Waterloo Wonders Basketball

Old man from North deserves one last Father's Day gift

AKRON, Ohio -- As we move toward the summer solstice, when we enjoy the days with the longest periods of daylight in the calendar year, his time grows short.

No, not the length of his days, but rather the number.

He’s very elderly – and very frail -- and has been in a nursing facility since about the time of last year’s autumnal equinox, which occurs around the first official day of fall when the amount of daylight hours and darkness are about, but not exactly, equal.

He never knew it – or maybe he did, and didn’t want to acknowledge it – but he was never going to get out of that nursing home.

It’s a great nursing home, really. Beautiful on the outside and inside, with a large, well-appointed lobby, complete with a piano, the place is a gem. And big, too. If the patient you’re visiting is down at the end of the hall on the second floor, you first have to dial “1” before calling back downstairs to the main desk.

To take away the stigma that comes with the term “nursing home,” they call it a “retirement community.” Whatever they want to call it, it’s still not a place where people go to live. They go there to die – peacefully and slowly, but surely.

It’s not home.

Not the old man’s home that he and his wife built 55 years ago. A modest place, but still home. Still comfy. Still cozy. Still warm. Still inviting. Still friendly. Still familiar.

It’s the place where he still wanted to be – and was, for all that time until the paramedics took him out of there – right out the front door -- on a stretcher.

It was supposed to be just a temporary stay at the nursing home, or so he thought. He always was going to go back home.

Any hope of that – what little there was – evaporated recently when he took a turn for the worse.

The eyes that became so bright when you entered his room for a visit, have become dimmer. The voice that called out your first name with excitement has been muffled. Not completely quiet yet, just muffled.

So he’s a lifer there. Bad choice of words, probably.

But this is Father’s Day weekend, so we put all that aside for the time being. We pretend like things are different. We are joyful, because that’s what you do on Father’s Day.

He’s not my father – that man died 31 years ago – but he knew my dad well. Though my dad was about six years older, they had a lot in common. They both went through The Great Depression as first young men and then young adults, went overseas in World War II and helped make the world safe for democracy, and returned home to raise a family, saving every penny they could – literally, in most cases – to make ends meet.

Waterloo Wonders

WATERLOO, Ohio (WSAZ) -- If you thought the final four basketball teams put on a show, talk to a few local folks out in the tiny town of Waterloo, Ohio. They will tell you all about their fabulous wonder five.

People would pack the place up to the rafters and fill the stage at Waterloo High School. Ardella Belville actually went to school there, but now, old and crumbling, Waterloo has to come down.

Belville said, "it's leaking, we can afford a new roof, it's too much of an ordeal."

Ardella's fondest memories are in the gym. She remembers that 20 years after an amazing group of country kids won state basketball championships in 1934 and 35, going 97 and 3, beating big colleges along the way. They were called the Wonders, then in the late 40's, they would come back to Waterloo for exhibition games.

Belville said, "they would pass the ball under their legs, around their backs, off the walls, and always made the basket,even from center court."

Later on, after the high school phenoms graduated, they formed a barnstorming professional team, Ervin Roach played with the fabulous Wonders,who invented showtime.

People that went to school there say they may be bulldozing the building but the legend of the fabulous Wonders will live on forever.

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