By CHUCK GODBY
Remember the kids who grew up with you in the same neighborhood?
I certainly do.
I had the good fortune to grow up in The Homesteads. Unless you grew up there, chances are you’ve never heard of The Homesteads.
The Homesteads is a suburb of Sheridan, a left or right turn off Lamong Road, depending on whether you’re traveling north or south. It is located northeast of Curryville, another Sheridan suburb.
Yes. Even Sheridan has suburbs…Sort of.
If memory serves me correctly, The Homesteads was created by the late Schooley and Vicki Johnson in a wooded area just south of the Johnson’s historic Sheridan home, The Kercheval Homestead. It is where President Benjamin Harrison would spend time when he was hunting in the area. That was a few years back. Even before Schooley and Vicki.
The Gail and Linda Godby family settled there when I was about seven years old. We were a family of six then moving in to a simple, one-story, three-bedroom brick ranch. It was a house that seemed much larger than it is today.
To create The Homesteads, a circle was carved into the woods. Half the road was gravel and half was grass. Through the years, houses would be constructed inside and outside that circle. A few years ago, the county took over the road, paved it and gave it a name: Homestead Drive.
I’m pretty sure we were about the fourth house in the addition.
In the beginning there were McVeys, Mitchells and Barricks. Soon after, there would be Spencers, Millers, Hollingsworths and more. Even my best friend Curt Agner and his family would build a home in the back corner lot next to Joe and Pat Gray, who bought the Mitchell home.
Other famous former residents in the Homesteads included popular Sheridan teacher, coach and athletic director Rex Bowman, his wife Nancy and their girls, former Sheridan High basketball coach Dan Dawson and family, and another former SHS basketball coach and athletic director, Brian Jones and family.
It was Steve Barrick, the youngest of Bud and Mary Barrick’s four boys, who taught my brothers Bob and Joe and me how to play in the woods. Steve taught us how to build things out of nature, like a lean-to and forts made out of tall grass, sticks and other stuff you find in the woods. I spent a lot of happy times there.
As the years passed, playing army with sticks for guns for hours in the woods was replaced by sports. The late Don Smith graciously allowed us to use his large, vacant lot in front of our house for a baseball diamond. The games attracted many kids from the city of Sheridan and suburb of Curryville, resulting in many competitive games. You had to make sure you avoided the boulder that stuck out of the ground in shallow right field, though.
Steve Barrick and my bib brother Bob were sometimes able to belt the ball on to Lamong Road. You had to make sure, though, you looked both ways when chasing it, as there were no speed limit signs on Lamong Road. Steve would give up baseball, but later play some outstanding high school football for the Blackhawks.
The Miller boys, John, Paul and Phil, played many games on that diamond, along with Jeff and Steve Spencer, and Victor and Vance Hollingsworth. I’d like to think I taught my neighborhood pals an appreciation for my favorite music as I would often set the stereo speakers in the window – when Mom and Dad were at work, of course – and we’d listen to The Beatles while playing ball.
Since my dad, who has never left The Homesteads, was a famous Sheridan summer league coach back in the day, we also had access to the best baseball equipment.
Naturally, Mr. Smith’s big yard became a football field in the fall.
The month of May brought the neighborhood a kinda-500-mile-race around the oval. It was tough going since half the track was mowed grass, but we made it work somehow. We did the qualifying and did things to our bikes thinking we were going to make them go faster.
Vince Hollingsworth, my classmate and the oldest of the three Hollingsworth brothers, had the ultimate Indianapolis 500 race flag set. I’m not sure we knew what each flag meant, but it was cool having them, and Vince, who did know the purpose of each flag, waved them like a pro.
No. We didn’t go 500 miles. We had a set number of laps, but I don’t think we ever finished before someone would inevitably crash – usually into nothing and that would end it.
There was also football in the backyard of our house where we usually went two-on-two throwing and defending passes. In the front yard, Victor and Vance Hollingsworth would come down and play two-on-two football with my brother Joe and me. Vance was a little guy, the youngest of the three boys, but give him a football and he could scoot.
Finally, some of the greatest games played in The Homesteads were Wiffle ball games also played in the backyard of the house. The diamond was set up so the back of the house was the left field wall. Right field went on forever and ever. Left-handed hitter Joe would take advantage of the long field, while Bob and life-long friend Mike Shelburne, who often came to play from Curryville, were always aiming for the roof in left field.
Me? I usually flied out.
A few of the Homesteaders from my day remain in The Homesteads today, but most have moved on, or are no longer with us. What remains are many memories of growing up there that never fade.