PAGE 6 OF CV MEMORIES OF WAYNE WOODRUFF

Many things that happen in a small town are very important to those living there, but would not seem like much to folks outside the town. I remember VE Day, the day the war with Germany ended. I don't remember how anyone knew about it, but on that day, the town of Cedar Vale celebrated by burning down the jail house. The jail was not much and it was old and wooden and rickety, but it made a great bonfire, and it seemed to me that all the inhabitants of Kansas were there to watch the big fire-celebration.

Also, remember the great articles in the Wichita papers by Ernie Pyle? Every day he had an article from the trenches in France, Belgium, and Germany as the G.I.'s marched toward Berlin and Hitler. The little Piper Cub plane flew over the baseball field every day and dropped a bundle of Wichita Eagle papers, and I think one of the Williams boys then delivered the papers, but it was neat, as a little kid, to go out to the field to watch it drop. It was sad for me as a child to learn that Ernie Pyle had been killed by a German sniper, and his articles would soon be gone.

One day my dad came in and got his shot-gun, went out into the yard, and pointed out the big Black Snake crawling up the big Cedar/Juniper tree by the house. He pointed the gun, and blew the head off the snake, leaving a hole in the tree three inches across and two inches deep, that stayed there as long as I lived there, and suppose is still there. Looking back, I think it was awful to kill a harmless snake, but as he said, the snakes ate our eggs and baby chicks, so maybe he was justified.

Remember sitting in the mulberry tree by the hen house eating mulberries until I was sick, with purple stains all over my face, hands and clothes. And, of course, mother admonishing me to not eat them because they were full of little bugs. I guess they were, but did not change the taste of those wonderfully sweet berries. And I still will stop anywhere I find a mulberry tree full of ripe berries, and eat my fill of berries and bugs.

Sad memories! The day I was driving the tractor with the side-bar mower, cutting alfalfa. Our dog Jack always loved to run in the field with the tractor because various kinds of varmints would be turned up by the tractor-mower. On that one sad day, however, he forgot where he was, and chasing a rabbit, dashed into the path of the sickle and three of his legs were amputated instantaneously. Again, Dad had to use his shot-gun. And the sad day my mother backed the car out of the garage and ran over the hips and back legs of our new puppy. Mother is dead now, but I am still mad at her for that.

Sleeping in my cozy upstairs bedroom in the winter with the open-gas heater burning throughout the night. Nowadays that would not be allowed by "the codes", but I survived. And listening to the rain on the roof right above my bed, lulled me to sleep many nights. Listening to my sister playing the piano when I was trying to study. Listening to Harry Carey broadcast the Cardinal games over KGGF in Coffeyville. I would sit close to the big old Philco radio so I could hear every move of Stan Musial and Enos Slaughter, my heroes. The present day baseball "stars" will never match those olden day stars like Musial and Mantle and DiMaggio and Ted Williams.

Labor Day in Cedar Vale was the highlight of the year with soap-box car races down the hill of Main Street, water melon eating contests at Hewins Park, softball and baseball games at the ball fields and rodeos in the afternoon and evening. Remember the year that the House of David baseball team came through town and played the local town team with Roy Smith pitching ( and his screwy wind-up ) and Grant Utt hitting the ball four