My father, Carl King, is going to be 91 this summer. He wants to come back to Xenia to visit and he wants to do a road trip instead of flying. I'm going to Key West in a few weeks to get him and his wife Penny, and we're going to drive back and stop in Knoxville for the annual Dogwood Festival. Dad can still drive very well, but he's nearly blind in one eye and has to be very careful. I'll probably do most of the driving, but if Dad wants to drive, he can as far as I'm concerned. After all, he's been driving since he was 10 years old, and how many people can say that they have 80 years of experience at anything.
When we were planning this road trip last fall, Dad was recalling the time that he and Penny drove their Airstream trailer through Tennessee in the springtime just after they had eloped nearly 26 years ago. They just happened to be passing through Knoxville during the Dogwood Festival and they had driven the tour route through the suburbs and hills pulling the trailer and admiring the foliage. We talked about how pretty the hillsides along the interstate highway are in the spring and then drifted off, as many of our conversations often do, to how things "usedta" be. He recalled driving on family vacations in the pre-Interstate Highway days on the winding 2 lane roads through the mountains, passing through all the small towns with their local cops and speed traps, and all the fireworks shops like "Loony Louie's" and "Cherokee Bill's".
I find myself doing the same thing pretty often around Xenia, too. When someone asks me where the plumbing store is, I can't help but remember when Harner's Supply usedta be Bocklett's and it was in an old building right about where Wendy's is now. And if someone talks about how good a local restaurant like the Oasis is, I can't help think about when it usedta be a bank and then a Frisch's. That takes me immediately to when Perkins usedta be the second Frisch's in town complete with a drive-in and an awning for eating in your car. That was the prime teen hot spot in those days and I can recall many evenings driving slowly around and around that lot.
The point of this is that Xenia has changed dramatically since that April day in 1974 when the tornado "blew Xenia onto the map." I'm sure that time and progress would have changed things slowly even without that landmark event, but that one afternoon did more than nearly 30 years of change has done since. The Xenia Hotel, Smith's Grocery, the Merrymore, the A&W Rootbeer Stande, Cherry's Furniture, Lum's, the Xenia Bus terminal and countless other landmarks of my youth disappeared in an afternoon, never to be seen again. A few of the businesses in the heart of Xenia, like Eichman's ancient cluttered store and Geyer's Office Supply moved, survived, and are still in business today.
Now my dad is experiencing another series of painful changed in the landscape of Xenia. He sold Ford tractors as King Tractor Sales for 25 years , first in Xenia, then in Xenia Township on 68 South. In the last few years, many of the people he knew and worked with have passed away. First the Pitzer brothers, then Bob Wade and Dorothy Sims. Then this winter, Clarence Fowler, who was his top salesman and bought the business when Dad retired. And just recently, Phyllis Botorff, who ran his parts counter and could find any obscure part for a 1952 Ford tractor in minutes. A couple of weeks ago it was Bill Eichman, a longtime friend and fellow city commissioner. He told me that he didn't know if he would have anyone to go to visit when he gets here, and I've got to admit that this is one slight disadvantage to living into your 90's. Not that the alternative is that attractive, but I could understand his concern.
One of the things I like about living here in the Xenia area is the sense of community and continuity that you get when you see the same people and the same places year after year. It's not the fastest growing or most dynamic city on the face of the earth, but it's not being turned into another faceless suburb of Dayton overnight either, and that's a good thing. I have traveled all over America, seen the cities of Europe, and still feel a wonderful sense of home whenever I come back here.
The lush green hills, the "if you don't like the weather, just hang around for a week" variation of the seasons, the parks and trails and rivers that make up the Xenia and Greene County area fit me like a glove. Tecumseh Elementary School where I went to first grade just celebrated its 50th anniversary and my younger daughter still goes there. The building that usedta be the hospital where I was born is still on Rogers St., and most of my friends and family are still here. Despite tornadoes and time, most of the important things that usedta be here are still here today. They'll be here for my kids and grandkids, and there's comfort to be had in that thought. © 2000 Alan D. King