Looking Backwards

Dear Editor,

With all the conflicts and negativity going on in our miniscule town of Broken Springs regarding the police department and our superfine leader of that department, Police Chief Jim Kingston, we have cause for celebration and a good excuse to get drunk. Our Broken Springs Clovers are going to play for the district championship this Friday night at Constantinople!

This is the first Broken Springs football team that has competed for the district championship since Kingston himself quarterbacked his 1968 squad all the way into the playoffs. My wife and I remember it like it was yesterday. Well, it couldn’t have been yesterday because Jim’s hair wasn’t gray and he was skinnier. But the memories are fresh in our minds.

Broken Springs trailed 44-0 at halftime to a very skilled Benton Harlem Tiger team. They were so fast, you could only see the whites of their eyes as they barreled through the Clover defense every time they touched the football, which they must’ve likened to a watermelon. But in the second half, Jim Kingston, then only 18 years old and probably still a virgin by the looks of those taped up coke bottle glasses, unleashed 30 passes, nearly half of them completed for receptions, and six for touchdowns. Combined with the glowing field goal foot of Mort Allgay (and the holder, Daniel Shame), the ‘68 Clovers went on to win dramatically 45-44 in triple overtime. What many Broken Springers don’t know is that on the last play of the game, a 65 yard pass play from Kingston to tight end turned wide receiver Jan Chadwick (who has real good hands, Kingston later said), the team quarterback and future law enforcer of our town suffered a blow to the head so hard he thought he woke up in Kansas when he regained consciousness, wondering why all the munchkins around him were black. When the referee told him the game was over, Jim humbly answered, “What game?” He refuses to boast about this achievement to this very day. This story just goes to show you how committed Kingston is to Broken Springs.


Dick and Sue Ann Grieves