Well, on this particular day, Albert had some reason for wanting to go some place in that old Dodge car. It didn't have a starter; we had to crank it. Albert, being just a small boy, was not big enough to stand out in front of the bumper of the car while he applied the necessary heave and pull to roll the motor over compression. So, as usual, he was standing between the front bumper and the car when things began to happen. The old car was easy to crank. Usually just once over and the engine would start.
And so it was this time—once over and wham! Albert had forgotten to shift it out of low gear. The motor had gotten up pretty good speed by the time all the gears took up the slack and the hind wheels began to push forward. It was a good thing Albert was too little to stand in front of the bumper, it would have crushed both his legs as it went about the business of pushing the entire end out of the shed. It's a fact. The bottom of the wall held in place while all the nails pulled out along the top of the wall. The car simply laid that big solid wall flat in the back yard and then climbed on top of it. It was headed right for the storm cellar when Albert switched off the key.
Now you think I'm fibbing. You wonder, "How did Albert get there to switch off the motor?" It wasn't easy. It took a little agility and a lot of speed, and Albert proved he had plenty of both. When the car began going forward Albert went down and under it. Then in the split-second it took the car to demolish the end of the garage, Albert seized the opportunity to shoot out from under one side of the car, behind the front wheel and before the back wheel got him. Then he leaped up and jumped into the car and stopped it on top of one end of the garage, a couple of clothes line poles, and one very dead old hen. The hen, of course, was a welcome sight on the dining table at our next meal. And Albert was also a welcome sight, sitting there eating his share of the old hen, without a scratch on him.
When we moved to Hamlin the school authorities wanted to put us all back a grade or two. We didn't thrill to that idea, so Earl drove the Old Reo car and we went to Wise Chapel School a-year- and-a-half. It was only five miles and our teacher rode with us and helped pay expenses.
But this country schooling couldn't go on forever. So when we entered Hamlin school I was almost sixteen and they put me back to the seventh grade. And then at Christmas time our teacher got married and quit teaching. She was replaced by a man teacher who was not altogether outstanding in his knowledge of math. I worked some math problems he couldn't work and I taught our class at times when the problems were too difficult for him. He seemed to resent this and I am sure it was my fault. I was not well- versed in the art of diplomacy and I didn't know how to go beyond his ability without hurting his pride.
As a result, at the end of that year I learned that I was third in my class. We all felt sure a certain little girl would be first. I thought I would be second. But instead, a boy named Jack was salutatorian that year. I didn't really think any more about the matter until the next year when I learned, quite by accident, that the teacher had given the honor to Jack which was rightfully mine. I had made higher grades than he did. No, I didn't hate the teacher for having done that to me, nor did I like him for it. I reasoned that he had just made an honest mistake in figuring our grades. As I said, he was not outstanding in math.
There was only one high school teacher I didn't especially like. She taught Latin. The rule of the school was that an excused absence was not to lower a student's grade. Rather, his grade was to be averaged according to those days he was present, and the exam scores. I constantly made "A" when I was in class in spite of the fact that I missed a lot of classes while on business ventures for our class and for the school. I thought, and some other teachers thought that, if I could make "A in class and on tests, while attending class only three-fourths of the time, I ought to have an "A" for the course. Instead, I got a "C". Except for that one course, I made B-plus and better throughout my high school years. It wasn't all that bad though, having a "C" in Latin. I knew I was an "A" student and my teacher knew I was an "A" student; I was just a little disappointed not to have an "A" on my report card so my family would know I was an "A" student.
Since we had missed so much schooling because of poverty and because of cotton harvest and because of having attended small country schools, naturally we were all put back a grade or two when we entered Hamlin school. I wasn't the only one. Joel says he was put back a grade so many times, he went through one grade three times making "As" every time. In my Freshman year, I was about the age of many of the Juniors. And because of a lack of material possessions, I found schooling less alluring than it might have been.
So, about the last of November I dropped out of high school and took a job with West Texas Utilities Co. The job title was "Night Engineer" and the salary was more than a lot of grown men made. Regardless of the title that went with my job, what I really did was make ice at the ice plant at night. Anyway, two years later, with my savings to back me up, I quit my job and reentered Hamlin High School, about the last of November.
By that late date I was a Freshman at age eighteen, finishing my freshman year at nineteen. However, I was not looked down upon, even by the so-called elite. The most respected Seniors welcomed me into their school activities. But I realized my social retardation and stood apart, by my own choice, in certain extracurricular activities.
Even after starting school three months late that fall, I still made good grades and picked up four credits, which was normal. The following summer I did some extra studying, wrote some book reports, took tests on the work, and made three extra credits. That made seven; I needed nine more to graduate. Once in awhile a good strong student was allowed to take five subjects. My record convinced the teachers that I could do even more than five. So, with their help, we persuaded the superintendent to let me take seven subjects that second year. B-plus was the lowest grade I made that year, despite the extra load. We tried to get the superintendent to let me take all nine, but he refused. I could have made it easily, but we couldn't get his permission to let me try it.
By the end of my second year I was 21 and had 14 credits. I needed two more. I enrolled again that fall, but before I got my books, Papa told me he needed another truck driver and couldn't afford to hire one and keep me in school. So I quit school and drove a truck for him.
While I was in school I was not thought of as a "book-worm," probably because I didn't spend all that much time studying. I lettered in football that second year. I also took first place in the half-mile run, shot put, discus throwing, and something else. Would you believe it: I've forgotten what the fourth event was. Along with athletics, I also took first place in declamation.
While I was a Freshman, I was assistant editor of our school paper which rated second in the state. With all four grades competing in writing "Class yell," "Class song," and designing "Class pennant," I wrote the song which won first place and designed the pennant that won first place.
We had another contest to see which class could raise the most money to pay on the doctor bill for one of our football players. We Freshmen won that contest.
In my Junior year we had a contest to determine which class could publish the best edition of our school paper. When it came our turn, we Juniors won first place and sold three times as many papers as any other class. I also painted all the posters for advertising games, plays, and other school activities. And then I placed them in store windows all over town. I was allowed to take a student with me on these poster ventures. Only one requirement, he had to have an "A" rating in his grades. And I must say, looking back from where I sit today, I can easily see how my stupidity stood out in those days; I always chose boys to go with me.
We Juniors put on a play which we presented in Hamlin and in other towns nearby. We first put the play on in Hamlin at the picture show as a dress rehearsal and we charged admission. Then we presented it again a few weeks later at the same theatre and played to a full house. Then we played it at the same place a third time by popular request. The play went over so well in Hamlin, we decided to present it in other towns around. I know we played it in Rotan and I believe the other town was Anson. The name of the play was "Clarence," and I played the title role. You may remember, Booth Tarkington was the author.
Naturally, all this publicity didn't hide me from public view. I was well known around the little town of 2,500. During that time I also worked in garages, filling stations, grocery stores, tire shops, and welding shops, besides driving a truck now and then when I was needed.
I painted all the posters for advertising the play which we put on in Hamlin and other towns around. Usually four of us Juniors went to other towns to place them in store windows. We didn't go after school; we went during school hours, and only straight "A" students could go.
One day four of us were delivering posters to Rotan—two boys and two girls. The other boy was driving and I was in the back seat with one of the girls. She was not "my" girl—just a nice respectable school girl. I don't think I even had a girl to call my own, or maybe I did. If I had one, it was one of the teachers, which was strictly against board rules, so we had to keep it secret. No student was allowed to date a teacher. Well anyway, there we were in the back seat of the car, me socially handicapped, and they having all kinds of fun teasing me about being so timid and bashful. They got a big kick out of watching the girl edge over toward me and seeing me slowly scoot away from her. I was just being cautious. How was I to know what a city girl might do to a country boy like me.
Our school athletic club was always short of money for uniforms, balls, bats, and other equipment. To help make money for the club, we sold candy in one hallway at high school. I did all the buying, keeping the records, and half the selling. Another regular job for me was making whitewash and marking off the football and baseball fields.
Now you can begin to see why I didn't have to ask permission to go and come when I needed to. It would have been a waste of time. And I just didn't have all that much time to waste. I was busy. They granted me the privilege of going without asking and I was careful not to abuse that privilege. They usually knew where I was and which student I had picked to go with me. You may also be getting the idea that I could have carried nine subjects that Junior year. I did all these extras, took seven full courses, and made "B-plus" and "A" all the way.
By this time I had begun to learn a little diplomacy which I had lacked in the seventh grade. During my Freshman year—my second one, that is—Miss Packwood was in her first year of teaching. In her history class I sat on the front row right by her desk. Four boys sat in four seats on the back row and gave her a rough time, cutting up and constantly disrupting the class. They got so bad that she actually cried at times. The boys didn't know it but I did. She tried hard to hide her frustration and emotions. But she was at a loss to know what she should do next.
I caught those four boys out at the toilet one day and had a diplomatic conference with them. I placed myself in the group of five who were dealing our teacher misery. I pleaded to them concerning our responsibility to her. "How would we like for someone to do to our sister what we are doing to this girl?"
Well sir, the results of that little conference surprised even me. Not a single one of those boys bothered that teacher another time the rest of that year. I never told Miss Packwood what had taken place, nor did I ever mention it again to the boys. Although I had not been guilty of any of the wrongdoings, in my talk with the boys, I included myself as one of them and shared the blame in order that they might listen to my argument. I was proud of the boys for listening to me and I was proud of me for having been able to influence them, and help a friend who was in trouble.
The last year Coach Hinton was at Hamlin High, Superintendent Greene asked him to come two weeks before school started and get the football boys into training. Coach asked about pay for the two weeks. Mr. Greene seemed to think the board would be glad to pay him for his time. Then he told Mr. Hinton, "If they will not pay you, you can take your pay out of the athletic fund." Mr. Hinton came early and kept his part of the bargain.
As it turned out, the board didn't pay for the two weeks. Mr. Hinton waited and waited and they still didn't pay. He was too much of a gentleman to ask for the money. He figured perhaps they would pay him at the end of the school year, but they didn't. So he took his pay out of the athletic fund as Mr. Greene suggested. And at that point some of his so-called "best friends" turned against him, telling that he stole the money and left town. It simply wasn't true. I knew about Mr. Greene's promise. There was never any reason for anyone to doubt Mr. Hinton's honesty. He was never anything less than a gentleman.
You may have the idea that I am telling you I didn't get into trouble at school. That's just not true. However, I didn't deliberately plan it. Most of my trouble was accidental. For instance, during the Christmas holidays one year, workmen revarnished the desks in the study hall. When school reopened, the varnish was dry, but you know how fresh varnish is, even after it is dry. When you sit on it for an hour your pants sort of cling to it. Well, as I have told you, we were a poor family, and I had the pants to prove it. My pants were old and thin, but there were no holes in them when I sat down. And there was only one hole when I got up an hour later—a big one. I first suspected something was wrong when I felt a breeze. I knew it for sure when I looked down and saw the seat of my pants still clinging to the new varnish.
Needless to say, that was another time I didn't ask for permission to leave the building. I backed out the door, hurried down the stairway and ran, trying not to turn my back on anyone all the way home.
While I was a Freshman in high school, one of my jobs at home was to hitch up a team of horses each day after school, drive seven miles to the Neinda gin, load a wagon with cottonseed, drive back home and leave it for Papa to unload the next day. But then one day I didn't make my regular trip.
In school that afternoon our teacher was called from the room for a long-distance phone call. She was gone a long time, and the longer she stayed away the worse things got in our room. Long before she returned kids were throwing erasers, throwing books, running around the room, fighting, and even running out one door, down the hall, and back into the room through another door.
When the teacher returned, she caught them in the act. I say "them" because I made it a point not to do anything contrary to rules. I had special privileges I didn't want to lose. I wanted to be trusted. As a matter of fact, there were two of us who did nothing wrong—Mable Hudson and I. But the teacher didn't know that. She told us she was ashamed of everyone of us. And she kept us all in an hour after school.
That was the cause of my missing my Neinda trip and that was why Papa was not at all happy. In fact he was very unhappy. He asked why I was late. I told him I had to stay in. He asked what I had done to have to stay in. I told him, "Nothing."
He was sure I was lying, because, he said, "Teachers don't keep kids in for nothing." Then he added, "I thought I had at least one boy I could trust to behave and tell the truth."
It was too late to haul cottonseed that day. I felt I had let the family down, but through no fault of my own. Or maybe it was my fault. Maybe I should have explained to the teacher, but I didn't. Nor did I explain further to Papa. He didn't seem to be in the mood for further talk from me.
My teachers knew me pretty well. A little explaining might have done the trick. They knew I had never lied to them. On the other hand, if I had explained to the teacher, and if she had not kept me in, I would have been called "teacher's pet" and she might have wound up being hated by my classmates. I found myself in an awkward situation where I didn't know what to do nor what to say. So I kept quiet and found myself being punished by the ones who meant the most to me, my teacher and my father.
Did I turn against them because they told me they were ashamed of me? Certainly not. I understood how it looked to them. They didn't ask any further questions, and I offered no further explanation. They still trusted me and I trusted them. And I didn't lose any of my special privileges at home or at school.
Throughout my school years, the first day of April was a special day for school kids. The afternoon of April Fools' Day was a period for students to have a good time. If the teachers would not allow a fun-party that afternoon, some of the pupils, if not all of them, would run away from school. This was customary, and if most of the kids ran away, it was generally understood that there would be little or no punishment.
I was only about nine years old the first time I ran away from school on April Fools' Day. Three of us boys slipped away at noon and soon after one-o'clock we saw that we were alone. We also knew we couldn't return to school because we would be punished for being late for our one-o'clock class.
We realized we were in trouble and would have to try to think of a way out. But first of all, we had to get farther away from the schoolhouse so the teacher wouldn't be able to find us with a search party. In fact, we ran so far away and spent such a miserable afternoon that we failed to see the other students going home from school. We had planned to join them and all arrive home at the same time. And after that—well, that was as far as a nine-year-old could plan. After that I had no idea how any good thing could happen to me.
But we were caught in our own trap. Since it was April Fools' afternoon, the teachers turned out school early. The other kids got home an hour earlier than usual. And what I got when I got home was no surprise. My biggest surprise was that I didn't get a whipping. Of course I got a good talking-to, but no whipping. That little experience taught me to be better organized next time before attempting mutiny in any form.
I believe the next time I ran away from school on April Fools' Day was when I was a Freshman in Hamlin High School. Now, it was such a long time ago I know I will not get every little detail exactly right, but for all practical purposes and intent, it happened about like this. We were well organized, to say the least.
It was April Fool's Day, one o'clock in the afternoon. We students were all seated in the study hall, each at his regularly assigned desk. In the parking lot out front were two trucks and a number of automobiles, all parked orderly and aimed in the direction of the Double Mountain River.
The entire student body had been warned that the school board would not tolerate running away on the first of April. Those who did would have all their grades lowered by ten points.
When the one o'clock bell rang, the study hall teacher said,"Rise and pass to your classes."
We stood up and passed all right, but not to our classrooms. We marched out of the study hall and downstairs, taking a select group of teachers with us. By the time the superintendent realized what was happening, we were all loaded into our vehicles and heading for a sandy playground in the channel of the river. The kidnapped teachers gave us very little trouble. They liked it.
We were told later that three girls showed up for class in one room. Their teacher asked, "What are you girls doing here?"
They told her they didn't want their grades to be lowered ten points.
And the teacher told them, "No one is going to knock ten points off your grades. Get on out from here and have a good time."
We were not only organized in making our get-away, we had also arranged for a little bit of entertainment by surprise. Three of us boys had made a man-size straw dummy, and while all the other students and teachers were playing in the sand down in the river, we boys secretly took our dummy up on a high cliff across the river, and there on the edge of that cliff, in plain view of the spectators below, Virgil Davis and I got into an argument which ended in a fight.
Before we took the straw dummy up on the cliff, we arranged for one boy to remain in the crowd below to call attention to our fight up on the cliff. We boxed and pushed and shoved and rolled and tumbled. Then we rolled behind some bushes to where we had the dummy hidden. And when I came back into view, I was wrestling the dummy instead of Virgil. When we rolled near the edge of the cliff, we struggled to our feet and I knocked him over the edge and he fell to the river below.
This was no big deal but it was different, and it brought a few screams from the gallery below.
By the first day of April the following year, the school board had decided that this April Fool thing had gone too far, and they convinced us kids that they meant business. We knew there was no way we could pull another stunt like we pulled the year before and get away with it. We accepted the new ruling and had no intention of causing any trouble.
However, just before the lunch hour that day I was talking with some boys and jokingly said, "We'd better not run away but when they tell us to pass to classes, we could just remain seated." I hadn't really meant it and we didn't plan action. If I had meant it, I would have suggested that we remain seated only a minute or less, just to demonstrate student solidarity, and that not in defiance, but rather in fun.
But I underestimated the effects of my little suggestion and the solidarity of the student body. When one o'clock came and the teacher said, "Rise and pass to your classes," not one student got up. I was surprised. Something was happening here beyond any suggestion I had made.
Other teachers got together, whispered a few words in their huddle and one of them gave the order again, but still no one made a move. Then Mr. Hinton came out, spoke a few words of advice to us and asked us to go to our classes. This time three girls got up and went to class, perhaps the same three who showed up for class the year before.
By this time I had begun to feel guilty and uneasy. I didn't know who had planned all this nor whether it was the result of my suggestion, but I knew I could be held responsible because of what I had said. The thing had gotten out of hand and someone could get hurt. I knew that someone could be me. This just wasn't right, but I didn't want to be the one to spoil something someone else had planned, if indeed someone else had planned it, so I went along with the scheme.
Next, Mr. Greene called a student into his office. I don't remember who the student was, but he soon came back and took his seat with the rest of us. And again, another teacher asked us to respond, but we didn't.
Then Mr. Greene sent for me, and at that moment I guess I felt smaller than I had ever felt in my life. I think I could have crawled through the knothole in our back porch, through which I put so many calomel tablets when I was a little kid. I thought to myself, "This time they have caught me, I'm guilty, I'll be kicked out of school, and I have no idea how severely Papa will punish me this time."
But my worry had not been necessary. I learned right away that Mr. Greene and the teachers were not looking for someone to blame for this unpleasant incident, but rather, they were looking for a leader—a Moses, mind you, to lead these students out of the study hall and into the classrooms, thereby keeping us all out of serious trouble.
I went back and took my seat in the study hall. Again one of the teachers said, "Rise and pass to your classes."
And again no one moved. Then, about two seconds later, I stood up and said, "Let's all rise and go to our classes," and every student obeyed.
They just needed a leader, and I was there at the right time. They might not have followed me ten minutes earlier. And another thing they were waiting for was one of their own to lead them, so they would not have to yield to authority.
As I look back I can easily see that all the ventures our family had been caught up in through the years added up to a lot of worry for parents with a bunch of kids to feed, shelter and educate. But to me they were stepping stones to a better future. Partly because of those experiences, I was building a confidence in myself which culminated in my being unafraid to tackle most anything—either with or without money, perhaps foolhardy at times, but nevertheless, still unafraid.
By this time I had done quite a bit of running around, but most all of it was close to home. I had never seen a desert, a big river, big mountains, nor an ocean. There were other things I wanted to see too, but at age nineteen I suddenly had this overwhelming desire to see an ocean,—not just any ocean, but rather one particular ocean, the Gulf of Mexico. Now, I knew the Gulf was not a real ocean, but I reasoned that it was big enough to please me. It must look a lot like an ocean. And since I happened to know that there was a good-looking little girl spending her vacation swimming in the Gulf that summer, I made up my mind right away that the Gulf was indeed the ocean I wanted to see.
I had this Model T—whoa, let's stop right here long enough to let the younger generations know that the Ford Model T was never called Model T until the Model A came along in 1928. Up until that time they were just plain Fords, all practically alike except in 1924 they began coming with balloon tires. And in those days all cars, regardless of brand name and year of manufacture, were black.
Anyway, getting on with my story, I had this Ford touring car and I wanted to see the ocean. It was only 350 miles to the Gulf, and it would take about four gallons of gas for each 100 miles— and gas was 9 cents a gallon—add two quarts of oil at 10 cents a quart—total one way only $1.50. My goodness, I could drive down there and back and eat a week on five dollars. No problem, I had $11 in my pocket. With that kind of money I could rent a cabin and have money left over for a few movie tickets at 15 cents each.
So, a day-and-a-half later I was standing there on the beach looking at that big body of water with that little body of a girl swimming in it. We had a wonderful time for a week, and my financial estimate turned out to be almost correct. To get back to Hamlin, I only needed $1 more than I had. And that was on account of the girl's little brother. I hadn't figured there would be three of us so much of the time. But I soon learned that the third party could add up to an extra dollar in just a few days, as well as taking away a lot of the pleasure I had planned.
And so, that was another time I started home on just a little money. I knew that the girl or her father would have been glad to lend me a dollar. But I wasn't about to let them know I was that near broke. I was a big boy, an independent man, out on my own. At least that's the way I wanted it to look to them. But to me it looked altogether different.
I had $1.20 in my pocket when I headed out for Hamlin. But I wasn't afraid; there was no anxiety. I had been in tight spots before. There was not even any hurry. I stopped along the road to pick up hitch-hikers. One fellow I picked up was heading for a ranch somewhere near Mason. He rode with me a long way. His home was about six miles off the highway in wild country, and it was a hot day. I told him my money situation and he told me how he hated the thought of having to walk six miles on a hot day carrying a suitcase. I offered to drive him home for a dollar. It was a deal. I drove him right up to his house, he paid me the dollar, and I sailed right on into Hamlin without any trouble.
I think a lot of my self-confidence came from reading the Bible and one other little book. After we moved to Hamlin, someone gave me a set of little leather-backed books. They were so small four of them would fit in my shirt pocket, maybe even five or six. One was titled "As A Man Thinketh." It was my favorite. I read it through many times and kept it long after the others had disappeared one by one. It was rich food for thought and it strengthened my trust in me and in my fellow man. Its teachings helped me over many a rough spot. Wherever I was, whatever I was doing, whatever the circumstances, its philosophy made me unafraid. And being unafraid, I would tackle most anything.
For instance, there was a kid in Hamlin who had an old motorcycle he couldn't get to run. For some reason he thought I might be able to make it run, so he brought it to me to piddle with. It didn't take long for me to get the motor running. But I should have looked it over better before I tried to ride it. It proved to be quite a wreck and it had certain parts which were ready to come apart from other parts which were supposed to stay connected together.
After I started the machine, I took it out on main street and headed toward down-town Hamlin. It was going pretty good when I discovered the throttle wire had broken and the throttle insisted on remaining wide open. I tried to cut off the gasoline at the carburetor, but it was too hot to handle. By this time I was a lot closer to town than I meant to be and was traveling a lot faster than I wanted to be. I couldn't switch the thing off because it had no switch. It usually died when I closed the throttle, but this time I couldn't close the throttle.
What should I do? I could jump off and let the thing go. But then there was a good chance the machine would suffer great damage. I was certain I would suffer, and I didn't like the idea of looking at my own blood. Nor would I enjoy hurting here and there all over my body.
Quickly I thought about what made the thing go, gasoline and spark. The gasoline was beyond my control. The spark—let's see- -can't get to the spark plug wires, but I can get to the magneto. Two clips held the back end of the magneto on. Did I dare try to steer the thing with one hand at the speed I was going, while I leaned over and tried to take the mag apart with my other hand? Why not try it? If I fall, so what? I was going to fall anyway. And I just might succeed. It was my only hope, I had to succeed. So I did it. I took the mag apart and it stopped. And that's the way this motorcycle story ended, just one city block short of down-town Hamlin.
A few years later I bought myself a good used motorcycle. It was an Indian Scout and it proved to be the best little machine I could ever hope to own. It could do everything but cook. We kids had a lot of fun riding it all over Hamlin. On the paved street I had as many as six of us on it at once, one on the handle bars, two on the gas tank, me on the seat and two on behind. Sure I was in the driver's seat; it was mine wasn't it?
I well remember one time I got on the little machine and went down through San Angelo and on out to McCamey. The trucking business was slow at that time and I wasn't especially needed at home.
It began to rain as I rode west out of San Angelo. And as I went farther west I ran onto a lot of new road construction. The road became muddy and boggy beyond description, and the rain kept falling. Of course you know you can't ride a motorcycle on slick, muddy roads, nor in water on muddy roads. But you can walk along beside it and hold it up and guide it while the motor pulls it along. That is, you can until the water gets too deep, like where it flows across the road in cement dips. That's what I was doing until I came to one such place and I knew the water was far too deep to try to cross. It was a real river of water. I doubt that an army tank could have made it across. Anyway, cars and trucks couldn't have crossed it. Come to think of it, there were no cars nor trucks on the road. I hadn't seen one during the last two or three hours. In fact, I think there was only one person on that sloppy road between San Angelo and McCamey—and he was a crazy kid on a motorcycle.
Some people might wonder why the boy didn't turn around and go back. But I knew the kid personally, and I knew he wasn't in the habit of starting something and then turning back. He never even gave it a thought that he should go back. He was headed west, and turning back wouldn't get him out west.
There was a railroad beside the highway. If I could get my cycle up on the railroad, I could cross the creek on the railroad bridge. But there was a ditch full of rushing water between me and the railroad. The banks of the ditch were steep, especially on the side next to the railroad. The water in the ditch was at least waist deep and the ditch was twice that deep. So now what do I do? There was just one thing to do, build a bridge across the ditch.
I started walking along the railroad and finally found one loose crosstie. I put it on my shoulder, carried it and placed it across the ditch. It was just long enough. But I knew I couldn't very well balance a motorcycle on one slick crosstie without another tie for me to walk on beside the machine . Again I looked all up and down the railroad but there wasn't another tie nor a piece of lumber—not even a fence post. I finally thought to myself, "So what? Let's not just stand here in the rain doing nothing. Let's try it." We did. That is, we tried it. We didn't make it, but we got half way across before I slipped and fell.
Even before I hit the water, I glanced back and saw the motorcycle leaning toward me and I thought to myself, "Boy, you better hit that water on the run or that thing is going to be right down on top of you." So I dived down stream. The rushing water helped carry me from beneath the falling motorcycle.
I struggled to my feet against the angry current, blew muddy water out of my mouth, brushed it out of my eyes and witnessed the worst setback I had suffered in my life.
The bridge was okay, but the idea that I could balance me and a motorcycle on one narrow crosstie was a complete failure. We didn't make it across the bridge and the cycle didn't stay up there on it. But I knew where my little Scout was hiding. I could see one handle bar sticking up out of the water.
There was probably no other person within forty miles, but as I stood there in that muddy water, I seemed to hear Someone shout to me, "All right Boy, don't just stand there! Get busy and get that thing out of there before it gets full of muddy water." I fought my way upstream, stumbling over the cycle on my way to the visible handle bar. I got two hands full of motorcycle and tried to stand it up on its wheels, but it wasn't easy. And even when I got it up, it was still mostly under water.
The banks of the ditch were steep and slick. It was hard for me to stand, and the swift current was not friendly. I slipped and fell a time or two. It seemed hopeless and the little Scout was so heavy. And then I seemed to hear that inner voice again, "Heave, Boy, heave! No, stupid, not back on the highway—up on the railroad! First one end, now the other end. Tumble it over, you can't mess it up any more than it is already. Okay, so you did it. Now wash your nasty self up and get out of that muddy water."
Now I was faced with still another problem, would the machine ever run again? I doubted it, not for days anyway. But it was a long way to anywhere from this place. If the motor wouldn't run, I would really be in trouble. It would be too hard to push in the mud. I had nothing to eat, there was not a house in sight, and there was certainly no place to spread a blanket to sleep through the night. So I had to try something, but what? While I was trying to find the answer to that question, I got straddle of the little Scout to sit and rest and think. Then, mostly through force of habit, and with no faith nor hope whatsoever, I gave the starter a kick. It didn't start but it sounded like it had always sounded, not bad, not full of muddy water. I figured even if it wouldn't start, another kick wouldn't harm it. So I gave it a second try. It still didn't start.
Then I remembered that there had been times under normal circumstances when it required four or five kicks to start the motor. So with that in mind, the faith and hope which I had rejected a short time before, were feebly creeping back into my mind. And with that change in my attitude, I kicked the starting pedal the third time. Well, you can't imagine my surprise when it started and ran like a new cycle on that third try. I was thrilled and overjoyed. I had always had faith in myself, but until now I had never had that much faith in motors. After that, I felt there was no place I couldn't go with a machine like that working for me.
I crossed the big water on the railroad bridge and then got back on the muddy highway. The next time I came to a dip with a lot of water in it, I walked right through with that little Scout puffing along beside me. When water came up over the exhaust pipe, it kept puffing right along. Then water got up over the magneto, then over the spark plugs, and the motor never missed a shot. However, I watched closely to see that water didn't get into the carburetor suction. Everything else was under water and the motor still ran perfectly. She was a real little Scout. If she could have cooked, I would have married her.
But years later when I finally did get married, I could easily see that I would have gotten very little comfort from snuggling up to a wet motorcycle on a cold winter night.
The road and the rain were the same all the way to McCamey. There was an oil boom out there. Jobs were plentiful. Crime and violence were apt to show up at any time. They told me a man was shot down in the street the day before I got there. I couldn't prove it if I had wanted to. They had already carried him away, and I didn't look for the man who shot him.
I got a job with the Sun Oil Company and worked two days. The hottest sun that ever hovered over a desert came out to greet us early in the morning and remained all day. By midafternoon it was unbearable. In those two days I decided that cutting grease- wood to clear a right-of-way for a pipe line was not for me. I would much rather do carpenter work. The wage for carpenters was nine dollars a day; helpers got six dollars. I was not a carpenter, so I thought it best to tell the truth. I signed on as a helper.
They were just about to start building a bunk house when I went to work. The carpenters came to me with a problem none of them could solve. They knew how long to build the house and they knew how many windows to put in it and they knew how wide each window was, but they couldn't figure out how much space to leave between the windows. They asked me if I was good at math and could I figure it out for them. I was good, I could figure it out for them, I did figure it out for them, then we went to work on the house.
After working at that job a few days, I decided that carpentering in McCamey was not to be my vocation either. I was a home-loving boy and McCamey was not my home. A dollar a day in Hamlin appealed to me more than six dollars a day in McCamey. In the first place I didn't really want to work. I mostly wanted to run around a little, see a little of the outside world and see how other people had to work.
By this time I was running low on money and payday was a week away. I had to decide quickly whether I wanted to work here or go home. If I stayed, the company would advance me a little money for board until payday. But my real question was, did I want to work that long. I couldn't afford to get too low on money and be forced to stay until payday, if I really wanted to go home. It took about three minutes for me to make up my mind. During that three minutes I counted my money and found almost enough to take me home. My decision was final, I was going to Hamlin. It was after work hours and the office was closed. But they had my address and knew where to send my pay, come payday.
Again I counted my money. It hadn't increased at all. I couldn't get all the way home on it, but I could get a lot closer than I was at the time. It was 240 miles to Hamlin. I would have to eat at least one meal and I would have to spend a night on the road somewhere. I counted my money a third time. Would you believe it, 95 cents, that's all. It seemed mighty small and weak, considering what all I was planning for it to do for me. But there was really nothing to worry about; I had a half-tank of gas and I wouldn't need more than a quart of oil. With any luck at all I figured I ought to get close to Sweetwater before I ran out of money and gas and oil. And Sweetwater was only 45 miles from Hamlin.
It was almost sundown and I hadn't eaten since noon. Any kind of a little meal would take all of my 95 cents. So I went to a grocery store and paid a dime for two eggs. Then I went out back, cracked them one at a time and let them slide their way down. They didn't make the best tasting meal in the world, but our football coach had convinced me that it was a nourishing one.
By now it had stopped raining but the road was rough and the ruts were deep. Travel was slow on a motorcycle. It was way after dark by the time I got to Rankin, still 225 miles from Hamlin. But I didn't like to travel in the dark so I camped for the night.
I spread my blanket on the board walk by the front door of a small store and went to bed. Before sleep overtook me, I thought back on the last few days and on the beautiful night, and especially on the tomorrow I was about to experience. Could I go all day with nothing to eat? Sure I could. I had gone almost that long before without food. I knew that only one of us could afford to eat this time—either that little Indian Scout or me. This time I had to take care of her first. She would take me home, I could eat after I got there.
Next morning before the town's people began to stir, I rolled up my blanket and was on my way. In San Angelo I drained my pocketbook for gas and oil. On the road between there and Sweetwater, I drained the Scout's gas tank. I pulled into a filling station in Sweetwater with barely enough gas in my tank to wet the end of a stick. I gave the man a check for a dollar, filled up with gas and oil and got home with seventy cents in my pocket—and mighty hungry.
When I got my check for carpenter work in McCamey, I found that they paid me nine dollars a day instead of six. Maybe they paid six dollars a day to those who couldn't figure feet and inches between windows.
If you are beginning to get the idea that I was spoiled and didn't like to work, you are half right, I was spoiled. But the part about not liking to work is wrong. I liked to work; I was just choosy about the kind of work and where the work happened to be located. I had begun to realize that there was no need to go way off somewhere looking for work.
Perhaps that realization was the reason for my riding a train to Denver just to get a job washing dishes in a cafe. And a few days later I went high in the Rockies to work at a sawmill. That was knowledge working in reverse. I knew better; I just wanted to see some more of the world. In the Bible we are told to get knowledge and wisdom, then it adds, "And with all thy getting, get understanding." I suppose the understanding was the ingredient which was lacking in my getting.
Anyway, I landed at a sawmill 75 miles west of Denver, doing whatever they asked me to do. It was cold up there; man, I mean it was plenty cold! One morning it was 20 below zero, and that was two weeks before Thanksgiving. The lumber mill was in a valley between high mountains. During the three weeks I was there I saw the sun a couple of times. It didn't rise over the peaks until about nine-thirty in the morning and it set behind other peaks at four-thirty in the afternoon. We went to work before daylight and quit after dark. In the extreme cold, when the wind was calm, as I walked through the cold air, it felt like hot branding irons against my face.
One day five of us men were moving some cord wood and restacking it in another place. The foreman came and asked if any of us had ever driven a truck. I kept quiet because I had already seen the old truck and I didn't want any part of trying to drive it in the snow. It had solid rubber tires, no doors on the cab, and no antifreeze in its leaky radiator. The earth was completely covered with snow. I suppose there was earth somewhere under the snow; however, I didn't see any of it while I was there. Besides all that, there was not a level place within 50 miles. Everything was uphill, downhill, or leaning to one side or the other.
The other four men were eager to get out of the job we were doing, so each one tried to tell the foreman that he would be just the man to drive the truck. I kept my back to the foreman and kept working while he talked to the other men. I thought I might be lucky enough to escape having to drive the old truck. But no such luck. The foreman came up behind me, tapped me on the shoulder and asked, "You ever drive a truck?"
I could not tell a lie, so I told him, "A little." Then he and I went away together to one old dilapidated truck.
That was another case of my getting more understanding through experience and research, neither of which was intentional. Now, you may or may not know that, in a snowy place like that, where snow is forever, the snow in the ruts of a road is hard-packed snow, and stacked up, and the snow on either side of the ruts is loose, fluffy snow.
When driving on a muddy road, your truck is apt to slide into the ruts and you might not be able to get it out. But on a snowy road, your truck is more than apt to slide off the ruts and you might not be able to get it back up on them. And if you get your front wheels off the ruts to the right and your hind wheels off to the left, you have just about had it, especially a truck with solid rubber tires.
I was using the truck to haul crossties to the Moffat Tunnel. The ties were to be used in the railroad through the tunnel. The tunnel was eight miles long and would cut 25 miles off the railroad distance through the Rockies. The railroad which served our mill was curved one way or the other just about every foot of its entire length. A 30-car train would have three engines pulling it. And the three engines would not all be at the front end of the train. That would have a tendency to pull the cars off the rails on sharp curves. So, the engines were placed at regular intervals between the cars. Even with all safety precautions we constantly heard of derailments and the loss of freight cars down the mountain sides. The trains had no time schedules; they got there when they could.
I signed on for that lumber mill job at an employment agency in Denver and rode a bus to the mill. Naturally I was not clothed for that cold weather. But the bookkeeper at the mill told me to go to the company store, get what I needed and have it charged. That was before I started to work. That same night, in the bunk house, one man was raving mad because they wouldn't credit him at the company store. He and I had come out on the same bus and were to begin work the next morning. I kept quiet about my credit. I didn't want him mad at me like he was at the company.
One day the foreman told me to go to the tool house and bring him a half-dozen picaroons. Now, I knew how many a half dozen was, but I didn't have the slightest idea what a picaroon looked like nor what it was used for. What's more I was too proud, or too stupid to tell him I didn't know. So I went to the tool house and looked at all the tools. I knew the names of all the tools except one. I took him six of those, hoping they were picaroons. I don't know what I would have done if there had been two kinds of tools I didn't know the names of. Anyhow, he thanked me and I went back to my other work.
In case you may not know, a picaroon is like a single-bladed ax on a regular ax handle, except most of the ax blade is cut away, leaving only a pick instead of a blade. The workman can thrust the pick into the side of a log to roll it over, or he can stab it into the end of a small log and lift the log into a desired place.
Another time, the foreman came to me and asked whether I could handle a horse. Again I could not tell a lie. However, I knew he was speaking of Old Nig, and I also knew it would be a pleasure for me to work for Old Nig.
Now, Old Nig was a black horse, and I'm not sure, but I think his color had something to do with his being named Nig. This horse had won first place in the state one year for his skill in the art of log-skidding. That alone meant that Old Nig was a horse to respect as well as to obey. I had watched a few men work with the horse but had never seen one of them stay with him for long. In fact, Old Nig changed drivers three times one day. He simply wouldn't put up with anyone who cussed him or scolded him. He knew more about the log-skidding business than most of the men he had to put up with. He didn't need anyone to drive him nor try to boss him around. Mostly what Old Nig needed was a man to work for him, to pull his single-tree back when he backed up, so he wouldn't step on it, and he needed a man to hook him onto the next log. He had no hands or he could have done it himself.
If you scolded or cussed Old Nig, he would bite you, if and when he got the chance. Or he might stomp his hind foot and switch his tail just to remind you there was fire in that end of him too. One man who worked with the horse was so afraid he might say the wrong thing to him that he put a rein on his bridle and led him around all day without saying anything to him.
So, when they put me with Old Nig, I already knew more about the horse than I did about log-skidding. We got along well together. What I didn't know about the job, he did. I just talked to Old Nig as I would talk to you; that is, I would be as kind to you as I was to Old Nig as long as you did your work as well as he did his. I didn't care whether he had a bridle on or not. I didn't need to lead him nor drive him. He knew where to go and what to do. And without a bridle, he could see better how to do his work. I would tell the horse when to back up another few inches and when to get over to the right or to the left. Principally I was his hooker-upper and his unhooker.
One day we were sorting a pile of logs, skidding the small ones over by a pile of other small ones, the medium size ones by a pile of medium ones and so on. But there was not a pile of large ones on the yard. So I hooked Old Nig to a large log and told him I'd have to find out where to put it. Then I went to the office and asked the foreman where to put the big logs. In the meantime, the horse took the log to the proper place but I didn't know it. He was already standing there waiting for me to unhook him from it. The foreman came to the door, pointed, and said, "Put it up there where Old Nig took it. He knows where."
Thanksgiving came and went, and the sawmill changed owners. The foreman told me that the new owner thought he could run the mill with fewer workers. I was laid off. However, he was sure that, if I wanted to stay around a week or two, they would need me. He also told me that, if I wanted to leave, I had better go right away because that place was often snowbound by this time of the year and there was no way out until next spring. So again I landed back in Hamlin with a little more knowledge of the outside world and perhaps just a wee bit more understanding. I got a job in Hamlin and soon paid Papa back the $22 he had wired me for a railroad ticket home from Denver.
Papa was always kind to me in spite of all my failures and my goings and comings. I respected him for it and was proud of him. I was proud of Mama too, but there was an unspoken mutual feeling of trust and regard between Papa and me that reached beyond the bounds of a boy's expectations. The following poem which I wrote while I was in Denver, expresses, in some small measure, my feelings toward my father.
Daddy, if the Lord had made youA companion fit for me,If He'd made you noble minded,As I think a man should be,If He'd given you a courageAnd a will to fight and win,If He'd made your life a great oneFrom beginning to the end,If He'd made you with integrityHigher than the highest star,Then He would have made you, Daddy,Just exactly as you are.
While I was running around I was getting a lot of experience, some knowledge, and perhaps a little wisdom. But I didn't seem to be getting rid of all my stupidity. Perhaps stupid is not the word to use here. I don't really believe I was a stupid kid. But let's just say I was a normal boy who did stupid things at times.
Anyway, when I look back on some of those things I did in my younger days, as well as some in my older days, it causes me to be a little more lenient with youngsters these days who sometimes do things without thinking. I have not always taken time to look back on my own mistakes
For instance, after I was old enough to hitch a team to a wagonand haul cottonseed from the Neinda gin to the oilmill at Hamlin,I was still not smart enough to cover up all my crazy deeds.What did I do this time? Nothing much, really.
I remember once one of my brothers and I bought a big box of matches in Neinda and lighted the weeds and grass along the fence rows from there almost to Hamlin. We would strike the matches and throw them into the grass and weeds. It's a wonder we didn't set our load of cottonseed on fire. It was after dark and the fires made beautiful fireworks. We even wondered why farmers didn't do this more often. We thought we were really doing them a favor, cleaning up their fence row. And it was a lot of fun.
"And with all thy getting, get understanding." Well, we got some understanding when a farmer drove up beside our wagon in his car, and very politely explained that he realized we boys had not thought about the fence posts we were burning and the wires we were damaging by heating them too much. Then he added that he knew our daddy, and he knew that Papa wouldn't want us to do what we were doing. Then he promised not to tell Papa, if we wouldn't set any more fires.
He was right; we hadn't thought of the damage we were doing. We were sorry, of course. And we certainly didn't want to do anything that would reflect on Papa and the family's good name. Nor did we want Papa to know what we had done. I guess he never found out or he would have said something to us about it.
While we lived in Hamlin, Papa had an old farm twelve miles northwest of town. The field was covered in Johnson grass and we tried to help the grass grow by plowing the field every year. We had a breaking plow, a mowing machine, a hay rake and a hay baler, all horse-drawn. We baled the hay and stored it to sell in winter when it would bring a better price. There was an old rundown house on the farm. I went out to plow the field at times and I slept in the house rather than drive back and forth to Hamlin. There were no near neighbors. It was way, way out, and staying there at night proved to be challenging and quite scary.
The doors of the old house were only half there—sagging, splintered, and broken, and the windows were all broken out.
Noises jumped out at me from every dark corner. The silence seemed to amplify every noise. Mice sounded like jungle beasts and packrats made loud noises like goats playing on the roof. Daybreak was always welcome, melting the darkness and pushing back the veil of fear.
The warehouse which my brother Earl still uses as a freight depot was originally built for hay storage. In haying season we baled the hay and hauled it to that hay barn. In the hay field, we usually had, among other things, canned pork and beans for dinner. Once in awhile we had pork and beans at home for a meal, but Albert said they didn't taste good unless he was sitting on a bale of hay.
Papa also had another farm twelve miles south of Hamlin, in deep shinnery sand. I'm not sure how he got hold of it nor why he owned it. I think he had to take it in on a land deal of some sort in order to get the other party to take something off his hands that he had and didn't want. Now he had a sandy farm on his hands that he couldn't use and didn't want. There wasn't much of anything of value on the land—a rundown peach orchard and a half-dugout. There was a dug well by the house four feet across and 60 feet deep. There was never any water in it, but 100 yards away out in the orchard was another well about three feet deep with water standing within a foot of the top of the ground. There was no cover over it; you just walked up and dipped a bucket of water any time you wanted it. And when you were not dipping, the cows and horses could drink from it.
In the early 1920's many of our inter-city buses were marked with well-painted names, such as MISS DALLAS or MISS ABILENE. Well, I had a Model T Ford touring car and I thought I might just as well join the parade. First I got a set of good used tires off a big Buick. They were about four sizes too big for the Ford, but I put them on anyway. And with only ten pounds of air in the tires, it rode very smoothly and it looked like a clubfooted horse.
Then I cut the top down small to cover only the back seat. And I put a windshield on the back of the front seat. That made two windshields, one in front of the driver and one in front of the passengers in the back seat. It made a beautiful limousine, with the driver sitting out in the sun and weather. To top it all off I painted her name on both front doors—MISS FORTUNE. Of course we kids had a million dollars worth of fun with it.
After we Johnsons got a little money ahead, we made some improvements on our house. For one thing, we added a long back porch, all glassed-in with windows the entire length of it. Then we added a bathroom with all the fixtures. And on the back porch we put a lavatory to wash our face and hands in, when the bathroom door happened to be locked. Sometimes we kids would come in to wash up after unloading a load of hay, and when two or three of us were using the lavatory at the same time, one of us might casually flip a few drops of water in another one's face. Now that usually called for retaliation, which took place immediately. And that in turn called for counter-retaliation with a lot more than just a few drops of water—perhaps a big handful and then a cupful.
By this time we usually heard from Mama from wherever she happened to be, as she shouted, "Stop that." And if she came out to enforce her command, she might get some of the same. Of course Mama knew what she would get into, and I really think she wanted into it. She only pretended she wanted us to stop. It made it funnier that way and it relieved her of the responsibility for having instigated the action. Mama had running water in the kitchen which was just as wet as the water we had on the porch and there was a 50-50 chance that she had some already drawn up in a stew pan. So when she said, "Stop it," she may as well have said, "Stop it after we all get wet." We usually ended up being as wet as if we had jumped in the lake, and everyone laughing.
This was the age of cars and we had our share of them through the years. The same old Dodge that ran over Albert and killed the hen for supper had a magneto that kept giving trouble, and it cost a fortune to have it repaired each time. This was before I had learned much about cars. In fact, this old car taught me a lot about other cars to come.
The car had a battery. So, I thought I could use Model T coils to make the spark and use the mag as a distributor. That would be less expensive than trying to keep the mag in repair. I got it all rigged up and it worked some, but it was not a success. The battery didn't fire the Model T coils well enough. That was another one of my ideas I flunked out on.
There was a farm family in our neighborhood by the name of Owen. And in that family was a boy named Bill. My brother Frank ran around quite a bit with Bill. Pretty soon Bill's sister, Mattie, got to running around with Frank. Bill had a younger brother named Joe, and I got to running around with Joe. To complicate things still further, Joe had a younger sister named Faye, and she got to running around with me. That seems like a lot of running around for just a few kids, but it happens that way sometimes.
One day I was out on the farm visiting with Joe, and now and thenI was glancing in the direction of Faye when Joe and I discoveredFrank's trunk in Mattie's bedroom, which was quite all rightsince Frank and Mattie were married by this time.
Joe and I knew that Frank kept a 45 revolver in the bottom of his trunk. We also knew that Frank and Mattie were not home that day. Faye and her parents were home but they didn't know that Joe and I were prowling in Frank's trunk. We were whispering and tiptoeing.
We took the 45 and a bunch of shells and slipped off out into the pasture to shoot something. A gallon can was the only thing that would sit still for us, so we fired at it. We tried and tried but decided we must be too far away; we never did hit it. I had thought that a 45 would shoot as far as six or eight steps, but I guess not. Or it could be we missed because the gun kept kicking up at the front end every time we pulled the trigger.
Anyway, we didn't know that Frank had returned home and we were so wrapped up in our target practice that we didn't see him until he was right upon us. Then it was too late to run. And for one time in my life I couldn't think of anything to say. We just stood there in surprise, prepared for the worst. Then we got a bigger surprise. Frank walked up to us and said, "There are plenty of shells in the bottom of my trunk when you run out." And with that, he gave us a few pointers on firing a pistol and walked away.
Before Papa got his freight line from Hamlin to Stamford, he had one truck and was looking for anything to haul that would help us make a living. He took one job of hauling that shouldn't happen to a dog. There was a man buying maize heads one summer and shipping them by rail to somewhere. This was the surplus maize farmers had left from last year's crop, after they had used all they needed for feed through the winter and spring. The man bought the maize from farmers and then told us where to go pick it up. Then we hauled it from the farms and loaded it into railroad boxcars.
You may not know it, but each and every maize seed has a little stinger on it. These stingers are bad enough when you get the heads out of the field in the fall and fork them into a storage bin. In the fall you are working most of the time out in the open air. But when that feed lies in storage all winter, it dries out month after month and it collects dust from West Texas weather and from the grains themselves where mice, rats, and birds have eaten, slept and roosted. And then, when you load it into a truck, you have to get in the storage bin, under a sheet metal roof, with a blazing sun bearing down on the roof. And each little stinger on each grain is harder and more brittle than it was in the fall, and all these stingers break off the seeds more easily, more of them mix in with the dust, and they get into your eyes, your nose, down your collar and lodge in the wrinkles of your stomach, and they get in under your arms and around the tops of your shoes and they dig into your ankles. Eventually, there is not any place on your body that doesn't sting and itch. What's more, the stinging and itching goes on after a bath. Now I believe you will agree with me—it shouldn't happen to a dog. When you have a job like that, you hate it, you detest it, and you dread having to face it the next day. But you do it, and you keep on doing it until the job is finished, because you like to eat, and the job pays money and you have to earn money in order to eat.
Do you get the picture? Well, wait a minute, I'm only half through. We have yet to haul the maize to the railroad car, fork it into the car, then get into the car and pitch it all the way back to both ends and all the way to the ceiling. Did you ever work in a boxcar on a hot day in summertime? You choke on dust, you sweat, and each and every drop of sweat becomes a parking lot for dust and maize stingers that show no mercy.
Of course it helps to get home after a day of such torture and get a good bath. But some of the cars we loaded were in Roby. After a day of agony, we had to drive 22 miles over rough, crooked roads in a slow truck before we could get a bath.
In war, I have heard of torturing prisoners to get information from them. I have often wondered if they have thought of trying the maize-torture treatment.
There were other better jobs of course. One of my first jobs on Saturdays during my school years, aside from working for Papa, was in a grocery store. Mr. Gay was operating the Farm Bureau store. He offered me a job and I took it.
Come Saturday morning, Mr. Gay put me to sacking up beans, peas and potatoes in paper bags, getting them ready to sell. During the day we ran out of one item and a customer asked me where he would find another grocery store. I told him, but when the rush was over and we were alone, Mr. Gay told me never to send a customer to our competitor. He said tell them to try the drug store up on the corner. Then he added, "And if we run out of coffee, sell them split peas."
At the end of that first Saturday Mr. Gay paid me three dollars. I told him that was twice as much as he had offered me. He said he had fired two boys he was paying $1.50 each and that I did more work than both of them together. He paid me three dollars a day all the time I worked for him.
Another job in my younger days was working at Hudson's FillingStation for Sox and Red Hudson. The pay was ten cents an hour—keep my own time and pay myself from the cash register everySaturday night.
We did some overhauls and a lot of tune-up work. One farmer had a Model T Ford that had a weak magneto. It would run only on the battery and Fords didn't run good except on mag. He needed $21 for a motor overhaul. But he was a poor boy and didn't have that kind of money. So I asked him if I might take a look at his coil points. He told me I couldn't do them any good, he had just come from the Ford garage where a mechanic had adjusted them. But Sox told him, "Let Clarence look at them, he won't do them any harm."
Now, the Ford mechanic only knew how to set the points for a strong magneto, and this mag was weak. I knew that a weak mag needed a weak diet, so I adjusted his points so that a weak mag would fire them. Fifteen minutes later the man drove away with his car running like a new one—on the magneto. A year later he was still running on the mag and had not had the motor overhauled. What did we charge the man? Nothing. He was a regular customer, and we did little things like that for our customers.
Speaking of repairing, one night I was driving a truck from Ft. Worth to Hamlin. The rotor in the distributor was a slip-on thing made of bakelite. I knew it was cracked but it was still working well. However, before I got home it broke into a lot of little pieces so small there was no way to use any part of it. It happened at night and caught me without a flashlight, way out in the country between towns. Working in the dark, feeling my way, I wrapped adhesive tape all over the upper end of the shaft. Then I stuck part of a safety pin through the tape to what I thought was about the right distance, and it worked. It gave no more trouble all the way home.
For some reason that same truck kept burning out bearings in the back connecting rod. Each time it happened, it cost $26 to have a mechanic repair it. The next time it burned out, I asked Papa to let me repair it. I figured there had to be a reason for this continuing trouble, and it seemed that mechanics were not hunting the cause, but were only replacing the bearing each time. I had been thinking about the thing and I sort of figured I knew what was wrong, and I thought I knew more than the general run of mechanics. But Earl told Papa not to let me try repairing it. He said, "Clarence is not a mechanic; he can't do that job."
And Papa told him, "It looks like the ones who have been trying it are not mechanics either. At least it won't cost me $26."
So Papa let me do the repair work, and that was the last time that bearing ever gave trouble. We drove the old truck for years and then sold it to Calvin Carriker for a farm truck. The bearing lasted the life of the truck, and unless someone looked in after the truck was junked, no one knows how I remedied the problem. I can't help it if I'm smarter than the average mechanic—and Earl.
You may think I'm bragging. Of course I'm bragging. But it's all right to brag on yourself; the Bible says so, according to a Baptist deacon I knew in Arkansas. He would quote, "Blessed is the man who tooteth his own horn, because, if a man tooteth not his own horn, lo, it shall not be tooted." And if you asked him where he finds that in the Bible, he would say, "In the book of Fizzlums."
Now, I guess you are wondering where in the Bible is this book of Fizzlums. Well, the deacon and I both knew an old man, a good man who read his Bible but didn't go to church much, and he had a very limited formal education. However, he remembered that in English spelling, Ph is pronounced like F. So when he came to Psalms in the Bible, he got a little confused and got Ph and Ps mixed up and tried to pronounce Psalms as though it were spelled Falms. Now, you've got to admit that is a hard word to pronounce. But the old man had worked on it for years and it finally became "Fizzlums". And that's where the deacon found the horn-tooting scripture.
At one time Jones County was one of the most productive cotton counties in Texas. Hamlin was in the heart of cotton country. In cotton picking time Black people came from East Texas by the hundreds to help pick the cotton. Most of them who had cars had Ford cars. Now the headlights on Fords were a constant source of trouble, especially if kids riding on the front fenders happened to accidentally kick the wires loose from the headlights. Most mechanics wanted to repair the lighting system with a lot of new parts at a cost of maybe two dollars to four dollars. But each cottonpicker told other cottonpickers that there was a boy (me) down there at Hudson's Filling Station that would fix their lights for maybe a quarter—not over 50 cents.