Iola High’s commencement Sunday means carefree days of summer aren’t far off — provided you’re young or old enough to be retired.
Summer was a time when my buddies and I were free to do what we wanted from sunup and to sundown, sometimes later. That is until I became a teenager and hay fields or part-time jobs intervened. That pushed our kick-back time to a little later in the evening and sometimes didn’t adjourn until the wee hours of the morning, after holding court on old wood-and-iron benches scattered about Humboldt’s town square.
Garvey’s Drug Store was a good place for a phosphate or Coke, until it closed long before the witching hour. Then, if thirst grabbed us by the throat, we’d ease up to a filling station — there were several — and either flip in a coin or find a way to trick the machine.
I don’t know how we filled so many hours with late-night conversations, although I’m sure many had to do with girls. That was before any of us dated with any regularity, mainly because we weren’t old enough to drive.
A driver’s license changes your social life, although there were times — many of them — when we gathered as we did before and took off in one direction of another, usually with no destination in mind.
In the 1950s there were no convenience stores and most places closed before too late, as well as on Sundays.
A grill on South Ninth Street stayed open all night for a time. The hamburgers, occasionally spiced by the ashes from a cigarette the cook had dangling from his mouth, were cheap, swimming in grease and mighty good. Add an order of fries and we were fueled for a few more hours.
Dan Harwood had a Jeepster, with a rear seat open to bugs the wind dashed against your face. We’d take off on a journey to an S-curve east of town to see just how fast we could get around it. Luckily we never had a mishap. That was before seatbelts — we probably wouldn’t have worn them anyhow.
After church one Sunday evening, wife Beverly, Janice Pollman, Sherry Wright and I took a spin outside of town. Beverly was helping me drive — the reason she was sitting so close, of course — as we crossed an old bridge in Granddad Oliphant’s ’51 Plymouth that drove like a boat in high seas. The car slid on loose gravel — I had to have an excuse — and partially slipped off the span.
A call and a few minutes later Kenny Johnson, who ran the Texaco, arrived with his little tow truck and yanked us back on the road. The car wasn’t damaged, which saved my hide.
Most of what I did as a kid shouldn’t be a recipe for today, but it sure was fun.
