The Hundred

A coming-of-age saga in five parts

In the final installment of this five-part series, Dr. J. Russell Felker, MD, shares memories of the summer during his adolescence he and his friend, Tom, walked from Sikeston, Missouri, to Farmington, Missouri.

DAY 4

The next day we arose, and I suspect were fed breakfast. I don’t remember. I do remember we were not offered corn. We were headed from Patton Junction to Fredericktown, Missouri, where my Aunt Shorty lived with her husband, Willis. All my maternal aunts and uncles had nicknames: Tootie, Blondie, Shorty, Gump and my mother was JoAnn. After we’d been married for a few years of our now 50, my wife asked me what their real names were. I had no idea! I foolishly thought those were their real names. I guess you could call that not thinking. I think I learned my mother’s real name, Mary Jolene, only when she passed away, at an age much younger than I am now.

My recollections of that stretch are sparse. It was hilly, but maybe I know that from driving it years later. Tom, as usual, has differing remembrances. His involve furtively looking back down the highway and seeing patrol cars that kept a distance but seemed to shadow us. He believes this was at the behest of his father, a well-known physician in Sikeston, who doubtless had influences we couldn’t even begin to imagine. In his reality, his father, when initially approached, had foreknowledge of our plans. My uncle was the organist at their church. He further suspects that surveillance had been pre-arranged with the highway patrol to shepherd our adventure.

None of that is in my own version of events, but we all have differing memories. And although the truth may be somewhere towards the middle, most people seem to prefer an interesting lie.

Let’s go with mine. And hope it is interesting.

After not too much or too little walking, we arrived in Fredericktown.

That night, we broke a solemn vow. We had promised each other we would not ride in a car until we had completed the entire distance from Sikeston to Farmington, but … there was an older kid named Ivan, 16, who lived next door who had a DRIVER’S LICENSE! He wondered if we might like to join him and some friends going to the drive-in.

Tom and I had a heart-to-heart. We had committed to eschew any form of transportation other than our feet until the completion of our hike. This, despite neither of us having any idea what the word “eschew” meant. Should we break our self-imposed commitment? Would it invalidate our efforts? Would anyone know if we subsequently chose circumspection?

In the end, our resolve crumbled like a sand castle at high tide. We fell so far as to allow Ivan to drive us from my aunt’s to the city limits of Fredericktown the next morning. It feels so good to come clean after all these years.

DAY 5

After four days and five nights, we were on our last mile, or miles.

A panther? A mountain lion? At least a ferocious wild cat, surely. But, no. It was a small, friendly kitten that began stalking us some miles outside of the city limits of Farmington, and glory! It did so mercilessly.

We walked fast, we walked slowly, we walked faster, we skipped, we jumped, we crossed the road with more purpose than the chicken. We did our best dog impersonation. We pointed out fields of catnip and scurried in the opposite direction. We ran through the briars, and we ran through the brambles, and we ran through the places where a rabbit wouldn’t go. We were followed by the kitten. The last few miles were completely subsumed with kitten konsiderations. In the end, we embraced the inevitable and became a trio: me, Tom and Tom’s cat. That’s what it was, Tom’s cat. When it reached maturity, it would be a tomcat. I think that was even its name. That’s what we called it, even then — with the possible exception of Tom.

And we had arrived. As had the kitten.

* * *

The Chaffee motel is gone, the jail has moved, Mr. Statler passed long ago.

The old couple that lived just south of Patton Junction is no more.

My Fredericktown uncle, a high school football star quarterback, lost his well-paying job when the lead mines closed. He and my Aunt Shorty lived in relative penury their last years. He was always fun to watch football with. She stayed short.

Ivan was killed a couple of years later by a drunken driver. His family sent his clothes to me. They didn’t fit perfectly, but I wore them anyway; Ivan was a sharp dresser.

The little kitten was run over by a car a couple of days after we got to Farmington — still following us, maybe even now.

All gone. All missed.

Tom and I grew up, or at least grew older, became physicians and raised families.

Dr. J. Russell Felker, a Sikeston native, received his MD in 1973 and practiced urology in Cape Girardeau, retiring in 2016. He and his wife of 50 years, Suellyn, raised four children in Cape.