And Mitzi Smiled

I surprise myself with all that I can remember about Platteville…Mrs. Camden and Eleanor…Ruben and Ladean…Rene and Georgia Morgan…the biplane crop duster that dive bombed the field just north of the church…the alfalfa dryer at the grain mill and the steam locomotives that whistled through town…the cemetery on the hill east of town…the telephone office just south of the church where the operator took and placed calls…the rope swing from the tree by the garage. There are many pages to be filled with recollections of young life in the rural town, but that’s not really the purpose of this particular quest. On August 18, 1954, our family was made whole with the birth of my sister, Kim. A father, a mother, a son and a daughter; what could possibly be more normal? There were trips to Burlington, Colorado Springs, and Greeley to visit family, but home was the four of us…plus Mitzi, our Dumb Friends League version of a golden retriever who communicated as clearly as anyone how welcome Kim was to our clan simply by her canine grin.