Since returning from my class reunion nearly three weeks ago, I’ve had a copy of the Mound Builder – Chillicothe High School’s student newspaper sitting on my desk, staring at me. The lead story, Prophecy of the ’72 Class, was something I wrote.

I never thought of myself as a writer, even though I had been writing since, well, since at least the fourth grade. The class prophecy was the longest something I recall writing until I took an “enrichment” class at Collin College. My output was in dibs and dabs. Song parodies like the ones I saw in MAD magazine, skits with a willing accomplice or two as part of the morning announcements in high school, radio commercials, an attempt at writing a situation comedy for a television writing class, letters to a girl I knew in junior high, the list goes on.

Here it was, a piece I wrote fifty years ago as a celebration of people I knew (and didn’t know) in my high school class. My recollection was that I was given a list of names and was tasked with coming up with a situation where most of the people on that list were mentioned. What amazed me when I re-read this lost [Ahem!] masterpiece was that I got four “predictions” correct, and another two close enough to count as “hits.” A few people were left out – two made it a point to tell me. I apologized and life goes on.

So, I got four (or six, depending on how you score things) predictions correct. What’s more amazing, though, were the real stories of the people in attendance at the reunion. Not all of them had the experience, say of Jack – a former city mayor and aspiring county commissioner. There was David, who went to medical school and went on to become a leader in cancer research. Liz was there – lived in different parts of the country, finally landing a few miles up the road living with another classmate. Phil and Joe were there, successful professional musicians, jamming for the assembled on Friday night. And there was our very own “Rocket Scientist,” Ed, who headed up the entertainment Saturday night.

Those were just a few of the more outstanding people in attendance. But that does not mean that the bulk of us didn’t have interesting stories as well.

I have come to realize over the years that we all have stories inside us; stories which may not seem to be outstanding to the casual observer, but are important to them, their families, and the people closest to them. They are stories worth giving a listen. Stories of heartache and redemption. Stories of places they’ve been, no matter how near or far away the places were. Stories of children, grandchildren, friends, acquaintances. Stories of discovery. Even stories with unhappy endings. As I grow older (was going to say “As I mature,” but everyone knows, men don’t mature…) I appreciate listening to the stories – no matter how mundane. The time I spent in Chillicothe a few weeks back was a time of pure joy… not only listening to stories of my classmates, but listening to a former workmate – to people at the AAUW book sale who know me and my mother – to the Amish woman selling the most excellent cinnamon roll I’d ever had – to an author of two of my favorite books – and to my sisters and their husbands while we were on the way out of town.

As a side benefit, my wife got to know more about me and the stories I’ve told her over the years as I explained where in the “Canon” each of the people I’ve met fit into the stories I’ve told.

I believe that my wife took to heart some of what I was telling her about listening to people’s stories. On the way back, we stopped for an evening to visit with the grandchildren in Fayetteville Arkansas. While we were there, she got the phone numbers of the grandchildren and promised to call them on a regular basis once we got back to our little corner of the DFW Metromess.

As I sat down to write this, she was on the phone with the middle grandchild, a middle schooler, talking about how the week went and actually listening to what the child had to say. I consider that to be a great acheivement.

Happy to have had a hand in that.

Be Seeing You!

One more little bit of fallout from my recent trip to Ohio – I stepped into a Kroger store on Saturday afternoon for at least one item, my Caffeine Free Diet Pepsi. I had run out of the stock I brought with me and needed more to feed my habit. When I got to the checkout line, the clerk asked me if I only had the one box of pop.

Pop?

I did a double take.

My next younger brother and I had been playing a game for years, where we referred to carbonated cola-flavoured beverages as “Sodas,” just to confuse other people in a section of the country where those same beverages were called “Pop.” What those beverages are called depends on where you live. For instance, where I live in Texas, sodas are “cokes,” small “c.” Doesn’t matter if it’s Pepsi, or RC or even 7Up, it’s a coke. The only exception to that rule is Dr Pepper… a genuine Texas beverage if ever there was one.

The summer after I married my better half, we took a trip to Ohio and West Virginia with our two younger sons. Her son (my stepson) had only been out of Texas once before – that being when we took him into Oklahoma for about 10 minutes just to say that he had been out of the state of Texas. He had it in his mind that once one crossed the Red River, no one knew about or sold Dr Pepper. I recall stopping at a gas station in Missouri on the way up, and purchasing a carton of Dr Pepper just to show him that the beverage was, indeed, sold north of the Red River.

Anyhoo, I managed to purchase my soft-drink of choice despite my double take, and everything turned out all right.

Earlier in the day, the better half and I stopped in a specialty store which stocked a wide variety of soft drinks, including one I had heard of, but had never seen before. Moxie.

I’ve heard the phrase, “That person has a lot of Moxie,” used to describe someone (in my mind at least) who had a lot of chutzpah for much of my life. I became aware that there was a beverage called Moxie out there somewhere, sold primarily in the northeast United States. And here were several bottles of Moxie being sold at Grandpa Joe’s Candy Store in downtown Chillicothe Ohio being sold for two bucks a pop (or soda, or coke, take yer pick). I told the better half that I couldn’t rationalize the purchase of a $2 bottle of Moxie if that was all I was going to purchase. She suggested another item to purchase, and we walked out of the store with a bottle of Moxie and something else which will be used as a gift for someone who didn’t believe that Dr Pepper was sold north of the Red River.

As I undertstand it, there are quite a few local soft drinks with limited distribution patches.

In southern Ohio, that beverage is Ski. I never had it while I lived there, and will likely never have it. A person I know with means (and a serious addiction to Ski) had a Ski machine installed at his home so he could buy one for himself whenever he wanted. Now, there’s some dedication!

I have a like for a beverage known as Ale-8 (or Ale-8-1), bottled in Kentucky. I first tried it on a trip up north about five years ago when I was having lunch with one of my best friends at a restaurant near his home outside Versailles Kentucky. Basically, it’s ginger ale with a hint of citrus. Since that trip, I have made it a point to seek out Ale-8 whenever I’ve been out of Texas. The closest I’ve found it was in Illinois this past summer. The Kroger where I purchased the Pepsi didn’t have it, but the other Kroger in Chillicothe did have it.

I nabbed three cartons of Ale-8 on the way out of town. Score!

At each of the Krogers, I was able to score bags of Herr’s Salt and Vinegar potato chips. Herr’s doesn’t quite make it all the way to Texas – unusual in my mind because another of the southeastern Pennsylvania chip makers, Utz, HAS made it to the local grocery stores. The family has called Herr’s Salt and Vinegar chips “Juicy Chips” because of my niece. She was with us at the small family reunion we had in Columbus. When I mentioned that I snagged a couple of bags of Herr’s, she immediately lit up and and said, “Juicy Chips!”

The “Juicy Chips” will last until the end of next week if I’m lucky. The stash of Ale-8 might, just might, mind you, last until early next year with prudent rationing.

And the Moxie? Gone! It was the only cold beverage available at the time we needed a cold beverage when we were almost home. An interesting cola, with hints of root beer and cinnamon. Not bad at all. Worth $2 for the taste. Not worth going up to Maine to get more at a regular price.

I’ll stick with my Diet Pepsi.

Be Seeing You!

A week after having a whirlwind trip to Ohio, I’m still buzzing a little bit attempting to bring things back to some semblance of normal. I had a number of other encounters during the trip, and missed other opportunities to connect with some people I wanted to connect with.

When I started planning the trip about six months ago, I had some grand plans of heading further north than we did and meeting with a few friends and family.

A trip to Cleveland was under consideration. My sister’s youngest child lives somewhere on the east side, with his wife (a woman I had barely met) and two children I’ve yet to meet. There’s a cousin living south and west of the city, and a friend from Ohio University I would have loved to have spent time with, bending elbows and trading stories. Karen, my children’s “Jewish Godmother” would likely have come down from her home in Erie for a visit.

We could have spent a couple of days in the “Best Location in the Nation” quite easily. But it wasn’t to be.

Instead, including the two reunion events, we only spent 42 hours in Chillicothe with more than a few people and places we didn’t manage to go and see. For instance, I really wanted to check out the location of Chillicothe’s “Dickies Barbecue” in what used to be Pizza Hut out Western Avenue. “Dickies” is one of those places here in the DFW Metromess which pops up almost everywhere. Shoot, there’s a Dickies less than two miles from my own little corner of the Metromess. Who says that franchising doesn’t work? On the other hand, a visit to Dickies would be akin to taking a “Busman’s Holiday,” or like traveling to England and refusing to eat nowhere other than a KFC. Don’t laugh. I know of one person who did just that!

There were a few other friends from the internet who were missed on that visit. One I did not miss was Alex, a former co-worker and probably one of the funniest people I’ve ever met. He spent one of those 42 hours we had in Chillicothe regaling us with stories about his exploits. I had short visits with a pair of Nancies who happened in on our celebrations – both doing well and both connected with our class almost at the hips.

There was also a nice surprise when I went to the Baptist church to drop off books for the American Association of University Women book sale which was being organized on Saturday morning. My mom had worked the sale for quite a few years before her demise and one of my sisters had taken advantage of a scholarship from the AAUW. I found that the sale was imminent and I felt that I should at least make a token contribution to honor my mother and my sister. The nice surprise was that there were people working sorting the books who fondly remembered my mother – we spent the better part of an hour trading stories and catching up. The time spent was worth more than the books I donated.

Mom was well remembered when we went to services at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church Sunday morning. Among the conversations I had was one with a well-regarded author who hailed from the small Ross County village of Knockemstiff. I had met him a couple of times before – it was good to see him again.

We wheeled out of town after services at St. Paul’s, pausing only long enough for a trip into Krogers to purchase several six-packs of my favorite carbonated beverage (Ale-8 – a regional soft drink sold mostly in Kentucky). Stopped for lunch in Columbus, where we met my sisters for a mini family reunion, and then it was back on the road again, headed back to my little corner of the DFW Metromess by way of Fayetteville Arkansas.

All in all, we had a very good trip. Wish we had more time for other people and other places. Give it a few months. I may be willing to do that trip again!

Be Seeing You!

It was noted on my internet feed this morning that today marks 34 years since the Chicago Cubs played their first night game at Wrigley Stadium. Twenty years prior to the lights going on at Wrigley Field, I had an English teacher who declared herself as a baseball fan who was mad at the Cubs because Mr. Wrigley did not see fit to lighting the baseball field named in his honor. Because of that, she declared that there was to be no gum chewing in her class. Doing so would support Mr. Wrigley.

To say that Mrs. Fair disliked her English students chewing gum in her class would be a fair statement (note the play on words). While she was intolerant of all chewing gum, she was particularly intolerant of grape-flavored bubble gum.

When it came to grape gum, the woman had a nose like a hawk. If she even thought that you had grape gum on your person, you would be sent to the restroom to spit out the offending gum and then were told to rinse out your mouth before coming back to class.

There were other rules, too. I’ve forgotten most of them because, as I came to the discovery in my early days as part of that class, I sat in what I would consider to be the “Teacher’s Pet” seat. I got away with a thing or two because of my position in Mrs. Fair’s seating chart – and no, I didn’t test the limits by chewing gum, much less grape gum the entire school year. Came close, but never caught.

Why I was put into the “Teacher’s Pet” seat was likely because I was new to the school and/or new to the school system. I was in the position of having to find a whole new set of friends. Seated where I was didn’t help things, especially when the word was out that the front seat in the center row of Mrs. Fair’s classroom was… shall we say, special.

A couple of side notes having to do with my time in Mrs. Fair’s English class.

For one, we spent a few weeks studying Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations. There was an extra credit assignment which found me writing a “Musical.” I did a “Weird Al” thing of setting several plot points to already existing tunes. Mrs. Fair loved it. One of the easiest projects I ever did.

For the other, Mrs. Fair announced one day that one day, when she retired, she would sit in her rocking chair and listen to me on the radio. She retired in June, 1972. I started working at the local radio station in December of that year. (I would mention that Mrs. Fair’s husband and the owner of the radio station where I first worked were former mayors of the town, bookending a short-lived experiment of having a Council-Manager form of government. The better half found it amusing.)

At any rate, I believe that night baseball in Wrigley Field came well after Mrs. Fair expired, so she never got to take back her vendetta against poor Mr. Wrigley. And despite having the temptation of being able to chew any gum I wanted to chew in my lifetime, I never developed a taste for grape gum.

Be Seeing You!