BY TOM O'NEILL
The Cincinnati Enquirer
BATAVIA TOWNSHIP -- Nobody told them to get lost. But there they were, smiling, many with eyes closed, swaying to the sounds of the old Ruth Lyons show, knowing the words to every song.
Lost in a time gone more than 40 years now -- and loving it.
It was noon again Wednesday afternoon at the Clermont Senior Services' center at the YMCA, as the group's "Christmas in July" event featured a "Remembering Ruth Lyons" theme.
And the 150 or so who attended dressed for the day. Suits on the men. The women wore floral dresses and white gloves. Santa showed up, too, but he wasn't the only one in stylish headwear. Women's hats ranged from white broadbrims with pink wraparound plumes to magenta pillbox numbers.
Song stylist Colleen Sharp from the Ruth Lyons glory days provided the musical canvas, interrupting a Cliff Lash piano solo during a Christmas medley to remind the audience, "the ol' boy's still got it."
It was nothing they didn't already know.
"Oh, I just love it," Margaret Lawrence said, resting an elbow on a table graced with her collection of Ruth Lyons photos and memorabilia. "Yeah, it's just special."
One black-and-white, dated May 17, 1957, captured Ms. Lyons getting out of her car, amid a wide-eyed crowd, at the Taft Auditorium. Mrs. Lawrence, 66, of Williamsburg, attended the various Ruth Lyons radio and TV shows about 40 times, she recalled, the first time as a grammar school student.
Ruth Kinzbach, 81, of Batavia wore the pink net pillbox hat she wore to her daughter Holly Ann Kaiser's wedding 33 years ago. "It's something from way back that we remember watching," she said of the Ruth Lyons shows, prompting Pauline Bryant, 74, of Milford to reminisce: "It was so stylish, the little flowers in the microphone." Ms. Bryant, wearing a red ensemble, a string of pearls and a Cincinnati Reds hat, added, "and it's a chance now to get out and meet each other." And it was all for a good cause -- several, actually.
They raised about $600 for the Ruth Lyons Children's Fund. They raised the roof. They raised each other's spirits.
