A Christmas ride along familiar roads is very good this time of year. So far, no ice, no blinding snow, and the temperatures have not been bad. I always enjoy looking at all the houses and the different ways they light themselves for Christmas.
We, the wife and I, were going up the road to meet Dave and Doris Mae Frisse (yes, that Doris Mae of radio, and singer for the Dave Frisse Band) for dinner in Clinton. Many houses along the highway are lit and decorated and when we got down over the hill to Ninth Street and the traffic light, we turned left. As we went north on Ninth Street we noticed a great decorating scheme. There were Christmas trees every hipstitch attached to telephone poles and the like. They were white, green, blue, red, multi-color, and looked very festive. And a very good idea on how to decorate a business district for Christmas.
I’m often amazed at how far the Christmas tree has come from its humble beginnings. Long before the birth of Christ, Germanic tribes took bows of evergreen into their huts and houses as a remembrance that a green Spring would come again. Then, if legend is true, Martin Luther, radical priest who started the Protestant Reformation, lighted the tree he brought into his house in celebration of not only the Christ Child, but on how the stars looked at night against the black sky. That practice has now spread all over the world. So, as I drove up to the Castle Restaurant, it was nice to see the trees.
Which reminds me … getting to the Castle is easier now thanks to a new, lighted sign on North Ninth Street that points the way to the restaurant. I intended to have a full order of spaghetti with the opportunity of taking some home to have the next day. I ate the whole thing! And the veal, and the salad! It was very, very good.
We noticed right away the old-fashioned breadsticks that Clinton had become famous for. It was like coming home.
While I was there, I ran into Ruth Ann Ferrare and Marilyn Wilson, two high school classmates of mine, and Fran Fenoglio, a lady who used to listen to me on the radio. Ironically, our waitress didn’t recognize me from my tenure in radio, or the fact I’m featured in this newspaper three times a week. She remembered me as a boy cheerleader who cheered with Leroy Gibson, the now deceased postmaster of the Post Office in Clinton. (You never know what’s going to make you famous or infamous.)
There was a large group having a Christmas party, and a darling little girl wearing a green velvet dress who captured everybody’s attention. Doris reminded me that she got her first Shirley Temple drink at the Castle and has always loved the spaghetti we had there that evening.
Ahh, home for Christmas. Dinner with family and friends. My wife and I and Doris all grew to love spaghetti when we had it in Clinton as kids. Seems like old times. Spaghetti at the Castle isn’t something you necessarily think of at Christmas, but it sure was good.
From J.C. meetings, family dinners, golf games, and luncheons with my old high school class, the Castle conjures up fine memories and exhilarates the taste buds. Happy holidays!
Ronn Mott, a longtime radio personality in Terre Haute, writes commentaries for the Tribune-Star. His pieces are published online Tuesday and Thursday on Tribstar.com, and in the print and online editions on Saturday.
Opinion Columns
RONN MOTT: A most enjoyable Christmas ride
- Opinion Columns
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Mark Bennett: High-profile mural connects historical dots from city to river
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RONN MOTT: Mushrooms = Hoosier happiness
Someone wrote or said a few years ago a statement that would define the word “Hoosier.” According to this urban legend, a Hoosier is somebody dribbling a basketball around the Indy 500 while eating a fried, morel mushroom. It did not define me, at the time.
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Recently the Israeli Air Force bombed and rocketed a convoy leaving Syria going to Lebanon with rockets that were going to be used to attack Israel. It did not get there. It was destroyed.
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RONN MOTT: Media merry-go-round
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LIZ CIANCONE: Courts see a different appearance than cops
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FLASHPOINT: Again in 2013 General Assembly, middle class generally ignored
Last year, the people of Indiana entrusted the Republican Party with some of their most precious possessions.
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RONN MOTT: ‘Raccoons II’
In the Algonquin Indian language, raccoon means “working with hands.” They are really cute little fellows until they injure a child, or a pet, or leave feces around where you certainly do not want it.
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RONN MOTT: ‘NRA Convention’
At the recent NRA Convention in Houston, Texas, where the right-wing political hot air almost lifted the convention's building off its foundation, the NRA trotted out the forever yours political dame of the right wing, Sarah Palin. Sarah did not disappoint.
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RONN MOTT: ‘Heritage gone’
The last high school I attended was being torn down just a few days ago. I didn't learn about it until I saw classmate Dick Mills on television and a display he had put together about State football championships in the middle 1930's. I began elementary school with Dick Mills. That was Matthew South Elementary School on South Sixth Street in Clinton, Indiana. After seeing Dick on TV, it dawned on me that all schools I had attended in Clinton have been torn down.
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LIZ CIANCONE: We always want more than we need
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MARK BENNETT: Should I stay or should I go?
Some have their Bill Clinton-era Cavalier packed (with the trunk bungee-ed shut), apartment cleaned (except for the fridge), and iPhone GPS locked onto the fastest route out of Terre Haute. Others are staying — until they find a better job, or because they’re starting a career here, or because this town feels like home. In each case, a new stage of life begins today.
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Local college grads will hear commencement speakers offer life and career advice this month. We’re offering them an extra dose here from folks who’ve found success in various vocations and regions of the nation. Many have Terre Haute roots.
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RONN MOTT: Things that go bump in the night
I live in a very old house. There are all kinds of noises that occur, especially at night, or so it seems. Aside from the various creaks and pops from old wooden floors and walls when the furnace heats up and sends warm air into the rooms, we, my wife and I, have heard other noises.
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RONN MOTT: Around the dial
At lunch the other day with Terry Tevlin (First Financial Bank), I bumped into Dale Mahurin. I hadn’t talked to Dale in a long time and inquired about his wife, Julie Henricks.
Julie has returned to the radio microphone doing a weekend gig on Mix FM. For fans of Julie’s show on WTWO-TV, don’t worry, she’s not leaving … just multi-tasking. Welcome back to the radio airwaves, Julie! -
ANDREA NEAL: Newspaper journalists still make a difference
A recent survey ranked newspaper reporter as the worst career of 2013, just below meter reader and lumberjack, but you wouldn’t guess it from the stories told by journalists who gathered in Bloomington to see six of their own inducted into the Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame.
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RONN MOTT: George Jones
I got to Nashville in the early ’70s, hired by John Patton, who had been a DJ for WBOW earlier in his career. Then, he was managing WMAK in Nashville and I was promised a top sales list and received the yellow pages (many a promise like this has happened to people in this business). I also did sports commentary for the morning man and would ultimately do a season of play-by-play and a short TV schedule for Tennessee State.
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LIZ CIANCONE: Old age is in email of the beholder
My Best Friend isn’t much for writing letters, so email has opened a new world for him. He can dash off a few words to a high school friend or his college roommate — now living in Florida and Washington State,
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MARK BENNETT: Spirited response to a rising river
The power within the Wabash revealed itself last week.
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FLASHPOINT: Time has arrived for overhaul of TV news
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RONN MOTT: Remembering Pat Summerall
I don’t remember how I first became aware of Pat Summerall, but the first time I heard him was on a New York radio station (WCBS, I think). He was doing the sports for the morning man and exchanging some opinions about sports and such with him.
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RONN MOTT: What I don’t know
I was watching a segment on the History Channel the other night while I waited for the end of “The Big Bang Theory” and a show I had seen before. It was “Sex in History.” And the two segments I watched were about Ben Franklin and Howard Hughes.
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RONN MOTT: You, me, and the Muslim world
I don’t know how to do this. I’m a fairly intelligent human being, but the events of the past week in Boston have turned me emotionally inside out. It’s more than the people who died, it’s more than the people who were injured … some permanently,
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LIZ CIANCONE: A memory test from the oldtime radio days
For some reason, I seem to be the go-to source for all sorts of obscure information out at the Wabash Valley Family Sports Center.
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MARK BENNETT: Littered with irony: Why do people callously discard their trash, and who are they?
Though they aren’t acknowledged by the U.S. Census Bureau, there are basically two demographic groups of people … Those who would dump their old toilet on the banks of the Wabash River or a rural roadside. And those who wouldn’t.
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RONN MOTT: China
The recent blustering by North Korea and their weaponry, which now includes ICBMs, has pulled into full attention America’s involvement with China.
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RONN MOTT: The country is not the NRA
It’s the United States of America, not the United States of the National Rifle Association. But hey, if that’s your poison, maybe it will change.
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RONN MOTT: Observations of spring
I turned on the TV last week, got focused on a wrestling match and a basketball game broke out. My goodness, what a rough game with bodies strewn all over the floor. If you were going to contest a shot, you would have to hit him hard, and the rules must have changed because I didn’t recognize any of the foul calls.
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LIZ CIANCONE: Friskey no doubt was in favor of gun control
I once owned a gun. Actually, it was Dad’s gun and I was allowed to use it. He bought an air gun which shot BB’s to protect our home — in a way.
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