Remembering Sheridan Summers in the ’60s

Recently, my cousin, the Dancing Librarian, and I were discussing how different summer was when we were growing up in the 1960s.

Unlike today’s kids, we had three whole months of freedom from school to do whatever we wanted. We could get a summer job, work on 4-H projects, hang out at the pool all day . . . you name it.

That conversation led to us comparing our summer fun and I realized that the DL’s experiences growing up in Sheridan were different enough from mine that they deserved a column of their own.

She brought up how she used to go camping with her Girl Scout troop in what is today Biddle Park. At that time the park was owned by the K. V. Elliott Post 67 of the American Legion and was known as Legion Park.  

(The name was changed to Sheridan Memorial Park in 1970 after local industrialist Kenneth Biddle bought it and donated it to the town. Following Biddle’s death in 1978, the name was changed again to Kenneth Biddle Memorial Park in his honor.)

Back in the DL’s camping days, the park had a track where motorcycles and go-karts raced, a “Youth Cabin” where the scouts of both genders held meetings, and two baseball diamonds.

The DL and her sister, Susan, got to play softball on both of those diamonds when a Girl’s Softball League was organized in Sheridan in 1968. (I’m impressed that Sheridan had enough girls interested in organized sports to create their own league.)

Although the 1960 Centennial was unquestionably the biggest celebration held in Sheridan during the ‘60s (it went on for eight days over the July 4th holiday,) some popular annual summer events also took place there.

Each June, hundreds of people packed the Sheridan Community Center to feast on perch (or ham) at the Firemen’s Fish Fry, a fundraiser put on by the Firemen’s Auxiliary for the benefit of the Fire Department. The firemen fried the fish and the ladies of the Auxiliary donated homemade pies and cakes for dessert.

Another favorite celebration was the annual July 4th parade. Initiated in 1962 by Sheridan’s Jaycees, it’s a tradition that continues to this day.

The DL also has fond memories of summer visits to Dewey’s Drive-in, where carhops brought your order to your car and the drinks all came with a pretzel hooked on the straw.

Of course, what would summer be without ice cream?

The DL spoke of trips to nearby Boxley and the orange pineapple ice cream she used to get at Boxley’s little mom and pop grocery.

(After the store closed in the early 1960s, she was sure she’d never enjoy that ice cream again, but she was wrong. Not too long ago, she discovered that same flavor at Wilson’s Farm Market.)

The DL’s favorite spot for ice cream, however, was — and still is — Sheridan’s Twin Kiss Drive-In. Getting one of the Twin Kiss’ swirled chocolate and vanilla cones has been a rite of summer for her ever since she was a kid.

Today, sandwiches are also on the menu, but in the beginning it was just ice cream and root beer. The DL recalled the drive-in selling their ice cold root beer in kid-sized glass mugs when she was growing up.

The Twin Kiss is such a Sheridan institution that the DL’s school bus driver used to treat the students on his bus to a small cone or drink at the drive-in at the end of each school year.

Those memories alone would be enough to draw the DL back to the Twin Kiss each spring, but she also has a personal attachment to the drive-in. When the Twin Kiss opened in 1956, her father, Donald Pickett, the owner of Pickett’s Refrigeration, helped install the drive-in’s electrical wiring. 

Paula Dunn’s From Time to Thyme column appears on Wednesdays in The Times. Contact her at younggardenerfriend@gmail.com