Off the Hook Archive
melb@imetweb.net
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2010 |
Off
the Hook - Archive 2010
by Melanie
Behrens
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Publish Date |
Title |
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3/5/10 |
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2/26/10 |
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2/19/10 |
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2/12/10 |
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2/5/10 |
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1/29/10 |
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1/22/10 |
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1/15/10 |
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1/8/10 |
3/5/10
Thailand — Joe’s way
It all began when he agreed to see Thailand with a
college roommate.
The trip had its anxious moments but would change his
life. Joe
Chapman, general manager/partner of Bob Chapman Ford in
Marysville,
has seen a completely different world — 30 hours away by
plane.
He says the people of Thailand are all about love, respect and
kindness. In the airport a sign even says, “Welcome to the land of
smiles,” and that’s how he feels when he remembers the two-week
journey. When I talked to him, I could feel the warmth and excitement
in his story, which is amazing when you hear the next part.
Joe’s friend
had been to Thailand before so he could serve as tour
guide, but they also
traveled separately for awhile. Joe spent some
time in Bangkok and took a
plane to Phuket, then a ferry to the Phi
Phi Islands and Maya Bay. Even
though all were beautiful places,
there was danger.
While on Phi Phi
(pronounced pee pee), Joe purchased a white guitar
in an area where there
were many shops and sat down on a bench to try
it out. Other musicians
gathered around (some from Australia), then a
crowd gathered to listen. It
went on for seven hours.
Later that evening Joe awakened with pain in his
ankle — it was the
size of a cantaloupe! He knew he needed help so at 4
a.m. he began a
search, which lasted about 3 hours, for a hospital.
Remember, this is
on a tiny island in another part of the world. He asked
the “night
people” for directions and was told to take a path through the
jungle
to the other side of the island. He said it was the scariest night
of
his life. His trek through the jungle included bats and mosquitoes
flying at him, plus wild dogs. When he finally found the hospital,
the
doors were unlocked, but there seemed to be no one there.
He walked through
what appeared to be an empty hospital and finally
found a young man asleep
on a mat. He actually had to awaken him and
found out he was an assistant.
He got a female doctor to look at Joe.
She told him, in broken English,
that he had been bitten by a
scorpion, pointing to the bite on his foot. In
just five minutes she
had given him a shot of penicillin, which you can beg
for in the
U.S., but hardly ever get, and issued him an assortment of pills
to
take.
Those who treated him wanted cash for their medical services
and so,
after paying them, his money was nearly gone. In order to get
money
wired to him he took his computer in search of wifi service. He then
got onto Facebook, contacted his friends on that service and asked
them
to contact Bob Chapman Ford to wire him some money immediately.
Time was of
the essence. Sometimes technology can be great and even
with a 12-hour
difference between Phi Phi and Marysville, all this
worked out and Joe was
able to get some cash to continue his trip.
He can’t seem to say enough kind
words about the Thai people. He says
they make everyone feel welcome and
comfortable. “You feel like
you’re in God’s hands there,” Joe said. “When
asked for directions,
people don’t just tell you where to go, they take
you.”
Their theory of life, according to Joe, is giving and forgiving. It
makes you happy and the world a better place. He says the people feel
that it gives a person bad mental energy to carry around negative
feelings and it’s very important to forgive.
He also observed that there
seemed to be few rules in their society.
For instance, there are no posted
speed limits. He rarely saw a
policeman and drugs were available to those
who wanted them, but no
one seemed to abuse them or discuss what was going
on. He was
approached several times and he said “ no Kap,” meaning no thank
you,
and made the motion of putting his hands together as if he were
praying and nodding his head to his hands. This is apparently an
important gesture which means, I respect you, but no thank you. One
must make these gestures or people are insulted and could
overreact.
While traveling, Joe also saw a massive Buddha of white marble
under
construction on top of a mountain. The project cost was $18 million.
People could make donations of marble tiles and write a note on the
inside of it to be placed on the outside of the Buddha. He also ran
into a man on the street with seven wild elephants just being held by
their ears. No chains were involved. Joe was able to touch the
elephants and sit on them. He noticed they were not trained but well
cared for and not smelly either.
Joe’s impressions are, one can buy
anything in the world in Thailand
for apparently very little money. It’s a
beautiful country everywhere
you look and he can’t wait to return to the
“land of smiles.”
(Melanie Behrens - melb@imetweb.net)
2/26/10
Gibson helps Bangladesh
Brad Gibson, vice president of communications and
marketing at Union
Rural Electric in Marysville, is currently stationed in
Dhaka,
Bangladesh, in an effort to aid that country in establishment of
electric power. A few weeks ago Brad detailed how hard life is in
this
part of the world. This is an update on his experiences there.
His job, as a
consultant, is to help improve communications for the
70 distribution
electric cooperatives (locally called PBSs)
throughout the country. Dhaka,
the capital, is ranked the second
worst city in the world in an annual
global survey of livability that
assesses living conditions in 140 cities.
According to a survey
conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), a
business
information arm of The Economist Group, publisher of the
respected
magazine bearing its name, the Bangladeshi capital is just ahead
of
Harare, Zimbabwe.
The survey found the city of 13 million people
scoring below average
marks in five broad categories that citizens most
care about:
Stability, healthcare, culture/environment, education and
infrastructure.
This is the atmosphere Brad is trying to work in.
He
has made friends and one owns the home he describes here:
“I have visited a
private home and it consists of a single room that
is approximately 12 feet
by 12 feet. There are a few rooms in the
complex that share cooking and
bathroom facilities. This room was the
living quarters for a family of four
and they seemed perfectly
pleased with their accommodations here in Dhaka.
As a matter of fact,
the father, whom I see daily, is one of the happiest
people I have
ever met in my life; a truly incredible man. They also
informed me
that they had a three-room home in their village, but that
their work
took them to Dhaka where they could earn increased
wages.”
“They told me that they paid approximately 3,500 Taka per month to
rent the room, which is equivalent to approximately $50 U.S. dollars.
They told me it was quite expensive because they chose to live in a
very safe and nice part of town (which was accurate).”
I asked Brad about
the treatment of women in this area of the world
near India and Pakistan.
He reported: “The country is predominantly
Muslim, but unlike many
perceptions the people are very open and
accepting of other religions.
Muslim women live a traditional
lifestyle and many cover their faces. With
that said, women are
making great strides and there is a strong focus among
many
businesses and in banking to empower women as employees and borrowers
of money to help build their incomes. It appears this has been quite
successful and is gaining momentum based on what I’ve seen and
understood.”
Brad continued: “The weather is beginning to warm up here
and
yesterday was their first official day of spring. Once the heat
arrives, the electric load shedding will increase dramatically and
I’ve
been told that there will be significantly more power
interruptions and for
an extended period of time.” He explained that
load shedding is a result of
having greater demand for electricity
than can be produced. He said, “The
capacity of electric generation
in the country is approximately 5,500
Megawatts, but the actual
generation (because of plants that are
inefficient or out of
commission) is approximately 3,500 to 4,000
Megawatts. On a daily
basis the demand is much greater so there are rolling
outages where
they shut off your power.”
“This time of year there are
many rural accounts that are temporarily
activated to run pumps which
irrigate rice fields and some other
crops. Irrigation is different than
what we do in the U.S. They
literally turn on a deep well pump and flood
the rice field and then
turn the path for the water channel to another
field and flood that
as well. As this demand increases for the pump load
and as the
weather gets warmer, the length of load shedding increases. In
rural
areas this can equate to not having power 50 percent of the time
they
would like to use it. During peak months we anticipate two to four
outages a day at our office, lasting about an hour, sometimes more.
Fortunately we have a generator that can handle the critical load and
keep us up and running.”
Brad is returning home for a month or so and
will go back to
Bangladesh several more times this year. I asked if he was
glad he
took on this project. He answered, “Absolutely. It is tremendously
difficult to be away from my family, but it has enriched my life in
ways I never imagined. I hope I am giving as much as I’m receiving.
Sharing this experience with my family and my two-year-old son will
hopefully help make him a stronger person and provide a foundation,
which will give him a well-rounded global perspective. Our generation
and certainly our children’s generation will inherit wonderful
opportunities presented in difficult situations around the globe.”
More
from Brad later on his trip back to Dhaka.
(Melanie Behrens - melb@imetweb.net)
2/19/20
How our lives have changed
In the last decade much has changed in our world.
That includes the
effects of technology and environment, and more
importantly and
closer to home, Marysville has changed its appearance in
the last 10
years. This column is devoted to local and worldwide changes
and how
it might have affected our lives.
Local shopping
In this
category, Marysville has come a long way in the past decade.
We now have
several home improvement stores, new sports equipment
outlets, a grocery
superstore and it seems we have a bank on almost
every corner. All of this
makes it much easier for the residents of
Union County to enjoy the
convenience of doing business locally,
something the Journal-Tribune always
promotes.
New restaurants
Restaurant openings have been booming with the
addition of chain
restaurants and locally-owned full service dining
establishments, and
new ownership of several old restaurants featuring new
menus. Plus,
there are two new bakeries, one also offering sandwiches and
the
other mostly devoted to cakes and cookies.
Indoor swimming
The
addition of the swimming pool at the local YMCA has been a huge
benefit to
local swim teams and also to those who enjoy water
aerobics early in the
morning. There are also people who just like to
swim laps in the
wintertime, such as former NCAA champ Jack Foster.
Journal-Tribune
In the
last 10 years, the local newspaper has undergone many changes
and one most
obvious is the appearance of the newspaper. The front
page (along with
overall size) has changed several times over these
10 years. Also, as you
probably noticed, advertising, especially for
national companies, has
evolved into color inserts which include
coupons.
Instead of operating
with a printing press in our own building, the J-
T is now printed at the
printing plant on the east side of town. All
the pages are sent via a
computer to the facility.
No movie
Sadly I have to say that a recent
change is that we do not have a
movie theater in town for the first time in
many, many years. This is
too bad and I hope that situation will be
remedied sometime in the
near future.
Worldwide temperature
changes
It has been widely reported that global warming is ruining our world
and causing melting ice in the tundra regions. I am here to say this
is
the coldest, most miserable winter I ever remember. Snowfalls are
setting
records in the Midwest and the east coast, and the time I
spent in Florida
this winter has evidenced record breaking cold
there, too. Florida has had
few days even in the 70s and had the
longest extension of cold weather in
more than 35 years. So much for
the theory of global
warming.
Airports
It’s not much fun to fly anymore. Remember when you
didn’t have to
take off your shoes or your jacket, and could take a bottle
of water
on the plane? Terrorists changed all that for us.
Alternative
medicine
Not only acupuncture, but also herbal supplements and alternative
ways of treating cancer have become much more accepted in mainstream
medicine. Personally, I tried acupuncture this year for migraine
headaches and have had welcome positive results.
Cell phones
It is
reported that more than 85 percent of the population have cell
phones. Many
people have replaced land lines in their home. I find my
cell phone to be
the most handy gadget in the world, yet I would
never replace my land line
with it because many times it just doesn’t
ring. People will say they
called me and after checking, I will see
there was a missed call, but no
sound from my phone. It’s good, but
not 100 percent
effective.
Facebook
I admit I’m part of the social networking offered
here, but only
because I was pressured by my children to get on it and get
into this
interesting world. I rarely check it and am almost daily added
on
someone’s friend list. I usually agree to do that, but have to admit
it’s not really part of my life.
Tattoos
If you’re between 20 and 40
you’re likely to have one of these
things. It’s ink inserted under the skin
— not always in an
attractive manner. I don’t have one, but I know people
really well
who do and were pretty upset when they got them. I was informed
by my
dermatologist brother not to worry. He said, “When they’re tired of
them they can now be taken off with a laser.” Maybe that makes them
tolerable.
You will no doubt see some things listed here that have
changed your
life in the last 10 years. It will be interesting to see what
the
next 10 years brings.
(Melanie Behrens - melb@imetweb.net)
2/12/10
Remembering a Valentine’s Day
When people say it’s a small world, everyone
seems to understand the
meaning. It’s a strange expression, but of course,
what it means to
most is that we’re all connected much more closely than we
think.
Recently I heard a story that brought all this to mind.
My
friend, Helen Norris, is in Florida for the winter and she had to
make a
trip to a Laundromat because her washer was broken. This is in
the area
where they are staying and there are many washers and lots
of people using
the facilities. She was probably just a little
unhappy for the
inconvenience at the time, but she had a great
experience because of the
time spent doing her laundry in multiple
loads.
Of course, if you’ve
ever been to a Laundromat you know that it takes
a little while and you
have to sit there waiting for the clothes to
be done in the washer then
move them to the dryer. While you’re
waiting, you need something to do, so
Helen picked up a copy of
“Women’s Day” magazine and noticed it was from
February of 2000,
unbelievably, 10 years ago.
There were many stories
about the upcoming Valentine’s Day and she
started reading them. Soon she
came to one that really made her
think. Here is what the story said:
“On
June 6, 1999, we celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary and I’ll
never
forget it. The marquee on the theater said it all — Congrats to
Henk and
Marianne for our 25-year love story. As a surprise and after
a six-month
search, my husband had located a copy of the movie, ‘Love
Story.’ Henk had
reserved the entire theater for us and our two
children, so we could all
see the same movie that the two of us saw
on our first date 28 years
earlier (in the Netherlands).”
The story was signed Marianne and Henk Berbee,
Marysville, Ohio.
Helen burst out laughing. How could this be? She is a good
friend of
Marianne Berbee’s, yet had no idea this happened 11 years ago.
Marianne apparently entered her story in some sort of a contest that
“Women’s Day” sponsored that year. Helen couldn’t wait to call
Marianne, telling the story of this 10 year-old magazine that had
been
sitting somewhere all this time.
Helen considered this to be quite an unusual
find, a strange
experience and one that shows it really is a small
world.
Hearts of the times
I consider this not only a sign of the times
but also the idea, what
is this world coming to? In these days close to
Valentine’s Day, many
people have a bowl of those tiny little candy hearts
in their home.
You remember them. They say things like “you’re cute,” “I
love you”
and “be mine.” But this time I had seen it all.
I expected to
read all the cute sayings I mentioned, but now the
world has really
changed. I picked up one that said, “text me!” I
knew that these were
recently produced candies. This certainly isn’t
an old bag of candy. Be
sure and read the ones sitting around your
house to see that love has
really changed.
Randall’s Bakery revisited
Here’s a note from Tami Randall
Wallace: “I received a phone call
from my aunt who still lives in
Marysville. She said that my
grandfather’s bakery had been mentioned in
your column entitled ‘40
years ago in Marysville.’ I looked up your column
and found mention
of some goodies that were my favorites as well. My
grandmother lived
in an apartment above the bakery and the smells were
wonderful!
“Unfortunately, I never got to meet my grandfather, but Floyd
Randall
started Randall’s bakery and worked there until his death. The
bakery
was sold, but retained the Randall name. My father, Phil Randall,
worked there as a baker, although thanks to World War II, he was not
a
consistent feature. My father would open his own Randall’s Bakery
in
Bellefontaine, Ohio. I grew up watching him bake and learning to
appreciate
good pastries.”
“Most of my father’s formulas (he did not call them recipes)
died
with him in 1983. I have a few that he had worked down to small
enough quantities that my mother could make them at home. Please let
your reader Joanne Rausch know that if she finds that recipe for
sugar
cookies I would like it as well. Thank you for reminder.”
(Melanie Behrens -
melb@imetweb.net)
2/5/10
Forty years ago in Marysville
This week is a continuation of my memories of
coming to Marysville
40 years ago. I was a young bride living in
Marysville, which was
very different from my native Columbus.
I
remember that in our first year of living in Marysville (my
husband Dan and
I), the Journal-Tribune was located at the corner of
Fourth and Main Sts.
as it is now, but on a different corner. It was
on the other side of Fourth
St. and the building is still there. It
is a square brick building with the
words Marysville Tribune carved
into the stone above the front door.
That building was owned not by my husband’s family, but by the
Hubers, who
had owned the Marysville Tribune. My husband’s
grandfather, Bruce Gaumer,
was owner of the twice-weekly Union County
Journal and he eventually bought
the Tribune, a daily paper, merging
the two into the Marysville
Journal-Tribune. It operated out of the
Tribune building on the southwest
corner of Fourth and Main streets.
It was an old building even then and in
fact the Journal-Tribune
leased it from the Huber family. The front part
was cut up into tiny
offices with a small advertising office to the right
and with my
father-in-law’s (Publisher Winfield Behrens) tiny office on the
same
side. The news room was on the left side with four large desks
somehow jammed inside. A large counter ran nearly the entire width of
the building. Everything was cut up in nature, quite different from
the
large open building that is used today where communication is so
much
easier.
The back three-fourths of the building was where the printing
actually took place, both for the newspaper and commercial printing.
It
was called a hot metal system and involved melting lead from
things called
pigs, which were 20-25 pounds, into thin strips which
were called slugs I
guess animal names were appropriate. Slugs with
type were produced by a
machine called a linotype. There were six
linotypes and operators sat there
typing out the actual words on a
line of type (hence the name linotype).
These hot metal strips of
words and sentences were put together in a page
format and
transferred to the press, an ancient looking flatbed press
which
could print no more than eight pages at one time. It took about two
hours to print the paper in those days and now it’s simply a matter
of
minutes with high-speed computer-run presses.
The hot metal system had been
used for many decades and was a very
dirty operation. Just as we came to
town in 1969, newspapers were
starting to change to what was called the
offset method. It involved
no hot metal or mess. Soon it became clear that
this new system was
the wave of the future and so the new building was
built and opened
in 1972 right across Fourth St. facing on Main (at the
site of the
old Sinclair gas station and Dr. Fred Calloway’s office). It
is
located across the street from the post office and still houses the
newspaper operation today.
There we had our own very fancy and modern
press utilizing the
offset process which used chemicals instead of hot
lead. Now we print
at a separate printing facility on the east side of
town.
Just down the street from the newspaper office, I believe where Union
Electronics is located today, was a store called Haffners. My
memories
of that place with its old fashioned creaky hardwood floors,
open space and
employees stationed around the room, brings me to what
I thought was a
funny story. All the ladies who worked there seemed
to be at least the age
of my grandmother. My recollection is that
several would be in front
standing and others would be in the back
standing around the room
presumably to help customers. I remember
entering the store one day. I was
in a hurry because it was the
holiday season and I needed a bow maker. In
those days — the early
‘70s — that would be a triangular plastic thing that
you would wrap
ribbon around and push a plug of plastic through the middle.
That
would then push into the box to decorate the Christmas present. Mine
was lost or broken, so I was on a quest to find a new one as I
entered
Haffners that day.
I looked around quickly and did not see any, so I
approached the
nearest lady for help. I described what I was looking for
and
explained what it did. She looked directly at me and said, “Yes, yes,
I believe I know what you’re talking about. We even had a lot of call
for those last year.” Then she again turned to me and said, “But, we
don’t have any.” So much for stocking things people ask for. I
thought,
OK, I am in a different world.
As I have said every time I’ve written one of
these stories of the
past, there was no better place than Marysville for
children to grow
up and for us to have great lives with great friends. I’m
so glad
that we made the decision to live in Marysville all these
years.
More of my memories of Marysville will follow in the
future.
(Melanie Behrens - melb@imetweb.net)
1/29/10
Brad Gibson in Bangladesh
Brad Gibson, vice president of communications and
marketing at Union
Rural Electric in Marysville, is currently stationed in
Dhaka,
Bangladesh, in an effort to aid that country in establishment of
electric power. He will make several trips there through this next
year
and has agreed to share some of his experiences from that country.
His
position as a consultant is to help improve communications for
the 70
distribution electric cooperatives (locally called PBSs)
throughout the
country. Collectively, they supply electricity to over
7 million accounts,
and deliver the gift of power to over 49 million
people.
Just to give
you a little history, Bangladesh is 88 percent Muslim
and was carved out of
an area of Pakistan and India. This part of the
world has been an area of
turmoil for centuries. In 1971, riots and
strikes broke out in East
Pakistan as that area tried to establish
the independent state of
Bangladesh. Pakistan sent troops to quell
the rebellion. The ensuing war
was one of the shortest and bloodiest
of modern times, with the Pakistan
army occupying all major towns,
using napalm against villages, and
slaughtering and raping villagers.
In 11 days it was all over and
Bangladesh, the world’s 139th country,
officially came into
existence.
The new country experienced famine in 1973-74, followed by
martial
law, successive military coups and political assassinations.
Finally
a democracy was established and has operated since 1996.
When I
asked Brad about the climate, I expected to hear that it was
hot and humid.
Instead he informed me that there is a severe cold
spell with temperatures
in the low 40s, which is quite unusual (so
much for global warming). He
said there is no heat in buildings and
many people do not have hard-walled
homes and live without access to
even a blanket. It is causing deaths among
the feeble and elderly.
Then he talked about his living conditions : “In
Dhaka (where I’m
based out of and the capital of Bangladesh), they are
quite
westernized and I have a warm bed, air conditioning if necessary,
warm water shower, and a comfortable living room and dining room. I
stay in a guest house rather than a hotel. I am traveling outside of
the capital this week and am staying in what has been described as
the
best accommodations available in Rangpur. Suffice it to say it
would not
qualify as a one star hotel in the United States. In the
“deluxe” room they
assigned me, I do have warm water, but the shower
is only a head coming out
of the wall and sprays over everything if
used. There is a hole in the wall
(apparently a window), but there is
no glass or a screen covering it. That
is unfortunate as the
mosquitoes are plentiful and malaria is a very
serious threat.
Fortunately the bathroom door securely closes and I sleep
under a net
alongside my malaria prescription.”
“Having been in Rangpur
for four days now, I have yet to see another
Caucasian person. Some have
said that makes me a celebrity, but I’d
argue it might be more of a freak.
The locals love to have their
picture taken. Some are even brave enough to
ask for a picture with
me, but most just politely stare.”
Brad’s job has
many hurdles to overcome. He said, “Millions of users
are still in line to
even be connected to the grid and live without
power. Their wait continues
as the demand for electricity in the
country is over twice as much as what
the power supply companies can
currently deliver, which causes rolling
outages throughout the day.
This makes it very difficult for farmers
running pumps and small
business trying to increase capacity and count on
equipment, and
frustrates the end users. Additionally, theft of material
(lines and
transformers) is prevalent and causes additional unnecessary
outages
and costs which are hard to recover. Communications efforts will
focus on explaining the cooperative business model and power supply
issues. Thus far I have been submerging myself in the culture to
better
understand how they communicate and what methods of
communication will
potentially serve our purpose.”
“The average household income is somewhere
around $1,200 per year and
good jobs deliver incomes of around $2,400 per
year. There are many
millions of people in the country living in severe
poverty with
incomes considerably lower than the average. A country nearly
the
size of Iowa has approximately 160 million people — the crowds are
almost constant and rickshaws line the streets of not only the city
streets, but also the country roads.
More from Brad later as he shares
his knowledge with the people of
Bangladesh.
(Melanie Behrens - melb@imetweb.net )
1/22/10
40 years ago in Marysville
A few weeks ago I started this series dealing with
my first few years
of living in Marysville. I came here in 1969 as a young
bride of less
than two years. Things were really different here than in
Columbus
where I grew up.
At that time I would say there were less than
10 doctors in
Marysville and the general practitioners often covered the
emergency
room and assisted in surgery. There were no pediatricians,
obstetricians or gynecologists.
Not long after we moved here, I was
pretty sure I was pregnant.
Instead of returning to my 0B-GYN doctor in
Columbus, we decided our
child should be born in the Marysville hospital
and I needed a local
doctor. It seemed to be widely held that Dr. Harold
Stricker was
great for baby deliveries, so that’s where my husband, Dan —
who grew
up in Marysville — thought I should go.
Oh my, it was an
experience back in time just entering his office. I
called for an
appointment and I was told to come in at 1 p.m. So I
did. His office was
located in an old house about where the Richwood
Bank is now on West Fifth
St. I walked in and saw a large square room
where metal chairs lined the
outside walls and a small metal desk was
at the end of the room. There was
old, green tile on the floor. I
stepped up to the lady (Madeline Robinson I
would find out later) who
was wearing nurse’s attire and said that I was a
new patient. She
said, “Have a seat,“ so I did.
I waited there while
other people continued to fill the room and sit
down in chairs. This went
on and soon there were about seven
prospective patients sitting in the
chairs and no one seemed to have
reported to the nurse.
Finally a nice
looking older man came in from the side door and said
to the nurse, “Who’s
first?” She pointed to me and that was my first
meeting with Dr.
Stricker.
He was a little gruff at first and very businesslike. Later I
would
learn he was a kind, gentle person and became my friend. The
examining table was quite high up in the air and the patient needed a
large desk chair to climb onto the table. I thought, what am I doing
here? It was a sparse office that looked like something from 1920s.
He
soon told me I was going to have a baby and he would see me once a
month
until our baby was born. I left by another door with a
prescription for
prenatal vitamins.
As I returned each month, we went through the same
procedure.
Apparently no one really had an appointment at his office. They
just
came in, sat down and were seen in order. The patient would then
leave through that other door.
All went well with this doctor and our
son, Mike, was born in
Marysville. Only natural childbirth was offered in
those days and
shortly after 1969 the Lamaze technique became more popular.
Of
course, we did not have the epidurals of today to relieve the pain of
giving birth.
Since there was no pediatrician, Dr. Stricker took care of
our son as
did most of the family doctors in Marysville. They delivered
them and
cared for them until they were grown. This seemed to work well
for
the most part.
Marysville was a small town of about 5,000 people 40
years ago and
even though close to Columbus it was quite self-sufficient.
This was
a wonderful place for our children to be educated and grow up and
I’m
so glad to have spent most of my life here.
The first of these
columns a few weeks ago brought much comment from
those living in
Marysville a long time and also from some who had
moved away and are
subscribing to the newspaper by mail or reading it
online.
One question
came to mind from one of my readers, Joanne Rausch.
Here’s what she had to
say: “After reading your article it got me
thinking and reminiscing. I
remember Randall’s Bakery and fond
memories of sugar cookies and the fried
cinnamon rolls. Many times I
have wondered if any recipes for these were
available from anyone in
town. They also had a wonderful cookie with nuts
and a very
distinctive taste. If any of your readers have these recipes to
share
I would appreciate it.”
I hope to have more of these memories of
Marysville in the near future.
(Melanie Behrens - melb@imetweb.net)
1/15/10
More with Grant in Baltimore
Last week I told you about Grant Underwood’s new
job. He is a 2005 graduate of Marysville High School and last June
graduated from the Ohio State University with a degree in English and a
minor in music.
He joined a very select group of college grads in the Teach
for America program. He received a cram course in six weeks this summer to learn to teach, and now is in the dysfunctional, failing school system of Baltimore, Maryland. There, he teaches English to seniors, many of whom read on a sixth grade level. Everyone there is black and he is now in the minority.
His job has been a challenge in every way and
I can see he is up to it. Students do not have their own textbooks and
attendance is a problem. It’s a world unlike any Grant has been used to and
he has an opportunity to really affect the lives of these struggling
students.
Now more about his school.
If there’s a behavior problem, there
is no detention, actually no punishment of any kind in his school. Grant is
responsible for handling problems in his class, but fortunately he seems to
have been able to win students over. If you know Grant, you can appreciate
his kind, honest nature and see that he would be a breath of fresh air to these kids.
Their grades are not A through F, but appear as a percentage.
Grant is not allowed to give them less than 50 percent on the report card. It seems the students just move on each year and are finally passed on
to graduation.
Grant had a lot of trouble understanding their names. For
instance, he had three girls named Destiny all spelled in a different way. Students tend to mumble, so it was difficult to understand what they had to say and to know what their name was. Plus, students would make fun of him if he didn’t get their name right. So in the beginning, he decided to try a little white lie. He told them that he had a hearing loss in one ear and that they had to speak up and enunciate clearly for
him to understand them. Obviously all resources have to come into play
here.
Now if he gets the name wrong, half the students laugh and the other half are all over them saying, “Leave Mr. Underwood alone, he has a hearing loss — don’t make fun of him.” Grant considers this a minor victory.
In the beginning, this name recognition problem was complicated
by the fact that everyone goes by a nickname in his class — often associated with their appearance. So they wanted to use those nicknames
on their school papers and this became an impossible situation. Not only
did he have trouble with their given names, but also they wanted him to
learn nicknames, too! He put his foot down and now nothing but the proper
name goes on the paper.
To help the new teachers in this difficult first
year, mentors are available to meet with them during teachers planning
time, which is actually set aside for them to get ready for the next day.
They sit in on Grant’s class and offer suggestions. He says any help is
welcome.
The school does not offer much in the way of extracurricular activities. There are the basic sports of football, basketball, track,
and volleyball, but there is no band or a club of any kind. Grant actually
discovered the old band room one day with the help of some of his students.
That was used in better times. When inside, he saw that the ceilings were
falling down, tables turned over, and the place generally needed a good
cleaning. But there was an old piano there. Grant had told his students
that he played and of course now they’re trying to coax him into piano
lessons, which he’s considering in the future.
It’s a job that Grant
seems to embrace and I can see he’s going to provide these young people
with a view into another world — the one that Grant experienced as a
student in Marysville High School.
1/8/10
Two worlds meet in Baltimore
He is a 2005 graduate of Marysville High School
and valedictorian of his class. Last June he also graduated from the Ohio
State University with a degree in English and a minor in music. That didn’t
really prepare him for a teaching job, but that’s where Grant Underwood is at the moment. He was selected to teach through the Teach for America program and sent to the Baltimore, Maryland school system. As part of this program he also attends Johns Hopkins University in the evenings and some weekends working on his master’s degree in teaching (yes that’s what it’s called).
He has taken his world of Marysville, a semi
rural community of about 17,000 people who are mostly Caucasian, to the
inner city school system of Baltimore, where his students and much of the
staff are black and where he is now in the minority. Grant says they are
very interested in our life here as it is so different from theirs. They know the school they are assigned to is offering them only the
basics.
This summer, the Teach for America teachers had a six week course
on how to teach. Most do not have education degrees. This is a program to help these failing schools and is very selective about those chosen.
Grant is teaching seniors — about 80 of them a day. That’s if they come to
school. Sometimes there are as few as five in class. Most have jobs after
school.
This is a totally different world than where Grant grew up. It’s tough and the kids are tough. Many of his students are in gangs and some, even though they’re seniors, only read on a sixth grade level. Grant’s job is to bring some of his world and education to theirs and to affect their lives in a positive way.
His job is hard because the
school is in sad condition. In his English class, students don’t have their
own textbooks to take home. They share, reading during class. Students
prefer to read out loud because that’s what they’re used to. Grant insists
they learn to read silently, but the lack of textbooks is a big problem. He
has been able to get together enough copies of Hamlet for everyone through donations from an outside group. Also the quota of office copying is already used up for the year, so teachers often pay for copies of material at outside sources — all on a first year teacher’s salary.
It
gets worse. In his high school, there’s currently no math teacher. Two quit
their jobs and the third one is on maternity leave, so the math classes are
being monitored by substitutes who have little math training. It often
turns into more of the study hall situation or the students come and spend
an extra hour in Grant’s class or in the Spanish teacher’s class.
At the
end of last year, all the teachers were fired in his school because there
has been no progress for several years and it is known as a dysfunctional
and failing school. The classes are now manned by many of these new
teachers from Teach for America plus a few who were able to be
rehired.
Grant said he has never felt more fortunate to be a graduate of Marysville High School. There he had books. Then there were the teachers who have been there so long that his father had them for class. In Baltimore, students are in a constant state of change.
Next
week more with Grant Underwood and the Baltimore kids!
My wish for you in
2010
May peace break into your home and may thieves come to steal your debts. May the pockets of your jeans become a magnet for $50 bills.
May
love stick to your face like Vaseline and may laughter assault your lips!
May happiness slap you across the face and may your tears be that of
joy.
May the problems you had forget your home address! In simple words — may 2010 be the best year of your life.
Marysville Journal Tribune
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