Fairfield remembered by proud native

To the editor:

Thoughts of Fairfield, Iowa

Are mostly happy, not forlorn.

I?m so lucky to have lived there

Where these memories were born.

Our little town was a ?cultural mix,?

Characters that we knew.

Some who walked, some who talked,

Leaders and followers, too.

Some were colorful, some were shy,

Some thrived upon attention.

Most deserved our love and praise,

A few we best not mention.

There was George Anderson, the junk man

Who would buy and sell your trash.

?Lob? Benning sorted his iron and steel

while George took in the cash.

I remember Bill Larue,

Born impaired but living free.

He loved to say he?d drink red pop

And then go make whoopee.

O.B. Nelson was the football coach,

Personality second to none!

He died much too young but

Just to know him was to have won.

To the 30s kids on ?Smokey Row?

Dick Tracy was our Bert Day.

Fairfield?s Depression policeman,

His name alone said, ?Make my day?!

There was the medium, Mrs. Fuqua,

She had a son named Don.

She told fortunes with a deck of cards,

Saw things beyond the ?great beyond.?

I recall the man in ?Frank Buck? hat,

He was professor Pruitt.

With an allergy to sunshine,

To get a tan he couldn?t do it.

Lyle Luithly was a fixture

At Parsons I recall.

He reminded me of an athlete mascot.

He didn?t play football.

Bill and Harry Adams

Ran the Island known as ?Coney.?

Their hotdogs were to ?die for? but

The wieners seemed a little ?phony.?

George Suderman and his dog appeared.

The ?Mad Russian? came to town.

Was he a colorful Parsons Prof.

Or academic clown?

Fairfield and Parsons met the master

In Dr. Roberts, ?p.p.?

That stands for ?promotin? preacher,?

A miracle worker it was agreed.

He made a mountain from a ?mole hill,?

Built a monument on the plains.

The tail, however, would wag the dog

And from the rainbow came the rain.

Earnie Stallman was a laborer

Who worked at hay time on the farm.

He would usually man the wagon as

Hay was pitched up to his strong arms.

One day the ?ground crew? plotted

To pitch up more hay than he could handle.

They would cover him with tons of hay

From his head down to his sandals!

Earnie struggled valiantly

But it was more than he could abide.

Poetic justice awaits the ground crew

To find he just threw it off the other side!

My memory tank?s on empty now,

Remembering folks at work or play.

But, here?s a few of those we knew

In our Fairfield of bygone days.

? Fairfield native Thomas Ward, Mesa, Ariz.