The "square" was the center of everything until the Blueridge Mall was built.This is facing north. This was "uptown", Kansas City to the west was "downtown". A block south is/was the police station where we threw a string of firecrackers out the car window and sped away one fun filled night.
It is located next to the original log courthouse and jail where Joseph Smith,founder of the Morman church was imprisoned. More about that later.
At the nearest corner in this picture is where the highschool bus would stop for the light.I watched a highschool junior stand up, take hold of the lip above this six inch opening and vault himself out the window of the bus in the blink of an eye.I didn't blink that's how i saw it happen.He did it so quick and effortlessly kids sitting near him didn't even know it happened. No one said a word.
He walked toward the old Katz drugstore (where this picture was taken from the roof) which featured a huge smiling blackcat face over the entrance outlined in neon. Two doors north of the drugstore was the pool hall where my cartheif contemporaries who didn't work would hangout all day.
The square at the time of this picture was the happening place to see and be seen.The Chrisman Highschool west a few blocks used let the students out for lunch everyday until the store owners complained that the kids were shoplifting them out of business.When i was quite young i was with my churchlady Mother on the square during lunchtime.The language of the highschool girls would have made a sailor blush.
Move ahead a few years and picture a couple of my buds, one wearing a wolfman mask chasing the other in the street,screaming and running across the parked cars.
Eddie,the one being chased had his own version of the Chinese Fire Drill. (some of you must remember) He would stop at a light,open the car door, fall out on the street flopping around in an apparent fit or seizure until the light would change then get back in and drive on.
Eddie (i should change his name for the story
) once stole a rare crabapple green VW Bug to replace the blue one belonging to his Mother that he drove until it stopped running. He "disguised" it by reversing the wheels (remember that trick?), painting it spray can orange with yellow fogging.An aluminum hoodscoop (trunkscoop) and chrome dummy spotlights.Once he was driving on the busy street past the owners house, the people were standing on the front porch so he honked and waved.
