NEW LIFE IN UROLOGY

I had an active practice of Urology for about 35 years, and finally retired to spend the remaining years of my wife's life taking care of and spending time with her. After she died I found that after having gone from a 24 hour a day job to total boredom, I started looking around for something to do. So, after pondering the consequences, I offered my boundless experience to a young Urologist who needed help in his office. Sounds ideal, right?? So on the first day of "work" I got a lecture on how the paper work had to be done in order to satisfy Medicare and Blue Cross/Blue Shield and another lecture on sexual harrassment in the workplace (unfortunately it was not allowed any longer), including any comment to a patient that might be interpreted as sexual( I found it hard to discuss an old man's problem with impotence without some alllusion to the sex act, nor to discuss an elderly ladies vaginal discomfort without asking about her sexual habits), but that was the lecture.
Doing office urology means doing a lot of rectal exams on men of all ages who are truly thrilled about the prospect and I am sure enjoy it about as much as I did in doing it. I soon remembered that one of the reasons I was happy to have retired, was the fact that each time I did a rectal exam, it HURT me more than it did him. When I was a senior in CVHS I played football for the excellent Bronco team (record of 2 and 8, I think), and during that year broke my right wrist trying to stiff-arm an opponent from Sedan that weighed twice as much as I. Well, forty years later the arthritis in that old fractured wrist was so bad, that the pressure of doing a rectal exam was like stiff-arming Don Cox.
The other part of office urology meant writing reams of notes concerning each patient visit, in order that Medicare could pay, or not pay, the appropiate amount for that visit. Now as you might expect, this payment,or non-payment, was very important to my young colleage who was trying to pay for his new house and new Mercedes, etc. So, he would review all the notes that I had written and invariably tell me that they weren't adequate and that I should add this or add that, etc. Now it is important for you all to understand that after forty years of writing notes in my office and hospital charts, that I had developed a painful arthritis in the base of my writing thumb, and now trying to write all the notes specified by young doctor was miserable.
All of these lectures and advice and critiques were coming from a young doctor who was the age of my youngest son, and who in fact was a friend of my son. How would you like your son bossing you around? Maybe not! Anyway, after a few weeks of this stimulating activity, I decided that I could get my kicks by watching "E.R" and "Grey's Anatomy", so told the young man that I appreciated his help and I was going to retire for good. So ended my career.

I enjoy the blogs that are in the Cedar Vale Lookout.

I enjoy the blogs that are in the Cedar Vale Lookout. Recently there were memories of basketball teams and Dick Stone was mentioned. Dick graduated in 1942, we had a very good basketball team that year. We had five letter men returning. This team won first in the South Central League, the District Tournament and the Regional Tournament. By winning the Regional an invitation to the State Tournament in Hutchinson was received.

At this tournament the Broncos defeated Utica 33 to 22 to be the first team from Cedar Vale to go beyond the first hurdle. The next game was against Halstead, the team who went ahead and carried off the championship. This game was recognized as an outstanding feature for Class B basketball for the State of Kansas. Halstead defeated the purple and gold in the second overtime. The game was tied up 8 times. The final score was 27 to 25.

The South Central League ended with Cedar Vale first, Caney second, Sedan third, and Peru fourth. The Broncos won 23 games and lost 5 (2 to class A schools). The team made 926 points to their opponents 575. Wilbur Humphries, forward and captain, was high scorer with 281 points. (Wilber recently passed away on October 2, 2009) Ernie Clark, center, 214 points, Jr. Barger, forward, 132 points, Dick Stone, guard, 112 points, Kenneth Bohannon, guard, 46 points. Other players were Lee Lemert, Rollin Leedy, Neal Sullivan, Roy White and Merrill Tipton . Graduating seniors were Clark, Humphries, Stone, Bohannon and Sullivan. Clark lives in South Carolina and Sullivan in Alaska- we have lost the other three.

Coaches for the Broncos were Earl Vore 39-40, Cecil Humphries 1941 and LeRoy Uhlenhop 1942. Mr. Uhlenhop didn't finish the school year as he joined the Navy Reserve. I remember the students turned out at the bottom steps to cheer our team on. We had gas rationing (war was on) so we didn't get to see the games. A few local people pooled gas stamps and attended.

The first time I was in the Hutchinson building for a tournament was when Bob Bailey was on the team. I remember seeing him walking down the court and checking it out. I wondered if it looked as big to him as it did to me. It looked so much larger than out court. Was it?

Norma Wesbrook Knowles

Class of 1942

Substitute Teacher!

I knew the day would come.

It started with a call, "Mr. Shaffer, could you sub for me today? My kids are sick and I need to stay home with them." I remembered the times my kids were sick, and I needed to stay home. In that moment of reflection, I said, "Sure, I'll be there!" Hearing the elation of the regular teacher, I knew I had made the right choice!
So, I got up at 6:00 a.m., an UNGODLY hour in anyone's time frame! Found the toothbrush, but in the darkness, could not find the toothpaste! Upon finding it, I found the shower and therein found some semblance of awakening! My dogs looked at me as asked, "Why?" I could not give them a logical reason! Got on my clothes, which I had laid out the night before. You would have thought I was going on a long vacation! Oh how I wish that "thought" would have been true!
Instead, I found myself at a junior high school. My first job was to put out the chairs. They were on "high" racks! Way up there! As I was lifting them in a rather agressive action with a downward direction, I was beginning to wonder what in the h..... I was doing there! Then came the stands, proportioned just so to the number of stands! I had nearly two hours to accomplish this first responsibility, and yet, as I was putting the last stand in place, here came the first student! I wanted to "holler," I'm not ready! Nonetheless, in they came!
The first class didn't go too bad. They looked at this seventy-five year old man with an expression that defied
description! And, through it all, we mustered a fair degree of musicality with the music before us! How I wanted to tell them the "lifetime" of music before them....but the bell rang.
Well, I went through the brass class, the woodwind class, missed my lunch-time of 15 minutes because of my failure to hone in on the lesson plan!
Then came the final hour (in more ways than one) of the day! The percussion class! I once read where God made percussionists to make band directors humble! Whoever wrote that knew what he was talking about! I took roll. Now, that doesn't seem to be a big thing. Believe me, it is, when you have students moving about in ways quickly resembling "Dancing With The Stars!" The lesson plan stated, "Start with Burning, our favorite warm-up exercise!" When I announced "Burning," you should have seen their eyes! Ever seen eyes in one of those far-out movies where roll-call seemed a bit archaic and the prisoners were let loose? I felt like a warden. A warden with no assistant wardens! I closed off class early. There were chairs and stands to put away....the same ones I had put up in the morning! Can you believe, that because of my early termination of the class, they did put away those indespensible items of musicality! They, the students, sensed a growing ember that was about to explode with a fury that none of them had experienced!!!!!
I drove home, after signing out at 3:30 p.m.. I was done at 2:30 but "rules" made me stay until 3:30! I said to Don, "Don, you don't need to do this any longer! You've taught a long time! You've enjoyed those memories!
Let this memories go, and seek other ones that will mean more than you will ever know."
So, I write this to you...my friends, on this night when I know that another chapter in my life is about to happen! And you know, I can't wait!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! At the same time, it's been fun.....!!!!

P.S. I e-mailed in my substitute teacher resignation today. Sad in some ways. But, the glad ways are in the
majority!!!!!

1935 Messenger

Those if you who receive the CV Lookout will see most of this page in readable form. For the rest of you, I deleted the post of a few days ago since most could not read it. I have tried a few things and here it comes again. A little bit better, but not really good. I hope some of you who are interested can read it.

Kansas Information On-Line

I just learned to 2 new websites that I want to share. One is http://www.kansasmemory.org/ and the other is one that I may be one of the last people to learn about. It has the old Kansas History Book by Charles Richard Tuttle that I have. http://books.google.com/books, and the name of the book is Tuttle's History of Kansas. I had called the Kansas History Museum to tell them I would donate this book, and the Library told me of these 2 sites.
This young lady is granddaughter of Nellie Walkinshaw, and daughter of Jock Walkinshaw. 1992, she graduated from Christian University of Oklahoma. I must say, she sure is cute. Katrina, as a toddler, was like a little old lady. Every thing had to be where it belonged. If brother's shoes were in the living room, she 'waddled' them to his bedroom, throw them into his room with a "Dare, Don" (there John). This changed with the teen years (imagine that). Today, she is back trying to keep every thing neat, while juggling 3 children ages 5 yrs to 6 mos. Still in Germany (where all 3 were born).

Those Broncos

For those of you who don't scan back to previous posts, I highly recommend that you look at the October 2 posting about the demise of the broncos. Don Shaffer has added a wonderful visionary story of a field of dreams parade down main street in CV in honor of the broncos. Read and enjoy!

I spoke with Treva by telephone and I convinced her to add a few of her memories to the blog. Since she says she can't post I agreed to do it for her. She remembers some things I had forgotten--not really surprising. Welcome to Treva Gray (Littrell)

Cedar Vale Saturday Drawings

Remember when the Cedar Vale merchants had their drawings at 3:00 p.m. on Saturdays in the middle of main street. The local merchants and the chamber of commerce had a money fund and would give away money prizes. There was a large hopper and people would put their name in it. The merchants would usually get some kid to draw the names after they had spun the hopper really good. I think you had to be present to win. The prizes ranged from a few dollars to maybe $25 or $50 on special occasions.

Also around Thanksgiving time the merchants would get on top of the L C Adams building and throw off live turkeys and guineas and maybe ducks and chickens, I am not sure. People would stand in the street and try to catch them as they sailed down. Kids would run and chase them all over main street. The downtown street was crowded and it was a festive event.

Today, the animal rights people would have a fit if it was still practiced, but I never remember a fowel being injured, they could flap their wings and glide to the ground and many were caught in the air.

If anyone can add to my story please do so.

Sorry I've been otherwise occupied

We've been traveling a lot and I haven't been thinking much about my early days in CV. There has been a lag in other's posting to the blog, so there isn't much new when you check in. Thanks to those who have kept the line open by posting from time to time. I know that there are others lurking out there who have stories to tell, so why don't you get up the courage to share some with us. Your old classmates will appreciate your efforts. I know that I will. And if I think of anything worth writing about I'll post an item or two myself.

HANKINS DRUGSTORE EMPLOYEES

As the blogging has slowed down lately, I thought I would submitt the following in the
event it might be of interest to some blog readers.
On a recent visit to Cedar Vale, Nancy found a small six ring, loose leaf binder in a desk in her mother’s, (Mary Bess) house. It is amazing the amount and detailed information she recorded in this binder. Any repairs made on the house, the date, who did the work, the material cost, the labor cost, if they did a good job; doctor visits; things bought at a sale, the item and cost; any appliance’s purchased, date and cost; and much, much more.
In the binder is a two page, typed list of the people that worked at the Hankins Drugstore, for the years Don and Mary Bess owned the store, 1937 to 1973. Don died in the spring of 1973 and Mary Bess sold the store to Mickey Myers in 1973. Mickey still owns the store, however it is located next door to the old drugstore, which was Smith’s grocery store. I thought the blog readers might be interested and it might jog old memories of long forgotten names. I am sure there are blog readers names on the list.
Cass L. Napier . Thayce Lucille Townsend. Sharon Ann Yates.
Harold Stone. Melvin Wayne Bolton Doris Eleanor Magnus. Freddie Alexander. Nadine Denice Stanhope. Ruth A. Zimmerman.
Neal Sullivan. Nancy Lee Goode. Ula M. Utt.
Richard Stone. Nancy Ann Hankins. Freida Sue Williamson.
Kenneth Bohannon. Gloria M. Sanborn. Bert R. Stewart.
Carl Mattox. Shirley Barger Henson. Mary Sue Carter.
Clifford Smith. Anna May Bohannon. Glenda R. Sinclair.
Nole Grice. Sandra Jane Carter. Jackson M. Gablemann.
Lucille Marie Sweaney. Charley Virgil Cruthrid. Joseph Clyde Sanders.
Betty Lou Jones. Olive Lucille Ramey. Judy Cable.
Louise Helen Sledge. Evelyn Aley Scott. Della F. Cable.
Partricia Jean Pate. Viola Casebolt . Barbara A. Cooper.
Zelda Wilkinson. Sally Alexander. Marcilyn M. Cox.
Jean Marie Snyder. Thomas Dean Hankins. B. Sue Ferguson.
Donna Jean Hill. Melba Maxine Campbell. R. R. Snyder.
Vaunda Lee Rish. Loretta Kay Shipman. Montra Patteson.
Victor Raymond Hollister. Geneva Emma Grunden. Nancy Jo Harper.
Clara Katherine Dale. Sylvia Petty.
Treva Alice Prather. Sandra Lee Searl.
Betty Jean Sweaney. Ralph Myrtis Eyler.
Patricia Ann Williams. Linda Jo Snodgrass.
Grace L. Harp. Lois Laru Bennett Herrington.
Aaron Pack. Jannie Irene Gassett Venters.

GOODBY BRONCOS

To all you purple and gold alumni who may not know, at the end of the current football season, the Bronco's and the school colors of purple and gold will be a thing of the past. With the combining of Dexter and CV sports activities, the new team name will be the Spartans, with new school colors. I also understand our arch rival Sedan is going to eight man football. So to all you former cheerleaders, band members and athletes who wore the purple and gold uniforms, cheris the good old days. My fifty plus year old, purple and gold letter jacket with the big C, still looks pretty good. I wonder if I could sell it on e-bay?