It was 1970 somethin', in the world that I grew up in...

Dedicated with love to my dad,
Milton “Mike” Knoll, Jr.
March 22, 1952 – March 7, 2010
A lifelong resident of Conde, South Dakota,
whose life was too short by far, but whose roots were sunk too far into this soil to ever be pulled up.

It was 1970-somethin’, in the world that I grew up in….
Have you ever watched those shows on the History channel where archeologists, historians, and sociologists try to recreate the scene and tell a story of the day to day lives of the people in long lost civilizations simply by sifting through centuries old rubble of buildings that once stood, tiny shards of pottery and broken bits of refuse? Those shows always amaze me. What fabulous imaginations those people have. While watching them spin their fantastic tales, I imagine what the real people of those long lost civilizations might think of those stories. My guess would be that the experts are way, way off and it was nothing like that at all.
With the closing of the school, the demolition of the old buildings on Main Street, and the passing of so many treasured “grown ups” from my childhood, I’ve started to feel as if all trace of my life is disappearing behind me and soon no one will ever know I existed. There will not be any rubble for the archeologists, historians, and sociologists of the future to sift through to recreate my story. The tiny little world in which I existed as a child is already vastly different than it was then and soon will be lost completely, never to be recovered. There should be something I can do to stop that from happening, some little way that I can at least preserve a piece of my soon to be lost civilization. I guess I will just have to tell my own story before I leave.
My choices and the twists and turns of my life’s road have taken me far away from that tiny little world of my childhood. As I write this, I work in a law firm on the 18th floor of a skyscraper, right in the middle of downtown Nashville, Tennessee. I worked unusually late the other night, so the scene that I encountered as I left the office tower and walked the two blocks to the parking garage was much different late in the evening than it was in the middle of the afternoon. There was still a great deal of hustle and bustle, but it was a whole different crowd with a whole different vibe, a whole different world. While standing on the street corner in the midst of the altered crowd, waiting for the light to change, I contemplated the stark differences that can be found in this tiny piece of the world in just a few short hours, not to mention years. This is Music City and my office is just down the street from that of Country Music Television and the old Ryman Auditorium, birthplace of the “Grand Ole Opry”, so of course, country music is everywhere and is even piped through the traffic lights. As I stood there waiting for the signal, I heard Mark Wills’ croon, “It was 1970 somethin’, in the world that I grew up in…” and I suddenly started to laugh and cry at the same time as my mind thrust back in time into the world that I grew up in when it was 1970 somethin’. Don’t worry, I wasn’t making a spectacle of myself. It’s a big city with lots of mentally unbalanced transients, so no one paid any attention to the crazy chick on the corner.
In the world of Conde, South Dakota, back in 1970 something, Mikey Johnson (a.k.a. Mike in the Morning, 107.7 KABD-FM, weekdays, 6 to 10 a.m., streaming internet access at www.dakotabroadcasting.com) and I (a.k.a. Jeanna Knoll McKinney, no celebrity status of note) lived across the street from each other in the last two houses on the far east end of Main Street (neither of which still exist, by the way). Living at the polar opposite of town from the school meant that the possibilities for adventure and intrigue along the journey were limitless and we took full advantage of the opportunity, establishing an unblemished record of never once arriving at school on time during the entire first semester of kindergarten.
First stop along our journey was to have a chat with old Mr. Joe Bendenally (I probably horribly misspelled that, my apologies to the family, five year old phonetics at work) who met us at my mailbox and would give us each a stick of Black Jack gum. Black Jack gum turned your mouth black and your spit a purple-ish-gray hue when you chewed it, which was cool, but it tasted revoltingly like black licorice, a bad concept for bubble gum in my opinion. It was very nice of Joe to think of us though and we accepted each stick and chewed most of them for a few minutes anyway, just in case it was an acquired taste we might someday come to enjoy beyond its purple spit capabilities.
Next door to my house lived Mr. Harry Veech (probably another misspelled name – apologies). I think he was retired then and I’m not sure what his former occupation was, but he always wore tan colored uniform-like shirts and slacks and he was very handy at fixing broken toys. At first glance, he might have seemed like a taciturn old man, but he was really quite the conversationalist who enjoyed a good visit. He would “take a look see here” and tinker with the broken toy while asking after our parents and grandparents, then return the magically repaired toy, along with a Kraft caramel from the candy dish on the TV tray next to his armchair and send us on our way.
Further down the street, my uncle Lyle Ellingson’s old dog, Blue provided a little entertainment for a time, then we spent the next couple of blocks dodging and weaving, trying to steer clear of the older boys, (who shall remain nameless, but you know who you are and you should be suitably ashamed) on the off chance that they might decide to stick us up in a tree just to laugh at our futile attempts to get down.
Next up was the duty to double-dog-dare each other to walk, not run, but walk, as slowly as possible, past Mrs. Taylor’s haunted house across the street from the United Methodist Church. Poor Mrs. Taylor may have still lived there at the time, but even so, the huge, gray stone house, with the broken green shutters and shingles banging in the wind, just looked spooky, imposing and menacing to tiny little kids.
In the winter, the empty block ahead had to be traversed as quickly as possible given that we were completely exposed and ripe for ambush by bigger kids with snowballs as there was nowhere to hide and no cover to seek.
At last, we came upon the shelter of the lumber yard. Climbing on, around, under, over and through the piles of lumber and pallets was clearly discouraged and probably now would be a criminal offense or at the very least a nightmarish risk exposure for negligent tort litigation, but at the time was marvelous fun.
The hardware store was considered an extension of the lumber yard in our minds. I’m sure it had another name, but I do not recall what that might have been. If you were able to sneak into the store undetected and loiter amongst the aisles, you might catch some old guy gossip or the occasional cuss word as the older men gathered to sit in folding chairs back near the cash register counter to drink coffee, smoke and maybe play some cards. As a little girl, I loved to look at the paint sample wall, all those pretty colors arrayed like a big rainbow. Every time I looked at it, I picked out a different color to paint each room in our house, even though every room in our house was always eggshell white. Speaking of paint brings to mind the great paint shaker machine. If you were very, very lucky while you loitered, someone might come in to buy some paint. That meant you could stand there in awe and watch as Mr. Hildebrandt pounded the lid down tight then strapped the can into the giant shaker. The beast clunked and thudded and made a horrible racket that would enthrall any small child. What might happen if the can suddenly tore from its restraints and just flew out of the jaws of the beast? You never knew, but the awesome possibility always existed.
We’ll take this little journey down the memory lane of Main Street Conde, zigzagging back and forth across the street as you came upon locales of interest so that we don’t miss anything, but of course, given that we were not allowed to cross the street unattended, Mikey and I never actually visited these establishments in this order (wink, wink).
The next building encountered on the left would be the Northwestern Public Service, manned by my uncle, Henry Meyer. Uncle Hank was a man of few words, but on occasion, he could be cajoled into letting us turn Mr. Electricity’s head off and on. You remember him, the big wooden cut-out guy with the arms and legs made of lightning bolts or electrical currents and the lightbulb head. Once or twice, he even got out the electrical current experiment thing that you cranked up and could conceivably use to shock each other, which of course was just a theoretical use for it not ever put into practice while Uncle Hank’s head was turned. Can you tell by my oh-so-accurate and technical description of the devise in question that a budding electrical engineer I was not?
Back across the street we found the old diner. This establishment was already closed when we were kids, but you could wipe away the dust and grime and peek in the windows to see the counter and the tables and chairs just like the old diners on TV. I had heard tell my mom was a waitress there when she was in high school and I used to like to try to picture her in a pink dress with an apron and a name tag like the diner waitresses on TV, but I never asked her if that was really what she wore.
Popping over to the left again, we find Frank’s Place, the den of iniquity. Clearly, it was not a den of iniquity where nefarious activities took place, but that’s such an intriguing phrase and seemed appropriate as Frank’s Place was always shrouded in mystery for me and Mikey given that neither of us was allowed entrance. We had friends whose parents let them go in the bar, but our parents frowned on it at the time, forcing us to covertly case the joint. If we both stepped up to stand on the arms of the bench in the front at the same time, it wouldn’t tip over and we could cup our hands around our eyes and see in the window. It was always dark and smoky inside in the morning, with just one light glowing way back by the bar, illuminating Frank as he leaned over the bar and read the paper. Frank was a muscular guy, who always wore jeans and a t-shirt with a pack of cigarettes rolled up in his shirt sleeve and who could, with use of our highly overactive imaginations, look menacing and gangster-like in the eerie glow of the lamplight through the haze of smoke in a forbidden locale.
Next up was Art’s Grocery Store, two aisles jam-packed with every grocery item you could ever need. How they squished everything a “real” grocery store in the “big city” carried on to basically six shelves was a constant source of amazement and Art knew just exactly where everything was. You couldn’t stump him if you tried, and we did. He could locate the obscure requested item like a heat seeking missile. Well, a heat seeking missile moving in slow motion. Art was never in a huge hurry, more a steady and sure wins the race kind of guy as he shuffled along down the aisles. His wife Irene wielded a real feather duster, one made of huge, brownish-gray feathers that seemed as if they must have come from a pterodactyl or at the very least, a great, monstrous bird not naturally found in the wilds of South Dakota. Maybe it’s that five year old filter again, but it seemed enormous at any rate. My Grandma June clerked the occasional afternoon in the store and when she did, if I was very, very careful, she would let me dust cans with Irene’s great duster, an activity which always made my whole face tickle and twitch until I sneezed uncontrollably. Perhaps I was allergic to pterodactyl. Though clearly another frowned upon activity, the long, slanted, greased down aisles of the grocery store were ideal for sprint races, but one should never do it barefoot. I have never been a fan of wearing shoes myself, so I do recall at least a couple of occasions where my mother threatened me with certain death should I ever again choose to race up and down the aisles of the store barefoot. At first, I was at a complete loss as to how she knew I was in the store barefoot given that I was positive she was nowhere nearby at the time, until she commenced to scrubbing the skin off the soles of my feet in an attempt to remove the black, tar-like substance, resulting from decades of oiling the wooden floor, that had adhered to them. When my dad was a little kid, my grandparents owned the grocery store for a time, called it Mike’s Market, and lived in the apartment above the store. That seemed fantastic to me and I really wished I could do something exciting like live in the top of a store in the middle of Main Street. Yes, I was clearly sheltered and had a skewed view of what would be considered an exciting lifestyle.
I’m a little hazy about what comes next in the line of once proud buildings that no longer stand. I think that must have been the side of the street where Julie’s Beauty Shop was for a time. I know the building had a bank of big, bay windows in the front and Julie’s daughter Teresa and I were small enough girls to sit there in the sun in the little alcove made by the windows to contentedly while away the hours playing Barbie dolls and sneak in a nap like a couple of cats, listening to the hum of the hair dryer and the chatter of the “hair ladies” gossiping while they had their weekly curl set, comb out and Aquanet shellacking.
Anyway, back to the other side of the street where we find the Post Office, the United States Postal Service, our little bastion of official government activity, over which my Aunt Tootie, a.k.a. Darlene Meyer, Post Mistress, held reign. Darlene was a phenomenal post mistress who loved her job serving the community, but she ran a tight ship. There was a relaxed, homey atmosphere with her enormous plants flourishing in the lobby, but many things were accomplished with precision and efficiency behind the counter and wall of mail boxes. If we promised not to touch anything, we could watch her at work. You wouldn’t necessarily guess it from her calm and smiling demeanor, but she could move like Flash Gordon when sorting the mail. You couldn’t even see her hands they moved so fast. I begged repeatedly to be allowed to sort mail into boxes, regardless of the fact that I couldn’t actually read yet. But alas, though she loved me dearly, Aunt Tootie was a faithful Federal employee who informed me that any unauthorized individual handling the mail was committing a Federal offense, which simply could not be allowed on her watch. I wasn’t real clear on what a Federal offense was, but it seemed pretty bad. There were, however, tasks I could be allowed to perform, such as putting water in the little dish that held the wet sponge people could use to “lick” their stamps. (Yes, stamps once had to be licked by your tongue, or a wet sponge, to get sticky, they didn’t just come that way.) Not being able to read was an advantage that afforded me the privilege of standing on a stool to pin the new FBI Wanted posters to the bulletin board in the lobby. Once I was able to read, that activity was discouraged for fear the gruesome details might scar my psyche. If I was really driving her nuts for something to do, she would let me use the big, manual, postage date stamper on a blank piece of paper, once she had received my solemn oath that I would not stamp on anything but the specified blank piece of paper, including my person, the desk or any other item that might seem stampable.
The most imposing edifice on Main Street would be the old People’s Bank, built in the pseudo-Greco-Roman style of all turn of the century banks, turn of the 20th century that is, with great columns flanking the door and tall, black marble topped teller counters. Mikey and I stopped there to get pink paper penny wrappers on the off chance that we might someday collect enough pennies to fill multiple 50 penny wrappers. It was a little spooky to walk on the huge black and white checkered tiled floors, especially given that I had crooked feet and wore uber-attractive corrective shoes with hard soles whose click echoed ominously against the walls and tall ceiling. Once we braved the tellers peering down at us from their lofty perches and made our request, they gave us round suckers with loop shaped sticks. We wanted desperately to see inside the vault, but were too afraid to ask for anything but penny wrappers and suckers. I heard a story that someone once tried to break into the vault and rob the bank, but then I think I confused the details of the story with an episode of Andy Griffith, so I’ll not repeat the tale.
The next locale of note was the Catholic Hall. Before our time, when Conde was really booming, this building was a car dealership, giving it a number of distinct features like ramps, stairs, railings, landings, garage doors, and show windows. Foolishly thinking we were just walking slowly and might get to school faster using a wheeled conveyance, our parents occasionally suggested we ride our bikes. This merely increased the opportunities for distraction and enabled us to take more side trips along the way. Riding a bike past the Catholic Hall proved too much temptation for an aspiring Evel Knievel like Mikey and he was forced to stop, get a good run at it, pedal furiously up the steps, across the landing and hurl himself into space, jumping over the steps on the other side. I admired Mikey’s fortitude and aspirations. After all, I had my very own Evel Kneivel doll with a white spandex, caped jumpsuit and a Gumby-like, poseable body on a motorcycle that really moved by itself after you ran the wheels backward. However, I was not particularly coordinated and recognized at an early age that my body was not Gumby-like, so my innate sense of self-preservation held me back and I waited patiently at the stop sign to pick up the pieces or call for help in the case that Mikey crashed on approach or his landing was less than stellar.
Across the street from the Catholic Hall was the Laundromat. I don’t remember if it had a name, but it seemed a magical place. We had a washing machine at home and if it wasn’t working that of one of my grandmas would be, so I don’t remember ever actually washing clothes there, but I desperately wanted to do so. I tried and tried to get Mom to buy one of those teeny tiny packages of laundry detergent out of the vending machine, but she never would do it. The Laundromat was a fabulous place to stop when it was cold outside as the air was always warm, misty and smelled Downey fresh, with steamed up windows we could use to draw pictures and send each other secret messages.
Like a decadent dessert at the end of a good meal, you should always save the best for last. The dessert at the end of a childhood adventure was Conde Sundries, better known as the drugstore or just “Virgil’s”. Utopia is defined as the best that humanity can conceive. Virgil’s was our utopia and Virgil and Ardis Labrie its smiling, benevolent caretakers. Virgil’s many and sundry wonders as perceived by a child are difficult to adequately describe. It’s hard to even know where to start. The bell over the door jingled as you walked in and to a small child, the sound was like a hallelujah choir of angels as the gates of heaven open wide. What to reach for first? Should you head for the penny candy on the bottom shelf, (the main reason why we never had more than 50 pennies to fill up those pink paper penny wrappers) the Sixlets, Pixie Sticks, Jawbreakers, Necco Wafers, Bit o Honey, Laffy Taffy, and Bazooka bubble gum with the cartoon jokes on the wrapper that Virgil, always wearing his white pharmacist smock and black horn rimmed glasses, would lean across the cash register counter and read for you if you were too little to read them yourself? Or should you go for the more expensive Slow Pokes, Sugar Daddies or Pop Rocks? Maybe you should get some of the now illegal or at the very least extremely politically incorrect Candy Cigarettes to coolly lean against the rack and “smoke” while you flip through the magazines. If it’s a hot day, how about grabbing an ice cream bar from the little white freezer at the end of the counter and just lying right down on your stomach on the floor in the corner to leisurely read the comic books with the covers torn off? Once you’re good and hopped up on sugar, jump up on the stools at the soda fountain and push yourself from the counter to spin around and around in circles on the stool while Virgil draws you a nice, tall, Cherry Up, heavy on the cherry. If you don’t happen to have the cash on hand for this much fun and you’re feeling like living dangerously, just tell Virgil to put it on Dad’s tab. As long as you don’t get crazy and spend over three dollars, he’ll be happy to oblige and Dad won’t yell at you for too long. Have no fear, parents. There were more practical reasons to visit Virgil’s, other than a sugar fix. If you weren’t feeling well or had an accident, there was always a box of cough drops or band-aids or a bottle of aspirin or Pepto Bismol to be had. Much like Art’s Grocery, hundreds of items would magically fit on the few shelves in the back. If you forgot to tell your Mom you were invited to a friend’s birthday party or she forgot about that baby shower she was supposed to attend or Dad blew off an anniversary, the perfect gift could always be found, from a water gun or hula hoop to a crockpot, baby bottles or Black Hills gold jewelry. And that’s not all. The boys could sit on the crate in the barber chair in front of the big window and get a killer buzz cut with a flick of Virgil’s flying wrists while spectators watched from the sidewalk.
Following a couple of flips over the iron bar in front of the American Legion Building, the intended purpose of said bar never being clear, Mikey and I would arrive at school. The first building where we went to school no longer stands either. It was a huge, stone edifice, that I believe was several stories, though kindergarten was held in the basement and we never ventured past Mrs. Holmquist’s first grade classroom at the top of the first flight of huge steps. The giant bell from the old school, which now sits atop the sign in front of the now closed new school, used to be in the tower atop the school. Though I don’t believe we ever arrived at school in time to witness the actual ringing of the bell to signal the commencement of classes, the bell was rung by pulling on a huge rope near our classroom. We were allowed to ring it once to signal the end of the school day, or some later time of significance, and it seemed like it took half a dozen small kindergarteners to heave on the rope. The other wonder of old school buildings that no longer exists was the fire escape. We never saw it used for its intended purpose, but the fire escape was a big metal tube like a giant slide, that ran from the top of the building to the ground. When the teacher wasn’t looking, we would dare each other to climb up inside it as far as we could go without slipping, which wasn’t very far because when you were little, it was hard to hold yourself up with your feet on either side as the other kids threw rocks at it, making a horrible din that was scary and rang in your ears so you couldn’t hear for a few minutes after you slid out.
And that was about it. It doesn’t seem like much when you read these few pages of words strung together to describe it. It’s even less physically, as only a couple of those buildings still stand and nearly all of the people mentioned are now gone as well. It’s fading away and soon will be lost, the only trace of it lingering in the memories of those were there then, many of whom are now scattered far and wide, until they too are gone. It’s not much, but through the eyes of a child, it was huge. It was both bucolic and idyllic. It was my whole world. It was the world that I grew up in, back in 1970 somethin’.