Do You Remember?

Going to try something new here. This will require “audience participation". I’m asking you to send me your “past memories”, a little trip down “Nostalgia Lane”. I’ll do a few to get things started.

King’s Highway . . . ? That gravel stretch of County Road 2, going west from State Highway 28, usually clouded with dust from the high speed travels of one of the “Larson Boys.” Why was it called Kings Highway?
Regarding the "Kings Highway"....I have talked to several people as to how the Kings Highway got it's name....no one seems to know. Bob Landon (who I was sure would know) has heard speculation that there may have been a contractor named King that worked on the construction of the road, another...that the road was "fit for a King". Anybody else have any input?

During conversation with Bob he tells the story of Loren "Butch" Myers describing a bad day at the drugstore: "I only had three customers all day, one wrote me a bad check, one wanted a drink of water and the last one was a shoplifter".

Sam's Theatre....? Yes, when the film broke, people always booed Sam. The price of the tickets for a 5 year old on up was 15 cents. Then, later when the theatre shut down, they had roller skating. I thought the place was huge when the seats were removed.

Regarding "Sam's Whistle".... I have had 2 mentions of Sam's (Snippen) unique whistle: Elaine (Afdahl) Alderman remembers a three note up and 3 note down whistle which she learned to imitate, irritating her mother to no end.

The Great Gildersleeve…? Henry Aldrich, The Jack Benny Show, Fibber McGee & Molly, Amos ‘N Andy, Inner Sanctum. If you remember these, well……(forgot what I was gonna say…seems to be happenin more often lately). These, for the younger ones, were radio programs, BTV (before television). Families used to look forward to certain nights of the week when their favorite radio programs would come on. Sometimes would even “milk” early so we could get back to the house in time. Then we would all sit near the radio and listen

The SouthWind gas car heaters.......? Dad had one in his 1939 and 1940 Fords. Actually had a gas flame that heated the car with I think 3 vents that could be opened or closed to control the heat direction.

Mom’s gas engine powered Maytag Washing Machine..........? Monday was washday, kids had to help…carried water from the well for the washing machine and more for the rinse tub. Mom heated it on the cookstove in the kitchen. The washing machine with it’s gas engine was in the back entry shed, kids would extend out the flex exhaust into the back yard, it even had a small muffler on the end of the exhaust. When all was set Mom started the machine by stepping down (usually repeatedly) on a foot pedal till the little single cylinder engine started popping away.

Gathering corn cobs.......? (Probably needed to be a little farther south for this, S. Dakota or Iowa) We gathered bushel baskets full of corn cobs from the hog lot for heating and Mom’s kitchen stove. Part of our daily chores after school. (I remember shaking the basket settling the small pieces to the bottom and making it look like we had all big nice cobs.)

Rollin' In Tires.......? Curling your body up in an old truck tire and having sister roll you down a hill. T’was the most fun if there was a woven wire fence at the bottom to crash into, sure made Dad mad when the fence was crashed down.
The new in the box Red Ryder B-B Gun.......? There wasn’t a safe sparrow in the barn from that moment on altho I really don’t remember hitting very many, if any….but there were a whole lotta imaginary wolves and Mountain Lions laying around.
Speaking of "Red Ryder" .....?, what was his side kicks name? E-Mail me with answer.....Ken Hjelmstad remembered "Little Beaver". "You betchum Red Ryder".
Some kids rolling gas tanks.......? down the hill into the school, also some of the same kids would go to Ordean Shervens farm and wring the necks on a few chickens and take them somewhere and have a chicken fry. (Karen Piper does...wink wink)
It appears the aforementioned chickens were actually thieved from the Lotus Morris yard rather than the Shervens. This information has been recorded in Janice Eide's "Small Town Saturday Night", a copy of which I just received, and if you haven't read it you should. It includes the following excerpt regarding the "chickens": (More about Janice's "Small Town Saturday Night" on the Of Interest Page )

"At one of these parties, we all decided we were hungry for fried chicken. Well, Lotus Morris, the town marshal at the time, happened to have some chickens in his back yard, so a bunch of kids paid a call to his back yard late one night, killed a couple of chickens and brought them to our house. Somebody cleaned them - I don’t remember who (I can’t feature myself doing that!) and I fried them. I have my doubts as to how good they were! I remember later that night, I think around 2 AM, baking a couple of cherry pies too. All of this and I couldn’t even cook!"

Chicken Frys at the Eide House.....? Now where did the chickens come from?????? Sonja & Karen have any idea? (anon contributor...pleads the 5th)
Eide's Dine & Dance 24 Hour Service.......? sign in front of the Eide's house...compliments of Doug Drew......parents not impressed when they found it.... (anon contributor)
Oscar Troite would play his accordion......? in his chair on the north side of the bank on Saturday nights. And.. (Jay & Melissa Hansen)
When we had the "Drawing" .......? on Saturday nights in the summer time and every one from the Ryder Community would gather? Those were the good ol' days. (Jay & Melissa Hansen)

Rubbernecking........? What's rubbernecking? Young ones wouldn't know, when telephones lines were shared with others and you could listen in to their calls. When you heard the phone ring for your neighbor you would cover the mouth piece with one hand, gently lift the earpiece off the hook and listen in, that was "rubber necking".
When your telephone number was 2 longs and a short.........? No telephone numbers in those days, your phone was identified by a specific ring, such as 2 long rings and 1 short ring, etc....
The Slop Pail.......? YUK.yes, the slop pail, used to set next to the cook stove in the kitchen, used to hold everything from table scraps to tobacco juice (maybe worse), got dumped out the back door. (Elaine Alderman)
White Oleo Margarine.....?Margarine was sold in the stores white with a little packet of coloring, took it home and hand mixed the coloring into the margarine to make it yellow like butter. This was during the war (WW2) when dairy products were in short supply. I understand it was law to prohibit margarine from being misrepresented in the stores as butter, not sure if that was federal law or ND law.

School Carnival Booths....?class would work for weeks building the booth for the carnival (Sonja E.)
Basket Ball Games in the Old Gym....?balcony would be so full it was a wonder it didn't collapse, no other seating, cheerleaders would be on the floor interfering with the game. (Sonja E.)

The Big Wheeled Mail Carrier Vehicles....?Think they were Model A Fords somehow fitted with tractor wheels and tires for winter mail delivery..maybe someone can tell me more about how they were built, etc.

Ordeans Studebaker....?
The Space Behind the Science Cabinets.....? Crawl through the shelves on the lower science cabinet to access a space big enough to hide 3 or 4 High Schoolers.
Climbing Up Into the School Belfry.....? Tying a knot in the bell rope above the ceiling so Don couldn't ring the bell? (I heard some kids did that...)
Skiing the Ditches...? Being towed with a hay rope behind a car skiing the ditches.
Town Baseball Teams....? Usually sponsored by the American Legion, even the Radar Base had a team.
Sledding down John Deere Hill...? Especially if your school crush could "get out" and join you....

Sand Lake in the Winter....? A carload of kids, or several carloads, spinning around on Sand Lake in the middle of the winter when it was frozen over (usually Ordean's car but not always).
Sock Hops.....? sponsored by KQDY at the old theater (and yes, you were required to take off your shoes)

After the closing of Sam’s.....? watching movies on Saturday night upstairs at the Farmers Union. Lotus Morris ran the projector, and whenever the film would break (and it always did), everyone would shout out “Sam’s.” (it always broke at Sam’s too).

Paying $1.00 for haircut.....? and always getting a dime back to go buy a Coke (actually Coke may still have been 5 cents, Pepsi was the first to be 10 cents as it was in a larger 8 oz bottle)

Driving to Minot.....? for the sole purpose of getting a root beer float at the A & W.

Driving most anywhere.....? on a Sunday afternoon just for reason to be driving somewhere.

Nick Linnertz.......? getting out of bed in the middle of the night and opening the Café because a couple drunks wanted a burger

The raunchy rumors.....? that would abound every summer when the custom combiners came to town

“Parking”.....? with your girlfriend/boyfriend at Moonlight Bay—a grove of trees located a little north of the north-east corner of the cemetery

“Trick-N-Treating”.....?, and rather than candy, always getting a brand new nickel from Christy Christiansen (the banker)

Nighttime ice skating .....? on the lot where the “Ted’s Quonset” now sits

Walking through town collecting pop bottles.....? to sell for refund, usually to use money to buy baseball cards

Buying comic books.....? with the covers ripped off, two for 5 cents (regularly 10 cents each) at Butch’s drug store

Boxes of Kotex.....? all wrapped neatly in white paper so that they could be bought “discretely” at Butch’s drug store

On Saturday night....? a line of cars in front of the bar with women and children sitting in them, waiting for “the man” to come out so that they could go home.

The Coal Pile.....? in the basement of Nick’s café (if you remember it, you know what it was used for)

These "Ryderites".......? "Snuck, O.K., Shorty, Neukie, Dutch, V.L., E.J., Beeky, The Fly'n Dutchman, Bear, Crusher, Bimbo, Windy, H.G., Butch, Festus, O.J., Tork, Slick, Sno-Ball, and Old Black Joe?"

Here are the names: "Snuck", Elmer Wilson. "O.K". Haugen was Richard Haugen's Grandfather. "Shorty" is Glenn Warner, and "Shorty" was also Reinard Wahl. "Neukie" of course is Harold Neukom. "Dutch" was Marlan Roberts. "V.L." was of course Verr Cunningham. "E.J." was Ernest J. Olson. "Beeky" was Gaylord Burtness. "The Flying Dutchman" was Otto Janz.

"Bear" is Darrel Simmons. "Crusher" is Dale Anderson. "Bimbo" is Larry Reinisch. "Windy" is Wendell Hansen. "H.G." was Herman G. Mueller. "Butch" of course Loren Meyers or Herman Mueller Junior. "Festus" was a manager of the Ryder Lumber yard, I can't think of his first name now, but he lived in Ryder a long time and his last name was Hagen. "O.J." was Mr. O. J. Arneson, school superintendant when I was in grade school. "Tork" was Floyd Zilka. "Slick" was Vernon Lennertz. "Sno-Ball" was of course "Gene" Lennertz, who to my astonishment turned out to be years later, Daryl Lennertz. and "Old Black Joe"? Well, I never did find out his real name. For a few years he lived in a shed, (it really was a shed) out back, east of the Ryder lumber yard, just across the road from the yard. The shed had coal left over in it, and "Joe" just settled in there, slept there, never bothered anyone, and did odd jobs around the town. But, as a little kid I remember Nick giving him supper but Joe wouldn't eat out in front where we did. He ate it in the back, back room of the Cafe. I think he was just a Hobo who found a place to stay for awhile and no one bothered him, and he preferred it that way. But since he slept in/near a coal bin, his clothing and face and hands were always quite black. And, of course no running water in that shed so, thus the monicker.

Saturday Nights in the Mid-Fifties....? The Odd-Fellows lodge, (located upstairs in Butch's drugstore,) sponsored Saturday night fun nights. The place was loaded with any type of board games popular at the time, card games, prizes, cakewalks, also music, just a lot of fun things for kids to get together and do. And, it really was fun. Those people put a lot of effort into those Saturday nights for kids.

Memorial Day....? For as long as I can remember Ryder has always had a Memorial Day Service. When I was in grade school we always had "races" at the school and Ralph Larson and other folks handed out dimes and quarters to the participants. There was always a baseball game, thanks to Don Mueller. And each band member got 50 cents or a dollar for playing on Memorial Day, thanks to Ralph Larson. It's a tradition, (and a good one) that is still carried on today. I hope they continue

Soaping Windows....? On Halloween, usually the business' uptown. (Don't let the kids read this..)

School Yard Games....? Simon Says, Captain May I, Kick the Can, Hide & Seek, Duck Duck Goose, Annie Annie Over, Red Rover, Red Light Green Light, Freeze Tag & Capture the Flag.
Who's got more? http://www.gameskidsplay.net/

Sadie and Dot . . . ? The team of horses owned by Soren Sorenson, used to pull many a late night winter traveler out of the ditch along King’s Highway.

Jack the Barber . . .? A Coleharbor barber who came to Ryder one day a week. When Jack stopped coming to Ryder, many Ryder men (often taking their sons with them) drove to Coleharbor just to have Jack cut their hair. Or, could it be that it was just an excuse to see who was hanging out at the Garrison watering holes?
The Saturday Night Drawing....? Some trivia questions about the drawing, answers below:

Who was in charge of bringing the numbers and the registration book to the drawing?

Who ran the Drawing and called out the numbers?

What were the numbers written on?

Drugstore
Butch Meyer
Steps of the bank
Random young kid in the audience
Ralph Larson
Contributor thinks it was milk bottle caps from the creamery, anyone know for sure?

High school boys working at the creamery....? What was the BIG attraction?
Water from Ted’s....? Almost everyone went to Ted’s to get water. People would make a special trip to town just for that purpose. What was so great about Ted’s water? Was everyone else’s water that bad? Why was his so good? I remember that when you went to someone else’s house, people would ask—“Is this Ted’s water?”—like they were enjoying an exotic treat. If we were having company, we always had to go get some Ted’s water.

CB Handles....?      Kenny Bradley's was Wild Oats
                                Sue Bradley...Susie Homemaker
                                Staci Bradley...Sun Flower
                                Rick Sprinkle...Rain Man
                                Ardell Folden...Red Rider
                                Barb Folden...RR's Lady
                                Richie Becker....Grain Dust
                                Elaine Alderman...Roadhog
                                Glen Brandt...Candyman
                                Dwayne Brandt...Blue Goose
                                Wendell Hanson...Plier Pouch
                                Marlys Hanson...Mother Nature
                                Larry Reinisch...Keg Tapper
                                Jody Reinisch...Blue Angel
                                Kandi Mikkelson...Bionic Woman
                                Penny Carlson...Peppermint Patty

Mucho Gracias to all of the contributors, it's interesting to see the different memories… you get the gist…I think this could be fun, hoping it may even get big enough to put it in the museum someday. As I said, this is “audience participation”, send me your memories to add in here.

For those who never saw any of the Burma Shave signs here is a quick lesson in our history of the 1930's and '40's. Before there were interstates, when everyone drove the old 2 lane roads, Burma Shave signs would be posted all over the countryside in farmers' fields. They were small red signs with white letters. Five signs, about 100 feet apart, each containing 1 line of a 4 line couplet...... and the obligatory 5th sign advertising Burma Shave, a popular shaving cream.
Here are more of the actual signs:

TRAINS DON'T WANDER
ALL OVER THE MAP
'CAUSE NOBODY SITS
IN THE ENGINEER'S LAP
Burma Shave

SHE  KISSED THE HAIRBRUSH
BY MISTAKE
SHE THOUGHT IT WAS
HER HUSBAND JAKE
Burma Shave

DON'T LOSE YOUR HEAD
TO GAIN A  MINUTE
YOU NEED YOUR HEAD
YOUR BRAINS ARE IN IT
Burma  Shave

DROVE TOO LONG
DRIVER SNOOZING
WHAT HAPPENED
NEXT IS NOT AMUSING
Burma Shave

BROTHER SPEEDER
LET'S REHEARSE
ALL TOGETHER
GOOD MORNING, NURSE
Burma Shave

CAUTIOUS RIDER
TO HER  RECKLESS DEAR
LET'S HAVE LESS BULL
AND MORE STEER
Burma Shave

SPEED WAS HIGH
WEATHER WAS NOT
TIRES WERE THIN
X MARKS THE  SPOT
Burma Shave

THE MIDNIGHT RIDE
OF PAUL FOR BEER
LED TO A WARMER
HEMISPHERE
Burma Shave

AROUND THE CURVE
LICKETY-SPLIT
BEAUTIFUL CAR
WASN'T IT?
Burma Shave

NO  MATTER THE PRICE
NO MATTER HOW NEW
THE BEST SAFETY DEVICE
IN THE CAR IS  YOU
Burma Shave

A GUY WHO DRIVES
A CAR WIDE OPEN
IS NOT THINKIN'
HE'S JUST HOPIN'
Burma Shave

AT INTERSECTIONS
LOOK EACH  WAY
A HARP SOUNDS NICE
BUT IT'S HARD TO PLAY
Burma Shave

BOTH  HANDS ON THE WHEEL
EYES ON THE ROAD
THAT'S THE SKILLFUL
DRIVER'S  CODE
Burma Shave

THE ONE WHO DRIVES
WHEN HE'S BEEN  DRINKING
DEPENDS ON YOU
TO DO HIS THINKING
Burma Shave

CAR IN  DITCH
DRIVER IN TREE
THE MOON WAS FULL
AND SO WAS HE.
Burma  Shave

And my all time favorite:
PASSING SCHOOL ZONE
TAKE IT  SLOW
LET OUR LITTLE
SHAVERS GROW
Burma Shave

Do these bring back any old memories? If not, you're merely a child. If they do - then you're old as dirt...           LIKE ME!    and remember:
Don't stick your elbow Out so far
It may go home In another car.
BURMA SHAVE