AN ESCAPE FROM GRINDING POVERTY:
My best friend Jerry Holmes lived about 1/4 mile from my old section house that was located about 50’ from the Frisco Railroad tracks south of Grant, Choctaw County, Oklahoma. Jerry and I would agree and would meet near an old oak tree located halfway between our houses. We’d come equipped with comic books that we had gathered the past couple weeks. We’d exchange the comic books and sit on each side of the tree, reading. Not a word would be said as we were absorbed in the reading. We’d exchange comic books and I remember most of them: Superman, Batman, The Green Lantern, Spider-Man, Captain Marvel, Crimebusters, The Phantom, Archie, The Joker, Wonder Woman, The Dark Knight, Detective Comics, Captain America, and others I don’t recall now. We’d read until it was too dark to see, then it was time to go home. I didn’t dream then how valuable those comic books would become. If I’d kept them they’d be worth a fortune today. But it was the best of times to escape the grinding poverty of our lives. -James A. Clark, Ardmore