I’m something of an expert of height, or lack thereof, because I grew up in Wessington Springs during a time when on Saturday nights in town people literally filled up main street and watched people because there wasn’t much else to watch.
Today, to deflect our people-watching habits, we have television, social media, computers, newspapers, magazines and those never-ending catalogs that end up filling our landfills.
People-watching day in my time was Saturday nights. Since nearly 99.9 percent of the people in town or country spruced up on Saturday nights and headed for the nearest main street in every small and big town in the state. That’s when and where the people watching was prime time stuff.
Some really hooked people-watchers even drove their cars downtown on Saturday afternoons, picked out the best people-watching sites, then walked home to return to their well-sited fliver that evening for the people watching.
In Wessington Springs the ultimate people-watching coup was the exciting possibility of getting a good gander at the Gann Valley Giant.
Gann Valley was then as now about the size of a matchbook. It was a hoop and a holler from Wessington Springs, so the Gann Valley Giant would often visit the Jerauld County seat town on Saturday nights.
He was 7-feet, 1-inch tall, which I learned later in life. Until I learned those exacting specifications, I thought he was probably about 12-feet tall.
My spot-on sighting of the Gann Valley Giant was during the days when someone 6 feet tall was above average, and someone over that was considered very tall.
So when August Klindt, who farmed in Jerauld County 15 miles northwest of Gann Valley, came the 25 miles for a Saturday night in my big city, he got plenty of attention.
August later became Jerauld County’s sheriff. You might guess that it was a very brave soul indeed who messed with the law in those days. Interestingly, August was succeeded by a man who stood less than 5 feet tall and that was the tall and the short of Jerald County sheriffs in those days.
The Gann Valley Giant weighed 325 pounds and wore size 14 shoes. In my childhood imagination, I figured he could leap tall buildings and also eat small children for breakfast.
Actually, from what I’ve later learned, he epitomized a kind and gentle giant.
As kids, my two sisters and I bounced along in the dusty backseat of the family car that was clad in a week’s collection of dried chicken droppings vibrating loose and falling in our wake on the way to downtown each summer Saturday.
We hoped and prayed the Gann Valley Giant would be shopping in town that night, rather than in Miller, Plankinton or Pierre.
The first time I saw the Gann Valley Giant was in 1936 when I was 4 years old. We kids and Mom were ensconced in our Model A Ford on Main Street waiting for Dad to quaff a beer or two with his co-op elevator buddies at the saloon a few stores down from where our old car was parked.
As we waited, we’d play the game mother had invented of guessing the occupation of men as they walked by – butcher, baker, candlestick maker, etc. Of course, we never knew if we’d guessed correctly, but we thought it was a wonderful game.
Suddenly as we guessed, here by-golly ambles the Gann Valley Giant headed our way, cutting a wide swath through the busy Saturday night crowd. He was a good egg-crate taller than anyone around him, standing out like a rogue corn stalk in a field of soybeans.
He wore the biggest bib overalls imaginable. The legs had been elongated with extra material that didn’t exactly match. And his bibbed suspenders had been over suspended and stressed from holding up all that excess overall poundage.
We all got awfully quiet as he ambled on. We hoped he didn’t see us staring, and perhaps alter his gait a bit and stomp on our car with one of those size 14 triple “Es.”
As he passed, I whispered to my mother, asking why he was so tall. Mom said that since he was a little boy he never wore stockings, but sprinkled sheep manure in his shoes for fertilizer each morning before putting them on. I didn’t realize she was joking, and decided to try that trick.
Sheep manure is very difficult to walk on and I soon reverted back to socks.
As a result, I’m not very tall.
But I do have very large feet.
If you’d like to comment, email the author at cfcecil@swiftel.net.
