Johnny Ray Middleton

 

Johnny was four years older than me. For about nine years, maybe 1952 through 1960, our families were next door neighbors on South 7th Street in Henryetta. During that time, Johnny was age 9 through 17 while I was age 5 through 13. So we both did a lot of growing and changing during that time. Although the two of us were not buddies, our lives were closely intertwined through the daily activities our families shared.

Sharing; that was the great thing about our two families. It was a real cooperative partnership the way us kids were shuffled back and forth to school and shared yards, houses, pets, and neighborhood friends. During all those years, our house did not have a telephone so we went to Aunt Mildred’s house to use the phone or when someone called there for one of us. For half of those years, we didn’t have a television, but Uncle Robert and Aunt Mildred did; so we watched a lot of TV over there.  Their house was always open to us and so was ours to them.

Spending so much time at their house, I gained an insight into the uniqueness of their lives in contrast to ours. Our house was characterized by the feminine side of things with mom and the four girls creating an air of scheduled tidiness and efficiency that revolved around dad’s work schedule, household chores, church activities, visiting relatives, and going to school. I was the one disruptive factor in this otherwise serene picture.

The house next door at 1211 South 7th provided quite a difference in style. All three boys were great students of their dad when it came to hunting and fishing. In Joe, Johnny, and Bobby, Uncle Robert found three hardy kids who took to the outdoors like many of their uncles and cousins had done. And Aunt Mildred was a great bunkhouse master, keeping the guys fed, cooking their game and frying their catch; always the caring and patient mother, proud of her sons. With Paula Kay, Aunt Mildred found a sweetness and joy to fill her life as well.

The activities of hunting and fishing didn’t play much of a role at my house and didn’t matchup very well with our family profile or our schedule of activities. And, as time would prove, my personality and interests were not well suited to such activities requiring patience, prowess, and judgment.

In Johnny’s house, sporting equipment and man stuff ruled the day. In boxes, stashed in corners, and underneath the beds in the boy’s room, there seemed to me to be sporting goods of every sort. In our front yard along 7th Street was an area that made a nice little sports field. Johnny, Joe and other friends their age would often get together out there to play sandlot style games of baseball, track, and football. Early on, I was merely a spectator. As Johnny got older he was on the track team.

One day, I recall Bobby showing me Johnny’s cool track shoes with sharp spikes on them. We both had to try them on and see if they would somehow allow us to run really fast. Of course we were a little nervous about messing with Johnny’s stuff. We knew he would get pretty mad if he came home and caught us wearing them. That was one of Johnny’s characteristics, that as a youngster, I recall. He did have a quick temper.

One year he got a new bicycle. I think it may have been a Christmas gift. Anyway, I remember Bobby coming to me and telling me about the bike as though it was about the neatest, fastest, most advanced machine ever. It was an “English Racer”! It had three speeds, instead of one, and brakes on the handlebars. We were only allowed to look at it and dared not touch it lest we face the “wrath of Johnny”.

One hot summer afternoon when I was about 8 or 9 years old, Bobby and I were out behind his house playing with the garden hose, spraying each other and having a great time when Johnny came riding home on that English Racer bike and parked it by the back porch. I was holding that water hose as he looked at me and in a very serious tone said “you better not spray water on my bike”. Well, that was a challenge and a temptation which, on that particular day, I was unable to resist. In no time at all I found myself spraying just a little bit of water on his nice shiny bike. The fight was on. Johnny came at me and the two of us tangled right there in the wet grass. Fortunately, Sandra was nearby and stepped in before he could do much damage. From that day forward, I never made the mistake of crossing Johnny Middleton again.

Johnny was there at the Coal Creek swimming hole in Kraft’s pasture when I learned to swim. In fact it was Johnny who gave me the coaching and encouragement to give it a try. What a lot of memories I have of being there many times with the cousins and other kids from the neighborhood. The Kraft family had a small commercial dairy operation on South 7th Street. Our properties and the dairy property lay along the east side of a railroad track. Across the tracks to the west were a large abandoned crude oil tank farm and the Kraft dairy pasture. The terrain there was varied with open fields, the wooded stream with large vines hanging from the trees, and a steep rugged hillside to the west. This was a great place for us cousins to explore and play.

In September, 1960, when I was thirteen, our family moved to Chelsea, about 100 miles northeast of Henryetta. Thus ended the clan-like cooperative that had served as an important center of life for both our families. By this time the older kids, Joyce, Joe, and Geraldine, had left home to go to school or get married. But the house where Johnny grew up, and from which he was about to leave and begin a successful college education, remained an important focal point for both families for years to come. Over the next several years both families became very familiar with the road between Henryetta and Chelsea.

For many weeks each summer, I stayed at Aunt Mildred’s house with my cousin Bobby. Often Johnny was there on summer break from OSU. It was during these times, after Bobby began working at the Square Deal grocery store, that Johnny would invite me to go along with him to visit friends in town. For me, that was a big deal. His friends were some good quality guys in town, respected athletes and students whose names were prominent in the community. The experience of sitting with them in a nice den or living room and observing the relaxed way in which they conversed and just seemed to feel at ease with one another, has remained a key marker in my memory when I think back on those days. In my mind it represents an important feature of Johnny’s character. During those brief visits, he modeled to me a kind of class and dignity that is surprising in young men of that age. In my teenage years that followed, I was rarely a party to such maturity; given more to frivolity and lighthearted fun.

As time passed our lives took us to distant places. My involvement with Johnny came only through family reunions or occasions when he would stop by to visit mom and dad in Independence, Kansas. Then in 1986, I got word that Uncle Robert, Aunt Mildred, and several of their kids and grandkids were getting together at Johnny’s place in Russellville. My wife Judy was busy with school and work, so I took my two youngest kids, Jaci and Jon (ages 6 and 3 at the time) and drove down there with my video camera. That is a trip that I am so glad I made. Once in a while when the kids are at the house to visit, I play the videos I made at Johnny’s house and love every minute of them.

To me, Johnny’s home place out there on the mountain top above Russellville represents a collection of many features that define what it meant to know Johnny Ray Middleton. On that day in 1986, we found ourselves there surrounded by many of those with whom we had shared the great cooperative on South 7th Street. In that setting were all the elements of life which Johnny loved and strove to preserve during his lifetime. On the several acres of trees and pasture land were horses, dogs, cats, kittens, squirrels, ducks, rabbits, geese, and a pond full of fish. The cicadas were coming out of their casings and dangling from the tree leaves drying and exhibiting the miracle of their metamorphosis into a brief new life. The children played together under the shade of the backyard trees, got rides on a horse, caught fish from the pond, got chased by an angry goose, and played with new born kittens and baby ducklings. Johnny and his kids were in perfect harmony with nature and family on that fine day.

In 2010, several of us cousins had the pleasure of being entertained by Charles, Denny, and Johnny one summer night at the KOA Campground east of Henryetta. The three of them spun lively tales of hunting trips to Colorado and close encounters with aggressive bears. What a great time we all had sitting on the patio beside Charles’ travel trailer, sipping on a favorite beverage as the trio took us back to the rugged wilds of Colorado.

The last time we were together was at the 2011 Middleton family reunion in Henryetta. This was an especially meaningful reunion as the cousins put together a great collection of pictures for each family. Johnny’s big brother Joe had recently passed away. Our dear Aunt Velva Bowen, the last of our many aunts and uncles, was there surrounded by admiring nieces and nephews.

Johnny and Charles stayed on well after most of the others had left the community center. Once again, a few of us were privileged to listen as Charles and Johnny reminisced about hunting trips and other adventures of days gone by. We are all fortunate to have shared our lives with Johnny. I am proud to have been a part of his extended family.

James Middleton

January 20, 2013