OK, JHS... at least this isn't going to be another flipping rant. Sometimes I think Sam Kennison has put a mojo hex spin on me.
Howdy JHS:
After 60 some years I'm in contact with somebody from the old neighborhood. Don't know how old you are and its none of my business but do you know anybody around the Sasakwa district who lived there in the early 40s? We lived on an Mid Continent oil lease about 5 miles south east of Sasakwa. There was an oil derick 100 yards from our lease house. This was quite close to the Canadian river. No electricity but had gas jets on the walls, no running potable water either. Out door privy complete Monkey Ward catalog, dried corn cobs and spiders. Radio had a 12 volt battery to listen to Fibber Mc gee & Molly along with Amos & Andy. I had a next door school chum name of Andy Anderson. You mentioned Wewoka, my dad use to take the famil to Wewoka 15 miles north of us. We were treated to strawberry sodas and movie show with its wooden seats and small screen, all 5 of us got in for about 50 cents. The
shorts were always the 3 stooges. So Sasakwa is a gas pump and a school. I went to that school to the 1st grade, then we moved to Kaliforny (shades of Grapes of Wrath) so dad could find work to support the family. Hope I'm not boring you with this flash back nostalgia trip. I remember when the big war first broke out and a steam train stopped next to our school baseball diamond. U.S. Army troops off loaded and bivwacked on the school grounds. Man, it was exciting to see all that hardware. Tanks, cannons, jeeps and trucks with their trailers. I think the rifles were bolt action. They had pitched their 2 man pup tents and stacked their rifles in a group. They only stayed for a couple of days and never knew why they came there in the first place but glad they did.
I was a curious little runt and asked some of those G.I.s what they had in a canvas covered slat boarded trailer. There ansere was... HITLER. Well, I had to see that and I asked them to let me see him. The sgt (3 stripes) chuckled and said...no, no, he don't speak English and he's too mean to talk to. Went around telling all my classmates they had Hitler over in a trailer. Some of them started bugging those soldirs to let them see him. That might have been 1942 a real early period of the WW-2. Those guys probably wound up in North Africa. All during that early time frame the troop train rail lines were heavly guarded by solders with fixed bayonets 100 yards apart on the train tracks. Saw that as we came into the town of Saskwa.
Thanks for your signal.
Jim