Tood's Town V

In the early 1950s our next door neighbor George was an Allen County deputy sheriff. He was a uniformed deputy with all the trimmings including badge, handcuffs and a gun.

He was also a huge man. 6' 6'' or taller and 400 # or more. His hands were large and the fingers were an inch or more in diameter and his grip was incredible. He created a powerful image of a strong man.

One dark summer night George came to our door. He was nervous and frightened. He had just arrived from work and was about to enter his house when he heard a noise coming from his garage.

George explained to my father that several years ago he had arrested and testified against a man who was convicted of a violent crime and sentenced to the Ohio State Penitentary in Columbus. After his conviction the man threatened to kill George and his family for the part that George played in the arrest and conviction. George went on to say that the man had been released from prison that day.

At that moment George was convinced that the newly released convict was in his garage and was intent on making good on his threat. George's concern had immobilized him and he asked my father to investigate and neutralize any threat.

Dad got his gun and flashlight and set off to investigate. My brother, about 10 years old, and I, about 12, trailed dad on his way to the garage. We followed until dad arrived at a man door entrance to the garage where we waited.

The garage was built with cement block and as I recall it had no windows or inside lights.

Dad disappeared into the pitch black darkness of the garage. From time to time we heard unidentifiable noises coming from the garage. He was in the garage for what seemed like a long time. Without being overly dramatic, we don't know what it was like inside the garage, but it was frightening for us who were waiting outside.

He emerged from the garage and declared that there was no one else there. I remember that Dad was, at that moment, somewhat tense but, as a son, I was and remain impressed by the courage it took to search a darkened unfamiliar place for a violent criminal for a neighbor.

Dillard Farnsworth

Tood's Town IV

Yesterday I wrote about some nicknames of people in Cairo. Today, I am going to write a little about one of those people, my blog's namesake Tood.

Nicknames often become permanent replacements for given names. In addition, there are people with multiple equally well known nicknames. Tood was one of those people.

To my knowledge, Tood never had a job with an employer where he was paid a salary or an hourly wage. Tood was self-employed and an entrepeneur of sorts.

In the summer, Tood had some type of contract with the owner of the local drive-in movie to keep the grounds clean. Basically, this involved picking up the food wrappers, popcorn boxes, pop cups and other paper trash. Tood tried to hire boys from Cairo to do the actual work of collecting the trash. He paid us the munificent amount of $0.10/hour to stab the trash with a stick with a nail in the end and put it into a cloth bag with a strap that we slung diagonally across our chest and shoulders.

If he found no boys from Cairo to help pick up the trash at the drive-in on a particular day, he would go to the Lima State Hospital for the Criminally Insane which was located next to the drive-in and find some trusty prisoners to help him. I never knew the details, but the trustys were allowed to walk free on the prison grounds and apparently allowed to leave the hospital grounds with Tood. I am certain that the trusty's also got $0.10/hour.

When the bag was full we would empty it into Tood's dark green pick up truck. I believe Tood had dark green pick up trucks from during World War II up until his death in the early 70s.

I don't remember Tood ever actually picking up any trash. My recollection is that he would stay near the truck in the shade, complain about how hot it was, and drink a beer or two while others picked the trash.

But, on to Tood's other nickname and his primary occupation. In the winter, Tood bought wild animals from local hunters and trappers and sold the skins and carcasses. Most of the animals were muskrats and racoons with an occasional mink or weasel.

Tood owned a prime Cairo commercial lot located on the Southwest corner of Routes 30 and 65. The lot was about 150' x 150'.

He had a 15' x 20' rickety, windowless, wood shack which served as his office, skinning area and more importantly a social club for the locals. There was electricity to the shack and a couple of bare light bulbs hanging at the end of cords provided some light for the skinning and socializing activities. Socializing was always just talking, lying mostly, but no card games, beer drinking or other activities.

This was not during the pioneer days of Ohio. The shack was there from as early as I can remember in the 1940s and was there until Tood's death in the 1970s.

In the summer, it was just an empty, ugly orangeish shack. But during trapping season, it was a beehive of winter time social activity in Cairo.

Tood was there every day between Opening and Closing Days of hunting and trapping season buying, skinning, stretching, drying and selling skins. He also sold the animal carcusses for animal and sometimes human food.

The fresh skins were put on stretching and drying boards and hung on the side of the shack to dry. Not that the shack was ugly, but the animal skins and stretchers improved the appearance of the shack.

The shack contained a cast iron wood stove that was used to provide some heat for Tood and the loafers who would come everyday to gossip and lie about what was and wasn't happening in the greater Cairo metropolitan area. As a result of the primary activity going on within the shack, i.e., the skinning of dead, sometimes long dead animals, the shack had a constant oppressive, sickening odor of flesh in various stages of decay along with other less pleasant odors. The animal carcusses were dumped into 55 gallon oil barrels.

Inside the shack, the odor was not helped by the presence of a boiling bucket of water on the stove. The water was used by Tood to wash blood and other animal by-products from his hands.

If I remember correctly, the bucket was not emptied and refilled with clean water during the entire trapping season, mid-November through Mid-March. From time to time, water was added to replace spillage and evaporation, but the bucket was never emptied, washed and filled with clean water. The water in the bucket and the vapor was always, despite the constant boiling, absolutely rank.

Odors didn't matter. Men and boys were constantly coming and going. Trappers with a few or many muskrats and coons would arrive, find out what Tood was paying for skins, either sell promptly to Tood or take off in search of a better price.

The other visitors were non trappers, usually from Cairo or nearby farms and villages. The men, young, old and in between, who would stand and sit for hours talking and laughing about issues both serious and inane. People were constantly coming and going. A lot of them would leave to perform errands or chores and return for more socializing.

Most of the visitors were not hunters or trappers, but just loafers looking for a way to kill time. Frequently, there would be 7 to 10 men and boys there at any given time. That represented a fairly large percentage of the population of the area. Certainly, the number of visitors at Tood's shack was greater than any other place in Cairo except maybe The Restaurant.

Of course, Tood's other nickname was Skinner.

Dillard Farnsworth

Tood's Town III

Nicknames are common and I think are almost universal in a small town like Cairo. Virtually everyone of the 250 or so males living in Cairo was known far better by a nickname than their given or family name. Not all of the names were novel or unusual but each of the people were. Also, some of the nicknames were obvious references to some physical or mental attribute.

Some of the nicknames I remember are Alf, Bus, Blink, Twackers, Rink, Moxey Congoleum, Pinky, Dewey, Wansfelt, Slink, Horny, Boon, Brownie, Big Un, Snaggletooth, Nub, Corncob Harry, Whitey, Big M, Buck, Breezy, High, Goose, Tulip, Puss, Dual, Hopalong, Peanut, Bunga, Corn Rasor, his son Oat, and his nephew Safety, Tiny, Juice and of course Tood.

Slink was careful about his appearance and was a trapper. Slink is a combination of slick and mink.

Puss sold Watkins' salves.

Wansfelt - Wonder of the Wasteland was a reference to the land surrounding his home.

Bung's sister could not pronounce brother so he was her "bunga".

Corn, Oat and Safety shared the last name Rasor.

Buck's last name was Lamb.

The origin of the name Tood is unknown. Tood's given name was Nolan.

Future blogs will include some additional information about the actions and lives of the above Cairo residents.

Until next time.

Dillard Farnsworth

Tood's Town II

As I mentioned, Tood's town, Cairo, Ohio is located on U.S. Route 30 North which was, before the Ohio Turnpike and the Interstate Highways, a major cross country East - West highway. It was known as the Lincoln Highway. Route 30 was Main Street in Cairo. Now, there is a four lane by-pass highway Route 30 located about a mile south of the old Route 30. The by-pass took most of the through traffic and heavy truck traffic off of Main Street. Today, Main Street has local traffic and a few people who are lost.

The North - South road through town is Ohio Route 65 which passes through Columbus Grove, Ottawa, and Leipsic on its way to Toledo. Going South, 65 passes through Lima.

In the 1940s and 50s there were only a few houses more than 150 feet north or south of Route 30. As an aside, I took the Ohio Bar Exam in 1964 and for 30 years I received mail from the Ohio Supreme Court addressed to me at Main and Plum, Cairo, Ohio because when the Clerk of the Supreme Court asked for information on Cairo, I told him that there were only two streets in Cairo -- Main and Plum -- and if you left Main Street, you would be plumb out of town.

When I was born and for the first 6 years of my life, most male members of Cairo's Greatest Generation were off fighting the Germans and Japanese in World War II. Much of this time period is beyond my recollection but I do remember the end of the War in Europe and Japan. I recall that these were days of great happiness and celebration in Cairo.

I also remember some of the returning soldiers and sailors.

Paul Cahill had been captured by the Japanese at age 18 and survived the Bataan Death March. Paul was about 20 when he returned to Cairo. Paul walked with the help of a cane.

After the war, he would walk the short distance from his mother's home to the B&O depot and sit for hours on the front step apparently seeing events of his recent past. Within 6 months, his coal black hair turned completely white, he became mentally disoriented, and if I am not wrong, died before he was 23. Paul didn't really survive the Bataan Death March.

Gilbert "Tubby" Lamb had been a motorcycle courier in Europe and North Africa. If I remember correctly, Tubby had battle ribbons from 5 major campaigns.

Safety Rasor was a navigator on a Navy fighter bomber based on an aircraft carrier in the Pacific. I remember Safety telling me that virtually every waking minute was spent waxing their plane because it gave them an extra 20 knots/hour in speed.

Brownie Thomas was a medaled veteran of long combat.

Lieutenant Gerald Faze, a farm boy from just north of Cairo, died in December before the end of the war in the Battle of the Bulge.

I also remember in 1945 when the cost of a pack of cigarettes passed the cost of a loaf of bread at $0.23. Everyone in Cairo was certain that no one would pay more for cigarettes than for a loaf of bread.

More to follow.

Dillard

Tood's Town

Tood was not known to everyone in the world, not even the Western world. However, he was very well known locally. Locally being Cairo Ohio and immediately surrounding areas such as Beaverdam, Gomer, Columbus Grove, and Lima.

Cairo is a Western Ohio village of about 500 residents located at the intersection of Route 30 ("the Lincoln Highway") and Route 65. It is almost exactly half way between Pittsburgh Pennsylvania and Chicago Illinois and about 240 miles from each. On a smaller scale, Cairo is located between Gomer on the west and Beaverdam on the east, Columbus Grove on the north and Lima on the south.

The population of Cairo has been at about 500 residents since at least the very early 1900s. So you can understand that Tood may not have been known to everyone in the world.

When I lived in Tood's Town in the 1940s and 1950s, Cairo was a small village with a small downtown shopping area comprising a collection of five stores (a grocery store, hardware, and general store, the other two stores were torn down during that time period and I don't remember what they were at present), post office, an old machine shop, library, townhall, grain elevator owned by a farmer's cooperative, cemetary vault manufacturer, railroad depot, and automotive repair shop. Away from the downtown there was a restaurant, another two auto repair garages, a gasoline station, and a welding shop. Today, the hardware, machine shop, one of the gasoline stations, vault factory, grocery, welding shop and general store are gone. The retail stores were lost in the 1950s to early shopping centers on the Northern edge of Lima.

Cairo was home to an outstanding medical doctor. The Doctor, Marcus Clemens Miller was a 1912 graduate of the Ohio State University Medical School and so far as I know practiced his entire working life in Cairo. When Dr. Miller died at an advanced age, Tood's Town lost one of its most admired citizens and an incredible asset. Dr. Miller diagnosed disease, treated wounds, dispensed drugs, helped his patients through various "spells" and "cases of the nerves", and relentlessly chain smoked unfiltered Pall Mall cigarettes sometimes having two cigarettes going at the same time.

There were two railroad rights of way through Cairo, the Baltimore & Ohio ("B&O") and the Detroit, Toledo and Ironton ("DT&I"). The DT&I was, at one time, owned by Henry Ford who used it to haul various raw materials for his automobile plants.

Most of the men and women living in Cairo worked in manufacturing plants in Lima which is about 6 miles South of Cairo on Route 65.

Tood was well known with a strong personality and character. Many of the stories that follow this initial posting may involve Tood, but there were many other interesting folks in Cairo and the surrounding area that are worthy of note. But Tood stood out as a personality.

If you are familiar with the greater Cairo metropolitan area and the people who lived there in the 1930s, 40s, 50s and 60s, please feel free to add to this blog and the ones that follow and increase the world's knowledge of Tood and others who populated this little berg.

Dillard Farnsworth