SHELDON

On the road early this morning, stopped for breakfast at Jenny’s Kitchen in Sheldon, MO. Ate there a few years back when my kids and I drove down from Kansas City to check out family buried in Bickett’s Cemetery. My dad was born here. One hundred years ago when he was learning to read and write, Sheldon was on the main rail line from Kansas City to Joplin, stopped in town to off-load freight. It was a busy little town with stores all along main street, a three story, red brick school house and a fair ground and baseball field near the highway, where they held the annual town picnic in August of every summer. My grandfather owned a livery barn and freight service to even smaller towns near by. Mule drawn freight wagons went where trucks got high centered or stuck in mud holes. 

They still have the Sheldon Picnic in mid August but the trains don’t stop anymore. Old 71 Highway gave way to the new highway that became Interstate 49. It now bypasses the hamlet by a mile. I wouldn’t call it a ghost town but breakfast at Jenny’s Kitchen has a throw-back flavor that you have to stray off the highway to find. I had forgotten, the first thing that flashed back was the number and sizes of ash trays on each table. I was there when they opened and the parking lot was full by the time I placed my order. I got the flap-jack special for $5.50; two eggs, two big, thick pancakes, a 6 oz. slice of ham and coffee. The only woman in the place was Charlene, a shriveled up old lady waiting tables. She had been in Sheldon 14 years; just a new comer. I talked to two men at the next table, Stan and Laurel prototypes. The fat guy did most of the talking. The skinny guy was a cross between Keith Richards and Christopher Lloyd, made me think of the Billy Joel song where the guy was making love to his tonic and gin except this guy had ritualized the cigarette & coffee routine with hand waving, facial twitches and eye rolling. Between the two of them they smoked a dozen smokes while I was there. They should charge admission just to watch these guys eat breakfast. 

All they knew about anything in town was the Picnic. For them the old days were the 70’s. Before I left town, I drove main street. I remember when I was 11, eating at the restaurant on the north sided of the street. I looked in the window and the roof had collapsed, first morning sunlight streaming in on the debris. There was only one car parked down the block in front of a well maintained building. The old Methodist church at the end of the street had burned some time back. The wreckage had been hauled off but ashes and melted, metal ceiling pieces were strewn amid red bricks. They had been stacked but evidently not worth hauling away. I  picked up two of the bricks, can use them in my flower bed. 

I’m in a little burg just east of Muskogee, OK tonight. Went to a wedding and will be back on the road early tomorrow, on my way to San Antonio, TX. It’s nice being back out here; on the road. Nice figuring out where you are when you wake up; sometimes it’s a surprise. I usually don’t like surprises but this is different.