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Remembrances > Exploring nature in Huber Heights, 1960-1966
Exploring nature in Huber Heights, 1960-1966
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Keugene48
179 posts
Jul 30, 2011
3:34 PM
It did very well Allen, thank you
Curt Dalton
486 posts
Aug 07, 2011
5:00 PM
Wonderful visuals Allen. Thanks for sharing!
Rose
4 posts
Dec 27, 2011
1:00 PM
Enjoyed your trip back in time, Allen. Things sure have changed and as far as I am concerned, they should have left Huber Heights alone. So sick and tired of all this "advancement"...these damned money-hungry corporate political thugs can't leave well enough alone! They have no respect for "yesteryear", our hometown history or nostalgia.

Like you, my parents bought our home brand new and we moved into Huber Heights in 1960. I was 2 years old at the time. We lived on Chesham Drive right in front of "Warrior Way", the drive the school buses would take/park at off Chambersburg Road but of course, when we first moved there, Wayne H.S. had not been built, yet. I went to first grade in a house school and my parents could see me sitting at my desk in class from our back doors and windows. In fact, I went to Wayne "High" during 3rd, 4th and 5th grade, too - Shank Hall because there wasn't enough elementary schools to handle us all. I went to the original Wayne Township School, Titus on Taylorsville Road in 6th grade, Studebaker in 7th and 8th and Wayne, 9th thru 12th.

When we first moved to Huber in 1960s, "The Glass Crutch" tavern was the first "sign of life"n as you'd enter Huber Heights via Route 202/Old Troy Pike. Huber Heights wasn't even a city back then! The closest market was Marsico's on 202 unless you drove into Dayton via Harshman Rd. or Needmore Road and shopped at Big Star or Ontario.

It seems The Tall Timbers "supper club" was a very popular restaurant throughout the 60s/70's but by the time the 80s "roared" in, their food was no longer a main attraction and the piano bar and drinks (where I often sang) drew a bigger crowd than the restaurant. I also remember there was a little bar at Fishburg and Troy, "Peyton Place" but I was never old enough to go in there when it was still a bar. I think a lot of the Wayne High School "hoods" hung out there and somehow got away with underaged drinking.

Community Park, other than being another "party place", held Huber's annual 4th of July Festival and the grounds of Wayne High School had the fireworks display until Tom Cloud Park "took over". Sometime during the 70's, Community Park was the site of the biggest or one of the biggest PCP/angel dust drug busts in the nation! Yay! We made the news! Shortly after that, they thinned out the trees and you could see right throught the park and that killed a lot of the "partying" there.

I remember when Ponderosa Steak House first opened. The servers dressed like "real cowboys/cowgirls" with cowboy hats and scarves around their necks and the tables/chairs were wooden picnic tables/benches. There was a Flint's hamburger joint on Brandt near Chambersburg, a Burger Chef at the other end (by Lofino's plaza), the original Marian Lanes bowling alley, even a short-lived "carry out" steakhouse called Steak Chalet in the Huber Heights Shopping Center. In the 70s/80s, the only thing north, around Interstate 70 was a service station and the sleazy truck stop.

When I go out to Huber Heights now, which isn't very often, I feel like a stranger in a strange land. The street I grew up on, Chesham Drive, it still looks pretty much the same but I feel like Huber is not my hometown and I have no desire to vist there, let alone, live there.

"Sad But True"...

Rose

Last Edited by on Dec 27, 2011 1:01 PM
AllenN71
348 posts
Dec 31, 2011
2:27 PM
Hey Rose,
You wouldn't happen to be Cindi Davis, would you? I grew up in the big house on the corner of Chesham and Tomberg, the southwest corner.

I, too went to a "house school" on Sandbury Street. Also I was in 5th grade under Mrs. Hubler and 6th under Mr. Wanamaker at the still-under-construction Wayne High.

Remember Principal Wilbur "Spats" Sando at Titus? He passed away several years ago. And who can forget the infamous disciplinarian school bus driver Benny Keck?

Remember Gary Shiverdecker and his music-teacher father?
Remember the time Mike Mc M. tore up our side yard on his motorcycle and cussed out my mom, and how I came out and kicked his butt? It was a grand memorable event.

Your last name has to be either Davis, Byars, or Norman; and since the Byars family moved to Alaska when I was 12 and unless you are my sister, you must be Cindi Davis.

Sad to say, better Huber than Dayton these days. If you want to engage me in argument about that, move it to my blog, available on my member profile.

Be aware that I have written a novel, "The Peterson Investigation", which involves a (fictional) murder taking place on Kitridge Road in Huber Heights. It costs $1.99 (cheap!) and contains many lush descriptions of life in the Miami Valley back when. The book is at present available only on Kindle, and IF anyone wnts the movie rights, I will not grant them unless the whole thing is shot on location in the Miami Valley and local businesses get the catering and other contracts.

If you want to get in touch, either visit my blog or my Facebook page, which is F. Allen Norman, Jr. If you go to my blog, "The Alexandria Daily Poop", don't be scared by the photo of me pointing a gun at the canera. If you lived so close to me then you ought to know that I don't want to kill anyone.
Rose
6 posts
Feb 03, 2012
5:54 AM
Hey, Allen!
No, sorry I am not Cindy Davis or anyone else you mentioned above. I do remember the Normans (maybe Mark was one of the brothers names) but didn't recognize any of the other names. One of my best friends, Debbie Hamilton, she moved to the house on the corner of Sandbury Rd. and Chesham Drive when we were in high school - I believe her mother still lives there but the other names you mentioned, didn't ring a bell. I knew several people who lived on Sandbury but I grew up on Chesham Drive right in front of where "Warrior Way" is/was. I am not sure if they still use it as the bus parking/pick-up area but if the buses didn't turn left or right on Chesham back then, they would have driven right into our driveway so I lived up the street, east of Sandbury. I don't recall any "big" house on the corner of Sandbury/Tomberg...they are all Huber HUTS to me...LOL

Like you, I also went to a house school in first grade. It was on Tilbury Road right behind our house/backyard. My mother could see me in class from the kitchen window. I went to Monticello for 2nd grade, Wayne(well, Shank Hall, 4th, 5th, and 6th-bet the high school students loved that - not!)Studebaker, 7th and 8th and then WHS - I was in the class of '77.

I will visit your Facebook...mine is under RoseRetter but I don't FB that much.

I really don't remember the names of any bus drivers, either. I took a bus to school in 6th grade but all I remember of Titus is that we had an introduction to changing classes, 3 different teachers, a Mrs. Smith, Mrs. Myers but I can't remember the male teacher's name or who was the principal then. Big blur but than again, I am 53 years old...LOL I do remember when I went to Studebaker,Dawson was the principal and Dunlap was vice. I didn't care for either one of them, either...

I did go to our 20th and 30th class reunions and to a 70's bash they had at Jackass Flats about 10 years. They are talking about having a 35th reunion this year but it is still in the works.

Funny, you mentioned you wrote "a book". I write, too but we won't go into the type of material I compose...lol! I also played piano and sang in local bands for years before my "retirement" in music...

I will write more later!
Rose
7 posts
Feb 03, 2012
6:05 AM
Yikes...sent you a friend request and you only have one friend listed on your FB page...YIKES! LMAO
AllenN71
351 posts
Mar 02, 2012
7:52 AM
we lived at the corner of Chesham and Tomberg in a "Miss America" 4-bedroom 2-bath house that Dad picked out especially so we'd have to come straight home, no excuses when we got to high school. Smart man, Dad!! Your friends must have moved in while I was in the service, Ricky and Janie Hemp lived there when I was growing up.

As far as Facebook goes, I only accept "friend" requests from people I already have MIRL. I'm no Lonesome Polecat.
jersey01
11 posts
Oct 05, 2012
4:18 PM
I also lived in Wayne Township and went to Titus and Wayne High School. I remember when Titus would measure the length of the girls dresses. My sister would have to kneel and if her dress didn't touch the ground Titus could send her home.
AllenN71
386 posts
Oct 07, 2012
12:59 PM
Yeah, the principal was Wilbur "Spats" Sando (he actuallu wore spats!), He was a mean one with the "board of educaation" too.

By the bye where did the original post go?
tlturbo
410 posts
Oct 08, 2012
6:31 AM
Several months ago the site deleted all the LARGE posts. If you look at my post A Teen Growing Up In Beavercreek, you can see that we finally figured out what happened and I had to add mine back in. You need to do the same thing.

Last Edited by tlturbo on Jun 06, 2013 5:12 AM
jack1971
15 posts
Jun 06, 2013
4:53 AM
Our family moved to Huber in 1959. Lived on Mangold Drive which ran between Powell and Fishburg.

I took guitar lessons from Gene Shiverdecker and remember Gary and his brother Roger quite well.

Gary died early in life from some type of heart disease didn't he?
Customs_MP
7 posts
Jun 25, 2013
5:54 AM
We, too, moved to HH in December of '59-I lived there with my parents and sister, Marcia-little sister Marilyn was born there in Jan '67. I graduated in May '67 and then left for Army boot camp almost immediately. Now living in eastern Ohio in a SMALL village called Midvale (pop. 620-Salute!)=have been back to HH many times; it always saddens me to see what it has turned in to-many foreclosed homes, overgrown with weeds and too tall grass, bad roads and too much commercialization. You couldn't PAY me to live there again!
AllenN71
446 posts
Jun 25, 2013
6:18 AM
Actually Huber is doing loads better than downtown Dayton. A couple guys took an abandoned industrial building and started a machine tools manufacturing site, and were jumping up and down for mechanics and machinists.
But the old creek has eroded its banks into a ravine, especially since the north bank was denuded for the campus of Studebaker Junior High (or are they doing "middle school" these days?) which caused a lot of runoff to pour into the stream, and the Usas place has been mostly swallowed up by a WalMart. But it is bordered on its north and east sides by a nature preserve easement, which was probably Mike's condition for selling the place.

I don't talk at length about the economic thing on this forum because Curt doesn't like it; but I do so on my home page, in the "Dayton vs Huber Heights" post. Comments from DHBO members are always welcome.
jack1953
75 posts
Jan 29, 2014
6:10 PM
I had a girlfriend who worked at the Tall Timbers with her mom. Her name was Rita Hopkins.

Burger Chef! My little brother's little league team was sponsored by Burger Chef and the manager said for every game the team won they would get free hamburgers and french fries, and they ended up only winning one game!

Gary Shiverdecker! I took guitar lessons from his father and still play today, going into nursing homes here in Florida and entertaining!


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Forgiven, forgotten, set free!!


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