Armadillo Creek

Armadillo Creek is located in a mountainous region, abundant with trees and creeks and rivers and lakes. Many, many miles of National Forest surround the town. The population of Armadillo Creek, in the 1980 census, was right around a thousand, give or take, which was slightly less than the decade before.

Armadillo is the county seat, and its largest town, at the heart of a county full of some eight thousand residents. There are three school districts in the county, and the largest is the one in Armadillo, whose graduating class often boasts forty or more students, and the smallest is in Donner, and usually has less than a dozen.

Every May, the three schools have a May Day competition, where sixth graders from each school meet at the boy's camp, along Silver Creek, between Armadillo and Donner. The kids go and play and have a grand time. When it came Johnny Miller's time to go, his class loaded up in a school bus, and drove the fifteen miles or so to the camp. After they got there, there were activities planned, things to do for all day long. Some of the highlights were a sack race and an egg toss. Luckily, the egg toss came at the end of the day, and although Johnny was never too athletically inclined, he and his partner did well that day. That is, until the kid next to his partner got off-target, and the egg landed smack-dab on the top of Johnny's head. Once that happened, as the egg dripped down his forehead, well, the egg toss was over. Johnny's next toss just went straight up into the air, and ended up nowhere near his partner.

Armadillo Creek, it's said, once had its own movie theater, where kids could go for a nickel, and buy a popcorn and a giant candy bar and a coke, and watch John Wayne or others. It once had its own Ford dealer, so they say. Back then, logging was still going strong, and there was a glove factory in addition to the shoe factory of today. Now, many jobs had been lost over the years, and many of the businesses of the past had gone by the wayside.

When Johnny was little, he could still buy a coke, or more often, a Pepsi, out of the coke machine for a quarter, and the kids'd often go around to the neighbors and gather bottles, and take them back to the store for a refund of the deposits. At a nickel each, they could make a dollar or two in a short amount of time.

The elementary school in Armadillo Creek had been built in the thirties. Johnny's Dad had gone there, as a child, and told him stories of things done, long ago, on that same playground where Johnny played. His first grade teacher was an icon in the area. Miss Marilyn had been teaching for as long as anyone could remember, and she still taught well. She taught lessons that went beyond the Dick and Jane storybooks, and "Electric Company" on the television set.

Her husband owned the town drug store, which his family had founded years and years ago. You could still walk in and buy a fresh-squeezed lemonade (with a little cherry flavor), or a strawberry shake, at the soda fountain, which had been there forever. Across the street, in the "square", the old courthouse stood, a building as old as the elementary school, housing all the county offices.

The post office was a couple of streets over, housed in an old, small church-house that had been outgrown by the church, years ago. Between the post office and the school, a block or two away, stood the First United Methodist Church, and for years, its bells had been tolling tunes every hour, and half hour, and even longer at noon.

Over behind the library, there, in town, on a dead end street, lived the Junk Man. No one seemed to know his name - at least, not the kids Johnny knew, and it didn't really matter - he was just, the Junk Man. The Junk Man had tables and tables full of interesting goodies, and if you were on a budget of a nickel or a dime, you could often find something interesting, and the kind old man would usually give you something extra, just for coming there.

On the edge of town, off toward the lake, and the city beyond, was the county fairgrounds. Each year, a "fair parade" started in the heart of town, by the old abandoned glove factory, and would wind it's way past the courthouse square, down past the Dairycream, out to the fairgrounds, where there'd be some small carnival company that would come in and set up for a week or so. At the fair itself, there were buildings full of displays, and all the kids, sooner or later, were bound to win a ribbon for their artwork, done in the classroom and proudly displayed by the teachers. The judges would get to taste cookies, and apple pies, and salsa, and everything between. On Friday night would be the rodeo, followed on Saturday by a crash-up derby, where folks would smash their way to victory in old cars, pieced together from parts out of the junk yard.

Winters in Armadillo Creek were generally mild, but sometimes, brutal. There'd be winters where only a couple of dustings of snow fell, all winter, and others where an icestorm or a snowstorm would come through and stay for days. Spring and fall were always nice. There'd usually be plenty of rain, but not too much, although there were years where all the rivers and creeks flooded their banks, and it was impossible to even get into town because the one-lane bridges would be feet under water. Summertime was hot, but not too humid, and usually mild, although some years there'd be weeks without rain, and others, a little too much.

If it can be said, truly, that “you can take the boy out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the boy…”, then this description would fit little Johnny Miller well. Although he would travel, in his childhood, going to see relatives, and later, as an adult, far away, he would always keep within him the memories of a simple time, a simple place, a simple life, in Armadillo Creek.