Answers to Wheeling Questions

1. What was the name of the red-headed man who walked up Wheeling Creek each morning from Benwood to find golf balls at Oglebay and Wheeling Country Club.

Answer: Haney Scary scary man. He felt the woods around Oglebay and Wheeling Country Club were his and would chase you out of there.

2. What do Larry Dezio, Chris Smith and Rick Asmus have in common?

Answer: They black spray-painted “MOOSE” on the Linsly Aviator statue. A judge sentenced them to a weekend at, I believe named, Rooney's Point located out past Triadelphia...a halfway house before heading to Pruntytown. 'Moose' was Linsly's Latin teacher Miss Metzner's nickname.

3. Who was Alma Henderson?

Answer: An old cantankerous whore house madam in Benwood that we used to call and heckle

4. In the early 60's, what was the name of the hamburger place on the corner of National Road and Edgington Lane?

Answer: Purple Cow...hamburgers were 15 cents. Bruce and Tim Bandi, Joe Steger, I and others hung out in the back room. The pinball machine paid off.

5. What was 'Big Bill' Lias real last name?

Answer: George Liaskakos Here's everything you need to know about Big Bill:
http://www.flexassistant.com/images/Lias.pdf

6. In the book, “Captain's Courageous” (1897) what about Wheeling was mentioned?

Answer: Wheeling Stogies...some reference by a character that if he could survive smoking a Wheeling Stogie he could survive anything

7. What was Linsly School called in 1814?

Answer: Linsly Lancastrian Academy founded by Noah Linsly. Interesting bio link:
http://wheeling.weirton.lib.wv.us/history/people/hallfame/1986lins.htm

8. Who was the first coach of the Wheeling Nailers?

Answer: Walrus-mustachioed Doug Sauter. He moved with the Carolina Thunderbirds to Wheeling in 1992. The name was changed to Nailers due to a dispute with a west coast hockey team also nicknamed 'thunderbirds'

9, What was the nickname for Pogues Run Road?

Answer: Nun's Run

10. What football honor was bestowed on Chuck Howley that no other NFL player has received?

Answer: Chuck Howley from Warwood was named Super Bowl MVP for Super
Bowl V, the first time that a defensive player
received the honor and the first time a player
from the losing team won the award.

The Little Kids Table

How many of you had a "little kids table"? Such a table was necessary when the number of children exceeded the number of seats at the main dining table. Of course, high chairs were still allowed at the "big" table out of necessity, but if you could feed yourself, you were assigned to the little kids table.
At the Quinnery there was a constantly revolving number of kids joining or leaving the little kids table...which was a high honor. As the older ones went off to college or elsewhere there was less and less need for the table and eventually it was just a memory.
I loved being at the main table and able to listen in on all of the talk. My father was a Republican and my mother a Democrat so political talk would have been lively...if there had been any..but my mother didn't proffer her opinions. Most of the talk was about school or weekend plans, books, hobbies, etc.
The most important thing one learned at either table was that manners were not just important, they demonstrated who you were. Too bad fewer families feel that way today using conflicting schedules as an excuse for not sitting down together.
Graduating to the big table was as important in our family as an actual school promotion!

"Turkey Day"

Thanksgiving, or as we knew it best way back then, "Turkey Day", was the beginning of the "holiday season". To kids this meant it was about one month left to be good until Christmas.
The center of the day was my grandmother's kitchen, the busiest place in the house. The smells and the sights were only the beginning of the orgy we knew as the Thanksgiving feast. The bird was the center of the meal. No frozen, prepackaged gobbler with Stove Top Dressing. The main course was fresh and wrapped in white butcher's paper. The stuffing was started several days ahead when bread was pulled into small pieces, enough to fill the large roasting pan, and left to dry out. Mouth-watering pumpkin and minced meat pies were baked and cooling on the long kitchen table. While the peeled potatoes were soaking in water ready to be mashed and smothered in giblet gravy. Fresh cranberries were rinsed and soon to be cooked and fashioned into salad and topped with Nanny's home-made pineapple sauce. Then there was the marshmallow-topped yams and Waldorf salad. Yum...even now one salivates thinking of those wonderful meals.
Our windows were tastefully decorated with mimeographed pictures of pilgrims, Indians, and autumn leaves colored with good old Crayolas(basic colors, at that) and the hand-traced turkeys that we had been making at school as we learned about that first Thanksgiving.
Beds were made up for my uncle and aunt from Rainelle, WV and his two little girls who would make the long trip up state (pre-interstate highways). Other family would file in just in time for the football games.
The Christmas parades on TV were exciting, even in black and white and were the only programs my sister and I were interested in that day. Following the parade the living room was
dominated by the guys and football. The women shooed the kids out of the kitchen so they wouldn't be "in-the-way". It was usually warm enough to don coats and mittens and play tag with the cousins or rake huge piles of crunchy leaves and gleefully take turns jumping into them. The smell of wood-burning in fireplaces in the chilly air still brings back to mind those November afternoons.
Finally there was that anticipated call from mom to come in...dinner was ready! This is one time there was no dawdling when you were called for dinner. Walking into that warm kitchen , rosy-cheeked from the cold and the outdoor activity, we were greeted by the delectable odors of the Thanksgiving meal. Baked yeast-raised rolls, percolated coffee, turkey and dressing and pumpkin pie made up the mixture of smells that we nostalgically remember as the "turkey day" meal.
When the family gathered around the table and we bowed our heads in prayer we were truly thankful for the wonderful meal shared with cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, parents, and siblings.
Even today as many of the places around the table have long been empty, the thoughts of the holiday center around the good food and loving family. Thanksgiving is a true American celebration. Again whatever neighborhood, be it Woodsdale, Elm Grove, Triadelphia, South Wheeling or more....America in the 50s and 60s...a wonderful place and time to be a "kid". Have a "Happy Turkey Day."

Take me Back to the Sixties

Check out this neat link:

http://objflicks.com/TakeMeBackToTheSixties.htm

interesting and fun remembering

Woodsdale School 4th grade: High School Graduation Year 1962

10 questions about Wheeling

10 Questions about Wheeling:

1. What was the name of the red headed man who walked up Wheeling Creek each morning from Benwood to find golf balls at Oglebay and Wheeling Country Club.

2. What do Larry Dezio, Chris Smith and Rick Asmus have in common?

3. Who was Alma Henderson?

4. In the early 60's, what was the name of the hamburger place on the corner of National Road and Edgington Lane?

5. What was 'Big Bill' Lias real last name?

6. In the book, “Captain's Courageous” (1897) what about Wheeling was mentioned?

7. What was Linsly School called in 1814?

8. Who was the first coach of the Wheeling Nailers?

9. What was the nickname for Pogues Run Road?

10. What football honor was bestowed on Chuck Howley that no other NFL player has received?

John Hershey

Fall's children

Autumn in the Quinn family meant going back to school and playing in the leaves. The latter activity involved raking all the leaves from the maples that lined the street in front of our house into BIG piles and then either sorting them into "rooms' or with the help of a small fence, building a "fort". In the fort, you could get down behind the leaves and jump up to startle passersby as they strolled down the sidewalk...great fun. However, our mother believed that without a doubt the polio epidemic we were experiencing in the 50's was tied to playing in the leaves so was not happy with our antics. Polio was not just another scary childhood disease...it KILLED children or left them cripples. Lining up to get a vaccination when it was finally available paled in comparison to the dreaded "iron lung" that we were shown pictures of.
As for going back to school, we were usually featured in the local paper for having the most kids returning to school in one family. When I think now of what it must have cost my father to buy all those new shoes, coats, school supplies, etc...I can't believe he did it! Funny thing is, in those days children were taught at a very early age not to even ask for fribbles like ipods, cell phones, computers, etc...if you couldn't eat it or wear it...YOU DIDN'T NEED IT! Ahhhhhhhhhh, the good old days.

A Trip to the Dentist

Going to the dentist was a torture as a child. I remember one particular trip with my father to see Dr. Hennen. First, the waiting room where we were given mercury to play with. Yes, that's right! One of the most dangerous elements on the planet. We would roll it around in our hands and marvel at the incredible silver sheen it left on our skin. No one cautioned us about dropping it...it was considered harmless. I wonder if mercury poisoning accountants for my current eccentricities.
Dr. Hennen was very OLD!! His hands shook so badly that you feared he might miss your mouth all together and extract something necessary from your nose or another orifice. On this particular trip he informed my dad that my teeth were so crooked that I needed braces. As my dad explained that he had nine children and could not afford braces I secretly cheered. Years later when I could afford to pay for braces myself, I asked my dentist about getting them (I was in my 20's) and he said, "Look at my teeth, they are crooked and I had braces!"...so I guess that was not a recommendation.
Times have changed, but a trip to the dentist is still no Strawberry Festival.

Nice Neighborhood!
I have so many fond memories of Woodsdale. To repeat a phrase that you have read over and over again, it really was a great place to grow up. Actually, to be more honest about it, it was a great place to be a kid!
We roller skated up and down the street (sometimes we even stayed on the sidewalk); we rode our bikes everywhere (or I would hitch a ride with my brother, Jim, whenever I could); we visited each others’ homes to play (I guess today that would be called a play date?!); and as mentioned by others, we played outside all-l-l-l day long and up until the street lights came on at dusk.
We lived next door to the McCluskey’s. It was Taylor, Judy, Kathy, and then Miriam and Olivia. My poor mom. The McCluskey family kept growing and I kept asking my mom when we were going to have a baby. It didn’t happen, so fortunately for me, I am the baby of our family! I’ll bet I drove my mom nuts, though. I probably drove Mrs. McCluskey nuts, too. Actually, I probably drove several mothers nuts! I guess I was lucky some of them liked me. I don’t remember being particularly bad. That could be because I have a poor memory or because I have such high regard for myself. Listening was always a challenge for me; I’m getting a little better in my old age (I think). I do still react though when someone says, “you can’t do that!” Sure I can; watch me.
I remember riding the bus down town to shop at Stone and Thomas. I have fond recollections of walking through the Market with my grandmother on our way to go shopping. I remember waving to a Santa on the top of Wheeling hill (across from the statue of the Indian). Does anyone else remember that? I mentioned it to a couple of people who looked at me like I had grown up in another state. Please let me know; it is a very vivid memory for me. I always had a thing for Santa. I still do. To this day, I have my picture taken with Santa Claus every year!
So much has changed, but I go back to the old neighborhood and so much has stayed the same. The homes have been kept up so well and it is a joy to go back and walk around the neighborhood. It brings back wonderful memories. Thanks to all the current home owners for keeping our legacy alive! I wonder if the kids who live there now play together as often as we did and if they enjoy it as much as we did. I hope that they do so that they, too, can have pleasant memories when they are old (I mean older!).

Holidays were always special times for children. They offered time off from school, special gifts, good food, family get-togethers, and did I say, time off from school, oh yeah. Anyway, Christmas was top of the list. Decorations changed the house into a wonderland. Bright colored lights, ornaments, carols playing on the Victrola and the delectable smells of cookies and pine put one into that "Christmas Spirit". The tree was the center of it all. My mother skillfully draped beautiful shades of spun glass angel hair over our decorated tree. The colored glass bulbs, shiny icicles and tinsel garlands shimmered through it making it appear a fairy tree. Dad made a platform for under the tree and nestled on top of it in white cotton were little houses sprinkled with artificial snow. Around that tiny town a Lionel train chugged the tracks with "real" smoke encircling the wee smoke stack. And in the center of that little place was the creche with the holy family and the shepherds and Magi gathered to celebrate the birth of Jesus.
There was the annual trip to crowded downtown Wheeling streets for the Christmas parade. My sister and I were bundled up in woolen leggings and coats, hats, and mittens to ward off the frosty air. Afterwards we were filled with anticipation of the trip to Murphy's 5 & 10 to choose small gifts for mom, dad, and our grandparents. Then mom would treat us to a hot dog at Louie's or a cherry or vanilla coke or milkshake at Walgreen's before we got on the bus to go home. We'd wrap our tiny treasures with festive paper and ribbon and hide them away until Christmas morning. Several days before the"big day" we'd help cut out sugar cookies and top them with colored sprinkles, getting more on the tray and the table then on the actual cookies. We'd nibble on chocolate chip dough without any thought that the raw eggs could make us sick. We'd watch Santa Claus and his elf on WTRF for weeks and then on Christmas eve track the progress of the jolly old elf with the TV reporting just where he was in the world right then. There was always the worry that there might not be any snow for his sled to travel and heaven forbid that he would have to fly in rain or fog.
Finally it was the night before and we put out cookies and milk for Santa and carrots and sometime even a sugar cube for the reindeer. Mom would tuck us in a little bit early to await the arrival of Christmas morning. Lying there in the dark together, whispering to each other, we thought that we would never fall asleep. Sometimes we even imagined that we heard the prancing of hooves on the rooftop or even the rustle of presents being laid under the tree. Sleep would finally come.
Next morning when you woke up was the most exciting day of the whole year. We'd jump out of bed and run down the steps and there under the lit tree were the packages just waiting to be opened. Oh, it was good to be a kid at Christmas - the magic of it all would never reoccur as an adult; but the memory of it brings back the sweet naivety of childhood

Remember

Though this is not original, I thought it was very relevant for Woodsdale Kids:

Someone asked the other day, "What was your favorite fast food when you were growing up?".
"We didn't have fast food when I was growing up", I informed him. "All the food was slow".
"C'mon seriously. Where did you eat?"
"It was a place called "at home", I explained!
"Mom cooked every day and when Dad got home from work, we sat down together at the kitchen table, and if I didn't like what she put on my plate I was allowed to sit there until I did like it".
By this time, the kid was laughing so hard I was afraid he was going to suffer serious internal damage, so I didn't tell him the part about how I had to have permission to leave the table.
But here are some other things I would have told him about my childhood if I figured his system could have handled it:
Some parents NEVER owned their own house, never wore Levis, Never set foot on a golf course, never traveled out of the country or had a credit card.
In their later years they had something called a revolving charge card. The card was good only at Sears Roebuck. Or maybe it was Sears & Roebuck. Either way, there is no Roebuck anymore. Maybe he died.

My parents never drove me to soccer practice. This was mostly because we never had heard of soccer. I had a bicycle that weighed probably 50 pounds, and only had one speed (slow). We didn't have a television in our house until I was 13. It was of course, black and white, and the station went off the air at midnight, after playing the national anthem and a poem about God; it came back on the air at about 6am and there was usually a locally produced news and farm show on, featuring local people.

I was 16 before I tasted my first pizza; it was called pizza pie. When I bit into it, I burned the roof of my mouth and the cheese slid off, swung down, plastered itself against my shin and burned that too. It's still the best pizza I ever had.

I never had a telephone in my room. The only phone in the house was in the living room and it was on a party line. Before you could dial, you had to listen and make sure some people you didn't know weren't already using the line.

Pizzas were not delivered to our home but milk was. All newspapers were delivered by boys and all boys delivered newspapers. My brother delivered a newspaper six days a week. It cost 7 cents a paper, of which he got to keep 2 cents. He had to get up at 6a.m. every morning. On Saturday, he had to collect the 42 cents from his customers. His favorite customers were the ones who gave him 50 cents and told him to keep the change. His least favorite customers were the ones who seemed to never be home on collection day.

Movie stars kissed with their mouths shut. At least, they did in the movies. There were no movie ratings because all movies were responsibly produced for everyone to enjoy viewing, without profanity or violence or most anything offensive.

If you grew up in a generation before there was fast food, you many want to share some of these memories with your children or grandchildren. Just don't blame me if they bust a gut laughing. Growing up isn't what it used to be is it?

My Dad is cleaning out my grandmother's house (she died in December) and he brought me an old Royal Crown Cola bottle. In the bottle top was a stopper with a bunch of holes in in. I knew immediately what it was, but my daughter had no idea. She thought they had tried to make it a salt shaker or something. I knew it was the bottle that sat on the end of the ironing board to sprinkle clothes with because we didn't have steam irons. Man, I'm old!

How many of these do you remember?
Head lights dimmer switches on the floor?
Ignition switches on the dashboard?
Heaters mounted on the inside of the fire wall?
Real ice boxes?
Pant leg clips for bicycles without chain guards?
Soldering irons you heated on a gas burner?
Using hand signals for cars without turn signals?

Older than Dirt Quiz:

Count all the ones that you remember not the ones you were told about.
1. Blackjack chewing gum!
2. Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water
3. Candy cigarettes
4. Soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles
5. Coffee shops or diners with tableside juke boxes
6. Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers
7. Party lines on the telephone
8. Newsreels before movies (and cartoons!)
9. P. F. Flyers
10 Butch wax
11. TV test patterns that came on at night after the last show and were there until shows started again in the maorning. There were only 3 channels (if you were fortunate).
12. Peashooters
13 Howdy Doody
14 45 RPM records
15. S & H Green Stamps
16 Hi-fis
17 Metal ice trays with lever
18. Mimeograph paper (with ink that smelled very funny)
19. Blue Flashbulbs
20 Packards
22 Cork popguns
23 Drive ins
24 Studebakers
25 Washtub wringers

If you remembered 0-5 = You're still young
6-10 You are getting older
11- 15 = Don't tell your age
16 - 25 = You're older than dirt

I might be older than dirt but those memories are some of the best parts of my life.

Operators are standing by

Was Woodsdale truly this youthful wonderland that we so fondly reminisced about 50 years later at the July reunion? 'The experts' say that, arguably, our minds are mapped by age 5 molded by the family, peer and socio-economic neighborhood environment we were impressioned by in our youth.

To clarify... 'the experts' are an esteemed blue-ribbon panel chosen by Woodsdale's own 'Out the Pike Gang' (OTPG) who graciously took time away from their important work to attend the reunion, take data, drink beer, elicit poignant sound bites on Dan Criswell's video and were a lot of fun to be with. The fact that they chose Lady Gaga, Carrot Top, Eddie Haskell and Guido 'three fingers' Batchotori to chair this panel should in no way demean the important findings of the Woodsdale study spelled out in their final report.

By the way, after you contact Dan or Kathleen to receive for a scant $10 his cool reunion video which may or may not include some of the OTPG's poignant sound bites, you will at no extra charge receive a leather bou ..no wait...a genuine simulated-leather-bou...um remember that cheap table cloth like drawer liner stuff our parents used to wrap our books in? That's the “Woodsdale Report” binding.

But wait there's more. Act in the next 30 minutes and we'll also include a three disk set of Mr. Hile singing such immortals as 'Dill Pickles', 'Our Whistling Servant Girl', 'Danke Schoen', 'Tiny Bubbles' and my personal favorite 'Yes, We Have No Bananas'...the third disk includes the same songs but sung in falsetto shortly after Mr Hile's 'accident'.

Lee Frizzell and I are pouring over the Woodsdale Report and as arduous a task as it is, we will some how break it down into a very enjoyable read to be posted for all very soon.

John Hershey

Dare to be Stupid

One fond memory I have of my brother Colin was his fine sense of humor. When we were late teens some evangelical group was traveling the country putting on a show the called "Dare to be Great". Colin quickly changed it to "Dare to be stupid". I have always loved the concept. As a sailor when we start to get ourselves in to a bind I always think about the Dare to be stupid concept.

When we first became close to legal driving age we did a host of Dare to be stupid projects. Many times we were in cars we should not have been in, and often we did not have the necessary credentials to make driving the borrowed car legal. To make it simple we were driving stolen cars without a license.

Once we cooked up a scheme to borrow Benny Powell's grandfather's old Chevy. Grandpa had taken a pretty good dose of heart medicine which he purchased from the state store. As grandpa slept on the couch so the heart medicine could work we took off for a ride with his car. Ben was not a good driver so part of the mission was to teach Ben driving skills. As we made our rounds someone informed us that "The Kraut" as Ben fondly called his grandfather had awakened, and reported his car missing. It seemed in the best interest of the Dare to be stupid society to get the car home quickly. Ideally the car could be put back in the driveway without the police noticing. With the need for speed, and Ben's poor driving skills I agreed to drive the car to his grandfathers house. I knew there was not future in driving into that driveway with what was essentially a stolen car. So we devised a plan. I would get the car close to Ben's grandfathers. Benny would drive the car the final distance. I had to instruct him on shifting and so on. As we neared the house Ben would slow down and I would jump from the moving car. We approached his house I opened the door rolled out and behind a neighbors hedge. Benny turned into the driveway and drove the car up the driveway. It looked like the plan worked until Benny drove into a window well that protruded into the drive way.

Benny grew up living with his grandparents. I always remember being at his home and hearing a sudden shout for Benny to bring grandpa heart medicine. Quickly Ben would pour a stiff shot of heart medicine that came in fifths and rush to save his grandfather. I am sure after a strong dose of heart medicine the car incident cleared up. Perhaps grandpa was convinced he had drive it into the window well himself during a minor heart attack. To this day I enjoy a good glass of heart medication. I am one of the few Quinn's who has not had any heart problems. I attribute this to regular medication. In the winter my doctor recommends Johnny Walker red to keep the cholesterol in check. With warm weather Tanqueray thinned with tonic in the summer seems to help cool the heart and relax the arteries.

SOFT DIRT
I have had so many requests for this story that I had to post it. It was written by my brother Mike Quinn and has become legendary in Wheeling.

My first foray into capitalism began with recognizing the need for quality dirt. Since my mother had plants everywhere on the front porch of the house, the need for quality dirt was evident. The problem with most dirt was that it was too hard. In this spirit soft dirt was invented. Now, what you may ask is soft dirt? Soft dirt is made by carefully screening normal dirt through an old piece of window screen. The result if you use good, high quality dirt was ready for the consumer.
Ideally, soft dirt could be used for your plants, however it could be used wherever dirt was needed. It was like instant dirt. since it was packaged very dry, you could just add water and have high quality soft mud. As the demand for soft dirt expanded, it became necessary to surface mine it in the backyard. The net result was a very large hole.
Our father was for some strange reason tolerant of the excavation which was about ten by ten by three feed deep. He insinuated to our mother that it could become a swimming pool. In retrospect, it seems like a make work project to keep a bunch of little kids busy.
Every kid in the neighborhood wanted to help dig the hole, so it became the practice to charge the employees to work. As luck would have it, the soft dirt factory had no insurance, and sure enough a disaster hit. The fine crew of young boys managed to dig up the gas line leading to the house.
My recollection is not complete, but I think we managed to break it. The net result was we needed a new gas line laid into our house. Luckily by some imaginative bickering, my father found out the gas line had been improperly installed in the first place, and it was up to the gas company to replace it. Fortunately this kept the soft dirt factory from being forced out of business. The sales department of the factory went door to door in Woodsdale with quart jars of dirt. It sold well to old ladies who could always use a quart for their plants.

Editor's note: I can still see my poor mother out in the back yard trying to fill that hole in! She never succeeded because as fast as she shoveled in, the boys would dig it out again...seems this went on for several years. I also remember being in the hole with a makeshift roof of some kind when it was raining and watching the water roll down the sides filling the bottom. I think there was a charge for this as well.

To begin with, I'm not a Woodsdale kid, I'm an Elm Grove kid. Yet after spending a few hours reading what the Woodsdale kids had written, I realized we were not all that different. Just a few miles apart, but so much in common. Most of all we all grew up in a time that most of us wouldn't trade for any other time or place before or since. Life was simpler and people were kinder and more giving. Moms could be stay-at-home moms without either feeling the need to "go out in the world and find themselves" or the necessity to have to be one of the bread-winners. Kids didn't need to be put on diets because they didn't sit in front of a TV or computer screen all day and eat junk food and they didn't need to be entertained...and never bored. In fact, I remember when most small children took an afternoon nap(so moms could get some rest). I still can remember laying on the double bed with my mom and my sister and thinking of all the things that I could be doing instead of being "made to take a nap". The only loud music I remember being heard from a vehicle coming down the street was from Ice Cream Joe and it didn't rock your house; but it did disturb some mothers because the ice cream truck always came in our neighborhood when we were taking that afternoon imposed rest.

Most neighborhoods had their own Mom and Pop store which was just around the corner. Ours was on Cracraft Avenue just up from Wheeling Avenue where I lived. It was called Red's because the man who owned the store had red hair, I suppose. He was a big man with a gruff voice and I was a little scared of him as a child, especially when I was behind the candy counter with my little brown paper bag and my change clutched in my hand, trying to pick out the most candy and the best for the money. He would be patient to a point and then you'd hear him say, "You about done back there." Sometimes, I would say, "could you put it on the tab". Everyone had a tab and sometimes mom would send me with money to pay "on the tab".

Everything tasted so good then. I don't know if it was because I was a kid, but more likely because everything was really fresh. The "icebox" in our house was only a small space that could hold about one ice cube tray and a small carton of ice cream or maybe a pound of meat. This meant someone had to go to Red's or the By-Rite at the corner of Stone Church and National Roads every day or so. That was quite a walk from our house, but it was normal to walk farther than that. Buses ran every 20 minutes or so, but if you had to go anywhere in the Grove, you mostly walked or skipped beside your mom or dad, holding their hand. We lived with our grandparents and my grandmother was one of the "best cooks in the world". We had a roast every Sunday and it fed the 6 of us and there was still enough left over to have hot sandwiches with gravy on Monday and sandwiches to take to school for a few days...they must have been gigantic cuts of meat. Nanny's noodles were to die for and were laid out on linen towels to dry; enough to cover the entire large kitchen table. When she put them in her home-made chicken soup...ummm, it was "to die for". When we came home from school and opened the front door, the smells wafting around your head made your mouth water. She canned all summer and those homemade vegetables were better than anything that you could buy today canned or frozen...especially her combination of stewed bread and butter tomatoes and sweet corn. One thing that I was terrified of as a small child was the pressure cooker. I was afraid to walk by that "beast", constantly sputtering and steaming. My grandmother did a good job of convincing us about the dangers of us being burnt or the possibility that the thing could "blow-up". She didn't need to worry about that with me...I didn't need a bogeyman...as long as the pressure cooker was on the stove.

Things were so much simpler back then. A kid could spend an entire afternoon in the back yard and never run out of things to do. Imagination was king. We had a sandbox, swing set and a log cabin ordered from Kaufman's in Pittsburgh, and of course the backyard pool. If it rained we ran out and jumped around in the raindrops. I don't remember having as many "bad" storms as we have now, with the high winds and thunder and lightening...how about any of you? When we made chains out of clover we were queens covered with beautiful necklaces and bracelets and tiaras. We set imaginary plates out of flat stones and served up weeds as salads and mud pies as meat. We dressed up in mom's clothes and high heels and paraded around the back slab porch like ladies going out to fancy dances.

You knew that summer was coming to a close by the sounds of the cicadas and the shortening days and the trips to the stores to get school supplies and clothes. Summers always passed too quickly and you would soon be trading in your roller skates and swimming suits for shinny new lunchboxes and book satchels and dresses. Moms would see you off to school and heave a sigh of relief. But the school year flew quickly by and soon it would be summer again in Elm Grove.

Fifties Fashions

Fifties' fashions were unique and compared to today, very conservative. Let's start with hairstyles. Girl teens preferred a "bob", bangs, and/or a ponytail and really cool guys had a DA (duck's ass) greased to the hilt, but not many Woodsdale boys would be caught dead wearing their hair like that, as it usually signaled either a "hood" (short for hoodlum) or a drag racer-type. There was some drag-racing going on, but it was not "advertised". I can remember home perms (Tony) and now and then going to the beauty school above Murphy's for a haircut, but generally I preferred it long which was a real nuisance when swimming at Oglebay as there was no such thing as a hairdryer there.

Skirts were full in the 50's...the better for twirling on the dance floor. So a netted slip called a crinoline was required. (See above). My sisters and I shared several crinolines .... one that I remember best was multi-colored in about six layers. Drindle skirts were full, but had a hemline that came straight down. For school many of us wore straight skirts with wide belts...a required fashion accessory. Though there were poodle skirts in abundance, my sisters and I sported "Lady and the Tramp" skirts. My dad brought home these printed panels with the characters from the movie (two dogs) on them and you sewed them together into a skirt. Didn't set any trends that I know of.

Shoes? Well, if you were a girl kid you wore MaryJanes...black patent leather with a strap across the arch. Boys wore Buster Browns after sticking their feet in the fluoroscope at the shoe store to see through the shoes so Mom could tell how much growing room she was going to get out of THIS pair. As a girl teen, saddle shoes or penny loafers were required and if you opted for the loafers...you had to have two very shiny pennies to put in them. Shining saddle shoes was a bummer as the white would get on the black and vice versa....mine had corrective insoles because I tended to stand on the outside edge of my feet so these magic shoes (recommended by Dr. Maury) were hopefully going to keep me from getting bowl-legged. In eighth grade as an experiment, I wanted to see if I could start a fad so started wearing plaid, multicolored shoe laces and sure enough it took off...at least at Woodsdale Junior High.

Oh yes, and what did you wear with your penny loafers??? Bobby-socks! They had to be turned down a requisite number of times and some farout radicals "rolled" their socks down.

One fashion I really liked was wearing your father's old white shirts with the sleeves rolled up and the tails hanging out over jeans or "pedal pushers" . Many a teenage boy came to our house to get his pants "pegged". That meant sewing a seam down the legs to make them skin tight. As a result we often had a living room full of guys sitting on the couch with a blanket over their legs in just their underwear while we girls were upstairs at the sewing machine. The guys also used to sit in the bathtub (theirs, not ours) in a new pair of jeans to get them to shrink tighter to their skin.

Have I forgotten any? Do you have any to add? If so please post them! Just add a comment to this with your email address and I'll send you an invite to be a contributor.

More Sounds of Woodsdale

In my piece about the sounds of our neighborhood, I missed a few. One of my favorites was the sound of chains on tires rolling down our snow-covered street in winter....that was so musical. Summer brought the sound of locusts which could drowned out even a conversation on the porch. Another favorite was the call of "Allee, allee oxen free" from the kids playing tag or hide and go seek. Rakes gathering up leaves in their teeth was a good sound....power mowers??? no such thing it was a push mower usually attached to a teenager. Two sounds that bring back memories are the squeak of a grocery cart being pushed around a supermarket and the slamming of a screen door. There are also sounds you don't hear anymore like the flutter of a playing card attached to the wheel of a bike or even a "bike bell" warning people that you were coming. I guess if I had to choose my all time favorite summer sound it would be the crunching of the ice as the churn on the back porch produced the most delicious ice cream in the world.

Videos of Picnic now available

Dan Criswell's video of the Woodsdale Kids picnic is now available for $10. All proceeds will go to paying for the shelter for next year's picnic to be held on June 25, 2011. If you are interested in obtaining one contact me at katequinn5@verizon.net.

Bible School

Looking back on my theological education I am always amazed that Woodsdale School sent everyone across the street to Vance Church for a dose of Jesus once a week. Today there would be a major explosion if a public school even thought about such an indoctrination. For over thirty years I have been married to a little jewish girl from Richmond Virginia. Where did I get the notion to join the lost tribe? I think it came from Woodsdale. The jewish kids did not go to Vance Church to have their brains dry cleaned. They stayed back at school and studied. This may be a partial answer to why the jewish kids were always above average. As a trouble maker sometimes I went to Bible School, and sometimes I stayed back at school with the Old Testament gang.

From bible school I do remember a couple of incidents. It used to be painful to have to read bible verses under the direction of some old ladies over at Vance Church. I did have some help shirking my indoctrination by good old Charlie Jones. Every time we went over to the church one of the first things Charlie would do is throw my bible out the window. The old lady teaching the class, who I think was Jesus grandmother would say "Mike could you read the 23 Psalm". I would say "my bible fell out the window. Then grandma Jesus would say " Didn't your bible fall out the window last week?". I think this all had something to do with me being back with the Jewish kids, and it may end up explaining how I married a Jewish girl. In the end it does show the Lord works in strange ways.

Today I am happily an orthodox atheist. My early Christian education served me well. If the old ladies at the church knew what a fine man I turned out to be they would believe in miracles.

The Importance of Sidewalks

Judy reminded me of how important sidewalks were to us growing up. Along with roller skating (and even now I can feel the vibrations, created by the skates shuttering along the cement, traveling up my legs; worse, I can remember catching a toe, tripping, falling, and hitting hard. No broken bones, which is truly miraculous), we spent hours playing hopscotch. Using chalk to draw out the squares was a rarity; usually we found a rock to line out the squares. Then, selecting the "right" stone for tossing took a while: size, weight, dimension-- all were part of the process. Flat, medium weight, and not too large. We were allowed a few practice "pitches" before the competition began, and the games were fiercely contested. Hopscotch was such a marvelous way to improve your balance, as storklike, you bent down to retrieve the stone. At times you teetered and were unable to maintain your one-legged pose. Turn over as soon as your other foot touched down. No "do-overs." Determining whether your stone was actually in the square was the beginning of many arguments. I don't recall seeing many hopscotch boards on neighborhood sidewalks these days. Too low-tech, I guess. Like roller skating, hopscotch was primarily a girl's pasttime. Were boys banned, or was hopscotch just considered a "sissy" game?

Another sidewalk sport was jump rope. Although today's jumpers have moves we could never have imagined and probably not have executed, our double rope jumping with mulitiple people hopping in and out was impressive. Unlike today's high tech ropes, we generally utilized a piece of clothesline. Again, I don't recall many boys taking their turns as serious rope turners or jumpers. If they did offer to join the game, it meant they would either turn the rope at warp speed or jump in with someone and get both quickly entangled in the rope.

Jacks was another game played on the sidewalk along with various ball games that required chanting while bouncing the ball and clapping or turning ... was it onesie, twosie..? I know someone out there remembers.

(As I mentally revisit these summertime activities, I realize the dense canopy of the beautiful old trees that lined our Woodsdale neighborhood streets made these games much more enjoyable.)

Lastly, we all, boys and girls, used the sidewalks for bike riding. How I miss my three-speed English Raleigh with the "headlamp" lighted by energy generated by the front wheel. Of course, I had a bell to warn unsuspecting pedestrians of my approach. I rode everywhere, often over the Kenwood path to visit Colonel's for a wonderful wizard or Suzanne Garden and an afternoon of card games. The only caveat was that I had to be home by dark. When were the laws passed that disallowed sidewalk bike riding? For kids, it was so much safer.

So, here's to sidewalks.... "step on a crack-- break your mother's back."

Lee

The Picnic

Sorry, Woodsdale Kids, but I was too busy having fun to take any photos for the blogsite so I guess what happens in Oglebay stays in Oglebay. It was wonderful to see so many of you there and to get caught up on all the years apart. Special Thanks to Andy Barger who got the shelter for us....he had to leave early so many of you hardly got a chance to talk to him, but he got us the charcoal and started the BBQ and then had to take off for the airport.

The "after" party at the Alpha was fun as well. I need to pick a date for next year and am thinking that the weekend after the Fourth of July is probably a good one and if we keep it the same every year people may just get it stuck in their minds and come.

Special thanks to Jim Ault and Howdy Meagle who help organize people, RSVP lists, reminders, etc.

I am not sure when Dan Criswell's video will be ready, but I'll let you know. It should be a nice keepsake.

the picnic

I just wanted to say I had fun at the picnic , although I did not get to meet too many of you it is great that there was a nice turn out, As Kate mentioned I would like to have a get together at the Etz mansion in late summer early fall and get to meet all of you and hear the sled riding stories, everyone who finds out which house I have says the same thing "I used to sled ride down your hill! "

Old postcards of Woodsdale/Woodlawn and the Etz house

The first picture shows the house where we all used to sledride in the front yard/hill. The next picture is Poplar Ave with the Spillers house first on the right. The next is Maple Avenue with Kim Butler's house first on the right.

Oglebay Park -- Another Perspective

Oglebay
I have so many great memories of Oglebay Park. I’m not sure you could live in Wheeling and NOT have memories of Oglebay Park. I attended day camp there and I attended sports camp as well. I loved sports camp, except maybe for archery. I just could not get the hang of that bow, and had the bruises on my right arm from the string to show my lack of skill in that sport. I pretty much enjoyed everything else – tennis, golf, horseback riding, canoeing, and swimming.
When not in camp during the summer, I still spent a considerable number of hours at the pool at Oglebay. Were all those trips to the concession stand really made to get food, or were they staged to catch the eye of the caddies in “caddy corner?” I don’t believe that question even warrants an answer!
I remember Oglebay Park in the winter, too. Sled riding on the hills of the golf course, and ice skating on Schenk Lake are activities I fondly recall. How did our parents get us up to the park with all that snow on the ground? The thought never entered my mind before now, since I wasn’t the one who had to worry about getting there and back. I loved the ice skating, but I was always scared to death that I was going to skate to the end of the lake and slide into the drain (or whatever it is called). I even remember skating there at night.
I remember staying in the cabins with a group of girls. I wonder when those cabins were built. They are still there, along with newer cabins at the Speidel golf course (excuse me, that is the Speidel Golf Club). In the last few years, I have made some trips to Wheeling and stayed in the older cabins and the newer cabins.
I still go back to Oglebay Park on every trip I make to Wheeling. I am still awed by its beauty and all that it has to offer to people of all ages. It’s nice to go back and know that in spite of all the changes (do you know that they now have Segway tours?), so much is still the same. May it continue that way for generations to come.

Roller Skating

by Judy Meier Grace

Before Wheeling had the roller rink (by Linsly), with all of its neon lights, we roller skated up and down Poplar, Maple, and and Walnut Avenues. I think it was just a girl thing--I honestly don't remember. First, you had to have the right kind of shoes--Keds (there were no Nikes, etc.) didn't work, because the skates wouldn't attach. The shoes had to have a good sole so that the skates could be tightened over them. Then the ever-important skate key went around the neck on a string, just in case the skates needed to be tightened while "on the road." Sidewalks were divided at 2-3' intervals. Sometimes a section had to be replaced, so the areas were of different textures and colors. Some were cracked, some had shifted. A skater knew her sidewalks and where there was smooth sailing. Most of us had bandaged knees at some time or other. And at 9 Poplar, we were not allowed to skate on Sundays.

Sounds and Smells of Woodsdale

One of the best smells in the whole world was the air after a summer rain storm. It was rare in Woodsdale in the 50's to smell things like families barbequing in the backyard, but other smells were there....especially in the spring and fall. In spring you could smell the earth coming back to life and things blooming. In fall, you could smell mothers and grandmothers canning the smells of summer for a winter day...tomatoes, peaches, beans and more. A man on upper Poplar told me his favorite smell was mothers making applebutter another said it was the smell of the grass after mowing.

Our childhoods in Woodsdale were full of sounds as well. The synagogue cantor, Mr. Rubenstein practicing for Sabbath prayer. Bill Smoot doing an operatic aria. Children taking piano lessons. Mothers calling kids home for dinner. Dogs barking. Girls chanting as they jumped rope. Kids on pogo sticks going boing, boing, boing. The sound of skates on the sidewalk. Vincent the vegetable man's weighing pan swinging in his truck as he came up the street. I can't recall any loud "record players" or radios...best you could do was a transistor in your pocket while washing the family car. And as the steetlights came on, you would hear parents calling their kids home and kids, being kids saying..."just one more game Puleeeeese". In the summer, late at night you could sometimes hear the murmur of people talking on their porches.

Safe and sane....no sirens, shots ringing out, or people being raped or murdered...just the sounds and smells of normalcy. Tell me, what smells and sounds do you remember?

Ban Screaming Children

Last evening as I sat on my back porch reading, the neighbor's boy who is about 4 was playing with a little girl of about the same age. Every few minutes, the girl would let out a blood curdling scream...I have noticed among little girls, that this is the norm...somewhere along the way, someone gave them the notion that that is a "feminine" thing to do. I used to have a family across the street from me that had three girls that screamed constantly....and one was a real tomboy!

In Woodsdale, if a girl had screamed that way while playing, it would have been assumed that she was being murdered and every mother in the area would have come running. As a child, I don't recall even once playing with another girl and having her scream at the top of her lungs....we would have thought that pretty aberrant behavior! And speaking of noise, I can't remember anyone ever telling us we were making too much noise as we played....it was the background music of Woodsdale.

Parents and grandparents....PLEASE teach little girls that it is possible to have fun WITHOUT screaming!!!!

Security!

I don't know about your house, but ours was never locked. I never once saw a door key in all the time we lived in Woodsdale. I guess with so many kids coming and going at all hours, my parents figured "what the heck, why lock it". Since I had never heard of a burglary or break-in in the whole neighborhood, this made sense to me.
But as a result, we used to come downstairs in the morning and often find people sleeping on the couches. Luckily, they were people we knew...usually kids who had gotten into "the spirits' of fun, and were scared to go home. Or sometimes it was friends of one of my siblings from out of town who just needed a place to crash. Whatever the reason, people knew the door was never locked and they were welcome. My mother would always say, "Do your parents know you are here?" and she would naively believe whatever answer she got.
Usually someone in the family could identify the person in question so we just never worried about it. Now everytime I hear one of those public service annoucements about a "safe house" for children needing refuge...I get a mental picture of bodies on the couches. Wasn't it nice to grow up in a neighborhood that was so trusting and crime-free that you could leave doors unlocked?

At The Hop

This is really a footnote to Judy Meier Grace’s article in which she mentioned dance parties in rec-rooms. I knew I had a couple of old pics. I believe these are from 5th and/or 6th grade. I know that it is not 7th grade because Barbara Bailey cut off her pig tails in 7th grade, and I was finally the same height as Pam Taylor. We should try to contact some of these “Woodsdale Kids” to include them all in the blog. It would be fun establish a picture album associated with all the stories.

Here are some memories from a party at Woody Paull’s house and another one at Susie Rogers’. I hope I identified everyone correctly.

Front L-R: Andy Bates (hidden), Barbara Bailey, Randy Smith, Woody Paull, George Doughty, Howdy Meagle, Bobbie Ross(hidden), Jim Byrum, Pam Taylor, Susie Rogers, Nancy Rogers
Back Corner L-R: Peggy Swart and Marsha Montgomery.

L-R: Nancy Rogers & Randy Smith; Jim Byrum & Barbara Bailey; Susie Rogers & Andy Bates; Pam Taylor & Howdy Meagle

Front Row: Susie Rogers, Cathy Franklin, Rod Otto, Jim Ault, Jim Byrum, Barbara Bailey, Andy Bates, Nancy Parker, Sherry Rosen
Second Row: Randy Smith, Peggy Swart, George Doughty, Nancy Rogers, Bobbie Ross, Barbara Weirick, Marsha Montgomery, Mike Clark, Woody Paull
Back Row: Janis Krogel, Howdy Meagle, Pam Taylor, Howard Kelly, Ann Brown, Stanley Powell

Except at Halloween when we got invaded by kids from Bridgeport and East Wheeling, there didn't seem to be a lot of strangers in our neighborhood. If someone new moved in EVERYONE couldn't wait to see what ages their kids were, etc. Though we didn't have any block parties, parents seemed to know each other and everyone was respectful of each other's privacy.

I remember being asked to go over to Rubenstein's to light their stove on the Sabbath as they were Orthodox and unable. Stuart Rubenstein had the biggest comic collection in the area so it was good to stay on his good side. He was afraid to stay alone in the house and used to give one of my sisters his allowance to stay with him when his parents went out. By all reports his only interest was reading every volume of the encyclopedia.

Another memory that popped into my head today was making dolls out of the hollyhocks that grew in the alley...the flowers made a beautiful skirt for a clothespin with a drawn-on face. Also nipping off the ends of the honeysuckle and tasting the nectar was a treat...I liked the smell of it. But I was NOT a fan of pulling wings off lightning bugs and making necklaces and rings....that was too yucky for me....now putting them in a jar with holes in the top and bringing them inside to watch from your bed was a different thing. The sound of cicadas so loud you could hardly hear each other talking on the front porch was weird and if they stopped it was a bad omen.

I learned early that bugs always bite more when there is going to be a big storm. This came in handy one summer when my sister Amy and I were working in a souvenier shop on the boardwalk in Asbury Park. The shop was open on two sides and and the ocean was within 60 ft of us. When the bugs started biting we warned the owner that we were about to have a really big storm and he laughed it off with a comment about "you West Virginia girls don't know anything". A few minutes later a wind storm blew all his souvenier hats down the boardwalk and we were laughing so hard we did not even try to help him retrieve them. Seeing lightning over the ocean is spectacular and I remember how it looked even to this day.

There were secrets in our neighborhood too. Who knew that the popsicle man sold fireworks....not me! What secrets did you learn about Woodsdale only after you moved away or grew up?

The Snake Pit

The following information about Oglebay's Snake Pit was taken from an article that Mr. Porter (of Triadelphia High fame) wrote for the State Teachers' Journal in 1950:
In 1949, 1110 sixth grade students from Ohio County visited the nature center at Oglebay. "The aim of this first hand study was to teach these children what nature is and the advantages of a knowledge of nature; recognition of some of the common amphibians and reptiles of this area; to know at sight the poisonous reptiles and to be prepared to give first aid in case of snake bite; to learn something about the common game and fur-bearing animals, and the economic importance of mammals; to distinguish trees from shrubs and herbs, and to learn the trees of this region."
He went on to write, "The Nature Museum is housed in a semi-circular buiding surrounding a silo that has been converted into a medieval story-telling tower. Designed to acquaint people with the common animals of the area, the museum also serves as a convenient center for the dissemination of nature information."
"Fourteen cages, a turtle pit, a barnyard zoo, and a snake pit serve for the shelters for the animals being exhibited. A wooden railing protects the animals and keeps people a safe distance from the cages."
"Animals common to this part of the state and caged at the museum-zoo are chipmunks, barn owls, bobwhite quail, woodchuck, gray squirrels, red squirrels, raccoons, cottontail rabbits, skunks, gray foxes, two mink , and a fawn."
"Only nonpoisonous snakes are kept in the pit. Among these are the smooth green snake, milk snake, pilot black snake, queen water snake, common water snake, and garter snake."
"Also featured [in the museum] are aquaria, terraria, local insects, a few mammal skins, serveral deer heads, one moose and two elk heads. Common minerals and a vertical section of an oil well showing the geology of this section are also on exhibit."
"Yes, Oglebay museum and zoo are a valuable aid in providing first hand information for classes in nature study and biology."

Who knew? the seemingly heartless, infinitely cynical Mr. Porter had a love of nature?

Another article in the Journal in April 1951 gave survival secrets in what to do when the atomic bomb fell on your school. The comments in parentheses of course, are mine:

1. Try to get shielded (yea, right)
2. Drop Flat on Ground or Floor (this way you have less distance to fall when you die)
3. Bury Your Face in Your Arms (this is so you don't see your teacher becoming hysterical)
4. Don't Rush Outside Right After a Bombing (there won't be anything left to see anyway and you won't be around to see it)
5. Don't Take Chances with Food or Water (if you should survive you will die from eating or drinking!)
6. Don't Start Rumors (like we should do away with all bombs)

At Woodsdale I can remember being taught to hide under desks then later we were taught to line up along the lockers in the upstairs hallways. Glad those days are over, there is nothing like scaring children to the point of nightmares.

You are free to move around the neighborhood!

It is no wonder that our generation travelled all around the world when we were older. We learned the meaning of freedom and independence at a very early age in Woodsdale.
My earliest memories of growing up in Woodsdale involve freedom….freedom to move around the neighborhood without difficulty or overt adult supervision. Times were certainly different then…

Every day except Sunday, the streets filled up with kids. My Mother would routinely force me out of the house with the simple command, “Go outside! You need to get some fresh air.” I apparently needed a great deal of “fresh air” because I spent the entire summer outside. If you weren’t out by 8 a.m. or so, your friends would come to the house calling your name to “come out and play!” The only real requirement was that I had to stay within calling distance or “ear-shot”, and to come home by dinnertime. I can still hear my Mother calling me from our back porch when it was time to come home to eat. Dinnertime was 6 O’clock on the dot at my house. Then it was back outside until the street lights came on.

My first real experience with freedom came when I got my first bicycle on my 6th birthday. My older sisters, Helen and Stell, taught me how to ride. My parents devised strict boundaries. “You can only ride on the sidewalk on our side of Poplar and in the alley between Poplar and Edgewood. No crossing any street.” No problem! That was plenty of roaming space for a 6 year-old. There were four or five boys whose houses shared the alleyway. Most of the girls in the neighborhood lived on Lower Poplar, Lower Maple, and Walnut; therefore, “out of sight and mind.” To a six year old boy at the time, that was not necessarily an objectionable limitation.

I remember roaming from backyard to back yard. Amazingly everyone’s back yard was different, so we rarely got bored. If it rained, we moved to the porches, and out came the board and card games. The mothers of the neighborhood had a network of sorts to keep track of where we were at all times. That is the only way I can explain that no matter whose back yard we were playing in at lunchtime, that mom miraculously appeared with lunch prepared for all us. After lunch we went right back to playing dodge ball, red rover, waffle-ball, mumbley-peg, crazy 8’s, and a strange word game that involved guessing cigarette advertising slogans. For example…”LSMFT”: “Lucky Strike means fine tobacco.” Remember, smoking had not yet been declared a killer. Now you try one. “WTGLACS.”

By the time I was in 3rd grade my boundaries had been expanded to include St. John’s Episcopal Church on Heiskell. The adjacent field had become the neighborhood baseball diamond. The field even had a backstop that some of the dad’s had built to protect the neighboring houses from serious damage. The ball field became the gathering place for all the boys in the neighborhood to learn how to play baseball and football. It is also the first time and place that the boys began to notice that there were girls in the neighborhood. The girls would spend hours practicing cheerleading routines. It all seemed quite natural.

In due course we graduated from St. John’s “field of little dreams” to the official Little League baseball park across National Road. From 4th grade to 8th grade I spent most of those long beautiful summer days playing baseball and penny black jack at the baseball field in Pleasanton, home to the infamous Pike Cubs. Eventually, my friends and I could go just about wherever our bikes, energy, and time available would take us. We thought nothing of riding our bikes after a morning of baseball to Wheeling Park to swim. Believe or not we even rode up to Oglebay Park every now and then. It was tough going up the hill, but absolutely exhilarating riding back down.

My well-travelled bicycle ended up in the basement when I got my driver’s license. True to form, my parent’s assigned boundaries. “You may only drive in Wheeling. You may not cross the river.” No problem! That was plenty of roaming space for a 16 year-old.

Dances, Oglebay, the Bookmobile, the Pirates

Woodsdale dances--so much fun! I also remember going to a Boy Scout dance at St. John's. It was held in the basement.
Oglebay Day Camp was great. There was also Sports Camp when we got older. In the morning we rotated tennis, golf, horseback riding, and boating. We swam each afternoon. I also remember those red busses. Our bus driver looked like Ricky Nelson. All of the girls had a crush on him. At some point in my youth, Glessner Auditorium was added to Wilson Lodge. A sunken ballroom--imagine!
My favorite book from the bookmobile was Lazy Liza Lizard. I'm not sure it's politically correct these days. I actually found one on E Bay and bought it. There were also these books about famous Americans, and all of the pictures in them were silhouettes.
My grandmother and father were avid Pirate fans. I feel so fortunate to have seen Roberto Clemente play baseball. I used to stay up and listen to Bob Prince cover the games. He'd describe a barely foul ball as "closer than fuzz on a tick's ear." The "Bucs" had a few great seasons; I was a sophomore when they were NL champs and played the Yankees in the World Series. In our sixth-period biology class with Bugsy Bullard, we were told "absolutely no radios in class." Game 7,tied, bottom of the ninth: 2-1 pitch to Mazeroski (born in Wheeling)--he slams it over Yogi Berra's head and the left-field fence for the win. All the classrooms erupted in cheers (interesting since we weren't listening). We had a portrait of Lydia Boggs Shepherd Cruger over our sofa. (Lydia and her husband helped to get the National Road pass through Wheeling, and she is an ancestor.) Anyway, there was what looked like a nameplate at the bottom of the painting. Upon closer inspection, one would see that it was really a little sticker that said "Beat 'em Bucs!"

Dancing the night away

At this time of year, it's common for us "girls" to think back to our proms and other formal dances that seemed to be routine occurrences during our school years. This picture, taken in either 1959 or 1960 in the Williams' living room, preceded our going out to eat before the Linsly Military Ball. I can still remember Wick's shy invitation following our meeting up at Woodsdale School where I was hitting (slamming) tennis balls against the side of the building. I was either completing fifth or sixth grade. Going to a dance was about the farthest thing from my mind, especially since I had just broken an upper window. But when Wick asked, I answered yes with such alacrity that even I was surprised. Forget parental consent. My mother was dumfounded and my father bemused, but both consented. Then began the preparations. My hair presented no problem since it was cut Pixie-short and provided no options for a "do." A dress, on the other hand, was THE PROBLEM. However, Barbara Bailey, a beautiful veteran of many formal dances, and her mother found a suitable dress, and with a few minor adjustments, primarily made in the torso...., I became Cinderella. I traded in my shorts, sleevless shirt, and sneakers for a full-length, layered aqua tulle gown with white flats. A beautiful corsage and white gloves completed the ensemble, and I was whisked off to an unforgettable evening where my dance card (actually a little orange book in which young lads signed up for dances-- which I still have) was almost full. Fortunately, both Wick and I had taken ballroom dancing from Louella Parsons (correct name?), so I think we did rather well. Wick, Milt, and Don looked so handsome in their uniforms. Although I went to several balls years later, this first experience will always be the most memorable.

What a Mecca Woodsdale Was!

I can't recall a day that I made the Edgewood, Walnut, Poplar and Maple route on my bike and didn't find someone to play with. I hung around with Rod Otto on Edgewood, Dick Shaffer and, later, Grant Hopkins on Walnut. Bruce McVey and Jimmy Jackson had parties...kissing parties. Post Office was big and Wheeling was too cosmopolitan to play Spin the Bottle and with the sophisticated Donn Caldwell counting down the new Top 40 every Friday...we didn't dare. What a beautiful baby blue Cadillac Donn had. How did Bobby Vinton get out of that one?

My first real remembrances of Woodsdale were before Miss Witten's first grade class in 1953. Woodsdale's playground was everything. It was where I watched Jimmy Jackson's older brother hit baseballs against the wall off Vance Church.. Where Wilson Wanner who lived below Corliss Terrace on Park Road taught me how to ride a bike. Elizabeth Derry was not only first in our class every year along with Suzanne Quinn but she could shoot the lights out of a basketball. Lee Frizzell came to down and outran all the boys and outprettied most of the girls. Woodsdale was where I caught a softball in my solar plexus and passed out before my faced slammed into the playground's asphalt. My, brother, Dana, took me to Mrs Doughty's 2^nd grade class room and she fixed me up. Mary Beth was in the room and I had a crush on her...1954.

Miss Holderman was the fourth grade teacher and all the boys wanted to walk her home up the alley by Vance. Her sister taught at Edgington Lane and when for some reason I was picked to recite a poem in Woodsdale's Poetry Contest, I practiced over there. Phil Polack won the contest and he was awesome. George Doughty who recited the Lord's Prayer got second...geesh. I'm not sure who the judges were but how are you not going to vote for a teacher's son who recites the Lord's Prayer? I recited “My Granny Lost Her Spectacles” and was last and had to wear a suit to school.

Mr. Goddard was the nicest person when I worked at Oglebay Park. I kept hearing all these bad things about him at Woodsdale but he couldn't have been friendlier. And it wasn't because he put Rod Otto and me on the 7^th & 8^th grade basketball team when we were in the 6^th. Mr. Goddard needed bodies. Rod was good and played a lot. I rode the pine but I had my picture in the paper when I substituted for Frank Carney called “The Long and Short of It”. I got to dance with the 7^th & 8^th grade cheerleaders during the noon dance in Woodsdale's gym. They were a head taller.

Vance Church held “King's Daughter's Dances” and my version of the twist didn't elicit a lot of interest on 'Ladies Choice' so I danced with Bobby Gregg. I led. On occasion though, I would walk someone through the park afterwards to Elby's with “La Bamba” and “Summertime Blues” echoing in the hills. Life was good living in Woodsdale...very good.

Johnny Bliss was my next door neighbor on Corliss Terrace and through Woodsdale Kids we have reconnected. I stayed in his awesomely decorated house in Elm Grove last month when my brothers, David and Dana, and I had a reunion. In grade school, I was the liaison between John and Ann Spillars. I, of course, never looked at the notes but wished they had written something with more sizzle then...'Meet you at 4'. John is a talent. At ten years old, he created a radio receiver called a crystal set whose power came from radio waves from a long antenna and not a battery. We would listen to Donn Caldwell. No slouch myself, I hooked up two cans and a string between John's bedroom and mine. We grew bored talking after five minutes and, regrettably, our mothers caught us mooning each other.

Thank you, Kathleen, for 'Woodsdale Kids

the Yoyo Man and teachers

The mention of the Pike Pharmacy reminded me of going over there after school for a cherry phosphate, or a cherry smash. If you wanted a table you had to hustle because there were only 3 or so tables in the back. Most just hung around the front of the store. Every once in a while the "yoyo man" would drop by. He would do tricks with the yoyo and had all different colors and designs carved into them. We would all aspire to be yoyoists for a few days.

I still remember all of my teachers at Woodsdale. In first grade I had Miss Whitten. She was a new teacher but looked old (probably around 40!). In second grade almost everyone had Mrs. Johnson but I got Mrs. Dunn. The room was upstairs and was a split class, if I remember correctly. Third grade--Mrs. Wolfe, Fourth grade--Miss Holderman, Fifth--Miss Fritz, Sixth--Mrs. Doughty.
By seventh grade we had arrived. Which room would be home base: 7-1 (Mrs. Rollins),7-2(Mrs. Cowl), or 7-3 (Mr. Goddard). Eighth grade had 8-1 (Mr. Burgess), 8-2 Miss Pell, and 8-3 Miss Ball.

Mrs. Rollins taught literature, p.e. and was the librarian. I remember one time we were assigned to memorize a poem and nobody did it. Mrs. Rollins said, "How can you learn the word to 'Witch Doctor' and not be able to memorize a poem!" She was talking about oo--ee--oo-aa-aa--ting tans walla walla bing bang. Mrs. Cowl taught music and spelling and art. Mr. Goddard coached and taught science.
Mr. Burgess taught math, Miss Pell was history and geography, and beloved Miss Ball taught most of us all the English we ever needed to know. We would line up in single file to change classses. We were so obedient but enjoyed passing the lines to see friends and flirt with the old eighth graders. More memories forthcoming@

Bookmobile

I'm not really sure what year this photo was taken but I would say the late 40's or early 50's. The bookmobile is now a van and only goes to playgrounds. There was nothing in the world as wonderful as books coming to you practically at your doorstep. And to think that kids today have to be bribed to read during the summer or worse yet ASSIGNED reading!

Summertime and the Livin’ Was Easy…

Even though I was one of those kids who loved school, I always looked forward to summer and its many surprises. The sights, the sounds, the feel, the smell of summer….Growing up in the neighborhoods of Woodsdale, I think we had a freedom that few kids in other ‘burbs were allowed. Curfews were flexible, and we ran wild through the streets. As part of the Meagle Gang, which I think included the fearsome Mary Wheat with whom I got along, I was involved in some nefarious activites. (H.. you may not have considered yourself the "Don" of the Maple Ave. Mafia, but we all did.) However, from at least first grade until junior high, many of my summer days were structured as I went to Oglebay Day Camp, which I would rate as one of the best camps around, public or private. A full-size Wheeling bus would pick us up outside Woodsdale School on Maple Avenue. Clarke Ridgway and others would join me as we walked, unescorted by adults, from upper Maple to the pick-up point several blocks away. Despite the short ride, we filled the time with rollicking songs like “Green Grow the Rushes, Ho” until we reached the campground in the Park. Part of my memories of those times involve heading to the pool for morning swim lessons. There in the cold, early morning air we would earnestly practice the side stroke or the breast stroke on the slatted wooden benches before hitting the frigid water. In order to progress to various levels of proficiency, you had to pass certain tests. One of the tests was floating on your back. Being a really skinny kid in those days, I would begin to float and within seconds sink like a stone. I discovered that if I occasionally “sculled” with my hands, I could stay buoyant long enough to pass.

Later in the day there were games like basketball or dodge ball and crafts where I created hammered copper pictures, tiled ashtrays, tooled leather items, and glued-together popsicle stick pencil holders. I can’t imagine where those treasures are today. Surely my mother wouldn’t have thrown them away? Trips to the Story Tower were a highlight. The counselors always seemed to tell ghost stories that would scare the willies out of us. Of course, the snake pit was a favorite of mine; at some point I was allowed to climb down into it and someone snapped a picture of me draped in reptiles (training for the Fulton Carnival in case nothing else panned out later in life). We went on frequent nature hikes and sat around a campfire near the beginning of one of the trails.

At the end of the camp day, there was plenty of time and daylight to ride bikes on the sidewalk, play hopscotch, jump rope, play baseball, football, or basketball, and later organize Hide and Seek or Mother May I while our parents sat out on the front porches talking to neighbors on either side or across the street, their conversations often drowned out by the din of the locusts. I can still feel the oppressive heat of some of those nights when, after going to bed, even the weight of a sheet was too much. The large attic fan did little to cool down the bedroom my sister and I shared.

Certain vehicles played a big part in our summertime experiences. Once a week the Bookmobile parked at the end of lower Poplar and ___ (I can’t remember the cross street). A voracious reader, I would check out as many books as allowed. Often, was it daily? the ice cream truck could be heard a block away, and we all hotfooted it home for change. Generally, I bought sky blue popsicles. Vinny would drive through the neighborhood as well with lovely fresh vegetables. Even though he had tomatoes, my dad and Mr. Ridgway seemed to have a competition as to who could grow the biggest, best tomatoes and supply the street with their bountiful crop. Both of them planted their seedlings against the garages in the alley, and both were very successful. Even when we moved to Massachusetts in 1966, my dad would continue to raise tomatoes.

Besides tomatoes, we all loved corn and would go out the creek to a farm and buy what the farmer said was “pig” corn because it was underdeveloped in his opinion. My mother was insistent that the small kernels were sweeter, and to this day, I still look for that type of corn. Although I was not a watermelon lover, some of us did "liberate" those Kroger melons stacked outside the store on National Road. Recently I read on Facebook that there were others who engaged in the same activity. Kroger's must have suffered a loss on watermelon sales.

Summer also meant our annual circus at Larry Curry’s house next door to the Ridgway’s. Today we probably would have auditioned for “America’s Got Talent,” but then we tortured our family and neighbors, forcing them to pay for the privilege of watching us make total fools of ourselves. Of course, for a price, we did provide lemonade so they didn’t succumb to heatstroke during the performances. We set up chairs, curtained off areas, and had a table for selling tickets. I can’t remember the specific “acts,” but I know that Larry’s unusual swing set was involved in one of the numbers which mimicked a trapeze stunt, and there was always the perfunctory magic trick or two. I think we built a human pyramid, and I may have completely embarrassed myself by doing a ballet number.

Perhaps the most anticipated event in our neighborhood was the Strawberry Festival just up the street at St. John’s. The adults probably enjoyed the strawberry shortcake, but I think we kids liked the games. Before and after the festival the ballfield in the church yard was the scene of many hotly contested baseball games. Of course, my sister may not remember that space too fondly since, while acting as catcher, she was hit in the mouth by a baseball bat.

Basketball hoops in the various alleys were frequent sites for games of HORSE, and plastic pools could be seen in the backyards throughout the neighborhood. No slip 'n slides back then but plenty of yard sprinklers through which we would run.

All-in-all, summers in Woodsdale were idyllic.

You are the light of my life

On two occasions the light of my life was tens of thousands of volts. My first experience I can recall was on the typical insane camping trip our family took. In the mountains at Horseshoe Bend State Park the day had gone by pleasantly. Late in the afternoon we set up my fathers newest invention. In some flash of brilliance my father came up with the idea you could make a huge tent out of a parachute. All you had to do was get the parachute water proofed. Now with your water proof parachute you simply throw a line high into some tall tree. With people spread everywhere, and probably somewhere in the mix a automatic handgun. Since sometimes my older sisters would be the only adults around at night they were left with a gun. There is no better reason I can think of for gun control. No sooner did we start to sleep than one of the worst mountain thunderstorms imaginable hit. It was immediately evident there was not one once of waterproofing in that parachute. As we became soaked the need to move to shelter became apparent. So we packed everything we could in a metal car top carrier and headed for a picnic shelter about a hundred yards across an open field. For some reason at that time I had a broken wrist. On my arm was a steel cast to hold my wrist in place. I recall four of us walking across the field with a steel car top carrier and a metal wrist cap in a terrible lightening storm saying strike me dead Jeesus. About half way across the field a bolt of lightening came right at us. It was very strange. On the end of the bolt was what looked like a glowing florescent green soft ball. For no known reason it stopped in mid air before it hit us. We made it to the shelter and spent the night. The next day there were stories that someone had been killed nearby in the storm.

Many years later I was deep in the boonies in Ritchie county with my brother Colin. I must have been old enough to drive. A bad storm came up and I decided to wait it out before heading down the dirt road. As Colin and I sat on the couch on the front porch a bolt of lightening hit the phone line less than twelve feet away. To this day I can distinctly remember what it looked like. The bolt came horizontally out of the wall. It appeared like a glass tube about eight inches in diameter filled with cotton balls. The storm subsided and I headed to Wheeling. Later I talked to Colin and he said lightening hit the phone two more times after I left. Strangely nothing was damaged. Later it was reported the phone line which ran a mile down the valley under ground was improperly grounded. A lighting rod one mile long lead to our farm house.

Since those days I have been sailing in many lightening storms. I have never enjoyed it. Once while sailing in a race a lightening bolt went across the sky. A sailor in a competing boat yelled up at the sky " You missed". The next bolt hit his boat. There was no damage, but he was more respectful.

Summer of the Front Porch Swing

Summers at 26 Poplar usually found me on the front porch swing - rain or shine - with a book. Usually, Nancy Drew was my first choice or something from the bookmobile. There were some nice interruptions; watching neighbors or Rex chase a car, mail from Wilbur, waiting for the ice cream truck, occasionally see Pete Grubb on his big blue motorcycle with American flags, or watching my brothers and our neighborhood friends get into mischief of some kind.
Later (at about 12 yrs.) I watched from the roof top outside the attic window. This was a much better place for spying. I thought that I was up there in my bathingsuit getting a tan out of sight, but I'm sure more than one adult let my mother know that I was there.
Summers seemed to go by so slowly! Such a leisurely pastime with nothing in particular to do. Summer nights were also the absolute best! Playing games in the neighborhood until the street lights came on and then if we were lucky, we'd get to sleep out on someone's porch.
I currently don't have a wrap around porch on my house or a swing or a neighborhood anything like the one in Woodsdale in the 60's, wish that I did. But then I think I would need a time machine to make it perfect.

Big Elby's

Yes, children there was a Big Boy's. No Rax, Wendy's, Burger King and worst of all NO McDonalds. I remember well when Elby's Big Boy opened where Perkins is now probably about 1958 or 59. My grandfather LOVED it and would call up and order DOZENS of Big Boy burgers, then get on the phone, call the Quinnery and say "I've got Big Elby's over here"! He only lived two houses away so we were off and running.

At first they had speakers like the drive in where you could order from your car and then a girl would bring your order to the car, hook a tray to your open window and leave your food. That was pretty cool. By the time I was in high school, Elby's became THE place to see and be seen. You had to hang out there in a car and see who was with whom and what they were driving. Many a drag race was arranged there. After every football game everyone gathered inside and table hopped. Each table had a jukebox selection machine and I can remember sitting there late at night playing Johnny Mathis songs and waiting for a ride to Morgantown to visit university guys (they knew how to party better than high school guys).

The best sandwich on the menu was the Slim Jim...ham and pickles and whatnot... DELICIOUS and the strawberry pie was to die for.

Grandma Drove a Woody

My dear old Granny drove a car sort of like the one shown here. It was the first "station wagon" I ever saw. In it we would go exciting places...like that far away village called Elm Grove. To a Woodsdale Kid distance was strange. Elm Grove was a different town, Pittsburgh was a galaxy far, far away, and going to the "seashore" took two days of driving with an overnite stop. Wait a minute...we kids weren't driving, so it must have been the adults who had a strange conception of time and distance! Yes, that's it...anything outside our neighborhood was a "trip" as in a trip to town. One of the places that Grandad took us was Sunset Pool. On hot summer days we would get in the woody and take off for Sunset. I don't know why he preferred that pool to Oglebay...both were just as wet, but all of us would pile in and off we would go.

Woodsdale Kids probably first saw a supermarket when they traveled to Elm Grove to the old A & P store which was located about where McDonalds is now. I can remember my mother grinding her own coffee beans and to this day I don't drink coffee because I hated the smell. But oh the plentitude! the number of items one could buy was gynormous compared to our usual store Johnson's on Heiskell Avenue. I think I prefered Johnson's though the aisles were tight and the goods were limited it was "home". There were benefits to going to Elm Grove though....my mother believed that Islay's klondike bars and Canada Dry gingerale could cure any ailment a child could come up with...and she kept a stock on hand. It seemed strange to me that a store that sold ice cream would also sell ham salad, but hey the universe is crazy, eh? Eventually the Kroger store moved from next to "the drug store" (Pike Pharmacy) to a MUCH bigger store where CVS pharmacy is now on the National Road so Krogers became "our" supermarket. I loved the way they stacked the watermelons outside and left them there all night. As a teen I and some girlfriends "borrowed" some. Hiding them beneath a trenchcoat and looking very pregnant, we dashed barefoot across National Road, thru Woodsdale Park and home for a feast. Oh, the thrill and excitement of a late night adventure ...sure made that melon taste good.

Woodsdale Kids grew up with their parents calling the refrigerator the "ice box". Kids today probably don't understand why we say "hang up" when referring to a phone call instead of "push end". I can still remember our first phone number Woodsdale 1431 and then later it became Cedar 232-3663. Of course the phones were rotary dial not push button. Who else has Woodsdale memories of funny terms that longer make sense today? Please share them.