New Clothes

     My dad must have made a big sale because he came home with a pocket bulging with money.  As was usual with him when he had some money he wanted to share it with all of us and anyone else in need.  It was getting close to the time when we all would be going back to school so the next day we went shopping for new clothes.  Not new to us "Salvation Army Store" clothes but brand new out of a "Retail Store".

     The store we went to was right down town where all the high class stores were.  We are talking big time here.  We were to get new from the skin out.  Some things like socks we could get two or maybe even three pair.  We were walking in tall corn.

     The store had some incentives to buy certain things.  For instance they had an aviator type hat and if you bought it they threw in a pair of goggles.  They had lace up high top boots that had buckles across the top.  The boots had a pocket for a pocket knife on the right boot on the outside.  A knife to fit the pocket was yours free if you bought the boots.

     I can't remember what they offered for girls apparel but I think it was a selection of jewelry.  If you decided not to buy any of the things that came with an incentive you could pick one thing out of a whole table of goodies if you spent the required amount.  Hard decisions when everything looks so good.  We went home loaded with new things to wear to school and that is the only place we wore them unless we went to church.  It was a long before I got any more "NEW" clothes.
 
 

Entrepreneurs 1932

     For a while I sold newspapers in front of the Cornhusker Hotel in Lincoln.  A good location in front of the largest hotel in town had some problems.  First you had to be tough enough and ready to fight the other kids for the spot.  Most of the time a good bluff was enough.  Second there was a curfew law and you had to keep a sharp lookout for the cops.  The thing that kept you out after curfew was the fact that you had paid for the papers when you picked them up and there was no way to get your money back for papers you didn't sell.  It was possible to work all afternoon and lose money.  The best thing that could happen to you was the paper coming out with an "EXTRA".  They didn't deliver the extras so you had a hot thing going for a while.  They always came out with the extras in the late afternoon so the street sellers would be available.  The paper had the word "EXTRA" printed across the top of the paper about four inches high.  There were a couple of ways a paper boy could sell their papers as "EXTRAS" that were just the daily paper.

     One of the things I became aware of while selling papers in front of the hotel was that they bought squabs for their fancy restaurant.  It seemed I could make a lot more money selling squabs than newspapers because I knew where lots of pigeons had their nests.  The churches all over town had bell towers and lots of pigeons.  There were also a great many in a large granary close to where we lived.

     My brother Frank, a neighbor kid (the son of a cop), and I went into business.  We did a lot better than the newspaper business but soon ran out of places to raid.  There was one large church that was about two stories high up to the eaves and the only access to the bell tower was a down spout from the rain gutter.  I climbed the down spout with no trouble and filled my gunny sack with squabs and started down.  The extra weight of the squabs and the strain I had put on the fasteners on the way up proved to be too much.  The pipe came loose and fell straight down for about six inches.  The pipe held together and I was like a pole vaulter in reverse, going from the top down.  I landed in the street flat on my back with the sack of squabs under my head and back; still hanging onto the pipe.  I wasn't hurt but it took some time to get my breath.  Not many of the squabs survived.

     The commotion attracted too much attention and we all rode home in a police car.  The cop told me I ought to pick my friends with greater care.  (Big deal, my friend was a cop's son.)  Frank Jr. and I were confined to our own yard for some time.

     After the squab season ran out we had to look for some other way to make money.  So Frank and I tried to become caddies at the local golf course.  The competition was too much.  You had to have some kind of pull to get in and we didn't know any rich golfers.  While looking into the possibilities we noticed that many golf balls went into the little lakes.  It was easy, all we had to do was sneak out after everyone had gone to sleep, go to the golf course, climb the fence and wade around in the lakes till we stepped on a ball.  The darker the night the better we liked it.  The next weekend we would hang around outside the fence where the golfers walked by and sell the balls.  We did pretty good but our source soon dried up and about the best we could do was two or three balls a night.  About half of them were too old and discolored to sell.

     We needed a business that wouldn't run out of product so I tried selling Samans Salve.  Our house had a supply of Samans Salve that lasted several years.   Samans Salve turned out to be good for anything you wanted to lubricate like bicycle or wagon wheels.  After that I sold the Saturday Evening Post.  I had a neat little canvas bag I carried the magazine in everywhere I went.  I could have sold a million of them on credit.  I also still had many dummy license plates that said "REPEAL HOVER" that I had attempted to sell.  I found out real quick that about one out of three people were not good prospects.  I also found out that we had two kinds of people.  There were Democrats and Republicans.  It was always best to ask which party the prospect belonged to before showing them what I had to sell.  Most of the people who wanted the sign (Democrats), didn't have the money to buy them.  Some people acted like whatever was wrong was my fault.
 
 

The suburbs

     We moved to a house out in a suburbs called Belthony.  Our house was one block from open fields and about fifteen blocks from my sixth school.  I only remember that it was a long way to walk in the winter time.  My daily job was to see that my brother Roy came home with me.  I was in charge; a real important guy.  One cold day he wasn't in the hall by the front door where we were supposed to meet and after waiting around I went home.  When I got there he wasn't there.  My folks were not home so the only thing to do was to go look for him.  I went back to the school and went to his room where someone told me that he had been kept after school but then when on home.  On the way home again I found him sitting under a tree in the snow.  I tried to get him to come with me but he only looked at me.  The worst threats I could make wouldn't budge him.  I pushed, dragged and carried and we made it fine but both of us lost parts of our winter clothing.  We both got some pretty cold ears; mine still hurt if I let them get cold.

     Things must have been hard for my folks because Dad put a still in the back room of that house.  There weren't any houses real close, the nearest about half a block away.  One day the police came and my dad took the still apart, and they took him and the still away.  He had a little Ford truck and he drove it with a policeman beside him.  Dad came home later that day and there was a lot of whispering between my folks.  Very soon after that we moved into a house on the south side of Lincoln on a hill just a little distance from the Nebraska State Penitentiary.

Irving Junior High School 1995

     I went to my seventh school.  That is the first school I remember the name of; Irving Jr. High School.  I liked that school.  They let me work in the cafeteria for my lunch.  They had the best nut rolls I ever tasted till then and now.  I took mechanical drawing and really liked it because I was good at it and the teacher was a good teacher.  I got an "A" in the class.  I think it was the first time I ever got an "A".  Actually I think it was the first time I put in a whole year in the same school and received a finale grade.

     Before I got the job in the cafeteria I took my lunch and most of the time it was made with "home made bread".  I was embarrassed about that and went to a park to eat my lunch by myself.  Now I think home made bread is the best.

     Every day for a time I put a new piece of cardboard in my shoes to cover the holes.  That works pretty good unless it rains, also it is hard to keep your feet in a position so people can't see the holes.

Duke

     The people who lived in the house before us had a beautiful English Shepherd and he returned to the house whenever he got loose from them at their new place.  The people came and got him three or four times then made a deal with us to keep him for them.  They lived in a small apartment and thought the dog would be better off with us.  I don't know what their relationship with the dog was but after he lived with us for a couple of weeks he wouldn't allow them to touch him when they came to see him.  Duke had a lot of teeth and when he showed them and growled most people left him alone.  We had Duke for keeps.

     The house had a basement and one day I went down and Duke would not come down with me.  I called, begged and threatened but he would not come down.  I carried him downstairs and turned him loose.  He was out of there in two jumps.  The next time I went downstairs he almost knocked me down getting down the stairs before me.  I think the people who owned him must have kept him locked in the basement.
 
 

Kidnapping 1932 

     The big news that everyone was talking about was the Lindbergh's baby being kidnapped.  No mater who was talking they knew someone who had seen the baby with a man or woman or even a gang of people.  Lindy was my number one hero and I couldn't understand why anyone would do such a horrible thing to him.
 
 

The Thieves

     The penitentiary had large fields where they farmed just three blocks from our house.  My brother and I along with a couple of neighbor kids got caught steeling water melons.  We were taken to the penitentiary in some kind of paddy wagon.  I knew that was it; they were going to put us in a cell and we would be there the rest of our lives.  The official we were taken to sat behind a huge desk and looked at us like we were the lowest things on Earth.  It wasn't what that man said that scared us, it was the things he didn't say.  After scaring us they told us that we didn't have to steal the melons.  Take all we could eat.  They didn't taste nearly as good after that.

     There was a pump house in the middle of one of the penitentiary fields and I got acquainted with a man who stayed  there.  He was a trustee from the prison and he always had something real good to eat hanging on a long rope down in the well.  I don't know what he was serving time for but he was a friend to me.  I went by the pump house every time I went any where near there.  Quite often he gave me food to take home.
 
 

Pioneer Zephyr 1934-1960

     Dad took Frank and me to see a new type of train.  It was called the Pioneer Zephyr and was made from stainless steel.  The engine was a great big diesel engine and was the biggest "Motor" I had ever seen.

     The train had sleeping cars that were really something.  The beds unfolded from the walls, one on the bottom and one on top.  To me it seemed that a bunch of strangers were going to be sleeping in one room.  Somehow that just didn't seem to be right.

     Everything about that train was first class.  They had a dining car where they served meals at unbelievably high prices.  Some meals cost as much as $1.25.
 
 

Depression

     There was more talk of the depression.  The government was paying the farmers to kill their pigs and bury them, and other senseless things like pouring their milk out on the ground.  I couldn't understand why anyone would do such a thing, and still don't.  Why didn't they give the meat to the poor people, not us you understand, to the poor people.  I became aware of the fact that hard times were with us.
 

New Baby 1934

     August 12, 1934.  I don't remember it being any big deal when my mom went to the hospital and came home with a new baby.  They named the baby Donald Charles Poston.  Blanche and I just started to take care of him; it just seemed to be the natural thing to do.  Our brother Frank Jr. more or less stayed out of anything to do with diapers etc..
 
 

The Interrogators

     The police came and took my dad away.  They didn't say anything they just grabbed him and put handcuffs on him and dragged him to their car.  He was yelling and kicking all the way.  He was trying to tell them to call someone he knew on the police department.  It seemed like no matter where we lived he always had a bunch of Irish friends on the police force that he played cards with.  I think they drank a little but I don't ever remember seeing him drunk after he came home from the veterans hospital (When I was little).  He came home the next morning all beat up.  Mom told me they accused him of steeling a truck load of chickens and took him out in the country to get a confession out of him.  The next morning one of his friends ran into him at the jail and brought him home.
 
 

Reluctant Farmers

     We moved into a house that had some land to do some "Truck Farming".  I think Dad figured he had a lot of free labor and it was time we did something to earn our keep.  I hated every minute that I spent in the field and was in trouble a lot because I wasn't there when I was supposed to be.  It was a lot more fun to go down the road to Salt Creek and go skinny dipping.  I remember going down that dusty road in my bare feet.  The road was hot and we ran from shady spot to shady spot.  There was a mud slide at the swimming hole that was great fun until someone put razor blades in the mud.  There were a lot of water snakes in Salt Creek and I was afraid of them.
 
 

Shoplifter

     Blanche and I went down town to buy something at the 5 and 10 cent store.  We got what we came for and I found they had the neatest cap pistols.  The problem was I didn't have any money.  My first and last attempt at shoplifting was a complete failure.  They caught me at the door.  They tried to get me to give them my name but I gave them a phony one.  I thought it would be better to go to jail as somebody else than explain my transgression to my dad.

     After holding me in an office a couple of hours the store people put me in a little storeroom in the basement.  There was a little window that let out into the alley and as soon as they left me alone I piled some boxes up and was out the window.  I ran all the way home and when I got there my dad was waiting for me.  I expected at least a belt across my backside but he never touched me.  He told me some things about how he felt about anyone who would bring shame on our name and said I should give a lot of thought about how I could redeem myself.  A good beating would have been easier to take.  The only thing I could think of was to back to the store and turn myself in.

     The store people were very stern and let me make up for my misdeed by cleaning up the alley in back of the store then letting me come back and work to pay for the cap pistol.  Blanche swore she never told but I know she told the store people who I was, otherwise how come they set me up to escape and how come my dad was waiting for me.  In any case I never tried shoplifting again.
 
 

Small World

     On Saturday night in 1934 we walked to a park in a suburb of Lincoln called Collage View where the showed free silent movies.  Most of the people living there were Seventh Day Adventist and they were the only people in town had stores open on Sunday.  If my mom needed something on Sunday we walked over and shopped.

     In 1986 my neighbor in San Diego was telling me about the free movies she went to as a kid in Lincoln, Nebraska.  We sat on the grass within feet of each other and watched the movies but never met till fifty-two years later in San Diego.  Small world.

     There was a dairy about six blocks from where we lived that had an outside tap and you could get all the skimmed milk you wanted for nothing.  Regular milk with cream was 10¢ a quart.  We took large cans over and filled them and fed it to the chickens.  We didn't drink any of it.  My wife now pays for no fat milk (skimmed milk), by the quart.  Next door to the dairy was a bakery that sold large loaves of day old bread for a nickel.

     There seemed to be jobs working for the government if you were lucky.  The jobs were with the WPA (Works Progress Administration).  For years afterward when we saw someone leaning on a shovel we said, "He must be working for the WPA."
 
 

Career Decision

     There was a man out at the airport my father knew and when I saw him and his airplanes as far as I was concerned my life was changed.  I was going to be an airplane mechanic.  I figured if you got to be a mechanic you would make more money than a pilot and get to fly.  My dad's friend had three surplus Jenneys and I spent as much time as I could out at the airport doing anything I could to help.  I got to fly with him a couple of times.  When we came down I didn't think I would have anything to do with the common kids.  One day the pilot buzzed our house and when he gave it the gas the engine died.  He landed in the penitentiary field down the hill from us but didn't quite make it over the railroad tracks.  The tracks were on ground a little higher than the rest of the field.  The wheels were knocked off and the bottom wing came apart along with most of the fuselage.  Our friend wasn't hurt but a crowd gathered right away and the only thing they left of the airplane was the wicker seat.  He was still setting in that.  They even hauled the engine away.
 
 

The Dust Bowl 1933-1935

     The air was filled with dust.  We stood on the street in front of the capital building in Lincoln and could not see the dome.  My dad said the dust came all the way from Oklahoma and was going to the Atlantic Ocean.  That night I looked at a map and for the first time I thought, "My dad is wrong".  The dust came on and off and got in everything, even in our beds on a real windy day.  Some days there was so much dust in the air that it blocked out the sun.  Some nights you could not see the stars.

     My dad was out of work again and there was talk between him and mom going on relief or maybe get a job with the WPA.  That seemed to be something of a disgrace.  Dad went away again  and mom and the rest of us headed for the ranch.  He kissed us all goodbye and I felt his whiskers.  I had never thought about him having whiskers before.  I wondered if the rest of the family felt them but I never said anything.
 
 

Shotgun
On the ranch in 1935

     In the early fall many geese flew over the ranch on their way south.  My dad told me we were under the central flyway.  If they came close you could hear the honking, and sometimes they flew low enough for my dad to shoot one or two with his shotgun.  Uncle Henry had an old muzzle loading shotgun and he sometimes used that.

     One day Bud and I were the only ones home and a lot of birds were coming and eating the chicken feed that we put out.  We decided to get dad's shotgun and shoot a few of them.  We got the gun but couldn't find any ammunition so we decided to use Henry's muzzle loader.  We had no idea how much powder or shot to use so we just poured in a handful of powder, put in a piece of rag for a patch and tamped it down.  We found only a small amount of shot so we decided to put in some small pebbles and another rag, and tamped the whole thing down.  After getting all set we were afraid to shoot so we put the gun away.

     Some time later geese were flying over and uncle Henry told me to get dad's shotgun but there were no shells.  Henry said to get his gun so I got it and he said to bring the powder and shot.  I told him it was already loaded and he aimed and fired.  He was standing on the edge of the porch.  I knew I was in trouble by the sound of the shot.  When white smoke from the black powder cleared it took a while to figure out what happened.  Henry was lying flat on his back in the kitchen and the screen was torn out of the screen door.  Part of the gun was on the porch and half of the barrel and the forearm was out in the yard.  The other half of the barrel from the center to the hammer just came unraveled.  Henry had several places on his hand and forearm that were torn and bleeding but by some miracle his hand was not blown off and his face was not hurt.  Henry was still kind of dazed when my dad came from the barn to see what was going on and when he got the story he said it would be best if I went to the neighbors to stay a few days.  I stayed until my parents moved to Plattsmouth, Nebraska.
 
 

Plattsmouth, Nebraska 1935
(Yahoo map)

     The house we lived in was very special.  It was an old house that must have been built by someone with a lot of money.  Of course it wasn't in top shape when we moved in because the rent must have been low in order for my dad to afford it.

     The house was part way up a hill on a natural point.  The level part of the lot was just big enough to hold the house, a small barn, and a place to park a couple of cars in the back yard.  The barn had two small rooms in the hayloft.

     The front yard was flat for about twenty feet then fell off sharply downhill for about one city block.  The north side yard was only about ten feet wide and then went steeply downhill.  The south side yard was a little wider and as it went to the back of the lot it curved into the rest of the hill.  The driveway came up the hill from the south side and ended in the back yard between the barn and the house.

     The house had three floors including the two attic bedrooms.  The basement was just big enough to hold a large boiler for heat and hot water for the house.  The boiler was not usable so a small water heater had been installed to provide hot water to the kitchen and the three bathrooms.  The water heater was a small boiler that burned coal so we had to build a fire in it any time we needed hot water.

     The first floor was about four feet above ground in the front and level in the back.  There was a front and back porch.  The front porch had two levels.  The back porch was enclosed on three sides and had screen wire on the open side.  The front porch was the entire width of the house with a fancy rail.  There were four steps about ten feet wide.  A sidewalk went around the south side of the house and ended at the back door.  Starting on the porch the entryway was an oversized door made from some kind of hardwood with a big oval stained glass window.  I never did like that door because of an experience with a lady with a butcher knife in North Platte.  The door opened to a large entryway with double doors to the left.  The room was a large sitting room and was the largest room in the house.  The sitting room had a large fireplace of marble.

     Straight in from the front door was a wide hardwood stairway that went up in a curve to a landing on the second floor.  To the right of the stairway another sliding door led to another room that was a library.  That room also had a large fireplace and was finished with tiles with flower designs.  The next door straight back through an arched doorway was the dining room.  To the left of the dining room was a hall that led to a tiny bathroom and the front sitting room.  Also to the left was a room that was most likely for a maid or cook.  Right in the back of the dining room was the kitchen, and to the left of the kitchen a pantry almost as big as the kitchen.

     The second floor had a large landing at the top of the stairs with doors to six rooms and a stairway to the two attic bedrooms.  One room had a fireplace that was most likely the master bedroom.  Next to that was a large bathroom that had an oversized tub, a commode with the tank high on the wall made from oak, and a dressing table.  The window was stained glass.  Both front bedrooms opened out to a balcony that was the second story of the front porch.  However the outlets to the upper porch were not regular doors.  The windows were tall and when opened all the way you had to step over the sill.  A normal sized adult had to bend down to get through.

     The entire house had filigree all around the porches and the eaves.  It was truly an impressive house.

     After living in the house for a short while my folks rented rooms to people.
 
 

Flood

     Plattsmouth is located where the Platte and Missouri Rivers come together and it flooded while we were there.  The down town was under about four feet of water and all the houses on the lower lands were flooded.  The house we were living in was up on the hill and a lot of people were all around the house.  There was no food or drinking water until it was brought in from somewhere away from the flooded area.  The whole thing was great fun as far as I was concerned.  Right down the hill from our place was a tennis court and it had about three inches of water on it.  There were big catfish swimming around about half out of the water.  We had a ball catching them.  The water went down in about three days and the fun was over.
 
 

Tennis Player

     There was a girl about my age living across the street from the tennis court.  She was always looking for someone to play tennis with and she had an extra racket so I decided to give the game a whirl.  After lobbing the ball back and forth for a while we started a game.  I suppose I shouldn't call it a game because it was something or whatever to LOVE (nothing), every time we played.

     To be beat by a girl was more than I could take so I borrowed a racket and a ball and spent as much time as possible in the barn hitting the ball against the wall were I had a line to represent the top of the Net.  I also went to the park and watched the good players to see what they did.

     The next time I played I could hit the ball hard and make it go where I wanted it.  I didn't beat her every time but at least I could hold my head up after the game was over.
 
 

Don Sick 1935

     My father was away and Donald, my baby brother, was sick.  He had a high fever and my mother didn't know what the problem was so she called a doctor.  The doctor came but didn't seem to have any ideas either.  He said to give Don some aspirin to bring the fever down and call him if he didn't get better.  After some time Don seemed to feel better and stopped fussing and went to sleep.

     Frank Jr. and I were sleeping in an attic room right at the top of the stairs just above the bedroom where Mom and the baby were sleeping.  My sister was in a bedroom on the first floor.  Sometime during the night there was a lot of commotion downstairs and I could hear my mother and my sister talking.  Frank got up and went down to see what was going on.

     I lay still and listened and heard my mom say, "Oh my God he's having convulsions."  I could tell by the tone of her voice that it was very bad.  Everyone else in the family was up but I lay awake in bed, and was afraid and just listened.  I heard my mom give orders to run cold water in the tub.  From the things I heard she must have put him in the water to bring his fever down.  She also gave orders to prepare a hot water bottle with cold water for an enema and that helped because things quieted down and after a while Frank Jr. came back upstairs and went to bed.

     I was afraid that Don was going to die and I couldn't face seeing that so I never went down to help. I never told anyone that I was awake.
 
 

Runaways

     I decided the time had come to leave home and was able to talk a couple of neighbor kids into going with me.  We planned very carefully and spent days gathering all the things we would need to go on our own.  My dad helped out as much as he could without me knowing it.  He left a suitcase out in the shed where we were stashing out gear.  He made sure it was big enough to be very tough to carry.

     The day came for our departure and we started to where I didn't know.  About noon we finished the sandwiches we had and spent most of the time in the shade of a tree telling each other how great is was to not have someone telling us what to do.  Supper time came and we had no food left so we decided to go home and eat and start out again in the morning.  Right after we started toward home my dad and the neighbor just happened to come by in the car and offered us a ride.  Nothing was said about the incident and if the other kids met the next morning they were one kid short.
 
 

Texas Bound 1935

     Dad was selling appliances and got in a fight with the man he was was working for.  The man didn't pay him a commission on a sale.  Dad won the fight and we started on the trip to El Paso, Texas the next day.  I think we were just hours ahead of the local cops.

     We had a beautiful Collie dog named Duke that rode on the fender.  He jumped off when he saw a rabbit.  He was bruised up pretty bad but never jumped off again while the car was moving.  It took us about five weeks to get to El Paso because we stopped along the way to visit folks my parents knew.  Most of them were in Missouri.

     One place where we visited the people came out and the only thing I remember them saying was they had not seen my dad for about ten years.  That seemed like an awfully long time to me.  They also said they would hide my dad because they thought he had escaped from the state prison.  Someone by the name of Poston had escaped but it wasn't my dad.  It was a great mystery because Frank Poston was not that common a name.  We also stayed about a week with my aunt Blanche and her family.

     We saw my uncle Jeff only once because he had to work.  He sold clothing to stores over about three states and was on the road most of the time.  They lived in the most wonderful house I had ever seen; in Kansas City, Missouri.  The house wasn't as big as our house in Plattsmouth but it was new and modern.  It seemed big because we lived in only a small part of the house in Plattsmouth.  It had an attic that had model trains that ran all over.  I was really impressed with my cousins.  They were older and the boy, Jeff, seemed to have everything, and Helen, with her blond hair, was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.  We walked to a theater and men turned and stared at her.  I was so proud that I was related to her.

     We camped along the road on the way to El Paso, mostly by streams so we could bathe and mom could wash some things.
 
 

El Paso

     When we got to El Paso we moved into a nice house in the nice section of town called Five Points.  I can't imagine how my dad did that.  He couldn't have had any money to rent a nice house like that; but then he was a pretty slick talker.  I don't know what kind of job dad found but things started going good.  The school was big and aside from having a couple of fights to find out where I stood in the pecking order, things were good.  They set me back a year because they said the schools I had been going to were behind.  I'm sure glad I didn't move there from California.  The main thing I remember about the school was getting hit in the head with a swing and bleeding all over the place.  A teacher took me right into the girls toilet.  Girls screamed and ran out.  I was so embarrassed to be in a girls Toilet.
 
 

Stone Man

     My brother and I had a paper route together and there is only one customer that I remember.  He sat on his front porch all the time and always said thank you when I delivered his paper.  I put the paper in his lap because he couldn't walk.  Sometimes I went back after all the papers were delivered and talked with him.  He had something terrible wrong with him.  He was turning to stone.  I felt his feet and legs and sure enough they were very hard.  He told me stories about himself and most of them had a way of ending with instructions for me to be honest or to work hard and never lie.  I liked his stories but can't remember any of them.  They were like the stories my dad told me.  It was always some tale where the hero did the right thing in order to not bring shame to his name.  We quit the paper route because people didn't pay.  It was always "Come back Friday" or something.
 
 

El Paso

     West of our house there was a mountain called Ranger Mountain.  The highest part of the mountain had a big light on it.  I was told that it was a beacon for airplanes.  My brother and I climbed the mountain to look at the light.  We met up with a couple of rattle snakes on the way.  The mountain didn't look all that high the last time I went through El Paso.
 
 

Education

     I don't know what happened but we moved to a little house back of the city park where they had a zoo and about three blocks from the Rio Grand River.  I started to another school but didn't last long.  I was the only white kid in my class and maybe the whole school.  I found out one thing real quick.  The idea of a fair fight like in Nebraska was different.  Those kids idea of a fair fight was to tell you that the only one who was going to fight you was the smallest one of the gang.  Then about ten of them started on you.  The best thing I had going was it was too crowded for all of them to hit me and my fast feet.  Most of the time that I was outside I spent running.  I went back to the school where I went when we lived in Five Points and lied about where I lived, and finished the eighth grade there.

     One day on the way home I met a bunch of the kids from the other school.  They had me surrounded and I thought my best bet was attack.  I didn't do too bad because I got a knife about six inches long away from one of them.  I carried it home sticking out of my left leg about six inches above my knee.  When I got home my pants leg was red and blood sloshed out of my shoe with every step.  Those shoes were the first ones I'd had in a long time that would hold liquid.  My dad pulled the knife out and took me to the hospital and they gave me a shot that hurt more than the knife.  I watched them sew up the cut and I thought they were pretty clumsy.
 
 

Fire

     I was down town with my dad and a fire truck passed us.  Dad followed the fire truck to see the fire and it led us home.  The fire was only a pile of lumber in the back yard that someone set on fire.  My dad was told to haul away what was left.
 
 

Status Symbol

     There was a drug store on my way to school that had a watch in the window.  It was hooked up to a loudspeaker outside and you could hear it tick.  I had to have one.  It seemed that life would be complete if I had one of those watches.  Everyone would ask me what time it was.  I could see myself taking the watch out, letting the gold chain dangle, and after a time telling them the time.  I made a deal with the store owner.  I bought the watch on time.  I can't remember how much down or how much a week.  The price of the watch was one dollar.
 
 

Monkeying Around

     I got a job at a roller rink in the park.  They were open three days a week.   I have trouble remembering names but I will always remember him.  He was Mr. Wilson.  He was fat and owned the rink and was very rich.  I put skates on the customers and swept the floors and repaired the skates after they closed at night.  I got 25¢ a day and tips.  Most of the customers were soldiers from Fort Bliss and they didn't have money for tips unless they wanted to impress the girl they were with.  I also got a job in a local church sweeping out the gym and the church but it didn't last because I couldn't go to church on Sunday because of my job at the roller rink.  After that I got a part time job helping clean the cages at the zoo.  At first all the animals were locked in another cage while we cleaned.  Later we went in the monkey cage with them.  They just climbed to the highest place they could and chattered at us.  One day a spider monkey dropped down on my shoulder and wrapper her long tail around my neck.  I thought she was going to choke me to death.  The zoo keeper tried too get the monkey off but got a pretty good bite for his trouble.  Someone hosed both of us down with water but that made her hang on tighter.  I went into the closed part of the cage and sat down.  After a while she left of her own accord.  Everyone said they thought she was in love with me.  I got teased about that for a long time.

     I started Jr. High, and went all of two weeks.  So much for formal education in Texas.
 
 

True Love

     There was a girl my age living across the street from us and I fell madly in love with her.  That was the first time I thought about girls being good for something beside someone to tease.  For a while she was all I thought about.  I never got within ten feet of her even though she was in our house daily.
 
 

Our Dog Killed

     We got up one morning and found our dog dead in the front yard.  He had been shot in the head.  That was a real traumatic experience.  All the kids were crying and my dad was so mad that he got a shotgun he had and went around telling people that he knew who killed Duke and they were going to be found floating in the canal pretty soon.  A Mexican couple who lived three houses from us moved away that night.

     My mother did a lot of grocery shopping in Juarez, Mexico.  She walked up the river and crossed the bridge.  Most of the time she took at least one of the kids with her to help carry the groceries back.  Bananas must have been real cheap because I remember carrying as many as I could.  I was with her one time and the officials at the bridge wouldn't let her through.  They kept saying she was not an American citizen.  After several hours the decided they were wrong and let us go.
 
 

Western Tour In A Model T Ford 1935

     Dad was out of a job again and he had a plan to drive some people across country to make a little money.  He left with three men passengers.  I don't know what happened but sometime later mom told us kids that dad was in a hospital some place a long way away and that when he was able he would meet us at the ranch.  For the first and only time we went on relief.  Once each week Mom took one of us and walked to the place that gave out the food.  We got such things as flour, rice, potatoes and bread.  The flour was buggy and had to be sifted before we could use it.

     By saving all the money that my brother Frank and I were making at the skating rink and my extra job at the zoo, we were able to buy a 1927 model T pickup that didn't have a top.  Mom paid ten dollars for the truck and some spare parts.  We packed all the truck would hold and gave the rest away.
 
 

Gull Wing Stenson

     One of the things we took along was my prize possession, a model of a Gull Wing Stenson.  It was a balsa wood and tissue paper model (powered by a rubber band), with a wing span of about fifteen inches.  I had many hours invested in putting it together and was very proud of it.

     My brother also had a flying model of a biplane but I think he knew something I didn't because he cranked the prop up, launched it and when it landed about fifty feet away he ran over and jumped on it with both feet.  It was gone and I don't think he gave it much thought after that.  He was older and probably understood what was ahead of us.

     I found a cardboard box just big enough to hold the airplane with the wing removed.  Normally the wing was held on the fuselage with a rubber band.  The box didn't add much weight to our load but it certainly took up a lot of space.  I started out with it on my lap but soon found a place for it.  About two days into the trip the wing broke in the middle and I reduced the size of the box.  By the time we finished the trip I had the airplane in a cigar box with room left over for some of my other valuable property.

     It doesn't rain much in El Paso but it did the day we left.  We got about fifty miles up the road and blew a tire.  Frank (Bud), and I put the spare on and away we went.  Within the hour the car threw a rod.  We had some spare rods that came with the truck.  Frank took off the head and I removed the pan.  We both had worked on all my folk's cars with my dad so we knew what to do.  We knew a lot better before that trip was over.  The motor had a flat crankshaft and about the best it would make if mom drove very slow was about a hundred miles.  We made bets on which would go first; a rod or a tire.  We were flat broke before we got very far out of Texas so we had to make do.

The Helpers

     Times were tough and almost every town had some organization that would help you along the way, a little food and enough gas to get you going.  One thing was sure; most places only wanted you out of their town.  That worked out good for people like us because we didn't want to stay in their town.  The Salvation Army will always have a spot in my heart.  They gave and gave and the only thing they asked in return was if you ever were able to help in the future to remember them.
 
 

Parts And Supplies

     We stopped at all city dumps and looked behind all garages that we found.  We were looking for two things, used oil and spare parts for the truck.  We needed lots of oil because we didn't have a gasket for the oil pan.  We left a trail of oil where ever we went.  We found a block with a crankshaft in it some place in Arizona.  Bud and I put that block in the truck without a hoist.  We hung the engine from a tree on a rope and pushed the truck under it.  It ran great and we didn't change any more rods.

     No one told us how bad things were so we just went on having fun.
 
 

Blood Brothers
Thirteen years old

     I wish I could talk to my folks [now] about the trip from El Paso to the ranch in Wyoming.  Maybe Mom was stalling for time because we wandered all over the west.  I don't know where my father was but my mother kept telling us he would meet us at our uncle's ranch in Wyoming.  We must have gone about three times as far as we needed to because some of the places we went through were a long way out of the way.  We went through Williams, Arizona headed east on US Highway 66.  The road between Williams, Flagstaff and Winslow was gravel and was a washboard road.  That road just about shook the model T Ford apart.

     We met many people coming the other way with everything they owned piled on their car or truck.  Most of them had a bunch of kids with them.  We camped outside of Flagstaff by a little stream and there were several families camped close by.  We talked to them and they told us they came from farms in Oklahoma.  The dust was drifting like snow and there was nothing growing and all their animals had nothing to eat so they killed them all and canned the meat that was good.  They said most of the animals were so skinny by the time they killed them that there wasn't anything left to eat.

     There was nothing left for them to do but pack up and try to get to California where they expected to find lots of farm work.  There were posters with pictures of an orange tree heavy with fruit on telephone poles all over the dust bowl saying "Come to California, the land of milk and honey.  Make big money working on the California ranches".  So they started the longest trip of there lives with vehicles that should never be more than a walk away from home.  Most of them were broke by the time they got as far as the next state, and were trying to trade anything they had for a little food and some gas or maybe a second hand tire.

     There were no government agencies to help the people from the dust bowl who were truly America's second group of refugees.  It was only the giving spirit of the people all along the road from Oklahoma through Arizona that prevented US Highway 66 from becoming the longest cemetery in the world.  One strange thing I saw was a man running a filling station talked like he hated every Okie who came down the road but when a family drove up in a overloaded old truck and offered to trade some tools for gas he gave them the gas and some canned food and took nothing from them except their promise not to tell anyone.  That man is my idea of an American hero and there were a great many like him on Route 66.

     We went north out of Winslow and camped near an Indian trading post.  There were Indians living there in little round houses called hogans.  The Indian kids pretended we weren't there.  They would walk right past just as close as they could without touching you and never blink an eyelash.  I never knew what that game meant to the Indians but to me it was like our modern game some fools play called "Chicken".

     Mom had some sea shells she had collected that she gave to the Indians.  They used them in their jewelry making but also seemed to put some sort of spiritual value on the shells that we didn't understand.  The man in the trading post was angry about that and tried to run us off.  The Indians came to our defense and we stayed.  All of a sudden we were part of the tribe; "Blood Brothers".  They insisted we use one of the empty hogans to sleep in.

     The Indians were having a big get together and my brother and I were invited to play a game with them.  After watching some of the Indian kids practice we decided to be spectators.  Anyway if there were any rules we couldn't understand them.  The Indians had a hole dug out of the ground almost as big as a football field about four feet deep.  The dirt that had been removed was piled up on the sides and used like a grandstand by the spectators.  About thirty-five or so Indians, all ages, each one with a club about five feet long, went (down) onto the playing field.  Someone tossed a leather ball into the center of the field.  Everything went wild.  In about five minutes there were bleeding Indians all over the place.  Some were unconscious but no one seemed concerned.  You wouldn't have dared to go on the field to help them.  After a while the ball came out one end of the playing field.  Everyone rested for about five minutes and they started again.

     When the game was over they patched up the wounded and had a big dance.  The dancers all had on fancy costumes and all kinds of masks.  They beat drums and went jumping around in a big circle.  For three or four days they had all kinds of contests, mostly horse racing, trick riding and foot races.  We were invited to compete but we were outclassed and won nothing.  After about four days all the visiting Indians left in wagons or on horseback.

     Two or three days after the visiting Indians left we packed up to leave.  We got a great send off.  The Medicine Man had a regular ritual for us imploring the gods to protect us on our travels.  The man in the trading post swore at us as we pulled out.  He used words like "whore", "bitch", and "bastards".  He was the only white man there.  We headed south.
 
 

Part 3