I blogged last night about growing up in Noel, politically.

[PinkTiger]

A student asked me today what it was like, growing up in the 1960s and experiencing all the assassinations and other things that were happening at the time. The question, which came in the middle of a discussion of this week’s historical inauguration of our first African-American president, took me by surprise for a second. I’m not sure what I answered in class, because I’ve been thinking about it ever since, and what I said may not match up with all my thoughts since then.
But I decided maybe I should share some of my experiences growing up in Southwest Missouri in the 1960s, and what it was like. (more)
http://brendakilby.wordpress.com/2009/01/19/a-front-row-seat-to-history/

[proud2BlibKansan]

1. Terrific read!

We had that Vaughn Meader album at our house too. In fact, I still have it. I grabbed it when my mom died and none of my siblings wanted it.

I grew up at the same time in the suburbs of KC and have so many of the same memories. One difference is I was in a very Catholic family and went to Catholic school so most of the adults I knew loved Kenendy. We did have one crazy neighbor who hated him but I don't remember anyone else. And when he died, EVERYONE in my world cried. Except that one crazy neighbor, and I stayed very far away from her after that.

But I remember going outside to look at spaceships in the night sky, never eating fast food cause there wasn't any (I still remember the first McDonald's that opened in our neighborhood and my mother was appalled by how expensive it was and how crappy the food was) and watching Walter Cronkite and planning dinner around him.

And walking to school. We followed a creek bed for our shortcut and more than once one of us fell through the ice in the winter and arrived at school wet and frozen.

In the summers we went to see our grandma in Goodland, KS and got to experience small town life and farms. We just loved walking a block and picking corn for dinner and watching our grandma dress a chicken for dinner.

I was in Noel several years ago and went to the gigantic flea market. Is it still there? I found it sad to see that like so many other small towns it had few businesses other than that flea market.