Wish I would have spent more time in Delphos...

I was on my way through town to Willshire Township in Van Wert County to one of my family's grave sites. I have been working on the genealogy for awhile and I wanted to document some more headstones and re-shoot some I had done earlier. So I only had a chance to spin through one end and out the other so I'll have to make a return trip for sure.

Regards,

Ode to David Slaughter

David was my age, in fact we were in the same grade and went to school together. He was a good looking kid. Sandy hair, freckles I believe, and a mischievous grin. He lived on the north side of town. I got to know him from school and then I really got to know him after school. My folks both worked and so after school I would go to the sitter’s house which was just off of Highway 30 (Lincoln Highway). At first she lived in the big house on the corner of Canal Street and Fifth. Last time I saw it was torn down and called “The Wheel Restaurant” and now it is called something else. Then she moved right across the street so that her backyard now included the canal. Her folks still lived in the big house on the corner of Canal and Fifth (Lincoln Highway). Some how David and I hooked up after school and played together. I was close to where he lived so he would ride his bike over. We were together a lot. Nobody really knew it. It was no big deal. When we saw each other at school it was just normal that we didn’t discuss that we hung out together. I don’t know why. Neither one of us were embarrassed or anything. We didn’t hide the fact that we knew each other more than we knew about other classmates either. We were just cool about everything.

Anyway, David was a blast to hang out with. One day we ended up with some cane poles with some line wrapped around the ends with bobber and a hook. All we had for bait was bread that we mashed into dough balls. Hey, that was then. We didn’t think we would catch squat. But we ended landing the biggest Carp I have ever seen. They were huge. Of course Carp are considered a garbage fish to the WASPs (white Anglo sexton Protestants) but we didn’t care we had caught some fish! Yup, David was cool to hang out with.

All that changed one day. David had been over to where I was at with the sitter and we were goofing off. My folks came to get us early and so David took off. No big deal. Next day, I go to school and everyone asks me if I had heard what happened to David. I knew nothing so I said so. David had been hit by a car while crossing Fifth Street (The Lincoln Highway). It was not very far from where we last saw each other. David never saw it coming. His injuries were extensive and there was no hope of survival. He passed away that afternoon. I was in shock. Just numb. I had wished David had never known me, I wished he had never crossed that highway to see me. It didn’t do any good. It was too late. All the wishing in the world wouldn’t bring him back now. I suffered hard and in silence. Just one of many of the “man” lessons I would learn. No one really knew how close we were or that we hung out together. So I mourned for him alone as best I could as best I knew how. I got to see him 3 times at the funeral home. Once after school with some kids I walked home with. Again that night when my parents took me and then again the next day when my whole class went aboard a bus. I did not get to go to David’s funeral.

I believe I was in the 4th grade when David died. I am not sure any more. I know the teacher did one of the most morbid things I had ever seen up to that day. She emptied David’s desk out and just put his stuff on a shelf in the back of the class room. There was nothing else on these shelves but David’s school supplies. The area looked so stark bare naked except for these pencils, ink pens, a ruler, glue, some paper, and a pencil box. Things that David would never use again. Never. And we kids had to come into class every day and like it or not that is the first thing we saw. We couldn’t help but not see them. They were directly in your line of sight as you entered the doorway. It was so haunting. Some days I could almost see David coming back to get them. They stayed there for a long time. Way to long for this little boy.

Then something strange happened. My parents got into financial trouble and either sold the house or had it foreclosed on. So half way through the 5th grade we were moving to Lima, Ohio. I would change schools during the Christmas break. In the mean time we had swapped out baby-sitters again. When we first met her I thought she looked vaguely familiar. Then I realized who it was. This was David Slaughter’s mother. But the guy in the house didn’t look like her husband. Then I found out what had happened. I came to find out that after David’s death her marriage to her former husband collapsed and they divorced and then she remarried. She had David’s older sister with her. It was a strange set of affairs I found myself in. I remember asking her a lot of questions about David but always watching her body language to see if I had treaded too far. She was very gentle about answering the questions and really put me at ease. The time flew by and before I realized it we were saying goodbye for good. She, her daughter, and her husband lived in a cozy little place by the tracks on Franklin I believe and I wondered what would become of her.

So the Christmas vacation was over before it started and I was enrolled in Lowell School down on the corner of Spring Street and Jamison in Lima. I sure didn’t like being the new kid and I stayed the new kid for quite awhile. So I finished out 5th grade and soon forgot about Delphos when summer arrived cause there was a million and one things to do. It seemed like everything in my past just kinda faded away into a dream, then to fog, and then just gone.

Fate was not done with me yet to my amazement. My family and I had started taking vacations a few years earlier as us kids had become old enough to manage on outings into scenic and historic areas. Mom was a history buff so we spent our summers receiving an education in places like Williamsburg, VA, Lake George, NY, and Cape Cod, RI. She had set into motion something that would decide the rest of my life’s pursuits. First she took us to Virginia Beach, VA where I got my first look at the ocean. Next we were driving through Norfolk, VA looking at all the navy ships docked there and we picked up 3 sailors in their dress whites. That was it. It was all over with except for the signature. I was going to sea and that was that. And I did, 24 years in the U. S. Navy and you can call me Chief. Anyway, back to fate….. So it was during one of these vacations that we happened to be in the Smokey Mountains. We had hiked quite a while to get to a view point. No sooner then we got there than I looked over and here came David’s mom, her husband, and her daughter coming from a trail from another direction. We spoke with them for awhile and then went about our separate ways. David’s mom had moved on. She loved and missed him as only a mother can but she had let go with dignity. I admired her for that very, very much because it was at that moment I realized that I could not and I never have….

I am coming back to find David's grave site. If anyone happens to know where it is please email me....

The Marbletown Festival

Well, the Marbletown Festival should be in full swing and getting ready to move into the spotlight. I'm glad to hear the folks back in Marbletown, Delphos, Ohio decided to start the festival. Marbletown was a great place to grow up in and an even better place to remember.

There is actually another Marbletown and it is in New York. I know little about it and felt for a long time that they must have stolen the name from our Marbletown. But that was not the case and as I got older I realized that the world was big enough for 2 Marbletowns.

Happy Marbletown Days to all....

It was a one of a kind...

Well this time of the year used to find me at one place. The DeIphos Public Swimming Pool. I spent so many hours there I couldn't even begin to keep track. I learned to swim there, went off my first diving board there, and almost watched a kid drown there. Unique in it's shape, completely round. It is the only swimming pool I have ever seen like it. I have know idea how old it is or who designed it but I loved it. Seeing pictures of it brings back some fond memories....

I'll never forget that overwhelming smell of chlorine, the metal baskets to put our clothes in and the shelves they sat on while we could care less if they were there or not. I remember we had to step into some kind of small cement enclosure was filled with some mucky looking water that was suppose to kill any germs on our feet. I was prone to step around it for fear of really getting something on my feet.

Now this I never understood. Me and the rest of the kids would do this over and over again. We would go up to the snack bar and get a candy bar. When we opened them for some strange reason they were always melted. Whoppers and Clark Bars seemed to go the fastest. It was probably because we didn't have a beach but instead a hot cement like beach area surrounding the pool. Hey....it was a beach to us.

About the kid the almost drown, I'm sure you're still wondering about that. Well, before I could swim I had a blow-up plastic sea horse that was in the shape of a doughnut with a horse's neck and head. I could hang on inside the doughnut hole and kick myself around. Well me and some other kids were walking around near the deep end of the pool and I was carrying my blow up horse and the wind blew it out of my hands into the deep section of the pool. All of us kids stopped. I wasn't sure what to do next and neither were they. Next thing we knew a little kid came up and said to me "Hey kid, do you want me to go get that for you"? I was kinda dumbfounded because he was so much smaller than any of us. But before I knew it I said "Yes". And, into the water he went, just like he knew what he knew what he was doing. Then things got weird. He quit moving around so much and he didn't return to the surface. He was kinda just floating about 3 to 4 feet from the surface, his eyes were open but had a blank stare to them. His skin started to change colors to a motley purple bluish to an off white. Something in my gut was screaming at me that there was something terribly wrong here but about that time one of the boys next to me said " Look at that kid swim, wow he is really good". I short circuited at this point because I trusted the boy who made the statement but my gut feeling was overwhelming. About this time a teenage girl had dived into the pool and came face to face with the little boy who was obviously drowning. She grabbed him and hauled him out of the pool yelling at the life guards at the same time. All hell broke loose. It took me and the other kids awhile to figure out that the kid had been drowning this whole time. I was at best 4 to 5 years old and I had no idea about drowning or what a drowning victim looked like and neither did the other kids. Shortly an ambulance arrived and hauled him off. To this day I don't know his name or if he lived or died. I tried to get a hold of the Delphos Public Library but they said they didn't have the staff to look for the article. I hope he made it.

I love that pool....

Footnote: I do not remember where I aquired the picture of the Delphos Public Swimming Pool from so if you recognize the photo please contact me so I can properly document the photo credit and request permission of the owner for use. Thank you.

If you build it they did come (The Smersaws)

The Smersaw’s… They lived in an older style 2 story home. Looked like a farm house. Small wonder Mr. Smersaw was a farmer. He farmed the fields all around us. I don’t know when he got the time because he was Postmaster of Delphos also. Tall guy, on the quiet side. You could tell he was tough, gritty. A farmer. Mrs. Smersaw? Nothing to write home about. She was a housewife and a mother. Her house was very clean and she kept up with everything. They had a couple of kids Kathy and Tucker Kathy was older. In her teens. Tucker was just coming into his teens. Maybe around 12 or 13. Didn’t ever see much of Kathy. Tucker? He was around a lot. Everyone knew him. He was slender build with sandy hair. A face that fit him. He was cool. He knew everything. He knew about souping up bicycles and BB guns and pigeons and baseball and how to swear. He once figured out how to salvage some old wheels from a lawn mower and make a go cart out of them and some wood, rope, and a few nails and an assortment of bolts, washers, and nuts. He always had something going on.

Kathy whom we called “Cat” would become my baby sitter one summer. I’d screw up and she’d make me kneel on the tile kitchen floor. Learned it a Catholic School she said. I was glad I didn’t go there. She had a boyfriend. They would meet in secret. He drove a beautiful ’57 Chevy. Blue and white I remember. He used to drive up the street behind our house and visit her while she was watching us kids. The place he parked and the angle he walked up to the house blocked anyone from Kathy’s house from seeing him or his parked car. They use to lie on the front room floor and make out. After I got older I realized “hey, those two were sizzilin”. Myself, I never would have made it through what they were doin’. Hey, it was cool, now I had the low down on her and I was just the type of little brat that would use it too. Never knelt on the floor again.

Now, I’m not really sure what happened here. What I am about to tell you really happened. It is what The Field of Dreams and The Sandlot are made of. Tucker was very much like Benny “The Jet” Rodriguez in The Sandlot. He loved baseball. Always had a glove with him and it was well worn in too. Being that his dad was still part time farmer he owned a field behind where they, the Smersaw’s, and the Wigging’s lived. Wasn’t nothing in it for awhile just dirt and stubble.
But one summer day I seen Tucker out there doin something to the corner of the field that sat closest to the neighborhood. After some hours it was obvious what he was up to. He was building himself a baseball diamond. He had a backstop built. Bases put in place, the official white markings were all there. And to boot you could hit a ball as far as you wanted straight out into the field. Now I personally thought he was off his rocker. Who was going to play on it? There wasn’t any ball teams around and Tucker was ‘bout the oldest kid in the neighborhood. But I never saw his determination waiver and he never stopped until it was all done.
Now this was about mid afternoon and I was about to observe the strangest thing I have ever seen to this day. You see, the men that lived in that neighborhood were starting to get off work. I’m not sure what happened next but Tucker must have had it planned out because I noticed an old bag of bats, balls, and gloves leaning near the backstop. Half ways tipped over and not really noticeable. The next thing I knew was a couple of the men in the neighborhood were out taking swings at the ball and Tucker was pitching. Oh yea, he had built a nice pitcher’s mound too. Well then a couple of guys grabbed gloves and headed to the out field to field the balls. As more and more husbands, fathers, and other guys got home then the more drifted over and took over for the guys in the field so they could come in and bat. Now I had never seen 9/10s of these guys even though I had lived in the same neighborhood as them for years. But here they were all coming together on this hand made ball diamond. Every few minutes a new face would show up and then the inevitable happened. They picked sides and started playing a game. Tucker was the youngest one allowed to play the rest were all men.
Even as more men were still getting off work they were finding places for them so that everyone got a turn to play. Then I got the shock of my life. I just happened to look up and see my shoe store manager dad at bat. He had his nice long sleeve shirt sleeves rolled up his neck tie loosened at the neck and he was going for it and he did. He knocked one way out there and brought in 2 runners and himself. The game kept going right through supper and a lot of the wives and kids were out there sitting along the street watching the whole thing and cheering. I think someone had even made lemonade up for the guys playing. It went on until the sun started to set and then everyone started to drift on home.
Most of those guys I was to never see again. They came out of the woodwork and they drifted right back into it. Tucker, I think he knew it was a one time chance to pull it off. Nobody ever played on the diamond again. None of the men ever congregated together after that, at the ball field or anywhere else as far as I know. Tucker did his best to keep the ball diamond up for awhile but you could tell he had lost interest in it. When you reach the top the only place to go is down.
I saw him one last time in his teenage years. Had his arm around a girl walking in downtown Delphos. I would have been maybe in the 4th grade. Then I happened to be home just recently to help my brother and sister make some health decisions about our mother. I found out the case nurse was from Delphos, Ohio. I asked about a lot of people I knew back there when I was a kid. When it came to asking about Tucker she said he had passed away about 6 years ago due to cancer.
Tucker earned his place as a Legend of Marbletown. He knew a long time ago that if you build it they will come. He brought magic to Marbletown as only the people of Marbletown can appreciate that certain kind of magic.

If any of you remember this event I’d really like to hear from you. The field was located on Jennings Street near the intersection of South Erie Street. The actual ball diamond layout was right behind Harold Wigging’s house that he used to own on the corner of Erie and Jennings. This would have occurred in the very late 1950s or very early 1960s.