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.

The Other Side of Mrs. Wood

Mrs. Wood was a tough old bird. She had a mean streak that was the basis for many rumors. I remember hearing stories of her intolerance first hand from my older sister. So, I had been listening to tales about 5th grade for quite some time. Unfortunately, Wood was the only 5th grade teacher at the time I entered the 5th grade. I had no other option. That was the longest year I spent at Woodsdale.

From my ten year old viewpoint, Mrs. Wood was definitely the teacher from "Hell" especially when compared with having spent the preceding year with the lovely Miss Holderman, the 4th grade teacher in the adjacent classroom.

At the time 1st grade through 5th grade classrooms were on the first floor. Mrs. Wood’s classroom was right in the middle of the hallway with the school bulletin board on her outside wall. It was a high traffic area. Under that bulletin board was a hardwood bench seat. I hated that seat.

One of Mrs. Wood’s favorite punishments was to have a "naughty" student sit on that bench so that all the other students could see and know that you were being punished for something you did in her class. I remembered one instance when I got banished to the hall. Ed Bachmann farted and Andy Bates and I couldn’t stop laughing. Mrs. Wood kept asking us why we were laughing. Andy and I refused to rat on Ed. We just couldn’t seem to stop laughing. Mrs. Wood said something like “Mr. Meagle! Mr. Bates! If you two will not stop disrupting the class, maybe you would like to spend the rest of the class out in the hall.” And out we went.

I do not remember any other teacher employing this form of punishment. It was quite traumatic. I remember the humiliation as students joked and said snide things when they walked by. We all know how cruel kids can be at this age. It got so bad with a few of us that our parents went as a group to complain to Mr. Hile. As I recollect, Principal Hile ended this practice of public humiliation. Hile had his own methods of discipline, but that’s another story.

I have many fond memories of my time at Woodsdale School, but 5th grade was not one of them. My apologies to Mrs. Wood; it must have been very hard to be judged so harshly by 10 year olds year after year. Maybe that is the reason she was wound rather tightly.

Santa Claus lived in Woodsdale

Growing up as a “Woodsdale Kid” had many benefits, not the least of which was that Santa Claus lived in the neighborhood too.

The first memory I have of Santa Claus is sitting in my living room with my Mother and two sisters listening to the radio just before dinnertime the last two weeks or so before Christmas. There were no TV stations in Wheeling in 1951. Local radio station WWVA broadcast a “live” program each afternoon on which Santa read letters from children all over the Ohio Valley. I remember listening every day for that wonderful moment of pure excitement when the Jolly Ole Elf said something like…”And now my little apple dumplings, here is a letter from little Howdy Meagle in Woodsdale who says that he wants…..” It’s hard to believe a more exciting moment for a five year old than to hear firsthand from Santa Claus, himself, that he got your letter. The only other moment of equal exhilaration was when my Dad pulled back the big oak doors to our living room on Christmas morning to reveal the greatest tree ever made…our Christmas tree! And, by golly, Santa got all the presents right. It was truly a wonderful life for a five year old Woodsdale kid. Nevertheless, in two short years everything would change.

When I was seven, my sisters were teenagers and were always involved with some activities after school. So, it was just my Mother and I sitting by the radio to wait for Santa to read my letter. One of the most notable qualities of this “radio” Santa was his laugh. It was not really a “Ho-Ho-Ho” in a phonetic sense. It always started rather softly and quickly reached a crescendo of what was truly a belly laugh. This particular year Santa sounded like he had a cold, a very bad cold. Santa’s laugh had that raspy sound like when a cold drops into your lungs. Santa coughed a couple of times on the air. (Remember these programs were done “live”.) Hey! I knew that cough. Where had I heard that cough before? Then it donned on me that my Dad coughed just like that.

That night, when my Dad came home after work, I didn’t have to wait long for confirmation of my suspicions. As soon as Dad coughed, I knew the truth. No doubt about it when he coughed again. I mustered all the courage that I could, and confronted my Dad. “Are you the radio Santa Claus?” My Dad knew just what to do. I suppose he had planned his answer knowing that sooner or later I would ask him that fateful question. After all, he had had practice with my two sisters before me. He sat me down and told me all about this thing called the “Spirit of Santa Claus”, and how he was one of Santa’s special helpers. I don’t remember much else, but whatever he said worked. I became one of Santa’s helpers.

My Mother made me an elf costume which I wore when I accompanied my Dad on Santa’s personal appearances all over town. My job was to give each kid a candy cane. We usually made two or three stops each night. I never knew just how popular and important Santa was until then. I loved helping my Father, and watching him sit patiently hour after hour lifting little kids up onto his lap. He always preceded that magical question he asked each child with his distinctive Santa Claus laugh “Well, my little apple-dumpling, what do you want Santa to bring you for Christmas?”

I recollect looking forward to the Thanksgiving Day parade downtown that kicked off the holiday season. I remember feeling like a very proud son when my Dad would pass by seated high up in Santa’s sleigh waving to all his boys and girls. I always wanted to shout out “Hey! My Dad is Santa Claus!”

My Father was a true keeper of the “Spirit of Santa Claus”. He stopped his public appearances about the time I got out of college, but he never lost his passion for preserving the spirit. Every fall he would visit all the local department store managers that usually hired a Santa’s helper during the Christmas season. His goal was to encourage them to establish specific policies and procedures that protected the children. He was adamant that no drunks, perverts, or anyone who might take advantage of all those innocent children ever be hired as a store Santa. He was ahead of his time…..

My Father was laid to rest in May 1989. No one thought it odd or out of place that Dad chose to wear his favorite Christmas tie and St. Nick lapel pin to meet his Maker. After all…he was Santa Claus!