by Alan King
This is the first of a new series of articles
which I will be writing for the Gazette and her sister publications
in Greene County. I have decided to call them "Mileposts"
because I intend to look at our area from the point of view of
a traveler along life's road. I've lived here nearly
all my life, but I have seen a good bit of our country and a little
of the rest of the world along the way. I was born in Xenia
at the McClelland hospital on Rogers Street, went to elementary
school at Tecumseh and Shawnee, spent a couple of years at Central
Junior High and finished up at Xenia High when it was across from
Shawnee Park. From the time that I was 12 or 13, I worked
weekends and summers at my dad s business, King Tractor Sales.
At 20, I moved to Fairborn and graduated from Wright State in
1969. I was drafted two weeks later, spent a year
here and there in the US, another in Germany, and moved back to
Xenia in 1971. I have been here ever since.
I went to Grad school, again at Wright State,
bought the house where I still live, just outside of Xenia, and
started a business, Kiddie Kingdom Child Care, in 1974.
Now I have a great wife and four kids ranging from 11 to 31, one
granddaughter whose third birthday is this week, and a bunch of
friends and family who live close by. So you could say that
I am the quintessential townie.
The pieces that I plan to write are going to
be about what has changed and what has remained the same
in our little corner of the world. I was born before there
were TV s in every home, but after the atomic bomb. Before
the interstate highway system, but after the heyday of the railroads.
Before Korea but after WW II. I grew up when the Mickey
Mouse Club, Sky King, Howdy Doody and Buffalo Bob, The Lone Ranger,
and Mighty Mouse were on TV. I was a teenager when Coke
was a dime, gas was 29¢ a gallon, and a new Mustang cost
$2300. The minimum wage was under a dollar an hour,
and a very nice salary was around $10,000 a year. I remember
trains running down through the middle of Xenia past the Court
House, and gravel country roads that threw up clouds of dust behind
our car. I remember the day Kennedy died and when the Tornado
hit Xenia (both times). I saw Elvis and the Beatles on the
Ed Sullivan Show.
So I plan to write about the things that used
to be: Kuntz Potato Chips, the gunpowder factory in Goes, Central
Auto Parts, Irv's Tavern, the Xenia Theater, Geyer's Restaurant,
and the missing town of Osborne. The things we used to do:
skating on Shawnee Pond, riding through covered bridges, hanging
out at the lunch counter at the 5 and 10 Cent Store, pranks before
the Beavercreek vs Xenia games, dances at the Y, and IT Pizza.
How we got where we are: The Underground Railroad, the flood of
1913, the building of Shawnee Lake, and the creation of our bike
trails. I will tell you about Tecumseh, Simon Kenton, Milt
Lord, and other famous and not so famous locals. I will
drop in some local current events, a smattering of interesting
bits about our area on the internet, and we will see what happens.
I ask the gentle reader to help out in this task with ideas and
facts about our area that only other townies would know.
Those were different times and life moved at
a slower pace, but most things are still the same. People
want there to be predictability in their lives, safety in their
homes, health and happiness for their families. They want
interesting things to see and do, they want variety, and they
want their minds to grow. If I can stir up memories a bit,
that will be good. If I can help us to see each other more
clearly because of what we share here, that will be better.
Wish me luck.
© 2002 Alan D. King