 | Faye Graves, a native Wichitan, attended school at Friends and Wichita State, concluding at Midwestern Theological Seminary. He has been active in media for many years with Channel 12, KIRL, KFDI, KOOO AM & FM (Omaha), KFRM & KICT 95, as an owner, manager, producer, director and announcer. He has served as President of the Haysville Board of Education. He has also served on several national boards of the Southern Baptist Convention. Faye currently serves as Executive Pastor and Director of Administration and Education at Immanuel Baptist Church, 1415 S. Topeka, Wichita. You may contact Faye by e-mail fmgraves@amenibc.org, or by phone at (316) 262-1452. |
Nostalgia
2013-01-02 12:32:26
Do you remember?
Q-We like to hear about your recollections of cold, snowy Januarys in the past. Somehow, they make us feel warmer.
A-I understand. I often feel the same way.
I remember when I was very young and attending school in the 40’s. Nearly everyone wore either goulashes or boots because the snow was so deep. They seemed much deeper than they have been in my adult years. We also wore heavy clothing, mackinaws and top coats, excessive under clothes and ear muffs and caps or hooded coats because of the very cold winters.
Everyone had to put chains on their tires or get mud and snow tires or get stuck a lot. I remember living in Omaha in the 70’s. It was very hilly and we were told laughingly that sometimes you had to find a way to get to work or home by finding a way to go downhill. As deep as the snow was in Wichita back in the 40’s, I am not sure going downhill would have helped much. You were fin y got stuck in the street and didn’t have snow tires. Wichita only had a few road graders back then. The side streets and the more untraveled roads were not cleared, so we had to plan our routes. If you didn’t have chains or snow tires and came to a road that had not been plowed, you had to look for ruts in the snow that some other car had made and stay in those ruts to get through the street. Many times, you would get stuck in the driveways going in or out.
The water pipes would freeze which kept the plumbers busy. Some houses still heated with coal stoves and fireplaces.
Following Christmas, the stores kept their heavy clothing on display.
The filling stations kept a good stock of anti-freeze on hand. The attendants of gas stations would come out, fill your car with gas, check the oil, water and anti-freeze, clean the ice off the windows and check your chains or tire pressure. Every so often I watch the Andy Griffith shows where Goober and Gomer give that kind of service. Talk about a memory!
Remember how the older cars all had heaters in the middle of the front dash. There were no defrosters or backseat heaters.
For entertainment, we listened to the radio and enjoyed shows like Dragnet, Mr. and Mrs. North, The Falcon, The Lone Ranger and variety shows like Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, Your Hit Parade. I remember when most stations started just music formats, jazz, pop, then rock, then hard rock and a mix and just news, no shows with dramas.
January was a great month to get the sled out and find a good hill or just have friends pull you. Movies were a big deal. When the theaters changed titles, a huge line would form. There was no television in Wichita until the 50’s. January was the real start of cold weather and a little depressing because the holidays were over. We all had fun with those experiences.
I wish you a great happy warm time this winter.
