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My date with Tru

In the late ‘60s I lived in Topeka, Kansas, married, raising two young daughters and finishing college. The hottest book at that time was In Cold Blood, written by one of my favorite writers, Truman Capote. It was about the murder of the Clutter family by Richard Eugene Hickock and Perry Edward Smith, in the rural area close to Garden City, Kansas.

The murder and trial had garnered big headlines, and I knew much about the situation since it happened in Kansas, and I had read the book.

My wife’s grandmother was well acquainted with Judge Tate who presided over the trial and held a large party in Topeka in his honor. She was fairly wealthy, having lost three financially well-to-do husbands, and had invited most of the big-wigs of Topeka, and many of the principals involved with the case were also in attendance, including author Capote.

During the party, Capote was in high form and of course was very popular with the attendees, so I didn’t get much of a chance to visit with him then. However, as the party was ending, some knew that Capote had reservations that evening at a Kansas City hotel, and suggested that it would be great to head there for an after party at the hotel. There were about three or four car loads, and I was ecstatic to be in the same car as Truman.

So, during the hour or so ride from Topeka to KC, I got to visit with Truman, who I found knew my brother, Ron, a budding poet. As we were driving into the city, Truman said that, rather than going to the after-party, he wanted to go to the Apollo, which I knew to be a well-known gay bar. So, disappointed that he wouldn’t be joining us, and admittedly somewhat leery about joining him there, we dropped him off at the Apollo.

Without him, the after-party was a dud. But, I bet he had a great time! — Ken Johnson

Grandma’s Backyard

While reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, Barbara Kingsolver’s book detailing her family’s attempt to eat only locally grown food for an entire year, I was reminded of my grandmother’s back yard where she maintained a chicken coop.

In the ‘40s and early ‘50s, we lived next door to Gram in Ashland, Kansas, a rural town of about 1,400 persons in southwest Kansas, close to the Oklahoma border. It certainly wasn’t unusual for people there to have chicken coops, where they grew chickens and had a ready supply of fresh eggs. Most everyone also had gardens, butter churns, and kept locally grown meat at the local ‘locker’.

To get ready for the evening meal, Gram would head out to the coop, grab the closest chicken, and after taking it out of the coop, would violently wring its neck, breaking the head off. After releasing the chicken, it would literally ‘run around like a chicken with its head cut off’, spewing blood all over the grass.

It was always a spectacle lasting several minutes, and eventually the chicken would run out of steam and drop over dead. Then she would pick it up and drop it into a boiling cauldron of water on the back porch. After a few minutes then, it would be removed—ready for plucking. I often had the undesirable chore of removing the stinking feathers and bringing the denuded carcass into the kitchen for cooking.

Today, it’s much less exciting – and cleaner. We go to the HyVee meat counter and pick up a package of pre-cut chicken. — Ken Johnson

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou writes beautifully and from the heart in the autobiography of her sometimes happy but often painful childhood. When their parents divorced, she and her brother, Bailey, were sent to live with their grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas. She was just 5 years old, Bailey, 4.

Their grandmother was an exceptional woman, kind but strict. The children helped in the general store she owned and ran in the small, tight-knit all-Black community.

Angelou tells of going to visit her mother in St. Louis and being raped by her mother’s live-in boyfriend. The 8-year-old child was so traumatized that she refused to speak for several years. She recovered when a teacher, who understood her love of books, encouraged her to read out loud.

Her teenage yeas were difficult. Angelou grew to be six feel tall, had no self-confidence, believed she was ugly, and had been stung more than once by bigotry. In her late teens, she visited her mother again, this time in California. As a result of a one-time encounter, which she initiated to try and reassure herself that she was “lovable,” she became pregnant. The result was “her greatest gift,” her son, Guy.

Angelou went on to become a renowned writer of both books and poetry. She wrote and read a poem at President Bill Clinton’s inauguration. All of her works are written in a direct, personal, sometimes humorous style. She was a civil rights activist, sometimes working alongside Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X. She also was an educator, a playwright, a singer, composer and dancer; she earned numerous honorary doctorates. Angelou died in May of 2014.

—Gail Allen