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Sylvia Pauckner's avatar

Your memories brought back a lot of my own, both pleasant and traumatic. I grew up in Indianapolis, also, and some of the sparkle in my childhood was when my mother would take me out for a special dinner. There was a Chinese restaurant at 38th and, I think, Meridian, and at five years old I came to love so many of their dishes. She also took me to Sam’s Subway downtown and to a lot of other “regular American “ restaurants. I don’t think we ever went Italian or Indian or anywhere else that my family has now come to love.

I never had a science teacher like yours, thank God. Somehow your story about her reminds me of the mother of a friend of mine. She grew up in Texas, where they were taught that the South won the Civil War.

I do vividly recall the horror of the explosion at the Fairgrounds. What a terrible, terrible time.

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Sandy Read Reiberg's avatar

Yes - that makes sense. Bob Proctor's Construction Company used to be called Maple Road Construction because he and Mary live one block off of 38th Street. Wonder what College that street is named after that no longer exists most likely?

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Sandy Read Reiberg's avatar

I share almost every one of these memories with you, Bob, with an especially strong connection to the Coliseum explosion which was practically in our back yard. My friend David was killed, age 14. It was worth growing up in Indiana to have Chinese from the Mandarin Inn though,, in my book.

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Robert  Basler's avatar

Do you remember the name of the building where the Mandarin Inn was?

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Sandy Read Reiberg's avatar

No, but it was at the corner of 38th Street and College. They've torn the building down of course and I think the drug store that replaced it hasn't survived. Sharon Butsch Freeland would probably remember the name of the building and even the architect that designed it. :)

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Robert  Basler's avatar

it was the Ma-Co Building. Combo of Maple (38th used to be Maple) and college...

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Susan Crowley's avatar

I’m guessing if my mom had ever attempted to make pizza, it would have been by pouring a can of cream of mushroom soup on it, just like she did on everything else.

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Susan Applegate's avatar

You know you may lose your Hoosier base if you start trashing their beloved James Whitcomb Riley! Ninth home, here you come!

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Susan Applegate's avatar

No. That's good.

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Graham Earnshaw's avatar

You’ve seen the beloved musical, “Annie?”. Er, the question mark should be outside the quote marks. Unless it is a part of the name which it isn’t. If you need an editor to look these things over before you post, my rates are very reasonable.

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Kim Straus's avatar

A great commentary about your hometown. Don’t remember the gas explosion but then in the fourth grade I wasn’t very up on the news. But being in Texas, I was very aware of Kennedy’s assassination - it was embarrassing for the state. I remember exactly where I was when I heard the news.

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Kristen Aliotti's avatar

Several excellent LOL moments. One of your best. But I say that too much!

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Patricia Coonan's avatar

We lived through good times and bad times and blessed we were to grow. For the world was constantly changing, more than we’d ever know.

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Susan Applegate's avatar

I was laughing my ass off at Aint God good to Indiana, and wondering how a serious publication could display that. However your newspaper WAS a Pulliam paper wasn't it?! I stopped laughing at the memory of the explosion at the Fairgrounds. Seems like yesterday. We knew people who were hurt.

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Rita Jane Gabbett's avatar

At least your mom used tomato sauce. On our farm in rural Illinois, we tried to make pizza with ketchup.

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Lyn Christian's avatar

When the line showed up: "In fairness to real pizza, hers was essentially tomato sauce poured over coffee cake." I recalled my mother's versoin. She tried both tomato sauce AND ketchup over flattened biscuts - the kind that came out of a canister. We finally discovered how to make our own italian sauce and the flattened biscuts worked wonders. Thank goodness our small ural town did get our own Pizza Palace before I went to High Schoo.. Living and reliving through Bob's writing is a joy down memory lane and a reality check all at once.

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Robert  Basler's avatar

Many thanks and welcome, Lyn!

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Maggie Fox's avatar

Your mom was more cosmopolitan than you think. During the war in Croatia, a waitress asked me if I wanted ketchup on my pizza. I laughed and said she meant tomato sauce. She in fact meant ketchup.

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Robert  Basler's avatar

There's a war in Croatia?

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