I have written a couple of articles about the former Perry Township Fire Department. 

I was young and living on Madison Avenue when the township purchased its first fire truck. Because the township had no place to house the truck, it was parked at Bob Boggs’ automotive garage, which was just about a half-block from our house.

The department was totally volunteer at that time. The volunteer on duty as the driver would get a call at his house and then drive to the garage to get the truck. After closing time at the garage, Mr. Boggs would also get a call. 

During that time Indianapolis had defined boundaries. The Indianapolis Police Department only patrolled the streets of Indianapolis proper, while it was the responsibility of the Marion County Sheriff’s Department to cover all the outlying county. So, Perry Township was covered by the Sheriff’s Department and the state police. That didn’t change until the implementation of Unigov, at which time IPD began to patrol the entire county.

As I remember there was usually only one sheriff deputy on duty at anytime in the township. I learned about this after my father opened his Sunoco station on Madison. 

On occasion a deputy would stop into our station for a brief break. We found out that two of the deputies assigned to our area were the Edwards brothers.  

It didn’t take long for my dad’s business to take off. In addition to selling gas, we washed and serviced cars and did tune ups and brake jobs. 

Since I wasn’t old enough to have a driver’s license at the time, I rode my bike to work during the summer, after school and on weekend. In order to have the station open by 6 a.m., we had to get there by 5:45 a.m.

I remember Dad driving the service truck home one night – it was usually left at the station – and he asked me if I would drive it back to work the next morning because it had to be there when we opened. 

 I had been driving vehicles on our business property so I was sure I had the skills to do that. I drove those 5 blocks the next morning with no problems.

Shortly after opening the station, one of the deputy brothers stopped by for a cup of coffee. As we were talking he commented that he saw me driving to work earlier and was surprised because he didn’t know that I had my driver’s license.
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I smiled at him and nodded as I ran out to pump some gas. There’s only one deputy sheriff on duty in the entire township and he sees me drive 5 blocks. Lucky for me, by the time I returned the conversation had changed to something else. 

Flying commercially was a lot of fun a long time ago, back when I lived in Southern California – about 10 blocks from Disneyland – for two years. I returned to Indianapolis a couple of times during that period.

One time when I went to the Indianapolis airport to catch my flight to Los Angeles I was treated to a real surprise. At the ticketing line I encountered Joe Spitznagel, a good friend of mine who was working for TWA. I handed Joe my ticket and he issued me a boarding pass, smiled and then stamped it FIRST CLASS. Tickets were not yet computerized so it was standard procedure to use that rubber stamp. I proceded to the gate and was greeted and welcomed to my first-class flight to California.

I needed to change airplanes in St. Louis and had about a three-hour layover. I walked around the airport for awhile and then proceeded to the departing area for my flight. I had dozed off when I heard a noise and saw several people around the gate to the airplane. I walked in that direction but the gate agent told me it was too early to board. 

When first class was called there was just a uniformed soldier and me. As I neared my seat I noticed a man sleeping in his seat. I was shocked. It was Art Linkletter, the host of several television shows and an author. He died in May 2010. 

After taking my seat I looked across the aisle and saw a smiling Mary Tyler Moore. All of a sudden it clicked in my mind that Art and Mary were the ones boarding the plane early. 

I later found out that Mary had been in Minneapolis to film the opening credits for her self-titled show, including the scene when she tossed her hat into the air. At the time I had no idea what she was talking about because the show would premiere for about six months. 

 As soon as the seat belt light went off, she scampered forward to wake up Art, and we began playing a game trying to guess what city we might be flying over. To find out if any of our guesses were correct, Mary knocked on the door to the pilot’s cabin and asked what city was below us. 

We ate, drank, laughed and walked around the first-class area until we were instructed to sit down and prepare for landing. 

After landing, the three of us (me in the middle) walked through the Los Angeles airport arm in arm and laughing. We grabbed our luggage and walked out the door, where there were two limos waiting. My two new friends climbed in them and vanished into the night.  I waited 20 minutes for a parking lot shuttle bus, found my car and drove to my apartment.

That was a fun flight.