The American Basketball Association, which the Indiana Pacers were affiliated with when they were founded, is celebrating its 50th anniversary.

The Pacers were one of the 11 original teams that formed the ABA in 1967. The Pacers and the Kentucky Colonels were the only teams that remained for all nine seasons without relocating to a different city, changing names or folding.

I attended my first ABA games when living in Southern California. The Anaheim Amigos played their home games about 2 miles from where I lived. It was fun to see the Pacers when they came to Anaheim to play.
I saw Southport graduate Louie Dampier in action when his Kentucky Colonels played the Amigos. He played for the Colonels for their entire nine years of existence. 

A couple of years later I returned to Indianapolis and a good friend and I opened and operated a commercial driving school in the Broad Ripple area. At that time the Pacers were playing their home games at the State Fairgrounds Coliseum. Even when we had evening classes, we could get to the games by halftime.

A few years later I lived in an apartment on Harcourt Road, just south of 79th Street. One of my neighbors was Pacers player Bob Netolicky, but we really didn’t get to know each other. 

Another Pacer with great local connections is George McGinnis, who attended Washington High, which went unbeaten and won the state championship in 1969. He was named Mr. Basketball that year. George played at Indiana University before playing for the ABA Pacers from 1971-75. He finished his professional career with the NBA Pacers 1980-82 and was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame last year.

Lots of big-name players and coaches will attend the reunion, including Bob “Slick” Leonard, George McGinnis, Bob Netolicky, Julius Erving, Rick Berry, George Gervin, Darnell Hillman, Dan Issel and others.

The public can meet players, get autographs and purchase ABA memorabilia at Butler Fieldhouse from 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday, April 7. The dinner program, hosted by Bob Costas, follows at 6:30 p.m. at Banker’s Life Fieldhouse. 

Call Don Detzler at 317-515-8649 or email detzler@droppingdimes.org for tickets or more information.

About a month ago I wrote an article about how the number of living creatures residing at our house had increased from six to 10.

Originally there was just my wife, Lyn, and me. Then we added Stuart, our therapy dog. We quite often provide housing for our friendly neighborhood cat, Guessie. A few years ago we welcomed three chickens – Jackie, Alberta and Betty.

I think both humans and animals were content with the seven of us sharing the property. Everyone got along wonderfully. Lots of our human friends would stop by visit and spend a little time with all of us.
Around the first of February, Lyn, Stuart and I made a trip to a store that sold baby chickens. Lyn had done quite a bit of research and knew exactly what breeds that we wanted to add to our “flock.” One of them is the same breed as Alberta, who died several months ago. The other three are also special in their own ways.

We got the girls home and set them up in our chicken facility. These young birds require quite a bit of warmth so they are living in our heated garage until it gets warmer. It is amazing how quickly these girls are growing. 

Our first three chickens were full grown when we got them. They like us and enjoy playing in the yard while we are outside with them, but they don’t like to be petted or picked up. Lyn and I started picking up and playing with two of our baby chickens the first day we had them.

The two that enjoyed our company from the start were named Kathy and Trudy. Kathy is named after my sister and Trudy is named for one of Lyn’s sisters. The two that we needed to work with a bit are Nancy and Alberta. Nancy is the name of Lyn’s other sister and Alberta was the name of Lyn’s mom and the chicken lost to illness.

Things were going really good until last week when Nancy started making some strange sounds. All of a sudden we recognized those sounds as being young rooster crows, hence, Lyn changed her name to Charlie.

Last Friday we returned to the store and explained that one of our chickens started crowing. We were given a different baby chicken of the same breed, but the store wouldn’t take back the rooster. So we are looking for a new home for Charlie.

It occurred to us that the new Nancy would probably need a friend of the same size to grow up with, so we purchased one more young girl of the same breed.
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So now there are two humans, a dog, a cat and eight chickens residing at our address. There is never a dull moment around here. When the weather gets warmer we will introduce the young girls to our two older ones. 

Last week was a difficult one for many central Indiana residents. The loss of Boone County Sheriff’s Deputy Jacob Pickett was on our minds as his life was celebrated. The fact that he was a canine officer and a trainer for other canine teams brought his story much closer to people who have close connections with service or therapy dogs.

I can only imagine how emotional it was to be at any of the services. I spent a good part of the day watching the funeral and the motorcade on television. A few times when things got a little emotional for me, Stuart (my therapy dog) hopped up on my lap. He seemed sad when the television announcers talked about Deputy Pickett’s canine partner, Brik.

We all have memories of events that are forever in our minds. I’m sure that the loss of Deputy Pickett and Southport Police Lt. Aaron Allen have been added to my list. My oldest memory of the loss of a police officer goes back to when I was about 12.

I was attending Edgewood Grade School and had a newspaper route, which started on Epler Avenue just after I crossed Madison Avenue. I then traveled back and forth on the first three streets between Epler and Thompson Road.

One evening as I was finishing my route and approaching Madison Avenue, I started seeing state police cars driving south on Madison, which was a two-lane state highway (Ind. 431) at the time. The cars were traveling at or below the speed limit, but the big red lights on the top of the vehicles were lit and rotating.

I had never seen anything like that before. I believe it was the following day before I found out what had happened. A state trooper, Sgt. Hubert E. Rousch had been killed in a traffic accident at the intersection of Madison and Epler avenues. His car was struck by a truck that made an illegal left turn. If the wreck had happened 45 minutes later, I would have been right there.

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I received a telephone call last week from one of my former high school classmates, Judy Snyder, who called to inform me of the death of one of our classmates, Larry Unversaw, who had been having some health problems. 

Whenever I heard Larry’s name, the following story always pops in my mind. 

In the late 1950s my dad opened his Sunoco service station on Madison Avenue. One evening – I think it was after dark – I was restocking things at the fuel island. I was walking toward the fuel pumps when someone jumped up from the far side of one of the pumps and screamed a goofy version of my name.

I had no clue that any human was within 30 yards me. I jumped back, dropped stuff and screamed some bad words. Larry was walking to his destination and decided to stop and say hi – boy, did he get me. I have no memory of anything that happened after that. I think I gave him a ride after we closed the station for the evening. Memories are precious.

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We have a special robin that has come back to nest in our front yard for the third year. She knows that I will provide her some earthworms within a couple days of her arrival.   

We also have a pair of ducks that nest on the creek bank near us. They have learned that we have a couple of bird feeders that always have some really tasty seeds under them. On Sunday the male duck arrived and spent some breakfast time outside our window. He and his mate seem to like me, my wife, Lyn, and Stewart.
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OK, I’m off to purchase some worms.

One morning last week I was watching the “Today” show. One of the guests was Jimmy Buffett, who was promoting his Broadway musical and his tour. I didn’t know anything about the musical, but I have seen him in concert, and it was an interesting evening.

Back in the mid 1990s I enjoyed a part-time job driving a charter bus. I mainly took local trips to sporting events or concerts. I was assigned a trip to transport a group to a Buffett concert at what then was known as Deer Creek Music Center. These were generally fun and easy trips. 

I was a bit concerned when I read my trip instructions. The pickup point seemed to be in a Westside neighborhood. I checked it out ahead of time in my car and discovered it was a narrow side street off of Washington Street. There was no place to park a 40-foot bus.

I tried getting in contact with someone at the phone number on the charter sheet but got no answer. So I showed up at the assigned time. A gentleman approached the bus and explained that they were ready to depart and it would be fine if we loaded where I was sitting.

He also explained to me that he was a police officer and he owned a small business that provided escorts for funerals. He told me that he was treating his employers to the concert. 

Just as I thought we were ready to depart, the gentleman in charge started speaking on a handheld communication device. All of a sudden we were surrounded by about eight motorcycle policemen. I was informed that we would have an escort to the concert.

We traveled some city street then to the interstate. I was informed that we would exit the interstate and travel on some countryside roads to avoid traffic.

I found it difficult to keep tracks of all the motorcycles, which seemed to be everywhere as they were zipping in and out of traffic. I’m sure the families out in their yards were wondering what important celebrity was passing down their road.

We arrived at Deer Creek and were directed to a parking area near the stage, which only had a couple of buses and a motor home parked in it. This was nothing like the area that I was directed to in previous visits. Most of the passengers departed and went to their seats. A few remained on the bus to try to recover from their early partying before the trip began.

Because I still had passengers on the coach, I needed to remain nearby and provide any assistance they might need. The bus was almost totally surrounded by the motorcycles. We were quite a sight and lots of people were curious.

It came to my attention that all of the other vehicles parked around us were being used by Buffett, his band and crew. They were curious about our bus and the large motorcycle escort that we had.

I explained several times about my group and our trip from Downtown Indianapolis. I met Buffett and got a brief tour of his motor home. I was showed a great location from which to watch the concert.

Going to Cheeseburger in Paradise or seeing Buffett on television causes me to remember that interesting day, which always makes me smile. 

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On Monday I watched on TV as fallen Boone County Sheriff’s Deputy Jacob Picket was transported from St. Vincent Hospital to the Marion County’s coroner’s office.  

I’m sure that those motorcycle officers were serious about everything going smoothly to honor Pickett.
I felt a close connection to them as I was watching. I know they were having a rough morning.