John Sheda

I’ve been writing “The Way I See It” for several years now and it’s been a lot of fun. Because of it, I have met many of you through phone calls, emails and even regular letters. I have reconnected with old friends, classmates and also have met new friends. Emails from Colorado, Virginia, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska and others have come from faithful Tama News Herald readers from time to time.

I occasionally get an email from Karen, (Hi Karen), who greatly enjoys the reminiscing of the “good old days.” Although most of my stories are from the Chelsea days, she shares about her growing up in Tama. I always enjoy her emails as she shares about growing up with her two brothers, Keith and Jon. I sure don’t want to give out who she is and I’m sure no one will ever know. It’s our secret, Karen.

Last week, an old friend and cousin, Susie, emailed me and shared some of her stories about Chelsea. I had forgotten one that she shared about her friend, Kathy, (you know who you are), who while staying at Susie’s, accidently drove the farm tractor through a machine shed. How could I forget that?????

It got me to thinking again about growing up in a much easier era-the era of the 50s and 60s. Back in those days, I didn’t know much about Tama, Toledo, Montour, Clutier, etc, but I sure knew about Chelsea. I’m sure it wasn’t much different than these other home towns of that era.

Everything and everyone was equal in Chelsea. There was no “snob hill” or bad part of town either. We were all in it together. My folks, owned the Sheda Grocery Store and we took care of the “Catholic-ers” as Dad called us and Harold Jack had Jack’s Grocery Store, which took care of the “Public-ers.” As a kid, we had two schools, the Catholic school and the Public School. Since I went to the Catholic school, I was a “Catholic-ER”, so anyone going to the Public school was naturally a “Public-ER.” Makes perfect sense to a nine year old.

Both of these grocery stores were on the south side of Chelsea, and on the north side of the tracks was Con Shilhanek’s grocery store. He catered to both the Catholics and Protestants. But the big store in Chelsea at this time was Swalm’s Drug Store. Swalms was owned by two brothers, Charlie and, ah, Charlie’s brother!!! It was quite a store. They had two black crows that flew around in the store and they could do some tricks, which always amazed us kids. One of the crows constantly repeated, “What for.” I know it doesn’t sound like much today, but remember this was Chelsea in the late fifties. Everything and anything amazed us!!

Inside Swalm’s store, on the east wall, was the comic book section. And the penny weigh-scale. About five or six of us would grab a comic book and sit on the scale, the floor or whatever and read comic books. Charlie and his brother didn’t mind much but every now and then would mention that we should buy the comic books. Finally we would get kicked out and then we took off across the street to Sheda’s Restaurant, (owned by my Uncle Ludy for a while and then my brother Tone). We loved the pin ball machines. One play for a nickle and if you wanted to play next, you placed your nickle on the glass on top of the machine.

We all were pinball wizards. We just didn’t know it. Sometimes we would bring in some baseball cards or something to put under the two front legs of the pinball machine in order to keep that little silver ball from moving downward too fast. This was a tricky proposition because if we raised it too high, it was too easy to “tilt” the game. It was a delicate matter of true finesse and cheating combined. From here we would take off for a game of bicycle tag or perhaps even a pick up baseball game.

Growing up in Chelsea was a blast. Everyone knew everyone and a kid couldn’t get away with anything. But we all felt so safe. Everyone got along and there were always great conversations going on in downtown and even uptown Chelsea. Thanks to Bob for the phone call. It once again brought back great memories.

Today we have crazy stuff on television, terrorism constantly invading our lives and often we don’t even hardly know our neighbors anymore. Sometimes I still miss the old black rotary phones and even before that, the telephone operator who helped us connect with one another. Our old, old “crank” phone’s number was 60. Deb’s phone out in the country was “two shorts and one long.” Or was it two longs and one short or one long, one short and one “over medium.” Let me know what you think of the old days at jsheda@indytel.com or call me at 319.327.4640. Or you can try two shorts and one long!!!