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The following is an excerpt from the Unintended Consequences of Being A Teenage Boy, ramblings about my childhood while growing up in Bates County. Hope you enjoy! Doug Mager

Growing up in the Missouri outback during the late 1970’s didn’t openly offer things to do to do, so we found ways entertain ourselves. No cell phones, internet or social media. We learned to entertain ourselves. Prior to age 16, it was walk or ride your bike where you needed to go, which lead to some great experiences exploring the creeks and woods, gravel roads and abandoned houses. Truly a simpler time, and I never remember hearing the word boredom from any of my friends.

One such incident while checking out an abandoned farm house sticks clearly in my mind. The old two story sat far off the road, by itself. No barns or outbuildings. It was visible from the main highway and its vast aloneness peaked my curiosity for a long time. What was in it? Did they leave anything behind? Even from a distance I could see the roof was sagging and all the front windows appeared to be broken out. Time to investigate.

Best bud Robbie and I headed there with a tinge of excitement. Our old house explorations had previously netted a plethora of interesting artifacts- old radios, coins, unidentifiable things (later turned out to be antique vacuum cleaner parts) and a little of you-name-it. We hoped today might be different.

And it surely was.

Upon arrival we slowly made our way through an open exterior back door that was nearly covered in some viney plant. With a few wasps buzzing around, we proceeded with caution. The musty smell and littering of junk, plaster and animal droppings made the trek inside a little slow and with caution. Interestingly, the old kitchen cabinets still had remnants of days past- 30 year old cans of spices, a little glassware- even the kitchen clock hung on the wall, still plugged in with time stopped forever at 2:34.

In the living room a vintage black and white television sat on the floor completely intact, just a though it had been put there to be retrieved at a later date. Also laying nearby, strangely enough was a P trap, a cast iron piece of plumbing commonly used as part of a sink drain. Great minds think alike, as we spotted it at the same time. I picked it up, a rather heavy thing, but perfect for busting out the glass on the old TV. Robbie stood back while I made a hardthrow at the front of the old Philco. The result was hardly a scratch, no broken glass or anything. Wow. I could see the look in Robbie’s eyes- he was a pretty tough guy, not easily intimidated- especially by glass that won’t break. He picked up the P trap and made a classic pitcher’s full throw at the Philco. No dice. The trap bounced back and landed almost perfectly at his feet.

By now he was full on mad. I could almost read his mind…”I’m gonna kill this thing, just sit back and watch”. I moved as far back as I could as he made a run at the set, P trap cocked back and with a full release. KABOOM! Success. Immediately after the explosion the room filled with a funny gas smell and phosphorus dust. Time to move on.

The other rooms and upstairs didn’t net any remarkable finds. We went back outside to find an old style hand water pump on top of a concrete capped well. For some reason we couldn’t leave it alone. Moving the handle up and down didn’t bring water up. I could see it was clearly old and worn out, but Robbie wouldn’t give up. He started pushing the handle up and down really fast. Faster. He was starting to break a sweat. Finally he stopped in frustration and gave the old pump a hard, sideways push. Crack! The concrete well top caved in, leaving Robbie to scramble, clawing, to keep from falling in. The old well pump fell into the hole and crashed like 10 seconds later, making me think that was really deep.

By now he was laying in the grass, eyes wide open, and obviously a little shook up. I peered into the abyss and could see the old well was about 3 feet wide and who knows, 30 feet deep? We both realized at that moment that this was another unintended consequence of being a teenage boy. A near death experience if you will, and we should learn from this. Or would we?

I reached for a Marlboro and Robbie gladly took one too. As we had our proverbial smoke, he was looking around. Getting his wits back, he was looking for something else to destroy; and the front porch seemed to have his attention. The once stately old porch was the entire width of the house, but was only being held up with two small posts at each end. The whole thing was sagging in the middle, too. I envisioned it was like a ton or two of wet, rotten lumber, with vines and birds nests up in the air just waiting to hit the earth. Robbie seemed to share my feelings.

One of the posts was at a slight angle, like it was almost ready to pop out. Robbie made his way onto the porch and gave it a test nudge. No go. Now a harder push but nothing. Now, I saw the same look in his eye as earlier with the TV set. This is a kid that won’t take NO for an answer. With true linebacker form, he made a full frontal attack on the post- resulting in a deafening explosion that caused me to step back, tripping as I did so.

This was followed by dead silence. I raised my face from the weeds to see the porch hinged downward, against the house with dust and Barn Swallows everywhere. No signs of Robbie. No moaning sounds from the rubble.

My God, it smashed him to death.

I stood up and ran toward the house- only to find him well clear of the carnage crouched by some bushes. Again, eyes wide open and unable to mutter a single word. The fear on his face spoke volumes about his disposition and quite possibly, he would never do anything like that again. Or would he?

Either way, it was time to go home and never come back here.

Before cell phones, Instagram and Facebook...

The original prefix for Butler phone numbers, 679, has a bit of history attached. In the 'old days', your personal number was known as ORchard, followed by five unique numbers. For example, ORchard 95307 would have placed a call to a resident located just northwest of the city limits.

OR represented the first two digits, 6 and 7 as noted by modern phone keypads. Back in the day, you could simply dial 9, then the four digit number to complete your call as well. In the days prior to automation, you picked up your handset, waited for the operator to come on line and told her that you wanted to call orchard 5307. Shazam!

Why was it done this way? Every phone exchange (unique prefix) was given a name. Butler was graced with the name Orchard and hence, the rest is history.

However, the system was designed with a shortcoming- only 10,000 unique numbers could be assigned within an exchange. With the advent of cell phones and the need for additional numbers for computer modems, etc., more exchanges were needed which essentially killed the usefulness of the old system.

Just a note- telephone operators still worked in Butler helping folks place calls into the 1970's at the building located just north of the Pennell building on the square.

Note-the original article has been corrected as there were several exchange names available for the 67* prefix, which included ORange, ORchard, ORiole, ORleans and OSborne.

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