My earliest childhood memories are in the early 1960's in Muscatine. I went to the old McKinley School for kindergarten. Mrs. Mapes was the Principal. One day I was out playing on the playground during recess. I accidently let the flag down. Miss Cronin (sp?) saw it happen and rushed over and got hold of me to drag me to the principal's office for such an un-American action. I escaped her grasp, and ran all the way home. I don't remember what happened the next school day!
I walked to school every day, and walked home for lunch. The streets of Muscatine were mostly brick, and lined with huge majestic elm trees. I went to the new McKinley School when it opened in 1961, my first grade year. My teacher began every school day with a reading from the Bible, and a prayer. When I was in third grade, it was announced on the PA system that President Kennedy had been shot! That same year, I used to fill up an entire notebook page with numerals, and add them all up at the bottom of the page. My teacher patiently checked my work to see if it was correct. I never got over my love for math and numbers. There was a candy store at the corner of Lucas and Kindler where I often stopped on my way to or from school. Hill and Dale Dairy was a little farther out Lucas St. and we bought 6 gallons of milk every week, in gallon glass jugs, unpasteurized, with the cream on top. It sold for 60 cents a gallon. My grandparents lived at the corner of Lucas and Green Street, across from St. Mary's. I sometimes went across the street to Gordon's Grocery to get treats. My greatgrandmother lived upstairs. She was born in 1865 and lived to be 97, so I got to hear her tell stories about growing up in a sod house on the prairie in Kansas. She was buried in Greenwood Cemetery next to where my grandparents were later buried. I still remember that statue of an angel pointing to the shies at the entrance to that cemetery. The best memory I have of Muscatine is Walnut Street Baptist Church on the corner of 6th and Walnut, where I heard a hellfire sermon from then pastor Timothy Barrett. I came to know Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior as a child 5 years old at the time. Later as an 8 year old, I was baptized at that same old church by Rev. Lavern Hubbard. By then we were going to Fruitland Baptist because they needed my mom to play the piano for them. I took piano lessons at the home of Mrs. Lilia Wilson at the corner of 8th and Mulberry. I was one of her first students after she escaped from Cuba when Castro took over. Her husband owned Wilson's Shoe Store down on 2nd Street. That was where I got most of my childhood pairs of shoes. I learned to swim at the Muscatine YMCA.
