John Sheda.

In the early sixties, summers in Chelsea were pretty much like those summers in Tama, Toledo, Montour and other little places around Tama County. For a pre-teen kid, they could get kinda boring.

Swimming lessons were over, (thank God), Little League was finishing up, (gonna miss that) and we’ve played just about every game any kid could play. Many times over in fact! Gettin’ near the end of July and heck, even the thought of going back to school seemed interesting.

Haha, just kidding. School was the farthest thing from my mind although by mid-August, I did start looking forward to it. Just briefly, mind you.

So in your “neck of the woods,” what kept you busy as a kid of the early sixties? Hmmm, let me think for a moment or two.

Yeah, I’m now a 12 year old kid in Chelsea just waking up — 90 degrees today and gettin’ ready to go outside and find something to do. Had a cup of coffee with Mom and Dad as they sat opposite each other quietly drinking their coffee and each smoking about a half-pack of cigarettes, it seemed, as they were getting ready for the day.

Ahh, good old caffeine and nicotine; breakfast of champions. My one cup of coffee consisted of a half cup of coffee, a half cup of half & half and about three spoonfuls of sugar. That was my breakfast of this champion and I was now good ’till lunch time.

Around 9:00, I was on my bike looking for some of the other kids to find something to do for the next few hours. Eventually several of us would find each other and then make some difficult decisions. “WHAT DO YOU WANNA DO?”

Then a bunch of possibilities would be discussed, pretty much exactly like we did yesterday, the day before and the day before that! If we can get enough guys, (and girls too, if we needed them), we could try to put together a ball game at the ball diamond or the school.

Depending on the number we could put together, certain rules would have to be figured out such as any ball hit to right field was an out, no bunting, a clean grounder caught by the infielder was an automatic out since there was no first baseman, etc. Heck, if you had only four kids on a team, we could figure out the rules to make the game “somewhere close to fun.” Something to do for an hour or two.

Otherwise, we just might ride bikes around town a while, go down to the crick, as we called it in Chelsea. “Creek” was absolutely unheard of.

Climbing some trees might be a possibility, picking some apples or mulberries would take care of a half hour or so and who knows, it might be gettin’ close to lunchtime. Everybody heads home for lunch, and we’ll meet at the schoolground around one o’clock.

Lunch at the Shedas consisted of maybe a fried egg sandwich on toast, a baloney sandwich with mustard and maybe, just maybe a can of Campbell’s tomato or Vegetarian Vegetable soup. At lunchtime, Campbell’s soup was a luxury, especially “beef noodle” soup. Like the commercial said, “mmm, mmm Good.”

But my friend, this column has used enough space for now so maybe in a couple of weeks, (if I remember & you are good), I’ll share with you what the Chelsea afternoons were like. Boy, the excitement really begins then. Let me know about your summers as a kid at jsheda@indytel.com or call me at 319.327.4640. We’ll get it all figured out.