By Staff
Not too long ago I was going through some of my wife's pack-rat collection (yes, she does have one, but nothing like mine, of course).
In it, she has a fairly large picture of a man climbing out of an old two-wing airplane.
The man is Clement Sohn.
Clement was 23 years old when he broke the record of a delayed parachute jump at Floyd Bennet Field in 1932 in New York.
He dropped 18,500 feet before pulling his rip cord.
In 1933, Clement had made 200 jumps.He had some sort of material attached to his hips and to his wrists. When he jumped he extended the material. It looked like he had wings.
He was known as the Human Bird Man.
The London Daily Express was responsible for his fame in England.
He was once injured in London, where he suffered a broken arm. He came back to Lansing, Mich., and didn't jump for a year. He was insured by Lloyd's of London.
In 1937, he decided to jump in France, and this is where he died instantly when he plunged to earth before 200,000 air show spectators, somewhere in France.
Peg's folks were friends of Clem's brother and Peg used to play with his brother's little girl.
I guess this is how she had the picture of the Bird Man.
My wife also has a large picture of her grandfather standing in front of the first oil rig built on the water on an unknown lake in Ohio.
He was the master rig builder and was killed in a rig accident in 1937. In those old day, oil rigs were made of wood.
While the rig was being dismantled, a large piece of the rig fell and hit him on the head and he was killed outright in 1938.
Years ago, Peg's mother was vice chair of the Berrien County Democratic Women's Club.
The Lombard family used to get Christmas cards from Gov. and Mrs. G. Mennen Williams and family.
Peg's brother Douglas, who was a champion baton twirler and drum major, once won a trophy for twirling at the Michigan State Fair and Gov. "Soapy" Williams gave out the awards.
When he gave Doug the award, he said to tell Mrs. Democrat hello. Oh, by the way, Doug's first baton teacher was Joyce Thomas, an old Dowagiac teacher.
I recall in the 1930s we used canned (Pet or Carnation) milk for our oatmeal or cereal. This was diluted with water. I think at the time, canned milk was cheaper than bottled milk,
Have you ever heard those little cherry tomatoes called cocktail tomatoes?
I used to like those candy spearmint leaves.
They were green sugar-coated jellied candies shaped like leaves.
A couple of things I used to like to watch: "The Life of Riley" with William Bendix and "Topper," Leo G. Carroll, who played and banker who had two personal ghosts, Marion and Kerby, played by Bob Sterling and Anne Jeffreys.
I also used to like "Sea Hunt" and "Twilight Zone."
E-mail him at cardinalcharlie@hotmail.com