As a bitty girl of five years and one week, I started Primary School with Mrs. Downing. I was in the afternoon class. I remember Phyllis and Phillip Fleming and Sharman Wyatt, Doug Froit, Ann Crandall, Marsha Hartsook, Blythe Amos and Ron Berdine probably were “afternoon‘ kids too. I liked kindergarten well enough but I had some adjustment to make. I was used to having two sisters with me everywhere I went and six other siblings telling me what to do and now, here I was on my own -- in a land of strangers! I was light-headed and disoriented for weeks.
For the Austin children to get to the Afton Elementary, we walked up Hwy 169 for three miles. Every day. Rain or Shine. Okay. Okay, it was 3/10 of a mile but to a 5-year old in 100 degree heat or below zero temperatures, it seemed like miles! I was never alone walking to school as there would be three or four of us little Austins in the elementary each year and maybe Jerry Jones and the Hoffman girls might join up to walk with us.
So, the teachers passed me along each year -- up a grade to Miss Lamb, Mrs. Stalcup, Mrs. Carey, Mrs. Mathes, Mrs. Ames, Mrs. Hammons . . . I liked all my teachers but in studying on this, I think Mrs. Mathes was my all-time favorite. Mrs. Edith Hammons was the band and Mrs. Obie our vocal music teacher and I greatly enjoyed the music classes but had a tin ear.
One Afton Elementary rule I never understood was when the country kids rolled up to the school each morning and poured out of the bus, they got to go straight to the playground and get busy playing. The town kids would trudge three miles through harsh elements just to get to school and then we stood at the Methodist Church watching the country kids play. We had to wait for the First Bell before rushing over to play for a few minutes until the Second Bell rang. As town children, we considered this ‘Cruelty to Children‘.
I enjoyed school days when we could stay in for recess and play with puzzles and games. I liked holiday parties and games like “7 Up” and the outside “Duck, Duck, Goose”. Red Rover, Red Rover? Well, now . . . Red Rover and dodge ball were character builders, for sure. Days with snow on the ground, if we had our boots and gloves we would slide on our feet down the snow-packed hill by the new building. Never a day went by without plenty of fresh air and exercise.
I loved playing inside in the basement lunchroom on wet days but that didn’t happen very often and what was even more rare, was ME getting to stay and eat school lunch! I loved any school lunch I ever met. With eight or nine of us in school, there was no sense in buying lunches (my Mama‘s words) so we all walked home at noon. Mom always had a sandwich ready with soup or vegetables and fruit and I would gobble it up and lick the plate. Thank goodness for school milk breaks or I wouldn’t have had the strength to get back home!
I do remember Afton. I wish some of my classmates did . . . I am hoping to hear their memories!
Friday, September 20, 2013
Friday, September 13, 2013
Afton Star Enterprise - I remember Afton 2
When I got half growed up and could get away from my Mama’s ever-watchful eye for even a half hour, I’d dig in my jelly jar savings bank and run off uptown with a dime or a quarter and a hard decision to make.
Would I go to “Sheets” or to “Sales”?
Sheets Drug (Rexall) was on the corner of Hwy 169 and Kansas Street. Sales Drug was another half-block east, just the other side of Broeker and Siddens, the tavern.
Sheets gave you a choice of sitting in one of the big old block booths that’d hold about 6 half-grown giggly girls if we leaned in tight or sitting up front. Perched on round, red cushioned chrome stools at the bar, you could watch the soda jerk or maybe my sister Beth mix fountain drinks and malts and watch yourself or the boys in the big mirror. If you wanted to tell secrets then you made for the booths.
Sales had a big bar and stools too but if you pushed further back into the dim, cool interior of the old fashioned building, you could sit four girls at one of the metal ice cream tables. Goods and merchandise displays surrounded you and made you feel inconspicuous and safe. It seems as though we spent half of our (very limited ) drug store time at each soda fountain. I’m pretty sure we didn’t have a favorite.
Once the location was chosen, there were still serious decisions ahead. Living on a fixed income of 25 cents allowance, or later 50 cents, I wasn’t wanton or wasteful in my spending. Would I have a fountain drink, a Green River or a Chocolate Coke? Would I have an ice cream cone. I wasn’t situated well enough to have a malt or a Sundae. My choices were limited to a dime drink, a 20-cent ice cream cone (I don’t think I every opted for the 39-cent large cone) or a nickel candy bar.
Wait, but wait! After all the previous decisions there were still more to make. Shall I buy a Hershey candy bar with almonds, a Clark Bar or a maple Bun? A pack of candy cigarettes or a yellow bubble gum cigar? I went through a spell where I bought a pack of Baseball cards every chance I got, hoping to get all New York Yankees. I probably spent $200 in my youth on two-cent Double Bubble Bubble Gum, one piece at a time. Okay, I confess, two pieces at a time. Yes, I did. I chewed two in hopes of blowing bigger Double Bubble gum bubbles.
In my memory, Sheets had the bigger candy rack but that wasn’t always the deciding factor in choosing which drug store to go to. Looking back, I now know how lucky I was to grow up in a small town in the mid-west and especially in a town with two soda fountains! I, fondly, remember Afton.
Would I go to “Sheets” or to “Sales”?
Sheets Drug (Rexall) was on the corner of Hwy 169 and Kansas Street. Sales Drug was another half-block east, just the other side of Broeker and Siddens, the tavern.
Sheets gave you a choice of sitting in one of the big old block booths that’d hold about 6 half-grown giggly girls if we leaned in tight or sitting up front. Perched on round, red cushioned chrome stools at the bar, you could watch the soda jerk or maybe my sister Beth mix fountain drinks and malts and watch yourself or the boys in the big mirror. If you wanted to tell secrets then you made for the booths.
Sales had a big bar and stools too but if you pushed further back into the dim, cool interior of the old fashioned building, you could sit four girls at one of the metal ice cream tables. Goods and merchandise displays surrounded you and made you feel inconspicuous and safe. It seems as though we spent half of our (very limited ) drug store time at each soda fountain. I’m pretty sure we didn’t have a favorite.
Once the location was chosen, there were still serious decisions ahead. Living on a fixed income of 25 cents allowance, or later 50 cents, I wasn’t wanton or wasteful in my spending. Would I have a fountain drink, a Green River or a Chocolate Coke? Would I have an ice cream cone. I wasn’t situated well enough to have a malt or a Sundae. My choices were limited to a dime drink, a 20-cent ice cream cone (I don’t think I every opted for the 39-cent large cone) or a nickel candy bar.
Wait, but wait! After all the previous decisions there were still more to make. Shall I buy a Hershey candy bar with almonds, a Clark Bar or a maple Bun? A pack of candy cigarettes or a yellow bubble gum cigar? I went through a spell where I bought a pack of Baseball cards every chance I got, hoping to get all New York Yankees. I probably spent $200 in my youth on two-cent Double Bubble Bubble Gum, one piece at a time. Okay, I confess, two pieces at a time. Yes, I did. I chewed two in hopes of blowing bigger Double Bubble gum bubbles.
In my memory, Sheets had the bigger candy rack but that wasn’t always the deciding factor in choosing which drug store to go to. Looking back, I now know how lucky I was to grow up in a small town in the mid-west and especially in a town with two soda fountains! I, fondly, remember Afton.
Nancy Austin Hofmeister
Monday, September 09, 2013
Afton Star Enterprise . . . I remember Afton
I remember Afton
"The slab" played an important role in my youth. We skated on it as children. Linda, Mary and I and maybe the Hoffman girls might walk uptown and roller skate in circles on the slab until we got dizzy or bored. Then we‘d skate the double-wide sidewalks uptown and eventually make our way to the Mark Spencer home. There a new, smooth sidewalk with a nice slope down the side called our names. It was a full-half block long without obstacle or crack to trip us and was the best roller-skating sidewalk in town.
As we grew older, we’d be on the slab each weekend to play in the band concert. The East Union High School Band had outgrown the small bandstand so we sat chairs up on The Slab, plunked down a music stand and played away. I don’t know how well we played but it seems like there was usually a good crowd in the park to listen to us and we might have gotten a little reward for showing up.
The best times on The Slab, though, were the impromptu basketball games. Someone would show up with a basketball and we’d choose up teams, boys and girls. The games were physical and aggressive and we played our hearts out. We were out to win and to have fun. To get to shoot a free throw, the foul would have been really flagrant as there was so much pushing and fouling we couldn’t shoot all the free throws but I don‘t ever remember any of us quitting, mad or upset. We quit because we literally ran out of energy or it was time to go home and do chores.
I remember as a ’big-time’ high school basketball player (ha ha!), teaching sister Mary, Phyllis Cole and Debby Clark the drills I was learning in high school basketball -- skills they would be learning in the next year or two from Coach Manship. No wonder they were such a good team later on!
What great fun I had playing basketball on The Slab with Ron and Stan Manship. Ron and Rick Berdine. Roger Tisue. Dave Crandall. (Forgive me if you were there and I didn’t mention you. My memory isn’t very good; some of my siblings got my share.) Steve Eckels and Ralph Lundquist might roll into town to check out Mary and ‘the girls". If Linda was at The Slab, Denny Larimer would show up. He could jump the chain-link fence around the Slab with one hand on the top rail. I was impressed and besides, he’d go get the ball when it got knocked over the fence. Good memories. I remember Afton and I remember good times on The Slab.
Thursday, September 05, 2013
Facebook -- 25 things (2/5/2009)
1) While up for a Sunday ride, brother Alan told me that he had been practicing "stalls" in the ultra light plane with the Velcro closing doors. I asked him to show me but he wouldn't.
2) In high school, I played in a clarinet quartet for the VFW and other community meetings. I played the alto clarinet. Mr. Sutton, my instrument instructor, could only say "you have a good ear" . . . because I knew when I was playing wrong. (Yes, father of Anne Sutton.)
3) In Junior High at Arispe, the girl in front of me in chorus was asked by the vocal teacher to "mouth" the song. I knew it should have been me. In church or at funerals, I try to find someone singing bass to sing with.
4) To get even with Linda for popping her gum, I would breathe peanut butter in her face.
5) I used to "borrow" Linda's blouses to wear to school. I was usually sorry as she had really sharp finger nails.
6) I flew, at age 18, all by myself and even changed airlines in Chicago, to Baltimore, Maryland to visit Linda and Denny. They lived on Easter Egg Hill. I probably would have stayed there the rest of my life in that little one-bedroom trailer. I could have been the oldest daughter. Denny finally suggested I call the airline for my ticket home. Flew into Des Moines in an ice storm. Gee, thanks, Denny!
7) Once at Riverview Park in Des Moines (a long lost amusement park where the East Union band got to go every summer) I was riding the roller coaster barefooted and got the _ _ _ _ shocked out of me! My bare feet on a box under the seat ahead of me and the metal bar I gripped for dear life was a dangerous electrical combination. I felt "funny" for about 3 days, after. However, I always did and still do ride the roller coaster every chance I get.
8) While in Junior High, I am now convinced, I had "Petit mal" seizures -- probably a half dozen or so. If your pre teen child ever sits and "zones", you might want to have him/her checked. Usually children grow out of the "little" seizures. I evidently did. or not.
9) When small, only half of our large family went to “town” on Saturday night. Kathryn was the “sitter” on my nights to stay home. This meant we only went to Creston every two weeks!
10) When I was first married and moved to Sioux City, I found a job at Good Will, typing envelopes for the donation request letters. I was brighter than I looked and soon learned to pick out the small town lists. Back then the little Iowa towns didn’t even need a post office box number to be delivered. I could type a whole lot more envelopes with only a person’s name and a town and a state. The Des Moines envelopes required at least three complete lines, sometimes four. Soon I had brushed up my typing skills and was ready to look for another job.
11) I worked in a political campaign office in 1968, my first job. Some dude running for Iowa guv. He lost to Robert D Ray. My big sister may have gotten me the job. Thanks, Beth! Beth used to work in the Iowa legislature (who did you work for?) and probably should be writing her 25 things. It was all I could do to stay away from home for 5 days and rode the bus back and forth on the weekends. I would get right off at Sheets Drug Store "on the square" in Afton.
12) My senior year of high school, I had 13 adopted "children" . . . all in 9th through 12th grades. I also had two official self-appointed "body guards" ??
13) while trying to leave the nuclear plant after visiting Prairie Island one time, I tested positive for radioactivity. I thought I was going to have to get a job and live there at the plant! Thanks, again, Denny! (is there a pattern here? I end up in dangerous situations! oh yeah! and if this was "26 things", I could tell you about the time he dragged me behind the boat on the Mississippi River. I have pictures!)
14) I helped sell VFW poppies as a young girl . . . so I always buy them to this day when I see them. And you should too! Veterans of Foreign Wars.
15) I have loved babies ever since Gramps and Granny brought Mary home from the hospital. I was only two years, but remember it. My next real baby was C. E. Gray III. and boy did we dote on him! Then Ritchie, Sheila, K'Lea and a little bit of Janie before I grew up and had to go off and get a job.
16) Some of my children call me "Nance" about as often as they call me Mom. My Dad called me Nance.
17) I have split an 8' log with a mallet and wedges -- the long way. It wasn't very big around . . . but still!
18) I asked for an adze for a gift once -- and got it. As your Granny would say . . . look it up in the dictionary! I did NOT ask for a reciprocating saw once . . . and got it.
19) I can rough it, with no bathroom, running water or electricity. I come from pioneer stock.
20) I counted the mosquito bites on my little sister Mary while camping in Louisiana one year -- over 100! maybe 200. and no Lime disease.
21) I have been to Ireland once for work . . . and would go back at the drop of a hat. I was met in the airport by someone from the company with a cardboard sign "Hofmeister, arrival" -- like in a movie.
22) As young children, we were allowed one candy bar a week and one bottle of pop. Of course, if we had our allowance we could buy more but that one bottle of coke a week was the BEST tasting pop I ever did have.
23) I can still hang by my knees and skin the cat. 2 or 3 years ago I could still stand on my head. I might be able to now, if I just got practiced up.
24) I have four loving and beloved children and I could (and should!) write 25 things about each of them! And now I am so much enjoying my grandchildren.
25) I have been married going on 39 years to a very strong willed and handsome man who can cook with the best of them!
PS: I have delayed posting this. I think I'm afraid I'll remember one more thing that I wish I would have said. Oh well, I can always post 26 through 50, right?
2) In high school, I played in a clarinet quartet for the VFW and other community meetings. I played the alto clarinet. Mr. Sutton, my instrument instructor, could only say "you have a good ear" . . . because I knew when I was playing wrong. (Yes, father of Anne Sutton.)
3) In Junior High at Arispe, the girl in front of me in chorus was asked by the vocal teacher to "mouth" the song. I knew it should have been me. In church or at funerals, I try to find someone singing bass to sing with.
4) To get even with Linda for popping her gum, I would breathe peanut butter in her face.
5) I used to "borrow" Linda's blouses to wear to school. I was usually sorry as she had really sharp finger nails.
6) I flew, at age 18, all by myself and even changed airlines in Chicago, to Baltimore, Maryland to visit Linda and Denny. They lived on Easter Egg Hill. I probably would have stayed there the rest of my life in that little one-bedroom trailer. I could have been the oldest daughter. Denny finally suggested I call the airline for my ticket home. Flew into Des Moines in an ice storm. Gee, thanks, Denny!
7) Once at Riverview Park in Des Moines (a long lost amusement park where the East Union band got to go every summer) I was riding the roller coaster barefooted and got the _ _ _ _ shocked out of me! My bare feet on a box under the seat ahead of me and the metal bar I gripped for dear life was a dangerous electrical combination. I felt "funny" for about 3 days, after. However, I always did and still do ride the roller coaster every chance I get.
8) While in Junior High, I am now convinced, I had "Petit mal" seizures -- probably a half dozen or so. If your pre teen child ever sits and "zones", you might want to have him/her checked. Usually children grow out of the "little" seizures. I evidently did. or not.
9) When small, only half of our large family went to “town” on Saturday night. Kathryn was the “sitter” on my nights to stay home. This meant we only went to Creston every two weeks!
10) When I was first married and moved to Sioux City, I found a job at Good Will, typing envelopes for the donation request letters. I was brighter than I looked and soon learned to pick out the small town lists. Back then the little Iowa towns didn’t even need a post office box number to be delivered. I could type a whole lot more envelopes with only a person’s name and a town and a state. The Des Moines envelopes required at least three complete lines, sometimes four. Soon I had brushed up my typing skills and was ready to look for another job.
11) I worked in a political campaign office in 1968, my first job. Some dude running for Iowa guv. He lost to Robert D Ray. My big sister may have gotten me the job. Thanks, Beth! Beth used to work in the Iowa legislature (who did you work for?) and probably should be writing her 25 things. It was all I could do to stay away from home for 5 days and rode the bus back and forth on the weekends. I would get right off at Sheets Drug Store "on the square" in Afton.
12) My senior year of high school, I had 13 adopted "children" . . . all in 9th through 12th grades. I also had two official self-appointed "body guards" ??
13) while trying to leave the nuclear plant after visiting Prairie Island one time, I tested positive for radioactivity. I thought I was going to have to get a job and live there at the plant! Thanks, again, Denny! (is there a pattern here? I end up in dangerous situations! oh yeah! and if this was "26 things", I could tell you about the time he dragged me behind the boat on the Mississippi River. I have pictures!)
14) I helped sell VFW poppies as a young girl . . . so I always buy them to this day when I see them. And you should too! Veterans of Foreign Wars.
15) I have loved babies ever since Gramps and Granny brought Mary home from the hospital. I was only two years, but remember it. My next real baby was C. E. Gray III. and boy did we dote on him! Then Ritchie, Sheila, K'Lea and a little bit of Janie before I grew up and had to go off and get a job.
16) Some of my children call me "Nance" about as often as they call me Mom. My Dad called me Nance.
17) I have split an 8' log with a mallet and wedges -- the long way. It wasn't very big around . . . but still!
18) I asked for an adze for a gift once -- and got it. As your Granny would say . . . look it up in the dictionary! I did NOT ask for a reciprocating saw once . . . and got it.
19) I can rough it, with no bathroom, running water or electricity. I come from pioneer stock.
20) I counted the mosquito bites on my little sister Mary while camping in Louisiana one year -- over 100! maybe 200. and no Lime disease.
21) I have been to Ireland once for work . . . and would go back at the drop of a hat. I was met in the airport by someone from the company with a cardboard sign "Hofmeister, arrival" -- like in a movie.
22) As young children, we were allowed one candy bar a week and one bottle of pop. Of course, if we had our allowance we could buy more but that one bottle of coke a week was the BEST tasting pop I ever did have.
23) I can still hang by my knees and skin the cat. 2 or 3 years ago I could still stand on my head. I might be able to now, if I just got practiced up.
24) I have four loving and beloved children and I could (and should!) write 25 things about each of them! And now I am so much enjoying my grandchildren.
25) I have been married going on 39 years to a very strong willed and handsome man who can cook with the best of them!
PS: I have delayed posting this. I think I'm afraid I'll remember one more thing that I wish I would have said. Oh well, I can always post 26 through 50, right?
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