Small Town, U.S.A.

Neon Sign in Abilene, Kansas
2020 original watercolor by
Gregory E. Larson

Small Town, U.S.A

memoir by

Gregory E. Larson

          The watercolor above is a sign in downtown Abilene, Kansas. To me, it exudes the late 1950s and early 1960s feeling of small towns in the Midwest.

          Thriving small-town U.S.A did exist at one time. I remember it. Maybe you remember it, too. For a small boy in the late ’50s it was a part of the idyllic summer week spent each year with my grandparents in Emporia, Kansas. After a long two-hour drive from the suburbs of Wichita, we would finally make the turn onto Garfield Avenue. My grandparents would take me downtown when they did errands, but I also spent a lot of time to myself, exploring the house, yard, and neighborhood. The time went by quickly while I was there. 
          As I painted the watercolor, the memories of times spent in Emporia returned . . .

          It was one of those summer days when the heat comes on quickly. The ceiling fans in the large Ben Franklin store in downtown Emporia were circulating what little cool air was left in the building. I grabbed the tiny race car from the bin and held it up for inspection. It had real rubber tires that were smooth as silk. It would be perfect for playing on the porch railing at Granddad and Grandma’s house on the tree-lined street. Granddad offered to buy it for me since the twenty-five cents was out of my price range. I had to use my money sparingly if I wanted to go to the Dairy Queen each afternoon for a nickel cone. On another trip to the same store, Grandad bought me an old wooden top the size of a yo-yo. He taught me how to wind up the cord and release the top with a snap of the wrist to watch it spin on the concrete pavement.

          The scariest memory of downtown was when Mom said, “We need to go to Doc James and have him look at your teeth. Being just five years old at the time, I had never ventured inside a dentist’s office. I was a bit suspect of making the visit, since I didn’t like the doctor’s offices in Wichita, A trip there usually meant that I got some type of shot.

          Doc James’ office was on the second floor of the building at the main intersection downtown. There was a big long stairway to climb and the hallway and dentist office seemed dark to me. We entered the office and they guided me to the inner sanctum where I had to climb up into a big chair that looked like the ones in the barber shops. Immediately I started looking at the drill which was run by some big-arm contraption with cords on it. Doc took some picky-looking tools from the porcelain tray and had me open my mouth. After poking around and saying, “Uh-huh,” a few times he turned to my mom and said, “Your boy has a small cavity in one of his molars. It is so tiny that I can give him a filling without using Novocain.”

          I started feeling clammy all over. Oh no! He’s going to start that drill contraption. This could be serious.

          It didn’t turn out so bad. The sounds scared me more than anything. I didn’t like his big fingers in my mouth and there was some nasty-tasting stuff he spread on my gums to numb them.

          I just hoped Mom wouldn’t stop me from getting ice-cream cones and eating all the Life-saver candy that Granddad gave me when we went fishing.

          I thought life was pretty good when I visited my grandparents in Emporia. It was a fun neighborhood to explore. They lived just one block away from the busiest highway through town, which was on Sixth Street. When I walked down the sidewalk with my brothers or cousins, we’d pass a hair salon, liquor store, root-beer stand, and a mom-and-pop grocery store. The next block towards town had a Cities Service filling station that was owned by my grandparent’s neighbor, Mr. Feltner.

          Trips to the filling station were top-notch. I thrilled at watching the cars being raised on the lifts where the workmen pried off hubcaps and used the lug wrenches to remove the wheels. It was a guy’s kind of place where the smell of grease, oil, and gasoline mixed with the rubber tires and brake dust – just the thing to make an impression on a small boy. I always wanted to quench my thirst with a bottle of pop from the big machine, but that rarely happened. My grandparents were thrifty folks. Sometimes before we went fishing, we’d buy minnows at the gas station. They were in a tank where Mr. Feltner would scoop them out with a a small net and put them in our minnow bucket. We didn’t buy worms at the gas station. That was too extravagant. Grandad would turn over a couple of shovels of topsoil in the lower back yard and let us pick them out and place them in coffee can full of dirt.

          The fishing trips to the lakes and creeks in the Flint Hills lasted the better part of a day with a picnic lunch included. Granddad always tried to find the spots where the crappie were thick. I’d throw out the line and watch the worm and the bobber plop into the water. Many times the fish would immediately begin tugging on the worm. Those were excellent places to learn how to set a hook on a fish. Otherwise, I’d have to reel in the line and the hook would be picked clean.

          The size of Emporia was perfect. Everything was within a five-minute drive. No suburbs existed there in the ’50s. The small towns were much different than my existence in the new part of Wichita where the neighborhoods had scant grass, tiny trees, and long, thirty-minute rides in the car just to get downtown.

           I loved the old neighborhoods in Emporia with the big elms and other assorted climbing trees. I thought I was in heaven when I ran barefoot in the shade through the thick bluegrass.

          At noon every day the steam whistle sounded in the Santa Fe train yard. I knew it was time to go inside where Grandma would fix me a peanut butter sandwich and put it on the colorful Fiesta-ware plate. 
          One summer, my grandparents took me to the downtown theater to see the Disney movie Pollyanna. I was fascinated with the children in the movie, and while watching it I realized I was having as much or more fun during the time at my grandparents than the kids were having in the movie. I remember Grandma laughed and laughed when the movie showed an old lady playing the drums in the band at the church bazaar.

          Fridays were a bit sad at the end of the week when my mom came to get me. It was good to see Mom, but I always made sure I took one more trip to the Dairy Queen in the early afternoon before she arrived. I’d splurge and spend a dime to get the cone dipped into the butterscotch. I’d hurry as fast as I could without endangering the cone, running to the back yard of my grandparents where I climbed to my favorite spot in the red-bud tree, savoring the melting cone during the last minutes of the summertime vacation away from the big city.

          Yes, that was when small-town U.S.A. was heaven on earth, as far as I was concerned.