Seventy years ago, Kenny became my boyfriend when he was sixteen and I was fourteen. This excerpt from my memoir, “The View from a Midwest Ferris Wheel,” shows a teen-age whim can shape your life.
“My folks and I attended the annual summer festival sponsored by the Town & Country organization in Davis, Illinois, the village where our post office was located. The main street was blocked off to make room for the free entertainment, bingo, food stands and travelling carnival. After the program, my parents moved to a wooden bench at the bingo tent. They enjoyed the game, but I hated it. Luckily, I bumped into my boyfriend, Ronnie. We were involved in a summer romance. Ronnie and I joined hands and strolled round and round the small midway accompanied by various sounds from the stands. I loved going on the carnival rides, but they made Ronnie sick. He’d apologized for his shortcoming. I tried to be understanding, but, frankly, I was bored.
“I was surprised and thrilled when a bold Kenny Ditzler stepped up to me and asked, ‘Would you care to ride on the Ferris wheel?’
“I ignored Ronnie, gave Kenny a big smile and, ‘Yeah, I would.’
“Kenny was with his boyhood buddy, Wayne, who’d just met a gal from Orangeville, a small town west of Davis. The petite, dark-haired girl agreed to go on the ride with him, so he urged Kenny to ask me.
“The three boys and I attended the small Durand High School located in the village a few miles east of Davis. Kenny was two years ahead of me, but with a total enrollment of about a hundred students, we all knew one another.
“Wayne, the Orangeville girl, Kenny, Ronnie and I meandered to the south end of the main drag where the rides were set up. Finally, I was doing something besides walking around and chatting with friends. I felt like skipping, but that would have been childish.
“As we passed the food stands, the pungent smell of chopped onions for the hamburgers and hot dogs followed by the sugary sweetness of pink cotton candy tickled our noses.
“At the Ferris wheel ticket booth, Wayne and Kenny each laid down two quarters. The other girl and I joined them in line waiting for the current riders to finish their spins.
“The operator, a skinny, scruffy, carnie guy, looked to be in his twenties. His black hair needed trimming and his five o’clock shadow was at least two days old. He wore jeans streaked with grease, shabby, high-top tennis shoes and a clean, white T-shirt with a pack of cigarettes rolled in the left sleeve. When he began emptying the seats and refilling them, Wayne and his girl walked up the ramp first. Kenny and I followed and took the next wooden bench painted white with gold trim and padded with brown leather. As we skimmed over the top, Kenny could see that Wayne’s arm was around his girl. He slipped his right arm around my shoulders saying, ‘I hope you don’t mind. I’ve got to keep up with Wayne.’
“I leaned against him. I didn’t realize it at the time, but that was our beginning on a humid, Friday night, 18 July 1952.”
Adelaide Books, an independent New York firm, has published my story of our seven-year courtship and it is available from Amazon in Kindle and paper back form. To receive a signed copy, email me at DitzlerLTD@aol.com.
How did your serious romance begin?
My romance with Sid began at the Middleton Senior. We saw each other for about three weeks at euchre so the fourth week, I saw him sitting by himself after the game was done. I went over to him & asked if he would like to have coffee with me sometime; this morfed into lunch; I then invited him over to talk some more & the rest is history. This was May of 2017, & we got married October 6 of the same year.