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.

Amoret

Amoret

Past, Present, Future

   Back in January of this year I wrote a story called the Simple Life which appeared in this column. It was about my grandparents place in the country just south of Amoret, Mo.

   I received a beautifully hand written letter from Amoret resident, Martha Pieratt a couple of weeks later. I love nostalgic things and in this day and age of computers and email, the hand written letter is quickly becoming just that. Martha just wanted to let me know that the story brought back good memories for her and wanted to know exactly where my grandparents lived in the 1950s. We exchanged a few letters and agreed to get together some time soon and talk about how life was in the Amoret area when she was a child.

  That time came in early July. I live in Independence, Missouri and don’t get down to Amoret very often so my sister and I decided to load up a few garden tools and spruce up my grandparents and father’s graves at Benjamine cemetery just East of town. An added bonus would be a visit with my Uncle and Aunt who live in Amoret.

   Our spirits lifted as we got off the boring four lane 71 highway and began the final 14 miles of the trip on the winding, scenic 52 highway.  As we crested a small hill a few miles from town we could see Martha’s two story white house.

    If there was ever a farm and a woman that were meant to be together, this was it. They go together like bread and butter. The place just oozes the rural way of life from the 50s and 60s.

    As we drove up the gravel drive to the house we noticed a lot flowers growing in the front and side yards. None of those fancy new flowers for Martha. Good old fashion, dependable, solid, reliable flowers like Peonies, Sweet Williams, Hollyhock and Iris filled her yard.

   Martha greeted us at the back door and told us to come on in. She’s a petite woman who doesn’t look or act any where near her 91 years. In fact, the words I used to describe her flowers could probably be used to describe her too. Other than her eye sight she is in remarkable shape as she demonstrated by easily keeping up with us when we went outside to walk around her huge yard.

    I would say the yard is probably five acres or so. The grounds are worthy of a photo in a magazine with four giant pecan trees standing guard over nearly perfect grass. The gravel drive winds its way from the back of the house to a pasture where a pond soaks up the day’s warm sunshine. There are a number of out buildings that aren’t used much anymore but are still in good condition. I’m sure the reason Martha is in such good shape is because she still cuts part of her grass with a push mower and spends a lot of time working on her flowers and yard. I pity the foolish weed that rears its ugly head in her yard.

   Martha does her own cooking, keeps her home clean as a whistle and drives her pickup to Butler on errands from time to time.  It was hot outside but not to bad inside her house considering she didn’t have air conditioning. Lots of windows lined each wall through out the house and shade trees completely surround it. A few strategically placed fans is all this delightful woman needs to be as comfortable as any of us with our modern air conditioning.

    Martha was born on an 80 acre farm about six miles east of Drexel, Missouri. A farm free of electricity, indoor plumbing and natural gas. A horse and buggy is how they traveled to the nearby towns of Burdett and Main City for supplies. Both towns are gone now but Martha remembers them well. “Main City had a church, grocery store and a total of five houses” is what she told me when I asked her to describe them. I’ve often wondered why small towns disappear and put the question to Martha. “Once the automobile was invented, it enabled people to travel to larger cities where they could get better prices on pretty much everything” was her response. She added that young people couldn’t find work in small towns and had to move to bigger cities to raise their families.

   They say time flies when you’re having fun so that explains why our two hour visit with Martha seemed to be so short. Before we left I asked her one last question. What do you owe your long life to? That’s easy, “The lord, no smoking or drinking and lots and lots of hard work” replied Martha. As we pulled out of her driveway I could see her in my rear view mirror pushing her wheel barrel towards a fence line to wreck havoc on some unsuspecting weeds. I thought Martha’s answer on why the two small towns of her youth disappeared was excellent. But what about a larger town that is still around but has shrunk in size over the years? That answer could probably be found in town when I talked to my Uncle Pat Castle.

   No matter how many times I drive past the Amoret city limits sign my childhood memories come rushing back. I remember it as being much bigger and a lot more people around town. Of course I was a kid then and everything does seem much smaller when you go back as an adult many years later.

   As we turned off 52 highway on to Fourth Street I could see Uncle Pat’s single story home on the right, directly across the road from the Christian church. Pat is a man of many talents and you don’t have to go far to see two of them. He is a retired carpenter and built his home in 1976 and the Christian church in 1995. A short walk around his house will reveal another of his talents. Gardening. His vegetable garden is always perfect. Relatively few weeds can call it home and it produces mounds of beautiful vegetables year after year.

   Other than spending four years of his life in the United States Navy fighting for our freedom in world war two, he has lived there his entire life.

  As a child in the 1920s, Pat can remember Main Street bustling with activity on a Saturday evening. “You had to actually weave your way through people because the sidewalks were so crowded with people” Pat said. “If you came into town after five o’clock you could forget finding a parking place on Main Street” he added. I asked him what brought all these people into town.  “Well, most of them were farmers and they always brought in their eggs and cream to sell to the stores in town. The cream had to be run through a tester which took some time. While this was being done they would do their shopping and maybe get in a few games of checkers or horseshoes”

  Amoret was home to four grocery stores, a grain elevator, a dry goods store, a 5 & 10 store, four gas stations, two garages, a bank, a general store, a livery stable, a blacksmith shop, a telephone office a saw mill, a bank, a drugstore, a beer joint, a doctors office, two cafes, a post office, four churches, and a barber shop when Pat was a boy. All that’s left now is the post office, a bank, one church and a convenience store. The population has dropped from a high of 356 in the 1920s to 211 today.

   Uncle Pat, in your opinion, what caused this to happen? He thinks it was a direct result of the coal company buying up all the small farms in the area. Nearly all the farmers eventually sold out to them. Of course, when the farmers left it meant no customers so the stores in town slowly disappeared.

  Although smaller now, Amoret is still a very nice little town. Two women from Kansas City have bought a very old house in town and are restoring it. It’s coming along very nicely and will be absolutely beautiful when completed. I have recently talked to a young couple in south Kansas City that are also looking into buying a home to restore.  Let’s hope more people do the same and the sidewalks of Amoret will once again be filled with people.

A 115 Year Old Mystery

 A 115 Year Old Mystery

    Some of you will know exactly who Lizzie Borden is while others may have never heard of her. My 83 year old mom is certainly familiar with the Fall River, Mass woman who was accused of bludgeoning her father and step-mother to death with an axe on Aug 4,1892. Mom grew up just a few blocks from the house at 92 Second street where the murders were committed. She remembers jumping rope as a child while her friends chanted this spooky little nursery rhyme,

Lizzie Borden took an axe

And gave her mother forty Whacks,          

When she saw what she had done, 

She gave her father forty one.

     I recently went on vacation to Narragansett, Rhode Island with my wife Jennie, my daughter Angela and my sister Karen. Fall River is only a 30 mile drive along the coast so we made the trip several times from Narragansett to visit relatives. It was on one of these trips that we decided to stop and tour the murder scene of Andrew and Abby Borden.

    Other than the color of the 162 year old victorican home and the sign proclaiming it the Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast, the two story, light green house looked the same as it did that gruesome day 115 years ago. The current owner did a beautiful job in restoring it to its original glandeur.

    As we toured the house, our knowledgeable guide paused in each room to explain in great detail what took place the day of the murders.

    Mr. Borden, a wealthy banker and highly respected man in the community had gotten up early that fateful morning and left the house to run his usual errands. He returned at approximently ten oclock and went to the sitting room on the first floor to lay down on the sofa for a while. The maid, Bridget Sullivan was napping in her room located in the attic. Lizzie was in the barn looking for sinkers for a future fishing trip and  re-entered the house about eleven oclock.

   She walked into the sitting room and found her fathers horribly disfigured body slumped over on the sofa. What the repeated blows from the buiness end of the axe had done to his face would sicken even the most seasoned homicide detective.

     “Some one has come in the house and killed Father!” Lizzie franticly yelled up the stairs towards Bridgets room at 11:15. “Come down at once!”

  Bridget was told to run across the street and get Dr. Bowen. She quickly returned with the doctor and a neighbor, Mrs Churchill who had heard Lizzie’s screams coming from the house.

  Mrs. Churchill asked where Mrs. Borden was. Lizzie said that she felt her mother had also been killed. Bridget found her body moments later in an upstairs guest bedroom where she had been changing the linen on a bed. Her corpse laid face down on floor in a puddle of blood. Her head had been crushed in much the same manner as her husbands. 

   Police did a complete search of the home and found an axe head minus the handle in the basement. They assumed it was the murder weapon even though it was free of any blood.There were no visible signs of forced entry and neighbors hadn’t seen any strange people around the house. The murderers clothing must have been literally drenched in blood but it was never found.

    Mr. Bordens assets were close to $500,000 which was a great deal of money in 1892. He was known as a very frugal man who liked to get by on the bare necessities of life. That didn’t sit to well with Lizzie.They were a family of means and she thought they should live more extravagantly. Lizzie and her sister Emma had many arguments with him about the way he planned to divide up his fortune among their relatives.

    Motives and a poor alibi made the 32 year old Lizzie a prime suspect in what would become a sensational trial that made head lines around the world.

     Just days after the murders, Lizzie was seen burning a stained blue dress in the kitchen stove. She claimed that the dark colored stains were from a freshly painted baseboard she accidently brushed up against.

   Several key bits of evidence were excluded from the trial such as her attempt to buy cyanide at a local drugstore just days before the murders.

    It’s said that Lizzie wanted to make a death bed confession but died before she could.    Bridget Sullivan, moments before she died, allegedly told her sister that she had changed her testimony on the stand to protect Lizzie.

    Despite the incriminating evidence against her, Lizzie Borden was found innocent after just one hour of deliberations. Some blame her acquittal on the fact that her entire original inquest testimony was barred from the trial.

    After inheriting a fortune from the death of her father, Lizzie lived the affluent life she always craved at 306 French street in a wealthy part of Fall River. Just a few short blocks away, an impressive stone arch perhaps twenty five feet in height with a gate house on either side guards the entrance to Oak Grove cemetery and the final resting place of the Borden family.

    Cemetery workers must have grown tired of telling the curious where Lizzie was buried so there are painted arrows showing the way on the street. The lush green grass that reaches into every nook and cranny of the graveyard is missing from the Borden family plot. It has long ago succumbed to the steady parade of visitors viewing the graves of Mr and Mrs Borden, Lizzie and Emma.

     A note with several names and where they were from had been slipped under a small rock next to Lizzie’s stone. A cheap bracelet was wrapped around the rock.

    Like the thousands before us, we stood under the giant oak tree that watches over the graves and tried to figure out one of America’s greatest mysteries.

    I personally think that Lizzie was a very clever woman who methodically planned and timed every single step and phase of the murders down to the most diminutive detail and carried out the crime alone.  

 My wife Jennie agrees with the jury’s findings.

    My daughter Angela believes that Lizzie killed her mom and was some how involved in her father’s death by possibly letting an accomplice in the house.

    My sister Karen thinks that she killed both of them with another persons help.

Dispute over the killer or killers continues to this day. Movies have been made and books have been written about the tragedy.

The Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast owner, Lee Ann Wilber believes Lizzie was involved but didn’t actually commit the murders. We toured the bed and breakfast during the day but you can certainly spend the night there if you have the courage.

 

“We don’t like to say the house is haunted.” Lee Ann said. “That’s too negative. We call it “active.”

Things have happened in the house that can’t be explained easily. Footsteps when nobody is in the house, doors opening and closing, a rocking chair that moved across the room while I was sleeping to where it was facing me when I woke up so that it was the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes and I was alone in the house. Just little things. We have lost a guest or two in the middle of the night. Not because anything actually happened to them, but more the fact that they scared themselves into not sleeping.”

There is a lot more information on the internet about Lizzie Borden if you do a Google search.

To read more about the Bed and Breakfast, go to

http://www.lizzie-borden.com/

Hoofbeats in the Flint Hills

Hoofbeats in the Flint Hills

    An over cast sky looked down on Dan Daughtery and I as we loaded a few items in my car. I had been invited to do a story on a cattle roundup and needed someone that was good with a camera and knew a lot about every day life on a ranch. Dan was the perfect choice since he grew up on a farm and photography was one of his hobbies.

   Our destination would be the Division ranch eight miles north of Strong City, Kansas in the beautiful Flint Hills. The 150 miles went by quickly as we listened to a George Jones CD and discussed everything from fishing to the high cost of gasoline.

   Twenty miles east of Strong City the clouds couldn’t hold it back any more and a cold, light rain that would be with us the rest of the day began to fall.

  About a mile south of the ranch, Dan spotted Lower Fox Creek School, a rustic one room school house made from local limestone. The structure was built in 1882 and began classes in 1884. My dad attended a school just like this one in Linn County, Kansas as a boy so I didn’t hesitate when Dan suggested that we take a quick tour of it. As we entered the old building, it immediately took us back in time for a few moments as we gazed at black boards that ran the length of three walls to the little wooden desks with ink wells. It wasn’t hard to picture warmly dressed children huddled around the pot belly stove eating their lunch as the harsh Kansas winters howled just outside the door.

  If our trip would have ended right there at the school I would have considered it a great day but there was even more in store for us just five minutes away.

  The asphalt highway suddenly became gravel as we turned left and drove under an impressive steel arch declaring this property the Division Ranch. About a hundred yards inside the gate we stopped and got out of the car to take a look at the view. And what a view it was with the main house, barns and out building sitting in a beautiful valley about a quarter mile away. The surrounding Flint Hills were absolutely breath taking. The rain stirred up the wonderful aroma of native grasses and wild flowers. A gentle breeze brought the inviting smell of percolating coffee and burning wood from the ranch to dance around our noses.

  We continued down the gradual sloping road around a curve and pulled up to a huge barn. My Hyundai Tiburon looks sleek and fast out on the highway but appeared small, meek and very much out of place surrounded by the dozen or so giant pickup trucks and horse trailers crowded into the parking area.

  We only took a couple of steps into the barn when Purina District Manager, Ernie Rodina introduced himself and invited us to have some of that piping hot cowboy coffee we got a whiff of by the gate.

   On the other side of the barn, my old friend John Duckworth had a very attentive audience of 15 people who paid 500 dollars each to listen to and watch his hoof care demonstration and participate in the second annual Flint Hills Spring Round-Up. All proceeds will go to the Flint Hills Rodeo in Strong City.

  John wrapped things up and took us around the room introducing us to several people including cattleman and ranch manager, Jason Lewis.

  Jason is an impressive man both in physical stature and maturity. At the young age of 35 he runs the day to day operations of the 5,200 acre ranch and has since he was 24 years old. Later in the morning we had the pleasure of meeting his charming wife, Teri. I was very impressed with her ability to deal with the needs of their three young children through out the day even though she was extremely busy.  The kids, Tanner, Bailey and Jaron have chores that must be done each and every day. “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree” is a saying I have heard a few times over the years and finally found a case where it actually applies. While I think it’s remarkable that Jason started running the Division ranch at age 24, I am equally impressed that his boy Jaron at the tender age of five can drive a gator utility vehicle and ride a full size horse as easily as a grown man. It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if this youngster holds an important job some day at a very young age like his father.

  Even the rain wasn’t a powerful enough deterrent to keep us in the barn once lunch time arrived. A quick jaunt down the muddy road on foot took us to a huge tent whose sole purpose was to protect the tables and food below it. I must say it did a fine job as did Ernie with the hamburgers and Italian sausage cooking on the grill.

  We were able to eat in peace since the flies and bugs weren’t a problem with the rain and smoke temporarily grounding them. A coral just thirty feet or so from the tent held 17 bulls. Everyone watched as these magnificent beasts pushed each other around the enclosure sometimes falling in the mud.

  Shortly after lunch Jason gathered everyone together to tell us that it was just too risky to continue with the roundup plans due to the weather. If it was agreeable to everyone he suggested we instead divide the bulls into two groups and drive them out to the cows.

  Being the good sports that they are, each man and woman said “lets do it” and off they went to saddle up. Since Dan and I don’t own a horse we wondered how we would be able to tag along as observers.

  As talented as young Jaron is, he can’t ride a horse and a gator at the same time so he had to make a choice which fortunately for us was his horse.

 Before we could decide who was going to drive the little four wheel drive vehicle, Chase county extension agent, Mike Holder volunteered. Mike was a tremendous help getting us in to position so we could take pictures and answering my many questions.

  With a little prodding from the riders, half a dozen of the powerful bulls came running out of the coral, across a picturesque stream and out of sight over a slight hill. Dan, Mike and I brought up the rear in the gator. Like keeping the insects grounded, the rain would once again help us by keeping the dust down that I figured we would soon be eating.

   I wasn’t quite prepared for the view when we popped over the hill. With in seconds I understood what they meant when they say wide open spaces. As far as the eye could see was nothing but land. My eyes stared at thousands of acres of beautiful unspoiled land that probably looked exactly the same 200 years ago when buffalo ran free. The occasional pond or small grove of trees with the flint hills surrounding them was worthy of a painting. A sight I found even more heart warming was Teri and her youngest son happily riding side by side, oblivious to the rain.

 As we approached the camp site I noticed that several of the horses had a Purina Mills blanket under their saddles. I asked Mike what that was about and he told me they were one of the sponsors of this event along with Holton Trailer Sales, Intervet, The Bullet Hole, Priefert, B&W Hitch and John Deere. With companies like these and hard working people like Jason and Teri Lewis, John Duckworth and Mike Holder the Annual Spring Roundup will only get bigger and better.

Darkness would be on us within three hours so we decided to skip the feast that was being prepared for supper and head back to Kansas City while we still had enough daylight.

  We stopped for one last picture at the gate on our way out and discovered that the same breeze which carried the smell of coffee and bacon earlier that morning was now heavy with the aroma of Kansas beef being slowly turned over an open fire.

Beauty In The Sky

Beauty in the Sky         

   I vaguely remember my Aunt telling me years ago that my great grandfather Sanford Speaks was said to have invented one of the insulators you see on telephone poles but never took out a patent on the invention.

   Sanford lived in Linn County, Kansas and as the story goes, he was traveling by horse back in the mid 1880s to Kansas City so he could apply for a patent on his invention when he decided to stop at a tavern for something to eat and drink.  Too many beers loosened his tongue and he started bragging about his insulator and how he would soon be a rich man. With his belly full and his ego sufficiently inflated, he continued his journey. Just twenty miles down the dirt road two armed thugs from the tavern caught up to Sanford and took his invention and any future rewards it might have brought his way.

   My Aunt didn’t hear the story directly from Sanford. It was handed down to her from an older relative when she was a child and we all know how stories can change each time they are told. I do however; have a photo of my great grandfather taken about 1885 that shows him holding up an insulator with a wire some how attached to it with out being tied on so there must be something to the family legend.

    I recently learned that my old friend Jim Mummaw has a collection of approximately sixty five glass insulators. I asked him if he thought there could be any truth to the Sanford Speaks story. “I’m just a beginner in the hobby.” Jim said. “You really need to talk to Charles Brandon out in Overland Park who has one of the largest glass insulator collections in the country.”

  It was as though I had descended into the treasury room of King Tut’s tomb when Charles and I entered a large room in his basement. Literally hundreds and hundreds of beautiful glass insulators filled shelves from the floor to the ceiling on three walls.  Sunlight from a near by window poured over and through vividly colored insulators in a glass cabinet magnifying their beauty. They certainly wouldn’t have looked out of place sitting among King Tut’s gold and prized possessions I thought as we slowly made our way around the room pausing every few feet to closely examine the insulators that looked more like a work of art than a simple component once mass produced by the thousands from the 1850s to the 1950s.

“The insulator is designed to keep the wire off the pole.” Charles said when he noticed the puzzled look on my face as I stared at an oddly shaped one. “You don’t want the wire to come in contact with the pole because the current will bleed off into the ground.”      

     For a hundred years the efforts of inventors to improve the insulators ability to keep the current loss at a minimum and protect them from vandalism created some interesting shapes that resembled every thing from Trojan helmets to salt shakers, ginger bread men, bat ears, Mickey Mouse ears, Pluto the dog, mushrooms, bee hives, bullets, castles and even a giant screw. Some were constructed with pleated glass or copper skirts to create a longer path of resistance for the electrons to follow down the pole to the ground. It was also hoped that the pleated skirts would cause the insulator to break off in small chunks when hit by a bullet or rock instead of completely shattering.

     I noticed that the insulators came in several different shades of blue, green, white, black, purple, amber and gray. “Why is there such a big variation in the colors?” I asked Charles. “They just sit on top of power poles so what difference does it make?”

  “The Power and Telephone Company’s could order insulators in what ever color they wanted.” Charles explained. “The various colors really didn’t mean any thing. The glass manufacturers used what ever glass was left over at the end of the day to make the insulators. Although, in some cases the power company might designate blue to the neutral line going through town and the amber ones for the other two legs. One utility company here in Kansas City used Electric Blue Mickey Mouse insulators with milky swirls embedded in the glass exclusively for the DC cable serving the trolleys running along Brookside into the Plaza area. It’s the only place they were used in the entire country.  Some insulators were clear when they were made but over a period of time the sun turned them purple because of the manganese found in them. They never made red insulators because it took a small amount of gold to make red glass.”

      The vast majority of Charles’s 4,300 insulators are about four inches in height and approximately three inches wide with a few smaller ones about the size of a quarter. The grand daddy of them all proudly sits in a corner of the room. The green giant weighs in at a whopping 57 pounds and measures 18 inches in width making it the biggest insulator ever found in the world.

   I asked Charles what got him interested in such an unusual hobby. “I grew up on the out skirts of St. Joseph, Missouri.” the 52 year old mechanical engineer said. “I was a distance runner in high school back in 1971 and did a lot of my training in the country since it was so close to my house. I especially enjoyed running along the railroad tracks. I’d see signal lines and poles with insulators still attached to them lying off to the side of the rails. I thought they looked pretty cool and unscrewed a couple of them. I figured that carrying one in each hand as I ran would build up some muscles. They were every where and came in so many different sizes, shapes and colors that I started collecting them.”

    In addition to the unusual shapes and jewel like colors, Charles would learn that there were a couple of other key miscues glass manufacturers inadvertently did that attracts collectors.

    The manufacturers weren’t too worried about creating perfect insulators so iron and other impurities were often in the glass when they were made. This would sometimes cause slight imperfections such as milky swirls and other flaws that would make them quite valuable to collector’s decades later. Embossing errors such as backward letters will earn an insulator a spot at the front of a display cabinet.

  Charles showed me a thread less insulator from the 1860s that was simply jammed over a wooden pin on the cross arm of a pole after soaking the pin with oil. Storms and vandals would occasionally knock them loose, so some one designed a plunger in 1871 to swirl out threads as the insulator was being made so it could be spun on to the pin to keep it in place. Drip points at the base of the insulator to help get rid of moisture that could build up from temperature variations and lesson the insulation properties was another clever improvement.

    

  

 

    With inventors constantly upgrading the workability of the glass insulator during the hundred years they were in production, I’m beginning to think the story about my great grandfather might have some truth to it.  I asked Charles what his thoughts were on the Sanford Speaks story.

   “He was obviously proud of what ever his involvement was with that insulator.” Charles said. “Having been in the hobby for 35 years, I don’t recall seeing any photos of some one posing with their insulator. The fact that you don’t see a tie wire holding the wire in place shows more than a remote chance that he devised a new way to hold the wire in place. I would say he was involved in some way.”

   People are still finding the old insulators in places such as abandoned railroad tracks, garage sales, in mines, on trees, on buildings, antique shops, newspapers and from collectors like Charles who sells and trades them as a member of the Missouri Valley Insulator Club.

       It seems the collectors bug has bitten me as I now find myself subconsciously glancing skyward every time I’m in the country. Perhaps I’m hoping that some day I will be driving down a desolate gravel road and suddenly see a long forgotten row of ancient glass insulators high atop a power pole glistening in the morning sun like beautiful rare jewels and I’ll know exactly how Charles Brandon feels. 

WHATSOEVER

A Powerful Beacon 

     

    Like a lighthouse, the tall red brick building sits high atop a hill doing its best to guide people in the right direction.

  Originally built as the Jackson schoolhouse in 1889, the eighteen room structure at 1201 Ewing has been home to the Whatsoever Community Center since 1941.

    Whatsoever was born in 1915 when a group of women from the Independence Boulevard Christian Church in Northeast started a soup kitchen in the basement of a café on Winner Road.

    The centers name came from the bible verse, “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it  with thy might.”

  From that little soup kitchen, Whatsoever evolved into an important ally to countless parents in the surrounding neighborhoods.

   I grew up in the Sheffield neighborhood directly north of the center in 1950s and 60s.  Most of the families had an abundance of children, which was great when it came to getting up a game of baseball or football but could spell trouble on summer vacations when we became bored with the games. It’s no different in today’s world. Kids with plenty of idle time and nothing to do can easily get in to trouble.

   Fortunately, Whatsoever was just a few blocks away so we spent a lot of our spare time participating in the many activities they offered such as the game room, art room, boxing and field trips.  

   Even though its been at least forty years since I was last there it hasn’t changed much. A lot of good memories from my childhood came back as Whatsoever executive director, Charlie Gasich and I climbed the creaky 119 year old stairs to the second floor.

    The center has a inspiring feel of hope and expectation similar to Ellis Island where millions of immigrants walked through its doors to gain access to American.      

 Thousands of children from all walks of life including myself have passed through Whatsoever’s wide double doors on their way to becoming adults. Some of them were from poor families, some were immigrants and some were from wealthy families but they all came for the same reason which was and still is the support and guidance provided by the centers staff and the long lasting friendships they develop.

   Because of the age and size of the building I mentioned to Charlie that it wouldn’t surprise me if the old place had a ghost or two roaming the halls late at night after things got quiet. He replied that several people including his self have heard heavy footsteps on the stairs when no one else was in the building. Numerous times, workers have heard faint whispering that sounds like a young girl when they are alone. Cold spots in the middle of summer have been experienced in various rooms.

   Since it was a child’s voice that they heard, I thought it would be interesting to bring in Millers Paranormal Research to see what we could find.

   Millers arrived on a cold Saturday evening last January. Charlie, Whatsoever Youth Services Director, Crystal Rice, my daughter in law Shani Castle and I helped carry up several thousand dollars worth of infra red cameras, tape recorders, digital cameras, emf meters, 35 mm cameras, thermometers and monitors to the second floor. Charlie and Crystal took the paranormal team who has done over a hundred investigations on a tour of the building so they could decide what rooms to use the equipment in.

    Once that was done, all the lights were turned off except one room that was used as the command center.

    Shaker and Seer Misty Maeder who earlier that morning used her psychic abilities to work with three police detectives on a murder case in Pomona, Kansas began leading a small group of us through the pitch black building with only the occasional flash from our cameras to show us the way.

   We didn’t go very far before we encountered the spirit of an older man in one of the offices. Misty talked to him while the rest of us remained quiet. “This man stays here because he wants to see changes.” She explains. “He says he use to donate money to the center when he was alive.”

  The words were no more out of her mouth when Shani nudged me. “Some thing happen to me in the hallway leading to the office.” She said. “ I don’t feel very well. Can you get me outside?” Long time Millers member, Brenda Marble went outside with us to see if she could help. Crying and over come with emotion, Shani said some thing in the dark hallway seem to pass through her body leaving her weak, confused and extremely sad.

“ That was the spirit of the man in the office.” Brenda told us. “We call that experience taking a hit. He did indeed pass through you as he left the room. The feeling is similar to getting hit on the back of your head by a baseball bat but you don’t feel it right away. It drains all your energy, your knees are weak, your head is swimming and you’re about to go down. You will be fine in an hour or so.”

  All though not fully recovered, Shani was ready to continue after thirty minutes or so. As the investigation progressed, Misty found the spirits of two young boys and a little girl.  

 “ The girl died here back when the center was some type of hospital.” Misty said. “She is here all the time but the two boys come and go. They drowned in a nearby creek and are attracted to Whatsoever because of all the kid energy and it’s a place they probably had fun at when they were alive.”

   Three 150 pound heavy bags suspended from the ceiling in the boxing area of the basement were violently swinging in unison as Misty and Brenda entered the room. It was as if some one had pushed each one of them as they walked by but no one else had been in the room since we first arrived.  An infra red camera was set in place to watch the bags but they remained stationary the rest of the evening. Before we left the basement,  Brenda asked for volunteers to stay and quietly sit in the pitch black room for a while. I was just about to take a seat in a comfortable looking chair when I heard a young sounding girl whisper my name. It was very faint but most definitely my name. The two women sitting next to me hadn’t said a word so it wasn’t them. It didn’t scare me but sure got my attention. The entire experience was very interesting as we watched orbs come and go on the monitors and explored all 18 rooms.

    Millers Paranormal Research assures me the spirits aren’t going to hurt any one and just add a little mystique to an old building with a rich history of helping children.

   “Over the years, we’ve had people occasionally stop by to reminisce about their childhood days at Whatsoever.” Charlie said. “ Some of them leave the center money when they die because we affected their lives in some way when they were kids.  Recently, a woman about 75 years old came by to take a trip down memory lane. While looking through the hundreds of pictures we have she came across an old photo of the Hep Cats which was a group comprised of mostly teenagers who came to the center to socialize, dance and listen to music. Her eyes filled with tears as she held the picture and remembered her time with the group as a child.”

      In those days, baseball, football and boxing were the main sports played at Whatsoever. Boxing is still popular but due to the large Hispanic population in the area, soccer is now the favorite sport with some basketball still being played in the large gym behind the main building.

   In addition to sports there are many other activities for eight to sixteen year old kids such as field trips, an art room for projects, a computer room and a place to do your home work. Its all free and you can come as often as you like. Drug and alcohol prevention,  literacy, education and other youth development programs take place after school and during the summer.

   They also do meals on wheels for seniors, some senior socialization, infant toddler care for children six weeks to two years old and a pre school for children two to six years old.

  I asked Charlie if it was expensive to keep the old building up and running.

“Yes it is.” he said. “ Using our old furnace for just three hours a day this winter cost us between 1,500 and 2,000 dollars a month. It recently died and people in the community and board members rallied to raise money to have a new one installed. KCPL also helped because the new furnace will be more energy efficient and save us money. We hope to raise enough money to replace the air conditioning units next.”

  United Way, Combat, various foundations, fund raisers and private donations keep the center going.

    Charlie is no stranger to the Northeast area. The fifty one year old grew up in the east bottoms, went to grade school at Assumption and graduated from Saint Pius in 1974. His father and two sisters still live in the bottoms. He is executive director but mops floors, delivers meals on wheels and fixes what ever needs fixing.

  Charlie and his staff of seven full time and two part time employees work long hours but its worth it when a kid comes back a few years later and gives them a big thank you for turning their life around. He estimates that close to10,000 kids have walked through Whatsoever’s doors in his thirteen years on the job and every year brings in new ones.   

  All six of my children spent a great deal of their time at Whatsoever as they grew up. I asked my oldest daughter Angela, who is the program administrator for Combat, what the community center meant to her.

     “ Whatsoever had a significant impact in my life.” She said. “They guided me thru various phases as I grew up.  The people at Whatsoever were like parents, friends, employers, disciplinarians and educators. They molded and encouraged young people providing them with hope and opportunities. Whatsoever was always that big red brick building that guided us into the future. They were always there if we were lost, or more importantly, just needed direction.  I partially credit Whatsoever for me being who I am today and cherish all of the many memories from a small child to when I graduated college.”

   Like a lighthouse, Whatsoever casts powerful beacon of light in the darkness to guide people to safety.

   Come in and quietly look at the wonderful old photos and you might just hear an ever so faint voice whisper some thing in your ear.