Saturday, December 1, 2007

WHY BLAME THE TOWN

As I read the articles and comments in the "blog", it is somewhat distressing to read all the negative thoughts that we have published concerning the Town of Cedar Vale, which gave us our start in life. It is like blaming our parents because we are not tall, or beautiful, or athletic, or a great success in life, or rich and happy. How can we blame a "TOWN" for our failures in life. I should blame the town because I was shy, and backward in dealing with the female population of the school?? The town did not make me the failure that I became in many aspects of my life, but it did provide me/us with many opportunities to improve on that with which we were born. How many communities would provide a venue where a skinny 5'9" boy like myself could compete in basketball, football, track and baseball along with other short, skinny boys, and really make a success of the effort. How many schools would have afforded musicians like Gary and Phil and Don Shaffer the opportunity to excell and be superior in their art. In schools like Wichita East, for instance, in spite of their talent, would they have even been noticed. Would Janice Sartin and Marilyn Holroyd been stars in the production of "The Mikdo" had they been in Kansas City Wyandotte?? A very few of us, probably Gary, for instance, might have excelled even in the larger community schools, but the rest of us were happy that we were allowed to do the things that we were good enough to do in the Town of Cedar Vale.
Maybe it is not the towns fault that it is dying or withering. Maybe it is our fault.
WHAT IF: Bob Hays and I had returned to set up a regional medical center.?
Gary White had returned to be music director at old CVHS.?
Roy Walkinshaw had returned to the medical center to open his physical therapy
center.
Phil Foust had returned to open a succesful and progressive bank that could loan
money to farmers that were needed to support the whole community.
Jay D. Mills had returned to open an electronic software technical support plant
or a photographic business.
Don Cox had stayed and kept the dogs and cats and cattle of Chautauqua county in
good shape.
Dick and Bill Williams had returned to renew the Chevrolet Dealership. Or maybe
Dick would have opened a CPA office also.
Bob Cable had taken over the Cable Implement, and kept it a viable business.
Judy Stone had returned with her husband to join the medical community.
T.D. Oltgen ? Another competing bank?? Sedan, I think has more than one.
All of the boys and girls that grew up on farms might have stayed to run the family
farms instead of going off to the big cities of Winfield and Ark City and Wichita.
Gerry Kelley might have returned to have an engineering consulting firm??
But instead, we all had our own dreams that did not include the town where we were "hatched and growed". Just think, if we had all returned, raised our families there and contributed to the wealth and prosperity of that little hamlet, it might still be a good, interesting place to live, offering almost everything that we have where ever we are now.
No, don't blame the TOWN. We can all blame ourselves if there is really blame to lay. The town may have had some problems, and some people who were not our ideals, but it did provide all of us a starting point. We are all "successes" maybe because of the start we had in that idyllic little community. Don't blame "THE TOWN".

6 comments:

Gary White said...

Thanks for the thoughtful piece, Wayne. As for who could have excelled anywhere, I would certain nominate Don Shaffer over me any day. My youthful hero worship has not changed over the years.

DFCox said...

Yes Wayne, you make a good point. I left, like so many of us, but I've been back for 10 years and trying with, my limited stamina, to be a positive presence.

Unknown said...

Don, I am sure you are as positive a presence as there is in CV at this time.

Dick Williams said...

I couldn't agree with you more. I would have loved to take over the Chevrolet dealership from my dad but my parents left before I finished college and sold the business. I don't think I had been more than 100 miles from Cedar Vale before I started working in Denver after college, and I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't have seen as much of the United States or foreign destinations had I stayed in Cedar Vale. However, as I stated in a previous comment I wouldn't trade a minute for the time I spent growing up in Cedar Vale. As you said, most of us wouldn't have made the team if we had gone to a larger high school, where in Cedar Vale, you made the team if you went out for the sport or sang in choir or played in the band if you wanted to. I feel that we were mostly a bunch of average kids who some may have over achieved but who all learned a lot of common sense by growing up in the small town of Cedar Vale.

Phil Foust said...

Yes, without too much questioning we were all fortunate to have had some years "growing up" in Cedar Vale. At the same time, there were a few musicians and athletes and scholars that excelled in the more competitive environment of larger towns and schools.

Don, you and some others currently residing in Cedar Vale are quite positive examples of good citizenship. (Your musical group has many supporters and I would enjoy hearing you perform.)

Using an isolated example I would point out that through the years a lack of leadership has perhaps somewhat allowed the community to decline. (At this time there may be a grocery store but I'm going to use this example with my current understanding of the situation.)

Cedar Vale has perhaps 500/600 citizens and is without the convenience of a "real" grocery store. There are communities of similar size with the advantage of not having to go "out of town" for some rather basic needs. Some of them are served with privately owned stores with management capable of survival. Others have cooperatively started and maintained vital stores as a community project. Cedar Vale had a cooperative grocery store along with grain elevators and "tank wagons" many years ago. For example, they competed with some success with L. C. Adams and Mr. White and Jesse Foust. Citizenry with initiative can (at the very least) allow a community to survive.

It seems to me that communities live or die with some nudging.

Reva Sawyer said...

I have always been very proud of where I came from, but like so many of us, did not want to live on a farm and there really were no jobs for kids right out of High School and since I had absolutely no desire to go to and through any more schoolin--it was head for the big city, where I was a scared little rabbit for a few years.
Alot of the people I worked with in my 25 yrs at Cargill, Inc. were from Minnesota and they were always saying "how flat" Kansas is and I would tell them to go to my part of the state and they would sure know that is not true. I was born on top of the Flint Hills in the house that my Father and Grandfather had been born in and always get a thrill when I drive though them. I guess I was too wrapped up in myself that I did not see the injustices that happened until in later years.
Okay, here is a female making a posting again.