Chapter 13 The Special Times

Life on the farm had its interesting times, but even the most interesting times were not exactly exciting, usually.  But the year was punctuated with those occasional events which provided minor highlights to our lives, the kind of events one looked forward to for days in advance.  And then they would come, be over, and we would wait for them to come again next year.
Kanawha Iowa around 1943

Did you ever hear of Maybasketing?  I'm not sure just what Maybasketing is, was, or was supposed to be.  I believe the practice entailed making a pretty little basket, lining it with flowers and decorative material, filling it with candy and other tasty delights and then, affixed with a note, hanging it on the door of someone you took a fancy to--of the opposite gender of course.  After hanging it on the door, one was to call loudly, "May--basket!", then disappear, leaving the recipient to open the door, delight in her discovery, and muse on the romantic gesture which had just graced her life.
           
I say, I think that is the way the art of Maybasketing was meant to be conducted.  But, I really don't know because by time the custom had come down to my generation in that neck of the woods where I grew up, it had been corrupted beyond recognition.  Here is the way we did Maybasketing.
            
Early in the month of May--we did observe the right month--some of us at school would get together during a recess and decide to Maybasket someone that night.  For example, Leonard and Donald Davids and Percy and Bernard Roskamp and I would decide we would Maybasket the Johnsons or the Larsons--families who lived within easy walking distance and who had kids about our age.  We would leave home about dark and meet at the school, and from there we would walk to the place, maybe a half mile distant.  Arriving at the Larsons, we would get as close to the house as we dared and then all shout, "Maaay-bass-ket!  Maay-bass-ket!"  Then run for cover, for that was the signal for the people in the house to come out and catch you, which, if they were any kind of sports at all, they would endeavor to do.  After they had come out, of course, it would be difficult for them to locate you for their eyes were not adjusted to the darkness yet, and besides, you would be concealed behind some tree or shrub or gasoline tank, if possible.  But, it was the duty of the Maybasketers to continue hollering, "Maay-bass-ket," to give them a clue as to where you were.  As they headed in your direction, of course, you tried to switch your position and avoid being caught.  Eventually, they might catch all of you and the game would be over.  Or if you were very elusive and a faster runner able to maneuver around the obstacles in the darkness, they would finally give up and you and anyone else who eluded capture could count themselves as the winners.
            
A stupid game, right?  Especially since we never even dreamed of bringing a real Maybasket.  Only once did we do that.  Wendell Burnham who lived in a shack-like house half way between our place and the school, was from a poor family, and he had been ill for a couple of weeks.  I'm not sure who suggested it, but we went there one May night and actually delivered a basket with some goodies in it.  We didn't play the usual game; instead, we were invited in and Mrs. Burnham thanked us graciously for the treats we had given them. 
            
The thrill of Maybasketing was also partly the venture into the darkness of the night, the excitement of the game of trying to avoid being caught as we stumbled over obstacles in the darkness or ran into barbed wire fences.  On the other side, what drama, when sitting by the kerosene lamp, reading a book, to hear outside the beckoning wail of "Maay-bass-ket,  Maay-bass-ket."  It was the siren to invade the darkness and discover who would so honor you by bringing this adventure into your life this night.
            
And then, too, let's admit it, we sometimes did other things under the veil of darkness as we were on the way to or from Maybasketing.  One night we decided to take the string that we had found from an old softball and run several strands of it across the road while we held on to it from the opposite ditches.  When the first car came roaring down that gravel road we jerked it up just as he approached the spot.  We expected him to barrel right through the string, but to our surprise he slammed on his brakes, careened sideways in a cloud of dust and almost tipped his car.  We instantly fled in terror and only later turned to watch as he started up his car again and drove off into the night.  How would it have changed my life if that car had tipped over, and the driver or a passenger had been severely injured or killed?  Of such things, I guess, are the lessons of life learned.

Early in June there was the annual Mission Feast which our church always observed.  It was a big event, held on a week day, and would be attended by virtually everyone in our own congregation as well as many visitors, mainly from other Christian Reformed congregations in the broader area.  The event would begin at 9:30 in the morning and would feature two speakers, one of which was often a missionary, and the other a minister noted as a gifted speaker from some other part of the country.  The missionaries would give inspsiring sermons or talk about their mission work in Africa or China or among the Navajo Indians, and would sometimes show slides of their work.  On some occasions they would have special meetings with the children, dress up like the natives and show how the witch doctor carried on his evil craft.
            
At noon the ladies of the church would serve a big meal.  In all honesty, this along with a second meal served at about 6 o'clock, was the part of Mission Fest which I probably enjoyed the most, for we kids were allowed to eat together and we stuffed ourselves with all the delectable food.
           
The afternoon would have two more speakers; and then at night, allowing time for the men to go home and milk the cows and feed the pigs, the final session would be held.  Often some kind of music--a quartet, a duet or a trumpeter--would provide some inspirational entertainment and then it was time for the big name outside speaker to deliver the climactic speech, a speech which would convince everyone again of the urgency of going out into all the world to preach the gospel.  And if we were not called to preach the gospel specifically, or be a missionary in some foreign land, at least we could give, and give generously, that the kingdom of Christ would conquer from Greenland's icy mountains to India's coral strand; from Africa's sunny fountains to some other benighted, godless land.  The collection would follow, and it was always a big one.  Regular church service collections in those depressed days saw collection plates contain mainly quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies.  This one was strictly green stuff, filling the plate to the brim.
            
The mission feasts were good experiences for me.  The speakers were usually interesting, even to kids, and they excited in me some of the drama of our place and purpose in the world.  We were not here just to make it through and hope to get to heaven some day; no, we had a mission to accomplish, worlds to win for Christ.  And it was something we all had to do together as the people of God.

A little later in the summer there would be the yearly Sunday School picnic.  In my younger years that was always held at West Lake park.  There were two lakes about 4 or 5 miles east of town known as the twin lakes.  East Lake was the bigger twin, but West Lake had a bigger grove of oak trees with a flat, grassy area where ball games could be played and foot races run. 
           
The picnic would, for some reason, always be on a sunny day.  For us kid it would begin as soon as we arrived on the scene, usually about 11:30 when the mothers had to get the food together and the men had to set up the tables, get the ball diamond in shape, and make other preparations.  Meanwhile, the kids would go down by the lake to look for frogs, throw stones at ducks and get their tennis shoes muddy.
            
After the meal, which was the first highlight, there would be a short program, and then the event for which the whole picnic, it seemed to me, was planned and conducted: the races.  Each sunday school class, which typically had two grade levels, would have a race for the boys.  I'm not sure what the girls did, but they didn't count much anyway.  On the years that I was in the top grade, like a 6th grader in the 5th and 6th grade class, I could invariably expect to win the race, and always did.  I would beat out Donald Cooper, Harry Peters, Leo Abbas, cousin Alvin and a couple others.  The next year, however, I would always have to compete against Carl Cooper who was in the grade ahead of me.  Carl always beat me, forcing me to be adopt a bit more humility.

The Fourth of July was a big day for celebrations.  Long before I knew anything about the Declaration of Independence being signed on that day in Philadelphia in 1776, I knew that the Fourth of July was a very important day.  It must have been, for it was a holiday, the mail was not delivered, nobody worked, and everyone would celebrate the day.  And celebration meant one thing in those days: a carnival-like atmosphere on a town main street or city park where there were ferris wheels, merry-go-rounds, tilt-a-whirls, contests, soft drinks (known to us only as pop), ice cream and crowds of people milling around, moving from one concession to another.  The afternoon might see a baseball game featuring the best athletes from two rival towns pitted against each other.  At night there would often be a fireworks display.
           
The town of Kanawha never had a celebration on the Fourth of July during my childhood, but we could count on some other nearby town to have one.  The first such one that I can distinctly remember was in Garner, about 20 miles northeast of us.  It was a stifling hot day.  I tagged along with my dad up and down main street.  We came to the theatre.  Pa saw the sign that there was air-conditioning inside; so inside we went and there I saw the first movie of my life.  It was a western featuring Ken Maynard.  Ken was handsome, riding his white horse and dressed in a black shirt with a neckerchief and a light-colored cowboy hat.  He bravely rescued a damsel in distress and became my hero for years to come.  I couldn't get over the marvel of the picture show.  My father was a bit embarrassed about my eagerness to discuss this with everyone because movies were really a kind of a no, no in the denomination at the time.  Although my parents were never very rigid about this regulation, and later, as teenagers we often went to "shows," but it was not the kind of thing that we were encouraged to tell the preacher about.
           
In later years, when I finally understood what the Fourth of July meant, most communities had given up the practice of holding Fourth of July celebrations.  One would have to go to a larger city farther away, or to Clear Lake where the Bayside amusement park would have its biggest day of the year.  In my later, high school years we began to hold our Sunday School picnics at Renwick Park on that day along with the Wright Christian Reformed Church.  After the picnic, and after the chores were completed, the young people would then head off for Clear Lake to spend the evening.

The town of Kanawha, as I said, did not celebrate the Fourth; but somewhere between the end of June and early August there would be a town celebration.  I'm not sure what the celebration was for, but there would be the usual things that celebrations had: the rides, the concessions, the hot dogs, the pop and ice cream and the crowds of people coming from all over to celebrate.  I guess they came to celebrate life and good times as people have done for centuries.  The Kanawha town celebration would take place on the two block main street, the heart of the town.
           
One of the events I remember with some clarity was the challenge a man on a platform gave saying he would suffer the hazard of being run over by a tractor if enough people put their money down as an encouragement for him to do it.  After enough money had been collected he did indeed go through with it.  He wrapped himself in a thick blanket, whereupon a rubber-tired John Deere tractor carefully rode one of its wheels over him.  He got up unscathed, quite healthy, and a bit richer than he had been before; and the crowd, I believe, slightly disappointed that it had been performed
so easily.
            
Then there was that ugly brute of a man on the platform before the boxing tent, dressed in boxing shorts with a towel slung around his neck.  The barker challenged anyone in the crowd to take him on in a three round match and win 60 per cent of the gate if he could lick the boxer standing there.  Little did he know that we had Vance Basler in our community; and good-looking Vance had recently won the State Golden Gloves boxing tournament.  Vance stood there quietly and listened to the challenges as the crowd egged him to go in there and beat the crap out of that stranger.  Vance, with an admirable calm and a cool air about him, finally accepted the challenge and went in there to do battle with the hairy-chested monster.  I was not allowed to witness this match, whether because of the outrageous price of a whole dollar being charged for the tickets, or because my dad had principles against the brutality of the sport, I do not know.  In any case, we found out shortly that Vance had made short work of the vicious-looking out-of-towner.  Chalk one up for the home town boy.
           
One of the things we were warned about from the pulpit was the peep shows.  As a lure to gain customers, a girl in a grass skirt, a halter and little else, would wiggle around on the stage in front of the tent right there on main street while a barker invited the crowd to come in and see her dance and take it off.  My dad, with me as a seven or eight-year-old in tow, stopped by briefly--out of curiosity, I suppose--to see if things were really all that bad.
            
         "Come on in gentlemen.  Come on in and see Milly.  Milly can wiggle her belly like a bowl full of jelly."
            
As the barker finally wound down his speech a stupendous thing happened which left my mouth hanging open for minutes.  Milly, right up there on that platform and in full view of all the men and even some boys, began to twist and gyrate vigorously for several seconds.  Then suddenly she turned her backside to the crowd, flung off her grass skirt, shook her derriere, and, just as quickly, ran inside the tent.  I was absolutely flabbergasted.  Though too young to catch the full sexual import of that action, the brazen naughtiness of a person who would expose her fanny to all those people utterly defied my youthful credulity.  I think Pa was a little surprised by it too--or maybe he wasn't--and a bit embarrassed.  I was speechless for some time.  Later, when I recovered, I would tell all my friends I had seen a "nekked" lady.

Less spectacular, but still a highlight of the year was the annual Ladies Aid Sale.  Ladies in the church attended a weekly Ladies Aid society in which there would be a Bible study and an hour or so devoted to sewing, quiltwork, stitchery or some other fancy needlework.  About early September they would devote an evening at the church and Bud Johnson would auction off all the items which had been made.  The proceeds of the sale would go to a mission cause.
            
That was all fine and good, but the exciting part of the Ladies Aid Sale was that the kids were free to do as they pleased during the sale.  We played hide and seek out in the darkness, and tag, and sometimes even explored peoples' back- yards for apple trees and forbidden fruit.  But when the last pillowcase had been auctioned off and the profits were being counted, it was time for the treats.  Ice cream, scooped from a huge container, and cherry pie, and peach pie, and apple pie, and chocolate cake were all available.  And we kids could share in it, even though we had not sewn a stitch or bid on a single doiley.  We were part of the community and so the ice cream and pie and cake were for us too.  And usually they could not get rid of it all, so there were even seconds to be had.  Is there anything better than that?  Food is a part of every worthwhile celebration.

Hunting and fishing were never important in my life.  Every fall Pa would hunt pheasants in our cornfields with his twelve gauge shotgun.  Pheasants were abundant in our area at that time and the few times that I walked along with him I observed him shoot down several colorful birds.  I never tried it.  As a matter of fact, I never fired a shotgun.  I did a little hunting--very little--with a rifle.  One day after a heavy snowfall I tracked a jack rabbit and roused him from his lair.  He ran in his winter white coat for about a hundred feet, then stopped to survey the situation.  I shot and killed him.  The snow absorbed the little pool of blood he spilled.  It was rather sad to see this proud little animal's life snuffed out.  On another occasion I took one shot at a small flock of crows flying overhead.  One black crow fell to the earth, dead.  I was reminded of the time when, as a nine-year-old, I had spent a few days at Uncle Bert Roskamp's place and had felled a robin with a sling shot.  Cousin Theressa, ten years my senior, found the lifeless creature and questioned me whether I had done that sad deed.  I'm not sure whether I confessed or denied it, but after her little sermon on respecting animal life, I just never felt enthusiastic about killing animals.
            
We went fishing two or three times a summer, especially on days when the fields were too wet to work.  Usually we fished the lakes within 20 miles of our place and generally caught only bullheads which, while very good to eat, were not especially exciting to catch.  On one occasion we traveled to Lost Island Lake about 80 miles from us where we even staid in a cabin overnight.  We caught well over a hundred fish.  I liked some aspects of fishing.  Getting out on the water was rather enjoyable; but baiting the hooks, waiting for bites, unhooking the fish, untangling the reels, were all rather distasteful experiences for me which failed to compensate for the meager pleasure I derived from the sport.  Some have suggested that if I had done some real fishing, fishing of game fish, I would have become an enthusiast.  But I doubt it.  Most of the fishing enthusiasts that I knew were even enthusiastic about bullhead fishing.  I wasn't.  Too bad, perhaps; but that's the way it is.

Christmas back then, was not greatly unlike now.  It had colored lights, though fewer of them; presents, though fewer of them; and school programs and Sunday School programs.  In these programs we children all had our opportunities to "speak our piece" (or was it peace?).  I was usually commended for speaking mine loud and clear, but, I never enjoyed memorization, and on at least one occasion I got stuck and needed assistance to continue.  After the Sunday school program, which was always held on Christmas Eve, the presents to the teachers and from the teachers would be distributed, and a sack with a variety of candies and nuts, along with an apple and orange, would be given to each Sunday school pupil.  That brown sack of goodies was more anticipated than the present from the teacher, and it became something of a challenge between Ruth and me to see who would be able to exercise the greater self-control and extend the enjoyment of its contents over a longer period.  I learned early that consuming those goodies too soon would result in agony as I would have to endure watching her continue to enjoy hers.  Now, Ruth was a reasonably generous sister, but there was a certain principle of justice here that ruled out any sharing in this case.  
            
Our family exchanged gifts in our home after the Sunday School program.  I don't recall that cousins were ever involved in this exchange.  Since we kids rarely had opportunities to earn money, and allowances were unheard of, most of the giving was by our parents.  I remember little about the gifts I received.  One year I got a cowboy suit and hat which I was quite excited about since at that stage in life's adventure, I was quite sure that I would grow up to be a cowboy.  I had requested a bee-bee gun for a number of years and finally got one when I was a sophomore in high school.  By that time, I felt I had outgrown it and was even ashamed to let my friends know that I had gotten it.
            
We usually had a Christmas tree, but it took on much more significance after 1938 when we got electricity and could enjoy the colorful lights.  Town people, of course, had the benefit of electricity and colored lights long before we did. Candles were used more frequently back then, and were sometimes even placed on the Christmas tree. They were seldom lit, though, because this was clearly understood to be hazardous. 
           
I remember virtually nothing of New Year's Days until about my high school years when the Big Ten began playing against the Pacific Coast schools in the Rose Bowl.  Since there wasn't television, football bowl games did not have the prominence that they do now, although Rosebowl games have been played since about 1900.  On New Year's Eve, however, Ma would always make "Spekkin Dikken", or Old Year's cakes, a tradition handed down from the old country (Germany).  These were made of pancakes covering some kind of sweet sausage, liberally soaked in hot fat.  Not bad, except I liked plain pancakes bathed in luscious corn syrup better.

Today, of course, society is much more sophisticated.  We have the benefits of the technological explosion, giving us computers, television, videos, and other electronic games.  And these things give us a lot of vicarious thrills, thrills available at the flick of a switch whenever we want them.  And we have a calendar full of various organized sports which keep us occupied year round.  But it seems we have fewer of those community events which drew us together back then, fewer of those notable interruptions to the routine which added zest to the lives of my generation when I was growing up.  Maybe it's all in the perspective of one's age.  Maybe today's youth will also look back from a similar vantage point and recount the highlights that sprinkled their years with spice.  But I sort of doubt it.
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