10/16/2014
I remember growing up in this lazy, sleepy little
town. Even back then I considered it a
treasure. It was a place of discovery
and adventure; old buildings with histories and secrets, treasures of time
buried beneath the blow dirt and sand, things which pulled at a young boy’s
curiosity and caused him to find stories within their existence. Too young to
understand how the things of the world work, I hoped it would live
forever. I dreamed of helping it,
breathing new life into its tired old bones.
I was forever scheming of ways to keep its heart
pumping. From town celebrations which
would make it famous to businesses which would reignite the boom from which it
was born, there were always ideas roaming around inside my mind. Perhaps I would write a grand adventure with
the little town as its epicenter and people would come from far and wide to see
this place which had spawned the tale.
As kids we rode our bikes over dirt roads and
crumbling blacktop. We hunted the
prehistoric looking horny toads and picked the sand burrs from our
shoelaces. We walked the forgotten trail
of the railroad which had once been so important to the broom straw harvest
which had given life to this place on the prairie. Somewhere I still have a collection of
numbered nails from railroad ties which had been abandoned and left to rot in
their places in their beds which had grown over with grass and weeds.
From the Commercial Hotel which seemed to tower
over the main street of the town to the depot which had once died with the loss
of the railroad only to be reborn as a popular restaurant, there seemed to be
no end to the places to explore. The old
theater which showed second run movies and became a place of excitement for
kids of all ages on Saturday night had its own creaky secrets. The water tower with its pointy top and
spindly legs was a place of dares and challenges.
I can remember dropping coins in the pop machine
at the old APCO station at the top of the hill on a hot summer day. I remember the sounds as I pulled a glass
bottle from its slim rectangular door, the ker-ching as the machine refilled
the spot which had been emptied, the hiss of the pop cap when it was placed
against the opener, the tinny echo as the cap fell into the reservoir beneath,
and that first pull on a bottle of ice cold Coca-Cola. I remember the ding-ding of the bell when a
car pulled up and the sounds of the old gas pumps when the attendant flipped
the handle to pump gas. I remember the
feel of the wet chamois towel which was used to clean the windows when a full
service station still existed.
Taking a seat in the old café booths, feeling the
cool vinyl and feasting on a plate of fresh cut fries is just one of many
memories of a time long lost. We used to
gather there before football games and when I was in high school I’d have a
cheeseburger steak there before every game.
There were tables grouped at the front in a long string and the men of
the community would gather there each morning to drink coffee and talk about
the weather and the crops. I can recall
sitting there with my dad, drinking coffee like all of the other men at the
table. Once in a while we’d have a
cinnamon roll with our coffee or on special occasions a full breakfast of eggs,
hash browns, bacon, and toast. I miss
those days of breakfast with my dad and my younger brother.
When we rode our bikes down to the Jack and Jill
grocery store, we always leaned them up against the brick wall. There were comic books and magazines in a
rack near the large window out front.
There was a bar at the back with stools which had spinning seats. I bought chewing tobacco by claiming it was
for my dad, something which would probably never work today. Then I proceeded to get sick when I stuck a
plug of it in my mouth.
Next door at the Triple A, there were wooden booths and a large wooden bar. The soda jerks stood above the bar and they mixed the sodas the old fashioned way. You could get extra syrup if you asked or even vanilla or cherry mixed in. Above there were large black ceiling fans which hung down on rods and they swayed side to side as the fans moved in their lazy circles. The wooden floor creaked as you walked across it and the bell on the old wood and glass-pane door rang when someone pushed it open. When I was in grade school, I liked to sit with the high school girls while they did their homework at the wooden booths drinking a Coke and eating a bag of potato chips.
On the other side of the grocery store was the post
office. There were doors on the boxes in
the wall with little brass wheels on the boxes which served as the spinners for
the combination locks. The post office
always seemed to have an echo to the room.
A counter stood along one wall where the patrons could seal their envelopes,
paste their stamps, or read their mail.
Next to the counter was a tall trash can, usually filled with junk mail
and flyers as people dumped off the things they didn’t want to take home.
Saddled against the post office was the hardware
store. Nearly any time you walked by you
could smell the scent of pine from the building where they cut the wood. Behind the counter were boxes filled with
things like screws and nails. Darlene
was friendly and welcoming. She always
seemed to know just what you were trying to find. Tools hung from the rafters and the wooden
floor had a deeper sound than the Triple A when it creaked. Through the large glass windows out front you
could see items which had been placed on display. On the east side was a loading dock and
wooden screen doors which wacked against their frames when someone stepped out.
The side of the hardware building was corrugated
galvanized tin. Faded black lettering
announced it once served as home to the undertaker as well.
These are the memories of this little town as I
remember them. Time and its effects may
have distorted some of the details. All
of those buildings downtown are gone now and I only hold them in my
recollections. Their façade fronts,
wooden walls and floors served as fuel when a fire took them one after
another. It dealt a great blow to the
community to lose all of them at one time.
Volunteer firemen worked all night and fire fighters from Beaver City
and Liberal, Kansas came to help, but all they could do was to keep it from
spreading or jumping across the highway to the bank.
Across the street was the First State Bank, its
name proudly displayed on the glass window with gold-leaf lettering. They gave out little boxes of Chiclets with
the bank’s logo on them. There were two
pieces of gum in every box. During
football games the cheerleaders tossed red footballs with their logo printed on
the sides. The First State Bank was
important to the community and when it went away, it seemed suck away more life
than any other business. The gold letters
of the bank still live on; the glass
window displayed in the Golden Agers building, along with other reminders of
the past.
Up the road, the center of town is dominated by the school. It was a great school. We played football, dodge-ball, and baseball on the playground and flirted with the girls on the merry-go-round. On the monkey bars we found out who the real men where based on who could dangle the longest or cross from pipe to pipe from one end to the other. The slide was tall and under today’s protective conditions would probably require a safety strap. More than a few arms were broken upon that playground, but we were none the worse for wear and the casts were proudly worn and signed.
I remember fall carnivals in the old gym. Each class had a booth. There were spinning wheels, balloons and
darts, hoop shoots, apple bobs, and cake walks.
The gym was strung with streamers and lights. The seniors always seemed to have the best
booths. The fall carnival drew out the
entire community.
Buried in my memory are stolen kisses in the back
of the theater, afternoons spent traveling dirt roads, Friday night football
games, and summers at the pool in Beaver.
Riding bikes on Saturday mornings(with no helmets or knee pads),
trudging through snow drifts during winter(until our toes were numb), and watching
lightning strikes illuminate that old water tank during spring thunderstorms
which brought torrential rains, all culminate into a collage of images and
moments of wonder.
I’d wanted my kids to experience my childhood, but
even in sleepy little towns time brings change.
The place of my youth does not exist and with it left the opportunity
for them to know what it was like to live in this community with all of its
little facets of life. The school
remains and plays an important role in their lives, but those fragments of an
active community which fit together to form the pages of my memory are no
longer there.
Of course, memory is illusive and only those
things which matter most to us seem to surface, leaving the things we choose to
disregard behind. Sometimes I fail to
remember the times when small town life wasn’t so wonderful. I forget about what it was like being on the
outside of a certain clique or feeling as if I were an outcast. The rapidity of gossip and the sting of peer
pressure seem to be forgotten under the passage of sand into the
hourglass. Still there are enough good
memories to cover those which are better left alone.
But like the men and women who built this town and
the dreams which drove them, this town cannot live forever. Its viability in a modern world comes into
question. The veins and capillaries
which fed it have begun to shrivel and dry.
The wooden walls of buildings at its heart have become ashes, scattered,
buried, or washed away. The youth and
vitality which comes from commerce and enterprise have slipped from its grasp.
Though it may go on as a community, churches and
individuals holding tight to its strongest characteristics, it cannot grow and
thrive without the energy and lifeblood of business. If the course of time continues on its
current path, there will come a time when the school will close and students
will wear different mascots on their t-shirts or uniforms. Indeed, the latter has already begun to
happen. Through co-ops our students have
continued to participate in sports where we had numbers too small to go it on
our own.
As the world grows, as education becomes more and
more important, as opportunities arise, the relevance of a small school becomes
more of a question. What purpose does it
serve? What opportunities can it
offer? As states struggle for funding
and the economy struggles, financial considerations will cause calls for
further consolidations and what’s left of school pride appears doomed to go the
way of the dinosaur.
It’s a troubling thought. For those who have chosen to make their homes
in small towns like ours, it is great disappointment to see its fate hanging in
the balance. Still, I hold on to hope
that a reprieve from extinction might be found within new industry or a change
in the use of resources. Alternative
agriculture, green energy, bio fuels, gas and oil are the most promising
industries which might offer economic sustainability to our community and those
in surrounding areas.
Though our children offer us moments of pride and
community – state basketball championships, a run for the state football
championship, academic achievements, school choral programs, and laughter – we
are but a fraction of what we once were.
Though the ghosts of the past remind us of where we’ve been and what
we’ve done, their spirits float beyond our reach. As the clock ticks on and time marches past,
we long for the days when tomorrow was a promise and hope was a vision.
There is one thing which holds our dreams,
memories, hopes, and spirits together – community. Community serves as a glue holding fragments
of the past. It serves as the fabric
into which our tapestry has been woven.
Community pulls us together when disaster, uncertainty, and the future threaten
to pull us apart. Community allows us to
push past the looming shadows of extinction.
Community gives us occasion to come together and embrace that which is
important to us all. Perhaps, this community
will be the key to unlocking the potential for revival. In joining together, conceivably we may find
that one unique trait which allows us to prosper and draw others into our midst
once again; revitalizing us, increasing our numbers and helping us grow back
into the lively little town we once were.
Though the future is uncertain, the death of
tomorrow depends upon us and our community.
If we search – if we invest – if we trust in ourselves, we can give life
back to tomorrow. We can hold on to this
spot which we occupy and give it life once again. Others have faced larger obstacles – World
War l, the market crash of 1929, the great depression, the dirty 30’s, World
War ll, and other conflicts. They
overcame these things which separated them from their dreams and hopes. They pulled together and made it
through. They held on to hope in the
face of doom.
We may not control the future, but we can impact
it. We can hold tight to the wheel and
steer our way into tomorrow. A brighter
tomorrow does not just happen. Complacency,
indifference, and lack of engagement, only allows decay to take its
course. If we seek to be revitalized, we
have to pursue those things which will revitalize us. If we want tomorrow to be bright, we must add
our own light to the effort. Little
things matter. The smallest spark can
start a fire.
