Epilogue
By the beginning of the Twenty-First Century, the town of Medicine Bundle was firmly established into what it had been for more than ten decades: a typical Oklahoma farm town.
The population had reached a high of 6,000-plus souls in the 1950s, and suffered a decline in the ’60s and ’70s that brought the number of residents below 4,000. The numbers rose a bit in the 1980s to maintain an average of some 5,000 or so citizens, though an overwhelming majority of the graduates of the Medicine Bundle High School had to move away to find better job and educational opportunities elsewhere.
However, in the ’80s and ’90s many of these expatriates returned as retirees. After years in crime-ridden, crowded cities, they wanted to live once again in the pleasant, easy-going atmosphere of their hometown. It was a pleasant community filled with happy memories of carefree childhoods and adolescence. They also found a great deal of comfort in the familiar images of downtown, the schools, the town park and other places that were part of their collective youth. It was also most pleasant to be back in the company of people with whom they shared that laid back existence all through their younger days.
In the late 1980s, a retirement center as well as an excellent full-care facility for seniors were built in the town to accommodate those older people. Additionally, a trio of doctors who were geriatric specialists hung out their shingles. A plethora of golf carts on the streets also marked the presence of the oldsters.
Religion remained important in the town through all the years of its existence. The half-dozen churches always enjoyed large pious attendance. The institutions of worship were particularly active during disasters such as tornadoes and the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. A good number of local farmers who were heavily in debt to the banks went under in those hard times. These unfortunates, after enduring the humiliation of forced auctions to sell their farms, joined the caravans of displaced persons heading west for work in the fields of California. They were called “Okies” by unsympathetic and cruel outsiders, but bore the appellation with such pride and defiance, that many still referred to themselves by that name into the new century.
There were also manmade disasters that had to be endured. A country schoolhouse caught fire during a Christmas party in 1910 with an appalling number of deaths. The people’s faith in their God helped them through the grief and shock of the tragedy. This bent toward religion was also helpful in dealing with the deaths of young men who served in two world wars, Korea, Vietnam, and subsequent military actions in the Middle-East.
The downtown businesses that had once been so prosperous deteriorated badly with the arrival of a Wal-Mart Store on the outskirts of town in 1996. Faithful customers of the old establishments made it possible for those stores to go on for a couple of more years. But eventually, this loyalty faded away as the people were lured away by the lower prices, superior merchandise, and better service of the newer bigger store.
Certain family names — McCracken, Hollings, Matthews, Ralston, Dunbar and Lindgrin for example — were still in evidence in the local telephone directory even into the new century. Large annual family reunions occurred each summer as former residents came back to see their kith and kin. Even with these annual reminders of family and the stories of the old days, most were only vaguely familiar with the pioneer history of the area. However, these occasions inevitably included visits to the local cemetery to place flowers on the graves of long departed relatives whom they had never known.
The area produced no famous people. No congressman from the district ever stood above the rest of his colleagues; Medicine Bundle High School athletes did not shine in college or professional sports; and no famous authors, actors, or other artistic notables emerged from the populace. They were just ordinary people who participated in some extraordinary happenings like most Americans.
All in all, Medicine Bundle, Oklahoma evolved into being what one would expect of it. An American town with pride, apathy, reverence, impiety and the unfailing confidence that things were going to get even better as time went by though they might have slid back a bit the year before.
The Author
Patrick Andrews was born in Muskogee, Oklahoma in 1936. He is descended from people who pioneered in that state during the transition from the Indian and Oklahoma Territories.
This is more than a novel to the writer. The story is who he is; his heritage; his family; and the circumstances that made him into the man he became. His forebears, veterans of both the Union and Confederate armies of the Civil War moved west from Pennsylvania and Mississippi to make new lives in what is now Oklahoma. As the generations rolled by, they became homesteaders, ranchers, merchants, lawmen, outlaws, bootleggers, writers, poets, and musicians. Like many families in that era of growth, a couple of individuals had trouble adapting from a lawless society to the decorum and demands of civilization.
The characters and episodes in Medicine Bundle are based on incidents experienced by the author’s family and friends as well as historical research. He is among the last of a generation of American writers who has had personal contact with people who lived through the final days of settling the American frontier. Their manner of speech with its unique accent, expressions and nuances is faithfully shown in the novel’s dialogue.
Mr. Andrews resides in Southern California with his wife Julie, enjoying life in a retirement community as well as the get-togethers with their son Bill and grandchildren Joshua and Justina.
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