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BY EILEEN BRADY THE NEWS JOURNAL OF WILMINGTON, OHIO “I’d like to thank the Academy, the tornado sirens, the meteorologists, the emergency personnel and Rammel Poured Walls.”
Just two Saturdays ago, at noon, my husband, daughter and I were at J.W. Denver Williams Memorial Park for a softball tournament. We didn’t realize it was the first Saturday of the month, or that it was at noon, or that one of the local tornado sirens was located in the heart of the park. Had we known, we may have taken a different route from the front diamond to the back, avoiding the earsplitting monthly test of Wilmington’s emergency warning sirens. I’d never been that physically close to one of those sirens. I thought my ears might bleed. BY EILEEN BRADY THE NEWS JOURNAL OF WILMINGTON, OHIO My strange affection for a good ol’ deafening demolition derby can probably be traced back 30 years to Pinky Tuscadero of “Happy Days” fame. In a three-part episode that first aired in 1976, Fonzie’s old flame Pinky returns to Milwaukee, becomes the first female driver in “demolition derby history” and inspires the Fonz to propose marriage.
Sure, the Mallachy Brothers played dirty, using the Mallachy Crunch to send Pinky to the hospital, but by the last episode, Fonzie outsmarts them with a fake stall to win the derby. Happy ending. County fairs started holding demolition derbies in the 1950s, although some accounts trace their start to the 1930s, which produced an abundance of worn-out Model T’s. Derbies are still popular today, although it’s apparently becoming harder to find full-sized American sedans from the ’60s and ’70s, built with sturdy frames. Maybe we’ll soon see all-SUV derbies, driven by people fed up with gas prices. |
Eileen Brady:Observant and curious. Good listener. Archives
March 2014
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