My Portfolio

If you picture a valley as a bowl or a long trough between lines of mountains, Caney is not in a valley.    But Urban S. Gibbs, a patriarch who had the stern, unforgiving look of John Brown, was President of our bank and keeper of Caney’s money.  He called his bank...

My favorite black and white show was really a movie and it was only half in Black and White....The Wizard of Oz.  It was a movie my mother enjoyed watching with me.  Most of my growing up years, mom didn't have a lot of time for TV, keeping house for three...

My youngest daughter, Melanie, would have enjoyed 'The Howdy Doody Show' as a ventriliquist in her own right!

  BONANZA   SUNDAY NIGHT  I COULDN'T WAIT.  HOSS WAS MY FAVORITE WHEN HE WAS THERE TO HELP LITTLE JOE I WAS HAPPY .BUT WE DIDN'T GET TO ENJOY THE SHOW AS MUCH AS MOST PEOPLE BECAUSE IN THE BEGINNING OF THE SHOW THE MAP WOULD START TO BURN UP AND...

This is not the actual rubber bands we used....The ones we used were this big before you began pulling on them!  They were awesome!!!   Rubber band wars with Dad My younger brother Tyler and I used to love having rubber band wars with our Dad when we were growing up. ...

Howdy Doody was a great show that I remember.  They were re-runs at that time, but they were new to me!  Another show that started in black and white and then went to color was Captain Kangaroo.  I loved that show too....Mr. Green Jeans and the ping pong balls.

LOCAL FARMER AT HIS BEST   OUR NEIGHBORHOOD WAS FILLED WITH LAUGHTER PRETTY MUCH ALL THE TIME . I THINK THAT WAS THE REASON ONE OF THE FARMERS THAT LIVED THERE WOULD COME DOWN THE STREET WITH HIS HORSES AND HAY WAGON ON ANY GIVEN SATURDAY RIGHT AROUND 6:30 PM.  HE...

THIS WAS A FUN GAME   WE WOULD LINE UP HOLDING HANDS LIKE IN THE PICTURE.  EACH LINE OF PEOPLE HOLDING HANDS  WOULD BE ABOUT 4 TO 5 PEOPLE. THE TWO LINES WOULD BE ABOUT 50 FEET APART. THE FIRST PART OF THIS GAME IS THAT YOU TAKE TURNS CALLING A...

Windsock Estates -  Hang glider vista When I was between the ages of 2-4 years I lived in an apartment complex that was adjacent to the local community airport in North Conway, N.H.  The name of the apartment complex was Windsock Estates...What a great name.  The airport and surrounding town was...

On the road…again! Afghanistan to ZambiaChronicles of a Footloose ForesterBy Dick Pellek   Growing Bamboo Almost every time that he passed the dwarf bamboo thicket planted alongside his house in Pennsylvania, the Footloose Forester was reminded that bamboo was part of his family life. At one time or another, he fished...

  I just want to mention that in my life time I have seen so many things come and go and just wanted to mention a few, S & H Green stamps, metal ice cube trays with a lever to loosen and drop the ice out, Roller skates with metal wheels...

As a young girl, I loved to visit my grandparents.  I would ride my bicycle to their house.  We lived on 7th East in Salt Lake City, Utah and they lived on Leland Avenue, about three or four blocks away. I remember that my grandfather [Folkert T. Folkers] often sat in...

In my growing up and college years, I had a bad temper.  However, over the years I have learned to control it, as well as come to the knowledge that if I was offended, I was the only one to blame.  No one could make me angry nor offend me without...

A couple of miles west of my home town, Caney KS, after crossing an old iron truss bridge spanning the muddy Caney River on a narrow asphalt country road there was a crossroads.  To the north the road ran a few miles and then fizzled out.  To the south it turned into...

Sometimes life can be complicated. My Father deserted our family shortly after I was born. My two sisters were seven and eight years older than me and were upset and, at my Mother’s wishes, they were not to discuss this with me until I was older. In grade school, My sisters...

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE Northwest of my little home town a lonely hill stood guard over the murky waters of Cheyenne Creek, the Santa Fe Railroad tracks, and the swampy liquid of the Caney River as it moved lazily southward towards Bartlesville. A rutted, rocky, road that...

FFA Motto: Learning to Do; Doing to Learn; Earning to Live; Living to Serve During my ninth grade year at Bear River Junior High School, I registered for Agricultural Science and became a member of the Future Farmers of America organization.  The four years that I participated in the program were...

When “The War” ended in 1945 we had lived with shortages for four long years.  We were ripe and ready for new things.  Our factories had learned to mass-produce guns, planes, tanks, and trucks.   Now with the war over they were “all dressed up with no place to go.”   They needed...

My parents owned a small business and worked incredibly long hours. This was in the 50s when working women were still something of an oddity and most of the women on our block were stay-at-home moms. In our unconventional household, my older sister, Jackie, and I were expected to assume the...

Walk westerly a hundred steps or so from Winklers’ Drug Store in Caney Kansas around 1945 and you’d find yourself in front of one of the most consistently busy “stores” in town: Floyd Swayne’s Barber Shop.  This was a male kingdom.  If testosterone had color you could have seen it oozing...