Athens Ohio Archives

December 6, 2025

Shredding – My Guilty Pleasure

It doesn’t take much to amuse me. I bought a shredder to take care of confidential financial documents plus the occasional credit card and even CD.

I realized that it didn’t really get much use in the basement, so I moved it under the kitchen table where I take a guilty pleasure watching junk mail disappear into its maw, leaving nothing but tiny strips of paper.

Wife Lila the bank teller

Wife Lila took a job as teller at the Hocking Valley bank when we were living in Athens, Ohio. She turned out to be good at it and enjoyed helping her customers.

Miss Miller was one of her favorites – a tiny little woman who would show up to withdraw a buck or two at a time. She came in all excited to say that she was getting married. Her tip turned into a nice picture package in The Athens Messenger. (Click on the image to make it larger.)

When I went out to visit the newlyweds, I paused on the porch of a battered two-story frame house that had clearly seen better days when I heard a loud THUMP, THUMP THUMP, BANG, and an old tire went rolling out the front door.

Miss Miller was cleaning house.

Getting back to shredders

One nice thing about being a bank teller is that it was never hard for her to find a new job. When we moved to Gastonia, N.C., she hired on at the Carolina State Bank just as it was moving into new facilities.

Spencer, one of her bosses, was a nice guy, but it was good that the bank was housed in a one-story building because I’m not sure his elevator would reach a higher floor.

Right after a huge shredder was uncrated, Spence said, “Let’s see if this thing works.” while plugging it into the wall outlet.

It worked. Unfortunately, the first thing it ate was the instruction manual that had been sitting in the tray.

Lila the Head Teller

Once it became clear that Lila was the one other tellers turned to when they were out of balance, she was promoted to head teller at the Flagship Bank next to the paper. (The bank has since changed its name six or eight times, and the building is buried under The Post’s four-story building.)

She particularly liked working in the drive-in windows. She was probably holding the drawer open for me to insert two forms of ID before cashing my check.

She didn’t play favorites, although she said there was a particular bald-headed fireman who would get her weak in the knees.

That might have been about the time I ditched the combover and went fully chrome on top.

May 21, 2020May 21, 2020

Should Cape to Jackson Calls Cost a Dime?

I was browsing through the November 18, 1918, Southeast Missourian when I saw there was a big controversy brewing. The phone company was petitioning the state utility commission to allow them to either raise rates on all users, or end free calling between Cape Girardeau and Jackson, and make it cost a dime a call.

Darned students are hogging the lines

Pay telephone booths near Scott Quadrangle in Athens, Ohio, c 1967

Cape Girardeau Bell Telephone said that from 500 to 700 calls a day are handled between the two cities daily. Their records show that at least 75 percent of the calls are for “social purposes. Students are frequent users of the line. Young people get much enjoyment talking to friends in the other town. Much visiting is done over the phone.”

Business calls were being blocked

The phone company complained that the 25 percent of the calls going to “essential business” has to wait until the 75 percent of social business is taken care of.

“Every businessman knows that not once in a hundred times can he get a prompt connection with Jackson, but must wait from a few minutes to a few hours.”

What’s the problem?

One of nine telephone system rooms at The Palm Beach Post

The phone company manager said there are only six lines between the two towns. If the free service is continued, he claimed that he would have to put in seven more lines to take care of the business that has grown through the free rate.

He estimated that the calls would drop from 600 a day to about 100 a day if the ten-cent toll was approved.

[In comparison, my old paper, The Palm Beach Post could handle more than 300 phone calls at once. I was on vacation when I was offered the job of telecommunication manager. As I was driving through Old Appleton, I thought, if I take this job, I’ll have a bigger phone system than most of the towns in SE Missouri.]

Missourian was vexed

The Missourian editorialized that it “is not fully enough advised regarding the facts in the case to offer any suggestions for a solution, but it knows from its daily vexation that something should be done to clear the Cape-Jackson lines in order that essential business may be transacted with a little more promptness.”

The dime charge must not have been approved because this table of long distance charges doesn’t show one for Jackson.

I vaguely remember Jackson as being long distance when I was a kid, but I could be wrong. Anybody know for sure?

June 6, 2018October 10, 2020

Shawnee High School

Way back in 1969, I stumbled across a dying coal town in Perry County, Ohio, that looked like something out of a Western movie set. Many of the buildings had wooden balconies overlooking Main Street.

Most unusual was an effigy hanging at the main intersection in town. I was told that some in town thought it was supposed to represent the mayor, but I couldn’t confirm that.

I needed ten more hours to graduate from Ohio University, so I convinced an architecture prof to let me earn six hours of credit for documenting the town. I spent about 20 hours and shot over 400 photos. I didn’t think I had exhausted all the possibilities the town had, so I took an incomplete to keep working. Riots, a job offer in another state and circumstances kept me from getting the hours and the degree.

I spent almost a month recently digitizing the negatives, improving their quality and repairing dust spots and scratches. The result will be a series of exhibits in concert with the Little Cities of Black Diamonds and the Southeast Ohio History Center. The first showing will be at the Second Saturday celebration in Shawnee on June 9, 2018.

The first will center on Shawnee High School. The only thing left of it today is the gymnasium.

Gallery of Shawnee High School in 1969

Click on any image to make it larger, then use your arrow keys to move around.

March 31, 2016February 10, 2021

Barn on River Road

I was rooting through my Ohio photos trying to find something for Curator Jessica to use in a brochure or some such thing when I ran across this photo slugged “Barn on River Road,” taken in Athens (OH) county in August 2014.

When I was working in Athens, I went through a barn phase. There were lots of really pretty, well-kept ones in that area. This one still has a good coat of the traditional red paint. (Click on it to make it larger.)

Why are barns red?

Why are barns red, you might ask? Because they’re prettier against green grass, maybe? Actually, I ran across a whole bunch of links dealing with barn paint.