Van Horn and Other Friends - Sophmore Year

Tenth grade started early for me because that year I went to summer football practice.  It was three weeks of "getting in shape" and learning the plays and practice skill necessary to have a successful winning season. Which we did not.  It was terribly hot and not much fun but some how I survived and made the varsity along with two other guys.  Tim Bly and Tom Koehly.   The first game was against Chrisman and as luck would have it I picked up a fumble and ran for what I told everyone was 40 yards, but I think it was more like 10 in actuality.  However my varsity career didn't last long and eventually I was sent back to the B-Team or junior varsity.  Tim and Tom stayed put.  Coach Wally Crawford was the junior varsity coach and a good one.  He taught me a lot that year and cut me little slack.  It was a very good coaching decision and let me get a lot more playing time so as to hone what little skill I really had.  One coach told me that I had no real innate ability but I didn't mind getting knocked down.  For some reason I always felt that was great compliment.

I have no recollection of my classes that year except English with Mr. Simonie.  I don't remember much of what he taught but remember him explaining what was going on in Julius Caesar and Tale of Two Cities.  I have liked literature ever since.  Mr. Simonie was a real neat guy I thought and was the example of the type of a teacher I wanted to be after hearing a college professor tell me once that "sometimes the subject matter is the least important thing you teach in a classroom."  Mr. Simonie's teaching and my student tenure would cross several times over the next few years.

Jan Allison was my first real girl friend.  We were introduced by Fritz Siple and Connie Dewey.  Jan and I would be an on again off again item till we left for college three years later.  Our dates consisted of parties that some of the kids would have and attending the sporting events by taking the school buses that were always provided.  We would leave at half time and be the first ones on the buss and pass the time away doing what boy friend and girl friend did back then.

I did go out for the swimming team again, made it, lettered, and took 5th in the all city swim event and our relay team took 2nd.

I don't recall much else about that year except I made a bunch of new friends because the kids from around the Blue Ridge area from Pitcher School were sent to Van Horn instead of East and Northeast that year.  That included Jan and a host of others.  Many are still friends to this day.

Van Horn and Other Friends - Freshman Year

Between my 8th and 9th grade year I must not have grown very much.  While walking the now familiar path to Van Horn I realized that I had on the same outfit I had worn the first day of school the previous year.

My Freshman year stands out only a little more than the one that had preceded it.  There were a lot of "firsts" however and some of those set the stage for developments that would follow me through my high school career and make it an enjoyable experience.

I went out football late that year.  I didn't know that there were tryouts before school started so when I was informed by one of my classmates that there was a Freshman football team I decided to give it a try.  I didn't know much about the game but talked my way on the team.  On a Monday I received my helmet and pads and on Wednesday we played Paseo's Freshman.  The coach looked around frantically grabbed me by the arm and told me to get in for the right tackle.  I had no idea what he meant or what I was supposed to do.  I looked puzzled.  "Just get in there and get the guy who has the ball!"  Luckily we were on defense or I would have jumped on the back of our own quarter back.  One of the guys on the team told me to stand where the right tackle was supposed to stand and when everyone started running around I did too and jumped on the guy with a different colored jersey making him fumble and I some how landed on the ball.  The coach was very impressed.  My reputation was made because of my good luck.  We lost the game however.

I met two girls that year, one named Susan the other Carol.  Not much developed from that.  In fact I am not sure we even had a real date.

They were starting a swim team that year so I went out for that.  I did pretty good.  I was the only one on the team that could do the butterfly with any degree of speed so I was put on the Medley Relay team swimming the butterfly leg.  I also did the Individual Medley but never won the race because I could not seem to master the breast stroke and always fell behind and could not catch up on the freestyle portion.  But I did manage to usually come in second or third.  I did well enough to earn a varsity letter that year.  I was one of the few Freshman qualified to walk around in a letter jacket.

My academics classes are a mystery to me overall.  But I do remember having Mr. Browder for Biology and Mrs White for Citizenship.

My circle of friends were growing and even though I still maintained contact with my old friends, unless they lived in my neighborhood, they seemed to drift away one by one, some never to be heard from again.  But just as some drifted away some new ones drifted towards and many would play a prominent role in the rest of my time at Van Horn and there is at least one guy I made friends with that year that is still one my best buds.

Van Horn and Other Friends - 8th Grade

At the start of the school year in 1960 I put on my best pair of pants, matching short sleeve shirt and headed off walking to what up till then would be the greatest adventure of my life - High School.

It was over a mile away but walking to school back then was no big deal.  I encountered a couple of friends along the way and the closer we got the more our little contingent grew.

I don't remember what we talked about and don't recall how I ended up in my first class.  I do remember the class was called Common Learning's and the teacher was Mr. Fridel, the first man teacher I had ever had other than the weekly visit from Mr. Green the PE teacher at Mt Washington Elementary School.  (as an aside years later I would be a co teacher with Mr. Green in Sedalia, Missouri.)

Common Learning's was a two and half hour class.  The first hour was devoted to history, the second to English, and the last half hour was our study hall.  After study hall came lunch that cost thirty-five cents.

After lunch I went to gym, art, and then ended the day in a math class that was just basic arithmetic.

How I managed to go from a one room, one teacher elementary school to a high school of close to 2000 kids without any feeling of trepidation or concern I am not real sure.  But as most things I have encountered, venturing into the unknown has always come easy.

I cannot remember any of my class mates that year but I do remember thinking that it was odd that none of my friends from Mt Washington were among them.

In the 8th grade there were no sport teams to join and to the best of my memory I attended no football, basketball, or any other athletic events that year.

I do remember there being a sport assembly right after football season where the coach introduced the team members and apologised to the student body that the team had not won a game that year.

There is not much point to this muse because the events of that year all seem vague.  For some reason I did not buy a year book so I have nothing to look at to help jog my memory.

The only real thing that sticks out is that towards the last of school they had a Senior Assembly where many of the older students showed off what talents they had.  I was much impressed.  I turned to the girl sitting next to me and told her "that will be us in five years."

Five years later I was sitting  by the same girl, Karen, and I remembered saying what I had said to her five years earlier.  I then wondered out loud  how had time gone by so quickly.

Wild Things

Wild Things

The greatest part of my childhood was spent living next to a four acre lake in an unincorporated area near Independence, Missouri. There I was first exposed to wild things that became just as natural to me as the other twenty or so kids that shared my idyllic up bringing. Nothing was unusual about how or where we lived according to us.

Even when I was much older and the army allowed me to go on camping trips to Germany, Italy, and Panama, living and communing with the great out doors, nothing seemed that special, I had done it all before.

When I moved to the Alaskan tundra and lived in Eskimo villages next to the Bering Sea, along the banks of the Yukon, and seventy mile north of the Arctic Circle, all seemed normal enough.

I have seen almost all the wild animals in their natural habitat Alaska has to offer, minus a Polar Bear, encountered enough wild things in the jungles of Panama to realize that is where they need to stay, and knew almost on a first name basis all the animals that called my four acre lake theirs.

The odd, some might say sad, thing is that I never really was impressed by any of it. Hiking and camping was just a hazarded of the military trade and uncaged animals were just things to be avoided.

However now on the front side of retirement I am beginning to develop an appreciation of our four legged and legless friends, albeit it some what grudgingly perhaps.

Part of the year now I live in a gated community that butts up to the desert. I am not sure if the fence and gate are to keep the wild things from wondering in or keep the old people from wondering out. I don’t know if I have just never noticed before or if there is something going on in the far horizon, but animals seem to be popping up all over the place and they don’t seem to want to leave me alone with my nightly Rey Del Mundo and Grand Marnier.

There is a rattle snake that insists on sharing my cactus garden, a desert frog that leaps across my patio each night followed by another sort of long black looking snake that I have yet been able to identify. Seldom seen, except by me it appears, is a desert lynx that sits very close to the fence with a frequency that makes me some what uneasy. He just sort of glares at me. When he isn’t around a road runner comes scampering down my side of the fence followed by a coyote on the other. Of course there is the extended family of creeping looking lizards that have taken up domicile under my shed and meander all over the place day or night. I have begun to find them all amusing, entertaining, and interesting.

As the early evening fades I know longer see my little wild things but I know they are there. The fence vibrates now and then, I hear the pounding paws along the trail on the desert side of the wash, something going through the brush, and all sorts of bumps in the night. I enjoy them immensely and it becomes a soothing event each night.

However every few nights I hear a faint rattle, a thump - like flesh hitting flesh, and a quickly muted squeal coming from the direction of my cactus garden. I then down my Grand Marnier extinguish my Rey Del Mundo and retreat to the inner sanctum of my permently attached mobile home. The wild things are lurking about.

Sedalia Spiels - Jim the Wonder Dog

In 1925 Louisiana a champion bird hunting Llewellyn English Setter had a litter of puppies.  One was reportedly so ugly that it had to be given away.  The recipient was Mr. Sam VanArsdale a hotel owner and operator in Marshal, Missouri a few miles north of Sedalia.  He named the puppy Jim.

Like many ugly ducklings, Jim grew into a fine looking animal but with two qualifiers.  One was that Jim's eyes were unusual for a dog.  Most who saw him said they looked almost human.  The second oddity was that Jim was psychic.

When Jim was old enough Sam enrolled him in a training school for bird dogs but Jim refused to cooperate and flunked out.  Sam, having already grown found of Jim would take him on walks in the near by woods.  Once Sam took his gun to hunt quail and took Jim along for company.  Jim realized what Sam was after and took him immediately to a bevy of quail, and then another, and another until Sam was worn out.  Sam thought Jim had a natural ability and was very proud of him.  He told Jim that they ought to go rest awhile under "that hickory tree yonder."  Jim lead the way.  Sam thought that was sort of amusing and no real feat to accidentally find a hickory tree in mid Missouri.  Just for fun Sam told Jim to find an elm tree, he did.  Then he suggested to Jim to go to an oak tree, he did, walnut tree, he did, an ash and so on and so on.  Jim never once made a mistake.




Sam rushed home and made his wife come out to the woods and had Jim repeat the performance.  Sam felt something was up.

Sam started asking Jim to do other things around the Ruff Hotel and Jim's legend grew and people would come from miles around just to watch Jim do things like locate cars in the parking lot by color, make, model and even license plate.  The "tricks" began to get more complicated and eventually a way was figured out how Jim could select the sex of unborn babies, identify certain people in a crowd, and pick horse race winners at the Stare Fair.

Ripley's Believe It Or Not picked up on Jim's unique ability which lead to the University of Missouri School of Veterinary Medicine to run tests on Jim.  They found nothing particularly physically different with Jim but did discover that Jim could follow detailed commands not only when spoken to but when put in writing.  Even instructions written in foreign languages. 

Jim was written about in various dog and hunting magazines.  He even appeared once on the cover of Life.

It wasn't very long until Sam was offered a contract of $100,000 from a Hollywood movie studio to feature Jim as a wonder dog as to compete with the studios turning out pictures about Lassie and Rin Tin Tin.  Sam turned down all offers of money that he felt would exploit Jim's abilities because he said he did not "think it right to financially benefit from Jim's God given talent." 

Jim died in 1937 and was buried at the corner of the Ridge Park Cemetery in Marshall.

My grandfather had lived in Sedalia as a young man and use to tell me stories about Jim.  I did not give the stories much credence because grandpa had been known to fabricate a little. However when I moved to Sedalia years later I was chatting with some of the older school teachers and the subject of Jim came up.  They immediately said that my grandpa's stories about Jim were true and they even added a few of their own.

I never really met anyone who actually saw Jim or witnessed any of his "tricks" but they all new someone who had.

In 1999 a memorial park was established for Jim the Wonder Dog at his grave in Marshall.  It is the most visited tourist site in all of town.           

Family Secrets - With a happy ending

Family Secrets – With a happy ending

One day while in Arizona I went to the mail box and found a letter addressed to me but with my mother’s address. I opened it and it was from this lady who said she was trying to solve a puzzle. She asked me several questions about events that had happened many years ago and if any of those events sounded familiar. At first I was not real certain what she was asking. She did say she was not a stalker or wanted a kidney, in fact the letter was quite entertaining and funny in most respects, but the tenor of the letter was serious. She asked if I would write or call her and help her figure out the answers to some questions she had.

I let my mother read the letter and she picked up on it right away. She said for me to throw the letter away. I said I needed to think about this for awhile. My mind ran the gambit of what the letter was really asking and if the person writing this letter was legitimately wanting to know a certain fact or two or trying to set me up for something far more sinister . I asked a close friend of mine to do some internet stalking to see what he could find. His results found that indeed she was a real person, lived where she said she lived, and her bio seemed to be non threatening. She had suggested that perhaps I was her biological father but without coming right out and saying it.

Some well meaning friends told me not to contact her and others said for me to contact a lawyer before I did anything. I ignored both sets of advice. I figured that if I was or was not her bio father she had a right to know, and so did I. I called her.

We chatted on the phone for awhile, really for more than a while and we both sort of figured out that I was probably who she thought I was. I will never forget what she said, “I have wondered what this day would be like for over 20 years” I asked her if it was what she thought it would be. She told me it exceeded her wildest expectations. I was elated for reasons that might seem odd.

However, there were still some mysteries remaining. I was not sure of the circumstance of her birth. I was not sure who her biological mother was or even could have been. I am ashamed to say that I could not remember anything happening or that I thought might have happened to cause this with anyone particular girl, but on contemplating the situation I narrowed in down to three possibilities.

She sent me a copy of some information that she had been able to collect over the years, with some pictures of her biological mother, half sister, and herself. After reading the contents I figured out who the bio mother was from my past and the interlude that ended up causing the recent enlightenment. Those circumstance are not really important. Let’s just say that it was 1968, One Block West was the place to go and meet girls, and one could go and have a great time for a week or two without regards to consequences, or so we thought back then.

I had no idea that the girl I met and hung around with for a week or two got pregnant. No one informed me, no one even suggested that such a thing had taken place. I even new her sisters in college, but they never uttered a word.

Her folks would have none of it. They sent her to a home that unwed mothers went to in those days and she was forced, so to speak, to give up the baby girl. It had to be heart wrenching for her. I have known several young ladies, some very close friends that had similar situations happen to them and some who took more drastic actions, and they all say you never quite get over it and never forget it and wonder how the child’s life turned out or might have.

Well in my bio daughters case it turned out well. She was raised by a mother and father who loved her and she loved them, was a cheer leader in high school in a small town, she went to college on a scholarship, and now has a successful career helping others. She has three children of her own, a nice husband and 4 step children and a recent grand baby.  Believe me if I had been involved in her early life when I was young and more stupid then I am now, her life would not have turned out so well.

She has met my other children and we even took a “family” type of picture. When I am asked how many children I have I always say 5 and seldom have to go into the entire story of where the 5^th one is. In fact I am just as proud of her as my other children and sort of relish relating the story about her doggedness of searching for me for over 20 years.

I realize that I am not her father, he is the one who set up with her and nights and guided her into adulthood. She calls me Conley and that is how it should be. She met my mother, who seemed just as thrilled as me to have her presence known and mom gave her a family heirloom. I have informed her of what her McAnally roots were and I told her I would be as little or as much a part of her life as she wished me to be. I told her I had no right to expect anything from her. We keep in contact via  phone, facebook, and email.  She lives in western Kansas but I manage to go by and see her a couple of times a year.  
 

Family Secrets - The Wreck

Family Secrets - The Wreck

Mom and Dad had been dating for less than a year. It was drizzling rain when he picked her up from her home in Kansas City, Kansas and they went to a dance at William Chrisman High School. After the dance they decided to stop by a local drive-in and take the long way back to her house. While at the drive-in Dad and another guy got into an argument as to who had the fastest car. There was no drag strip in those days for the argument to be settled but there was always Kentucky Road just outside of Sugar Creek where such matters were easily delt with.

The two cars met at the appropriate place. A crowd had gathered and one of the two antagonist’s mutual friends gave the signal for the race to begin.

Dad did not win the race due to the fact that he hit a slick spot on the road, turned the car in a one eighty and went over an embankment. He was thrown against the steering wheel, bruised his chest and suffered some minor lacerations. Mom’s head went through the windshield.

By the time the on lookers got to the site, blood was every where, mostly Mom’s. One of the guys said they needed to take mom to the hospital immediately and there was a momentary hesitation as to whose car she should go in. “She’ll get blood all over my car,” one guy reportedly said. One of the larger of the group took charge and put mom in the closest car and sort of dared anyone to complain.

They arrived at the hospital where dad’s parents were called and he was immediately treated for his injuries. Mom’s mother was called but mom’s stepfather was hard of hearing and did not understand that they were supposed to come to the hospital and give permission for the doctors to treat mom since she was under age.

Dad’s mom and dad waited and waited, mom was kept from bleeding to death by basic first aid but no procedures were given to help her further. My grandmother decided she would sign the papers to commence doing whatever was needed to be done when finally Mom’s mom showed up, having realized what had happened via a second phone call that she answered.

Mom had a minor concussion and a slashed cheek. It took several hours to sew her up. She asked the doctor later how many stitches she received and the doctor told her, “Honey I stopped counting at 350.”

Mom had a terrible scar for the rest of her life. I never noticed anything out of the ordinary though because it was just part of the only her I had ever known. The scar is still visible if you know where to look, but wrinkles and sagging facial muscles has made it all but disappear.