The Terrible Catsafterme

If memory serves me correctly, we had a most excellent New Years Eve bash leading into 1978. We gathered all of Mom’s family at Grandma and Grandpa’s house on Kruss, immersed ourselves in good food and drink, passed out party favors, watched the grown-ups get sloshed, and rang in the New Year. There is only piece of memory linking this fabulous party with this particular year and that is the memory of the sisters obsession with the song You Light Up My Life, which just a couple of months prior had topped the Billboard charts. The memory of this party is great one and I’m sure I’ve never topped this one with any New Years Eve for sheer enjoyment.

There’s a good chance this picture of Grandma Range and Denise was taken on January 1, 1978 at Bill and Dottie’s house. That’s where we often went for New Years.

Not long after 1977 had ended,  I returned to school on Tuesday, January 3. As we began the latter stages of the 1970’s, Mom came up with a new policy of marking the calendar as to whether I was good or bad on each day. It only lasted about a week. My tally was three half-bads, one bad, and three goods. I don’t know what the punishement or reward might have been. Once we were past that little phase, we moved on to more important business: our family was getting ready for quite a drastic change – we had just three months left in our Echo Hill home. But before we could begin our quest to find our new home, we had to get through the January blizzard that would be hailed as the worst winter storm in Ohio history.

Early in January, Dad was doing some work rewiring the 1949 black Hudson. His realtor friend Kenny Rutherford agreed to assist him if Dad would use his services to list our house for sale. I remember this well, because due to the cold weather outside, Dad and Kenny were working on the Hudson with the garage door running. The fumes from the car that generated from the few times that they would have to start it made me violently ill.

But as I said, before we could begin searching out our new home, we were hit by the notorious Ohio blizzard of 1978. It began as a drizzling rain that quickly changed to a violent snow storm when the temperatures dropped nearly 30 degrees. This hit on Thursday, January 26 and continued through the next day. Dad missed both days of work, while Mom was still on work hiatus staying home with Denise everyday. I of course relished the idea of missing school and can vividly recall the gigantic snow drifts that were about twice my height. 51 people in Ohio died during the storm.

A nice post-blizzard snowman. I even gave him icicle arms.

Big icicles also worked well to simulate rifles.

Again with the icicle rifle. Denise and neighbor Kathy put together another crummy snowman. I’d later bite Kathy. I must have been going through a violent stage.

Before the winter had departed, I lost my second tooth – another one of the front bottom guys – on February 2.

Two teeth down, a mouthful to go

Soon enough the weather broke and we began to scout for new homes. I recall visiting one such house which was akin to a mansion in my opinion. I was rooting for that one, but I think my parents had just been curious to look inside.

Dad saw a listing for 3195 Winterset Drive in Beavercreek, not terribly far from where we were currently living and drove by it on his way home from work. This was the house we would finally choose. We began showing our house on Echo Hill as early as Mom’s birthday on February 9, and we wer closing on the Winterset house just three days later.

Dad, who found our Winterset house, either before the blizzard came or after it had melted.

My final memories of the house on Echo Hill came as we moved into Spring. For one, I recall that I really began to explore the neighborhood on my bike just before we left. Mom commented that I was now making friends all over the neighborhood just as we were getting ready to leave. I had even gotten it into my head that I could easily ride my bike to the IGA grocery store in Beavercreek. I never tried, thank heavens: I would have never made it.

On one particular bike ride with one of my babysitters, I was going much too fast down a hill in the neighborhood and noticed that my front wheel was beginning to shake. No sooner did I notice this than I completely lost control and hit the pavement. After my babysitter got me home, I later deemed that it was well worth it, because I had found a quarter in the street.

Speaking of babysitters, there was quite an amusing incident when my parents hired the services of Beth, a friend of my regular babysitter Laura Schaeffer. She decided to have some friends over at our house while she watched me. These friends brought along beer and when I convinced Beth that my parents let me have beer (which was true in a sense; they would always allow me to take a small sip), the friends delighted in pouring me a glass. Oddly enough, I don’t remember getting drunk. Of course, I probably don’t remember much of anything. They told me not to tell, but I did – and consequently I never saw Beth again.

As bad a babysitter as Beth was, I don’t think she could have topped one of the final stunts that I pulled before leaving. Some neighbors who had moved into the Applegate house had a daughter named Kathy who was a little older than Denise. For some reason I didn’t like this girl and when the opportunity arose one time, I bit her in the stomach. When the mother found out, she of course raised hell with Mom. I denied it all the way, but of course I had done it – and have always felt guilty for it. Wherever you are Kathy, sorry about that.

Although, my memory would have recalled the annual Fairbrook festivals being held near the end of the year, Mom noted on her calendar that she was working the ‘bean bag toss’ room on Saturday, March 4. She continued with her monthly card club meetings as well.

Easter fell on March 26 this year and I’m fairly certain that the cute photo below was taken on that day at Diana’s house. Unbeknownst to Mom, she had dressed Denise in the exact same garb as the ventriloquist puppet of one of the Claude children.

Although the red,white, and blue indicates the 4th of July, I think the long sleeves on everyone trumps that. I believe this was Easter at Diana and Tom’s house.

As we rolled into April, my final days of walking to school from our home at 3574 Echo Hill Lane were closing in. The last real memory I have of the house was staning in the front yard and tearfully and literally hugging the white siding as I said goodbye. After April 8, 1978, I would never spend another night in my childhood home.

1978 will continue…elsewhere…

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 11th, 2010 at 6:48 am and is filed under 1970's - Late. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.