Fisher

To a boy of eight on summer break from school, Third street in Fisher was as heady as the Las Vegas strip to a Midwestern tourist. Walking four blocks from the north end to downtown took you by places for adventures past and adventures planned.  Gerry and I made that walk as often as Aunt Gladys would let us go.  She must've known we were headed for mischief but she had spies posted along the way.

Right away we passed Mike and Mark's house.  They were near to our age but both had hemophilia, a word I learned to say but only knew it meant that they couldn't go on most adventures with us.  They had to stay close to home and mustn't get bruised - a very hard thing for a boy to avoid.  They could help us build army camps out of dirt and rocks for our plastic soldiers but we had to stay inside the sidewalk at the edge of the yard.  We used the oak tree as the center of the battlefield and worked our strategies with infantry and tanks for hours long battles that sometimes ended with rocks and dirt flying.

Another block and we passed Grandpa Whit's barn.  He wasn't our grandpa that was just what everyone called him.  Inside the huge swinging front doors was the hay wagon between the stalls where Henry and Hessie stayed.  I don't know what kind of horses they were but I could walk under their necks and they didn't even have to raise their heads.  Their hair was short except around their feet where it turned white and was longer.  Grandpa Whit's hair kind of looked like the fur around Henry's and Hessie's feet.  This barn and that hay wagon was the scene of many an adventure - at least until we riled Henry or Hessie and Grandpa Whit came to see what was causing the ruckus.  

Only a few strides further down Third, the railroad tracks marked the edge of downtown.  In the early mornings and late afternoons the polished tops of the rails were golden ribbons headed to the horizon.  There were three tracks and nearly every day there was a boxcar parked next to the Mercantile, a huge white painted brick building with a door in the wall that was as big as the sliding boxcar door.  On Saturdays, just after dark, all the boxcars were gone and most everyone in town sat on the other side of the tracks to watch the free movies.  The trains moved slow through town and the whistle shook the walls and windows when it blew.  A penny was valuable for what it could buy but at the first of summer we had each taken one and laid it on the track and stood way back.  After the engine and the whole grain train came by, we snatched it up as a good luck charm.  At the end of summer it rode in our pocket all the way home to Kansas City.

The first building on the right after the tracks was Daddy Means' Drugstore!  Here was the place that made us dream of delights - candy sticks, comic books, RC Colas and root beer floats.  Daddy was always there wearing his white coat and his little glasses perched low on the end of his nose.  He was behind a tall counter in a raised up part at the end of the store but could slide easily around behind the soda fountain.  There were eight round stools with red plastic tops screwed to the floor.  We jumped up on one and spun a circle until Daddy squinted and headed our way.  In Daddy Means' drugstore a kid’s dime was a fortune - he’d let it get you the latest Superman comic, an RC Cola plus a stick candy or bubble gum for your pocket to go.

But we were on a mission.  We carried a bag that we had to deliver to Aunt Max at the telephone company office.  After all, that's the only reason Aunt Gladys let us walk downtown by ourselves and had admonished us to be careful and remember our assignment.

We walked passed the barber shop and then the diner.  During these summers, Deke the barber would cut my hair.  I'd sit on the booster plank and he'd go to work on my flat top or buzz cut - it was mostly up to him what kind of haircut I got.  I just hoped for a haircut where I didn't need a couple of bandaids on the back of my neck but my hope was usually dashed.  Lots of folks ate in the diner and it was here (but not until the next year) where Uncle Bean took me behind the curtain into the back room.  The smoke hung low, below the hanging lights that were each suspended over a pool table.  In this very room, I learned to play pool, and a little poker too, with an admonition form Uncle John and Uncle Bean that no woman was ever to know of our stops in the back room.

The telephone company office.  Our southern most point on this day's downtown adventure.  Aunt Max sat in front of a huge board with plugs and wires and she wore earphones and had a speaking cone hung around her neck.  She'd say, "operator" or "central" and then would reach down and pull a wire and plug it into a hole in the board.  Sometimes she was really busy but at this moment she stood up and let us in behind the counter so we could sit at the board beside her.  We gave her the bag and she asked about the walk.  We had to tell about every step because we knew, that she knew, every move we'd made.  We're pretty sure that the telephone operator was really the Fisher spymaster and knew everything - even about the back room at the diner.

--td