A district-wide school referendum proposing to install a flush toilet failed in 1959, voters apparently feeling the twin two-holers out back were plenty good for District 460.
Accommodations and taxes were never much at our bustling little country school near Lake Andrew, four miles from Alexandria. We hand-pumped drinking water from an outside well. Phy Ed was a new batch of balls and rope every five years. I could go on. But be that as it may, our tax-averse, but kind, school board did spring for an adventure trip in the mid-50s to the Twin Cities, 125 miles away. Few had ever been there, but we had heard many stories of this mystical place.
The district shared the trip and cost with a similar school that nobody had heard of in the Lobster Lake area. (No lobsters, just a convoluted lake that looks like one, it was thought) The cutoff for going was set at fourth grade and above, and I barely made it. We had eight or nine grades then, one full-time teacher, who could bang a beat-up untuned piano for joyful singalongs. Mrs. Raap came in during mornings. Never did know her first name.
On the appointed spring day, we filled the orange bus with anticipation and excitement, nonetheless with the respect, obedience and behavior typical for those times.
Our first stop was an early morning potty break at a Main Street Melrose cafe, where we quickly overwhelmed the counter with orders for chocolate malts. We had fresh trip money in our pockets, and were itching for a rare special treat. But we meekly accepted that there would be no malts today. Back on the bus.
The day’s highlight was “Good Neighbor Time” with “Friendly Fred” Bob De Haven on WCCO radio. We breathlessly entered the studio, immediately shocked by its mundane appearance, a stark contrast from the magnificence of our radio imaginations. We took our seats on tiers of folding chairs and watched Bob read ads and news and weather and farm reports and jokes, punctuated by a middle-aged organist whose dramatic chords and ditties chimed in from time to time, building the radio mystique.
The climax came (for us) with the audience interview. The excitement rose as Bob chose from a large field of potential candidates. I made an odd face at him, and was immediately chosen. He was perhaps thinking I might make a compelling interview for his vast audience, pretty much the only show in town. I doubt I met the challenge, nervous instantly. However, I was awarded for my meager contribution with a large box of Whitman Samplers, more sweets that I had ever possessed at one time and thrilled with the acquisition.
Corpulent classmate Wesley Hiebel was picked out next, described for Bob’s radio viewers with “a husky boy, aren’t you!” Wesley could play the accordion and got lessons from Archie Vierling, it was revealed. Wesley was then presented with a Pittsburgh Paint kit, complete with brush, roller and stir stick. The polite country boy grinned and did his best to mask any disappointment.
I held my chocolate prize a little closer.
The huge Ford plant, the stately State Capitol, Como Park and then a journey home in the dark, down bumpy Highway 52 on bench seats in an orange bus. A day of stimulation, strange sights and sounds, a busload of tired, happy children with stories to tell, we made our way, quieter now, back to the cornfields and chickens.
Alas, we would learn later, radio static and interference prevented loved ones from hearing our epic noontime radio show. And when we had finally reached our country schoolyard that night, I reached under my seat to claim my coveted treasure of Whitman Samplers. Sadly, my restless feet had smashed it into a pancake of mud.
No matter, the wonderful memories would last, and they have, to this very day.
