A Five-Year Anniversary and a Montier Memory
Wed, 01/22/2025 - 9:47am
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By:
Lonnie Whitaker
September 18th of last year marked the five-year anniversary of this column in the Howell County News. I won’t say it, but the cliché about time being airborne is true. I recall how it started, as if it were yesterday.
My sister-in-law, Sandra Whitaker, told me a married couple, Ron and Amanda Mendez, had purchased the newspaper in Willow Springs. That’s nice, I thought. Then, she told me she had informed Amanda, the new publisher, that I was a writer and would be sending her a sample of my writing. As writers do, I cranked out a story, “The New Kid in Town,” and sent it with a query letter to Amanda.
Amanda accepted the story for publication, and replied that she could use similar stories every other week. In the writers’ world, for those who are not the likes of Stephen King or John Grisham, positive responses to queries are blessings received with gratitude. And it was. But I wasn’t sure I could come up with new material that often.
But two weeks came around, and I submitted another story. Then, another two weeks and another story. Readers may remember some: “Cruising and the A&W,” “Spill the Milk and Not the Moonshine,” and stories about venerable teachers and coaches.
The submissions continued, and at some point, early-on, I noticed Amanda had created an official name for my articles: The Way We Were—Personal Reflections on Life in the Ozarks. A column. I stood a little taller. So, there John Grisham.
On Wendell Bailey campaigns, Judge Duane Benton (then, just Duane, but still honorable) sometimes used a metaphor about the consequences of owning a cow—you must feed it. Now, 112 articles later I am still feeding the cow, err, column. And it has been a blessing.
Several articles have won awards in the annual writing contest of the Missouri Writers Guild, in the Best Newspaper Column/Article category, sponsored by the Missouri Press Association.
In 2021, “An Ozark Girl’s Golf Odessey” won third-place. In 2022, “Remembering a Special Veteran,” a tribute to my late father-in-law, Dr. George Anstey, who was the battalion surgeon at the Battle of the Bulge in World War II, won second-place.
In 2023, “Darold Jenkins, All-American,” the story about an all-American Mizzou football player and World War II pilot who was shot down and spent seventeen months in a German POW camp, won first-place.
Last year, “Valedictorian, Mizzou Golden Girl and Professor,” which profiled WSHS graduate and University of Missouri Journalism School professor Sandy Davidson, won first-place. Also, last year, The Way We Were book, with the first fifty articles from this column, received Honorable Mention in the Non-fiction Book category.
Nevertheless, I still have concerns about running out of stories. But it seems once a quest is started, a universal principle dictates that unforeseen forces will come to assist, like metal filings to a magnet. When I don’t have an idea for the next article, and the literary side of my brain flatlines, accompanied by low-grade anxiety, from seemingly out of nowhere, an idea arrives swaddled in layers that have to be unwrapped, sorted, and wrestled into something readable.
On the Acknowledgement page of The Way We Were book, I thank “the teachers, friends, schoolmates, relatives, and Ozark storytellers from Shannon and Howell counties who provided a wealth of writing material . . ..” They are the unforeseen forces who keep showing up. And a newspaper deadline is my rocket fuel.
The idea often arrives when I am thinking about something else. Such as yesterday, Don Cafourek, a classmate from the two-room school at Montier, noticed that actor Robert Shepherd (another Montier schoolmate) had purchased my novel Soda Fountain Blues and posted a photo of himself on Facebook holding the book.
Don, whom I have only seen and spoken to once since grade school, sent me a message that started an online conversation. As we chatted, I was transported back to the Shannon County days of my youth, and images formed in my mind.
I recall Don had the three older, pretty sisters and was, himself, a handsome lad. Even in the grade school, it was apparent he was going to be a strong man. Back then I would have used “stout,” which was the word country folks used to mean strong, sturdy, and solid-looking, and not fat around the middle. He was not without artistic talent. He won first-place in Mrs. Shockley’s fourth-grade valentine design competition.
On the last day of school in the fifth grade at Montier, Don was the kid who rode his bike at breakneck speed racing on a gravel road to summon help after a snake bit me. He nearly did break his neck when the bike hit a chuckhole, and Don tumbled over the handlebars headfirst.
In a sixth grade softball game, he was at bat and the pitcher kept throwing wild pitches. The last pitch came high out of the strike zone, and in true Yogi Berra fashion, Don swung the bat vertically over his head knocking the ball well past the outfielders.
The last time I saw Don was the summer after my sophomore year in high school. Back from the Kansas wheat harvest, I was in Montier hauling hay with old schoolmates Larry Stover, Glenn “Chick” Renshaw, and Gary Story. Don showed up, mostly just to visit, but decided to help.
While we unloaded 60-pound bales from the truck, one at a time, Don grabbed a bale in each hand, twirled around like a discus thrower, and hurled the bales toward the barn. The local boys weren’t surprised, but the feat impressed me. I had not seen him since the sixth-grade, and the change was dramatic. He was built like Charles Atlas. [Younger readers can Google the name. Skinny boys like me from those days know the name from the back of comic books.] For the record, I suspect Don’s development came from chores and not the weight room.
In our chat, I mentioned that in Montier we pretty much lived the same lives our parents or grandparents did, without indoor plumbing and water from cisterns.
Don replied, “That’s right. Our kids couldn’t survive if they had to heat their water in a tub and take a bath not over once or twice a week, and it might even be secondhand water. And have to draw your water out of the cistern and go out in the cold to get it. We have seen a lot of changes.”
That made me smile. I remember the galvanized tub we used at the old farmhouse. Grandma still had it when I was back that summer hauling hay. While I was out in the fields, she set the tub in the backyard in the sunshine and filled it with cistern water. By the time I got home, covered with dust and hay, the water was the perfect temperature. Outside, under the stars, I could not have felt more relaxed in a modern resort spa.
After mentioning modern conveniences, such as the improved highway system, Don summed up those halcyon days nicely: “. . . but yet, I think the best times of my life were when we boys were all young and went to a country school. Seems like everyone got along.”
My thanks to the Howell County News and readers for supporting this column. Recalling events from the past has been like opening a “time-capsule” of stories. In the end, our stories are our legacy.
With shameless self-promotion, I can announce that The Way We Were—Part II should be available this year in March, as a paperback, e-book, and audiobook.