I grew up on a farm north of Oak Grove in eastern Jackson County. Every two years, when it was time for the election, here came our road overseer, Durwood, who would ask my dad if he needed some gravel to get back to the milk barn, which sat off the road.

My dad would always say “I could use a little.” And here would come the county gravel trucks. Our driveway looked like a boulevard. Darwood would then come by with a sample ballot and tell my dad “this is the way we are voting the year.”

Our next-door neighbor also sold milk with their milk barn sitting back off the road like ours. I asked my dad how come the neighbors never got any gravel and my dad replied, “They are Republicans.”

All county employees were patronage workers. At one time, they had more than 6,000 on the payroll in Kansas City and Jackson County. It was said 2,000 of these workers had no duties.

Pendergast took care of his people by finding them jobs, giving out food and in the wintertime, a sack of coat. He in return, required they be registered and vote for the Goat candidates in every election. Tom Pendergasts’ faction prevailed for many years after he went to prison for tax evasion.

The two Democratic factions were the Pendergast Goats and the Shannon Rabbits. Joe Shannon was the head of the Rabbit faction, but our road overseer was a Goat. The next election, the Republicans decided to get rid of the crooked Pendergast faction and voted with the Shannon group in the Democratic Primary, and won the election.

After the election, my dad told me our friend Durwood had been fired. I was riding my bike up the road past the Republican neighbors and there was a county truck graveling their driveway.