It must have been 1945 before WWII ended. It gets harder and harder to capture old memories. My great aunt, Rachel Peebler, made frequent trips to Wichita and sometimes took my sister, Sylvia, and I along. Our favorite area was the intersection of Broadway and Douglas and a couple of blocks in every direction.

On the northeast corner was Bucks Department Store. My favorite attraction was the floor where they displayed the clothing and equipment for Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts. This was also where they sold agates for those interested in shooting marbles. It took forever for me to save enough to buy a small agate, but I had it for years. It was probably thrown out or given away when my room was cleaned out after I joined the Navy.

Across the street, on the SE corner, there was a tall office building. The bottom floor was occupied by a Rexall Drug Store. One of the floors above was the office of Swearinger Oil where Aunt Rachel’s daughter, Maxine, worked. We went up and visited with Maxine and met her boss, Ed Swearinger. Maxine had worked there during the war and had married another employee, Woody Fisher. Woody served in the 8^th Air Force and was eventually stationed in England. Woody’s parents, Bob and Ruby Fisher, owned the Locker Plant in Augusta. If you are not familiar with locker plants, the way it works is that you buy a side of beef or shoot a deer, and you bring it to the locker plant. Bob would butcher and package it and store it in the freezer/locker that you had rented from him. From then on, you would just go to the locker plant and select the cuts of your own meat that you wanted. Bob was also known for the excellent sausage he made and sold.

The locker plant was newly designed and built. It was a brick building, and I believe that the bricks were laid by my dad, Al Thomas, and Dolan Brandt.

Across the street on the SW corner was another office building. Upstairs, on the second or third floor, there was an impressive looking restaurant. Aunt Rachel took us up there for lunch. As we entered the place, she spotted a man she knew. She led us over and introduced us to a man named Mr. Brown. I later learned that Mr. Brown had been a businessman in Augusta before moving to Wichita. After Aunt Rachel introduced us, she visited with the man for a moment. Leaving his table, she spotted a woman she knew and led us to her. The lady was Olive Ann Beech. Everyone knew her, even a kid like me. She and her husband, Walter Beech, owned Beechcraft, one of the big names in aviation that made Wichita the “Air Capitol of the World.” Olive Ann was in the Wichita papers or on the radio news every day. Olive Ann was President and Chairman of the Board of Beechcraft and didn’t step down until 1980.

I wondered today, October 26, 2026, how my aunt knew Olive Ann. Looking for other information, I asked my wife, Pat, to do some research on the internet. There she discovered that Olive Ann (born in 1903) had, at the age of eighteen, taken a job in Augusta with an electrical contractor. That’s where we were from! There it is! There’s the answer! In 1921, Rachel would have known everyone in Augusta. Also, the home that Aunt Rachel and Uncle Dave built at 124 High Street was completed in 1923, so Rachel could have met Olive Ann through the electrical contractor at the job at their house.

Discussing all of this with Pat, she reminded me that Olive Ann’s maiden name was Mellor. She also reminded me that my late, good friend, Stan Mellor, was from Burden, Kansas, just north of Wichita. We also met Stan’s brother, Phil Mellor, who was a lawyer in Wichita. It made us wonder if Stan and Phil were related to Olive Ann.

After talking about all of this with Pat, another memory surfaced for her. During WWII, her mother, Melba, worked at Beechcraft as a “Rosie the Riveter.” She worked her way up and became a supervisor of an aircraft assembly crew. Melba’s younger sister, Mabel, also worked as a “Rosie the Riveter” at Beechcraft. They both appreciated having good jobs and helping with the war effort.

Anyhow, after lunch, Aunt Rachel ran her errands, and we returned to Augusta. What an adventure! It has remained with me for all these years.

Dave Thomas

11/05/2026

The new electric cars are something to behold! Their performance is remarkable, but it’s the array of cameras and sensors that blows me away. This is good stuff, but I can’t help wondering what the variety of stress is doing to your body. After all, trusting the car is new to all of us.

Say that for just going up and down the road in a self-driving car, we assign a stress level of 100 when everything is controlled and predictable. If other cars drift into you, and the safety system takes over and applies the brakes or steers toward another lane, the surprise may cause a spike of 200 or more. Suppose that a few of these events have occurred , and you now have stress continuously. If you drive the freeways for the next 20 years at the elevated stress level, what is it doing to your nervous system and heart? I don’t know the answer. It was just something I was thinking about.

Dave Thomas

10/29/2026

Just the Fun Stuff

I’ve never cared much for baseball. It’s a boring game. I’ve always taken a lot of grief for saying that. It’s true, though. You are either sitting the dugout and waiting for your turn at bat or standing in the outfield, scratching your ass and hoping something will come your way.

When I was a kid, there were a couple of elements that I really did enjoy. They were playing catch and hitting flies. My friend and neighbor, Gary Casner, and his older brother, Bill, and I got together occasionally and hit flies. We only lived a block from the high school, so we normally went up and used the practice field. Bill was four years older than Gary and I, so his baseball skills were a lot sharper than ours.

We took turns hitting flies to each other. To make it more interesting, we had two tricks. The first was to catch the call behind our backs. That is, you had to hold your gloved hand behind your back and hope you wouldn’t get beaned in the process. The other way was to catch the ball between your legs. You reached behind yourself with your gloved hand and spread your legs. This could have hurt!

Gary was better at this stuff than I was. Fortunately, we always had a good time, and everyone survived.

Dave Thomas

10/22/2026

Grandpa’s Funeral

When I started this blog, the idea was just to send out some little stories to the kids and grandkids so they could stay up to date on family lore. There are only so many family stories available, so I began including other things that interested me. Today’s story is about more of the family stuff I’ve got. I hope everyone finds it interesting.

My granddad, Albert Adelbert Thomas, died in March of 1960. Grandpa was one of 11 children, and he and grandma had seven children of their own. We expected a lot of relatives to show up for the funeral. On the day of the funeral, my dad and mom and sister, Sylvia, and I went to Grandma and Grandpa’s house to greet the incoming relatives and help Grandma.

Grandma and Grandpa’s seven children were Walter, Grant, June, Francis, Joe, Albert Allen, and Ruth. Grant was in WWI and was gassed by the German’s. This ruined his health and he died just a couple of years after the war. I’ll tell you a little bit about the siblings and Grandma now.

GRANDMA: Grandma was sweet, kind, and always pleasant to be around. A couple of days after the funeral, I was trying to console her. She said, “Don’t worry about it, Davey. I’ll be gone before Memorial Day.” And she was.

WALTER: Walter came to the funeral with his son, Victor, who was a grown man, and played in a band or orchestra in Wichita. Walter lived and worked in Wichita until he decided to move to Missouri. He became the center of attention when he announced that he and his good friend in Missouri had swapped wives.

JUNE: June and her daughter, Virginia, came to the funeral from Massachusetts. June was a pleasant lady. Virginia was a deaf/mute person, and because of that, June had become a teacher of the deaf. Virginia was a very nice young lady, and Sylvia and I learned to communicate with her with no problem.

FRANCIS: Francis came to the funeral with one grown child and two children that were Sylvia and my age. Her fourth child, Tommy, a grown man, was a trucker. The grown lady, Kathleen, was a pretty red-head. We didn’t see the younger children, David and Patty, until 45 years later. In 1995, Dave was a retired motorcycle cop. Patty had some kind of a health condition. The morning of the funeral, Tommy drove up in his truck with the auto-transport attached. He had just delivered a load of new Chevrolets from the factory in Kansas City. Some years later, we heard that he had become a Kansas state assemblyman.

JOE: Joe lived in Emporia and was in the freight-transfer business. Later, he owned a Yellow Van Lines franchise. Pat and I hired the Thomas Van Lines/Yellow Van Lines to move us to Texas. Joe had three sons, Kenneth, Keith, and J.P. Keith joined the Navy just before the end of WWII in 1945 and was stationed in Long Beach, CA. Keith was a body builder and worked out with Jack LaLanne, the famous muscle man. Keith also tried out for the part of Tarzan in the movies. We were told that he didn’t make it because he didn’t swim well enough.

ALBERT ALLEN: Albert was my dad. For several years, he worked at the Mobil Refinery. Then he went out on his own as a bricklayer. I remember the day when he came home, so proud, and announced that he had given himself a raise in pay. He said that for the first time he would be making $5,000/year.

RUTH: We saw Ruth and her husband, Don, frequently over the years. They lived in Augusta, and Ruth was a schoolteacher driving to El Dorado every day. Don worked at the Mobil Refinery. In the 1990’s, after Ruth had died, Pat and I visited Don in his assisted-living apartment. When we got there, Don, who was 100 years old, was busy checking stock prices on his computer.

Dave Thomas

October 15,2026

Once a week, my wife, Pat, and her friend, Judy, drive up Highway 101 from San Diego to Oceanside. The compelling reason for using 101 rather than I-5 is the Pacific Ocean. When the sky is cloudless and blue, the ocean is blue and has white caps decorating the tips of the waves.

Pat and Judy like to stop at one of the mom-and-pop cafes or restaurants for breakfast and then continue to the shopping spots in the Carlsbad area. Parts of this wonderful ride and experience are being destroyed by the re-striping of Highway 101 to create bike lanes. This is a case of the tail wagging the dog and is a bad idea. How many cyclists per capita are there in the United States? Better yet, how many cyclists per capita are there in San Diego County? How many of these people will be in this new bike lane at given time? The auto traffic during the day may consist of L.A. residents down here for a getaway day, UPS, FedEx, electricians, plumbers, etc.  In some areas, one auto traffic lane will be lost due to obstacles-whether natural or manmade (such as a bike lane). This will cause some serious lumps in the flow. Also, some businesses may suffer and need to close as parking spots can be lost for bike lanes. How much will that cost the city in lost retail revenue?

This isn’t just a local problem. You may live near the beach, in the farmlands, or in the mountains. Bicycles, electric bicycles, and electric scooters may cause safety problems for pedestrians and the general public. I understand that designated bike lanes can be a good safety measure but shouldn’t be installed without due diligence regarding overall traffic volume and consideration of the impact on retail shops. The city budget must be considered as well. How much does the installation cost in addition to the possible loss of retail taxes?

I took bikes and electric bikes until I was 74 years old and have no axe to grind. I’m just not sure that the bike lanes on 101 were the best idea.

Dave Thomas

10/8/2026

Neither Melted nor Homogenized

We Americans like to proclaim that our country is a melting pot.  People come to us from all over the world and are assimilated with ease and are welcomed. The reality is that people come here and are swallowed up by factions. They don’t become part of the whole.

People come here and are forced to simply choose to hide under labels. There are Native Americans, Mexican Americans, Irish Americans, Chinese Americans, Italian Americans, and on and on. Most of my people came from England, but I don’t call myself English American. A few of them came from Germany, but I don’t call myself a “German American” or a “Mostly English American.” The label thing ruins the melting pot idea by adding different alignments in thoughts and beliefs. Why can’t we all just be “Americans?”  If you recall, we left our home countries looking for something better. Going back to the label business, one of the ugliest is “white supremacy.” Having white skin doesn’t make you better than anyone else. Intellect, character and tolerance don’t reside within the skin. They are functions of brain and soul. Think about it.

When it comes to the melting pot, we could all do a little better. It would be great if we could drop the labels from our vocabulary.

Dave Thomas

10/1/2026

Thinking of Names

When not doing something constructive, such as lunch or a nap, I like to do some serious thinking. Today, I’m thinking of names. In particular, I’m thinking of names of people that are the same as the names of days of the week or months of the year.

Days of the week would be a bust if not for my friend, Warren Friday. Warren and I were high school classmates and got along well though we were not close. Warren became a career Army man, and I lost track of him for about 40 years. He was short and stocky and a heck of a nice guy and when we ran into each other at a reunion, I could see that he hadn’t changed a bit. Yes, he was still short and stocky, but the most important thing was that he was still a nice guy.  While in Europe, Warren married a nice lady from Germany or one of the nearby countries. My senility keeps me from remembering her name. Warren retired and was living in Oklahoma City. We traded emails and phone calls until he died. Sometimes when I called, Warren would be out of the house, and I got to visit with his wife. Nice lady.

I scored better with months of the year. We had a family in Augusta with the last name of January. Bill January must have been at least 5 or 6 years older than I was. He had a sister and maybe another brother.

Can’t do much with February, but March is a good one. Seems like there was an actor named Frederick March. Next, our Granddaughter, Christie, was going with a really nice young man named James Aprill. It didn’t go anywhere, so he went down the road.

May and June are good first names and are probably well-used as surnames. I don’t know anyone named July, but August is good. There was an actor named Dan August or maybe he was a character in a sit-com.

The rest of the months don’t look good for names. The guy that was always in the baseball news was called Mr. October, but I don’t think he signed his checks that way.

This has been interesting. I was able to entertain myself and stay out of trouble at the same time.

Dave Thomas

9/24/2016

Thanks to the floods, hailstorms, heat, drought, and wildfires, the reporters and network broadcasters have discussed that there are lands west of the Mississippi. Once they learn how to pronounce the names of cities, rivers, and places, we will get a lot more out of the news.

I am originally from Kansas and try to keep up with what’s going on out there. I’ve noticed that most reporters can say the word “Kansas” without stuttering or mumbling. However, if you add two characters to the front of it, they get all confused. The river that flows through Wichita is the Arkansas River. That’s the “R-Kansas” River, not the “R-Can-Saw” River.

The good people of that southern state have been grossly led astray. I hope they can someday learn how to pronounce the name of the state correctly.

Thank you for understanding. If you happen to know anyone at the networks, please send them a copy of this.

Dave Thomas

9/17/2026

I’ve been thinking of my hometown of Augusta, Butler County, Kansas. During the 1950’s, there was a sign at the edge of town. In large letters, it said “AUGUSTA” and below that, in smaller characters, it said “Home of 5,000 friends.” The 2020 census said there are now 9,000 people in town. What’s the deal with these extra 4,000 people? Are they retired folks? Are they people who work in Wichita, but want to have a home in a safe and quiet smaller town? Would you call Augusta a “bedroom” community now? Since the refinery and Loadcraft Industries (Spencer’s) are gone, there isn’t much of a need for a large work force. Probably most of the remaining jobs are in the local government administration these days.

I know it’s been a struggle to keep the downtown businesses healthy, but the last I heard, downtown is still viable. I hope that’s true. I always found it fun to visit, and it was also comforting to know that I could enter most any store and know the people who worked there. A person could handle the merchandise and ask questions, and the clerks or owners would happily give answers. They were always generous with their time, and very good about talking with kids as well.  I rode my bike all over town, and I think it’s safe to say that I knew someone on every block.

I know the last couple of years had to be tough for small towns, and I’m guessing the next couple may be hard, too.  Hopefully, the next administration will want to rebuild our democracy and economy. If so, there will be plenty of jobs and opportunities. It isn’t just the infrastructure, either. The people will need to put in a lot of work. The changes must take place in all of us. Don’t forget the Golden Rule. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Augusta has always been a comfortable town to live in. I hope that vibe still applies.

Dave Thomas

9/3/2026

Today is August 27, 2026. The date may not mean much to you, but, in my case, it means that I am 90 years old today. I have been enjoying each day without giving any thought to the large number that I am now confronted with. Time flies, and the days add up. I’ll try not to bore you with a bunch of old guy stuff.

My mission today is to thank all of you who have read the stories. My granddaughter, Christie, set me up with this blog, and I hoped to entertain my kids, grandkids, and great grandkids with it. It’s been a real joy to discover that others might like it as well. My wife, Pat, and daughter, Terri, have contributed ideas and helped with the stories. I typed and posted the first 200 or so stories and then, after I lost my vision, Terri took over the typing and posting. She also looked up the statistics that I will share with you now. 461 stories have been posted. The stories have been viewed 11,500 times by people in the U.S. They have also been viewed in 72 other countries. I think that’s amazing.

This is also a good time to say thank you to the Veteran’s Administration. Thanks to them, this old guy who is legally blind can write stories to be posted to this blog. The VA keeps me healthy and has supplied video magnifiers and a text reader to make it possible. Some people take pleasure in criticizing them, but they get nothing but praise from me. The doctors, nurses, and technicians I’ve encountered have all been quality people. I love ‘em.

We have wondered how you all discovered us! The internet is a big and amazing place. It is amazing to me to hear from people all over the world. It has been my pleasure to tell  you these stories about our lives and interesting things that we have come across. I hope to be able to come up with a few more stories to entertain both you and I.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Dave Thomas

8/27/2026