Chapter 16 Town

Town was Kanawha, Iowa, a little community of homes, businesses, churches and approximately 700 people placed in an area occupying less than a square mile.  Town was one mile east and three miles north of us, except for when I was very small; then it was two miles east and three miles south.

Town was never "the town" or "a town"; it was Town, which meant, it was Kanawha, a town in north central Iowa.  When we went there we didn't go to "a town" or the "town nearby."  We went to Town.  Before Pa would light his cigar, get in the car and drive off he would usually let us know that he was going to Town; and that meant to Kanawha.  If, for some reason he had to go to the county courthouse, he would not go to Town; he would go to Clarion.  Clarion may have been a town, but it definitely was not Town.

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Occasionally, maybe twice a year, we would go to a big city, like Mason City or Fort Dodge.  Once we even went to Des Moines for the State Fair.  But normally we went to Town for most of the things we needed such as groceries, hardware items, gas, auto repairs, and livestock feed.  Minor items of clothing would also be bought in Town, but something as important as a new suit would usually be reserved for a rainy day trip to Mason City approximately 50 miles away.  Our livestock and grain sales would also be transacted with someone in Town.  When we got a new tractor or a new car, even those were, in my time, purchased through a local implement or car dealer in Town.  For cars, we had the choice of a Ford or Chevy; and for tractors, it was either the red Farmall or the green John Deere.  And a significant rivalry persisted, especially among kids, over the respective merits of those brands.  We were always Ford people and Farmall people.  But, wherever our loyalties, both were sold in Town.
            
There were also the Town kids and the country kids.  I was told that the animosity was once considerable between those two groups, and gang fights were common when the country kids came to Town.  In my era, however, when practically all the country kids went on to high school in Town and automobiles and roads had improved to the point where the farm kids came into Town rather frequently, the hostility between these two segments of society had lessened considerably.  Only occasionally were we ever referred to as "hayseeds" or "country hicks," but a previous generation knew those expressions well.  But the continuing prestige of Town over country was indisputable.  Our family, for example, attended church in Town, while the Roskamps, the Verbruggees, the Davids and all the other Wright Church (Wright County Christian Reformed Church) people went to the country church.  We, of course, were several rungs in prestige above those who were not so privileged as to attend church in Town.

The city has always been a lure to rural youth, and similarly, on a lesser scale, Town always held its fascination for me as well.  Very early in my life, I looked forward to going along with Pa and Ma as they took a trip into Town.  In my earlier years prior to World War II, Kanawha had a bustling activity in commerce.  The two and one half block-long business section with side streets had at least three grocery stores; two hardware stores; a lumber yard; a drug store (with a soda fountain and comic books); two or three cafe`s (restaurant was a foreign word to us); a harness shop, which also served as a shoe store and a shoe repair place; a creamery where farmers sold their milk for the production of cream and butter; two poultry and egg stations; a feed mill; two grain storage elevators; a livestock sales pavilion where cattle, pigs and horses were auctioned off (and boxing or wrestling matches were sometimes held on winter evenings); two farm machinery (implement) shops;  four gas stations; two automobile agencies with auto repair service; a dry goods and clothing store; two taverns, one of which also had a pool hall and was referred to by Rev. Plesscher on occasion as "a den of iniquity;" a movie theater; a telephone switching center; a bank; and a couple of insurance agencies.  Added to all these, were two doctors and a dentist to provide health assistance, three churches to uplift the spiritual life, and a grade school and high school to educate the oncoming generation, a softball/baseball diamond (with lights for night softball games) where many a classic athletic struggle was fought.  Town, as you can see, was a beehive of activity, for it served not only its own residents, many of whom owned or operated the businesses, but the outlying community of farm families as well.
            
The stores and businesses were open, not only during the day, but on Wednesday evenings during the summer months to serve the farmers who often could not get in during daylight hours.  Wednesday nights featured band concerts (traditional bands with horns) at the bandstand in the park.
            
Saturday night, however, was the big night. Farmers and townspeople alike from all over the area would come into Town and do the main part of their weekly shopping.  For some of the men it would be the night to hit the tavern or the pool hall.  Others would enjoy a game of horseshoe behind the Standard service station.  For kids, it was a night of adventure, a chance to gather with all your friends and acquaintances in the park, and a chance to spend your quarter allowance on ice cream sodas or hamburgers.  It was always too early when Pa or Ma would chase us down and say it was time to go home.  And what a painful hardship it was when Harold or Henry required the family car and my parents would say they weren't going to Town on a particular Saturday night.  There I would sit, consoled only slightly by my fellow suffering sister Ruth, as the summer darkness descended on the lonely farm scene.  What agony to know that just a few short miles away in Town all kinds of fun was undoubtedly occurring under the bright lights as well as in the murky shadows, fun that I would not be able to experience that particular night. 
            
High school-age and older kids also considered Saturday night the highlight of their week.  Only they usually did not stay in Town, but left for even more exotic places like Britt, Clarion, Garner or Belmond where the girls were less well-known and, consequently, prettier and more exciting.  Some of the wilder kids would even hike off to Clear Lake's Surf Ballroom for a night of dancing and some illicit drinking.   At that time, most of the folk in the Christian Reformed Church (there were some exceptions) considered the Surf (where Buddy Holly had his last performance before dying in a plane crash in Clear Lake) to be too far off limits.  It might be okay to have a couple of bottles of beer or share a bottle of wine, but go to a dance hall where people indulged riotously in wild merriment?  That would be akin to attending the movies during the Sunday evening church service.

By the time I was in my last year of high school, the war was over and things were changing rapidly in rural America.  Better roads were being built: almost all the main roads connecting the towns were paved.  Automobiles were rapidly improving too.  All of this meant people could do more of their shopping in the bigger cities.  Besides that, farmers were experiencing unheard of prosperity.  Farm machinery was becoming bigger and more productive.  These factors led to larger farms, fewer farmers and smaller farm families.  The little towns like Kanawha began to serve fewer and fewer people.  One business after another began to fold, leaving vacant stores and eventually empty spots on main street.  Television began to come in and people, rather than coming in for the Saturday night movie or the social experience of meeting their friends and neighbors on main street, were apt to spend the night at home.  If they wanted to do something exciting, they would head for the bigger cities.
            
This process has slowly but unceasingly continued, and today, some 50 or 60 years after its heyday, main street in Town, though still there and recognizable, has only a sprinkling of the businesses it once did.  The most prominent center of activity today is the Rest Home for the elderly who are no longer able to care for themselves.  Progress with its consuming ferocity has sounded, if not the death knell, at least an ominous note for Kanawha, as it has for all of small town America.  And Town, now relegated largely to golden memories and pictures in the old scrap book, will never again have the meaning it once did.


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