When we lived on the Thomas Long Lease I had a friend, Jimmy Cargill, whose family, unbelievably, was even poorer than mine. Jimmy and I took turns riding my tireless, pedal-less bike until we both learned to stay on it as long as we wanted to. But Jimmy’s biggest contribution to...
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1350 Views
Our house on the Thomas Long lease sat back about a hundred yards from Oklahoma Highway 33 which was surfaced with walnut-sized rocks. A few times a year a road grader would come along to smooth out the ruts and level the high and low spots. The roads that branched off...
1160 Views
1160 Views
My Darling Jill Today, when “The F word” has been enshrined by the United States Supreme Court and hard core pornography is but a mouse click away, Erskine Caldwell’s book, “God’s Little Acre” could be read with impunity by any school kid. But in the `40’s, the mere mention of that...
2443 Views
2443 Views
The 1940's began with hopefulness washing across the land. The "Great Depression,” under the assault of eight years of government welfare programs launched by America’s first socialistic president, while still alive and well was loosening its grip. More men were working and most children were going to bed with food in...
1245 Views
1245 Views
We were driving home, having spent the day enjoying a belated Thanksgiving holiday in Tulsa with my oldest brother, Robert, and his family. The tires on Dad’s 1935 Dodge droned in harmony with its engine as it moved along at the stately, safe, 50 miles an hour Dad always chose. Other...
1284 Views
1284 Views
When “the war” ended and after the wild celebrations ended, Americans released the breath they had been holding for four long years with an almost audible sigh. Peace, prosperity, and an end to rationing came almost immediately. No more denial. Consumers were like sharks circling a chumming boat waiting for factories...
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1099 Views
One of the better jobs was delivering the Tulsa Daily Tribune to its subscribers in Caney. Being a paperboy meant “being your own boss” and “making however much money you wanted to make” – or so the “recruiter” said when he was looking for a new paperboy. Like many good build...
1892 Views
1892 Views
There was a lot of coming and going of employees in Caney’s cafes, but the line between “boy jobs" and "girl jobs" was clear and bright. Boys washed dishes or cooked. I was too young to be a cook, so I became a dishwasher in “Chet’s Café” on Fourth Street. If...
1095 Views
1095 Views
Caney was located at the crossroads of two railroads. The Santa Fe ran trains north and south while the Missouri and Pacific, the "MOP", brought trains from the East and West. The Santa Fe had all the glamour. It had "The Streamliner." In the `40's most trains were pulled by steam...
1286 Views
1286 Views
Caney had a bowling alley unlike any bowling alley ever seen before or since. It was in a storefront building on Fourth Street, our “Main Street” just east of Winkler’s Drug store. It did a boomingly noisy business until television came along. It also was a business where the owner didn’t...
1078 Views
1078 Views
Kansas, by law, was a dry state. The only legal alcoholic beverage was 3.2 beer, so-called because its alcoholic content cannot exceed 3.2% of its total volume. A person can become intoxicated drinking this beer but they have to work at it. Oklahoma, which was only one mile south, was just...
1302 Views
1302 Views
The hike to the dam was a leisurely walk. There were plenty of things along the way worth doing. Those cone-shaped glass insulators found today in flea markets were sat on the crossbars of the telephone poles that alongside the railroad tracks. They shattered with a glorious display of shrapnel when...
1235 Views
1235 Views
In early times someone built a dam across the Caney River out west of town, just at the bottom of Standpipe Hill. It was a rudimentary dam, not much different in construction from those which small boys to dam up rainwater that runs in street gutters. That dam had only one...
1232 Views
1232 Views
Technical Sgt. Raymond R. (Rudy) Carriker In Caney’s Washington Grade School we fourth graders, destined to become the first generation of Americans to pass from childhood to adolescence in a world totally committed to war, found our school days changed within the time of a few heartbeats. We began bringing...
1547 Views
1547 Views
The War was Everywhere Affecting Everything Don Carriker - 1944 12 years old At first "The War" seemed to be a fine thing. There was an excitement and sense of purpose in the air. Even a kid could feel prosperity blooming. We moved from our primitive bungalow, with...
919 Views
919 Views
I liked school and adjusted easily. It was a no-nonsense “Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic” curriculum. Reading came easy to me and writing was no particular problem. I don’t remember my first attempts at arithmetic but it was probably a miserable experience. Dealing with numbers was my Waterloo from First Grade all...
1298 Views
1298 Views
When we first moved to Caney our house was a block north of the Missouri Pacific Railroad tracks. Just south of the tracks there were two grocery stores. Ferguson’s, on the east side of Wood Street, also sold gasoline and motor oil, and served as the office for what was then...
1310 Views
1310 Views
The school term had started before we moved to Caney. I went into Miss Toner’s third grade classroom and endured the misery of being “the new kid” for whatever time it took my classmates to divide into their “He’s okay, he’s a loser”, groups. Then life went on. I made friends...
1273 Views
1273 Views
In my Freshman year I took Latin. Teaching Latin to teenagers in Southeastern Kansas in the 1940’s had to be one of the most challenging jobs in Christendom. The Roman Empire was farther from our world than the star Betelgeuse. The school board, however, decreed that one year of Latin was...
1327 Views
1327 Views
Shrinks say that war heightens a man’s desire to be near a girl: As near as “possible”. They say it comes from a primitive desire to preserve the species, to live beyond one’s own life, and from a war induced sense of our mortality. Maybe that is what caused me to...
1227 Views
1227 Views