On the Moraine, Part XLIV

By Jim Thompson
HCP columnist

It was a sunny day in early August 1968. We had the corn sheller set up and we were shelling corn out of one of the three wire corncribs we had built over the years on the Beaver Farm. 

We were shelling it into the truck that morning as we had been doing for several days. When full, I would take it to Landmark in Hillsboro.

Suddenly, Dad threw down his shovel and went in the house. When he came out, he was dressed in casual clothes, with a sports coat, got into the Corvair and left. No explanation.  

John and I went in the house to ask Mother what was going on.  

“Your Dad is going to Cincinnati to see if he can get a job.”

Wow. When Dad came home that evening, he had indeed found a job. Not a surprise, it was the middle of the Vietnam War, and the economy was very good.

I was extremely upset; but I couldn’t argue much, I was getting ready to go off to college at the University of Cincinnati myself. 

The next month and a half was a whirlwind. Hunter, Wilson and Mayhugh were given a mandate to sell the farms. Charley Hunter came out and sat down with me, and we prepared the bill of sale for an auction.

Since Dad had his new job to work at, John and I were charged with getting everything moved over from the McNary Farm for the sale. We got most of that done before John started the eighth grade.  After he started school that fall, I finished this job by myself.

On the weekends, we went to Cincinnati to look for a house. Dad wanted to live on the west side of Cincinnati. His logic was this: “If there was a nuclear war, the prevailing winds will blow the radioactive fallout to the east.”  

I kid you not.

The auction happened to be on the fall equinox, Sept. 21, 1968. A Saturday. Sunday and Monday, we took two loads of personal items from the farm to our new home at 896 Ivy Hill Drive, Cincinnati.  

Don’t be fooled, it was one of those grand-sounding addresses slapped on a quite common subdivision built in the late 1950s. I could look out the living room window and see the end of the driveway, almost 30 feet away.

So, by the 23rd of September, we were in our new home. By Thursday evening, Sept. 26, I was living in 1128A Calhoun Hall, University of Cincinnati. Yes, the 11th floor. I had never been that far off the ground before.

Today, it would take a year’s worth of counseling to go through what we did that week. We just tried to take it in stride in those days.

Note: Dear Readers, thank you for supporting this endeavor. I have had a lot of fun writing it. In this space next week, we will start a new serialized piece that has some truth to it, but also a lot of fiction. It stars a dog and a chicken. Thank you, Rory Ryan, for letting me have the privilege of writing here.

Jim Thompson, formerly of Marshall, is a graduate of Hillsboro High School and the University of Cincinnati. He resides in Duluth, Ga. and is a columnist for The Highland County Press.

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