Thanksgiving in Howard

[W. Gray]

Returned from Thanksgiving in Howard.

The holiday dinner at the West Elk High School was very good as usual. Ruth Watts, Bonnie Juaire, Neva Walter, etc., deserve a lot of praise and always cook up a good meal of turkey or ham, mash potatoes and gravy, sweet potatoes, dressing, green beans, cranberry sauce, hot rolls, tea or coffee, and (in my case) pecan pie. Ninety-nine people attended. We sat with Mary Baker and her daughter. There is only one problem with going to the school for Thanksgiving: there are no leftovers.

Cell towers seem to be proliferating. A new one is on old K-99 just outside Severy, one outside Elk Falls, and one outside Longton.

Bought a pair of leather work gloves at Mills Feed and Seed in Moline and put them to use cleaning eaves.

As usual had dinner at the Swinging Bridge at the Crooked Creek Lodge. Spoke to Stub Durbin but I keep forgetting to ask him if there is a Crooked Creek nearby or that is just an adopted name. I noticed there is only one copy of Jody's book left.

Also purchased an item from Cookson's on Friday. The hardware and Tracy's Trends seemed to be about the only thing open that day. The two women running the hardware said the Cookson's went to Branson as they do every year at this time.

There are two new solar powered 45 mph blinking caution lights, each direction, in front of the high school on K-99. That will slow the highway traffic down enough so that the kids can now dart onto K-99 with ten miles per hour less danger coming at them. I have had them come on the highway in front of me when I was only about 100 feet away. There is a yellow caution sign underneath the stop sign from the school parking lot saying "look again." I guess they (some anyway) do and then go anyway. We have the same problem here. We also have the same problem at the senior citizen's housing projects.

The transformation of Waldo's Barbershop and Jean's shop appears to be going good. The wood floors are all out and part of the concrete is poured for a new floor. Both shops were small to the customer's eye but their length is now extended clear back to the alley. That will add a surprisingly fair amount of floor space to the Perkin's operation. I understand they found two partially filled wells when grading the ground underneath the old floor.

[sixdogsmom]

Waldo, I think Crooked Creek is the little creek that runs through the park here in Moline. It is small but gets pretty wild in flood because of the turns.

[W. Gray]

Thanks,

I just noticed on my maps that there is an "intermittent stream" that goes under the bridge coming into town (by the jet fighter in the park) that must be Clear Creek but is not labeled as such. It runs into Wild Cat Creek over which the "real" Swinging Bridge spans.

[sixdogsmom]

That is the creek that I am talking about, always thought it was called crooked creek though.

[W. Gray]

Crooked Creek it is.

Clear Creek is further down the Elk Between Elk Falls and Longton.

Another Clear Creek is in Union Center Township.

[ddurbin]

Whether the creek by Moline's park is called Crooked Creek or not, I can't say, but the name of the lodge comes from the creek that runs through Stub's 'home place' north of town.  It also joins into Wildcat Creek on the Williams' property north of the old sale barn.  Stub and Barbara started referring to their place as Crooked Creek Ranch, and then applied the name to the lodge once they got it started.  William and Pleasant Durbin and their 5 sons settled on that quarter section of land back in 1882 when they came here from Illinois.
Didn't mean to divert this thread away from Thanksgiving in Howard, but thought I'd clear up Waldo's question.

[W. Gray]

Thanks Dan,

Someone once pointed out to me where the they lived and from the map that seems to be the same waterway that Six... is referring to.

I just noted that it also flows in a west to east direction through the former property of my uncle and aunt south of the south foot of Main Street. One time I asked them the name of it and they were not aware of a name but said from time to time one could catch some small fish.

One could see on their property that from time to time the water could get to a pretty heavy flow.

I am always curious about the waterways and in Howard at around Elk and Wabash, someone has put up a rather official looking sign that says Mouse Creek. It looks like a drainage ditch.

[sixdogsmom]

Yeah, I always thought that was a cute name for a creek. (You probably aren't into cute though!) Another that I always liked is one in Cowley county called Chuckle Creek. I think that is a pretty neat name. Waldo weren't you the person that put up a historic site name that pictured bridges across the country including those in Moline? That is a neat site!

[W. Gray]

No, that was not me that put up that web site.

[sixdogsmom]

Okay, I just googled this and the site is bridgehunters.com. Very neat!