From the time I was 9 or 10, the folks let me walk to places around Burden by myself.  Sometimes with a friend, I would walk west to Silver Creek.  For variety, we would use the railroad tracks, but that was a little farther because of the way Silver angles away from Burden.  It was fished out so all we did was swim in our favorite hole a little downstream from the WPA bridge.  The first thing we did on arrival was check that someone hadn't thrown a gunny sack of kittens off the bridge into the crick.  Did you ever take a dip and wonder what that stuff floating down stream was?  And the repulsion to find it was swarms of maggots?

We swam in cow ponds, those potholes on the prairie formed by a bulldozed dam.  These were supplied by run-off water and always had muddy bottoms that roiled up badly.  Some of the larger ponds had transplanted catfish that grew quite large.  Banner Brooks and Spangler had spring-fed ponds chock full of inbred, stunted sun fish and snapping turtles that lived off the fish.  The fish were to small to cook but were fun to catch by the dozens.  Put them on a stringer, dip them near by, and you could soon pull them up with a huge turtle attached.

My favorite location, where I usually walked alone, was a little stream about 1/2 mile east of Burden on the railroad tracks.  Extending south of the tracks, it was neck-deep at the deepest and barely large enough to dive into from the bank.  Daddy made an aluminum bracelet for me from a discarded aircraft part.  That was during the War when he worked at Strother Field.  It was engraved with my name.  Damn, I was proud of it but it was too large — Dad said I'd grow into it.  I'd had it less than a week when, diving into my favorite crick, I lost it.  Many hours I spent, diving and feeling around on the bottom for that bracelet.

There were lots of fish ; catfish, perch, and crick chubs in the riffles.  The catfish were small, I guess because the stream was to small to support large ones or maybe this was their hatchery.  But the perch were the biggest, black and green bad boys I ever saw.  After Dad taught me to fly fish, I could always catch a mess of those big perch, enough for the family to eat.  Speaking of big fish, there was a rock-lined water well 100 yards south of the tracks and adjacent the first hole where I swam.  An old windmill had collapsed on top of it.  It was full of stunted sun perch (I guess) only 1 1/4" long. They must have lived off grasshoppers and other insects that fell in the well.

Out of the Crotch (we fondly call the Marine Corps) and living in Wichita, I went to Burden often.  I pocketed a cork, rigged with a short length of line, medium-sized hook, and split-shot sinker.  I always cut a short pole from a tree or bush limb, at the site, and could always dig into the crick bank for fish worms or pry up a ripe cow pie for a fat grub worm.  To my dismay, my favorite little crick was nearly dry.  It hadn't been a particularly dry season.  I looked, I think for the first time, for the source of water.  I crawled through the culvert, which passed under the railroad tracks.  Just the other side of the tracks I found the spring and the problem.  This is Gatton's property, and he had installed a pump and directed the water north toward the house (and the highway).  A year later, I found the spring completely walled up and the crick in the condition you found it.

Warfare is usually, if not always, in response to a shortage of resources.  We can't always find or develop new resources, leaving population control as the alternative.  Mankind's most reliable method of population control has always been war.  Tell that to your pacifist, liberal-minded friends.

William the Terrible