It used to be a more user friendly world.

Back in Nickerson in the late 1940's life was so simple.  We did not lock our doors.  Oh, we could lock them, we just did not.  We had a key called a skeleton key.  Our key fit every other lock on every other door in town.  The lock was not so much to keep anyone out as it was to keep the door from blowing open while we were gone.  Do not think we were gone very often, because we were not.  Nor was anyone else, so the "key to the front door" was more a symbol of status then actually meaning anything.  If, perchance , the key was misplaced one could simply go to the local hardware store and purchase another one for just a few cents.  I do not know at what point in time someone came up with the idea to have a lock with a special key, but it was some time after life on Strong Street.

Another thing that was in every yard was a pump for water.  Ours was a "pitcher pump" which held its prime which meant we did not have to pour water in it to get it started.  There were 2 things that were always located on the nearest fence post and those were a can of water just in case the pump did lose it's prime and  a tin cup.  The tin cup was for drinking the water that came from the pump.  If we were playing and got thirsty, we simply went to the nearest pump and got a drink from the pump.  It was the neighborly thing to do and back in the day the house that did not let you drink from their pump was avoided at any cost.  Water was free and everyone was a neighbor.  Oh, there were a few houses that had dogs and sometimes the dogs were not so friendly, but usually the lady of the house would holler at the dog and then you could get a drink and be on your way.  I do know that the water that was pumped up from deep in the earth was so sweet and cool that it must have been the elixir of the Gods. 

I did not know about hoboes growing up, but I had heard of such things from my brother, Jake.  He was friends with a man who lived down on the Arkansas River when we were on the Stroh place.  Seems his name was Blackie Joe or something like that.  He worked with silver and turquoise and sold his wares around town.  Mother did not like Jake hanging out with anyone who lived on the river, but Jake was always one to sneak off and not tell her where he went.  I saw Blackie on the bridge once and he was scary.  His clothes were black and his face was very weathered.  I did not get close!  He was not on the river in the winter and Jake said he "went south" and that he had family down south.

When I started high school I had to walk down main street to school and then back up main street to go home.  The railroad tracks ran right through the middle of town and sometimes the trains would block the way.  This was back in the early 1950's and the box car doors were open and we could see  the men "riding the rails."  Mother always cautioned  us about these men and I was scared to death of them, but secretly I sometimes thought how much fun that might be to just go where ever the train took me.

Another thing that mother was always adamant about was the eating business.  We had a big round oak table.  Of course I think that is all that anyone had back then.  If we were eating, we were eating at the table.  Homework was done at the table.  Sometimes she would make us hot chocolate and that was drunk at the table.  On Sundays we sometimes went to Plevna to Great Grandma's house and had fried chicken dinner at her big round table.  She lived with my grandma Haas who had a stroke and could not walk without a walker.  I lived with them my freshman year of high school until grandma died and great grandma moved to Coldwater.  That was the best year of my whole life.

Well, I am rambling.  The cat is rolling a marble around my feet.  It is 4:00 AM and the rest of the world is asleep.  And yet here I set, thinking of how my mother would come to my house and set at my big round oak table and reminisce of the time all decisions were made at the table and how the table symbolizes the center of the home.  She was right. 

Course, my momma was always right!  RIP my sweet mother. 

Box Car Willie

I love youtube and usually have it playing in my background.  The other day I lucked onto the life story of Box Car Willie.  I do not remember dates, but he was one of the old singers and very successful in that endeavor.  He grew up in a shack with his mom and dad just a few feet from the railroad track where his dad worked.  The man could make the train whistle sound and it was so authentic that it was like the train was right in front of you.  And guess where that man took me?  Right back to Nickerson.

The railroad ran right across Main Street from East to West.  It came from somewhere and went to Hutchinson.  Kind of ran parallel to Highway 50 as I recall.  I have found in later years that it runs to La Junta, Colorado and turns south there and goes some where.  I used to ride from Garden City, Kansas to Hutchinson with my kids when I lived in Western Kansas.  But back to Nickerson.

In grade school I had a friend named Eveline.  She had very black hair and eyes.  Mother always said she was an Indian.  I did not know.  She had one sister and her name was Georgia.  They lived in a boxcar that set where the water tank for the train was located.  In Kansas, and I suppose all the places the train ran, there was a water tank every 7 miles.  The first trains had to take on water as they were steam engines.  Water had to be kept ready for whatever time the train came through.  That is why all the towns are 7 miles apart.  Some of them survived; some did not. Nickerson was one that did.

A lot has changed.  I know many years ago there had to be a man who shoveled the coal and kept the engine running.  I am sure now that if there are coal fired engines they are fed through some sort of mechanical means.  Now how I got off on this tangent is more that I can figure out!  What I want to tell you is how I would lay in bed at night and sometimes here the train whistle far off in the distance.  It was always the loneliest sound in the world.  The whistle would also bring on the howls of the wolves.  Train whistles and wolves have been ingrained in my mind as long as I can remember.  There is not a train track near my house now, but sometimes on a clear summer night with my windows open I can hear a faint whistle and it takes me back.

I recall when I started high school that I had to cross the tracks to get back to the road that led to my house.  That road was actually a county road that ran North to Sterling.  I lived one block off the highway.  Sometimes the train would be lumbering through and I could stand and watch it pass.  There were times that I could see men through the open door of the box car.  One time there was a man setting in the open door and he waved at me.  He wore overalls and he looked very sad.  After that I talked to Jake Smith who lived on Strong Street and he told me about how the hobos and tramps "rode the rails."  He said sometimes the "bulls" would pull them off the train and beat them to death.  Not sure if that was true or not, but in my impressionable little mind, anything was possible.

Then my brother, Jake, took me around to show me some of the signs that hobos left on peoples fences or trash cans to either denote a friendly person, a mean dog, or a hot meal for the asking.  They would make a mark to communicate and the other hobos knew to ask or pass that house by.  I do not know  if there are still hobos or not and I do not know how to find out.  I do know in later years the railroad owners hired people to keep the hobo's off the trains.

Life is so sad, isn't it?  Who knows what stories these men (there may have been women too) could tell.  I wish I could go back in time and talk to one of them.  I am pretty sure had I tried my mother would have beat me to death, but what a rich history that time was, and I was not smart enough to know it!  But back to Box Car Willie.  He brought the railroad to life.  He brought poverty to our door and he took the history of the box car  to England.  He was a scruffy little man, but he could pack a house.  They do not make them like that any more.

That era is gone and soon there will not be anyone to remember.  Sometimes my heart is very sad that I do not have knowledge of what I was living at the time.  My grand kids will never know what the outhouse was or that water had to be pumped from a well in the ground, or that the homeless people of today are the ancestors of the men who rode the rails.

Peace! and prosperity to all.