Poking Through The Past
A Memoire
By:
D.A. Wittler
Chapter 1:
A Simpler Time
(From Camelot To The Moon)
I was born in 1962. A time barely considered part of the boomer generation and yet not quite full fledged generation X. I vaguely remember that little house on Otto street in Ottoville, Ohio where I was the newest little brother to a big sister Cindy, and two older brothers Steve and Keith. Images of sunlight through living room curtains, Lincoln logs on a carpeted floor, and fire crackers on the Fourth of July still echo in my mind. They seem like dreams today, but I know that shy little boy who loved to wear hats, and dress up in costume was destined to see man on the moon.
The 1960's was a simpler time with Andy Griffith and I Love Lucy on a black and white television screen, and yet the Bay of Pigs, and Gulf of Tonkin ushered in a fire storm begun with a shot heard on a sunny November day in Dallas, Texas. And so the days of innocent prosperity born of blood spilled by a Greatest Generation gave way to war once again. Free love tainted by a silent misery delivered a new addiction defined by Timothy Leary as the “Tune in, turn on, and drop out” generation. It gave the reality of man on the moon a whole new meaning; getting high was no longer a trip taken by man and machine.
As our growing family was about to bear the pangs of another little sister, we moved out of that little house on Otto street to the Bigelow house at 103 East Sixth. It was built on a dead end alley that served as a neighbor's driveway ending on a little hill along the once Miami and Erie canal. A one time waterway for German immigrants from cities like Cincinnati, and ports of call like New Orleans. Commerce flowed as well along the way into what was known to the natives as The Great Black Swamp. The only remaining evidence of the Shawnee and Delaware are the hand hewn arrow heads, grinding stones and bones of those who inherited it from generations long passed into legend spoken around a campfire. Its ashes ground into a muddy clay used to fire bricks to build sanctuaries of Gothic design for Catholic priests to gather in the faithful.
