Who's That With Charlie?. Charles S. Mechem

twelve years older than I and Alice ten. Whether or not I was a mistake or simply an afterthought is irrelevant. Whatever I was, no child could ever have been more loved. I always regarded myself as an “almost” only child. By that I mean that I had all the advantages of being an only child without any of the disadvantages.

      My parents were wonderful—bright, hardworking, and with classic Midwestern, small-town values. Mother was the daughter of a coal miner and taught seven grades in a one-room schoolhouse before they married. Dad was the son of the owner of a dry-goods and shoe store, and a veteran of World War I. Mother was devoted to her church, loved music, and laughed easily. Everyone loved her. Dad could be stern and remote but was a great role model because of his work ethic and strong sense of right and wrong. When he was fifty, he was elected to the Ohio State Senate and rose to become President Pro Tem, the second-most powerful position in the state government after the governor. He had a great sense of humor, and his speeches were homespun classics. One of my favorite memories is when I asked Dad at his ninetieth birthday party what had been the most important invention of the ninety years of his life. I was expecting the automobile, electric light, or the telephone. Instead, with a twinkle in his eye he said, “That’s an easy one—indoor plumbing!” I could write another book about my brother and my sister—and perhaps someday I will—but I’ll simply say that they were two of the finest people I have ever known. My brother was a kind, gentle man, who spent much of his life helping others. In later years, he became a lay minister and had his own church in the tiny town of Carbon Hill, Ohio, not far from Nelsonville. When people would ask Bill what he did for a living, he would smile and say, “I marry and bury.” It is unbelievable the number of people I still run into who were either married, baptized, or sent to their eternal reward by my brother, Bill. (Okay, so I don’t actually run into the latter group!) When Bill died we celebrated a very uplifting funeral service, which he had written in its entirety, including scripture readings and songs. So, we did it “his way.” We all miss him very much. My sister, Alice, is still living and still a source of great pride and joy for me. She lost her beloved husband, George, a few years ago, but continues to be healthy and happy living in the same town (Athens, Ohio) and the same house that she and George built shortly after they were married. Alice has a level of intellect and perceptivity that has always amazed me. I really hope that someday I can write that book about Bill and Alice.

      Speaking of Bill and Alice brings back a funny memory. Frequently people are asked what is the first thing in their life of which they have any memory. In my case, although the memory is not vivid, it is clearly the first. My parents took my brother, sister, and me to the 1933–1934 Chicago World’s Fair. While I have some general memories of the fairgrounds, my most vivid memory is the image of the “rooming house” in which we stayed. In those days people rented out rooms in their own homes to tourists, and we rented several rooms in such a house. Though I know it is strange, I can see the house in my mind’s eye and recall it as being a very pleasant place to stay.

      My brother and sister, however, have much more vivid memories of the World’s Fair—two of which they teased me about for much of my young life. First, I apparently was a “wind bag” even at that early age. They said that, as we walked around the fairgrounds, I would jump up on a bench and, to their great embarrassment, begin making some sort of speech, which I’m sure made little, if any, sense.

      The second thing they teased me about was a time when I apparently got very upset by something when we were out in a rowboat on one of the lakes. They took a picture of me standing up in the rowboat crying loudly but holding my fingers to my ears—presumably in the hope that I would not hear myself cry! Bill and Alice always said that, from that moment on, they were worried that I might not be the “brightest bulb in the chandelier.”

      NOW DON’T GET me wrong: 1930 was anything but an idyllic year. Indeed, I am not sure that there was anything very idyllic about the decade of the 1930s. The depression lingered on, probably, as historians look in retrospect, until the outbreak of WWII when massive industrial mobilization gave the economy its needed jolt. But I didn’t know very much about this for at least ten years. My dad was a retail merchant and we always had food and clothing and a nice home. It wasn’t until later that I realized how hard Dad and Mother worked to provide these comforts (not, by any means, luxuries). Indeed, they sent my brother and sister to college in 1937 at nearby Ohio University, and everybody (except, of course, me) worked hard to make that happen. As I look back now, my first hint that there might be some gloom in my otherwise cheery environment was when my mother would say, “Charles, when you come home from school, if the big blind on the front living-room window is pulled down, that means your dad has a sick headache … and is resting. So, be especially quiet and let him rest.” I strongly suspect now that those “sick headaches” were migraines brought about by the pressures of running a shoe store when so many people couldn’t afford to buy shoes!

      Like most kids, I suspect, I don’t remember a lot about my first five years, except that nothing unpleasant happened and there was a comfortable home and lots of love. That’s about all I need to remember!

      MY ELEMENTARY SCHOOL was literally a four- or five-minute walk from our front door. It was called the West School. There was also a Central School and an East School in town. There was no North School or South School—I guess they just didn’t need two more schools! My teachers from the first to the fourth grade were all lovely women (all grade-school teachers in those days were women) and progressively more disciplinarian. My first- and second-grade teachers, I remember so well, seemed always to be hugging us and smiling at us—or with us. As we reached the fourth grade, my teacher, Miss Cook (who was also the principal), was kind, but very stern and strict. Then it was on to the Central School for grades five and six. This, too, was a happy time. My most memorable teacher was also the principal, Mr. Tomlinson. He was an energetic, strong man, much respected by all of us. In a quirk, which I have always remembered fondly, he was also a housepainter. Schoolteachers’ salaries in those days were presumably no better than they are today. Periodically, my mother would hire him to paint our house, either inside or out, and I always helped him. I should probably put help in quotes. He would probably have been quite content to have me watch and not dabble, but that’s not the way of twelve- or thirteen-year-olds!

      Then on to junior high school—grades seven and eight. I’ve always thought of junior high school (now referred to as “middle school”—ah! our Anglican heritage!) as an interregnum—in between—yes, a “middle.” One is a bit too old to be young and a bit too young to be old. For me it was a time of discovery, most notably sports and girls. Speaking of girls, I had only one girlfriend during my high school years—a beautiful girl named Rosemarie. We had a lot of fun together, but one activity was far more fun for her than for me. She loved to roller skate and was very good at it. I didn’t like it and therefore wasn’t much good. But, I wanted to be with her as much as possible and tried to learn to roller skate. One night at the skating rink she was taking a rest just outside the iron bar that separated the seating area from the rink, and I was flailing around trying to look graceful. I decided to skate over to where she was sitting and take a rest. Then, tragedy struck. As I got about three or four feet from her and tried to stop, my legs flew up in the air and I fell flat on my back and proceeded to slide under the bar right past Rosemarie and into the wall behind the rink. I decided at that point that if our relationship depended on my prowess as a roller skater, we didn’t have much of a future.

      As I’ve mentioned, Nelsonville was a small town. If you wanted to participate in a particular sport, you were welcome—you just did it! So, I played baseball, basketball, football, and ran track. I was not particularly good at any of these, but I was on every team. I was—and am—a great believer in team sports for every young boy and girl. The lessons learned last a lifetime. Three brief stories will tell you all you’ll ever want to know about my “illustrious” sporting career.

      First, I almost drowned on the football field during a game. I repeat: I almost drowned on the football field. It happened this way. In the middle of the game there was a virtual cloudburst, a torrential rain that lasted