THE OLD TRAIN HOTEL

 

 

  You can hear the train coming long before you see it. The steady, pulsating noise of the locomotives powerful diesel engines grow louder and louder as it bears down on the crossing. Peace loving doves looking for spilled grain along the tracks franticly burst into flight as the Union Pacific coal train screams across the two lane road in the tiny town of Blue River, Missouri.

  Within minutes the caboose clears the crossing to reveal a view that probably hasn’t changed much in a hundred and forty one years. A magnificent two story building dripping with nostalgic epitomes stands out from the other twelve buildings that make up this little rural community nestled in a beautiful valley surrounded by lush pastures on one side and a river on the other.

  Situated just a scant fifty feet from the tracks, it was originally built as a hotel by the railroad in 1862 for their workers and passengers who needed a place to rest. It also provided them protection from the continuous skirmishes between Missouri and Kansas factions during the civil war.

   The infamous Jesse James, his brother Frank and Cole Younger were heavily involved in these conflicts. The Younger family owned a great deal of the land around Little Blue and local historians believe their family built most of the town. Frank and Cole were known to have stayed at the hotel many times in the1800s.

   “They preferred the bedroom at the front of the hotel on the second floor,” current owner Joan Mericle explained. “It was the biggest of the five bedrooms and most importantly, had a good view of the road and tracks with plenty of windows so they could see any one coming.”

   A photo in the Jessie James museum shows Cole sitting on the hotels huge porch and he talks about getting off the train with Frank at Little Blue and staying at the hotel in his book.

  Joan lived on the northeast side of Kansas City for over twenty years and graduated from Northeast High school in 1947. The family used to own Lynn’s grocery store at 5910 St. John. The area has many old mansions and huge homes which she always admired and loved so it only seemed natural for her and her husband Ross to buy the former hotel in 1995.

  Numerous changes had to be made to the lobby, kitchen and huge dinning room to convert the hotel into their private residence. During renovations it was discovered that the walls were made of horse hair plaster and nailed together with square nails.

   The second floor was basically left like it was when originally built fourteen decades ago. With kerosene lanterns and coal burning stoves located in each bedroom, the threat of fire was a constant problem in the 1800s so the builders installed two sets of stairs for escape routes.

    As we made our way upstairs, Joan pointed out dozens of scuff marks and gouges on the steps that were caused from men wearing spurs more than a hundred years ago when they trudged up to the bedrooms after a hard days work.

    The ancient wood floor creaked slightly as we walked from one tiny bedroom to another. Those same noisy boards might have very well woke up a sleeping Frank James or Cole Younger in the middle of the night and saved them from a would be assassin wanting to make a name for himself. It’s easy to let your imagination take over and picture either man nervously standing next to the front window during the day with gun in hand, watching the road below after hearing riders on horse back approaching the hotel. Up to four men shared two beds in each of the five bed rooms which appear to be about eight by eight feet in size. Everyone shared a large linen closet in the hallway.

   The outside of the house is equally interesting. Beautiful glass insulators that once sat high atop telegraph poles along the railroad tracks in the 1800s form a nice edging to several flower gardens. Joan loves to work in the yard and has unearthed fantastic pottery and dozens of old glass bottles buried in various spots and even had some surface in the river behind the house. She has most of the bottles on her window sills so they rattle against the glass when trains pass by. Rusty, iron rings that once held horses and mules are still visible in the rock wall on the west side of the property. The horses were kept in a large coral where the backyard is located today.

  A train station with a telegraph office once occupied the area between the hotel and tracks but succumbed to father time long ago. No trace of it exists today but the garage is thought to have been built from its foundation.

   I asked Joan why they chose to buy such an old house. “Well,” she said. “It’s a simple house but very warm and comfortable. I love history and this place certainly has plenty of it. I often think about the men and women who stayed here over the years and some times wonder what their lives were like.”

Ross likes the old place because it has a lot more personality than a new house. “Its given service and blessings to a lot of people for a long time,” he said.

  Joan’s mother, Calla, who lived to be a hundred years old spent the last ten years of her life living with Ross and Joan in Little Blue. She grew up on a farm in Clay County Missouri next to the James farm. The family was dirt poor and had a pretty rough time making it. On her eighth birthday Calla was playing with her five siblings on the dirt road in front of the farm when Frank James came riding by in a horse drawn buggy.

   “Today is my birthday,” Calla yelled out.  Frank wished her a happy birthday and continued to his house. He returned a few minutes later and presented her with a huge turkey and all the trimmings as a birthday gift. She found out many years later that they shared the same birthday and he had given her his birthday meal since her family couldn’t afford one.

   It must be a wonderful feeling lying in bed each night hearing a distant train approaching your 147 year old house and knowing that within minutes ancient glass bottles will begin gently tapping the window panes to help you drift off to sleep.

The Old Homestead

 

 Told by Eva Marie Johnson

 Written by Dale Castle

 

 

    I came into this wonderful world as Eva Marie Johnson on Sept 26, 1917 four miles outside of Gerster, Missouri on the family farm of 175 acres. Life was sure a lot different than it is now in 2005. Even though I was a young girl, I had chores to do everyday just like everyone else. It wasn’t easy to run a farm and everyone had to do their part.

   My day usually started well before school. I was expected to gather the eggs, feed the chickens, milk the cows; bottle feed the baby sheep and pull weeds from the garden before breakfast. After school I would feed the sheep and chickens again and milk the cows a second time. Like most girls, I also helped my mom quite a bit in the kitchen.

   My father always got up at four in the morning and did a lot of his chores before the sun came up with only a kerosene lantern to see by. His day didn’t end until well after dark. Everyone of those 175 acres we owned were plowed by a horse with my dad walking behind him. He was a strict but fair man. From time to time, men down on their luck would stop by the farm wanting to work a few hours for a meal. I don’t remember my father ever turning one single man down. A farmer had to be a jack of all trades since there was very little money to spend. If any farm implements broke, they had to be repaired by my dad. He even fixed our shoes on a shoe last out in the shed.

   I was about 12 years old when the depression hit our country. Our farm was pretty self-reliant so it didn’t affect us much. Some of our relatives in the city lost their jobs and lived with us until things got better. We had chickens, pigs, turkeys and cattle for meat. The sheep provided wool which we made into coats and blankets. The ponds held plenty of fish and our huge garden did very well each year. A couple of days work in the woods would give us enough wood to heat the house for several weeks and the wells were always full of drinking water.

   I think my favorite time of the year was the harvest. All the men and women from the surrounding farms would meet at one farm and work together to bring in the crops. It was fascinating to watch the giant horse drawn thrashers and combines work the fields. When one farm was finished we all went to the next one and continued until everyone’s crops were in. When it was our turn, all of us kids would help mom bring the table into the living room where there was more room to add several leaves to the table. The kitchen would be busy as a bee hive with as many as fifteen women and girls working to fix enough food to feed all the men working in the fields. This was the only time of the year that we had ice. My job was to make sure that I kept plenty of ice in each mans glass of tea. I liked this chore because it gave me a chance to flirt a little bit with some of the boys that were working with the men.

   The garden was a lot of work but very necessary to our getting through the long winters. Potatoes were planted in mid March along with radishes, onions and lettuce. Planting continued until Jun when it ended with pumpkins. Seems like we were constantly picking peas, beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, corn, turnips, lettuce, peppers and digging up potatoes and onions. I have a lot of fond memories of sitting on the front porch in the evenings listening to cicadas and talking to my mom and siblings while we snapped beans, shelled peas and husked corn. By fall, the root cellar was full of brightly colored jars of canned vegetables. The smoke house was filled with meat and several cords of wood were stacked next to the house. It gives a person a good warm feeling to know that you are well prepared for the long cold winter.

   Some of our winters in Missouri could get pretty bad. I can remember many times when the snow was so deep that we had to attach a rope from the back porch to the outhouse so we could find our way. The big wood burning stove in the living room did a decent job of warming the downstairs but upstairs where all the bedrooms were located was a different story. My mother would heat up several irons on the stove and wrap them in towels. All of us girls would get in a huge bed together and mom would set the irons at our feet and cover us up with several quilts that she made from wool. Between our body heat and the irons it stayed nice and warm for a few hours. The smell of bacon and ham being cooked on the wood burning stove by my mom would find its way upstairs and wake us up.

   Of course we didn’t have electricity or running water so when it came time to take a bath, the water had to be brought in a bucket at a time. It had to be heated on the stove so it took quite a while to fill the wooden tub. The men took their baths first, then the women and finally the children. Everyone used the same water. With no electricity, kerosene is what we used in its place. There were many kerosene lamps through out the house. We even had a chicken brooder that ran on kerosene. An x was put on each egg and one of us kids would turn them every day.

   We walked to our one room school house since it was only a mile. A lot of the kids would bring eggs for lunch. We had a big wood burning pot belly stove in the center of the classroom. The eggs would be wrapped in wet newspapers and set in the coals as soon as we walked in. By lunch time they would be hard boiled and ready to eat. Once a week all the kids would bring in vegetable so we could make a big pot of soup on the stove. Once I was old enough to go to the two room high school I rode a horse because it was five miles. I kept the horse in the school barn and fed him everyday at noon. I remember when the hillside behind the grade school caught fire while we were in class and we all grabbed gunny sacks and buckets from the barn. A creek was close by so we filled the buckets with water and soaked the gunny sacks. It wasn’t long before we had the fire under control.

   My dad would take the wagon into town every Saturday to trade eggs, milk, vegetables and anything else that we had a surplus of. He would line the wagon with straw and load everything including us kids into the back. The four mile ride was always very enjoyable to everyone. After my parents finished their business we would always stop by the bakery where my mom would buy two loafs of bread. We ate the bread on the way home and it taste as good as angel cake to us. If we were real lucky we would all get one nickel to buy candy at the general store.

   I can’t remember any of us ever going to the doctor. There weren’t any hospitals around so all of us children were born at home. Mom grew just about every herb known to man for cooking and medicinal purposes which came in real handy when we got sick and couldn’t afford a doctor. A rain barrel stood under each corner of the house to catch water which we used for washing our hair.

   Christmas was my favorite holiday. I just loved going up into the woods to pick out a Christmas tree. After arguing for a while we would all finally agree on which one to cut down. Dad tied a rope around it and dragged it back to the house. A lot of our Christmas vacation was spent ice skating on the ponds and creeks with our friends. We always built a big fire to stand by when we got cold. The feast my mom cooked for Christmas dinner was fit for a king. A juicy turkey, ham, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, candy yams, dressing, olives, carrots, corn, mince pie and of course, pumpkin pie.

   The old homestead is no longer owned by our family but I will always remember what that old white house looked like. The wonderful memories are etched in my mind forever.

 

Published U.S. Legacies

Northeast News

THE WILD BLUE YONDER

The Wild Blue Yonder

  As I drove into the parking lot of the Wheeler Downtown Airport, a low flying A-10 Thunderbolt Warthog screamed over the building next to my car.

 20,000 people cheered as it disappeared into the clouds only to return within seconds to buzz the crowd again The Kansas City Aviation Expo was in full swing and I would soon be taking a wild seven minute ride on Fat Albert, the Blue Angels monstrous C-130 Hercules support plane.

  The scent of jet fuel filled the air as I walked to hanger number five where I joined several other members of the media waiting to have our press credentials checked. After this security measure was taken care of we were seated on a couple of golf carts so we could be shuttled out to the flight line where Fat Albert and its much smaller and sleeker cousins, the F/A-18 Hornets waited.

   As we approached the aircraft my mind started drifting back in time to my first ride on a C-130 over 36 years ago.

    Merle Haggard’s patriotic song “The Fighting Side of Me” was playing on my dad’s car radio which lifted my spirits a little as we drove through the main gate of Richards-Gebaur AFB on April 29, 1970. He dropped me off on the flight line where I watched his car until it disappeared over a hill. I turned around, took a deep breath and started walking towards a gigantic airplane hanger where I was told to report.

  I was a 20 year old, wide eyed kid who had never been on a plane or traveled farther than a hundred miles from home. Once inside the hanger I met up with several other recruits who were as nervous as I was. After what seemed like an eternity of filling out paper work we were finally taken to another hanger where we got to practice the hurry up and wait routine so popular with the military.

  Eventually we were led out on to the tarmac past several planes towards the biggest aircraft I had ever seen in my young life. I swallowed hard as the cold April wind whipped across the flight line and wished I could hear that Merle Haggard song again.

  I sat down on one of the wooden benches in the huge belly of the four propeller plane. Several men wearing headphones with the cords trailing behind them were scrambling around the planes giant confines securing various pieces of equipment as the enormous rear ramp doors began closing.

  With the whine of the engines slowly increasing, a Staff Sergeant yelled out that we were sitting in a C-130 Hercules, the most versatile transport plane in the history of the military. As the wheels left the ground and we became airborne, I had to strain to hear the Sergeants last instructions. “Keep your seat belts tight, use the brown paper bag if you get sick and raise your hand if you have a question. We will be landing at Lackland AFB in San Antonio, Tx in four hours where you will begin your six weeks of basic training in the Untied States Air force.”

  Just like 36 years ago, a cold wind was blowing across the flight line as we climbed out of the golf carts. Other than a beautiful white, blue and yellow paint job, Fat Albert looked just like the C-130 I went to boot camp in. As we eased into the seats running down each side of the fuselage I noticed that they weren’t wooden now but nylon and were in a different configuration from my maiden voyage. The ceiling looked to be about ten feet high with wires and electronic devices occupying every available space. The steel floor had rollers in various locations for moving heavy crates and plenty of spots for lashing down cargo. There were only a few small windows that were much too high to look out. Carefully climbing several steps that were more like a ladder brought me to the highest point in the plane which is the cockpit. There was more room than I thought there would be and the number of gauges and instruments were mind boggling. It looked as complex as the space shuttle. I think I could learn how to speak Chinese faster than I could learn what all those gauges mean.

   Someone said the flight crew had arrived and we needed to get outside for a debriefing. A couple of dozen or so young men from all four branches of the military had gathered around two pilots when we stepped out of the plane. Like the media, they were all here for their first ride on Fat Albert. Most of the debriefing was directed to them, so I didn’t pay a lot of attention until I heard a pilot say that this would be a maximum performance demonstration of the C-130s capabilities. “This dynamic flight will subject you to positive and negative g-forces that could result in motion sickness” explained one of the pilots. Each one of you will receive a bag to use in case you get sick. If you vomit on the floor you will be the one cleaning it up. We will endure dives, climbs and turns at over 300 mph. I was suddenly as nervous as I was in 1970. That was a nice slow uneventful flight and this flight had all the makings an experience I wouldn’t soon forget.

  I pulled the seat belt as tight as humanly possible, zipped my camera into my coat pocket and silently cursed myself for not taking one of my wife’s air sickness pills before I left home. While the engines warmed up, a step ladder was secured in the center of the floor. A Marine that wasn’t much more than a kid scampered up the ladder to a small perch just below the ceiling. He took a seat on a steel platform approximately six inches by three feet and stuck his head up into a plastic bubble which allowed him to see outside the aircraft.  As another Marine hooked up safety belts to the young man I asked him why he had such a lofty seat and learned that traditionally, the youngest man on every flight always sits in this make shift crows nest.

  With plenty of shaking, vibrating and engine noise we slowly made our way down the runway. I thought it was strange that we weren’t gaining speed very fast like a commercial airliner does and wondered if we would even get off the ground before we ran out of runway.

  The wondering came to an abrupt end when it suddenly felt like we had been shot out of a cannon. The sudden acceleration was so powerful that it slammed me against the woman sitting to my left and held me there for close to a minute. I tried with all my might to get back into a sitting position but couldn’t until we leveled off.

  I’m glad they told us in the debriefing that the next maneuver after the climb would be a dive of over 300 mph because I would have sworn we were out of control and headed to a fiery crash that people would be talking about for years to come. We were descending at such a high rate of speed that a woman’s purse was floating as she held it by the straps. My stomach felt like it was some where in the rear section of the plane where my entire body would have been if not for the seat belt. I now know what weightlessness feels like.

  With the ground probably getting too close for comfort the pilot pulled the C-130 out of the dive and we all learned what word g-force means. You’ve all experienced it when the elevator you are riding on drops several floors and stops very quickly. Same thing on Fat Albert but much worse. It feels like a tremendous weight is sitting on you and you’re about two feet tall.

  Several more wicked turns and dives caused a couple of the Marines to lose their lunch as we came in for a landing. The pilots brought us to a full stop in front of the crowd so the ramp doors could be lowered and we could wave to everyone.

   There were mixed emotions as we departed the plane. A few of the service men thought the ride was fantastic and couldn’t wait until their next one. The flight crew had that look like most of us do when we finish our work day. The two Marines that tossed their cookies had beet red faces knowing full well that their buddies would never let them live it down. A few others had ash white faces from motion sickness and I’ll just bet than my own mug was a sick looking green.

  It took nearly an hour for my 55 year old body to get back to normal as I watched the rest of a fantastic air show from a nice safe place on the ground.

  It was an experience I will never forget and I’d like to give a special thanks to the Blue Angels for giving me this rare opportunity.

  

 

 

BACK IN THE SADDLE

Back in the Saddle

    Unlike a lot of people, when Jamie Knop asks you how you’re doing, she really means it.  She is one of those rare people that everyone instantly likes when they meet her for the first time. Her warm personality and caring attitude makes it seem like you’ve known her forever.

   Jamie and I have been friends for several years now. She does the receiving for a local warehouse so I get to talk to her a couple of times a week when I deliver there. Two years ago she told me she had been diagnosed with colon cancer. I was absolutely stunned. I never really gave cancer a second thought. I assumed it was a disease only very elderly people got. Jamie was only 43 years old. How in the world could a woman so young have this terrible disease? I soon learned that cancer could care less how old you are. The battle lines were drawn and Jamie was about to embark on a two year struggle to save her life.

    She had several things working in her favor. Her physical condition was excellent due to working in the warehouse eight hours a day. Riding and caring for the horses at her ranch in Miami County, Kansas several hours a day had built up her patience and endurance over the years. Plenty of friends, her faith, a loving family and a positive outlook would be huge allies in her upcoming battle.

  Colon surgery normally takes about an hour and a half. Jamies took four and a half hours. Over two feet of her large intestine was removed. It was eight long weeks before she could return to work. Chemo treatments would be next step. This was always performed on Mondays. Due to the affects of this treatment she would have to take off every Tuesday from work to rest. Wednesday morning would find her back at work where she would finish out the week.

   I know how chemo can completely exhaust a person so I asked Jamie how she managed to drag herself out of bed each day when she was so tired and sick. “My horses were the biggest reason I got out of bed each morning” was her answer. “They needed me and I needed them”

   The alarm clock signals the start of each day for Jamie at the ridiculous hour of 3 AM. Many times she lay in bed as the irritating little time machine insisted that she get up. A well placed hand would silence it. She would lay there in the darkness hurting from her head to her toes pondering why she should even get up. It would be so easy to just stay in bed and give up the fight. A few minutes would pass and like clock work the familiar noise of the feed buckets being clanged around by 16 horses just outside her front door would remind her why she would once again pull her aching body out of bed.  

   I spend a lot of time in the country fishing and hunting but know about as much about horses as I do brain surgery. Jamie invited me down to the ranch she runs for John Duckworth so I could see first hand what keeps her going.

  A few miles outside the sleepy little town of Fontana my granddaughter, Kelly Clopton spotted the white pipe fence we were watching for as we drove down the narrow two lane highway. “There’s the red barn were looking for grandpa” Kelly yelled out as I slowed the car down. With eyes as sharp as an eagle, this beautiful little girl doesn’t miss anything. As I shut the heavy steel gate behind me and got back in the car, I could see Jamie’s house across the valley about a quarter of a mile away. Acres and acres of pasture land surrounded it with heavy timber bordering the edges. A good size pond nudged up to the red barn with a big sign telling us that this was the JD Spur ranch. A Purina feed sign and a root cellar complete with an old fashion pump for water verified that we were indeed in the country.

   Jamie told us to come on in and make ourselves at home while she started a pot of coffee. As the aroma began to fill the kitchen I looked around the room. A perfect fit I thought as I noticed all the horse photos, saddles, bridles and knickknacks. This house and this woman were made for each other. A fantastic iron horse head that John made for her a few months ago sat on a wood table that had spurs branded into it. Jamie is an ex barrel racing champion and countless photos of her in the heat of competition filled the hallway. When I asked questions about various photos, you wouldn’t have thought she was even in the picture as she only talked about each particular horse and how great they were.

   By now, Kelly had become quite bored with all the talk and went outside to check out the barn next to the house. We went to look for her and found her high up in the loft playing with some cats in the hay. Jamie showed me the feed room and the tack room. Everything was very clean and orderly. We stepped outside into the windy cold morning air. Jamie took a deep breath and said, “Do you smell that wonderful clean county air”? “That’s why I live here and I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world”.

   We couldn’t have been outside for more that a couple of minutes when the first horse spotted Jamie. Within another minute all the other horses came running up to her, each one trying its best to push the others out of the way so they could get their fair share of her love. You would have thought they were groupies surrounding a rock star. She knows each horses name and age and any physical problems they might have.  As she strokes each of them she looks them over from top to bottom for any potential health problems.

   The JD Spur is a retirement ranch for horses with the oldest being well over forty. Other than Jamie’s own five horses, the others are never rode. They live out their remaining years running free over 80 acres of beautiful pastures. They get fed at four in the morning and again in the evening.  Special little treats of apples, carrots and apple cookies are given out on a regular basis.

  A typical day is nearly 18 hours long for this hard working woman. Running a ranch plus holding down a full time job and dealing with cancer would bring most people to their knees but not Jamie Knop. I’ve never heard her complain one single time. She lives life to the fullest. Her doctors have recently told her that the cancer is now in remission. She has begun training her youngest horse so she can start competing for another championship in barrel racing. After spending a few hours with her, it’s easy to see why she has so many friends.

I’m proud to say that I’m one of them.

A FORGOTTEN RIVER

 A Forgotten River

      A large, water logged tree trunk who’s origin will never be known, found a temporary home on the banks of the Missouri river within view of downtown Kansas City. Worn smooth from years of exposure to Mother Nature’s elements, it will make a perfect place for the occasional visitor to sit and day dream before heavy spring rains raise the water and free the tree so it can continue its journey down stream.   

   The quiet, tranquil, almost intoxicating view, punctuated with an occasional stunning sunset, can have a soothing, hypnotic affect on a person. Without much of an effort, you can let your imagination take you back in time to the pre civil war days as you watch the swift moving Missouri flow by.  The area where the Missouri and Kansas rivers meet would be much different a hundred and forty plus years ago. The tall Kansas City skyline, inter city viaduct and the bridges crisscrossing the river wouldn’t be there. In their place would be a busy, vibrant water front bustlingly with activity. The deafening blast of a steam whistle would draw your attention downstream where columns of dark black smoke could be seen pouring from the twins stacks of a magnificent steam boat as its powerful engines struggled against the mighty Missouri. Well over a hundred passengers from all walks of life jockey for position on the decks to get a better look at the frontier town of 4,000 people as the boat dodges snags and eases in to the wharf. Stevedores hustle to set the gang plank in position and begin unloading personal belongings and general commodities for the local merchants. I wonder how many of the passengers question whether they made the right decision to leave their homes back east for a new start in the Wild West as they disembarked.

 Unfortunately, we can’t day dream for ever and have to return to reality. Sadly, the hustle and bustle of the water front has been reduced to the barren banks and occasional fishing or tow boat we see today.

   Former northeast resident and river boat pilot, Rick Lynn grew up in a two room shack on the banks of the big muddy about a mile east of the Choteau bridge in the 1950s and remembers a more vibrant river during his childhood.

“It wasn’t at all unusual to see 20 or 30 pleasure boats on the river back then.” Rick said. “People camped on sand bars, fished and pulled skiers up and down the river. I can remember sitting on our dock at night looking across the river at the city dump. They deliberately set the trash on fire every few nights. The flames reflecting across the smooth as glass water created a beautiful view.”

  There were not any marinas on the river to take care of all the boats so Rick’s family started one next to their shack in 1957.

   In addition to the dock, the marina also had a boat ramp, carried fuel for their customers convenience and repaired boats in the fiberglass and machine shops.  At an age when most of us were more worried about playing with our childhood friends, Rick was helping the young business get off to a good start by doing every thing from pumping fuel to working in the repair shops. At age nine, he started driving the jeeps they used for launching close to 5,000 boats in to the river every year at 75 cent each. “It wasn’t that hard.” Rick said. “The jeep had a trailer hitch on the front bumper that made it relatively easy to steer the boat down the ramp.

    With so many people enjoying the river, Rick’s father, Richard, decided to buy his first excursion boat in 1965.  Powered by twin,six cylinder Norburg engines that came out of World War two surplus halftracks, the 69 ton Delores Philly took as many as 200 people at a time up and down the river by the Choteau bridge for twenty years.

   Business was so good that Richard added the 650 passenger Missouri River Queen in 1985.  Built in 1984, she was specificity designed for the rigors of the Missouri river.  It took two weeks to sail her from Paducah, Kentucky to Kansas City. Richard’s third and final boat, The Spirit of America, made it’s appearance in Kansas City in 1990.

   “She was more modern than the Queen, could hold 800 people and looked similar to the love boat.”  Rick said.  “We sold her to the gaming people in 1995. They turned her into a gambling boat for off shore use along the coast of Florida.” 

  The Missouri River Queen was sold in 1998 ending a 30 year run of excursion boats in Kansas City.

    Rick, who served in both the Navy and the Marines, started as a deckhand on the family boats and became a riverboat pilot in 1969.  He achieved the rank of riverboat captain when he earned his 100 ton master mariner license in 1993.

     In his travels, Rick Lynn has seen every thing from heroics to tragic deaths on the Missouri river.

   “It was like a scene out of a movie.” Rick said as he searched his memory. “We were approaching the Hannibal Bridge on a brilliantly blue day when I noticed a man that looked like James Dean on the highest part of the bridge. He was dressed in a white tee shirt and blue jeans. The police were running along the bridge trying to get close enough to talk him down. A helicopter circled over head and a small boat with several officers on board took a position under the bridge. The man calmly took out a cigarette, smoked it and jumped. He popped up like a cork and started swimming like he was in the Olympics. He was handcuffed and placed under arrest when he reached the shore.”

   It was four in the morning on a pitch black night in 1968 when Richard Lynn steered the Queen towards the Choteau bridge. A strong wind was creating white caps across the swirling waters as they went under the bridge. First mate, Nelson Perry was working on the second deck when he heard some thing hit the water hard, which was amazing since he is deaf in one ear and wears a hearing aid in the other one. He was in his late fifties at the time and only had one eye but some how managed to spot the woman who jumped from the bridge struggling in the water. He dove into the dark water from the second deck and reached her in time. The Queen had a full boat of passengers and no other deck hands on board so Richard had no choice but to return to port and contact the authorities. Nelson fought to keep the woman afloat for three hours as the current took them downstream. They were both rescued and Nelson received a presidential citation from President Nixon.

  In another act of heroism, Richard was awarded the Congressional Life Saving metal from Senator Dole for saving a woman who jumped off his boat. He dove in and fought the current to catch up to her. In the fight to try and reach the bank they both became tangled up in a dredge line. Eventually, the couple broke free and made it to the shore. The woman was alive when Richard handed her over to the paramedics but later died.

    It’s any ones guess why the occasional depressed and suicidal person chooses the Missouri river as a place to end their lives. Perhaps they should do just the opposite and embrace the river as a means of self therapy.  A few hours of sitting on the log in the serene place I wrote about might go a long way towards finding inner peace.

  The area where the Lewis and Clark expedition once camped has made such a lasting impression on Rick that he has decided to have his funeral services there when that inevitable day arrives.

   He has purchased an unusual but beautiful coffin that bears a remarkable resemblance to the Missouri River Queen. It will sit high atop a peninsula where the Missouri and Kansas rivers meet below it and the Kansas City skyline towers above it. Rick is donating his remains to science so he will only be there in spirit. Instead of his body the coffin will contain his captains uniform, a boat oar, a box of cigars and a bottle of Jack Daniels. There will be a band, a bag pipe player and Lewis and Clark re-enactors. The public is invited to attend the services. The price will be 20 dollars in advance and 100 dollars at the gate. It will cost you a quarter to peek inside the coffin. All proceeds will go towards the building of a discover center at the confluence of the rivers. The coffin will be on display there along with its contents.

      I think Rick put it best when he said the only news we see about the Missouri river is usually negative such as the discovery of a toxic waste site or a body being found.

   “The reality is, its beautiful.” Rick said. “It’s in better condition now than it ever has been. We have a wonderful resource right here in our back yard and choose to ignore it. Smaller cities and towns up and down the river have better riverfronts than we do.”

    I tried the river for the first time last year and couldn’t agree more. In two evenings, we caught a total of 183 pounds of catfish from our boat. You can safely eat one meal of catfish a week since they are a bottom feeder or practice the catch and release method like I do. I can’t think of a bigger thrill than fighting a fifty pound Bluecat in the swift current of the Missouri and you don’t have to spend a fortune in gas to get there.

  It looks like those hardy pioneers from the 1800s made the right decision after all when they got off the steamships

A FLY ON THE WALL

A Fly on the Wall.

   “How I wish I were a fly on the wall.” At some point in time, most of us have muttered those words when we desperately wanted to hear a conversation going on in the next room. Carolyn Freeman is certainly not a fly but as a teenager back in the 1930s she would often find herself in such an advantageous position when Senator Harry Truman visited her Aunt Minnie’s home in Rich Hill, Missouri.

   The 85 year old Independence, Mo woman grew up on an eighty acre farm a few miles from her Aunts place.

  “My sister Virginia and I got up at five o’clock every morning to do chores before we went to Ovid grade school which was two miles away if you took the road.” Carolyn said. “Not particularly wanting to walk that far, we usually cut the distance in half to the one room school house by taking a short cut across the corn field.”

    Those early morning tasks the girls had to do were not easy.

“I had to clean that dad blasted cream separator every single day!” Carolyn said as a slight frown began to wrinkle her forehead. “At the end of each day I scrubbed our clothes on a wash board and rinsed them with water we caught in a rain barrel. I had to press them with a heavy triangular shaped iron we heated up on the stove every morning before we left for school.”    

   No electricity or indoor plumbing made their day to day lives quite challenging but they got by like countless other rural families in that time period.

    “We had kerosene lamps for light and an outhouse for a bathroom.” Carolyn said. “The only running water we had was when my mom gave me a one gallon syrup bucket and told me to run down to the well and get some water. Our entire family worked long, hard hours every day from early spring until late summer to keep the farm going and provide us a living. We didn’t have much but neither did any one else in our farming community. We were happy and when you get right down to it, you can’t miss what you never had.”

    With the fall of the year coming to an end, all the crops harvested and old man winter beginning to make its annual assault on the farm, it was time for Carolyn’s father and their hired hand, Mick to start working in the small coal mine located on the property. A tractor was parked at the mine entrance with one wheel taken off so a belt could be attached to the hub. The belt ran along the tracks that led into the dark interior of the mine where the two men would shovel coal in to a couple of heavy steel cars five feet long and three feet wide. The tractors powerful engine would turn the belt and pull the cars to the surface.

  “Dad sold some of the coal to neighbors but a lot of the time he just gave it away to people that were down on their luck and figured they would pay him some day when they got the money.” Carolyn said. “Of course, most of it was used to warm our own house through out the cold, harsh winters. Our brother Bill, who was killed in World War Two, got to occasionally help in the mine. Virginia and I always took lunch to dad and Mick but were never allowed to go inside. Dad had become very over protective with me and my sister after Virginia got hit in the hip by a baseball at age five. She was able to walk normally immediately afterwards and didn’t seem to be in pain so our parents didn’t take her to the doctor. Just to get an x-ray would have meant driving a hundred miles to Kansas City. By the time Virginia was seven years old she began to have problems walking due to a hair line break in her hip that would require eleven operations over the rest of her life. Dad kept a close eye on us after that and made sure we didn’t get around the cattle or horses or do any thing that might cause us to be injured.”

    Every Sunday you could find the family enjoying a huge dinner at Clark and Minnie Ritchie’s house on the edge of town.

    “The old coal stove in the kitchen must have been very difficult to use but Aunt Minnie could cook virtually anything on it and make it taste great.” Carolyn said. “Her fried chicken was out of this world.”

    The meals were so good that Senator Harry Truman who would later become the 33^rd president of the Untied States ate there on many occasions when he spent the weekend at the Rich Hill Gun Club. Mr. Truman was in the army during World War One with Clark’s son Judd Ritchie so he stopped by with his buddy Jimmy Pendergast and another man to visit and enjoy some fantastic home cooking.

  It was on these visits that Carolyn would get a call from Aunt Minnie to come over and give her a hand.  She still remembers what the old place looked like. “Chickens would scattered out of my way as I ran across the back yard.” She said. “The house was very big. It had five bedrooms and a living room so enormous that two 8 by 10 and two 4 by 6 rugs couldn’t cover the entire floor. A big stone fireplace warmed the room so well that Mr. Truman once fell asleep on one of the two divans after a big lunch and nearly missed an important speech he was giving in town.

    I asked Carolyn if she had any lengthy conversations with Senator Truman. “My goodness no.” She laughed. “I was a young teenager and very shy. I just kept quiet as I took food from the kitchen into the dinning room where Mr. Truman, Jimmy Pendergast, Uncle Judd, Uncle Clark and another man I can’t remember the name of sat at the table.

  Leaning forward in my chair, I said. “I’ll bet you over heard some very interesting political discussions as you served the meals.”

   Carolyn’s answer surprised me. “No, not really.” She said. “Most of the time they just talked about your every day topics that men are interested in like the war, fishing, hunting and women.”

   Carolyn graduated from Rich Hill high school in 1941 and left for Kansas City that same night. She currently lives in Independence which of course is where President Truman lived.

  Her son Bill also had several personal encounters with Mr. Truman.

     “It was back in the early to mid 1960s.” Bill said. “I was about the same age my mom when she used to bring meals to Mr. Truman at Aunt Minnie’s house. I was a student at the old Palmer Junior high school in Independence. Mr. Truman was retired and loved to take early morning walks through the neighborhood with his body guard. Occasionally, their route would bring them by our school just as we were getting off the bus. Mr. Truman always stopped and talked to the kids for a few minutes. Unlike my mom, I did indeed talk to him every chance I got. He was always very polite and answered all my questions before he continued on to the barbershop where he loved to shoot the breeze with any one who might be there.”

   What a classic display of history repeating itself I thought as I left Carolyn’s home. ago.

  How I wish I would have been a fly on the wall of that charming house in Rich Hill seventy one years

The Legend of Searcy Creek

  My brother Doug and his friend Rick had a lofty perch atop Searcy Creek hill one Saturday morning back in the early 1970s. A crisp, late March wind swirled around the fifteen year old boys who were laying on their stomachs watching a scene that took place every weekend some hundred and fifty feet below them.

  Close to fifty dirt bike riders had gathered across the street from the base of the hill. They were all there for the same reason and that was to ride the trails that stretched out for a mile directly behind the boys.

  The trails were a dirt bike riders dream with plenty of hills, creeks, mud and trees to test your skills on.

  In order to experience them, you had to first get there and that was no easy task. You had two choices. Option one would be to try what only one man had ever accomplished and that was beat the hill Doug and Rick were staked out on. Option two was another hill a half block north. It was the same height and length but not nearly as steep. It took a better than average rider to make it over the top. It’s the route my brother, his friend and ninety percent of the riders took.

  The boys watched as Honda’s, Yamaha’s, Kawasaki’s and Suzuki’s were unloaded from pickups and trailers.  A sound similar to an angry swarm of bees filled the air as riders raced up and down the street to warm up their bikes before attempting the climb. Most would make it up hill two but a few would get close to the crest just to lose control and tumble all the way back down to the street below.

  From time to time a brave sole would muster up enough courage to try the merciless hill number one. A few of the better bikers would make it to within 20 feet of the top. At that point the hill went virtually straight up where it hurled riders to the hard ground below as easily as a duck sheds water off its back.

  “I saw a lot of bikes go up that hill in one piece just to see them come crashing down seconds later in several pieces” said Doug as he reflected on those weekends over 30 years ago.

  My brother and his buddy weren’t waiting at the top of the hill to see people fail but instead were waiting for one particular man to arrive. The wait turned out to be a short one as they spotted Marion Ault’s four wheel drive Chevy pickup turning off of 210 on to Searcy Creek road. The trailer hooked to the back rattled slighted as Marion pulled off the pavement in to his usual parking spot.

   Two Suzuki’s side by side on the trailer and another one in the back of the pickup left little doubt that this 37 year old man took his dirt bike riding seriously.

  Like a golfer deciding which club to use, Marion would take a long look at the hills and what condition they were in. Rain or a slight freeze the night before could change the terrain and become a factor in which bike he would select.

  Once the preferred cycle was picked, Marion would easily climb the lesser of the two hills and disappear into the maze of trails with Doug and Rick in hot pursuit.

  If he chose to, the winner of over a 150 trophy’s on the Black Jack Circuit which covered a four state area could have left the fifteen year old boys in a cloud of dust but instead let them tag along.

  After a hard ride of an hour or so the group would come back to Marion’s truck for brief rest stop. Sitting on the end of the trailer while the warm sun dried their now mud soaked clothes, the three would watch as dozens of bikers attacked hill number two.

  An occasional two or three riders would break from the pack and slowly approach the mother of all hills. Sitting on their powerful bikes they would race the engines and scan the near vertical climb with wide eyes.

   More often than not they would succumb to the hills intimidating mystique and move on as they reassured each other that no one could slay the beast.

 These guys must be new around here thought Doug as he stole a quick glance at Marion.  The soft spoken man said “Give me a hand with the trailer boys”. Before they could finish unhooking and set a ramp on the back of the truck they were surrounded by a small group of riders.

  Doug and Rick hustled back to their spot on top the hill as Marion eased his big 400 CC Suzuki down the wooden ramp. A couple of downward kicks with his foot and the slumbering giant sprang to life.

  Word gets around quickly when some thing big is about to happen. The small group had suddenly swelled to a large one with bikers steadily arriving from the trails.

Every one shut down their cycles. All eyes were on Marion as he raced up and down the street warming up his ultimate hill slayer.

  The bike was now ready to go as Marion took a position directly below the hill. The bike pulsated with power as he looked the hill over one last time.

  He turned and rode two blocks away where he would begin his assault. Marion slowly turned his baseball cap around backwards and reached into his pocket for his trademark cigar. With the cigar now clenched tightly in his teeth he popped the clutch and lunged forward.

  With the crowd now completely silent you could hear each gear rap out to its fullest. 1^st,  2^nd and then 3^rd as man and machine slammed into the hill creating a large cloud of dust.

  Dirt and small rocks were sent flying high into the air as Marion fought to keep control on the rugged terrain. Doug and Rick were mesmerized by the heart stopping action barreling up the hill towards them. The bike and rider were now close enough that the boys could see the determined look in Marion’s eyes.

  He was about to enter the critical stage of the climb. Another twenty feet and victory would be his but it was straight up with a slight dip that had a nasty habit of tossing bikes like corkwood. Just as the bike hit this section Marion used every ounce of his strength to beat centrifugal force and lean out over the handle bars to a point where he was looking at his front tire. When the anticipated dip lifted him into the air he was able to maintain control and downshift a gear before the rear tire came in contact with the dirt again. The 400 bogged down slightly but dug in just enough to carry Marion over the top.

The crowd looked at each other in disbelief as the boys rushed over to congratulate him on what they thought was a perfect climb. “No, that slight hesitation when the bike bogged down could have cost me dearly he said as he turned his cap back around”

“What do you think went wrong?” asked Doug.

   Marion, with his quick wit and wry sense of humor said it must have been the cigar. He threw it on the ground, lit up a fresh one and off they went on another quick jaunt through the trails as the sun began to set on a beautiful spring day.  With the bikes, tool boxes and gas cans loaded up the group headed back to the Sheffield area of Northeast where our families lived next door to each other from the 1950s to the late 1970s.

   Marion was and still is the best role model I’ve ever had in my 56 years on earth. Amazingly, at 72 years of age he still rides dirt bikes in Poker Enduro races near Cole Camp, Missouri where he now lives.

  I asked him why he does this at an age when most people are content to do less strenuous activities like golf and fishing.

  “I love the freedom riding brings” was his reply. “It helps keep me in good physical shape by improving my flexibility and balance. I use nearly every muscle in my body as I ride over various terrains. Making split second decisions helps keep my mind sharp.”

   I couldn’t agree more and I have a feeling this remarkable man will be conquering hills and winning races for many more years to come.