Memories Cooperstown ND Main Street

I had many , many great experiences while growing up in Cooperstown. I
had tremendous teachers
and a great band director, Elton Oppegard who always pushed us for
excellence in Music and guided
all of his students on the right musical path.

I had many funny experiences while I was learning how to work for a
living. I think my first job
was shining shoes in Nelson' Barbershop. I think they had the only Shoe
Shine Chair in town and I asked Bill and Al Nelson if I could shine shoes
there. They told me yes but the rent would be heavy... I asked how
much and they told me that "you have to sweep up all the hair daily as
often as necessary"!.. I agreed and
began shining shoes at 15 cents per shine. A traveling fellow from Texas
was staying in the Windsor Hotel, where, later in my youth, my aunt Helen
Sharpe was the chief cook. He found out that I shined shoes and asked me
to come to the Windsor Hotel to pick up his cowboy boots and that if I
did a good job, he would double my fee. I shined them best I could , took
them back, and he gave me $1.00... man, like 6 pairs of shoes. I was in
the tall cotton that day. Al Nelson came back from lunch one day and
asked me a
question way to heavy for a 9 year old to understand... He asked me,
"what do you think of the
sewer system in China?" I said that I didn't know anything about that...
Al quickly said, "It Stinks.. The
whole system stinks!"... I finally did get the joke after thinking about
it for a minute..

Another funny incident happened to me while working at the Farmers
Elevator under Norman Heinz.
I was weighing government loan grain loads during the summer and Norm's
Second Man, Dutch, set
my straw hat on fire in the scale room when I was busy weighing a truck
and did not notice Dutch's act, and then he went back into the office
where the regular pinochle game was going on with some farmers and Norm
and they watched me thru the window as I sniffed around wondering what
the fire smell was. When I quickly felt the heat, I grabbed my hat and
stomped on it like Jose Greco killing roaches... It was frightening at
first but the laugh I gave the farmers was worth it all.

Then of course, I was assembling machinery for Bob Baker and one of
the guys on the crew told me that the combine way down at the end of the
machinery lot South of Highway 7 had just been sold and to take a 5
gallon pail of water down there and put it in the radiator..I did as I
was told and lugged the water down there and could not find the
radiator.. Of course, there was none and about 10 men back on the north
side of then Highway 7 were having a great laugh.

I almost fell for the task of finding the "striped paint" but then ,
after considerable thought, realized I
was almost "HAD" again.. Ha..

Cooperstown was a great place to grow up and "John Deere Day" was just
like Christmas to us kids with
all the cartoons and goodies and lots of folks in town to see all the new
equipment.. We were all very
fortunate in my time there.

Sincerely,
Dick Sharpe
Class of 1956