But, how do you know where you live?
May, 1997
So, if you live in a small community with no street signs or house numbers,
how do you know where you live? Simple ... three doors east of the post office;
on the comer across from Grandma Schoessler or just down the street from the
"old artesian well" or whatever.
But, how do the emergency vehicles find you? This is simple, too ... hopefully,
someone on the the emergency staff will know the answer and lead you there. We
have all been here forever and everyone knows everyone. We
don't need street names and house numbers. Right?
When I worked on the 1990 census and counted the Reliance community, I marked
little exes on the blocks where the houses sat and wrote the name of the
homeowner down on the designated lines. But, I also learned the names of the
streets in Reliance. I guess I haven't been back over to see if the signs or
house numbers are up. I'll have to
check that out.
Everyone just knew where the churches (Catholic, Methodist and Lutheran), Hank's
Market, Hickey Hotel, the town tavern, the bank and the school were. The Conoco
Cafe and Swanson's Conoco station sat along highway 16 in the southwest comer of
town. Way up on the northwest comer was the Farmer's Union and Grandma Black's
house and way out on the southeast comer of town stood Jobe Marsden's White Owl
gas station. Inside this station
was peanut vending machine that had the best peanuts on earth in it. Did a turn
of the crank cost a penny or a nickel? 1 forget.
As I'm writing these names down I'm doing a word association thing in my head.
Did you? Here are mine: Catholic church-Black and white-gowned Sisters and
Sister School; Methodist Church- Rev. Bonney and Vacation Bible
School; Hank's Market- Pepsi and peanuts after school and plain
brown-paper-wrapped boxes from under the counter, and Eldalaine; Hickey's Hotel-
Special friend Ivah Hickey, and cleaning rooms in exchange for a bath in a
bathroom with wonderful running water; Town tavern- Juanita Karasek keeping me
occupied at a card table in the back of the tavern (babysitting me) and the
smell of the barber shop in the back room; Farmers State Bank- Its overpowering
feeling of security and strict business atmosphere with Mr. Gaede, the banker,
and Harvey McNeill,
whatever the connection is; Conoco Cafe- The woman I worked for when I was 12 (I
think it was Mrs. Herron,) and ice cream cones; Farmer's Union Co-op- The little
station kitty-corner from Grandma's house; Marsdens White Owl- The gas pumps you
could see the gas going through, the peanuts and Jobe and Violet, wonderful
people.
So, now that I'm on a roll, I wouldn't dare leave out Uncle Ray Stallman's
Standard station. This nasty, dirty station was my safe harbor on many an
occasion. I had wonderful friends there: France Cullen and Lyle McManus come
to mind, along with several others. It was there I was taught to play "Penny
Ante" and was the luckiest kid in town. I ALWAYS won! Weren't they nice? Then my
Uncle Lawrence Nanneman came to town and it was at the station
that I was taught to spell Mississippi frontward and backward, but I had to hold
my eyes wide open at the same time. They would say "wider" and I'd end up
standing on my tiptoes trying to get them to open wider! It was always good for
a few nickels. Em I crooked letter, crooked letter, I; crooked letter,
crooked letter, I; hump back, hump back, I. Yes, I can still do it., but with
inflation and all, I should probably get a couple of bucks. Maybe I'll work on
improving this and develop a means of picking up a few dollars after I retire.
Just west of the station was Grandma Schoessler's house and the beautiful flower
garden she would walk us
through; the locust trees with the big brown pods and those darned thorns, but
inside her house was her aquarium with her pet turtle one could watch for hours.
Speaking of which, we picked one up off the road the other night for
Taylor to experience, and will set it free in a week or so.
The lumberyard was a wonderful place to play on hot days. It was always so cool
in there and playing around way up on top was so exciting and scary ... what if
you fell!!? And the smell of sawdust ... almost better than the smells of the
meadow! I expect children still climb those stairs and run the length of the
building. If not, they should be. I
expect the insurance man has stopped most of that.
But, what does this have to do with house numbers? Beats me. The mind is
somewhat like the Internet in that you can start at point A, going to point B,
but going through 47 other points before you can get to B and if you're like me,
you finally just give up on point B and shut the computer down.
In the immortal words of Paul Harvey, tune in next week for the rest of the house numbering story.