Ninth in a series of letters to my hometown.
This month marks 46 years since my mother, Cookie, my two older siblings, and I arrived in West Plains.
When we moved here in June of 1980, I felt like I had somehow ridden my bicycle through a time portal.
We had come from Mesa, Arizona, a sprawling desert suburb where my world consisted of tract houses, school buses, and streets that seemed to stretch endlessly toward the horizon. Then, almost overnight, I found myself in a small Missouri town that looked like something I had only seen in old movies.
One of the first friends I made was a boy named James who lived down the street on Missouri Ave. Our friendship lasted only one summer, but during that magical summer, he became my tour guide to West Plains.
Every morning started the same way. I’d eat a bowl of cereal, climb on my bike, and head out to find James. Then we’d spend the day exploring.
He showed me Central School, where I would start the sixth grade that fall. He taught me the shortcuts. He showed me which street connected to which alleys and where the best places were to ride. Most importantly, he introduced me to the downtown square.
To an 11-year-old newcomer, the square felt magical.
The courthouse stood proudly in the center while the stores formed a perfect border around it. On one corner was Sterling’s Department Store, which seemed to sell everything a kid could possibly want. There were clothing stores, a record store, cafés, and Aid Hardware, which had a smell all its own.
I can still remember it.
The scent hit you the moment you opened the door. Old wooden floors, machine oil. Tools. Dust. Summer heat. It wasn’t good or bad. It was simply the smell of a hardware store that had been there forever. Every old hardware store I’ve visited since has been measured against Aid’s, and none of them quite compare.
The crown jewel of downtown, in my young mind, was Wilke’s Drug Store.
Not the pharmacy, not the greeting cards. The soda fountain.
Growing up in Arizona, I saw soda fountains only on television and in movies. There were where kids in poodle skirts who drank cherry Cokes and exchanged notes before the big dance. They belonged to another era.
Yet there it was, right in front of me.
One afternoon, armed with a few quarters, a dime, and some pennies rattling around in my pocket, I climbed onto one of those spinning stools and ordered a cherry Dr. Pepper. It arrived in a tall glass packed with ice and topped with cherry syrup. To this day, I can still remember the first sip.
It wasn’t just a soft drink; it was an experience.
I sat there nursing that cherry Dr. Pepper, listening to the creak of the wooden floorboards beneath shoppers’ feet while studying the record display nearby. One album cover always caught my eye: Boston’s debut album, with its giant red spaceship blasting through space. I saw it every time I visited Wilke’s and always wondered if anyone ever bought it.
My new Missouri friend also introduced me to Mello Yello. A bright yellow Southern soda that looked suspiciously like antifreeze but thankfully tasted much better than I imagined antifreeze would.
Looking back, it’s remarkable how much freedom kids had in 1980. Then again, parenting in 1980 was built on equal parts trust and optimism. We disappeared for entire days on our bicycles.
I’ve had bigger adventures since then. I’ve lived in many other places, raised children, built a career, and traveled more miles than that 11-year-old girl on a bicycle could have imagined. But, I’m not sure I’ve ever felt more free than I did during that first summer in West Plains.
A new town, A bicycle, a pocketful of change, and a cherry Dr. Pepper at Wilke’s. For an 11-year-old girl in a new town, it felt like the whole world was waiting just around the corner.
Laura (Wright) Jones is a former West Plains resident and a writer now living in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley with her husband Jeff and their two Morkies, Jonesy and Mookie. Her column, “Dear West Plains,” is a love letter to her hometown and the stories that shaped her. Her email address is laura.jones062869@gmail.com
