By Fred Steiner

We didn’t know how lucky we were.

No. In my adolescent years, the kids in my Lawn Avenue-Elm Street neighborhood did not know how lucky we were. That’s because Bob Wilch, an adult, but a kid at heart, lived in our neighborhood.

Trust me, he was the friendliest adult to kids – outside of our parents – who you could imagine. I thought about him recently when I read his obituary on The Icon.

I should say “Mr. Wilch,” not Bob, is that friendly neighborhood parent of the late 1950s and early 1960s. That’s the way kids addressed adults in the era of Eisenhower. While I’m referring to him here as Bob, like your old school teachers, it is much more comfortable addressing him as Mr. Wilch, so I’ll mix it up in this remembrance.

A little Bluffton background. Bob and his wife, Sue, (later divorced) were parents of Vickie, 1970 BHS grad, Robin, 1972 BHS grad, and Penny,  1974 BHS grad. Our neighborhood at this time included the Wilch sisters, Judy Westrick, the DeViers (Sue, Bonnie, Val and Jim), Roger and Anita Augsburger, Jan Benroth and the Steiners (Mary, Rudi and Fred).

Mr. Wilch picked up eggs from Bluffton area farmers on a route, delivering them to Charles Kinsinger, an egg distributor on Spring Street. That business, located in a barn, eventually became the college art barn, of all things. It’s gone now. Sauder Visual Arts Center reminds some of us of that barn today. 

He eventually bought out Mr. Kinsinger and operated his own egg distribution business. It operated in that large brick, rather mysterious building on Washington and Thurman, across from the EMS building. At the time everyone called the building the brewery. That’s because in very early Bluffton it was a brewery. Today, that memory is erased.

Bob was much more than a great neighbor. He was a pretty good carpenter. Make that an outstanding carpenter. He bought a Dodge truck chassis from Lennis Steiner’s Dodge dealership in Pandora and constructed a large storage compartment on the truck’s back end for the eggs he picked up, specifically designed to carry countless grosses of eggs. He built it at night, after work, in about three evenings, painting it fire-truck red. You couldn’t miss it as it drove down the street. It was Bob Wilch’s egg truck.

Here’s where it becomes interesting: He even allowed – invited – kids in the neighbor to occasionally ride with him on his route. I was lucky once to be one of those kids. Another neighbor kid and I rode along with Bob on the time I recall. Maybe it was Val DeVier, her sister, Bonnie, or Roger Augsburger. That I can’t really remember. I know we each took a sack lunch.

Why do some memories stick in your mind like glue, while others simply disappear? I can’t remember where we stopped to pick up eggs, but I recall listening to WOWO-Ft. Wayne on the truck’s AM radio. Volare, sung by Domenico Modugno, popped up and we all sang along because we knew the song. 

Bob was also an outstanding athlete. I never saw him play in high school. My two-on-two game experience was in the Steiner basketball court behind our house along Elm Street. Sometime, probably in 1956 or so, our dad wisely built a basketball backstop and hoop onto our garage. It lasted a dozen solid years with hundreds of games of H-O-R-S-E and other pick-up games played on a dirt playing surface with imaginary boundaries.

Mr. Wilch became one member of this basketball cast. When he would come home from work, or on a Saturday, he often joined in whatever choice-of-the-day game occurred.

Bob played basketball in that forgotten era when set shots, hook shots, jump shots and underhanded foul shots were skills required of the best players. He excelled in each, especially the set shot, shooting the ball two-handed directly from his chest to the basket, with both feet grounded.

Imagine it this way: Stand on the Catholic Church side of Elm Street. Look across the street at the garage facing Elm and image a basketball hoop. In one, probably more games of H-O-R-S-E Bob Wilch, using the set shot, could nail the basket. It was always the game winner, followed by loud hoots by all the kids playing. A three-pointer? Heck, a four-pointer, if such a thing exists.

He once told us his high school coach – a coach before Joe Harris – would penalize players in practice who dared shoot at the basket when NOT using the set shot. The penalty was either  running laps or heading to the showers.

His older brother, Ray, also excelled in the set shot. Maybe it was Ray who told me about the unfortunate player who shot some other way. Well, I can’t recall. 

Bob also excelled in softball, playing on the old Triplett summer teams, in those very competitive summer games filled with many Lima and Findlay industrial teams. Those games, imagine this, were played on a ball diamond created directly on the Harmon football field. Fans sat in the stadium to watch the games. Many fans.

The other outstanding recollection of Bob was the Wilch family vehicle. In a time of the “one-car” family, that one car needed to really stand out. The Wilchmobile really stood out. Imagine a beautiful, 1958 coral and grey two-door DeSoto Firedome Sportsman with very obvious fins and wide-whitewall tires, parked at the Main Street side of the Elm-Lawn intersection.

Brother Rudi says that he was paid two dollars for washing the DeSoto every Friday, with the payment turning into a cheeseburger on a rye bun. 

And, come to think about it, we’ve not even talked about his garden of unusual things, like peanuts, celery and coffee beans. But, I doubt if I can convince you of those stories. Maybe another time.

Call me old-fashioned or quaint, but If it takes a village to raise a child, that child has an extra advantage growing up in a neighborhood when someone like Bob Wilch lives there too.

Rest in peace, Mr. Wilch.

Note: My brother, Rudi Steiner of Homewood, Illinois, assisted in many of the details in this column.