To all of our mothers, living and deceased, and all of the mothers in our Class of '66, also living and deceased, I wish you all a Happy Mother's Day and a heartfelt thanks for a job well done.
The word "heart" is a very short word which can be dissected into three separate words which describe a mother. Within that word are the words HEARt, hEARt and heART. One of the first qualities that a mother acquires is the ART of using her EARs and sense of HEARing to respond to the different cries and needs of her infant child: pain, sick, hungry, wet, etc. The art of being a mother is not only innate but also learned from prior generations of mothers. Several of us have discussed our mothers on this Forum and most of us have lost our mothers. But from the writings that have appeared here, we were blessed with very caring and, in many cases, strong-willed moms.
So, on this Mother's Day we celebrate those women who gave us our start in life, taught us the basics and helped us along our various journeys.
What a nice little fiesta. Looks like a bueno noches was had by you all. Wish I could have been there. Looks like the pope was even having a ball. Nice to see someone extending some love to our southern neighbors. Thanks to Monica for organizing everything and all the support from our classy classmates. Great photos! Love to all. Jack
Almost forgot to wish all you mothers a nice day on Sunday. Hopefully you all get to relax and let the family do all the work. You already labored. Take the day off mom.
Jack, we were talking about you at the fiesta. We are all wanting to seriously plan the trip to Greenfield Village. September? Everyone who can possibly come should weigh in on dates, weekends vs weekday etc. Jack put together a possible agenda.
I guess just about every one of us had a special Mother. Tom Litzinger had a special mom - though different. And John Jackson had a special mom and so too Keith Groff. So did the McNamara twins, and Susie Russeau's mom (Betty - our dear sweet neighbor for several years until they moved down to I.C.). Maybe the friendliest mom I ever knew was Mike Del Bianco's mom. I don't recall knowing a person who was more friendly and smiled so much as she did.
My Mom was special too. She was a humble yet strong minded woman who disciplined us, but heaped her affection on us, cared for us, and was always there for us. And she was a servant to many. When you were my Mom's friend, you were her friend, period, end of sentence. When you needed a ride to the airport or bus station whe was your ride. When you were sick and just home form the hospital, whe was there with food for dinner and her cleaning tools to clean your house. Though modest and reserved, she was never shy about giving advice, or a strong response when someone like Father Foley shamed her for her being a "non-Catholic". She abruptly put him in his place in no uncertain terms. She wasn't intimidated by anyone. She had a challenging childhood and developed a thick skin.
She was Methodist and therefore did not drink. Coca Cola was her constant refesher (and my life-long worst habit.) But when there were parties (you remember, our parents often wore dresses and coat and ties to parties during the winter) everyone said Dorothy Mitchell made the best whiskey sours they had ever asted. Dad also said many times that her coffee was fabulous - but she also never tasted that herself.
But there was somethng special about my mom that was a lasting gift to me. She was a great story teller - mostly from her own childhood, during which she moved about 6 or 7 times. Our parents all must have had "stories" from those different times. Here are a few of the ones I grew up with.
Mom was born in 1911 in Columbus of local Columbus natives. Her dad was the assisitant Public Health director, under the famous (I think?) Ollie Goodloe. He got the job to be the main guy in that position in Minot North Dakota. So mom and her Mother and older sister (Florence - later "Cole" who raised a family on Weston Place in Clintonville), moved to Minot. This would be around 1916 or '17 - I think. She told of a main downtown dirt street with raised wooden sidewalks and horse hitching posts lining those walkways. They had an indian woman who would come to grandma's back porch and beg for bread - and then sit quietly on the back step until Grandma finished backing a few loaves.
There were gypsies, who would storm through town and grab clothing off of clothes lines while it was drying. I think I recall her telling that a child was kidnapped by gypsies - right out of someones front yard. There were rum runners across from Canada, and a small contingent of "cowboys" still clinging to a dying culture.
Grandpa got the urge to go to medical school later in life, and back they went to Columbus. After graduatong from Ohio State Medical school, they moved to Chicago for one year for his internship. Mom told of living next door to an Italian family who would occasionally ask young Dorothy and Florence to come over in their bathing suits and help the other daughters stomp wine grapes in their bare feet. This was the family's "wine press".
And there were a couple of nights where they heard machine gun fire a few blocks away.
And then back to Minot for a second stint as a physician at a hospital run by German Cathilic nuns. There he had a partner in practice and owned his own car.
** great story** Grandpa is driving out to a farm outside Minot to deliver a baby. Gets stopped by two men on horseback with six guns and cowboy hats and scarves over their faces. They are robbing him, but grandpa recognized one of the voices as a patient of his. He yells back, "Dammit Bob, I've only got 14 dollras in my pocket and I'm in a a hurry to deliver Bess Smith's baby. Put your guns away and ride off and I promise I won't tell anyone this happened." And they DID!
An epidemic was spreading and medicine had run out. Grandpa got sick (first time in his life) and died. So pregnant grandma and the two young girls were "ordered" by grandpa's parents to bring the body home to Maine (Westbrook) and live with them. They were strict frugal New Englanders and made life hard for the girls. They were allowed to have butter or jam on their toast, but not both - too wasteful! They mailed "penny poast cards" to their friends in Minot every day and the grandparents made them stop - too expensive!
I don't know how long this lasted, but grandma eventually moved them back to Columbus and remarried. Part of my childhood was spent listening to stories like this from both parents, but Mom's were especially dear to me.
One of Mom's favorite early TV shows was this story - "I Remember Mama". This is from the movie trailor, but they ran a TV series (different cast) for years and it make me think of my Mom.
I may have a mixed memory about the history of Ollie Goodloe as Columbus Commissioner of Health.
Fred, feel free to jump on that one if you wish to. I seem to recall Mr. goodloe lived a long time and the Columbus Public Heath Department building has his name on it.
Whatever. I'ts only a small part of my memory of Mom's story.
Speaking of our Moms and today's news of the death of Patty Page ("the singin' rage" - as some of her fans called her). Patty Page and that group was my Mom's music. Mom also loved Theresa Brewer ("Oh Let Me Go, Let Me Go, Lover"), Rosemary Clooney ("C'monna My House") and Kay Starr. But her favorite in that genre was Joe Stafford. Mom's favorite song was "The Tennessee Waltz". I would be standing in the front seat about age 4 (different times huh?) and she would sing along with the radio while driving.
Can any of you relate to these singers?
(sprinkle in a dash of Perry Como, Frankie Laine, and Nat King Cole to taste)
Some brain atrophy is considered a normal part of the aging process. As of the present medicine has no effective therapy to halt/reverse that process. Maybe someday that will be possible.
In the meantime keeping the brain challenged (this Forum probably is a good way to do that) may help keep us mentally sharper. As for wine, it seems to help make the journey more tolerable for many of us 🍷!
Just saw this. Kind of fits in with our current nostalgia. For those of you who moved out of town City Center might not register. It opened August 18, 1989 right across from and attached by a walkway to downtown Lazarus. A great place to shop for about 15 years. Then Easton kind of took over. Now the location is the Columbus Commons.
Very cool! The video about Big Bear was really interesting. The photos of the old "circus tent" store on Lane Ave brings back really early memories. And the quick shot of the store on Neil Avenue looked just as it did only a few years ago - maybe still does?
But the story that gets me is that Lazarus is no more. That's like saying the Olentangy River has dried up. My Grandmother worked there. My first wife worked there.
My Mom used to drag me down there severl times a year to shop and would take me into the "Chintz" room for lunch - where those pretty "older" ladies would walk up and down the aisles modeling clothing. And when I got tired and started to whine, Mom would always remind me that if I would beahve and stop whinning, we would finish the day on the 6th floor toy department (or was it the 4th floor?). I was easily bribed.
And to think the "new" City Center had such a tremendous start - it is hard to beleive it is also gone already. BTW, I think the park that replaced it is incredibly dull and unimaginative. All this because Columbus was slow to see the need for newer downtown housing, which has since sprung up in old buildings converted to slick "warehouse condos" all over the inner city. You should all see some of the cool "condo conversions" in old banks, apartment houses, and warehouses in and around downtown.
Yes, Didn't the Woolco store become a London Fog outlet store years later? I think now it's a great big health/exercise club. (with a large park behind it that few of you are aware of)
But how about this? When I came home from Vietnam in 1970, my fiance (Mary Hughes, St. Joe's '64) was working at her Dad's medical office down on East Town Street. I went down to get her one day and take her to lunch. She wanted me to see this new place in an old car dealership on East Broad Street. I liked it and was quite impressed that their burgers were square (Would someone please buy me a T-shirt that says "easiy amused")
Quite a few Watterson people got into this early. I think Mike Radliffe was their chief legal counsel. Jim Graham (Watterson '64) was their national site location guy. And Doesn't Steve Roach own a bunch of the franchises in Texas?
Can anyone recall what car dealership had been in this location before Dave bought it?
It was originally Columbus Buick but in the mid 60's it became Len Imke Buick. The Wendy's site had been the old showroom. Len and Dave Thomas were friiends. There had been several "white table cloth" dinner establishments in the building that failed (Tommy Heinrich's, Alex Clowson's & The Martinique). Len convinced Dave that a restaurant serving lunch would be successful given the thousands that worked in the immediate area. The rest is history.
Side note: when the dealership's service garage was torn down, the structural steel was used to build the Berwick. It was the location of our 15th reunion as well as the caterer of the 35th & 50th.
This is an excerpt from a memoir I wrote (in the third person) a few years back recounting some of my Big Bear memories.
During senior year, Mark continued working at the BIg Bear Supermarket. Saturdays were always the busiest. When not cashiering, he was bagging groceries. It was the store’s policy not to allow the customers to wheel their shopping carts out of the store unattended. They could either let one of the baggers take the cart out to their car for them, or they could be given a plastic card with a number on it that corresponded to a number on their cart. They could then pull their car up to the front of the store where they would hand their numbered card to an employee who would meet them and then fetch their cart and deposit their groceries into their car. Many customers preferred this option, especially when the weather was bad. And in Ohio, the weather was often bad. On these days, the numbered carts would get backed up waiting their turn to be shot through the tiny door at the front of the store, just big enough for a cart to pass through, and out onto the sidewalk in front of the store. Once outside, it would be taken by a store employee whose job was to caretake the loaded carts. He would place them against the front of the store’s wall, with their rear wheels set over an aluminum strip that had been added to the sidewalk to prevent the carts from inadvertently rolling away. Then he would run out to retrieve the number from an approaching car, and back to find their cart, and then load the groceries into the waiting car. This was an especially dreaded assignment when it was raining or snowing. Mark was grateful that he had moved up to cashiering, which saved him from these duties most of the time.
On one particularly busy Saturday, in the midst of carts flying this way and that, there suddenly appeared a young Marine, in his full dress uniform who stepped smartly through the carts as if he were used to their sporadic disarray. Someone yelled out, “Oh my God, it’s Bill,” and all eyes turned to greet the handsome young man with a small V-shaped scar on his left cheek that only added to his rugged good looks. It was Bill Finkle, who had been a fellow employee at the store until he left to join the Marines a few months earlier. He was now back from boot camp, and on a short leave before he had to ship out to Viet-Nam. Everyone crowded around, saying hello, and wishing him well. In the distance, one of the cashiers turned from his station and shouted, “Give ’em hell, Bill! Those goddam gooks won’t know what hit ‘em, once you get there!” Upon hearing this, the twinkle that had been present in Bill’s eyes as he had been basking in the good wishes of his former co-workers suddenly faded to a dark solemnity that suggested that he knew it was going to be far more complicated than that. What he did not know, nor would any of his friends standing there that day know, was that at this time next year, he would be lying face down, dead in a rice paddy.
But for the moment it was all good cheer. Mark did not know Bill all that well. They went to different high schools, and Bill was a year older. But in addition to knowing him as a co-worker they also played basketball together. Several of the Big Bear employees formed a team, Mark and Bill among them, to play in an independent league once a week during basketball season. What he knew of Bill was that he was soft-spoken, and for such a good-looking guy, he had a quiet disposition that did not embrace the kind of rowdy egotism that such looks often encourage. Even now, while surrounded by well-wishers and being the absolute center of attention, he had a Robert Kennedy kind of sheepish smile that was all self-effacement rather than macho posturing.
Mark could not get over how sharp Bill looked in his dress blues--the gleam of his highly polished black shoes, the light blue pants with the red stripe running vertically down the outside of each leg, the darker blue jacket with the wide white belt, all topped off with the white hat with the dark brim. He looked very impressive. Mark too had been thinking of joining the military after high school. Maybe he should see if he could cut it as a Marine. Was he tough enough to survive Marine boot camp, an ordeal that was reputed to break many a recruit and send them home? But if truth be told, it was not really about proving himself, or aspiring to a sense of Marine-style manhood, but rather it all came down to the simple conclusion that he had reached--that he did not really care if he got killed in combat. For over two years, he had been plagued by waxing and waning bouts of depression, or as he labeled it, his “sadness,” that often involved suicidal thoughts. So he figured if a certain amount of soldiers had to die over there, he might as well be one of them. Perhaps offering himself up would save some other poor deluded schmo who thought he had something to live for. It turned out that that “certain amount” became a huge number of soldiers who would die over there--over 58,000. Mark, however, was not to be one of them. Years later Mark was in Washington D.C. searching for Bill’s name on the Viet-Nam War Memorial wall. He had his 14 year-old son along, and for whom all these marbleized names must have seemed as distant as names from Gettysburg or Valley Forge. But finally there it was. As he stared at it, all he could see was Bill in his dress uniform making his way through the Big Bear shopping carts.
It is too early in the season for the fawns to be born but there are other critters to be photographed. Mark's post and writing about Big Bear prompted me to post this picture on the Forum which I captured on my Critter Cam over last night and early this morning. This is why I don't walk around my backyard after dark.
Dave, this one's for you...........
