My article for today will be a short reminder of this year of writing in 2023.
In the first months of January and February, I wrote some things about downtown Delaware. I even included the words to the famous song “Go Downtown” that some readers enjoyed. And that there are now 13 businesses gone from downtown that were here in the ‘60s and ‘70s. As well as our trip to Johnstown to see what we could see that’s in the first stages of “Intel” that has come to that small town. Plus the fact that I had just seen the movie “12 Angry Men” and compared the fact that when I was on a jury back in the 1960s, and just as we entered the jury room, a person said, “We all know this guy is guilty, so let’s vote and get out of here.” Those words were used in that movie as well.
March/April: Moving on to these two months, I wrote about how I got to buy our first house. George and I lived in our “first home” for the next 60 years and just three years ago, we moved across the street. We got our first house because a lady at church told us that she wanted us to buy her house, and it worked out well. Also, I wrote about when our nephew was riding his motorcycle and was hit by a car and died on the scene. And how the driver didn’t have to serve time in prison for his driving drunk.
May/June: I wrote about a member of the “What’s My Line” show whose name was Dorothy Kilgallen, and the person who believes she may have been killed because she knew too much about President Kennedy’s death. Also, we spent a lot of evenings at baseball games to watch those boys and girls playing softball. For me, it was a lot more fun to watch those games than any of the professional ones. And I also wrote an article titled, “Journals, Swings and Premonitions. Lots of comments about porch swings after that article.
July/August: During this period of time, I learned about George growing something new in his garden. They were “Square Watermelons.” He built two boxes for them to grow in, and out came a couple of watermelons that actually were square, and he has pictures to prove it. This was also the time we visited the Presbyterian church in Delaware because I had grown up there, singing in their choir for seven years. I don’t think there was a person there that day who was there back in those early ’50s.
September/October: This is the period of time I became interested in professional baseball. It happened because I kept seeing the same person on the screen who was playing. I was told his name was Jose Ramirez. And I found out a lot of his history in baseball. He has a seven-year contract for $141 million. All for just playing baseball. Hmmmmm. Well, he did have 1,327 hits, 216 home runs and 202 stolen bases. Wow!! That was also the period of time I wrote about having dreams and not being able to remember them. Nothing ever changed about them, I’m still forgetting them as soon as I have had breakfast.
November/December: In November, I remembered everything that had happened on one day 70 years ago. I remembered what I wore to school, what I had for lunch, etc. Nothing that was unusual, just that it happened 70 years ago. And still in November, I saw a picture in the Gazette of what I thought was our home in Delaware at Christmas. It was an open decorated stairway. Even my brothers believed it had to be our home’s stairs. But, I decided it wasn’t and gave up wanting to see it for real. And my most recent article was about the popular Christmas song “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.” I first heard it back in the early 1950s and am still singing it today.
Kay E. Conklin is a retired Delaware County recorder who served four terms. She graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University with a degree in sociology and anthropology.
