A Little piece of Paradise… College Hill, Ohio - SELFCRAFT

Chapter 39 It Doesn’t Seem So Long Ago…By Doris KuszlerSince I’ve lived in College Hill since 1940, Dr. Fred Smart asked if I’d share a few of my memoriesof what it was like to grow up here. So I sat down, thought a bit, and came up with the followingrecollections:Going into Hardert’s Saloon on Halloween because we’d heard the owners were dropping dimes intothe kid’s trick-or-treat bags. In the early `40’s, a dime was a windfall! And if you saved enough of them,you could treat yourself at the soda fountain in Dow’s Drug Store at Cedar and Hamilton whereDiscepoli’s Wine Shoppe is today.Sitting on my friend’s front porch on Cedar Avenue with our suit boxes full of movie stars’ pictureswhich we’d exchange with the same fervor reserved for baseball cards today---a Clark Gable for a HedyLamarr, or a Deanna Durbin for a Fred Astaire, etc.Going to movies at the jam-packed Hollywood Theater where admission had skyrocketed to 40cents! But during the War, we could get in free when the Hollywood had ‘scrap drives.’ Then, instead ofpaying, you brought in so many pounds of rubber or scrap metal for the war effort. The Hollywood was aspecial place at Christmas, too, when there’d be a kiddie matinee and Santa would be on stage handingout little bags of hard candy.Getting report cards at St. Clare School from the elderly pastor, Rev. Charles Diener, whose adviceto us was always the same---Stay Away from Bad Eggs!When Albers grocery occupied the building next to Hodapp’s, and we thought it was the ultimate insupermarkets! Why, the parking lot must have accommodated at least a dozen cars!When we did all our Christmas shopping right on the Avenue at such wonderful stores as Braun’sToggery, Gerstner’s (later called Vonderbrinks) and Ludwig Shoes.When the heart-throbs for College Hill teen-age girls were the boys from OMI -- the Ohio MilitaryInstitute -- where Aiken is now. They were handsome in their sky-blue uniforms, especially at the dressparades on Sunday afternoons. And then there was the cannon that was shot off every morning at OMIabout 6 AM. The cadet’s days started with a bang - literally!Taking ballet lessons for a quarter a session from Mrs. Faison in the gym at College Hill School, andappearing in one of her dance recitals as a female hunter in Peter and the Wolf. Women’s Lib. ahead of itstime!Sitting in our house on Saranac Avenue during the War with all the lights out during the blackouts(air raid practices) while my father, who was the air raid warden on the street, patrolled in is white helmetlooking for any houses that might still have lights on.Declining to join my girl friends’ sewing club --I had no interest in the domestic sciences then, either-- which met, in of all places, under the bridge over Groesbeck Road, roughly where the wooded ravinebehind Hillrise is today.Proudly walking up to the librarian’s desk at the College Hill Library (located then in theeasternmost wing of College Hill School) to accept a brown-and-cream certificate for reading, andreporting on, the required number of books over summer.In the late ‘40’s,’ coming home from high school on the bus and stopping first at Baumer &Reddert’s Appliance Store to watch that marvelous new invention called television in the front window.After all, none of us had a TV at home.I’ve enjoyed recounting these College Hill memories with you, and hope they’ve stirred up nostalgiafor some of you, also.225