The Old Orchard Zip Line letter

Zip Line, an informative yet breezy column of reader questions, was always a must-read for me in the early 1970s, back in the days when I was more curious about the world than I am now.

Originally, I had no idea when Zip Line started. But I came across this 1968 story – about Findlay’s Blanchard Valley Hospital being inspired by Zip Line to start something called Aspirin Line – that casually mentioned Zip Line had celebrated its first anniversary “several months ago,” so that would put its start at some time in the spring of 1967.

Figuring out the end is a little more dicey: according to the microfilm archives, the last trace of Zip Line I can find is February, 1984.

Questions were signed with initials, but answers were never signed with bylines, so who actually wrote the answers – which were as a rule informative, funny and at times a touch sarcastic – will probably remain a mystery.

(Though in doing some looking around, I can say that, according to Scary monsters and super freaks: stories of sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll and murder by Mike Sager (link), one notable journalist who served as an intern on Zip Line, in 1973, was Janet Cooke.

But anyway, my letter. I was in the first grade at Old Orchard School, a big brick edifice at Cheltenham and Darlington that gave me a pretty good education through the fifth grade (when we bolted for Sylvania). Even for a little kid, I took a lot of pride in my neighborhood. It was a good place to live: you could walk anywhere safely, the ballfields froze over in winter (so you could play hockey), Ottawa Park was nearby (so you could go sledding). Sure, Old Orchard was another 1920s real estate development (here is a 1926 ad selling same). But why was Old Orchard called Old Orchard?

So I asked (and yes, this is absolutely my letter. I remember writing it. My initials are on it, but I redacted them here, because I’m still bashful).

Yes, it does seem pretty obvious now.