Boone Iowa: My Home Town

Everybody has to be from somewhere. MJ Hawkeye saw the first rays of sunshine in a community of 12,000 hard working souls in the late 1940's. There isn't much special about the town unless you happened to grow up there. It's main source of employment, at the time, was the Chicago and Northwestern railroad. My grandfather worked for the railroad; got his first job at the age of ten in 1898, carrying water to the workers at 10 cents a day. He retired in 1953 but had worked his way up to a higher position. Dad worked there, too.

This is my first post about Boone, in general. A man named Jim Grabau recently published a book about growing up there. It's called, "And That Reminds Me Of A Story". He recalled his memories of the town and of what influenced him in his youthful years. The nifty aspect of being 'different' is that we all have varying views of what made us what we are today. Jim was a year ahead of me in high school but we went through kid baseball together. His book is a nice read; something to do on a cold, wintry day--and I did.

Right off, I should tell you, if you grew up in the big city you might as well do something else with your time rather than read this post. Unless you're a citizen of 'Smallville USA' it's impossible to understand the simple things in life. In the big city it's more than problematic to tie a sixty foot rope to a car bumper and attach it to a sled. The driver goes lickety-split on residential streets trying to throw you off as he takes snow and iced corners at 35 mph. Why we aren't dead I'll never know.
The All-State football player and University of Iowa Hawkeye, John Hendricks, could perform a trick unfathomable to mankind. We'd take the same rope attached to a bumper and Big John, wearing snow skis would grab the rope. He'd then slide down into a farm ditch. Varoom! Jude Rolfes would fire up his Nash Rambler and away John would go. How he stayed up on those skis I could never figure out but he did it. That's when he became my hero. We didn't drink beer and do drugs in those days. We did, though, do things that if our parent's knew would have placed us in an insane aslyum.

When I visit home, which isn't often, I'll drive around town and look at my influences. Keep in mind, this takes fifteen minutes unless I stop the car to visualize days gone by teasing my thought bank.

I had two very best friends. They continue to be that. Since 1955 we have traded birthday cards with a dollar inserted. On each birthday we three would gather at the celebrants home, have lunch and cake, then exchange the cards with the magical dollar enclosed. These guys are the best; loyal to a fault.

Little League baseball started in Boone in 1955. I played for the Knights of Columbus Giants. No! We didn't make players become Catholic to be on the team, either. That'd be like a kid playing for the West Boone Dodgers and having to move to that part of town to participate. Yuck! Nobody wanted to live in West Boone. I heard that a lot of 'Hoods' lived there.

Sacred Heart School was where I matriculated from grades 1-8. We had nuns. Grades 1 and 2 were in one room, 3-4 were in another and this pattern continued through grade 8. Some of the nuns were scary. They were associated with an order called Sisters of the Blessed Virgin Mary or BVM's. We called them 'Black Veiled Monsters'. Some of them were nice and others not so. I know they clipped their nails in a way that they came to a sharp point; made it easy to pierce our ear lobes when they became angry with us. By 'us' I refer to the boys. Once in awhile we got into some trouble; it usually involved one of the Ferry brothers, or Mark Collison, Jude Rolfes and/or MJ Hawkeye. There were eleven kids in the Ferry household. The eldest was a girl then she was followed by ten boys--or was it nine?. I loved going over to Tim and Jim Ferry's home. It was like going to Ma and Pa Kettles house. I never knew what was going to happen next and who was going to show up.
To this day, I don't know how Tim Ferry, Jude Rolfes and I escaped punishment when we put Limburger cheese in the school heating system. Thank goodness we had access to the rosary. I was pressing so hard on the beads I broke three sets.

When we were in high school we "drove around". The main drag of Boone was about four blocks long and two blocks wide on either side. We'd get in a buddy's car, three or four of us, and do figure eights on the city streets for two hours. The radio was tuned to KSO or KIOA out of Des Moines so we could get our Rock n' Roll fix. Does this seem really stupid to you? It does me but gas was only 25 cents a gallon and we could get a fill for two bucks if everyone chipped in. There'd be six other cars doing the same thing we were doing and every time we drove by them we'd wave. Boring? Not when you're young and stupid and the whole world revolves around "the coolest guys in the world" in Boone, Iowa.

High School zipped bye. Doesn't it for everyone? I left the Catholic school after grade 8. The day I picked up my transfer papers I stayed in the car and waited for my dad to exit the school. All I can remember is Sr. St. Felix standing in the drive way yelling at dad, "You're going to Hell for this". I hope she was wrong. I'd feel real bad for dad.

Boone High had excellent teachers and, better yet, wonderful examples for us by being great parents. I loved my coaches; was afraid of a couple but that's not all bad. There's nothing worse than the fear of God unless it's the fear of a coach.

Sometimes, when I have very little to do, I'll google a city to see what famous citizens came out of there. Boone doesn't have many. The town, originally called Montana was founded in 1865. According to my best guesstimate I'm the 1,535th most famous person to come out of my home town. There was a fella named Jimmy Archer who was sort of legendary. He was a major league baseball player in the early 20th century. His claim to fame was he could throw a runner out at second without standing up. "Iron Mike" Enich played football at the Univ. of Iowa with Heisman Trophy winner, Nile Kinnick. And, finally, it's the home of Mamie Douds Eisenhower, wife of President Eisenhower. There was a big motorcade that came through town in 1956 with the Prez and Mamie. It was a block from my home so I walked up the alley to get a peek. My dad wouldn't go. He was a die-hard FDR guy and, worse yet, a union man. Some things change and some things stay the same, huh?

Well, that's it for today's update on Boone. I'm tinkering with the idea of continuing on with Jim Grabau's book, asking eight or nine fellow classmates(before we croak)to write down their thoughts and memories on growing up in Boone.

I'll wager, if you aren't from Boone you don't know our school mascot was a Toreador? Better yet, you don't care. He, or was it a she, wore a toreador uniform and dressed in red and green, our school colors------but that's another story for another day.

Oh! If you ever want to go to Boone it's eight miles east of Ogden, three miles west of the Jordan curve on old Highway 30, fifteen miles south of Stanhope and twelve miles north of Madrid.

When I get back to the old homestead give me a jingle and we'll meet for coffee at the Dutch Oven Bakery. I understand they now have wifi.