The temps hovered around 25 today and the sun has shown most of the day....I fired up the Jeep which has sat idle for a week, threw in my digital cameras and decided to make a run around the south end of the lake and see how my home area from my old high school days had changed since winter's past.
I lived in the little town of Montezuma, Ohio, from 1963 until I joined the Air Force in the summer of 68...mom and dad lived there for awhile longer before selling the house and moving into Celina.....Montezuma at the time was a little berg 95% Catholic and kind of like Celina's step child...they had their own bars, gas station, and small grocery store, even their satellite elementary school, but when you reached high school you got shipped into Celina. The town was a clickish place that I never warmed up to....except my neighbors, the Jones'(see Jim Jones funeral December 2007)...Bob and Jerry were both in my class and we became life long friends...raising as much Hell as we could, without being "bad" kids.
Montezuma has changed much today....although the town itself is much the same, the outlying area has become infested with 50 Cent Millionaires(as I call them) from Dayton and Cincinnati...former weekend warriors who have built on the lake area, now that it is sewered and open for construction....property values have risen, and the local egos have done the same....thus the 50 cent Millionaires....those in debt up to their collective asses, but putting on the dogs to keep up with the neighbors....they will be the first to lose everything in the coming depression.
I learned to drive a car, kiss a girl, and ice skate, among other things, while living in Montezuma....the Jones boys and me, and on occasion our younger sisters, would walk the mile across the Lake Field Airport(think smaller county paved landing strips), to a place called Whiskey Run....WR was a little creek that was nestled between farms and woods, it drained to the lake about a mile south....in the winters of the 1960s(before non man-made Global Warming) the Grand Lake and the feeder creeks would freeze solid by late November and seldom free up until late March or early April.....these days, the lake freezes for maybe a couple of weeks a season....this week is has a pretty good cover.
We would spend many a Saturday afternoon or Christmas break time Ice Skating on Whiskey Run, and warming with a campfire....it is one of the few areas that has changed little in the 40 years.
I lived in the little town of Montezuma, Ohio, from 1963 until I joined the Air Force in the summer of 68...mom and dad lived there for awhile longer before selling the house and moving into Celina.....Montezuma at the time was a little berg 95% Catholic and kind of like Celina's step child...they had their own bars, gas station, and small grocery store, even their satellite elementary school, but when you reached high school you got shipped into Celina. The town was a clickish place that I never warmed up to....except my neighbors, the Jones'(see Jim Jones funeral December 2007)...Bob and Jerry were both in my class and we became life long friends...raising as much Hell as we could, without being "bad" kids.
Montezuma has changed much today....although the town itself is much the same, the outlying area has become infested with 50 Cent Millionaires(as I call them) from Dayton and Cincinnati...former weekend warriors who have built on the lake area, now that it is sewered and open for construction....property values have risen, and the local egos have done the same....thus the 50 cent Millionaires....those in debt up to their collective asses, but putting on the dogs to keep up with the neighbors....they will be the first to lose everything in the coming depression.
I learned to drive a car, kiss a girl, and ice skate, among other things, while living in Montezuma....the Jones boys and me, and on occasion our younger sisters, would walk the mile across the Lake Field Airport(think smaller county paved landing strips), to a place called Whiskey Run....WR was a little creek that was nestled between farms and woods, it drained to the lake about a mile south....in the winters of the 1960s(before non man-made Global Warming) the Grand Lake and the feeder creeks would freeze solid by late November and seldom free up until late March or early April.....these days, the lake freezes for maybe a couple of weeks a season....this week is has a pretty good cover.
We would spend many a Saturday afternoon or Christmas break time Ice Skating on Whiskey Run, and warming with a campfire....it is one of the few areas that has changed little in the 40 years.
I learned to roller skate at an outdoor rink in Venice, Florida, learned to Snow Ski at Snow Ridge Lodge in Turnin, New York, while stationed in the Air Force at Rome NY......learned to swim at a public pool....learned to ride a bike in a rural home in South Venice....but I learned many things in Montezuma... including how to drive a car, and how to ice skate at Whiskey Run.
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{Photos} (1) Looking acrosss frozen Grand Lake from Windy Point towards Celina, about 5 miles to the north and west....(2) Looking east on Guadalupe Road
from Whiskey Run(3) Looking west towards Indiana from the Montezuma-Cassella Road Bridge crossing Whiskey Run.
4 comments:
Can you drink the water in Montezuma?!
Loved the cold shots man...however, it don't help me warm up much!
I drove through Waverly late one night and quickly saw that it was not the same place I lived for 4 years. Like you said, you can't go back.
Damn, that does look cold. I love it. We're supposed to have a freeze warning tomorrow. Maybe isce on the roeads. And I'm suppoed to give final exams here on base. Could be a fun time.
And that post brought back memories of ice skating on a big pond in the very early '70s in Missouri. My sister (5 years older) and her friends took me, and I took to skating quick. One time we were in the midst of having a good time when a huge cracking sound erupted from the ice. Scared the piss out of everyone, and we all slid as fast as we could over to the dock. Next thing I hear is my sister calling my name in a panic, sitting on her ass in the middle of the lake all alone. I had to go back out to get her. Within minutes we were all back out there skating again, but it was an exciting scare.
Stay warm bubba.
Great idea, Pat - and beautifully written.
Yep, That's Whiskey Run for sure.
Threw lots of cane poles in the water to fish. Never really caught anything. Do you ever remember around the curve at the corner there being a large cage curve that had a bear in it??????
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