The Shoe Toss!

It's a Saturday night! Brings me back to past Saturday nights! One was at Sedan, Kansas. Why we were there, I have not the foggiest! But, there we were! It was a dance of some kind. The master of ceremonies said, "Let all the ladies throw one of their shoes into the center of the ring! When the bell sounds, let me best man win....the thrower of the shoe!" For some reason, I must tell you this story. Haven't told many. There was this girl. Her name was Jan. The pictures in the Leonard Theatre did not hold a candle to her! Infatuated with her? That would be an understatement! I would have launched a couple fo ships for her!

Well, the beautiful ladies threw their shoes. I followed Jan's shoe to the heap before me. When the master of ceremonies said, "Go get their shoe,!" I raced to the exact spot where I knew Jan's shoe had fallen! I grabbed it up, curious that others had not seen the flight of her shoe! I proudly grabbed the shoe and took it to its owner!

When happened next, will remain one of the low cycles of my life. Jan took the shoe, but her heart wasn't in it! I knew it. She knew it. We danced the first dance. That's about all there was to it.

To this day, I remember the valuable lesson I learned that day, "If the shoe fits, wear it....but if somebody doesn't want to wear that shoe.....leave it be!

"If You Had, One Story to Tell, About Cedar Vale!

I know.

One story turns into stories. Sliding down a hill, next to the carpenter's house, who lived on the hill. His first name was Lon. Anyone remember his last name?

In the winter, sliding down that hill, under the barbed wire, and into the field of beyond! I think it was the "getting up" that I remember, facing a long trek, back to to the top! But, what a ride on the way down! Ducking down to avoid the barbed wire! Ducking down to see how far I could go!

Well, I've ducked a few barbed wires. And, saw how far I could go! Yet, I never went further, than that "Cable-hill" run! That was it! How I loved the bumps and bruises. How I loved to see how far I could go into the Beuchles's (sp?) corn field~!!!!

Just one of many stories. Tell me yours. Time is short. Tell us yours!

DINING OUT

Now comes this nostalgic menu from Iris. Did you ever get to voyage to Ark City, Winfield, Independence, or our nearby cities when you were youthful? Maybe you even got to order something at the Woolworth Lunch Counter.

"I'll have the Super Banana Split and a coffee please", that should leave tip money from a half dollar.

Old Tom

OK Don and Don, I’m taking the challenge to write about one of my pets as a child growing up in CV. His name was Tom and we called him Old Tom as he aged.

Tom was an orange tabby cat of the male persuasion. He had rough “targets” in orange against a white background on both sides. He was a big, strong cat that had never been neutered (we didn’t even think about such things in the 1940s).

Tom was the scourge of all the cats in the neighborhood. If one dared to enter his domain he or she would get a sound drubbing from Tom. Tom was a great hunter and we would be presented with dead birds or dead mice on our doorstep from time to time. These were his trophies and he was justly proud of them.

To say that he was MY cat would be to overstate the case. We were his humans and he let us live in his house so long as we provided a steady supply of food, water, and an occasional bowl of milk. Tom would jump up on our laps to be petted when it suited him, and otherwise he could be found napping most of the day in a spot of sunlight.

Tom needed his sleep because the nights were his prowling time. We never knew what he did or where he went at night. Gradually, over the years, he acquired more and more scars. His nose was a mass of healed scratches and his coat was threadbare in places where there had been more serious injuries. He limped on one front paw, which was missing two toes. He would sometimes be gone for several days at a time and we more than once gave him up for dead, only to find him lying outside the door too weak to make a sound.

I would nurse him back to health and he would return to his tomcat ways. Finally, there came the day when he was gone for nearly a week. When we found him outside the door he was barely breathing. I put him on his blanket and tried to get some water into him, but it was no use. Tom breathed his last and expired in peace. I wrapped him in his blanket and made a grave for him in the back yard. A small stone marked that spot and I would often look out there and remember my fearless friend.

I had other pets as I grew older, but none had quite the personality and zest for living dangerously as Old Tom. Perhaps that was a lesson that I learned from him. I’ve traveled far and wide over the world and consider myself more or less a nomad in my old age. I like to think that Tom would be proud.