Did You, Did I ?
Did You, Did I ?
When you were growing up, did you ever think about all the things going around you, and realize that some day they would be just a little pile of memories? Did I?
Did you wonder about the depression and the war and brothers and fathers being killed by the thousands right about the time we were being born? Did I?
Did you ask where all the Indians were in your little town. They were there just a few years before. Did you ever see an Indian anywhere near where you grew up? Did I?
Did you wonder how they could have an Osage Chieftain high enough to sign one of the most powerful treaties in the Midwest, and no one took his picture, or made a drawing of him, or sat down and talked to him? Did I?
Did you ever think people would come in and doze down our big brick schools and put up little tin leaky buildings that you need a map to navigate, that UP North, Down South, would no longer apply? Did I?
Did you look up that teacher that taught you more than any other? Did you thank them for helping you learn more, perform better, have a greater outlook? Did you shake their hand and thank them for what they had done? Did I?
Did you take a picture of your father at work, or your mother, or both? Doing what they had to do to get us raised and out into society the best they knew how? Or do you just kind of remember what it was like now? Did you ever shake their hand and thank them for what they had done? Did you? Did I?
Did you ever think the Rainbow Bridge and the Fairgrounds would be torn down, and then they would build big ugly concrete abutments all over Main Street so that you have to pull half way out into the intersection to see if the coast is clear? Did I?
When you heard them ringing that old Frisco train bell after we beat Fredonia, did you think you should try and remember how that sounded? How it looked all painted up in blue and white, black and gold right down the middle? Or how you felt that evening when we lost for the first time on the new football field? Do I?
Did you ever think that some day Neodesha would be known more for it's Cobalt Boats and not for it's Standard Oil Refinery? Did I?
Did you come to your class reunions and make a special effort to attend the Alumni meetings to see people that came to see all the years, not just their little group of friends? Did I?
Did you ever see Johnny Moore or Dean Jump or Carl Lovett or Mutt Shipley and realize that they really were Neodesha? We can take all these old pictures of the town and I can put them all on the internet, but Neodesha was not buildings. Neodesha was Little Bear Oil and Bob Bacon and Bert Ally and Edwin G. Lyon. Neodesha was Ray Heller (God rest his soul!) and Paul Beckner and Archie Talbert and John Deer. It was Jake Fairchild and Lowell Kiddoo and Chick Olds and Geneva Lanning and Pete Winfrey and Doc Sutherland. It was Glenn Klock and Don German and Pinky Burns and Sherm Nooney. Neodesha was Doctor Frank (Moorhead) and Gus Wolfe and Al Poznik and PW Stephens and a dozen or so ministers. Did you appreciate what they did to make Neodesha the town we fondly remember today? Did I?
This web site is dedicated to all the people that made up, that make up, and that will eventually be, Neodesha, Kansas.
Kerry
