Birthday holdup reported in Ramona
By JESSICA GILBERT
Ramona correspondent
(785) 965-2621
Two strange cowgirls riding stick horses were spotted on Sunflower Road Monday evening. They were armed and semi-dangerous if you were having a birthday. Hiding in the bushes (and getting chiggers) those girls from California were waiting to hold up Tool Time Tim on his way home from work — because he turned 42 on Monday.
"What if he takes a different route home?" the girls asked one another as they swatted mosquitoes in the brush. As a contingency plan they told his mother, Frances Buxman, "If Tim arrives home and he's still hungry, tell him he'd better get out here and track us down instead of vice versa."
"I wondered what kind of a crazy person was climbing up out of the ditch," Tim said later, "and then here came another one from the other side. They were carrying guns and I laughed and said, 'What now?' It's those silly girls."
Yep, there Pat and I were, looking like real bandits with cowboy hats and bandanas hiding our faces. We had a bb gun with no ammunition and a water pistol filled to the hilt, which we used with great abandon. "Get out of the truck and put your hands in the air," we shouted as he skidded to a halt on the gravel road. "We hear you're WANTED."
As it turned out, he was just "wanted" for supper — his favorite, roast beef, taters, and cabbage — and the table was all set up out there in the pasture with a red checked table cloth, just waiting for his arrival. But this couldn't be too easy — first, the man had to clean up for supper. "Aaah, that's COLD water," Tim was heard to holler as a pail full of water flew through the air and made skin contact. Well, hell, the day was HOT, wasn't that enough warmth for you? You also want HOT water? Which he was in, by the way, beings it was his birthday and we were going to make sure this would be one he wouldn't forget!
Later, in more civilized surroundings as he ate "Molten Chocolate Cake" for dessert, he said, "This birthday I'll for sure remember. I thank you very much, girls!"
You're welcome! It was great fun! And it makes such grand memories.
Other folks came into town this last weekend to relive some old memories. I got to be part of the reminiscing since they stayed at our bed and breakfast. Sylvia Marshall of Lebanon, Mo., brought four generations of family with her for the Ramona visit — her daughter Eva McMillion (and husband Randy), Eva and Randy's daughter Tara Oberbeck, and Tara's infant daughter Abby. Tara couldn't convince her husband to come along on this excursion. "I'm capturing the trip on video for him," said Tara, explaining that her husband wasn't fond of long drives, especially to tiny towns with population 100 or less. "I know this house," said Sylvia when she walked in the door of our guest house. "I used to baby-sit for Rev. Bickel's little boy when I was here in high school."
The primary reason for the trek to Kansas was to see Sylvia's sister, Vera Wooldridge of Herington. "We were known as the Brunner Girls," said Sylvia. "We're the daughters of H.H. and Marie Brunner." Vera interjected, "But our mom was called Mary, not Marie."
"Are there still the little sidewalks and bridges," asked Sylvia's daughter, Eva. And what about the fish pond that used to be in front of the high school? Sylvia remembered that. "I was a senior and it was skip day," recalled Sylvia. "The seniors would pitch their school books out the 2nd floor window of the high school and try to hit the pond."
Ironically, just days before, when Jim Brunner (no relation to this branch of the Brunners) and I were out delivering the town newsletter, Jim told me a similar story. "I was a freshman, in algebra class in that first floor class room," he said pointing toward the school as we drove by.
"It was when school was almost out, the seniors would be on the top floor, throwing magazines out the window. Most didn't hit the mark because the pages fluttered and took off in flight," said Jim.
On Saturday afternoon, Sylvia, along with her sister Vera, daughter, and granddaughter, took off on a walking trek around Ramona. I tagged along, always a sucker for a reminiscent stroll.
First they walked down Main Street and checked out Norma's Attic Antiques. "Our aunt Hannah Sader used to have a restaurant here," said Eva. (Pete Sader was a brother to Marie Brunner.) "Sometimes we'd go next door to Betty Ohm's cafe and buy penny candy," Eva said with a sly grin. "We always felt like we were sneaking because Betty's was the other restaurant in town."
As the group walked toward "E" Street, a new set of memories emerged, for it was on this street that the Brunners moved a house. "How did that tree get so big?" exclaimed Vera, when she looked at the land where their house once stood. The tree was all that was left. The house was long gone, and the land bought by neighbors, Al and Darlene Sondergard.
"Oh I remember when the Sader house burned down," said Sylvia, pointing to the land her father eventually purchased. "We'd run by this land — because it scared us for some reason. But when our father bought the land and moved a house onto it, it never seemed to bother us anymore."
"We came back to Ramona every year for a visit when I was a kid," recalled Sylvia's daughter, Eva. "We'd drive all night and arrive early in the morning. We'd sit in the car out in front of Grandma and Grandpa's house, waiting until they got up. I remember the upstairs — it was just one big open room and it was so hot in the summer, but the first thing I wanted to do when I got to Ramona was go upstairs. We didn't have an upstairs in our house."
"Do you have a favorite memory?" I asked Eva. She quickly replied, "Oh! Having bottled pop at Grandma's. We couldn't afford pop, and at 9 p.m. every night while we were visiting, Grandma would bring out bottled pop and ice cream and we'd have floats."
Sylvia recalled how her father sat and slept in a recliner because he had emphysema. "Change would fall out of my dad's pockets because he spent so much time in that chair," recalled Sylvia, "and whenever my father wasn't in his chair, my daughter would search the chair for coins."
"We've got to stop at the Sondergards and say hello," said Sylvia, as they continued down the street. As they walked onto the porch and pushed the doorbell, Eva commented, "Oh, this porch has always been so clean you could eat off it," referring to the shining gray surface.
As soon as Darlene answered the door and folks shared greetings, her voice trailed out where I stood with Eva, waiting to walk in the Sondergard home. "Oh that voice, I remember it so well," said Eva when she heard Darlene's welcome. "I used to come over here and play with their daughter, Kay."
"Is the church open?" asked Sylvia, as we turned toward Trinity Lutheran Church upon saying good-bye to the Sondergards. When I said it was, the little group turned north.
"It's so nice that it's left open," said Vera, as the group walked inside the church. They walked down the aisle recalling memories of family funerals, confirmations, and baptisms.
Before departing for Wichita Sunday morning where Sylvia has a brother, the family sat at the dining table having breakfast. Sylvia spied the old Victrola sitting in the dining room corner.
"My folks had a Victrola like that," she said. "It sat on the stair landing in the house. My sister and I had a favorite record that we play over and over — it was all in German. I just remember the man laughing and laughing. We couldn't understand a word, but his laughter would set us to laughing, too. We never got tired of it," she said with a wistful smile.
And that's the news from Ramona where memories can transport you back in time, long before a traffic jam was two parked cars and a dog in the road.
