My View from 1958

(New Format, let me know if you like it)

Circa: 1968

My Favorite songs

• Sugar, Sugar by the Archies (believe it or not)
• Yummy Yummy Yummy” by the Ohio Express
• Hooked on a Feeling by B.J Thomas
• Secret Agent Man by Johnny Rivers
• Green Tambouring by the Lemon Pipers
• All songs by The Monkeys
• Hey Jude / Back in the USSR/Birthday/Revolution by the Beatles – My brother had the album. My brother and cousins all grooved to the Beatles so of course I did too.
• My Favorite Movies
• Planet of the Apes
• Blackbeard’s Ghost
• Inspector Clousea
• The Love Bug
• Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

 My Favorite TV Shows

• The Man from U.N.C.L.E
• The Monkeys
• The Banana Splits Adventure Hour
• Johnny Quest
• The Archies
• Gilligan’s Island
• Mod Squad
• Smothers Brothers
• The FBI (Note: I wrote the FBI a letter requesting information on how to become an agent and they sent me a very large packet of material to include history, training and what to expect on the job. My late Uncle Jerry was in the FBI for several years. As a World War II veteran, I always pictured him with a .38 Special revolver, a standard issue firearm for the agency, chasing gangsters in Chicago where he lived. That was not reality. I believe he had a degree in accounting and went after what we call today the White-Collar criminal. He was a very intelligent man so I am sure he was very successful with a pencil and calculator.)
• Glen Campbell Good time Hour
• Rowen and Martin’s Laugh-n
• The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour
• Adam-12.
• Batman

World Events that stick in my mind

• Tet Offensive in Vietnam/Vietnam War/My Lai Massacre
• US athletes protest at the Summer Olympics
• Civil Rights Riots
• Assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy

I was 10 years old in 1968. I grew up in Shenandoah, Iowa at 110 Southview Blvd where we lived until we moved to a small acreage in 1974.  Our house was right on the edge of town. A place called Sleepy Hollow was literally in my back yard when I grew up.  No, not the Ichabod Crain Sleepy Hollow, but the Henry Fields Seed and Nursery Flower Farm called Sleepy Hollow.  Below is a picture from an old postcard.  Remember, all you Blog Fans, Shenandoah used to be the seed and nursery center of the world. No kidding. For Shenandoah to be considered the “seed and nursery center of the world” meant that it became a major hub for the production and distribution of seeds and nursery stock, including trees, shrubs, and flowers. That was a big deal years ago, probably into the early 1980’s. Then along comes Walmart and other discount places to buy plants, trees and seeds. The demographics also changed as America moved from a large agricultural economy to manufacturing and then services. People just don’t garden like they used to, thus only one nursery (Earl May) survives today. As you can tell by the post card, Sleepy Hallow was a beautiful show garden for plants and flowers. There was even a small pond there. Johnson Run Creek formed the south side or south border of Sleepy Hollow. I am sure in those days is was a nice flowing little stream. Years later when I was a kid, it became a dumping ground for construction waste.

I have read people came from miles around to view the flowers at Sleepy Hollow and the Earl May Trial Gardens. Even as a kid I remember the Early May Gardens being popular and very well maintained. Each year they created an American Flag with petunias (see below). Large buses brought visitors to town. It was a big deal to include a parade, concerts, and sidewalk sales. I believe the town designated “Farm Industrial Days” as the official weekend of celebration. Those were good days.

The Sleepy Hollow Flower Farm was gone by the time I was born. The land became a small private farm. It was farmed by an elderly man by the name of Perry Tinnell. I estimate his farm covered about 40 acres. About half the farmland was used to grow corn while the other half was farm buildings, a pasture, pig pen and two run down houses. This small farm was directly behind our house. In fact, our back yard butted against the cornfield. Our yard (and the rest of the neighbors back yards), were separated from the farm by a barbed wire fence. There was also a small stand of elm trees surrounded by tall prairie grass. Grandpa Vermillion gave us some old boards from his shed, and we built a tree house in this “forest”. It was nothing fancy for sure. We called the boards he gave us “piano wood” because as we drove nails, it would make a sound like a high-pitched piano chord. With every hit of the hammer the pitch would get higher. We ended up driving hundreds of nails into the wood because we loved the sound.

The corn field provided a jungle to play in. We played hide and seek, built forts, used the corn for cover as we took pot shots at Perry Tinnell’s sheds. We loved to run through the corn with the leaves smacking our faces. In our forts we smoked corn silks and chewed on raw corn kernels right off the cob. The corn field also provided a good hiding place when mom wanted to kick my ass for something stupid I did. After the corn was harvested, Perry would let his hogs into the field to eat the dropped ears of corn. The hogs would also come right up to the fence in the back yard, and we would feed them grass and weeds. I loved the sound of them chomping as they ground the grass into bits.

Johnson Run Creek was a constant source of entertainment for me and my friends. My closest friend at that time was Tim Bartails. He moved away before our teens but we were two peas in a pod for several years. We loved to play army, pioneers and cops. We even created a newspaper for a few weeks of mostly gossip and lies but we managed to sell a few copies. Summer days were spent building dams, chasing frogs, trying to capture minnow or, better yet, shooting minnows with our BB guns.  We built huge dams as there was plenty of cement waste from highway projects and the repair of the pool.

The BB gun was the greatest invention in the world. I had a Daisy single pump. I remember begging my mom to take me to the Western Auto Store and buy me one.  Her constant response was “you will shoot your eye out”, and she was probably right, but she finally relented, and I was the proud owner of a BB gun. Tim also had one so we were ready for battle.

 We loved to shoot targets but when that got boring, we went after bigger game like frogs, rabbits and birds.  I only hit a bird once and I killed it. I walked up to the fallen prey, and watched it struggle for life. I felt terrible. I never shot a bird after that. Funny how things like that stick with you.

The creek was so popular with us that we made up a myth as to why it was called Johnson Run. It went something like this. The Johnson family lived on a farm East of Shenandoah. In the 1800’s this family was attacked by Indians and chased down the creek in the direction of town. The Johnsons ran for miles to escape the bloody horde. The entire family, of course, was caught and massacred, and that is how the creek got its name of Johnson Run, or at least we believed it had historical merit.

As time went on, we got bored and needed more adventure. We needed to accomplish two goals. First, we wanted to find the water source of Johnson Run Creek. Much like Lewis and Clark searching for the source of the Missouri River, we needed to find the head waters of Johnson Run. Second, we wanted to go big gaming hunting and there was no bigger game than Perry Tinnell’s pigs.

Part 2 Next Time