10th Grade - Independence, Mr. President

My Dad took a job away from the family in Mountain Home, and lived apart from us for several months. A long ways away. After the separation got to be too much for both him and the rest of us, he found us an apartment and we loaded up the U-Haul and headed north, from Mountain Home, Arkansas, to Independence, Missouri. It was the last half of my 10th Grade, the last semester of 1967.
The apartment we lived in was kitty-cornered across the street from a very large hospital, and I distinctly remember the sounds of sirens leaving from, and coming into, that hospital at all hours of the day and night. Quite a change from living out in the sticks, I can tell you! We had a lot to learn while we were here. My brother and I did a lot of exploring, both on foot, and on our bicycles.

I was enrolled in William Chrisman High School, and my brother was enrolled in a Jr. High School - don't remember the name of it--within walking distance of our apartment. When there were events at his school, I would walk there with him. I remember going to my first-and-only donkey basketball game there one night.

On the way to my brother's school, we would pass a lovely old-fashioned white house behind a black iron, gated fence. Many times when we passed, we would see an elderly gentleman sitting in the window reading a book or a newspaper, using the light through the window over his shoulder as a reading light. Sometimes he would look over his shoulder and spot us looking in the window and wave at us. Then one day there was a big shiny car parked in the driveway and we stopped to watch a man helping that old gentleman, who seemed to be quite frail, out of the house and into the car. And I knew exactly who I was looking at: President Harry S Truman!

He looked up at us and smiled, and waved. He just looked like any other Grandpa to us. And we waved back. Mr. Truman was born May 8, 1884, and died December 26, 1972, making him 83 years old at the time I "met" him.

But, back to school. I was only at William Chrisman for less than half of a year. But I remember the humongous number of students (I was told there were over 1,500 there, grades 10-12), and the size of the campus was so big I had to literally run to get from one class to the next without being late. And I remember that the first class started at 7:00 A.M.! THAT was the main thing I remembered. I mean, WHO started school at 7:00 A.M.? The only good thing about that was we were out of school by 2:00 or 2:30 P.M. Whew!

Things were done quite differently in this school, and I had fun learning their ways. My favorite classes were English and typing. The cafeteria was more like a large buffet restaurant, and too rich for my blood. In fact, I noticed I wasn't the only one that didn't eat their meals exclusively from the buffet line. Most kids brought their lunch, because by the time you bought enough things "ala carte" from their buffet line to make an entire meal, it cost a fortune! So you just got something from the line to supplement your sack lunch. It was nice to top off my nice salami sandwich with a piece of hot apple pie or a dish of ice cream. Oh, yeah!

Living in "the city" was an adventure for all the Winklers. We were not used to all the noise and hubbub and traffic and crime (my Mom learned you don't hang really nice clothes on the clothesline outside and not keep an eye on them), so when a co-worker of my Dad's offered him a job running a conglomerate of farms his family owned in the Missouri countryside, it sounded like heaven. And he said "yes."

So, goodbye, Independence. And it was nice meeting you, Mr. President. I didn't know that much about politics, specifically your politics at the time, but I did think you looked like a kindly old gentleman who took the time to smile and wave at some country bumpkin kids.