Salute to Veterans from My Home Town

World War II veteran Clyde Hatcher, Arkansas City, Kansas >>>

<<< Col. Paul Cannady, posthumous: inducted into Kansas National Guard Hall of Fame, Nov. 2, 2008. Joined U.S. troops under Gen. Pershing, going after Pancho Villa at the Mexican border in 1916, served in World War I and World War II, a total of 31 years in the Kansas Army National Guard. He is shown at the Haskell Indian School, Lawrence, KS, 1930, and was the father of eighty-eight year-old Arkansas City resident Genova J. Brister.

Information from Arkansas City Traveler, "Kansas native gets his due WWI veteran inducted into state National Guard Hall of Fame" By FOSS FARRAR Traveler Staff Writer reporter@arkcity.net Photo by Alex Gambill

FALL FELL FAST

Do you ever have absurd notion about the weather, like to me it seems that some years seasons change rapidly without transition? It's like there is a mystical stage, hand behind the scenes, who impatiently waits for the cue to end one season and to bring in another? It's like he says, "Okay, Summer's over, drop the Fall backdrop" – CRASH!

It would not surprise me to know that Hurricane Gustav may have had something to do with it with the rapid change this year. Cooler breezes of Fall, came in like a clap of thunder! Delightful intermittent downpours of rain brought with them the perfume of after-shower ozone mixed with the smells of moistened dry vegetation. Oh my!

But if all of this changeover had not happened and it remained insufferably hot, we would still know that Fall "was right around the corner" because school started and the Ark City Bulldogs football team started practice at Curry Field. And the Cowley College football Tigers were practicing their mean and menacing snarls and grimaces they would use against opposing teams. These are great memories; pre-game parades, frosty nights, and post-game quarterbacking at the Purity Cafe.

We moved from my home town four miles north of the Oklahoma state line to Kansas City where I joined the pastoral staff of the Kansas City Baptist Temple.

That was in 1972 and nostalgia overtakes me at times. But I can never go back. From the time I became a Presbyterian ministerial candidate to changing to a Fine Arts major, mid-stream in college, we had a good life there. Arkansas City, Kansas (Ark City), was about 11,000 with two refineries, two major flour mills, a large cattle feed lot east of town. It was a good place to raise children.

We lived in the state where Sen. Barack Obama said he received his "Kansas values." I think some of his values were not "Kansas values" in our Republican state. We lived in a beautiful home that my grandmother built and where I was born. I had a good job in sales promotion with a major meat packing subsidiary. For a bonus we could load up on meat every Friday. It got to the point that Jeff and David said in a derisive manner, "Steak again!"

However, Fall came in quickly without transition but with thunderous fanfare here in Mission, Kansas. Nothing much is deifferent except there are several high schools in the Shawnee Mission School District of Johnson County, Kansas and they are all fielding their footballs teams for the Fall season – creating more nosalgia for many. The temperatures are brisk and the sky is cloudy all day, and the contiguous towns and cities that make up the metro area, have there high school teams and home-comings - small town atmosphere in a big city metro-plex.

To go back home would be to live a life that sleeps and should not be disturbed. We would just dry up, while here in Mission, we are able to participate in the best of Kansas City's culture and restaurants, and markets. The small town atmosphere prevails in the many stunning suburbs, with the same nostalgic aroma of moistened dry vegetation and the cool hints of an exciting winter soon to come.

It's different, but it's exciting and our church life is here, and although retired, we have many ministry opportunities here. But I do get feelings of nostalgia and good memories of what my lifeg was like. Thanks for looking in.

(Images copyright, "The Ark City Traveler")

MR. YELSON & MRS. LIND

In regard to the unsettled argument over fossile fuels - WHAT'S THE PROBLEM?

I fondly recall Mr. Yelson who used to call on Mrs. Lind on a fairly regular basis.

The streets in my home town in southern Kansas were red brick - quite a site and no less a novelty in the early thirties.

Horse-drawn vendors selling vegetables, tomales, and ice cream, all had rubber tires on their wagons so as not to make a clatter.

The thing that made Mr. Yelson's visits unique was that he owned an electric car. It was battery operated open coupe. The steering was done by a goose neck lever, pushed gently in the direction desired. Such vehicles were popular for professional people. They got them where they wanted to go quickly and cleanly and you didn't have to crank them.

I was three-years-old in 1930, old enough to be fascinated by Mr. Yelson's quiet and purposeful journey down our red brick street to see Mrs. Lind - always in time for dinner.

I would make it a point to run outside when I figured that Mr. Yelson would be motoring down north "B" Street, past our house and to the corner across from us to Mrs. Lind's house.

Mrs. Lind was well-to-do and her house was stately. But Mr. Yelson was hard to figure. We all wondered when he, a confiremed bachelor, would propose. He certainly did not hurt for funds, as he was the head of the local Building and Loan office.

He was the soul of propriety and "sober as a judge" - a smile might have cracked his lips. But here came Mr. Yelson - set your watch -rolling quietly down the street, a thin man, sitting straight as an arrow, in a dark suit and hard sailor straw hat set straight on his head, and he neither turned to the right or the left.

The only moving thing in the driver's seat was his arm on the steering lever. His carriage could get up to 40 mph, not fast by our standards today, but it beat a mule-drawn wagon of sweet corn, and it got him cleanly to where he wanted to go.

Hooray for Mr. Yelson. He gave me a pleasant memory of my childhood. What ever happened to him? I don't know. My parents would never confide such things to me, a child who did not need to know everything.