Here's a photo "shot" of Vickie...1978.
The family home was surrounded
by woods when we moved in. When we moved out, 11 years later, the wooded
areas were all "neighborhoods". Go-carts were all home made and our best
friends were Maytag washing machine engines. The schools were heated with
coal...coal the teacher put in the class room furnace about an hour before
school began. Milk came from the milkman. When the mosquitoes were "thick",
the DDT trucks fogged the neighborhood. My mother didn't work until she
was in her late 40's...after the children were grown. There were three kids
in the family. I was the "middle child".
I was the only "kid" in the
family to graduate from high school.
My brother worked
for 32 years in an auto parts factory. The owner "sold-out" when Terry had
32 years of seniority (about 1992)...three years short of qualifying for
a retirement. He was left without a job and a pilfirred retirement company
program. He later qualified for reduced retirement benefits. My older brother,
Terry, married Nancy and they lived in Gahana, Ohio. He died on June 3, 2007.
My younger sister lived
in Southport, North Carolina where she and her husband ran a foreign car
reapair shop. My sister, Vicki, and I both have computers and we stayed
in touch with them until her death on June 24, 2007.
I
graduated from North High School in 1957. We were the "Polar Bears". "North"
was located within a block of a White Castle, near North High Street. We
took the electric bus to school each day. The school lunches were considered
"healthy" and french fries appeared maybe once a month. There were no Special
Education classes but there was "tracking"going on in the school.
We had a class reunion
five years ago (35th year since graduation). The only good friend that I
recognized was Caroline Toole Black. But...it was fun trying to figure out
who those other folks were. It was such occasions, like the class reunion,
that reminded me that time was "passing"....a most disturbing event! 
While we were there, we had our picture taken....
Then I went to The
Ohio State University where I struggled for six years until I had it...a B.S.
degree. Painless? No! I was asked to leave school at the end of my second
year due to low accedemic achievement....below a 2.0 ("C") average. I "sat
out" for a year and worked. When I returned, I was on the dean's list for
high accedemic achievement. Guess I had to learn exactly why I was there!
Karin is exactly my
same age...very young! Karin got me interested in computers and the internet.
Now I have to teach her "How to do it.". Karin likes to golf...she likes
it more than I do. She plays golf every day above 40 degrees. In addition,
she likes to gamble. During the off-golf season, she drags me to the gambling
boat often. We both worked for a school district and retired at almost the
same time. During the winter of 1997, our travel plans changed. It
turned out to be the year for karin to get a new hip at the doctors' place!
.
Here's the only photo of my relatives taken about ten years ago.
....my father
had already died and my mother still had about another four years of life
left. Can you find me?
