Finding Greg
Cheryl Unruh
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Front Street looks pretty much the way it did when I was 8-years-old.
I remember well that trip to Dodge City, especially the getting-lost part.
In May, on our way to Colorado, Dave and I stopped in Dodge. We saw the Carnegie Arts Center, the Ford County Courthouse, and the Stan Herd mural which shows a stagecoach charging down the steep side of a six-story bank building.
Dave and I didn’t tour Boot Hill, but just seeing Front Street again returned a strong memory. Many years ago, I nearly ended up in the Boot Hill lost-and-found box along with the sad umbrellas and lonely mittens.
When I was in second grade, I rode a train to Dodge City.
Area Lions Clubs had commandeered a passenger train. They had arranged for the Santa Fe Railroad to haul a bunch of kids from across Kansas to Dodge for the day. We were to visit Boot Hill, then have a picnic.
My dad, who was a Lions Club member, and my brother and I, along with a handful of other hometown kids stood at the Pawnee Rock depot as the train approached from the east.
In Pawnee Rock, we were used to seeing freight trains. They dropped off boxcars which would be loaded with grain from the elevator or pellets from the Cargill Salt Plant. However, that misty morning was the first time I had ever seen a passenger train stop there.
As the locomotive pulled us westbound, every kid on the train had to try walking down the aisle. It felt awkward to move in the same direction as the train and equally odd to head the other way.
The train had a concession stand in one of the cars and, after begging a nickel off Dad, I made my way to it and bought one of those flat, rectangular, orange-and-white slabs of taffy, wrapped in waxed paper.
In Dodge City, our large group wandered through the various buildings on Front Street.
We entered a gift store, wildly colorful and exciting, with Indian headdresses hanging on wall hooks, along with moccasins, cap guns and low-slung gun belts. A countertop offered marbles and sets of jacks.
When I looked up from the tomahawks and harmonicas, I saw – no Dad, no brother, no one I knew!
Yo-yos and bracelets could wait; I had to find my dad. Adrenaline burned as I searched each face in the room. Strangers, every one.
If I couldn’t find my dad or anyone familiar, how would I get back to the train? How would I get home?
I was alone in a strange town. With no one to save me, I pictured myself living in an orphanage, eating oatmeal from strange bowls.
Today’s 8-year-olds are better connected to the world than we were. They have cell phones and can call home or 9-1-1.
After a few minutes of fear, I found Greg Davidson, a lanky boy from Pawnee Rock. My thoughts of that orphanage dissolved.
Greg was four years older than me, someone I knew, but not very well. He was in sixth grade - practically an adult.
“Can you help me find my dad?” I whimpered, looking up into his kind eyes.
“We’ll find him,” Greg said, putting his hand on my shoulder and keeping it there as we snaked through the packed room.
My dad was somewhere ridiculously close; I had just lost him in the crowd.
Several years ago, I mentioned this incident to Greg when I saw him in Pawnee Rock. He didn’t remember it.
But I do. And when he crosses my mind, I always smile. Those who treat us kindly are the ones we remember 40 years later.
You never know who’s going to save you. Sometimes, it’s a 12-year-old boy wearing blue jeans and a plaid shirt.
“Flyover People” is online at www.flyoverpeople.net.
• Cheryl Unruh can be reached at cheryl@flyoverpeople.net.