Locally, the featured story was about an unfortunate boater from Sheffield Lake whose car ended up in the drink down at the Lorain Municipal Pier's boat loading ramp. It seems that his car's automatic transmission slipped out of the park position and into the water it went. Poor guy. And the Journal was right there to take a picture of him.
Lorain's Mascon Toy manufacturing plant had just been purchased by a group of investors along with two sister toy companies, including Flexible Flyer of Medina, manufacturer of the well-known sled. The new owners planned to continue operating the purchased plants and hopefully increase production.
Nationally, the ongoing protest and occupation by American Indians at Wounded Knee, South Dakota was triggering sympathetic protests elsewhere, in this case Lumberton, North Carolina.
And the hoped-for ratification in 1973 of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was stalled with less than half of the states approving the amendment – far short of what was needed.
Elsewhere on the front page was a capsule comparison of the contrasting points of view of two returning Vietnam POWs; an announcement of the closing of Lorain's draft board office; and a story of British man, heavily in debt, who had just solved his financial problems by winning "a big prize on the soccer pools."
And we all know how the Mascon deal wound up.They were shut down a few years later when the Blazon-Flexible Flyer Co. went bankrupt in 1975 just before Christmas.The sled plant in Medina also went out of business.Too bad about that 1968 Chevrolet wagon in the drink.
ReplyDeleteAs a young man I worked at a Pennsyltucky boat dock that had a ramp. I saw all sorts of stuff like that pictured. I can see my old boss right now, shaking his head and smiling.
ReplyDeleteImagine being that guy and ending up in the paper. Kripes, the ribbing he must've taken from his pals. I might've taken the photographer's camera and tossed it in the drink, too!
And the name of the driver, William Cantrell, ran a bell with me. Didn't know why until I looked him up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War_widows_who_survived_into_the_21st_century
I think I was there when that car went into Hot Waters; looks awfully familiar.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if any of those flesh eaters from yesterday's post chewed on anybody's skin when they pulled that old car out?They didn't call it Hot Waters for nothing.
ReplyDeleteThat was before they remodeled the hot waters. The ramp was short and steep and If the trailer went down too far the tires would drop off the end of the metal grid. Used to see lots of cars spinning their rear tires trying to pull the boat and trailer out of the water.
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