Shredded Wheat breakfasts with Straight Arrow!

by Larry Miller

Most followers of Dawes County Journal are likely old enough to remember "Straight Arrow," a radio show that became so popular that in 1949, the sponsor of the program, Nabisco Shredded Wheat, began producing Straight Arrow cards that would fit in their cereal boxes.  The cards separated the layers of biscuits and were inscribed with Injun-uities – a wide ranging collection of Straight Arrow tips ranging from Poisonous Snake Recognition to Finding Your Way in the Wilderness, and an abundance of other topics.

Pre-teen youth and older used to explore the hills and countryside of Dawes County.  Chadron kids would often find adventure just to the south of the college, near C Hill or a cave farther south and east, which some of us dubbed Blue Rock Cave.  Another popular site, especially for climbing, was King's Chair, which was perhaps a half-mile east of C Hill.  It required only a little bit of size and skill to climb up on top of the huge rock – probably of sandstone – and gaze northward to Chadron and beyond.  Having not re-visited those hills in some 60 years or so, I don't believe King's Chair any longer exists.  Another story!

Crawford youngsters had even more wooded hills practically surrounding the entire town, and I suspect more than just a few adventurers – young and old alike – have expored Lover's Leap, Crow Butte (Note: Check out Justin Haag's Panhandle Afield at the top of this page), and the many other fantastic places that make the Crawford-Fort Robinson area a favorite tourist attraction.

The Straight Arrow radio character was owned solely by Nabisco, which sponsored the show.  He reportedly was an orphaned Native American boy who'd been raised by a ranching family named Adams.  After the lad became aware of his Indian heritage, he adopted the identity and name Straight Arrow and used his skills to "do good and help the unfortunate."  

The radio show was so popular that Straight Arrow was soon a comic book character, too.

I must confess that I don't remember much about the radio programs – or Straight Arrow comic books.  But I certainly remember reading the Straight Arrow cards, while eating a bowl of Nabisco Shredded Wheat for breakfast!

Interestingly, Straight Arrow cards were produced for U.S. and Canadian residents.  In fact, many of the cards were produced  for French-speaking residents of Canada.   

The Straight Arrow cards have been a popular collectors item, too, but I hadn't seen one for a good half century, until a few were donated to the High Plains Western Heritage Center in Spearfish.

It was like seeing an old friend!

 

 

A walk in the woods

During a late night Skype conversation with brother John in San Diego this week (5/23/09), he shared the news that a 4.7 earthquake had shaken central California east of Fresno earlier in the day.

This bit of natural disaster news got me to wondering: whatever happened to King’s Chair, the huge boulder that once sat atop one of the pine hills just south of Chadron State College? Did tremors from an earthquake cause it to roll down the hill and crumble into pieces? Was it viewed as a safety hazard and demolished to keep some wanton waif from falling off and cracking his head open? Or, perhaps time simply weathered it down bit-by-bit, and my aging eyes just can’t discern it anymore?!

These are some of the grave questions I occasionally ponder whenever I’m thinking about Chadron or heading back there for a visit. Since I wasn’t able to see the landmark when last I visited Chadron, the above questions started percolating in my mind. I simply refuse to believe that my wits have teamed up with my vision and have taken leave of my body……but that’s probably more plausible than the other possibilities.

Lots of Chadron kids used to trek around in those hills – and perhaps still do, although many homes, including those in “Hidden Valley,” have encroached upon much of the terrain.

John and I enjoyed reminiscing about a few noteworthy places scattered through those hills. There was Koske Dam, Sacrifice Cave, Blue Rock Cave, and another some of us used to call Paradise Valley.

One of my buddies – I don’t know who – snapped this photo more than 50 years ago at the entrance to Blue Rock Cave. Lawrence Denton is atop the cave, and I’m next to the entry. Alas, that might’ve been my final encounter with Blue Rock Cave, since my attempted pilgrimage back to the cave some years later was a real bust. In the late 1970s or early 1980s, I was going to show my son one of “my special places” where I played as a kid. Kind of a “rite of passage” thing. So we put on our hiking shoes and headed for the hills. Two hours later, we had traipsed over C Hill, scaled King’s Chair, hiked to the “new” water tank, and visited what I remembered as Paradise Valley. Sacrifice Cave was beyond my endurance, so we didn’t even try that.

But the centerpiece of the hike was to be Blue Rock Cave. We covered a lot of ground that day, but we (I) never found the cave. I suspect my now 41-year-old son wonders if there really is such a place – or ever was.

Let the above photo serve as evidence that there really was such a place – and I was there! Unfortunately, my stint in the Junior Forest Rangers Club was brief, and my navigational skills slipped away over the years, and Blue Rock Cave was never again found – by me, anyway.

Perhaps I’ll take a GPS unit next time. At least I’ll know where I am when I don’t find the cave.