REMEMBER WHEN ?

[Grantham Forester]

Originally Posted by Steve McCarty

More about the fifties in a small Kansas farm town.

Town was really one wide main street with a block and a half of stores that faced one another across the street. There was a movie threatre, the De Lux and a "sundries" store that had a drug store inside and a soda fountain...and racks of comic books, which we all read and seldom bought. They cost a dime.

A coke was a nickle for an 8 oz glass and you could get a cherry, lime or lemon coke. They'd squirt some of the sirup in there for flavor. We bought malts, or root beer floats which I think cost 20 cents. They had little round tables in the rear of the store and we'd all sit there drinking our drinks while gabbing with the girls, who always had a "crush" on one of the boys. By the time we graduated from high school every boy had pretty much dated every girl in town and visa versa. They married the one they ended up with and then after a few years divorced and married the one they really liked.

Over fifty years later that town is little changed. They are planning to tear down the De Lux, which has been vacant since the 60's and is crumbling. All of my parents, grandparents and great grandparents are gone now and reside in the cemetery north of town. I visit there from time to time to recall those people whom I loved.

Some of the kids I knew never left. Old men and women now.

This appeared in the anthology "The Best of Gray's" edited by Ed Gray. The story is called "The Prairie Queen" written by Jack Curtis. I also read that Yankton, SD (very Eastern part of the State) was one of several areas where captured German POW's were encamped, and put to work on WPA and CCC type projects.

[Stepmac]

Originally Posted by Grantham Forester

This appeared in the anthology "The Best of Gray's" edited by Ed Gray. The story is called "The Prairie Queen" written by Jack Curtis. I also read that Yankton, SD (very Eastern part of the State) was one of several areas where captured German POW's were encamped, and put to work on WPA and CCC type projects.

I don't understand. I just wrote it. SM

[Stepmac]

Originally Posted by Grantham Forester

This appeared in the anthology "The Best of Gray's" edited by Ed Gray. The story is called "The Prairie Queen" written by Jack Curtis. I also read that Yankton, SD (very Eastern part of the State) was one of several areas where captured German POW's were encamped, and put to work on WPA and CCC type projects.

Not sure what you mean here Grantham, but if you think you saw my piece in an anthology edited by Ed Gray, then I am flattered! It squirted out my fingers just a few days ago. Here is some more:

One of the most memorable things about Western Kansas to me, was to stand in a wheat field and turn and look around and as far as you could see you were the tallest thing in sight....The peak of one's straw hat reached above everything else.

There was a special smell to the wheat as it rippled in the constantly blowing, searing wind. It baked your face nut brown and brought crows feet to the corners of your eyes, even when you were sixteen. It felt as hot as the surface of the sun, but as hot and humid as it was, one did not sweat. There were no dark brown stains in the middle of your work shirt, like they show in the movies. The sweat, which must have been on the surface of your skin evaporated immediately. Sometimes it left a thin white salt stain on your skin and maybe around the brim of your hat. My God it was hot and dry!

Alone for twelve hours a day, going round and round in the shimmering field of wheat on a puffing red painted tractor would have been lonely if one did not have ones self to comensurate with. If you weren't before, you became friends with yourself on that tractor. You and yourself would have long conversations and learn all kinds of things. From time to time you had to stop to pull weeds from the round, razor sharp blades of the oneway or grease the bearings with that tool they named a machine gun after. You'd pump the handle and sqeeze the black goo into the grease zirk until it bubbled out of the bearing like some science fiction monster. Daydreaming, however; was dangerous. Several times a season some farmer would fall asleep and tumble off of the tractor and be run over by the plow.

Sometimes a baby rabbit, or pheasant would run into the furrow in front of your right front tire. Seldom did it jump to the right and safety, even when I shouted at it to do so. I would watch as he stumbled and tired. Eventually I'd have to slow down or even stop so that the little critter could get away. I never ran over one. We were friends, after all and we shared the experience of the hot summer day in that dusty wheat field.