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