a taste for antiques because of my friendship with James “Count” McConnell and his wife, Florine, who had a fine art, pattern and cut glass shop, called Hilltop Antiques.  I knew them through their daughter, Linda, one of my early girlfriends.  I used to plan my trips to visit Wylie, so I could spend some time getting to know him, and his inventory.  In other words, I started hanging-out there.

Here’s the story:

Whenever a regular customer came into his store, I would sort of back away and try to blend in, rather than interfere with his transactions.  One day a little old lady came in carrying a small brass nut-bowl in a sack, and she sat it down on a table and announced, “This is not what I thought it was, and I’d like my money back!”

Well, she obviously had not dealt with Wylie Binns before, because he quickly said, “You bought it, it’s yours!”

“But I don’t want it now!”

“No, I’m not giving your money back.”

Thus began a loud argument between the two, and she finally slammed it down on the table and slammed out the door.

Wylie was seething, and he picked up the bowl and ran out onto the sidewalk and shouted to her as he threw the bowl at her, and it went clanging and banging up the street.

Several months after that incident, I had noticed a story in The Cincinnati Enquirer regarding a new ear operation that would reverse the effects of ear damage for some people and restore much of their lost hearing.  Wylie investigated, had the operation, and for the remaining several years of his life, he was a much calmer and more tolerant person.  Wylie died in 1975, at the age of 75.  I’m proud that the Binns’ family asked me to be one of the honorary pall bearers at his funeral

I failed to mention that Wylie’s son, Dr. Benjamin Binns’ the local optometrist is also a friend, whom I’d known even before I met Wylie.