Favorite Yellow Springs Memories, Pt. III

• By YS News Staff
• Published: January 30, 2026

• No Comments

All the friends I made in grade school so many years ago. We graduated together in 1980-81 and we have been there for each other throughout our lives for marriages, births, deaths and other crises and celebrations. I couldn’t ask for a better group of friends. You know who you are and we continue to gather several times each year!
—Donna Acton Evans

When the circus came to Gaunt Park! Early ’70s?
—Rebecca Kuder

Watching the awe-inspiring 2024 total solar eclipse. Enjoying out-of-this-world food and drinks at the Sunrise Cafe.
—Maria Moontree

Going to work for Don at the Import House in 1991 and seeing a note that said Gabby’s name with a phone number tacked on a board in the back office. When he confirmed that Gabby was still BBQing and just a phone call away, I couldn’t wait to go tell my dad. Rediscovering him was great. Felt like I found the golden ticket.
—Demetria Cain

The anti-war postcards with half the village gathered at the park opposing the second Iraq war.
—Eric James Wolf

Chicha Morada and fish and chips at the Peruvian restaurant where Trail Town Brewing is currently located!
—Nicole A. Swani

Folk Dance Saturdays led by Dick and Billie Eastman. Dip-top ice cream cones from Grote’s. Horseback riding lessons at The Riding Centre. Watching the beehive inside Trailside Museum.
—Kate Mooneyham

Working as an intern naturalist at the Outdoor Education Center in 1980 changed my life for the better.
—Jay Garrett-Larsen

The time my family drove through YS, when I was just a kid, my mom yelled out, “Roll your windows up, this place is full of communists!” Roll your windows up?
—Karen E. Highman

Elsewhere! David Pippenger and I waking up Mark Arnold — and probably Terri Windling — every Saturday morning for quite a stretch; Mark was supposed to open the bookstore at 10 a.m., dammit. Rifling through hundreds of comic books, to add to our truly enormous joint “hold” pile and collection: “Guys, you gotta actually buy some of these books or they are going back out.” Fairport Convention in the background, jamming with Reggie regarding Spider-Man versus The Incredible Hulk if they ever came to blows and similarly vital topics. Special place in my heart for sure.
—Michael Young

Playing basketball at the Bryan Center, hikes to the Pine Forest, hanging out at JB State Park while skipping school. Feeding ducks at the DeWine pond with my grandmother. Fels summer camp at Antioch!
—Bonnie Clucus

Working at YSI when the people there were like family. Eating at Gabby’s.
—Diana Tillman

Long runs through Glen Helen, walks around town on winter mornings, drinks at Ye Olde Trail Tavern.
—Steve Thomas

Getting married in the Glen Helen Pine Forest in ’79 while it still existed.
—Denise Dodson

Skipped class with a group of friends to see “The Seven Samurai” at the Little Art. Afterwards, we walked down to the old ice cream stand (Dari-korner?) for a treat and saw my first rainbow! Best. Day. Ever!
—Samuel Foster

Dining at the Tavern after shopping at the Street Fair with friends or after hiking in the Glen. Pizza at Bentino’s between classes at AUM. Teaching at the Yellow Springs Community Center. So many good memories of YS!
—Josie Cook

Seeing Leon Russell perform at Peach’s Bar and Grill!
—Holly Keil

Grew up a couple of miles from there on the road the Springfield Municipal Airport is on … Blee Road. We did all our shopping, haircuts, etc. in Yellow Springs. Just walking the streets there growing up was a favorite memory.
—Steve Hess

My tiny child and I got separated at Street Fair about 20 years ago. He was like 3. I freaked out and ran home to start alerting police. This is before cell phones. By the time I got home, breathless, the ol’ landline was ringing, and it was Jenny Cowperthwaite Ruka calling from the Little Art Theatre. My child knew a safe port in the storm, and Jenny was on the phone, telling me he was safe and sound.
—Jennifer Berman

Getting married 30-plus years ago at the Blue Hole in John Bryan.
—Jim Latham

Hiking a million miles in John Bryan and Glen Helen with our late soul dog, Kona.
—Bridget Donovan-Billiter

I moved to YS around 1999 to a place on Whitehall Drive. We had just moved in and I was unpacking things in my living room when a jacked-up red truck drove by, stopped and reversed into my driveway. This tall skinny dude gets out, walks around my boyfriend’s VW truck, opens the door to it, checks out the windows, then turns around and leaves. I told my boyfriend about this strange incident and then a couple days later, the truck returns. Out pops the tall dude again carrying something, which he puts inside the truck and leaves. My boyfriend checks it out and it’s the small vent windows that were missing from his old truck. That was our first introduction to Marco Comegys. He saw the windows were missing, dug around in that insane garage of his until he found VW truck vent windows and brought them to a complete stranger. He became a good friend to us and a regular at the house. He introduced us to so many good people over the years and entertained us with many hilarious Marco stories. Best part of my time living in the village.
—Holly Combs

Where to even begin. It’s the small things like running to the little candy stand at the bottom of the Gaunt Park hill to buy candy when the whistle blew and it was “adult swim.” Spending summers running wild in the streets living off three-for-25-cent potato wedges from Weaver’s and 79-cent cones from Tasty Freeze. Sunrise bread rolls and veggie burgers. God. It’s all food. Hahaha. Caroling hay rides through town. Learning to play darts as a kid at Tricia Dy’s. Really it’s all of it. It was the best place in the world to be a kid.
—Tracy Johnson

Growing up in YS in the ’60s and ’70s was magical; lining up for hot donuts at 11 p.m. at the Village Bakery. Midnight movies at the Little Art. Hoxie Bros Circus. Folk dancing with Dick and Billie Eastman at Mills Lawn on Saturday nights. ZAPP (Roger, and the Human Body) at YSHS Sock Hop. DIV dances at Antioch in front of the student union with Clean Gene. Cruising John Bryan State Park on the weekends and seeing all the tricked-out muscle cars of the time. House parties in basements with black lights. Plays at Antioch with Esteban Vega directing, and Center Stage productions with Leon Holster. And so much more. Magical!
—Shelly Blackman

I can’t remember ever being scared, nor did I have a thing to worry about. My first 18 years were a utopia of sorts. My friends and I met at Gaunt Park nearly every day in the summer — we had to wear those awful swim caps. During rest periods we would get a snack at the candy shack and go right back to swimming. There were races and red rover, whatever else we could come up with for that excruciatingly long 15 minutes.

I loved Halloween, running as fast as we could from house to house, only stopping for a quick cider or hot dog at the bonfires.

Sledding at Gaunt Park was magical at night. We would stay for hours on end and I don’t ever remember getting cold. Fourth of July at Gaunt Park was filled with games and prizes put on by the Lions Club, then we all stayed for the fireworks. The whole town was there.

Mainly, I remember everyone knowing everyone else. All parents treated us as their children. They would feed us, allow us to do what their kids did and if we messed up, we knew they were calling our parents before we even got home. It really was a magical time to grow up in town ’64–’82.
—Amy Malone Fugate

You can’t really pick a favorite if you were raised in YS and have lived in other places. I think for me, it’s that everyone in YS were just neighbors growing up — anyone, at any time, would be there, good or bad, to support and help. We are a small, diverse, eclectic and passionate community. Arts and sports and humanity are the norm.

As a high school student in the ’80 and ’90s, to be popular meant to be in the orchestra and a sport. That doesn’t happen elsewhere.
—Heather Kronewetter

YS changed — perhaps saved — my life. I transferred to YS in high school. A weird, artistic theater kid who could also hold her own doing farm chores. I learned differently. My classmates and teachers alike embraced me and let me be exactly who I was. Mr. Smith encouraged me to try out the fairly new post-secondary opportunities my senior year. I was YSHS’s first student to go to college full-time my senior year. Through the years, YS has seen me grow and evolve into a few different versions of myself. I’m not a Mills Lawn or Antioch School kid, but I happily refer to YS as my hometown because it’s the first place that truly made me feel at home exactly as I came.
—Katie Rose Wright

Walking everywhere at any time, unlocked doors, midnight bakery donuts.
—Vicki Singleton

Growing up in such a diverse, loving, caring place which allowed my heart to be open and accepting tools for life. YS was a special place when neighbors knew each other growing up in the ’60s, ’70s, ’80s. It was a whole experience. Everything the town had to offer was a gift. I could list a lot of things but you had to be here.
—Robin Hull

Drinking 3.2 beer at Ye Ol’ Trail Tavern with my under-21-year-old friends.

Going to Glen Helen to the Yellow Spring and painting iron on our faces from the small rocks and drinking the water. Also camp and adopting an injured red hawk. The Swinging Bridge and Pine Forest.

Going to the original Young’s with our glass jug returns and getting fresh milk. Also getting ice cream at midnight with my WSU buddies.

Shopping! Love the shops that have been around for years! Yellow Springs Pottery and Ohio Silver Co.

Birkenstocks!

And so many more — can’t do just one favorite memory.
—Kimberly Montgomery-Wagaman

My family and I moved to YS in the winter of 1981 and stayed until I graduated in 1991. YS was so different from any other place we lived prior. Halloween was incredible and the whole town was involved. Fireworks on the Fourth of July was nice too. Summertime going to Grote’s or the Tastee Freeze for ice cream. Playing ball at the John Bryan Center after school with great people that I still call friends to this day! Just great memories.
—Michael Buie

As a kid living right down the street on 68, Mom would always take me and a friend into Yellow Springs and drop us off for the day. She always knew it was an area that was safe for us to roam free. We would visit shops, have lunch and do some hiking.

I continued frequenting the village as I got older, and reading the police reports while enjoying some Dino’s was always a must! My daughter and I also made it a tradition to attend the Street Fairs, where she often played her trumpet. I raised her to enjoy the town as much as I did as a child.

I was married on the stage of the Little Art Theatre in 2016, and we had one of the first receptions at Mills Park Hotel.
—Christina Ream

It was 2023 and just a few months after my son, Brandon, passed. A friend decided to get me out of the house for a few hours — nothing ambitious, just a winery visit. We got lost. GPS stopped working. We pulled into a gas station that felt off enough that we didn’t stay. We kept driving, looking for somewhere safer to stop and reorient.

And then we passed a sign that said, “Welcome to Yellow Springs.”

I lost it. I knew exactly where we were. I cried — hard — but not from sadness. It was recognition. I’d heard Dave Chappelle talk about the town in interviews over the years and always thought it felt like somewhere I’d visit “one day,” when life allowed. Somehow, on a random Tuesday, life brought me there anyway.

The town was quiet. Most places were open but unhurried. We walked to every shop, had lunch, shared a flight of beer. The energy was unmistakable — grounded, calm, intact. From that day on, Yellow Springs became a place I returned to when I needed peace. Not escape. Regulation.

It’s the place my body remembers how to breathe.
—Brenda Colter

As kids, summertime Saturday morning movies at John Bryan. Groups of us either walking or riding bikes to Gaunt Park to spend the day swimming. In the fall there was the book fair at Mills Lawn with games, food and fun. Halloween walking the village going to each of the bonfires. Winter sledding down the hill at Gaunt Park. Christmas going house to house to visit. Spring was the Sidewalk Sale — pre-Street Fair. Catching the bus to go skating in Xenia. Sneaking out our back door on High Street, going through a fence to Com’s kitchen to get chicken sandwiches from Goldie. As I got older it was coming home for holidays and hanging at Com’s then DG’s or the Gulch. Other memories: Gabby’s on the corner of Dayton Street and Corry, the drive-through. Can’t forget donuts at midnight at the bakery. Oh man, Yellow Springs was a great place to grow up.
—Don Caesar

Gemini Music!

Mr. Fub’s Toy Store!

The Street Fair!
—Clover Wright

So hard to choose … having to decide between the Tastee Freeze and Grote’s corner was never easy, both being so good! Dining at the Tavern was always a great time and still is. Visiting Dark Star Bookstore at each of its locations as Mary Alice’s success started in King’s Yard, I believe, and evolved to Xenia Avenue and its eventual location today. Playing Little League baseball on the diamond that used to be behind Mills Lawn was such a great memory, similar to the soccer leagues we all participated in at early ages at Gaunt Park. Being spoiled by growing up so close to Glen Helen and spending many an afternoon strolling the amazing trails and seeing so many great natural sights like the Pine Forest, the Cascades and what used to be the Swinging Bridge. It would be a crime not to mention the Little Art Theatre, enjoying some hot tea with honey and a couple Beyer Bar cookies and a movie. Possibly the best part as a kid growing up here is being able to walk or ride your bicycle to all of these places.
—Dave Brown

Years of all-ages pickup soccer games at Gaunt Park, hanging at the pool there all summer and getting those awful yet awesome chalky lollipops, Eco Camp, movies at the Little Art, walking out of The Winds fully nourished to a peaceful, empty, snowy street, riding bikes all over town and through the surrounding countryside.

But the best was always exploring the Glen with my bestie day and night throughout high school. Oh, the miles we put in! We once randomly ran into a professional photographer on the trail who asked to take our picture and later mailed me a copy. I had completely forgotten it and rediscovered it recently during a move. That friend died way too young a couple of years ago. I’m grateful to have the photo to trigger happy memories from a time in Yellow Springs before we all carried cameras in our pockets. I’ve lived 2,500 miles away for many years now, but Yellow Springs always feels like coming home.
—Kelly Goldsmith

• Comments
• |
• Login
• |
• Community Standards
• |
• Help

No comments yet for this article.