Music Mecca of Southeastern Kansas

Coffeyville’s Memorial Building once played host to some of biggest name in the music industry. That may be a surprise to many that only knew Coffeyville Memorial Hall as the place where the Red Ravens and the Pirates played basketball, but it was much more than a mere sports palace, much more.

Musical Heritage

I once saw a group called the fabulous Flippers play there and stood on the front steps in the dark with Janie Page, but that's another story. Along with my brother Fuzz and the late Ben Young, we appeared there as musicians, but even before that I remember a time that held magic for me and thousands of African Americans from the four-state area.

Before I ever saw a basketball game at Coffeyville's Memorial Building, I saw a classical piano concert; I saw the Ernie Fields orchestra, a big band that my brother and I would later perform with; and, I attended a talent contest there and met the late Pete “Peaches”Williams, one of the greatest guitar players Kansas ever produced.

Born Anthony Williams, Peaches was a prodigy. The first time I saw him was at a talent contest held at the Coffeyville Memorial Building. He performed by himself, playing a crimson Gretsch Firebird guitar and singing Buddy Holley's "Not Fade Away." I was mesmerized as was most of the crowd. It was exciting and the beginning of a long friendship. I also met his sister Diane, but, again, that is another story.

Star Time

The real story of Coffeyville's Memorial Building for me came from it often being the venue for famous black musicians and singers thanks to the efforts of promoter extraordinaire, Ted Blake. Although my parents forbid me going there by myself, I went anyway with my older brother Fuzz. Once, my father took me there to see Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson, someone I should have known little about, but thanks to my father's music collection, I knew most of his songs. Appearing on the same bill was Louis Jordan who was another of my favorites, but far removed from time.

Slippin' Into Darkness

The first performer I saw there without my father’s sanction was the legendary Bo Diddley with his square guitar. Wearing horn-rimmed glasses and playing his modified Gretsch Firebird guitars, Bo Diddley was a sight to see. He played through a Magnavox amplifier that was more than 6 feet long. It was amazing. Appearing with Bo Diddley was Laverne Baker and Clyde McPhatter, the former lead singer with the Drifters. McPhatter had hit records such as “Lover Please” and “A Lover’s Question.”

The Drifters also performed there, but I couldn’t slip away to see them. I think my father had his spies working overtime. Love songs had never been a favorite, but for some reason as a teenager I started to like them and the Drifters had one of my favorites with “This Magic Moment,” sung by group member Ben E. King. King would later have a solo career with a hit some may remember, “Stand by Me.”

The next time I managed to get to Coffeyville, Hank Ballard and the Midnighters were the main attraction, the Five Royales were with them and a group called the Famous Flames featuring some joker named James Brown. Hank Ballard and the Midnighters tore the house down, but that James Brown cat put on a hell of a show too.

Later, a song called “Try Me” hit the slow dance scene. The group performing the popular single was James Brown and the Famous Flames. Little did we know then that we had seen one of the greatest performers of all time.

Bobby"Blue" Bland came to Coffeyville with his ultra tight band, with guitarist Wayne Bennett along with Al "TNT” Braggs. I loved Bobby because Bennett was so damn good on the guitar and Bobby kept a strong drummer. I remember the first time I saw him so well because his opening act was a guy named Chubby Checker who had a small hit record called "The Class."

Just to keep the music history straight, Chubby Checker went on to score and international hit and dance craze with “The Twist.” We danced to “The Twist” long before it became a hit. We had seen it performed in Coffeyville by the man that wrote it—Hank Ballard.

It was always entertaining for a musician to watch real traveling professionals.  BB King was a regular performer at Coffeyville’s Memorial Hall, as were Little Junior Parker and the Drifters. Etta James also came often as did Billy Ward and the Dominoes and Dave"Baby" Cortez.  Chuck Willis sang "CC Rider," Ruth Brown sang the blues and Damita Jo sang “Save the Last Dance for Me. Aaron “T-Bone” Walker always packed the place, but I never saw the legendary guitarist, as it seemed my folks were always near when he came to town making it extremely difficult to get out.

Jackie Wilson visited at least twice and we missed him both times. Coffeyville's polite society had no idea they were part of the legendary “Chitlin' Circuit” a regular round trip of musicians and singers, some on tour, some heading home. For instance, Bobby “Blue” Bland was from Texas and when he came through he was headed home.

The "Chitlin' Circuit" was a string of performance sites in the United Statesthat were safe and acceptable for black musicians, comedians, and other entertainers to perform during racial segregation in the United States. Thanks to the efforts of Coffeyville promoter Ted Blake the four-state area witnessed some of the greatest performers in history.

Catch the Double Dutch Bus—Gus!

A long, long time ago, in a far off place great iron-horses and steel stage-coaches, roamed the streets of independence, Kansas. On the street where we lived, just like fossils are reminders of another time, there were train tracks in the middle of the brick road. The tracks were for the electric interurban streetcars that ran from Independence to Coffeyville, later to Parsons and Cherryvale.

The streetcars stopped running in the 40's when more efficient transportation became available in cars and buses. I saw nothing but the evidence that the town ever had a version of mass transit on its streets where I later dragged-raced and collected speeding-tickets, but I did see the buses because one stopped right on the corner of Earl and Walnut Street. I'd see people from around the neighborhood coming home from work. I even rode it once with my mother to the A&P grocery on Main Street. Of course, we sat in the back.

The buses disappeared when efficient taxi service came along just a few years late. Not to let us forget a bygone era, the city pulled up the streetcar tracks and paved over them, but only where the tracks laid, leaving a six-foot wide and miles long reminder that streetcars once traveled the streets of Independence. Even though the interurbans, as they were called, ran for nearly 40 years, they were never a money maker.

Public transportation didn't disappear completely; as I recall a 1952 or 1953 Chevrolet-stretch limo ran between Independence and Coffeyville. That's right a stretch-Chevy. Painted a faded dark-blue, it also stopped at the corner of Earl and Walnut. I remember it so well because it always showed up at the zenith of our street football games.

Today, almost all signs that a streetcar ran down the welcoming streets of Independence, Kansas stretches the imagination, but they did and I wish that I could have ridden one. I am a railroad fan and have been since my first ride on the Santa Fe Chieftain to Chicago as a child. I was hooked from that moment. My older brother Fuzz had a real Lionel train set that would be worth many thousands of dollars today. That set was rarely disassembled.

In Dallas, we have buses and a rail system that almost qualify as useful. Driving ten miles to get to a train that only takes you only a little bit further caused me great cognitive dissonance. My biggest problem with them is that none ever neared a place I worked or anyone else for that matter. If you work downtown, it is perfect, even with the drive, but the jobs have moved mostly to the suburbs where the population resides.

There is train that runs between Dallas and Ft. Worth that my wife and I ride occasionally; it's a leisurely 30-minute commute that drops you near Sun Dance Square in Ft. Worth, where as long as it is warm there are free concerts—jazz and blues concerts with local favorites like Warren Hill. Of course, there are always guests like Najee, Kirk Whalum, Peter White, Billy Cobham, Larry Carlton and more. We have a rubber-tired Interurban streetcar by the Fog City Diner that Troy Aikman owns. It’s OK.

Obviously I live in nostalgia-land, but I wish I could get on a streetcar and ride the entire route through Southeastern, Kansas. I rode a float for five minutes in a Neewalloh parade, it didn't float my boat or streetcar.

Don

Cousin Booker's Barbershop

At six-years-old, seeing someone world famous is not something is not something that happens everyday at anytime, but I never forgot it. I remember my father leaned over to me and said, "You know who that is?" I thought to myself, he must really think I'm stupid because everyone in the world knew him. I'd been watching in fascination as the young man fidgeted, turned and tried to keep himself still with no success. Sitting right in front of me was world-record holder and Olympic sprinter Charlie Tidwell.

I saw Charlie Tidwell play high school football when the world discovered him and beat a path to Independence, Kansas to lure him off to college. This particular day, I actually met him and shook his hand and for a moment I almost forgot why I was there--my first professional haircut. The next I know, I'm climbing into the barber's chair with an extra cushion in it to receive a haircut without the entire neighborhood watching.

The tears started to well up into my eyes and I felt like crying but my dad gave me the eye. You know, the eye, the one that silently says, "If you start up, I'm going to tear your ass up!" So, I sucked it up and marched up the gallows for the haircut that I knew would leave me a bloody mess. Once I seated myself on the booster cushion, the chair began to rise as I watched myself turn slowly into view in front of the giant mirrors.

"Doc, how do you want it?"

"Just knock it down on the top and clean the sides," my father said.

The first voice was Mr. Booker, the owner and only barber in the shop. This was Cousin Booker's Barbershop in Coffeyville, KS. Although it was my first time there, it was only the first of many as I continued going to Cousin Booker into my teens and even took my younger brother there occasionally. Booker was businessman and barber as he also ran a small store inside the shop selling haircare products, sodas and potato chips.

Going to Cousin Booker's became interesting with each year I aged and I became more aware of having my hair cut. It was then I discovered why it took so long to get a haircut. Mr. Booker was a conversationalist, which my friends and I enjoyed, but it didn't seem the older crowd cared much for it as my dad said Booker was the slowest barber in the world.

After I became a teenager I discovered some of Booker's patented moves such as the "clack and whack," which to this day has not been duplicated by any barber I know and none ever approached the smoothness or precision of just that one juke. The "clack and whack" as we called it was a time killer as Cousin Booker would lightly whack the comb against the head while "clacking" the scissors in the air behind your head like he was cutting hair. Whenever a conversation broke out, the move wasn't far behind.

Since the shop was also a store, Cousin Booker often interrupted a haircut to ring up the register for someone that came in to purchase pomade, either Dixie Peach or Murray's. Haircare products like Sulpher-8, Glo-Mo-Glo and Ultra-Wave were very popular as were Royal Crowne, Jeris Hair Tonic and Lucky Tiger.

Caddy-corner from Mr. Booker's was a young folk's hangout called Glen's Haven a place we all went for dancing, flirting and soft drinks, but that's another story with plenty of action, occasional fisticuffs and the lovely Janie Page. I eventually quit going to Cousin Booker, but I always drove past when I was in town and dropped in to distract him just so I could see the old "clack and whack." World Class!

Satchel Comes to Town

I was just a kid, but I remember it well because black folks didn’t have a lot of entertainment in those days, at least not in Independence, Kansas. Leroy “Satchel” Paige coming to anyone’s town, white or black was enough to bring out everybody who was anybody and Independence was no exception. Billed as a “Battle Royal” between the Indianapolis Clowns and the Kansas City Monarchs, professional baseball came to Riverside Park in the early 50’s and for everyone that saw the game, it ranks as one of the greatest Independence memories of all time.

Everyone knew the name Satchel Paige. He was the greatest baseball pitcher in the world PERIOD. Paige pitched in the fabled Negro Baseball League, but his exploits were legendary even among white baseball fans. The Kansas City Monarchs were the glamour team of the Negro Baseball League and counted the great Jackie Robinson as a team member before he signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers and became the first Negro “major” league baseball player in the country.

Bedecked in dark blue uniforms with red lettering trimmed in white, the Monarchs were the Negro Baseball League’s answer to the New York Yankees, winning more than a dozen league championships and featuring some of the League’s best players in Cool Papa Bell, Newt Allen and Jesse Williams. For the non-baseball fan, when the color barrier fell with the signing of Jackie Robison, the Monarchs sent the most players on to the major leagues with Satchel Paige, Ernie Banks, Elston Howard who went on to play for the Yankees. The Monarchs won the first Black World Series in 1924.

Clad in Orange uniforms with brown lettering, the Clowns had a reputation as the Harlem Globetrotters of baseball, but the clever antics masked serious baseball talent. Although known for their comic acts, the Indianapolis Clowns weren’t without star players like homerun king “Hammering” Hank Aaron who played for them before being sold to the Boston Braves in 1952 for $10,000. The Clowns also fielded future Major Leaguers John Wyatt (Kansas City Athletics), Paul Casanova (Washington Senators) and Choo-Choo Coleman (New York Mets).

I remember that night in Independence so well because Paige struck out three batters while pitching from second base. No one had ever seen anything like it. I was a base ballplayer and fan, but I’d never seen a baseball thrown as fast, hard and straight as Satchel Paige threw it. Everyone said Satchel was 50-years-old even then and that was before the Major League signed him.

The Indianapolis Clowns had a battery of “King Tut” and “Shorty,” a six-foot-ten inch pitcher and a dwarf catcher, but even the comedic element provided by the disparate duo did not detract from their baseball skills, which were prodigious. Harlem Globetrotter great Reese "Goose" Tatum also played for the Clowns.

That day has long passed, but Satchel Paige stays glued in my mind, just as King Tut and Shorty. I didn’t get to see the great “Goose” Tatum, but another day in Independence brought the mighty “Goose” to the Independence High School gymnasium with the Harlem Globetrotters, but that’s another story and I’ll tell it because dribbling great, Marcus Haynes from Tulsa, OK, played a key role.

Don R Barbera

Hep Me! Hep Me! Hep !

You could hear the jaws slapping the ground when the gold and black clad Omaha Drum and Dance Corp strutted, marched and danced up Pennsylvania Avenue that Neewollah afternoon. Eyes popped, bulged and rolled when the scantily young ladies slow rolled it, popped that thang and shook what their mama gave them while the Omaha Drum Corp provided a syncopated drumbeat funkier thank a sack of gym socks.

Everyone just looked. There was no applause, just silence. Then the crown let go in one prolonged gang of applause and shouts. The team was unexpected and in a majority white town who would book such a group? It didn’t take long to find out who booked the group—Jim Halsey. Jim was the local boy done good. He was a true star and worked with stars regularly. In fact, that year he had Roy Clarke and Glen Campbell performing in our little funky ass town. For those too young to remember, both performers were million sellers and had their own television shows.

They danced in precision as well as the drummers who did not miss a beat, danced along with the girls. We followed them the length of the parade route and were lad we did, because when the routine finally ended, they came right into the crowd where all the young folks in Independence were waiting. There they were all colors from creamy coffee and honey brown to sweet Hershey’s and black coffee. I don’t recall ever seeing as many pretty girls in one place.

The girls evidently found some of the drummers attractive, but we didn’t care. These girls were pretty, friendly and available—that is until we found out they had a chaperone. Shit! They would be there until Sunday. Nevertheless, we stayed until they had to leave and even went to a party at the Shelter House Saturday night. We still managed a little slow grind and short kisses, but getting out the doors was like trying to leave Fort Knox with a pocket of gold.

Well, it finally ended and everyone said their goodbyes and promised to write. At least we still had the memories of the action. If they had been playing football, the ref would have had to through a flag for backfield in motion.

Friday Night, Just Got Paid

Prince Hall--Founder of Black Masons

"Just around corner, just across the tracks . . ." The Temptations, 1969

Weather bleached floors greeted dancing feet at the door on Friday or Saturday nights depending on the football game. Music floated out the door with each new arrival letting the warmth slip past and into the night. Once inside, it took a few seconds for the eyes to adjust to the dim party lights, but once they cleared there was nothing to see except the other people.

The Masonic Lodge building sat at South Penn and East Cedar, just North of the railroad tracks, on the edge of the woods, which seemed only right considering the times. I started going there at nine-years-old when I attended a real Halloween costume party. Of course, in those days we had serious chaperones in fathers. We considered them old folks that just came to mess up the party, but looking back these were young men in the prime of their lives that had no qualms about taking you to the bridge.

Folding chairs provided seating and a 45 rpm stereo kept the feet sliding across the worn wooden floor. Of course, I was in my usual place--holding the wall up with my non-dancing buddies, waiting for a slow song. The word for us then was "lame." Today they'd call us "tired," "whack," and who knows what, the gist of the entire notion was that we were "uncool."

Occasionally, Sunday's would bring a jam-session with local musicians Ben Young, Pete Williams, Clarence Sharp, my brother Fuzzy and the fabulous "Gold Dust Twins", Netty and Betty Sharp. It was all good clean fun for a Sunday, especially considering there were no chaperones there. All of these musicians went on to distinguish themselves professionally, but we didn't know that then, to us they were just good. Every now and then Bob Wesley would drop past and hit us with a little serious crooning.

If I remember the Masonic Lodge for anything, it was the string of cars stretching up Cedar and Penn and across the railroad tracks into the woods. I remember it because people sometimes disappeared from the party when the chaperones weren't looking and went to the cars and steamed the windows. I wasn't one of the lucky ones because I didn't have a car and when I got one, the Masonic Hall was nothing but an abandoned building.

Years ago, long after the Prince Hall Masonic Lodge fell into disrepair, Gayle Anderson and I went past to look at it up close in full daylight. The red bricks still held firm, but the windows were boarded shut and the weeds grew wildly along the edges; the back steps had started to crumble and evidently had become a place for winos to sit, judging from the muscatel bottles stacked in a rude pile near the steps. Around the southwest corner of the building, the Southern Pacific train tracks nearly took off the hall's corner. We measured and found that the train only cleared the building by 38 inches, not much room for freight train rolling through.

Before we could leave a familiar gravely voice rang out.

"Hey! What you black motherfuckers doing down here?"

Then came the signature cackle that both Gayle and I knew so well. We both turned and answered in unison,

"John Gallagher."

That's another story that I'll tell another time. Meanwhile, does anyone have a picture of the Mason Lodge?

Don R Barbera

Get Down on It

There's a thrill up on the hill, let's go, let's go, let's go!--Hank Ballard and the Midnighters--1960

In front, the cars would park side by side just off the asphalt on either side of the street on a slight incline. A 100-watt light bulb covered by a green and white ceramic shade hung above the wooden entrance making just bright enough to keep teenagers from slipping into a car with their girlfriend or boyfriend especially on those bone-chilling Kanas nights.

Down the slope, through the woods, near the river and up the hill to the Lone Chief Cabin we'd go. The Lone Chief became party central on Saturday nights if you didn't R. D. and Jim Brown strolling through the crowd saying "You youngsters need to put some air between you," an easy way to let the dancers know they were dancing too close. My dad and Lucky Epps worked the other end of the room. Charles "Moosty" Wilson worked the perimeter of the building breaking lip locks and stopping roaming hands.

Even with the eagle eyes of the chaperones, they couldn't see everything, or, at least thats what we believed. The light would be off with the only illumination pouring from the kitchen connection where the snacks, punch and record player provided entertainment and nourishment. If it was cold the fireplace threw off enough heat to make dancing near it for any length of time nearly impossible.

I usually came with Troy Wilson or Bucket Head Johnson long before the girls showed uo. We hadn't figured out how to make and entrance, so we just stumbled and looked like the idiots we were, but we were cool or so we thought. Although I didn't know how stupid I was, I did understand the arithmetic of adding math of adding a short boy with a tall girl and I liked the sum. That's why you could find me in the shadows near Rosemary Knighten.

The original Lone Chief Cabin, built in 1934 as part of a WPA project, was a real wooden cabin constructed of logs taken from the park area, but it later burned to the ground. The Lone Chief cabin most Indy residents know completed construction in 1948. Like the story of the three little pigs, the new cabin was built of bricks and stones. Today, the grail parking is gone, replaced with an elevated stone retainer and cement parking areas.

Secluded and even romantic, the Lone Chief Cabin still holds memories of close dancing, glittering eyes and stolen kisses in the light of a winter moon despite the best efforts of the parental police--chaperones.

"There's a moon out tonight, let's go strolling . . ."--the Capris

Negro Nights

Every Monday, Friday Saturday at dark it was Negro Night in Independence, KS. Surely, you jest. They were the same thing in Independence not that long ago. Martin Luther King led no marches and Malcolm X still carried the smell of prison. Jackie Robinson and Adam Clayton Powell just started to stir things up on the social scene.

Monday kicked off the week music, dancing and roller-skating. Every Monday, the local skating arena threw open its doors to allow the town's Negroes a chance to whip around a real roller rink. I didn't go until I became a teenager, but I remember a constant A dust storm floated constantly just outside the doors, as cars and people stirred the coco-like dirt into a fine brown mist that coated everything and everybody.

I couldn't skate worth a damn, but I was always good for a few laughs and a guarantee that no girls would even tiptoe past my friends or me. Lois Kennedy with her fine self usually came from Pittsburg with her mean-ass brother, "Tough." Sylvia Williams and Janie Page came up from Coffeyville and always drew a crowd of young men. Carl Carter could skate circles around everyone including Buford Simpson, one of the best athletes in town.

We'd leave the rink around 9 pm and head to the American Legion on the corner Earl and Birch Streets. The "Legion" as we called it, was shotgun building longer than it was wide, but we didn't care because there was music and dancing.

Usually, I held up a wall watching Velma Jean swing to Ike and Tina Turner's "I Idolize You." That was my best move besides dropping a nickel in the jukebox, because I had two left feet and couldn't dance a lick. Occasionally, Linda Anderson had mercy on me and dragged me out on the dance floor, but no one else wanted to put themselves in harm's way.

Mr. Bob ran a tight ship, but that didn’t stop us from having a good time. After I tired of lusting after the tall and shapely Rosemary Knighten, I usually wandered outside where a guaranteed argument awaited. The characters changed often, but argument stayed the same as every Monday night eventually the conversation switched to boxing and who was the greatest fighter of all time. Usually, it was the young versus the old who, no matter what name came up, always said it was Joe Louis.

Everybody came from Coffeyville, Parsons, Cherryvale and Pittsburg. The Lyons brothers, Donnie and Eddie, would be there, The Joker, Helen Jean, Linda Anderson, Carol Sue Pruitt, Riley Cartwright, Brownie, Jimmy Mac and crazy Lloyd Beatty from Pittsburg. Lloyd usually brought the "Gold Dust" twins, Netty and Betty with him. Carver Briley usually found his way to "The Legion" about the time the argument died down, went straight inside and onto the dance floor.

The Legion wasn't a great place, it wasn't even a good place, but it was something to do on Monday night especially seeing that Monday Night Football hadn't started yet. After that, black Friday hit the calendar and the Negroes hit the water at what was then Independence High School where the cement pond opened to Negroes after white folks swam in it all week long. I only have vague memories of it, but my elders assured me it happened.

When the lights went out at ten, it was "everyone out of the pool." After everyone vacated, they drained the pool and filled it with fresh water for Monday when the whites used it until the next Friday. It wasn't an ideal arrangement, but we couldn't swim at the public pool at Riverside Park and the shallow pools around felt like dunking cookies in hot tea. Plenty of swimming holes surrounded the town, but taking a swim in any of them could lead to trouble.

Saturday night brought out everyone when the Independence Civic Center opened its doors to Negroes young and old. On Saturday night at the Civic Center, there was pool, cards and dancing. For the athletically inclined, there was basketball, badminton and ping-pong. Generally, it was a fun filled night, but trouble always comes when it's least expected. In 1954, the world shook for every white person in the United States when the historic Brown vs. The Board of Education effectively ended segregation in the United States of America.

Led by later Supreme Court judge Thurgood Marshal, the ruling less than 200 miles from  Independence in Topeka, KS not only changed old ways across the country, it signaled a new day for all. Negro nights continued about a year after that, but strong action by black leaders in Independence guaranteed those nights disappeared. Of course, some folks didn't take to it willingly, but they quickly found out that the old Negro vanished almost overnight replaced by black men and women out of the mood for bullshit. Soon, the nighttime belonged to everyone, but it took a lot of hard work and cooperation.

Negro Nights

Every Monday, Friday Saturday at dark it was Negro Night in Independence, KS. Surely, you jest. They were the same thing in Independence not that long ago. Martin Luther King led no marches and Malcolm X still carried the smell of prison. Jackie Robinson and Adam Clayton Powell just started to stir things up on the social scene.

Monday kicked off the week music, dancing and roller-skating. Every Monday, the local skating arena threw open its doors to allow the town's Negroes a chance to whip around a real roller rink. I didn't go until I became a teenager, but I remember a constant A dust storm floated constantly just outside the doors, as cars and people stirred the coco-like dirt into a fine brown mist that coated everything and everybody.

I couldn't skate worth a damn, but I was always good for a few laughs and a guarantee that no girls would even tiptoe past my friends or me. Lois Kennedy with her fine self usually came from Pittsburg with her mean-ass brother, "Tough." Sylvia Williams and Janie Page came up from Coffeyville and always drew a crowd of young men. Carl Carter could skate circles around everyone including Buford Simpson, one of the best athletes in town.

We'd leave the rink around 9 pm and head to the American Legion on the corner Earl and Birch Streets. The "Legion" as we called it, was shotgun building longer than it was wide, but we didn't care because there was music and dancing.

Usually, I held up a wall watching Velma Jean swing to Ike and Tina Turner's "I Idolize You." That was my best move besides dropping a nickel in the jukebox, because I had two left feet and couldn't dance a lick. Occasionally, Linda Anderson had mercy on me and dragged me out on the dance floor, but no one else wanted to put themselves in harm's way.

Mr. Bob ran a tight ship, but that didn’t stop us from having a good time. After I tired of lusting after the tall and shapely Rosemary Knighten, I usually wandered outside where a guaranteed argument awaited. The characters changed often, but argument stayed the same as every Monday night eventually the conversation switched to boxing and who was the greatest fighter of all time. Usually, it was the young versus the old who, no matter what name came up, always said it was Joe Louis.

Everybody came from Coffeyville, Parsons, Cherryvale and Pittsburg. The Lyons brothers, Donnie and Eddie, would be there, The Joker, Helen Jean, Linda Anderson, Carol Sue Pruitt, Riley Cartwright, Brownie, Jimmy Mac and crazy Lloyd Beatty from Pittsburg. Lloyd usually brought the "Gold Dust" twins, Netty and Betty with him. Carver Briley usually found his way to "The Legion" about the time the argument died down, went straight inside and onto the dance floor.

The Legion wasn't a great place, it wasn't even a good place, but it was something to do on Monday night especially seeing that Monday Night Football hadn't started yet. After that, black Friday hit the calendar and the Negroes hit the water at what was then Independence High School where the cement pond opened to Negroes after white folks swam in it all week long. I only have vague memories of it, but my elders assured me it happened.

When the lights went out at ten, it was "everyone out of the pool." After everyone vacated, they drained the pool and filled it with fresh water for Monday when the whites used it until the next Friday. It wasn't an ideal arrangement, but we couldn't swim at the public pool at Riverside Park and the shallow pools around felt like dunking cookies in hot tea. Plenty of swimming holes surrounded the town, but taking a swim in any of them could lead to trouble.

Saturday night brought out everyone when the Independence Civic Center opened its doors to Negroes young and old. On Saturday night at the Civic Center, there was pool, cards and dancing. For the athletically inclined, there was basketball, badminton and ping-pong. Generally, it was a fun filled night, but trouble always comes when it's least expected. In 1954, the world shook for every white person in the United States when the historic Brown vs. The Board of Education effectively ended segregation in the United States of America.

Led by later Supreme Court judge Thurgood Marshal, the ruling less than 200 miles from  Independence in Topeka, KS not only changed old ways across the country, it signaled a new day for all. Negro nights continued about a year after that, but strong action by black leaders in Independence guaranteed those nights disappeared. Of course, some folks didn't take to it willingly, but they quickly found out that the old Negro vanished almost overnight replaced by black men and women out of the mood for bullshit. Soon, the nighttime belonged to everyone, but it took a lot of hard work and cooperation.

Night Fun and Nightmares

"Three men accused of kidnapping and triple murder escaped from the state penitentiary late this afternoon. The men are believed go be headed toward Southeastern where two of the men have relatives. If you spot these men do not attempt to stop them. They are considered armed armed extremely dangerous."

Of course, no such thing occurred but was the sense in going out to Lover's Leap without a scary story and a pretty girl? It sure wasn't a place for parking because everyone in town knew about it including my father who came out there and told me to get my ass home, now. Nevertheless, it was fun scaring the girls even though they knew a most every story ever told.

After midnight things changed. Hands disappeared in the summer darkness right before your eyes. Things started moving about and occasionally bright eyes would appear near the ground and that's when everyone quieted down, afraid to speak too loudly for fear of what or who might be out there in inky night.

It was not unusual to scare each other and leave, making up some excuse like, "this is so boring" or "this is so juvenile," when in reality we were about to piss our pants. Sometime, my older brother Fuzz, Paul Bradley and Poon would get there before we did and jump out of the bushes once we had been there for a few minutes. That stuff wasn't funny.

The entire point in going was for a cheap thrill and a little snuggling. No one ever stayed long because car after car came to "The Leap" as we called it sometime. Everyone said that entire area was haunted, but no one ever took it seriously. Native Americans once lived in that area long before the land fell to the white settlers. The story is that a young man from the Chetopa tribe and  beautiful Cherokee princess from another group fell  in love, but their tribes would not let them marry.

In their desperation to be together, they jumped off the cliff and killed themselves so they could be together in eternity, according to the legend, which many say is true. The story says that in the spring and summer the spirits of the young man and the princess wander among the rocks and on some moonlit nights they can be seen standing on the cliff holding hands.

I never saw them, but friends told me they had seen them on a night in June when it was unusually cool for that time of the year. Jimmy Frisco and Nettie Pouncil swore they saw both of them just as the legend said. Of course, we didn't believe them or we never admitted it. We went out to "Lover's Leap" during the day light hours and found nothing. On our way back down between the rocks a ceremonial headdress feather floated down out of no place and landed on my shoulder, but before I could touch it, it blew away on a cool breeze and disappeared.

I often wonder if anyone goes out by "The Leap" anymore, probably not, but if anyone takes a notion, walk softly and look for eagle feathers, like those worn in a  headdress.

NOTE: At least two people died after falling from the outgrowth and many more escaped with injury. Dates scratched into the rock go back as far as the 1880's.

Fireworks, Waterfalls and Romance



Logan Square 2010

Love reveals itself in that magic moment
when each one changes into both--Tantra tradition



Many moons ago I did something I dreamed of doing since my 15th birthday. Fourth of July, 19XX, found me sitting on a park bench, away from my friends watching the flashing silver streamers and gold twinkles of the annual fireworks display. As the aerial bombs exploded into dazzling light, I felt the hot summer breeze drift over my damp skin, but I didn't care because I sat there with my first serious girlfriend.

Straight up Park Street, past the Girl Scout House, the baseball fields and about 35 feet past the two lions guarding the entrance to Riverside Park, there it sat. We used to call it the waterworks, but the Kodachrome fountain that sat about 40 yards from the Shelter House put on its own display, shooting bright plumes of water high in the and all the while changing colors in soothing rainbow of red, blue and green.

Holding hands, there were as stars in our eyes as in the sky. Although I was sitting on the bench, I was far away on another planet watching the silver rings of Saturn and awesome diamond studded belt of the Milky Way. I was in love for the first time in my life; I mean smitten, swept off my feet and overcome with emotion.

Although neither of us spoke, communication flowed through the gushing pipelines of hearts. With what is now known as Logan Square fountain playing its music on the surface of the catch pool surface, even though it must have been nearly 100 degrees, I felt nothing except the smoothness of her skin touching mine.

Normaly, the 4th of July found me hanging out at the Lone Cheif Cabin where a party  was usually in progress or all of my friends and I would set on the cemetery fence and watch the display. SometimesLewis Vann or Troy Wilson would join in the hijinks, but not on this night. However, even though my mind was far away my location wasn't.

"There you are," Larry Morrison said. "We've been looking for you for more than an hour. Johnnie told us you were out here."

Bucket-head Johnson chimed in, "DB doesn't want to be bothered." Leroy wasn't known for startling insights, but even he could see the lost look on our faces. Before I could get a word out my partner Gayle and Jo Ann Pringle walked up.

"You guys gonna sit here all night? I thought we were going to drop the top and head out to Six-Mile Junction?"

Even as hot as it was, riding with top down at 70 miles an hour cooled you off quickly. Finally, got up and stood looking at the fountain until I pulled her close to me and gently brushed her lips with mine. With the stars and fireworks shining in the background we walked slowly to my car holding hands and with our heads leaned together. We'd come to Riverside Park again, but nothing could surpass that first time of being in love.

That was many years ago, but that night in front the fountain is still in my mind, locked away in my personal treasure chest and my memories of a special night in Independence on the 4th of July.

The Atchison-Topeka & Santa Fe

Two train stations for a town of barely 10,000 seems like overkill, but Independence, KS hosted several railroads. Less than 12 miles away, Cherryvale had its own station. Now stripped and boarded up, the Independence train station was once a hub of travel and freight delivery. For many it's just an eye-sore of no discernible history or worth, but for me it was a school, an escape to adventure and an entry to the fascinating world of travel by rail. My older brother Fuzz and I traveled to Chicago nearly every summer to stay with our grandmother. Not only did we go to the Windy City, we went by ourselves.

When I was in high school I went to Kansas City or Tulsa to visit friends. Sometimes I went just to enjoy the ride. For speed in travel, nothing beats an airplane, but for ambiance, comfort and relaxation, nothing beats a train. No one needs to sit on the hump rubbing elbows with a fat aunt or wait to the next stop to use the bathroom.

I could stand up and go to the front of train or to the rear and watch the countryside roll past. I could climb the stairs to the glass observation deck and relax, have a soda and just watch the world looking back at me. If I was hungry I could get a sandwich and a drink or I could go to the dining car and have a full meal like steak and a baked potato.

Walking down the aisle was different because turbulence had no effect on the train's stability. Or I could sit in my wide seat and fall asleep without a worry. Friends and family came to visit on the train. I went to Minneapolis, New York, St. Louis and, of course, Chicago, which I considered the greatest station on the planet. From Chicago you could travel to the West Coast through the towering snow-capped Colorado Rockies or to the legendary Grand Central Station in New York.

Many memories rode te rails with me and still do, but as always, "all good things must come to an end." The last time I rode the train I was leaving for the army. When I retuned three years later, the Independence depot was closed. However, all is not lost. With the enormous wait times at airports increasing, charges for baggage and even charges for a pillow and blanket, railroads are beginning to look like an alternate mode of transportation. Airline tickets have steadily increased, while amenities are disappearing. Even the terribly edited in-flight movies have disappeared on some airlines allegedly to save weight.

There are still some great train rides out there a d if you have the time you might find that rail is the only civilized way to travel.xwa
If you get a chance to ride