The Adobe Flash Player is required to view this multimedia interactive. Get it here.

Stafford: In the good-old summer

1-2 inches of snow expected today
2/10/12
Police headlines for Feb. 10
2/9/12
Local Focus: Champaign County for Feb. 10
2/9/12
Local Focus: Clark County for Feb. 10
2/9/12
Driver in crash says dog may be to blame in girl’s death
2/9/12
> More headlines

By Tom Stafford, Staff Writer 11:10 PM Saturday, July 31, 2010

The fat man’s race had its own phony controversy when the winner, Toppy Troupe, allegedly held R.R. Lucas.

Not many saw it, though, because, at the time, the portly L.S. Job had fallen down, rolled over on his back, and found it impossible to get up.

Just what word they used 98 years ago for “hoot” isn’t clear.

But as the opening sentence of the Aug. 1, 1912, story in the Springfield Daily News puts it: “No better time was ever had by the members of the Elks Lodge of this city on their annual outing than the one which they held yesterday at Tecumseh Park.”

The story said “300 of the antlered herd” descended on the park July 31 for their annual summer fun. Many caught Ohio Electric Railway cars as early as 8 a.m., arriving in time for the bogus grudge match between the Irish and the Germans, referred to as “the Dutch.”

In a nod to the universally held value of cheating, both sides “signed players of the opposite nationality,” the story said, “so that when the teams lined up the Dutch were playing under the Irish banner and the Irish were singing the praises of the Dutch.”

Such order as there was broken down when “Squire W.Y. Mahar,” an attorney with offices in the Bushnell Building, resigned as umpire and started playing for the Irish.

Predictably shoddy score keeping led to a disputed result, and when the Irish started a victory parade, the Dutch band “began playing a funeral march.”

A political controversy broke out when Mayor J.J. Miller “was accused of eating three whole fried chickens and 14 ears of green corn.”

This appears to have left the mayor both indisposed and unavailable for comment.

Although Charles Malowney won the hop, step and jump, the play of the day came when Phil Hounker fell down and the judges agreed to count Hounker’s 30-foot roll.

Likewise, while George Gossard easily won a pair of socks in the standing broad jump, the tools launched from mechanic Ernest Valentine’s pockets during his attempt were more memorable.

Quipped the paper: “Val apparently brought half of his garage to the picnic with him.”

That there were guns at the event seemed to concern no one. Charles Winkler’s team beat Willliam Poole’s by six targets, Herman Vogges beat Henry Lamp 19 to 17, and Winkler “made 96 out of a possible 100 targets.”

Ahead in the afternoon watermelon eating contest, Toppy Troupe appeared to be closing in on a double dose of glory when “the juice in his whiskers clogged his breathing apparatus,” the paper said.

This allowed Manford Teach walked away with the winner’s reward: a pair of suspenders.

In the end, the Daily News reported it as a day when “good fellowship and fried chicken vied with each other” for supremacy and on which the clowns among the antlered herd made sure there was never a dull moment.

In the lore of Springfield summertime fun, it was a day not to be forgotten.

Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0368 or tstafford@coxohio.com.

Share this article