My family was going through some very interesting changes during my years in junior high and high school.

My father had sold his daily pick-up milk route. This route entailed him picking up milk from farms in the Acton / New Palestine area and delivering it to a milk processing plant in Indianapolis to be bottled. He was going to open a new Sunoco Service Station in the Edgewood area.

During the time the business was being constructed, dad was in training at a company-operated service station on West Washington Street. It was a 24-hour station and in training he was required to work various shifts. I remember going to work with him a couple of times on the overnight shift.

During our school’s construction process and when school was in session, I would get off the school bus at Epler and Madison Avenue in the afternoon and walk home with several classmates. It was exciting to watch the progress of our new family business.
 
During dad’s time in training on West Washington Street, he met and became friends with George Frye. He was also in training to open a new Sunoco Service Station. George was a native of Loogootee, Indiana and was living in Brownsburg. His new station was located in Brownsburg.

Both of the stations opened at about the same time. We stayed in contact with George and several other Sunoco stations in the area. Bill Singer had one of the very first Sunoco stations in the city. White’s Sunoco was also on Madison Avenue near the famous Teepee restaurant.

Several years later, George gave up his business and came down and worked with us. He was a great guy and we worked so well together. It’s amazing to me the goofy things that we remember about someone.

George had two types of work uniforms: one for warm weather and one for the cold days. There were two days a year that George made a big deal about changing from cool uniforms to warm ones and about six months later back to the cool ones. He had specific days marked on his calendar and it was a big deal. Once the change was made, he wore that type of uniform regardless of the weather. He would have still been wearing the warmer things had he been around and working last week.

I had lunch with some friends last week and noticed that I was still wearing warmer clothing unlike most of the other folks in the restaurant. I quickly thought of George.

When we started building our small fleet of school buses in Perry Township, George obtained his license and became a school bus driver. He and his wife moved from Brownsburg to a home just off of Edgewood Avenue.

A few years later, we relocated our business to a larger facility in downtown Southport. George stayed with us. I learned so much from him. The building that we operated from in Southport is now known as Long’s Bakery.

Several years later, we sold our school bus fleet to Perry Township Schools and both George and my father went to work for the township and took care of the buses. They both retained those positions until they retired.

George and his wife moved back to Loogootee after they retired. I really miss both my father and George. I often remember something they taught me or helped me with, and those memories are so special.

A group of current and former township school bus drivers have a monthly breakfast. We really enjoy remembering our former friends and co-workers.
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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. He can be reached through email at fdshonk@aol.com.

I have been in contact with a few of my cousins that are now living in some of the southern states. Some of us stay in contact by e-mail or Facebook and I really enjoy hearing from them.

Recently I was talking with my cousin Jim Jones and he explained to me that I now had a relative that was playing professional basketball. I was fairly sure that soon in that conversation, I would figure out that he was messing with me.

The Jones family is my mother’s side of our family. My cousin, Jim, is the son of my mom’s brother, George. Jim and his brothers and his sister attended Manual High school. We always enjoyed getting together when we were kids.

During our phone call, Jim explained to me that his grandson was playing professional basketball. I think he could tell that I was a bit confused, and he helped me out by giving me a detailed explanation.

He started carefully explaining his part of the family tree. He was talking about his grandson, Garriott Jones.

He told me that his son, George and grandson Garriott both attended Decatur Central High School. Garriott was only there for his first two years of high school. The family then moved to Florida.

Garriott finished his high school days at Riverview High School in Sarasota, Florida. He then attended college at Cornell and then at Pensacola University. Jim then explained that Garriott had now been hired to play in Europe and he is on location now and playing. I believe he has played several games now and has scored a triple double in a couple of them. (Triple double = more than 10 points – more than 10 rebounds and more than 10 blocks and steals).

Garriott was hired very late in the season. Just as with the NBA, that European season is almost over. I don’t know if they will be involved in any playoffs.

 My cousin Jim’s younger brother, Harry, has a grandson that will be competing in the Little 500 this year in Bloomington, Indiana. Hunter Jones is a freshman at Indiana University and will be competing in his first Little 500. 

His team, The Phi Kappa Psi, finished 5th in the qualifications. They should start in the middle of the second row. There is a men’s race and a women’s race. The women’s race will take place on April 21st at 4 p.m. It will be a 100-lap race covering 23 miles. The men’s contest will be held the following day, April 22nd at 2 p.m. It is a 200-lap competition covering 50 miles.

Both of my cousins, Jim and Harry, are retired members of the Indianapolis Fire Department. Jim had been doing a good bit of research into our family history. Our grandmother’s maiden name was Garriott. He has traced family back over six generations and was telling me that we have relatives that were minutemen in the revolution.

I’m sure you can understand that I sometimes feel a bit dizzy after talking to my cousin Jim and learning about relatives that are professional basketball players, Little 500 competitors and Revolutionary War Minutemen.

I’ll try to keep everyone posted as things progress.
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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. He can be reached through email at fdshonk@aol.com.

Published in the Wednesday, April 5, 2023 edition

Several years ago, my wife, Lyn and our oldest grandson, Trevor made a plan to sky dive. They learned how it was done for beginners and learned quite a bit. When they were ready, a date was set and everyone planned to be present.

They completed their jumps while strapped to instructors and it was exciting to watch those very small dots gradually turn into people we know as they descended to the ground. They both really enjoyed their experience.

Several other family members had been invited to join them in this experience. I explained that I had no desire to abandon a perfectly good operating airplane while it was in the air. It did look exciting.

A few months ago, a good friend of mine told me about doing a sky dive and he did it with his dog. I listened as he explained the training and the excitement of the day. He also gave me the instructor’s name and telephone number.

I thought about it for a few days. I then called him and left a message. After a couple of days, he returned my call. I asked several questions, and he inquired as to my age, weight, health and also about Simon.

We still had some interest and we set up a meeting. I was to bring Simon also. At the meeting, he explained that I would be strapped to him and Simon would be strapped to me as we descended. He even loaned us the equipment Simon would wear. We took it home and I placed it on him several times and then he would sit on my lap or I would carry him around outside.

I was also issued some reading material so that I totally understood how our drop through the air would work and how to behave. I read it several times and even read it to Simon. We even jumped off of our picnic table a few times with Simon in his jumping gear.

When we felt we were quite ready, we contacted our guy and set up a time to make our first skydive. Our schedule got changed several times. I think that him working with a large group paid more than a guy and a dog on a single jump.

As I remember, he also was sick a couple of times and the plane was out of service a time or two. All of a sudden winter was upon us. He explained that he was going to take his family to Florida for the winter and he could do skydiving with customers while he was there.

I got a call from him a few weeks ago and he told me when they would be back here. He wanted to know if Simon and I were still interested. I told him that we were waiting for him, and we were excited. As soon as he was back, we met him and he again loaned us the harness for Simon. We took it home and practiced putting it on him and we even jumped off of our picnic table a few times with him in his harness and in my arms.

Scheduling our flight and jumping time got changed a few times again. Equipment problems and then the plane was out of service again a couple of times. We were finally scheduled to go up last Friday afternoon. I didn’t think it was going to happen because of the bad weather and windy conditions that morning.
He called and told us to come on down to the airport and be ready, just in case. About 20 minutes before we were to walk out to the plane, something changed and the flight was a go. We all got into our suits and equipment and did our last-minute checklists.

We took off from Greenwood Airport at 4:27 p.m. and first flew over some of the terrible damage from the tornado. It was terrible to see. 

We then flew over our jumping area and just as we were pushing ourselves out of the plane, the wind took off strongly again. It was terrible. We ended up landing in the Greenwood Walmart parking lot. The police received several 911 calls about people and animals falling from the sky.

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Saturday was April 1st. April Fools Day!! I do not jump out of perfectly wonderful operating aircraft...

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. He can be reached through email at fdshonk@aol.com.

It often amazes me how a current event can activate my memory. Watching the national news about the terrible tornados that caused all that destruction and loss of life in Mississippi, brought me back to 20 years ago, when our neighborhood took the brunt of damage from a tornado. It was a weekday afternoon and my wife Lyn and I had been out running some errands. We had been over on US-31 when it all began. We tried to return home but soon discovered that our neighborhood had suffered a large amount of damage and the streets were blocked by downed trees and debris.

After trying several routes to our house, we finally parked near the post office on Edgewood Avenue and walked home.

We discovered that we had lost three trees located on various sides of our house. It was startling to see that each of them fell in different directions and they all fell away from our house. We were very lucky. Several homes on the opposite end of our addition were destroyed.

The first responders and the electrical power workers were quickly on the job to make sure everyone was safe and not hurt. Neighbors worked together to help remove debris from the streets and after that had been accomplished, I walked back to our car and drove home.

We were without electricity for several days. In order to protect the neighborhood from looting, a command post was set up and we all received passes that allowed us access in and out of the neighborhood.

On the second or third day after the storm, we were out shopping and eating. When we arrived at the intersection of Banta and Derbyshire roads, we had to show our paperwork to some Indiana National Guard troops.They had been activated to help in our area. As a former guardsman, I was pleased to see the soldiers protecting our neighborhood.

Later that day, I heard someone yelling my name from our front yard. I walked to the door and smiled as I saw my long-time friend, Ed Wetzel, sitting in a golf cart.

He explained that he had been very worried and just had to drive his cart from his house in Southport to check on us. We visited for awhile and then explained to him that we had some errands to run and needed to grab a bite to eat.

Lyn and I climbed into my old blue van that was widely known as my, “Shiny Blue Truck”. We drove out the driveway and followed Ed to the checking station at Banta and Derbyshire where the guardsmen were directing the evening traffic.

It seemed like it was taking Ed a very long time to get checked out. I sort of leaned out my driver’s side window and thought I heard some of the troops and Ed saying something about a looter while pointing at my truck. Quickly Ed was waved on as was the car that was directly ahead of us.

It then was our turn, and I had the proper paperwork in my hand. I was thinking that this was the very first time we had driven “The Shiny Blue Truck” through the checkpoint. I figured we were going to get checked out pretty good after I saw Ed pointing toward us talking to the guardsmen.

As we pulled up, a laughing guardsman asked us if we knew that crazy guy on the golf cart. I assured him that I knew him very well. He checked our paperwork and shook his head as he waved us onto Banta Road.
Memories..!!
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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. He can be reached through email at fdshonk@aol.com.