Monkey Island

When we were kids growing up in Southeast Kansas, we thought Monkey Island at the Independence Zoo was the greatest! I was driving past it today and decided to stop and take a look.

I think the monkey castle was built as a WPA project. The stone house is surrounded by a moat to keep our poor little captive friends from escaping. When we were kids, there seemed to be a lot more monkeys. Maybe if I'd had peanuts, I might have seen a little more excitement. One little guy was doing repeated back flips today, but I couldn't catch him with the camera.

The moat surrounding the castle is filled with snapping turtles and swans. Here we have the Tortoise Lounge.

Snapping turtles.

And one of the beautiful swans! I guess the snapping turtles and swans are security for the bad boys -- the monkeys. : )

I Was Born by the River . . .

No, I wasn't born by the river in a tent. But I love the song and everything it represents now with the inauguration of Obama. I thought it would be great with some old Neosho River and Oswego, Kansas hometown pictures. The river was a big part of Oswego, Kansas lore.

Supposedly, the river helped protect Oswego from tornados because of the town's position on a bluff above the river. Supposedly, the town was named for a suicidal Indian with a Norwegian accent who yelled os' we go as he jumped from the high bluff into the river below (that tale came from my dad). Smirk smirk smirk. As a child, I believed the lore. We got our water from the river, ate catfish from the river, parked by the river, explored and hiked along the river -- you get the drift. And supposedly, Oswego was Catfish Capital of the World. Wish I had a $100 bill for every town with that designation.

Neosho River bridge.

Neosho River dam down below the town park.

Old town water plant.

The big building is the Oswego Hotel. I saw it listed for sale online recently. People keep trying to make it into something!

A town celebration back in the early 1900's.

The town bakery on Commercial. It was still there when I was a kid and they made the best creme horns and cookies. We used to hit the place after school. The downtown was fairly thriving up through the 1960's.

My grandmother in front of my grandfather's garage. He sold and repaired cars. He lost the business during the Depression.

Some Saturday Snaps

I'm at my mother's. She's old school and doesn't own a computer, so I'm blogging courtesy of the Palmer Family Network. Sounds like some old time family religious show! But thank you Mr. and Mrs. Palmer for being neighborly and not securing your wireless network. (And I hope you don't do your banking online!)

I snapped a few photos of some older homes in Larned, Kansas while we were there and used some photo editing gimmicks.

Craig says this old stone home was built in the same style as some of the old buildings at Fort Larned. So I assume it almost dates back to the same era.

This lovely old brick home has a lot of gingerbread! It originally belonged to the town banker, but I'm not sure who lives there now. I'd love a tour!

And this is the home where Craig grew up. It's really in bad shape now. The porch railings are missing and the paint's almost gone. Sad. But the house is OLD. It dates back to the late 1800's. I remember the beautiful original wide plank wood flooring, old kitchen cupboards, wrap around porch, etc.... We still have a copper lightning rod from the roof that we saved after the home was sold. I hope someone restores the old beauty someday!

Some Midwest Photos -- Hays, Kansas

Craig and I took a long lunch away from the hospital to look around downtown Hays. There were some surprises. Main Street has a lot of historic charm!

Saby or Statue?

Old Downtown Hays

Old Stone Church

This old stone house was on the backside of the block where the old stone church stands. It appears that the entire block was some type of church complex at one time. I think a stone sculptor occupies the house because the yard contains a lot of sculptures in stone like the one below.

More historic buildings in downtown Hays.

Could this be where my little elves got their training for those Christmas videos? :)

Downtown Antique Store

Some Memorabilia from Grandma's Attic

One of my favorite places to play as a child was in my grandparents' upstairs closet. My grandparents lived in a small white cottage in the little town of Oswego, Kansas. My grandfather was forced into retirement in his early fifties by a heart condition that wasn't treatable at that time. Nowadays, they'd insert some stents and he'd be good to go, but back then, the remedy was retiring to a less stressful life. So my grandparents lived their later years in that small house surviving on a small social security pension, never having accumulated much after the Great Depression. But that didn't concern me at all. My grandmother made the best banana and coconut creme pies in town and let me eat it for breakfast when I stayed overnight! I spent most of my childhood sick days collapsed on the sofa in their small living room playing word games and school with my grandmother, who was trained as a teacher at a normal school in the early 1900's. And sometimes when I just wanted to escape life's trials (like a dental appointment), I'd walk over to Grandma's and hide out there!

A narrow wooden stairway with an old tacked carpet runner led to the upstairs, where the old wide wooden plank floors were painted that dusty old-fashioned pink. The second floor was one huge room with three (shabby chic) beds in separate alcoves, an old Singer treadle sewing machine with antique buttons in the drawers, and a big antique mahogany dresser with one of those secret hidden compartments. The closet was a tiny cubbyhole under the sloped roof of the attic, and it held all sorts of interesting items to keep a child entertained. I particularly loved the old Easter decorations, which included this little tin Easter basket that was filled with old marbles we used on the wooden hand-carved Chinese checker board.

The closet also contained my grandfather's old collar box. I'd take it downstairs so my grandmother could explain the various keepsakes inside. People at the turn of the 20th century were obviously much more formal. Among her memorabilia were all of her calling cards from high school. I was lucky enough to inherit my grandfather's calling card (Lucius Bowman) enclosed in the envelope which he had mailed to my grandmother (Lois Reasor). Notice my grandfather's handwriting on the card on the lower left. Men don't write like that anymore! On the right is a small invitation card to a birthday dinner in honor of a guy named C.H. Farley.

Also in that collar box were these three oval photos on metal. The back of each metal photo contains a small mirror. The oval on the upper left is my Aunt Betty, and my father is the toddler on the right. My grandmother and her sister are on the lower middle oval. My grandmother, on the left of that oval, is the person I most take after in the family.

One of my treasured photos is this postcard made during a trip to Kentucky to see family in the early 1900's. I think that's my grandmother on the front lower left. Her father's family and relatives were from Kentucky.

Here's another favorite photo postcard from that collar box. My dad said it was taken on a family trip back to Pennsylvania to visit relatives in the 1930's, but I'm not sure that's right. I can't imagine driving back East in that car? But whoever the woman is in the front seat, it looks like she has a small monkey sitting on her hat!

My brother recently mailed me the picture below. It's some type of celebration in the downtown area of Oswego, Kansas. The sign in the picture says National Good Roads, October 21, but I can't see a year. I'm assuming it was early 1900's because people are sitting in horse-drawn buggies in the picture. It appears that Fourth Street is still dirt, so they must have been celebrating good dirt roads!

Here's a picture of my grandparents at my parents' wedding in the 1940's. They both lived into their eighties despite their health problems, my grandfather dying four years before my grandmother. I think they were probably in their late fifties when this photo was taken.

In honor of my grandmother, here's a little encore of the Joy Joy Joy Kittens. It was one of her favorite Vacation Bible School songs!

A Dog Tale

Since Life's a Beach, I have to post a beach picture of the day!

Caribbean Queen, Isla Mujeres

If you want a little tale of "My Dog Freckles", kind of a demented 'kids and dogs gone wild' version of "My Dog Skip", continue on down the page.

My Dog Freckles

When my brother and I were little, our mother hated dogs. Despite our begging and pleading, she refused to let us have a dog. Part of it could have to do with the fact that my brother had tried to see if cats could fly by dropping a neighborhood Tom from the roof of our one-story ranch, but I think it had more to do with the loss of her dog Fritzie when she was a child. My grandfather, an avid gardener throughout his life, had a huge vegetable/flower garden that covered a large portion of his side and backyard. Tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, rhubarb, potatoes, carrots, lettuce, beets -- you name it! As was common back then, he used dangerous chemicals to get rid of critters, fungus, and anything that threatened the food supply. It was the Depression! Anyway, my grandfather always took precautions to keep Fritzie away from the garden after he sprayed, but somehow the dog got loose, into the garden, and died a painful death from the poison. So I think my mother probably never wanted to have a pet again and go through the terrible pain she felt as a child.

My Mom and Her Dog Fritzie

Anyway, I was pre-K and don't remember the exact circumstances, but one day my brother just came home with a puppy. A black/white/black-white spotted short-haired pooch. Somehow he was allowed to keep it. I'm guessing my dad gave permission over the protests of my mom. My brother and I quickly named the puppy Freckles. We won the battle, BUT -- my mom never allowed the dog into her heart. AND -- it was rarely allowed into her house.

In other words, Freckles was an outdoor dog. Long story short -- Freckles turned into kind of a slightly domesticated version of a mean junkyard dog. Freckles viewed his territory as blocks in every direction and fought to defend it. He became the scourge of the neighborhood. Freckles learned to drag home almost anything he could get his mouth around. Newspapers, milk deliveries, neighbor's shoes, or anything else that had been left outdoors. The doorbell would ring and an angry neighbor would be standing on the front porch with the latest complaint about Freckles. My mom often tried to return Freckles' stash if she could figure out who was missing items, but most mornings Freckles left a collection of flotsam out by the back doorstep. The back stoop became the neighborhood lost and found. Tired of apologizing, my mom would snap Freckles to a staked chain in the backyard again. But never for very long, because my brother or I would set him free.

The war intensified between Freckles and my mom. To her horror, when she hosted her weekly bridge club at the house, one woman finally managed to get to the door and report that Freckles had taken charge of valet parking and with growling and gnashing of teeth, was refusing to let the 'ladies of the club' out of their cars on the driveway.

My brother and I, having bonded with Freckles, loved to see him have fun and wreak havoc. Every few days, a short little man who limped along with a cane would make the trek up Fourth Street to the IGA (a block up the street from our house). Freckles, chained to the stake, would run back and forth at the end of the leash letting the poor man, across the street on the sidewalk, know that he was definitely violating Freckles' home territory. My brother, being half-devil and wanting to support Freckles in his mischief, would unsnap Freckles from his tether and yell, "Heeere comes FRECKLES!" The man would begin hobbling at a partial run as fast as he could flee down the sidewalk away from our house. Usually my brother would call Freckles back before he got at the man.

My Brother and I -- Partners in Crime

Anyway, I'm guessing some of you can predict how this story is going to end. Freckles continued his neighborhood reign until he one day met his match -- a kid named Tom. His family was kind of Oswego's version of the Bumpuses (from the Christmas Story). They lived in a ramshackle old two-story falling-down house in the wrong end of town (if there actually WAS a wrong end of town in Oswego). The father was a house painter with a sloppy reputation, too many kids to feed, and his house, of course, did not have a smudge of paint on it. I'm sure they may have been perfectly nice people, but Tom, a year older than me, was one mean-ass grade school dude. He passed our house one afternoon after school when my brother was playing football in the backyard and Freckles was chained to his tether. I'm sure taunts were exchanged between Tom and the kids, and Tom picked up a brick and threw it at Freckles. Tom made a serious error in not being out of Freckles' range on the chain, and Freckles managed to get in a bite. I'm not sure if Freckles broke skin or not, but the end result was a large adult kefuffle with Tom's father threatening to sue if the dog was not put to sleep. So Freckles' short life was ended at the vet's. I remember crying for days at the loss of our partner in crime, and to this day, my brother still likes to mention the fact that his dog was murdered when he wants to get a rise out of my mom.

As a responsible adult now with a dog that I dearly love and treat as my Princess (Saby the Wonder Dog), I still feel a lot of guilt over the fate of Freckles and our childhood part in the whole episode. Freckles was the perfect example of a dog gone bad because of the ignorance of its owners, but he was our Freckles, if only for a short time.

P.S. I've hunted high and low this morning through all the black and whites in the house and cannot find the one picture I had of Freckles. I think I gave the picture to my brother several years ago on his birthday as a memento of childhood. Now I'm going to have to sift through all the family pictures when I'm home next time to see if I can find another. But until then, a close facsimile will have to do.