Quick, put on your thinking caps and see if you can come up with the answers to these questions about McCook.  What type of entertainment business was located just north of Mac’s Drive-In?  What was the name of the big dance that Mrs. Coffey’s students put on every spring at Central?  Where was McCook’s first drive-in restaurant located and what was its name?  Answers are at the end of this article.

  Questions and topics like this have been discussed and reminisced about repeatedly the last few months on a Facebook page called “Remember When in McCook, Nebraska” The page was started in late summer by Kevin Schwartz ‘75 and his wife Mary, modeling it after other “Remember When” pages that started about the same time.  Kevin’s classmate, Roch Bahl ‘75 used his “friends list” on Facebook to start sending invitations to others to join the page and has served as administrator of the page.

What is Facebook?  According to Wikipedia, “Facebook is a social networking service and Web site launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc.  As of July 2011, Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users may create a personal profile, add other users as friends, and exchange messages, including automatic notifications when they update their profile.”  It is a great way of keeping up with the happenings of your children, siblings, extended family members, classmates, and friends.  To join Facebook, all you need is access to a computer and an email address.  Go to Facebook.com on your computer and you can start an account.  If you have problems with it, ask any high school student to help you!!!

To join the McCook page, just type in the words “Remember When in McCook, Nebraska” in the search box at the top of any Facebook page.  It will take you right to this page and you can start reading through the posts.  At the top of the page you can click on a box that lets you request to be a member of the page.  So far there are over 600 members of this page, the majority of them being MHS alumni.

There is lots of information about McCook that you can enjoy once you’re on this page.  On the right column there is an icon to click on which says “View Photos”.  Be prepared for a trip down memory lane!  There are currently 166 photos that members have posted to the page that you can view.  Some of them are postcards showing downtown McCook in the 40s, 50s, and 60s.  Don Schaaf ‘55 has posted several photos that were taken at McCook Junior High in the early 1950s.  There are pictures of a North Ward beanie, Little League baseball teams, and kids riding the circus elephants that came to town.  Aaron Cathcart ‘91 has posted several pictures that his father Steve took back in the 1980s, including shots of damage done to McCook from a microburst storm that hit in July of 1984.  These pictures make a great montage of McCook scenes from the last 80 years.

My favorite part is the discussions that have gone on using this page.  People can “post” or type in a memory or question and then others can add to the post with their own remembrances or thoughts concerning it.  There have been great discussions on topics such as the names and locations of all the little grocery stores we had in McCook, how wonderful Amor Huff, the milk delivery man was, what cars we drove in high school, Ma Teter, DeGroff’s Santa Claus, and our favorite part of Woolworth’s store.  Old friends have reconnected, names of classmates in pictures have been recalled, and lots of happy memories have been shared.

Be prepared to spend several hours on the page once you get there.  It’s addictive!  The most current posts or the ones that have been commented on recently will be on the first page.  But if you scroll to the bottom of the page and hit “Older Posts” it will take you back, a page at a time, to read things that were posted earlier.  Feel free to post or comment on any of these older posts.  It then brings them back up to the current page so other group members can read what you have to say on the topic.

I asked Tom Murphy ‘66 to give his thoughts on the Remember When page.  Recently he spent a few hours going back and reading every post on the page.  Here’s what he had to say about the experience:

“I attempted to get back to the very first post on several occasions. Last Sunday, I had some free time and decided this was going to be the day I made it to the first post or I’d forget it. Once I began, it only took a few hours.

The stories about the people I have forgotten and who were part of my youth or adults who have long since been gone were by far the most enjoyable to read. It brought back to life the people and characters of Pop Kelly, Blind Sam, Stan at Stan’s Newstand, Franny Weiland and his little red wagon, and the man who pulled his little cart to do lawn jobs around town. The events like Back-to School Parades, Kelly Park Canyon, and fun times at the river, sand pits, and drive-in theatre were visualized with a big smile. Equally enjoyable was reconnecting with people I had not seen or heard of in 40 and 50 years. Since reconnecting several of us have kept in touch just like old times. After that first hello, it is like time stood still; our friendship is as strong as it was many years ago—the bonds that brought us together then did so again.
To see a picture of Main Street with the red brick road facing south with a picture of the sign for Murphy’s Cafe taken in the 50’s, which was owned by my parents, was a real treat. The photos of the various young and old school classes brought back lots of memories of people, places and events. I would find myself reminiscing as I read and viewed the photos. When one is born in a smaller town and spends 20 years living there, there are many, many things and people remembered and also forgotten that a site like this brings back to life.

What boy could forget Little League Baseball? In the summer it was the center of our universe. We practiced, played games, watched games and just played around at Felling Field.  One photo was of the U C T team. I have no idea what those initials stand for today; however, I played on that team several summers and had erased it from my memory until I saw that photo.

A big thank you from me and everyone who has participated in this site needs to go out to its creator(s). Just think of all those memories which would have been lost had they not taken the initiative to create Remember When in McCook, Nebraska.”

So what are you waiting for?  Grab your keyboard, tablet, or laptop, get to Facebook, and start remembering the “good ol’ days” in McCook.  You’ll be glad you did.

Oh yes, here are the answers to those questions back at the beginning of the article.  The business to the north of Mac’s was a trampoline center, where parents could take their kids and let them jump on trampolines and endanger their lives for just a few cents in the late 1950’s.  The dance Mrs. Coffey had us skillfully perform was the May Pole dance.  And we believe the first drive-in in McCook was called the Coney Island, ran by the Rutt brothers on the corner of B Street and West 4th.  How’d you do?

By Diane Wilson Lyons ‘76