I have been busy the past several months, so much so that I’m not even going to try to list all of the things that have happened because I’d get tired and probably fall asleep while writing. 

The biggest and greatest event was our daughter getting married. She isn’t Michele Young any longer; she is Michele Kimmerling. It has been pointed out to her several times that she isn’t young any longer. Heck, she has a granddaughter, Mallory Young.

We have celebrated several birthdays in our family over the past month. My wife, Lyn, celebrated her birthday July 27; mine was Aug. 5. For about a week I am only one year older than Lyn, who often points out to me that she is and will always be younger than me. 

Our grandson Trevor turned 23 Aug. 24. I’m not sure how he went from 14 to 24 so quickly. He is finishing college at Wabash, where he is a pole vaulter. He also did that at Southport High School.

Michele’s birthday will also be celebrated this month. While I’m not going to reveal her age, she does have a 24-year-old son. Our middle grandson, Tyler, has a daughter who turned 1 this month. 

On Sept. 4 I am going to have lunch with several former members of my unit in the Indiana National Guard. We were in the motor pool of our aircraft repair company and at that time were based at Stout Field on the Westside. 

Before that, on Saturday we are having our third Edgewood Grade School reunion. The first two were tons of fun. I attended Edgewood for six years and later drove a bus there. My sister, Kathy, will be coming up to Indianapolis from Austin a couple of weeks after the reunion. I wish she could be here to enjoy the evening. 
Stuart, my therapy dog, wants me to remind everyone about Labor Day coming up. I’m sure the fact that Sept. 7 is his birthday had nothing to do with his interest in your remembering that date. He sure seems excited that his birthday falls on a national holiday this year.

Sept. 10, 11, 12 and 13 are the dates from my sister’s 50th high school reunion. She will stay at a hotel with former classmate Diane Spaulding-Eberhart. 

Those dates are when my 55th high school reunion will be held. We are graduates of Southport High. This is going to be a busy four days. 

I’m hoping that both classes will have an opportunity to see and purchase the new book about the history of the city of Southport and Southport High. “Hail, Hail Our Southport!” is a wonderful read. I have a copy to give to my sister.

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Carly Brooke sang the national anthem Saturday night at the Indianapolis Colts game. She sounded wonderful, and I posted her performance – the highlight of the evening – on Facebook. 

Have you ever had one of those days when you meet someone, start talking and several connections seem to fall into place? That happened about a week or so ago to my wife, Lyn, and me.

We learned about something new happening in Beech Grove – an afternoon concert. “Music on Main” was held Aug. 9, and even with some spotty showers, it sure looked like a successful event. I was told that the Chamber of Commerce and the Eagles organized the event. While walking toward the stage, we ran into Paul Doyle and his wife. I drove a bus with Paul for Beech Grove Schools. 

Lyn and I decided to slip into one of our favorite places, D’s Taps, which is a fairly new restaurant and pub. The place was packed, and we had a short wait before being seated. We noticed another couple waiting, and since our table could accommodate four people, we invited them to join us.

We introduced ourselves and met Jim and Deanna Brooks; Deanna told us that she was friends with some of my cousins, Nancy Bice, Betty Haussecker, Sue Ellen Johnson and Jim Jones and his sister Sharron.
Deanna also told us that their grandson, Dillon Brooks, rode my bus when he attended South Grove Intermediate. She also remembered Dillon telling them how I named my bus (No. 5) after the young lady – Ursula – who held the No. 5 case on the TV show “Deal or No Deal.”

We had a wonderful time eating and visiting. I was amazed at the connections we had with a couple that we had just met. 

Stephanie Alford was my original connection to D’s Tap. She and her husband, Nick, are part owners. Stephanie worked in the office at Hornet Park Elementary, and Nick is a fireman. She is now in the office at Central Elementary. 

As Lyn and I were leaving, we ran into Karen and Diane Stewart. I learned that Karen’s daughter and Diane’s sister is also part owner of D’s Tap. Dorothy Crouch is Karen’s oldest daughter her husband, Brent and mother-in-law Jackie round out the ownership. 

On a totally different note, Carly Brooke, a great young lady we have known for a few years, is going to sing the national anthem at the Colts game on Saturday. 

Shonk is a 1960 graduate of Southport High School, a ’63 grad of Indiana Central College (now the University of Indianapolis) and a retired bus driver from Beech Grove Schools.

A few nights ago I woke up around 2:30 a.m. to an aching back. Since this has happened before, I know that if I relocate to my La-Z-Boy recliner I can go back to sleep quickly. I made the transition and must have quickly returned to sleep because when I woke up I noticed that I hadn’t even pulled the lever to recline the chair ... I was sitting upright. This prompted me to recall other times when I was trying to go to sleep or awakening to a surprise.

One of my favorite memories was when I was a boy and we lived on Madison Avenue. I’m sure most of you know that a railroad track is just a couple of blocks east of Madison. My fondest memories of those tracks are when steam locomotives rolled up and down those rails. The combination of sounds from the engines and the wheels clicking on the tracks was amazing. The steam-blown whistle was like icing on the cake. Those sounds could easily put me to sleep at night and wake me in the mornings. 

In the late 1960s I accepted a job with a company in Southern California. I loaded some on my prized possessions in my Econoline Ford van and took off. I had about six weeks before I started so I visited my sister, Kathy, who was a teacher in the St. Louis area, and Richard Smith in Texas along the way. One of the other things that I had planned was to camp out in the desert.

I picked a desolate place off the highway and started out sleeping on the ground, but when the sounds of unknown animals became too close for comfort, I relocated to my van. 

When I was a fourth-grader I had an appendicitis. I remember Dr. Kopecky coming to our house, checking me out and then telling my folks to get me to St. Francis Hospital immediately. 

I was wheeled down a couple of hallways and into what I now know was an operating room. The next thing I recalled was waking up in a bed in a dark hallway. Someone walking past noticed that I was awake and got me something to drink, but I only had a couple of sips before someone else snatched my drink.

Several doctors and nurses were soon standing around me. I later found out that I had not one, but two inflamed appendices. I guess that is rare as I was under strict observation. I ended up staying several extra days in one of the hospital’s special areas, which now overlooks a roundabout. Although that won’t be the case for long as Beech Grove Mayor Dennis Buckley has announced that the hospital will be razed. 

OK, all this talk about sleep has me considering a nap. I think I’ll go find Stuart, my therapy dog, and maybe we’ll nap together.

I was a member of E Company 738 Maintenance Battalion of the Indiana National Guard for six years. We drilled and trained at Stout Field on the Westside and provided maintenance for the Guard’s aircraft, which included some single- and twin-engine airplanes and several helicopters.

Our company had a full office staff and a team of cooks. Because our maintenance unit needed to be 100 percent mobile, we had a fully staffed motor pool.

For a little more than three of my years in E Company, I was the sergeant in charge of the motor pool. It was our job to keep all of the vehicles in good operating order. We had jeeps, three-quarter ton trucks, 2 ½-ton troop carriers, several truck tractors and trailers and a large wrecker.

A few of our vehicles were specifically used for repairing aircraft. The wrecker was used to move disabled vehicles and remove and replace helicopter engines and rotors when in the field.

Stout Field also housed several full-time vehicle maintenance facilities. I was fortunate that one of our members of the motor pool also worked full time in one of the vehicle maintenance shops. He did a wonderful job of seeing that our fleet was always in great shape.

The officer assigned to oversee our motor pool was Joseph Dillon, a helicopter pilot. He tested the helicopters after they had been repaired. For many years he also flew the WTHR news helicopter.

I recall one occasion when we were involved in our two-week training session at Camp Grayling, Mich. A helicopter had received some major repairs, and Mr. Dillon was going to do several hours of test flights to make sure everything was going to operate perfectly.

After several hours of hovering at very low altitudes, he took a well-deserved break. He explained that he was finished with the basic hovering tests and was ready for some other testing and flight time.

As things were going smoothly in the motor pool, Mr. Dillon asked me if I would like to fly with him. I had flown in a helicopter and always enjoyed it. We got strapped in and were ready to fly.

After all of the preflight tests were completed, Mr. Dillon took us up fairly high. As I was enjoying the scenery I heard him say something about auto-rotation, of which I knew nothing.

I quickly learned that it was possible to kill the power to the blades and that the helicopter could land by using the rotation of the blades. I was shocked when the helicopter began dropping, but once I understood the process I was pretty much OK.

I have contacted some of the guys from the motor pool for a reunion. That should be lots of fun.