Area native, military man launches column

Editor's note: James Fulks will be one of a rotation of columnists who will fill this space following the retirement of Diana Dolecki. James has been a regular letter to the editor writer over the years and submitted a sample column following our call out last month. He will be joined in the rotation by former sports editor Chris Schanz and others over the next several weeks.

Please allow me to formally introduce myself.

Although some of you have probably noticed my occasional letters to the editor over the last several years, you may not be familiar with who I am.

I was born in Winchester and raised in the tiny little burgh of New Pitsburg on the Jay/Randolph county line. The parents who adopted me, when I was 0.8 months old, owned property on both sides of the county line, however the houses they owned were all actually in the thriving metropolis of actual New Pitsburg, which placed them in Randolph County.

Adoption records were sealed in those days, so interestingly I'm one of those oddities who have never met, and have no knowledge of, my birth/biological family.

In those days, New Pitsburg had, to a little boy, a truly magical little general store and grocery.

The little store had one gas pump out on the front porch, a glass-front meat and deli cheese case, and a glass-front cooler with the old glass bottles of Choc-O-La.

The one you had to shake up vigorously before opening, because the chocolate was all settled in the bottom of the bottle when you picked them up.

I really loved that small-town store and the warm, loving lady we called Laury-Alice who would give me slices of Longhorn colby cheese and Eckrich pickle loaf and Marhoffer bologna right off of the stainless steel slicer on the deli case.

Back then, Jay and Randolph counties had dozens of such little grocery and general stores scattered all over. Today, as I write this, Jay County has literally not one true, stand-alone, real, actual grocery store.

Progress?

Hmmm?

But that's a subject for a future submission.

After Dad passed away, Mom sold the houses and acreage in and around New Pitsburg and eventually purchased the place that I still call home here in Jay County.

When we moved here, we had a Dunkirk address, a Redkey telephone landline that was also a six party — "party line" meaning we had no private telephone line and it was common to pick up the phone to place a call and hear other folks' very private conversations, which today would be unthinkable.

I graduated from the still relatively new consolidated Jay County High School after attending Redkey elementary and West Jay junior high school, which at the time I went was still being housed in the former Dunkirk High School building.

I departed for active duty in the United States Navy soon after graduation and served as a tower and radar FAA-licensed air traffic controller aboard the USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63).

After my honorable discharge from U.S. Navy active duty, I eventually returned home to rural Jay County.

Today, if you've attended any of Redkey's annual Memorial Day ceremonies over the last 34-plus years, no doubt you have heard me speak. Or maybe we have crossed paths at one of the many military honor guard graveside burial details I have served alongside fellow veterans with over the years.

I will continue to serve in this capacity for as long as I am physically able.

Moving forward, I trust I can pique your interest with what I submit to these columns.

I'll see you in the papers, for the select few of us who actually still like to read a physical newspaper.

It is my sincere hope that The Fourth Estate will not pass into history in my lifetime.