The writer I'm not...

You know, I have had a really rough time getting started with this. I can't seem to write what I want to say, say what I want to write and it sounds boring.
The truth is. Delphos was a magical world where crime was almost nonexistent, no one locked their homes or their cars, everyone knew everyone else and life was as innocent as I have ever known. We had very few toys or none at all yet we couldn't wait to get up in the morning and go out to play. A sandbox was far better than a playstation. We only got 3 channels on TV and only 1 of those came in good half the time. And that channel went off from 11:00 PM to 7:00 AM. If TV was never there to begin with with I never would have cared. By the way. I no longer own a TV. They say the average person spends 8 years of their life in front of a TV. Junk food? We got to go to the A & W for root beer and an order of frys maybe twice a year. Dairy Queen was rarer yet. That was it. There was no other junk food. Most of us kids did have a bike and we were all experts at patching flats. I can remember seeing flats with 12 or more patches on them. Tree houses, rope swings, lemonade stands, ant hills, bird nests, marbles/jacks, clay, card houses, kites, balsa wood gliders, homemade slingshots, pea shooters, homemade paper airplanes. We just really didn't have time for toys. Why is it that in this age of industrialization and technology that my life is suppose to be so much easier and so much improved that I am so unhappy? Why do I keep wishing for the simpler days when I am being told that everything now-a-days is simpler, faster, and easier to use? It's not the loss of childhood. As a young adult things were much easier than they are now and I think I finally found the reason which will come to no surprise to anyone. Money. The more educated folks have figured out that they can get more of your money by hiding how much they charge you for something in the wording they use and the math calculations they use. This is nothing new. But it has risen to a level of interpretation that most of us common folks are baffled by let alone be able to have the time to sit down to even begin to figure it out. My water bill takes a mathematician to read. Back in the day, you used this much then you paid for this much. End of bill. Now look at it. They make it so difficult that customers rarely if ever challenge their bills so they keep tacking on a little more here and a little more there. A year or so after I moved out to Bremerton, Washington (1996) the Kitsap County Sheriff retired with a pension at over $88,000.00 a year. I'll wage it was much higher due to cost of living allowances, medical, and other added bennies. Not bad for a public servant. Hell, we don't even know if any of us will even see any social security.
Yup, I miss those days and the older I get the more I miss them. I was very very lucky to have lived during that period of time. Very lucky indeed. I have got to do things and go places that most folks just dream about. I have watched Killer Whales swim off the coast of Montague Island, Alaska. Dug Loggerhead Turtle eggs on a beach on Prichard Island, South Carolina. Hauled in sails in a severe thunder/storm in the middle of the night on the USCGC Eagle somewhere off the eastern seaboard. The ship was pitching and waves washing across the deck, it was then I realized I wasn't on a pleasure cruise.

Deck of USCGC Eagle

Surfaced through the ice somewhere near the North Pole on a submarine. Climbed to the top of Mt Fuji, Japan. The list goes on and on. I've got to do it all. But by far, living in Marbletown tops the list. Nothing was as good as that. I'm not sure exactly why and I'm not sure I really care.

USS Whale (position classified)

I even got to go to one of the last one room school houses in Ohio if not the last. Garfield Elementary.

1st and 2nd grades. My teacher's name was Mrs Allen. She taught both grades. I don't know how she did it but she did and she was good at it to. I was not very good when it came to most subjects except for science. When she would get into that subject I'd perk up. She did as good a job as she could with me. I had her for both 1st and 2nd grade and then they closed the school the next school year at the start of my 3rd grade year. Everyone then went to Franklin Elementary which was located about the middle of town. They finally tore the little school down. Last I saw they had erected a small park in it's place.

Photo Credit:

"Garfield Elementary School" Courtesy of The Delphos Historical Society Web site: http://www.delphos-ohio.com/history/Holdgreve/Schools..htm Window to the past, A Brief History of Delphos Public Schools by Bob Holdgreve

Dad's Shoe Store...

A drawing I made probably in 4th or 5th grade

I had mentioned that my dad had managed a shoe store. Well for those who can remember here is a picture of it. It was located downtown beside the Equity. I think the theater was across the street. Out back of the shoe store was the Erie Canal. It was cool to go down and play in his store. It was a really big deal when he had to trim the windows. Trimming the windows was like decorating a movie set. Everything had to be just right. We would be there for hours while he and mom layed down material, positioned shoes, went outside to look at them in the window then back inside to adjust them. Later on the company would decide to just have one person go around and trim all the stores windows for them. The one thing I did like about the store and I miss to this day was the fact that they carried Ked's Tennis Shoes. 100% US of A cotton canvas in red, white or blue. Best tennis shoe I ever owned. Can't hardly find them now and when I do they are so high priced I pass them up. Dad had the the biggest shoe store and smack in the middle of downtown. He liked retail. I remember he belonged to the Delphos Jaycees. He eventually became the president. I was pretty proud of him. He wanted to be involved, he wanted to be a part of Delphos. He got to know a lot of people. I remember during the summer all the businesses would crank out their awnings so as to provide shade. Big things those awnings were. Maybe while the customer was cooling off in the shade provided by the awning they would do a little window shopping also. During the dog days of summer when business was slow the managers would drift out to the sidewalk and chew the fat with each other under the awnings. Dad also chaired the Franklin School carnival one year. That was the same year they bought a merry-go-round for the school playground with the money they made from the carnival that year. I was riding it one day while some kids were pushing it and somehow I got my leg jammed up underneath it so while the merry-go-round was rotating and it wedged my leg in there just right and snap. Broke both fibia and tibia just above the ankle of my left leg. How I kept from passing out to this day I have no idea. My ankle swelled up like a balloon. Off to Dr Belt's office. Back then he had an X-ray machine and so he had a diagnosis in no time at all. Home for 3 days with an ice pack to get the swelling down then a cast for 6 weeks. Good as new. That wasn't the last bad injury I was to have on that playground.

Epilogue;
Dad left Schiff Shoes and we moved from Delphos to Lima during Christmas vacation while I was in the 5th grade. Schiff Shoes changed their name to Gallenkamp somewhere in the late 60s early 70s. I worked for them after I moved to Lima. Got hired in my senior year in high school. My dad's old boss, Sam Smilan, hired me. Cantankerous as hell. I was with them until the early summer after graduation and then I moved on. Gallenkamp hung on for another few years and then finally closed their doors for good.



Published: New York Times February 12, 1994

Saul Ben Schiff, once a leading executive in the shoe industry, died last Saturday at White Plains Hospital. He was 96.

The cause was heart failure, said his daughter, Barbara Passloff of Scarsdale, N.Y.

Mr. Schiff was the past president of the A. S. Beck Shoe Corporation and a founder of Schiff Shoes, which eventually became SCOA Industries.

He was also an ardent supporter of Israel. In 1968, to create jobs there, he formed the American Israel Shoe Corporation, a footwear manufacturer with a factory in Bat Yam, Israel.

A co-founder of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Mr. Schiff was also a director of the Bank Leumi Trust Company and a former chairman of the Greater New York Fund's shoe retail division.

In addition to Mrs. Passloff, Mr. Schiff is survived by his wife of 66 years, Mollie S. Schiff, and two other daughters, Carole Straus and Simone Englander, all of Scarsdale; 10 grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.