Hometown America

Interesting Smithsonian exhibit at the Keystone to walk around and think about. It closes on the 25th of May so don’t delay if you haven’t experienced it. The theme is rural America and we live smack dab in the middle of it.

For one it made me think of Grannie and my decision to “retire” back home here in this area. Courtesy of the Air Force, we had lived alongside the Rio Grande in Texas, the East Coast on Cape Cod, the northern tier along the south shore of Lake Superior in Michigan, and the West Coast in Merced, California. We also lived in Oklahoma at three separate locations plus schools at San Antonio, Texas and Dayton, Ohio. At each place, we made friends, enjoyed different kinds of food and built interesting memories.

Still, we returned to the McCook area to live out the rest of our lives. Ann kind of preferred our friends, church and community in Moore, Oklahoma. She had developed a good thriving business in Mary Kay there although we had been gone four years. Job-related I took over the family farm until it became too small to be economically viable. When our folks passed away it was time to leave the farm and make other arrangements in life. I had other skills so became a corporate pilot and taught aviation as a flight instructor. We’ve never looked back and have enjoyed all that rural America has to offer just as the Smithsonian exhibit so eloquently points out.

Looking back over 80 years of memories in this place many things have changed yet others have stayed the same. Highway 83 for instance was a well-cared-for gravel road all the way to North Platte when I first drove it in High School. Our east-west highway was paved but the lanes were narrow and had a concrete lip along the outside that tended to grab the unwary driver and caused great wear on the outside duals of semi-trucks. The railroad Depot in McCook was always a bustling place, quiet now, and I commuted to school near Denver by riding the Zephyr. Steam engines were the norm and those serviced in a large roundhouse out across the tracks until after WWII. There was an elevated walkway across the tracks for pedestrian traffic. The icehouse on west 3rd and A street still functioned and the 100-pound blocks of ice were carried on a trestle above A Street to Grangers, now Loops Brewery, where they were placed in freight cars to transport perishable produce.

I was born in St. Catherine’s Hospital attended by Catholic Nuns, but which now stands dilapidated, and Community Hospital has splendidly replaced it. The County Fairgrounds reached west to Highway 83 and contained McCook’s flying field. That changed at the end of WWII with the housing needs of returning veterans becoming critical. Remember the Victory Addition? Hillcrest Nursing Home didn’t exist but across the street from its present location, a series of WWII-style two-story military barracks had been erected for multiple family living quarters. Friends lived there yet when I attended High School.

Ah yes, I was in the last class to graduate from the “old” three-story high school building which was located where Central Elementary now stands. The Junior High building was on the now Central playground. Grannie Annie was in the first class to graduate from the present high school building and that makes it over sixty years old.

As a young kid air-conditioning didn’t exist plus no electrical distribution out from town. Dad rigged a wind charger to charge a car battery to power the family’s one radio. Others had more elaborate motor-driven generators powering a bank of batteries for 32-volt d.c. electric systems. REA changed our world.

On my daily drive to high school, I carried fresh raw whole milk, about ten gallons, to the local dairy. Then after school, I picked up the clean empty cans to take back to the farm. The milk was turned into cheese and the fresh ice cream was wonderful. Whiten’s has a hatchery where thousands of baby chickens were hatched for farm flocks and everybody had one. Local beef was processed on the west edge of town and the offal plus dead animals were “rendered” next door. Interesting odors hung in the air on hot summer nights—not good!

The city dump was where Barnett Park and its ponds now lie. High School kids went there to shoot rats and other mischief. The Park is a huge improvement and I personally like the flocks of geese.

This community was vibrant with the building of McCook Army Air Corps Base during WWII. So many locals converted garages and spare rooms to living quarters for the married GIs needing short-term living spaces. Big dances took place in the Auditorium about every week to help keep the GIs entertained.

This kid and little brother spent hours interacting with German Prisoners of War working in Dad’s beet fields and picking up potatoes. Now farming is all done with large machines. Soybeans, non-existent in my youth, and Corn are the main crops along with continuing wheat and milo. The fertilizer and farm chemical industry was almost non-existent in my FFA-educated youth yet are today a large part of our main economic driver our agricultural industry.

I never saw a deer in this area until a teenager and wild turkeys were also non-existent. I welcome both but keep a sharp lookout to avoid both when I drive.

The local morticians handled what little ambulance service existed. Rural fires were sometimes attended by the small Fire Department in McCook and now we are blessed with a Rural Fire Department and wonderfully trained emergency responders to attend our emergency medical needs.

Change happens whether we realize it or not. Our community is resilient and portends to have a wonderful dynamic future. Realize it or not we will continue to be blessed in life here in our real rural USofA no matter the changes.

That is how I saw it.

Dick Trail