Henry Berkner

 May 6, 2009 

I am almost ten years old and Keene’s population is 1,273. There is no smoking. No caffeine. No unclean meat. No jewelry. And we are closed on Saturday. I am a polite and happy kid. This is memory of a sweeter and quieter time.There was J.C. Miles in his black ’56 Cadillac - Keene’s only police car in the late 50’s. Red lights in the grill and a big whip antenna. Jake Howard and Ralph DeLaune. No white Ford Crown Victoria's back then.

Most of the streets in Keene were dirt or white gravel in the late 50’s. Johnson grass and huge sunflowers lined the ditches – a lot of the houses still had fences with gates. I lived with my parents. Marie and Conrad Berkner and my dog Rex, down the hill from the new church on the corner of Magnolia and Fairview. Living just a block away, we usually walked to church and Rex would follow us, wait by the open doors. Then follow us home. Rex went to church even when we were out of town. Good dog!

I remember the recorded sound of the chimes that played on Sabbath morning at nine-o’clock reminding me that it was almost time for church. Living so close, I could hear the static through the speakers. If you didn’t hear the chimes, you could certainly hear the dogs howling. Elder Hanna and Elder Curl. Junior Guides and Primary Treasurers. “God bless the missionaries and colporteurs.”

That blue light in the church steeple you could see for several miles when you drove from Alvarado in Highway 67 has been gone for quite some time. Its blue glow was like a beacon back then when we would come back home from vacation…that “Adventist Light”.

Between our house and the church were the homes of Putnam’s, the Flowers’, the Northrop’s, the Massey’s, the Miles’ and Mr. Grady. On the other side of the church, Next to Alice Davis was Nix’s new home. I sometimes went with Dad over to Mr. Nix’s place to watch him makes keys for some old car Dad had bought. We had a lot of old cars back then. A lot of old VW’s and Model “A” Fords. Dad always said, “everyone ought to have at least one Model “A”. We had thirteen.

The Hoppmans and later Ernie McQueen and his family would live across the street from us there on Magnolia. Over the years, Terry’s, the Bell’s and the Smith’s, as well as my Grandmother Oliphant would occupy the house that is now Twyla Bothe’s Wild Hair Salon.

Right up the street was where Richard Brown lived and across from him was “Speed” the barber. “Speed” was the first woman I had ever seen wear blue jeans. She always wore men’s clothes and used Brylcream on her hair. There was something about her that I wouldn’t understand until I was older.

Charlie and Jerry Willis lived on the corner right across from the church. We would coast our red wagons downhill past Shotgun Mary’s and Mrs. Taber’s home to my Grandmother Cavender’s house at the end of First Street. It was days of English racer bikes, friction toy cars, green army men and twenty-five cent swimming at the Cleburne swimming pool. 

The old Willis home is now a service building for Keene SDA Church – “to better serve the community”. That big, tinted picture window which faced north that Harold Willis had special ordered is gone – you could see Alvarado and the other half of Keene from the window. I wonder if anyone remembers Mildred Willis doing the church bulletin in her garage or Harold Willis putting a CLOSED ON SABBATH cover over his Farmers Insurance sign in Friday evening. 

There was Thanksgiving and Christmas spent with Ruby and Delbert, Uncle Jack and Aunt Lela, Danny, Duane, Chuck and Charlinda – breakfast with Ruskets. Peanut butter and bananas. Running like wild Indians in Grandmother Cavender’s front yard – not a care in the world.

I can remember when Camp Meeting lasted a whole week and neat, orderly rows of brown and green Army tents lined the field where the University cafeteria is now. Dick Barron. The King’s Heralds. H.M.S. Richards. The Book and Bible House. I’ll never forget the musty smell of the Junior Tent and Putnam Field or eating snow cones at Mr. Cranes stand up by W. O. Belz’s store and Vegemeat samples at Blair's. Summers seemed eternal. 

On the corner of College and Hillcrest – across from the Mizpah gate – that’s where Blair’s Store was – where Miller Hall is now. At Blair’s, you could get a Vegeburger for fifty cents and bottle drinks were only a dime. Advice was always free. We could hang out there until Mrs. George would tell us we ought to get to school, or at least get somewhere. Mrs. George – what a lady! You could find Ruskets on the second shelf and Hughes Bread – made over on Walnut Street, was a quarter a loaf. Layton’s store, W. O. Belz’s and Ken’s Barber Shop were right across the street.

At the North end of College Drive was Ella E. Hughes Elementary School. My school. With it came sack lunches. Mrs. Sanders, Mr. Hallock, Mr. Hiser and Mr. Schram. Stingray bikes. Dare base. Pig tails, Red ants and skinned knees. Saving our wax paper at lunch for a quick trip down the slide. There was tether ball and work-up. Temperance pledges and memory verses. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and pink report cards.

Mrs. Welker was my first grade teacher. I remember her teaching us the Pledge of Allegiance. She let the boys salute the flag if they wanted to. She was a sweet lady. We had our first grade picture taken out in the parking lot where Southwestern’s Advancement office is now. I was in the front with my Circus Boy t-shirt on and Laurie Lou Birdwell, who I imagined to be my “girlfriend” was on the back row next to Pat Harper. Pat had a go-cart and shoes with lightning bolts on them. The last time I saw Pat, He was teaching aerobatic flying and I heard that Laurie Lou is a school teacher somewhere. On the front row with me were Karl Crane, Frank Brazier, John Milsap, Mike Belz and William Layland.

Some of my other elementary schoolmates were Donnie Scales – his dad was the President of the College back then and the Science Building is named after him. The President’s old home, along with Hamilton Hall and several others were recently torn down. Something about progress. Donnie and I played with our Tonka toy trucks in the dirt behind that house on Hillcrest. Donnie always had neat toys. There was Randy and Alta Sue Hayes – Their dad was the business manager at the College. The Hayes’ had a red Crosley convertible and lived right across the street from the Ella E. Hughes Elementary School playground. Next to Randy and Alta Sue’s home was where Mike Hausinger lived. The Hausinger family owned Nu-cushion, the company down on College Drive that made stick-horses and miniature brooms. They had one of the first brick homes in Keene and as well as I can remember, they always drove Cadillacs.

Mrs. McLaferty was my second grade teacher. I remember her being pretty mean. She wouldn’t let the boys play with their Matchbox cars during rest period. Real Mean. I had to go to her house one Sunday for extra help with Arithmetic. At the time, I had no idea that teachers had husbands. But there he was, standing at the front door. He was mean, too. I wasn’t very good at Arithmetic, but I could really spell. I got a gold ribbon in the spelling contest that year.

Third grade was great. I had Mrs. Burkett. She didn’t have a husband and she smelled like my grandmother. It was in the third grade that I had my first field trip. We took the College blue and white diesel bus. It was like going to the Smithsonian or something – but we only made it to Hulen Park in Cleburne. There was a picnic, we fed the ducks and climbed around on an old train. I chased the girls with a plastic snake on a stick until Mrs. Burkett took it away. She was starting to get a little mean, too. I think I have pictures of that trip somewhere.

My elementary school bout with corporal punishment came in my fourth grade year – with Lillie Belle Sanders. A wonderful teacher, but not very appreciative of young boys singing questionable lyrics to Davey Crockett. For our efforts, Donald Taber and I received six or seven swats with a green rubber hose. Those six or seven swats lasted us the rest of our fourth grade year. I did manage to get another spelling award. 

It was 1963 and my fifth year at Ella E. Hughes. Keith Hallock was my teacher. My first “man teacher”. I believe Mr. Hallock was the only teacher I ever saw cry. I remembered him going down to the school office and coming back with tears in his eyes. It was late November and President John F. Kennedy had just been shot in Dallas. A lot of us cried that day. I imagine a lot of other “man teachers” cried that day too.

My seventh and eighth grade years were my best. I had Jack Hiser for both years. He was a great teacher and a great friend. His real name was Jack, sometimes went by John, but we knew him as “Hiser”. Back then, teachers could hug their students. Hiser was a hugger. He would play work-up and shoot baskets - stuff no other teacher had ever done with us. He would even trade “licks” with his paddle – the “Board of Education” he called it. You could swat him as hard as you dared, but then it was his turn…On Fridays he would show slides and film strips of his war years. The Big War. WW2, dead Japanese, trains blowing up, and lots of fire. I had never seen war before. My friend “Hiser” passed away in Jefferson, Texas in the winter of 1999. I had talked to him just a few weeks before. I just wanted to tell him what he had meant to us. I think he already knew.

Eight grade graduation was in Evans Hall in May of 1966. My best friend Alvin Black was the class president. Some of us were quoted about our dreams for the future in the Cleburne newspaper. Seems like only yesterday.

Alvin, Donnie, Pat, Nancy, William, Frank, Mike and Donald, Kathy, Diane, Marsha and Eddie. We were so close then. Where did the time go? Those eternal summers, mowing lawns for a dollar, sweat beads under your neck, cut-offs and bare feet, sticker burrs and goat heads, aluminum ice-trays and cold lemonade, swamp coolers and oscillating fans.

Afternoons with Icky Twerp and Slam Bang Theater, Have Gun Will Travel, Rocky and Bullwinkle, The Rifleman, Nuteena sandwiches and Tang – the drink of astronauts. Catching horny toads and walking to Dead Man’s Cave and Initial Rock.

Alvin moved to Pennsylvania, Donnie left for California, William died and I don’t know where Mike and Donald are. I think Nancy lives in Cleburne somewhere.

Flash to 1968

Chisholm Trail Academy, The Wonder Years, seven o’clock choir. Harry Joe, Elder Sample, Principal and friend, Josh Swinyar, dreams, promises, questions, the Great Advent Moment, Ellen White and The Great Controversy, pant suits and mini skirts. There was Drivers Ed., Southern Shadows, Four Corners and Rattlesnake Hill. We were friends forever. “To a cool guy”. “Luv Ya!”, “Have a great summer”. “Seniors rule”.

Gwen, Sandi, Marsha, Brenda, Barbra, Rita, Kay, and Tebbie. So many promises. So many dreams. “You were goin’ to be an actress and I was goin’ to learn to fly…”

Sandi’s married with two daughters, Marsha lives in Laguna Beach, Kay’s a grandmother and Tebbie is a single parent in Georgia. Gwen left behind two daughters after a car crash in Oregon. Brenda never married and lives in Florida.

There was Kathy Ballard’s red ’64 Chevelle, Doug Kopf’s ’63 red Falcon convertible, Martin Simpson’s ’67 Shelby Mustang, Ken Korgan’s Marina blue Nova, Brady Rusk’s light blue Torino fastback and Darla Simpson’s ’34 Pontiac. Roy Robinson had a silver ’68 Camaro convertible and Eddie Fielding drove a custom painted ’69 GTO. It seems like Ken Bartholomew had an orange AMX and by then I was driving my second Volkswagen.

Innocence abounded and summers still seemed eternal. 

Suddenly it was 1969, Woodstock, three days of peace music. “We are stardust. We are Golden”.

We cruised the Sonic, drank cherry vanilla 7-ups, flipped off goat ropers and listened to Crystal Blue Persuasion. 

Outdoor movies projected on the side of Evans Hall. A year of washing pots and pans in the College cafeteria, serving ice cream, peeling potatoes with Jimmy Miles and cleaning butter pats off the ceiling. Bertha Cromwell and Mrs. Easley, Eddie Moon, Linda Pace, Florence Duncan and Jenny Jenkins. Watering shrubs and picking up trash on the campus for the pith helmeted Charlie Bessire with Glenn Harrell. Checking out the old Playboy magazine’s in the boy’s dorm dumpster.

Bertha Cromwell's daughter lived somewhere out in the country – I remembered her because she had big hair and drove and black ’63 split-window Corvette. She would turn in front of our house on her way to work. I never knew her name, but it seemed like I was always outside at the right time to see her drive by. A wave from a girl with big hair, driving a black Corvette make quite an impression on a skinny’ 14 year old boy.

MCC’s, roller skating and then basketball games in Turner Auditorium – the smell of sweat and the sound of white, Converse high-tops on wood. Memories of a young Yddo Ortiz, fresh from Colombia winning first place in the College Amateur Hour – the biggest thing in Keene back then…waiting in line for tickets. Now it’s a parking lot and a memory.

And then it was 1970. Gas wars, Ernie’s and Oden’s, Phillips 66 and Champlin, eighteen cent gas.

Ernie’s station was down on the corner of Hillcrest and Old Betsy. I could fill up my ’58 VW convertible for a little more than a dollar and Cokes were a dime. The Donut Shop, Edward Jones, Read-Billingsley Real Estate and Four Seasons Cleaners are there now. No more dime drinks.

The car wash was right behind Ernie’s station. It took a quarter to wash a VW back then…Eddie Crane would put a quarter in and let the hose fly around by itself – that was a sound like no other. The car wash is gone and so is Eddie. Keene seems a little quieter now…

8 tracks and AM radio, KFJZ and KLIF. My Volkswagen’s $29.00 Kragen installed Jensen air-suspension speakers strained out Bloodrock’s DOA, Crosby, Stills, and Nash’s Our House. Credence Clearwater Revival’s Up Around The Bend. Joe Cocker’s A Bit of Help From My Friends and Santana’s Black Magic Woman.

Senior year, 1971, I wore paisley shirts, bell bottoms and wire rims. He’s really a nice boy, but he needs a haircut. Groovy, cool and far out…simultaneously.

Fort Worth and Saturday nights at 1849 Village, O’Leary’s Ice Cream Parlor, double dates and double dipped cones, concerts at the Cotton Bowl and endless Saturday afternoon drives in the Volkswagen with the top down. Frannie, Barbara, Brenda, Billy, and Steve were participants in the great VW convertible roll-over incident. No Injuries, except Steve’s white Levis…and my pride.

Over there was Putnam Field where I played work-up and Academy flag ball games in the crisp, Fall evenings. Huddling together with Brenda on the sidelines, no worries.

Further down on College Drive was Nu-Cushion, where Kay and Marsha worked. Gwen had worked there too. Bascom Church Furniture, Flowers Cushion Shop, Brandoms and the College Press. I can still see Glenn “Gang” Harrell driving his silver-blue Plymouth Valiant on the back roads to Harris Pine without using the clutch.

By now it was the summer of 1971 and graduation was over. Our maroon and white graduation gowns had been returned. Academy had come and gone so quickly. Some had already left our small town and more would leave, never to return. Innocent was fading fast. Life as we had known it would never, ever be the same. Reality was starting to bite our proverbial, young butts.

I remember being scared about Viet Nam. Scared about getting a low lottery number. Scared about dying. Scared about living…damaged. Keene had already lost three of its young in Southeast Asia and I knew that I didn’t want my parent’s only child to come home in a box – I thought a lot about Canada.

I know now why I wasn’t drafted, but I wonder why other young kids had to become damaged. Why sons, brothers and friends had to die for such a thing as the Vietnam “Conflict”. Why Clarence Moody Stoner Jr., David Paul “Sonny” Henry and Sherrill Vance Shelton had to become names on some cold, stone wall. Names engraved on Panel 22W-Row 044, Panel 17W-Row 007 and Panel 39W-Row 014.

I am still truly sorry for the loss of these young men.

As I enter my Fiftieth year, my appreciation or perhaps my obsession with the past and the way things used to be is at an all-time high. Looking around this small town I see so many changes that have taken place – almost without my realizing. Too many of the men and women that used to tousle my hair or shake my hand as a kid are gone. Although some are still alive and vital, there are far too many that are only memories or not much more than a photograph. I think of so many dear people that directly or indirectly affected my life growing up in this small town that I call home and on this trip we call life. This is to honor them while I can still remember.

The list is longer than I imagined.

Conrad & Marie Berkner

Nettie L. Oliphant

Jack Hiser

Josh Swinyar

Lillie Belle Sanders

Oscar Easley

Bertha Cromwell

Harold & Mildred Willis

Olga George

Wilbur Schram

Leroy Hughes

Wayne Towerton

Keith Hallock

Laura Winn

Forrest Rees

V. O. Schneider

Anna Simpson

Mrs. Burkett

Raymond Shaw

Richard McCluskey

Max Barton

Harry Joe Bennett

Mrs. McLaferty

Jack Milstead

Juan Barroso Sr.

Max Qualley

Bruce Rogers

Morris Lowery

Richard Norman

Harry Curl

Cybil Moon

Spencer Gordon

Harvey Roberts

Virginia Hayes

Bill & Francis Flowers

Lila Beth Creel

Helen Evans

Doug Carver

Marshall Tidwell

Ellis Owens

Harvey Caviness

Luther Talley

Lottie Warren

Herbert Roth