Barb

I lost a lovely friend tonight and we lost a part of our wonderful Ft. Wayne family. Her name was Barbara Shaffer and she was elegant, generous and fun. Elegant because she always seemed to know what was tasteful but not stuffy. Generous with her wit and inclusion. She entertained people who needed entertaining. Barb was fun with a beautiful smile and good natured zing. I will think of her every time I look into my Ft. Wayne grandchildren's eyes . They are so like hers. She was their grandmother too.

A little more about gardening is in order. Dad couldn't wait to get off the farm but he soon discovered the man could leave the country but the country does not leave the man. This is my brother, K. in 1942 watering dad's Victory garden and there I am waiting my turn. We followed the guide lines for a Victory garden. Dad was always going a little further. He loved watermelon but should have remembered the sun and soil requirements. We got lots of leaves - no melon's.
That summer we still rented the house on Center St. The next year we started buying 315 N. Washington St where we had an even bigger Victory garden but kept it simple. There were lots of other experiments in farming that went on later. Some were pretty funny.
I am going to post a story about life on the farm that my wonderful cousin Marge wrote. I also wrote a little about growing up on the farm when K. and I were small. All of that should wait until closer to warm weather in my thinking . Then there is the story about dad and the lawn problems before he just made it all into parking lot and shop. I wrote an entire writer's group piece that included the lawn debacle. Maybe I can find it and publish it here.

Lets do spring.

Yes! It is March 20th -the first day of spring. I'm going to give basket ball a rest for a while because I feel more like garden thinking and planning. My roots with gardening go way back. All my families were gardeners or farmers or both. Glen and I were both Master Gardeners. We took the training when Purdue just started certifying. Actual professors would show up once a week in North Webster to teach. Warsaw was not ready yet so the classes were held at the American Legion there in Webster.

For several years while we were in business as Tabatha's Garden I taught all day herbal seminars for Purdue at IPFW. They were challenging but great fun with packed classes. My favorite part was the luncheon they held often at Triangle Park.

Last friday our County Extention office called to ask if I would judge herbs at the Co. Fair again.
It is an interesting and easy way to make 50.00. The twins birthday is that day but maybe we can get together on Sunday before.

I have about 200 heritage tomato plants under lights. I hope to bring them along in time for the
Pound Store history days in mid- May. We all need to contribute something to sell.

County Tourney in my experience and beyond

Aannd- I'm back. Some of my favorite childhood and early teen memories are of the Kosciusko Co. basketball tourney time. We ate slept and lived basket ball from the ticket sales rush 'till the cutting down of the nets by the winners on Saturday night. It was cold standing outside in line to get into the old Armory building where all the Warsaw and county games were played . Both exhilarating fun and a miserable lack of comfort made it memorable. Much of the enjoyment depended on the weather and who you happened to be standing near. Ah youth.
Anyway at that particular time -late 1940s into the early '50s when there were 14 small county town basket ball teams our house on Washington St. was pit-stop central during the tourney.We would have a big pot of beef/vegie soup simmering in the deep well cooker that fit down into the top of our old electric stove. This perfumed the house from Tuesday night through Saturday afternoon tourney week. County family -cousins and Uncle Dal and the like would stop in for a quick bowl of soup and crowd relief. It was all very exciting in my "who knows what will happen next "mindset then. The fact that this way of playing basketball and in fact this very venue would fade away soon did not occur to me. The huge picture of a tiger that my dad painted on the wall of the gym would be gone. The place where my future husband was formally introduced to me and the location of so many wonderful events like school dances , proms and festivals-disappeared.
The concessions area where I sweated out the selection of a single cheerleader and got a standing O when I walked out on the floor; indicating that I had won by a vote of the entire student body. Wow ! How could that structure not always be there. It will always be there for me.

Well- enough about me and the essence of the era. Any guy will tell you that the game is the thing. I read that the Indiana High School Athletic Association began it's state tournament is 1911. Of course there were regionals and then the semi-states were played starting 1936. Part of that time Atwood (the Greyhounds) did not have a gym but I heard that back then- in the 30s-. they won the regionals after beating Culver in the sectionals. So they got to go play in the state tourney. What a thrill that must have been . I have to look up who was on that team.

Later Dan Anglin , playing for Atwood,was a stellar player in his younger days. One legendary game with Silver Lake , I was told, a ref called Dan for allegedly stepping on the line. It is still debatable but we will always believe the wrong team won because of that call.

School consolidations started in the 1950s, so just as everyone predicted, nothing was ever the same in Hi School basketball again.