owl 13. Wagons West
February 1985
In this era, I didn't drag up [quit a job] for light reasons, as I so often had done in decades past. In a situation similar to the conflict of interest scenario in 1978, I was expecting to be jobless soon. Blickle Co had finished the cosmetic and boat ramp work at North Bonneville, and was mopping up a couple of patch jobs on the Columbia Slough.My parents had sold their Hells Bells (Texas) home and were set to move back to Oregon. Dad had sent me $14,000 to buy them a mobile home, which Charlotte and I did. Audree and Steve flew back to Texas; Steve to drive Dad out here and Audree to help Mom effect the move. My part was to fly back there, rent a U haul truck, and bring their belongings, towing Mom's car, and hauling Mom, Audree and Uncle Kat, Dad's feline buddy. I did commit to attending to my part when my job was finished.

As often happens in construction work, a job's end can be unpredictable. Richard Blickle got a few days dragline work tacked onto the patch jobs. They had treated me rather well for a couple of decades, so I didn't think it appropriate to bail out without urgent reason. Although my dad was fond of saying, "Yeah, I know how it is; I used to work for a living.", he was not a happy camper. Patience was never his long suit.

In early February, I was almost ready to commence what I had agreed to. The weather, however, was not cooperative. I drove Dad's car down to the Home Valley store on some minor errand and couldn't get back up the hill in the blizzard. Being on a tight schedule with the airlines and my dad's impatience, I simply drove downriver toward the airport, leaving the house unlocked and the ignition keys in both our car and my pickup.

Salt Lake City was beautiful coming in for a landing at its small airport to change planes. The Wasatch mountains in the background clarify what Brigham Young saw in the stark setting. I'm not a fan of Brigham Young per se, but have long had an affinity for the Deseret Beehive ambience. I belatedly thought of Fred, my goat buddy, so I called Gerald Barnes, a neighbor, and asked him to be kind to Fred. After a brief but welcome respite from tension, I enplaned for Dallas and duty.

Renting and loading the truck was pretty much routine except for a couple of snafus. I had to partially dismantle the two corner cabinets that Dad wanted left behind, in order to stand them upright, conserving space. Mom and Aunt Ida Mae had raised a six acre garden and apparently canned everything except the squash vines and okra stalks. It was a challenge to get it all aboard.

Uncle Kat was the biggest challenge. All twenty five pounds of him was determined to resist migration. I got a heavy duty waxed cardboard banana box to accommodate his pugnacious persona and fastened him securely therein. We had twelve miles to Denison, where we picked up the tow bar that had been unavailable earlier. Audree and Mom drove up there, of course. During that twelve miles, I had Uncle Kat and his box on the truck seat with me. Before we left the driveway, his front left paw shot out of a vent slot and he started shredding and spinning a roll of paper towels. From that point on, it got worse. He got one nail into my right thigh and cut a gash on my right hand. I stopped once and apprised the women of the situation and continued to battle Uncle Kat. He was almost out of the box when we pulled into a Western Auto parking lot. I rolled a window down two inches and told Audree to go in and get a heavy duty plastic clothes hamper. She and Mom did, but Mom asked the clerk's opinion of the hamper's strength. He replied, "Ma'am, if thet ca'ut kin tear up this hamper, why ya'd best just leave him here in Tex'is." Additionally, Mom got some kind of medication from Leota, and we kept Uncle Kat sedated all the way to Washington state.

The rest of Texas floated by smoothly. I was slightly worried about not having installed visibility flags to monitor Mom's car, which I had in tow since Denison. I did a walk around check at each stop, including feeling the towed car's hubs for heat. I watched the mirrors constantly, but couldn't actually see the car.

Then just east of Tucumcari a rooster tail of sparks appeared in the right rearview mirror. I pulled off on the shoulder and determined that the towed Chevrolet had thrown its right rear wheel, including the axle, due to a burned out wheel bearing. The only other damage was to the backing plate and brake shoes. It was all repairable after retrieving the wheel and axle, except that the backing plate's crumpled condition prevented a tight seal. I cobbled it back together loosely and proceeded slowly into Tucumcari, renting a motel room there for R & R ; in this instance, rest and repair.

It was Sunday, so the bolts and wheel bearing were not available until the next day. However, I did make contact with a greedy gyppo mechanic who drove a half mile and sat smoking cigarettes while I used his cutting torch for about three minutes to trim the backing plate. He charged me twenty five dollars and told me how lucky I was that he had a hangover that day and hadn't taken his kids fishing as he had promised them.

I called Charlotte and learned that Daddy was hospitalized, for the first time in his life. Fifty nine years of cigarette smoking were taking an ever increasing toll. I was not and am not qualified to evaluate his mental state at that time, or any other, but here are some of the highlights: When I started telling him of our adventures, he impatiently exclaimed, "Put that car behind the truck and TOW it out here." I couldn't find an opening to inquire of his condition so I attempted to deflect some of his choler by telling him we were bringing Uncle Kat. He responded, "Yeah, but he'll die of old age before you get him here."

Later information revealed that when our phone conversation was terminated, Dad told one of the nurses, "My wife and cat are on their way out here on a wagon train." The nurse was one of Charlotte's colleagues, so she felt an added measure of concern about Daddy's condition. She humored him and reported to Charlotte, "I think your father is a bit confused", relating his statements. Charlotte chuckled and told her, "I doubt that Daddy is confused, but you likely will become so attending to him."

FAH I had another eight and one half months to live, but that wasn't known at the time. Apparently a part of him had known for a while that his time was short.Uncle Kat stayed with my folks a few days, but didn't express any kind of approval of what had been done to him. A day or two after I heard he was awol, I spotted him near the Carson IGA grocery store. He glared at me briefly, did a 180 degree turn , and headed in the general direction of Hells Bells, Texas.

Mother turned 72 the day we re-entered Oregon and had almost two decades remaining to enjoy life in the Northwest. Dad died on 31 October 1985. Mom died on 31 October 2004. I don't subscribe to the tenets or the "mysteries" of numerology, but it seems noteworthy that they died within seconds of one solar-lunar time cycle apart, and that their marriage contract spanned three such cycles [plus 54 days]

............to be continued......

owl 12. Visions of Sugar Plums -3 segments

1947 Pipeline job

Ten hours per day, six days per week, spoken of in the construction game as six tens, is regarded by many as the ideal work week. With time and a half for overtime, that's seventy hours pay. There are many variations, but generally six tens is the standard pipe line work week. It's also widely used in other 'dirt' or 'muck' jobs.

My farm boy experience with trucks and tractors counted for nothing in rustling a job on a San Joaquin valley pipe line in 1947. Neither did my recently acquired high school diploma, after six years of grade school and six years of high school. But rustle I did, and it eventually bore fruit, if not a bumper crop.

Jones Corner was a country cross roads store with a few rental cabins and a couple of acres to spare. The proprietor struck a deal with the pipeline contractor, and for several weeks, Jones Corner was the pipeline icon.

A dozen or so of us hopefuls were hired one bright morning for "clean up" work. We were neither indoctrinated nor otherwise introduced to the intricacies of pipeline installation. We were unceremoniously hauled from Jones Corner to the Tipton Trench and given over to a scowling "straw boss" (named Jack, I think), who seemed to have a dim view of us, of his "superiors", of the present contract, of the reasons for doing what we were doing, and of his own part in the whole sorry mess.

It seems that the lateral quarter mile of ditch that we were assigned to had been dug about six inches shy of the designated grade, and that we were to lower it to designated grade with picks and shovels. In 1947 there were no hydraulic backhoes (that I know of). The ditch had been dug with a trencher, and at some point, some other boss had miscalculated the probable depth and extent of the "hard pan" seam running under the several feet of rich valley topsoil. That was not explained to us in detail, of course. Even then, there were more sensible ways to address the problem, but 'someone' had decided upon this course of action, and we peons were blissfully unaware of the political infighting involved.Unknown to us, our project was a very low priority operation, apparently a sop for whoever was screaming about the unfinished grade; and apparently Jack was being somehow punished by having charge of the farce.

Around mid afternoon, Jack drove up and motioned for my partner, Manny, and me to "come hither". As we approached the pickup, Jack jerked his thumb toward the back saying, "hep y'sefs". Therein was a welcome tub of iced sodas. I usually leap at any opportunity to ask questions, but was somehow aware that this was not an opportune time to do so. Jack sat under the wheel as we downed Orange Crush, then came out saying,"gitcha anuther 'un".

He proceeded to set up a tripod, and mount a grade level thereon. Then he told Manny, "Take th' truk 'n water th' other hands", gesturing toward the quarter mile of unenthusiastic labor. He pitched me the telescoping grade rod and pointed to what I'd been told was an RP (reference point) hub. Surprisingly, Jack nodded a time or two, seemingly in approval. After several pointings, and placings of the rod, Jack plopped down in the meager shade of a scant scrubby shrub to scribble in his notebook; and I headed back to the ditch. Jack said,"jes' wait till th' other boy gits back." (Manny was a forty something year old 'boy'.) Then, "how's yer han's?"Well, I'd noticed blisters on my cotton pickin' calluses, and had been wondering how to deal with the rest of the day, and with tomorrow, and with subsequent tomorrows, but I didn't want to show weakness. I shrugged and said, "they're a little sore." He said, "waal, jes' kick back th' rest of th' day..."I was totally mystified by that strange language, but leaped at the opportunity to (diplomatically) pose a few questions.

Jack was relaxed and fairly receptive, but said, "wisht I'd a made that boy leave us some of that sody pop." At one point, I revealed a bit of my "visions of sugar plums" notion of pipeline work. Obviously one or more of my premises was askew, but knowing that pipeline work is year round work and that anything over 40 hours a week was time and a half, and that minimum labor scale was $1.35 per hour, I was visualizing the possibility of pulling in $5000 a year. (I did realize that particular dream five plus years later.) Jack said, "waal boy, I wooden git too excited about them paychecks. "Ye know not the day nor the hour when they'll come a snowstorm of pinks." ...still mysterious language, but I was grateful for the respite from the unaccustomed labor...(apparently Manny and I had, in our ignorance, outworked most of the new hires. We were attuned to working steadily.)

When Manny got back, Jack scowled at him, looked in the tub and found two sodas. He kept the Coke, handed me the Grape Crush and, departing, said, "Y'all jes' kick back. I'll see ya' tomorra."I offered to share the last soda with Manny, but he declined, "Naw, I (burp) awreddy had six er eight (burp).

Next morning Jack's doom saying stood in bold relief as the termination slips and early paychecks descended. Seems 'they' had miraculously freed up enough pneumatic equipment and 'clean up' people attached thereto to wipe out the problem. Jack was there at Jones corner, too. Evidently he was also somehow being reassigned. He told Manny and me, "I aimed t' keep y'all, but they wooden let me. Keep comin' back an' mabee sumthin'll come up. We thanked him and let it go at that.

I didn't go back. A sure eighty cents per hour for farm labor was better than a 'mabee'. We did each get thirteen hours pay ($17.55) for about six hours work. We got eleven hours pay for the ten hour shift wherein we did some probably futile labor, plus two hours show up time for showing up next day.... We also got a valuable lesson. I can't speak for the others, but for me, it validated in spades, what I already knew about counting chickens.

...............to be continued....................
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Lookout Point dam

In early 1951 I gained a toe hold in the earth moving game. This was due to an admixture of perseverance, fascination with machinery, help from benevolent family and friends, and blind luck.

January
Morrison-Knudson-Kiewit- Macco Job
Having unsuccessfully rattled the gates of all of Sacramento's construction industry's craft unions throughout much of 1950, I was not totally optimistic about crashing a gate in Oregon. I was poised to return to the Sacramento area and rejoin the rat race; then there happened a series of events that revived my visions of sugar plums: Herbert (Smitty) Smith,my Mom's Butcher's union rep passed the word through her that I should hie myself to the domain of Charlie Albright, area field rep for Laborer's Local # 85 outside of Lowell, Oregon, as there was an expected spate of hiring for a high priority water diversion project related to the construction of Lookout Point dam. True enough, I had a dispatch slip in my hot little hand within minutes of meeting Charlie Albright.

As with the 1947 San Joaquin valley pipeline job, we green peas were told very little, but the general profile was pieced together gradually: On site core drilling had produced a faulty picture of the relative stability of a wide area above the dam's south abutment. When excavation to bedrock began in earnest, the entire undertaking was plagued with recurring mud slides. The proposed solution to this problem was installation of a humongous "French Drain" at a predetermined point between the excavation site and the origin of the slides. It was a sound engineering application, and it ultimately worked well, but there were a few variables that got in the way of immediate success.

When we who were dispatched for the swing shift signed in at the main office, we were puzzled to see many of the day shift new hires still in the office area, not having been sent out to the work site. Paper work was minimal in those days, so we were processed rapidly and were poised to wade in. As the puzzled day shifters left, we were told to stand by. About 25 of us, as I remember, stood by for what seemed like eons. Actually, it was more like an hour.

Finally, a foreman type selected about ten of us, presumably at random, to "go up the hill." We rode in the back of a stake rack flat bed to a point just below an overturned dragline. I didn't know much of such equipment in those days, but I'm fairly sure it was a Bucyrus-Erie 54 B. That shed a little light on what was holding up the work. (As it turned out, it took nearly a month to right the dragline and get it out of the way so work could go on. Another flatbed truck came up, towing a light plant that we were to pin behind a D-8 to tow to the French Drain location. There was virtually no daylight left, so plans changed rapidly. For whatever reasons, several of us were directed to follow another foreman on foot, to the work site.

We went on up, with two gas lanterns and no tools. After a short while, a messenger appeared, telling the foreman to bring the crew back to the office. Arriving at the office, we were met with the same "storm of pinks" that nipped my career in the bud in 1947. In this instance we each got four hours pay ($6.60). We had done no work, but had nevertheless put in close to half of an eight hour shift.

We had each paid $10 toward our union initiation fee, so there were few smiles amongst us. I was particularly glum about having grossed $24.15 total for three and a half years of striving to be a construction stiff.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
January 1951

Diamond Drilling Co (based in Spokane) Job
Charley Albright delivered on his statement; He had offered to each of us to refund our $10 deposit or to assure another dispatch 'soon'. I don't remember if anybody took the refund. I didn't. As it turned out, I was the first one dispatched. I'd like to think it was because I was such a bright young man, but it was more likely because I asked so many questions that Charley wanted me out of his hair.

In any case, Diamond Drilling Company's ramrod, Ray Carlson, drove up to the dispatch trailer and told Charley he needed a chuck tender. I didn't have a clue what that meant, but like Ross Perot in later years, I was all ears. Charley told him, "..this boy [me] is worth the extra nickel. [Basic labor scale was $1.65 per hour and chuck tender was $1.70.]

Ray Carlson was a pretty decent sort of guy, but I wouldn't describe him as unflappable. He was sometimes dichotomy personified...Unknown to me initially, and never fully known, were the political and engineering snafus attendant to DD Company's contracts and relationships with the Army Corps of Engineers and with Morrison-Knudsen-Macco Company.

Diamond core drilling is simple: You chop a hole to bedrock, sinking your casing on the way down (chop mode). Usually the chopping takes longer than the drilling. When you reach bedrock, you drill to the designated depth in varying predetermined increments (drill mode); usually five feet. The drill bit itself is hollow and cylindrical and screws onto the hollow cylindrical tube that cradles the core sample. As each increment is reached, the steel is extracted in segments and the core sample is removed and placed in grooves on large trays fabricated for that purpose.

Ostensibly, topographical engineers can read the subterranean world like a book from those core samples. It was never clear to me who made what mistakes, that resulted in those massive mud slides, but Ray Carlson maintained that the Corps of Engineers had stopped short of authorizing enough core drilling in the dam's planning stage. He would have drilled holes all over the North American continent.

Two other things that remained unclear to me were:

1. What was the nature of information being sought from our present drilling?
2. What was the nature of information to be sought from a pending extension of the present contract? Those answers are still unclear over a half century later.

The job ran 24/6. Ray wanted it to run 24/7, but the powers that be wouldn't allow it. In theory, the pattern was simple: One driller and one chuck tender on each shift (we had only one drilling unit). In practice, Murphy's Law and chaos were routine. There were breakdowns, no-shows, inclement weather (what other kind of Oregon winter weather is there?), administrative changes, etc, etc ad nauseam.

Ray himself was the day shift driller. He seemed to regard himself as the original multi-tasker, and tried hard to be true to his self image. He seemed to regard Spokane in the manner that a Catholic priest regards Rome. There were no cell phones in those days, and calls to home base were deemed vital. I had learned the rudiments of chopping thru overburden first off, so Ray nervously trusted me with that chore when he would zip, rip and tear to the public phone at a local tavern. On occasion, he left me chopping toward the end of the shift, in order to transact some parts supply business or whatever. The rationale was that the two swing shift hands would relieve me, and work would not be interrupted. That usually worked ok, but there were exceptions.

When the swing shift chuck tender failed to show, the driller asked or told me to stay with him. I did, and Ray came up later and grudgingly approved the happening. I was greatly pleased to earn $34 for fifteen and a half hours work. In another instance , the driller failed to show, so the new chuck tender declared himself to be a competent driller, and we proceeded with the drilling. It seemed to me that all was going well, but this time Ray sent me home and stayed with the new hand himself.

In another instance, Ray hired a new graveyard shift driller and declared that he, Felix, needed to be helped and watched and that I was his designated helper and watcher. I worked several non traditional shifts that entailed quite a bit of overtime, but also missed some time due to the aberrant factors previously mentioned. I was back on day shift soon, and RC did let me do quite a bit of the drilling, but only when he was on site.

The job lasted about seven weeks. This time it was Ray Carlson who had visions of sugar plums. He was expecting a contract extension that was to carry us several months into the future; probably at seven days a week. It didn't happen.

This time I was feeling somewhat better at termination time. I had grossed over six hundred dollars and was carrying a paid up card. I don't remember just how long I was off, but it was less than a week, and I had over four decades of wallerin' in the dirt to look ahead to.

.................to be continued
posted by owl at 12:00 PM
1 Comments:

MoMonday said... 

Well written, MoMonday
6:18 PM
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Date: Thu, Apr 14, 2011 3:40 pm

owl 3. Wanderlust
Those far away places with the strange sounding names called me before memory. My several worlds in Fannin county, Texas were loosely connected to each other and to the former worlds of my parents and their immediate progenitors. When I heard exotic names like Arkinsaw and Okluhoma and Wes' Texis, I envisioned thrilling scenes of adventures and alien cultures; of strange fruits such as Mulberries and Muskadines; cuisine such as venison, boar, wild turkey, Red Eye gravy, poke salad with wild onions; plus possible re-enactment of yesteryear's development of frontier lore. I was filled with awe and wonder at a very early age to learn that I'd already been to both Yarnaby, Oklahoma, Mother's birth site, and to Amity Arkansas, the nativity of FAH I.

On subsequent visits to those places,and to other new places, my eye and my mind's eye saw much that escaped notice in more commonplace surroundings. Many of my schoolmates didn't cross a county line during their formative years, and some of them perhaps never did. Most male Harveys, however, were disposed to look for what the bear went over the mountain to see.

One of my Dad's apocryphal accounts of his arrival in the golden west left out the Texas years: "When I turned 14 in Arkinsaw, 'they' run me down and put shoes on me. (That was a rite of passage in the Sugarloaf mountains.) I started walkin' backward lookin' at the strange tracks I was leavin' and wound up in Bakersfield."

In October 1942 I was thrilled beyond measure to be going to San Diego. I was especially eager to see the sun twice jump 15 degrees backward as we entered a new time zone. We didn't see that of course, but there were other wonderments. Although the railroad doesn't sport road signs, my geography was good enough by then that I was aware of our approximate position at any given time. El Paso was yet another world to add to my growing space awareness. Men speaking fluid Spanish, for real, was better than any movie we'd ever seen. Leaving El Paso, I watched intently for some sign that we were departing Texas. My sense of time and speed was shaken when I spotted a hiway sign to the north of us saying, "Arizona Welcomes You". I felt defrauded of savoring the assimilation of New Mexico. The train had spanned that 100 plus mile corridor much too quickly. Unfortunately, too many of the miles we travel are diluted in that way. It would be much more meaningful to walk every step of the way.

From a Geezer's vantage point, youngsters hitch-hiking is a dubious pursuit at best, but in the mid twentieth century, especially in the World War II era, it was a popular and seemingly necessary means of travel. Sometimes a more mature and affluent hitch-hiker would render or offer gas money, but more often not, if the driver didn't go out of his way. My first experience in bumming a ride from a stranger stemmed from both a sense of adventure, and anxiety for my little brother's welfare. I attended Grossmont High School, between La Mesa and El Cajon, and Wayne usually waited for me to pick him up at his school in Lemon Grove so we could walk home to Monterey Heights together. We had some kind of "first bus", "second bus" chance-medley farce at Grossmont, and I learned early on that if the first bus was filled, I could stick out my thumb and usually arrive in Lemon Grove before the bus I'd just missed did. Again, I do not endorse this means of travel in today's world, but it is what I and most of my contemporaries did back then.

During the next decade, hitch-hiking probably accounted for nearly half of my non navy traveling, which was considerable. In retrospect, I'll have to say that it's quite likely that my traveling in search of work was prompted more by love of travel than love of work. Generally, I've enjoyed productive work and have enjoyed new travel, but on a level field, travel is a more attractive drawing card. Wild Bill and I worked and traveled together much of his twenty eight years on earth, but he traveled more than I, largely due to his absence of external restraint. Aunt 'Duck' died when Bill was ten, and Uncle Jack tended to listen to his own wild goose call. Cryptically, Uncle Jack mused at the time of Bill's funeral in January 1959, "Billy 'd been in all forty eight states and New Mexico before he turned fourteen."

...to be continued...........

Welcome to Allan Harvey's blog. The first hundred years are the hardest.

...A few tossed homilies and nostalgic orts:

Daddy, won't you take me back to Meulenburg County?
I want to see paradise again for a day.
Well, I'm sorry, my son,but you're too late in asking,
Mr. Peabody's coal train done hauled it away.

History hesitates. History feints. History even seems to pause. But history never stops.
....Daily Reckoning

What is history but a fable agreed upon? ...Napoleon Bonaparte

I don't give 'em trouble. I just tell the truth on 'em and they think it's trouble.
-Harry Truman

I find that principles have no real force except when one is well fed.-Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)

Everyone stumbles onto a bit of truth sometime in his life; but usually people pick themselves up and hurry on as if nothing had happened.--Winston Churchill

Memoir Potpourri:
15 more or less unfinished short stories, and first hundred years chronology, divided loosely into decades; miscellany.

The 1920s....
From 14 August 1929 about 2130 CST at 910 North Main Street, uptown Ector Texas.

Unlike the prodigy who remembers going to the Senior Prom with his father and coming home with his mother, my personal memory only goes back to age one and a half. However, this is to be a fun journal; not a scholarly tome, so it will necessarily contain a measure of carefully screened authenticated hearsay.

"A historian has many duties, two of which are important. The first is not to slander. The second is not to bore." _Voltaire

"He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him." -Proverbs 18:13

The 1930s
I have no personal memories before February 1931 but it is probable that we attended the annual Wear Family Reunion in Yarnaby, Oklahoma around 13 June each year. We usually did. In fact, I don't remember missing that event before 1945. In the early 1940s we had been in the golden west for a while, but we were back in Texas before reunion time each year.

The 1950s
The United States Navy had showed me a tad bit of our planet's surface, but a much smaller portion than hoped for. It had gradually dawned on me that the USN put its own agenda well ahead of mine every time.

19 January 1952 to 01 September 2002
.....A half century of work and travel on the stormy sea of matrimony. One thing Audree and I agreed on: That half century sometimes seemed like five minutes...............under water.

....From 1994 on: Travel on seven continents (Antarctica pending).

2000
November-December--
Europe, Africa, Asia, Around the world: Written by Pamela Sue (Harvey) Tomson

INDEX
owl 1. 1929 thru 2029
owl 2. Work ethic
owl 3. Wanderlust
owl 4. Cotton Pickin'
owl 5. Houseboy
owl 6. Paper Route
owl 7. Soda Jerk
owl 8. Uncle Albert
owl 9. Mr Gilley
owl 10. Trees
owl 11. The Old Swede
owl 12. Visions of Sugar Plums
owl 13. Wagons West
owl 14. Wild Bill
owl 15. Grandma Frances
owl 16. The 1920s
owl 17. The 1930s
owl 18. The 1940s
owl 19. The 1950s
owl 20. The 1960s
owl 21. The 1970s
owl 22. The 1980s
owl 23. The 1990s
owl 24. The 2000s
owl 25. FAH III
owl 26. 2
owl 27. 3
owl 28. 4
owl 29. 5
owl 30. 6
owl 31. 7
owl 32. 8
owl 33. 9
owl 34. 0
owl 35. Where did the universe come from?
owl 36. Pics
owl 37. Thru 2029--CONSTRUCTION ZONE
Owl 38.
owl 38. My Local Union
Owl 39.
Owl 40.
Owl 41.
Owl 42.
Owl 43.
Owl 44.
Owl 45.
Owl 46.
Owl 47.
Owl 48.
Owl 49.
Owl 50.
Owl 51.
Owl 52.
Owl 53.
Owl 54.
Owl 55.
Owl 56.
Owl 57.
Owl 58.
Owl 59.
Owl 60.
Owl 61.
Owl 62.
Owl 63.
Owl 64.
Owl 65.
Owl 66.
Owl 67.
Owl 68.
Owl 69.
Owl 70.
Owl 71.
Owl 72.
Owl 73.
Owl 74.
Owl 75.
Owl 76.
Owl 77.
Owl 78.
Owl 79.
Owl 80.
Owl 81.
Owl 82.
Owl 83.
Owl 84.
Owl 85.
Owl 86.
Owl 87.
Owl 88.
Owl 89.
Owl 90.
Owl 91.
Owl 92.
Owl 93.
Owl 94.
Owl 95.
Owl 96.
Owl 97.
Owl 98.
Owl 99.
Owl 100.

owl 9. Mr Gilley
Mr. Gilley 1860-1970..........................................

William B. Gilley was born in Mississippi in 1860. It was my great privilege to know this amazing man for 21 months of his 110 years. Much of what I shall write of Mr. Gilley may be regarded as hearsay, but it is as nearly a true account as I can manage at this late date.(September 2004) Unfortunately, I procrastinated too long in writing on this subject, and of many other real life people whose stories should be told.

My parents and my brother Wayne and I lived on two of Mr. Gilley's properties from February 1941 to October 1942. For a number of reasons, it was not a conventional 'share-cropper' arrangement, but as a matter of fact, each such arrangement was individually tailored to suit the participants. In any case, although we owned a house on an acre of ground on the edge of Ector, Texas, we lived on his properties because that was where the work was.

Mr. Gilley sired six sons by his first wife, who died relatively young, and sired one daughter by his wife, Ethel,who helped him raise all seven of his 'git'. Gracious Mrs. Gilley surely was a remarkable woman in her own right, but little is known of her. She exuded an aura of genteel culture, and was certainly more educated than her husband, who couldn't read or write, but she wasn't active in hands on farm management. It seemed that she and he were in awe of each other. They each had enough to attend to without trying to run the whole show.

It was from Mr. G and from like minded people that I started learning to help where help is needed, but to let people do as they will. Generally, my folks did the work and supervised the work, but Mr Gilley at 81 and 82 years of age, actively bore a hand much of the time. For instance, he'd shoulder and carry oak and Bois d' Arc fence posts steadily for several hours a day when fences were being installed or repaired, or carry and stack the bundles of wool on sheep shearing day.

Each and every one of the seven Gilley offspring had at least one college degree, and he gave each of them clear title to a piece of property upon graduation. At least three of them were teachers; the eldest, Charley was, at 62 a retired professor, holding a number of math degrees. Apparently, only one, his second son, Floyd, was prudent with his property. Floyd stayed in or went back to, Mississippi and expanded his holdings to a sizeable cotton plantation. That's the only one I heard Mr. Gilley speak of. Charley, in retirement, came to, and occupied one of the Ector area places, (the deep well place) and even made an effort to do some practical work. My Dad related that he, Charley, and Mr. G were putting in a new fence, and Charley spent about half his time mopping his brow. Toward noon, Charley declared, "Daddy, I started out this morning full of piss and vinegar, but I just don't have any vinegar left." I didn't hear Mr. Gilley speak of Charley either. He likely felt that Charley's performance spoke for itself.

Mr. Gilley carried a Masonic emblem, but he didn't wear a ring. I think he had sense enough to realize that rings can be dangerous for people who work with their hands. It was rumored that he was a member of the Ku Klux Klan. I don't know if that was true. One thing I personally observed was that he treated all adults equally, regardless of 'station', race or gender.

Farm labor scale was a dollar a day in 1941 and $1.25 in 1942, for a ten hour day. That was what Mr. G and others paid to temporary hired help. There was some variation of that; for instance, hay baling was $1.50 per day, but it wasn't necessarily limited to ten hours. Dad got $2.00 per day for certain plowing work outside of the shared configuration, for a daylight to dark work day. "Sharecropping" arrangements weren't limited to any hours at all. A days work meant all day, and sometimes much of the night. I simply do not remember what the arrangement was with my parents, and Mother doesn't remember either. At ages 11 and 12, Mr. Gilley paid me the going rate for cotton pickin' but fifty cents a day for day labor when not in school, and working all day. I suffered quite a bit of resentment about that, because I felt I was putting out close to the production of the average hand. What I didn't realize at the time was that Mr. Gilley didn't long keep an "average hand", and also that he probably didn't have to pay me anything. A common practice was that a whole family worked full time to produce the crop, and the patriarch collected the family's due and distributed it as he saw fit. Further, a small family such as ours, if headed by an "average hand" didn't have much to offer a landowner.

Our first location with Mr. G was at the "deep well' place about two miles north of Ector. The place, with about 80 acres of tillable land, a swatch of 'woods' adjacent to Caney creek with an abundance of small game and a lot of firewood and fence post potential, boasted a better than average five room house, several out buildings in good repair and an excellent drilled well of three hundred plus feet. It had probably been an independent estate in earlier times, and had probably been mostly planted in cotton. I'm not sure what W.B.G. initially had in mind for the place, but he and my folks brought about several changes while we were there. My Dad was probably privy to the planning, but that's hard to reconstruct after six plus decades. (Charley moved in the following year, after we'd moved to the 'South' place a couple of miles south of Ector.

There was about ten acres planted in cotton, about the same planted in corn ,millet, sorghum, hi-gear (a form of maize) and other feed crops, about a quarter acre of garden, and a feed lot. Then Mr. G bought or rented another field across the road, about twenty acres, that we planted in alfalfa. The rest was pasture, with about 30 head of Whiteface cattle kept thereon. We had a team of mules, Tom and Jerry, a sway backed mare,Lady, and one to three milk cows, several hogs, chickens, turkeys and guineas. I don't remember who owned what, but I do remember that, after selling my bicycle for $2.00, I bought a pig, partly raised it and traded it for a newborn calf that I named Dinah, raised her, had her bred, raised her calf, Sugarfoot, and sold the two of them to Aunt Mae Bippus for $100 when we left for California in October, 1942.

In the spring of 1941 Mr Gilley dropped a dime in the weeds off a shoulder of the road that ran by our place. He spent many hours looking for it that summer. He said several times, "I don't mind spending money, but that dime is just out there not doing anybody any good. " I don't recall that he ever asked anybody to help find it. As far as I know, it's still there. I went by there in May 2004, and thought about it. If I had the time, money, and patience, I'd get permission, and rent a backhoe and shaker screen and find that dime.

The house itself, in April 1994 was still in good shape, although vacant at the time, but in May 2004 had several large holes in the roof , bulging sides, and trees and brush growing through the screens. It won't be standing much longer. Immediately after we moved to the deep well place in February 1941, FAH I, with the help and financing of Mr. G and the help of some hired labor, put up a huge barn, with stalls on either side for hog pens, and storage, a corn shelling bay, a humongous hay loft to accommodate the baled alfalfa crop, and ample space for the animals to be sheltered inside, adjacent to the feed lot. In May 2004 the barn was still standing. Although abandoned, it looked better than the house.

My cousin Billy Joe (Wild Bill) Harvey and I cut firewood and sold it. Mr. Gilley didn't charge us stumpage, which was fortunate, for it was a meager sum we made. There were no chain saws, of course. We bucked the cuts with a 'misery whip', a two man buck saw. After splitting, we hauled it (free use of the wagon and team) up close to the road and stacked it in 'ricks', a half cord to the rick, I think, and sold it for fifty cents a rick. Mr. G was liberal with the firewood and sweet water from the deep well. Neighbors were not charged for either, but he did set limits on quantities. Bill and I were the only harvesters of commercial product.

I remember indistinctly that one of Mother's sisters, Aunt Georgia, stayed with us a short while, and that she worked some with us in the fields. She was affluent enough by that time that she probably didn't necessarily need to work, but the work ethic permeated the fabric of Mother's family, as well as the Harveys, Lamberts, and Burchfields. There were also frequent visits from the other town cat relatives, particularly when the garden was at peak. I thought their enthusiasm for garden produce a bit affected at the time but have in later years, come to appreciate their appreciation.

It was probably late November 1941,after final gatherings, that we moved to the South place. It was shortly after that move that word came over the radio that Pearl Harbor had been attacked.

Mr. Gilley didn't at first come around as often to the South place, largely because his 1940 Ford pickup couldn't get around well in that black gumbo mud. The older cars, with 19" to 21" wheels got around much better. I was disappointed to not get to drive the pickup, but the Farmall tractor was nearly as good.

Another minor plus on the South place, was that I sorta had a regular job. We had a flock of about 60 sheep, that belonged to guess who? Charley Gilley. Charley sent me a monthly $2.00 check for looking after them.Evidently, the 1941-42 school year was Charley's final one before retirement, and evidently Charley had a little ongoing farm experience during his academic career. In December, my parents took the pickup, equipped with stake racks, to Fort Stockton, in South Texas and brought back a couple of Charley's prize heifers. While there, they crossed the Rio Grande into Ojinaga, Chihuahua, one of Pancho Villa's strongholds a quarter century before. Their telling of it was akin to my hearing of a journey to the back side of Neptune. For many years I've treasured the exotic post card they sent to Wayne and me, with its four centavo postage stamp.

Just this day, 27 September 2004, Mother informed me that Charley Gilley offered them (as a bonus, I suppose) the choice of an airplane ride or a trip to Mexico. They chose Mexico on the rationale that it might be life's only chance to visit Mexico. Quite likely my Dad would not have taken the plane ride anyway. He never did, in all of his seventy six years. I've heard him state that he'd go as high or as low as anyone else, as long as he could keep one foot on the ground. Just this day Mother told me that Charley told Daddy to not drive the pickup across the river; to walk across. I can't imagine what caused Charley to suppose he had any such authority. The senior Mr. Gilley might have so advised the same but he had the practical good sense to not ever issue a direct order to FAH I. Possibly FAH I would have obeyed a direct order from Mr. Gilley, but Charley was never any kind of Mr. to my Dad. It's even possible that Daddy would have exercised his own good sense of responsibility sans such a pompous directive, but drive it he did.

Hearing this account this day, I'm reminded all over again of my choler in November 1957 when we three FAHs were returning to Oregon from a trip to Ector, et al. Approaching El Paso, I expressed a desire to cross over to Juarez. My Dad immediately raised objections six ways from Sunday to such foolishness. We were in my car, but FAH I, like his Pappy before him, did all the driving, regardless of what seat he occupied. "Think of Frankie", "They'll take the car away from us", "It's dangerous over there", "It's too far out of the way", "It'd mess up our schedule", "You don't want to do that at night", ad nauseam. Later, when I read the map and noted that the highway ran within a half mile of the cross over point, which was a very few blocks from the El Paso Greyhound bus station, where we had a 12 hour layover in July 1944, wherein he'd raised some of same objections to a crossover. Obviously, the reason, each time that he didn't want to cross over was that he had already been to Juarez as many times as he wanted to, so it was a waste of his time to do it again.

The South place had a windmill, the tower of which was still standing in May 2004, with a storage tank and rudimentary plumbing that delivered running water right to our kitchen sink, just like a lot of the town cats had.There was a creek running through the property, with an ideal swimming hole built in by nature. There was also ample firewood for our own use,but the place was too isolated to offer firewood for sale.

The tenants just prior to us, Clifford and Thelma Taylor, were the parents of a lad whose age was between my age and Wayne's. Raymond Taylor who, as Fannin County sheriff, was, in 1974, only vaguely aware of a traumatic event that occurred during their tenancy. An itinerant family of four occupied the tractor shed temporarily during the cotton harvest in the fall of 1940. It must have been late October or early November, because the two teen agers were in school, which had resumed in mid October, and the father killed the mother. It likely had rained that day, because the couple was not in the fields, nor were the Taylors. I personally remember reading an account of the murder in a detective magazine, in which it was stated that the perpetrator, a McQueen, was tripped up because the muddy tracks that he alleged to be those of a stalking stranger proved to be his own. As that murder occurred just a few steps away from the house, I'm sure the Taylors must have downplayed much of the drama for Raymond's protection. I also feel that our parents downplayed it for our protection, although it was over a year in the past when we moved there.

I think my Dad visited Mister Gilley, maybe more than once, before he was placed in a rest home at age 100 plus. I wish I had done so. Mister G was virtually deaf in his early eighties, but he managed to converse when he deemed it worthwhile to do so. I can only imagine what his last ten years of life were like. Would that I could have visited and talked with him and, hopefully, to have had the privilege of helping him preserve records of his 110 years for posterity. At this juncture, Mother remembers the high spots of our Mr. Gilley years and recalls the dim memories fondly, but details tend to fade, as I can well aver. The Gilley time would fill a large volume all by itself in the hands of a practiced younger writer with more vivid recall. I'll lay by for now, and plough furrows in some of the ensuing decades since that memorable time.
...al fin..........
FAH II 27 Sept 2004

Uncle Albert 1903-1993...........................

Albert Lee Harvey was the second of Grandpa Babe's git who survived infancy. He came on the scene in 1903, and stayed amidst us until 1993. I was privileged to know him rather well from my own earliest times to a point of declining contact in the late 1950s.

Like most of my mentors, Uncle Albert did not lecture. He usually seemed pleased to address any pertinent questions, but didn't encourage inane speculation. He had less formal education than most of his siblings; 3rd or 4th grade, I think, but that didn't seem a major handicap. He commanded an impressive vocabulary regarding a wide range of practical subjects, and his elementary arithmetic, like my Dad's, was virtually flawless. Hunting and fishing were his only evident non work activities, and he pursued them with the same fervor as he did his jobs, full bore.

I never saw Uncle Albert run, but his pace was rapid and steady. His early time hunting in Texas was mostly solo trapping for pelts, and that suited him better than the regulated and licensed 'sport' in mid century California. However, he usually didn't flaunt the letter of the law, no matter how onerous he perceived it to be. Rather than seeking trophies, he sought meat.I don't think he ever came home empty handed, even when he gave away most of his take. He harvested small game and birds regularly, but was more selective with venison and bear meat. his larger kills were always uphill from car or camp, as he would mentally play out the 'drag' to it's destination before squeezing the trigger. With the right rigging, he could drag a 300 pound bear downhill, headfirst, and paws up, to take advantage the critter's hair pattern over fir needles or drying leaves.

Fishing was less productive for Uncle Albert in most of California. He did fairly well with 'trot lines', wherein lines were strung from bank to bank, or strung to 'floats' downstream, and each had several vertical lines, spaced at regular intervals. You 'run' the lines by boat or by wading or swimming, to bait, check, remove the catch, and re-set each hook repeatedly. After that practice became illegal or too heavily restricted, Albert Lee's fishing became limited to an occasional charter boat run out of San Luis Obispo.

I took Jerry Tembrock along on a visit with Uncle Albert in November 1955. They hit it off well, swapping fish stories, but they both seemed to abuse the answer to the following conundrum:
"I ask a simple question, the truth I only wish;
Are all fishermen liars, or do all liars fish?"

Jerry listened raptly to Unc's recital of a day long struggle with a leviathan denizen of the deep. Just as he was about to pull the behemoth over the boat's gunwale, his line snapped, and the beast was gone. Jerry seemed to share the disappointment of losing such a rare catch; his countenance bespoke the latent question, "how much do you suppose it weighed"? Uncle Albert pre-supposed the inquiry, volunteering, "No telling what it weighed but the skipper snapped a picture of it and the picture weighed five pounds." Of course Jerry knew he'd been had, but Uncle Albert continued, "The skipper kept the picture, but he said he'd send me the negative. The negative weighed three pounds."

Among the many lessons learned from my Uncle, was the satisfaction of giving full measure. That's a satisfaction that's to be felt, rather than described. He scarcely spoke of it at all; he just did it. For a long time I wondered why Uncle Albert shied away from 'crew boss' positions. He would occasionally accept that slot for a short while, because it paid 15 or 20 cents above the going wage of 80 cents per hour, but was soon back to working with his hands. The answer became obvious in due time, and, again, that's a satisfaction better felt than described. As a matter of fact, most 'piece work' paid better than hourly wages as long as you went at it @ Mach II with your hair afire, and Uncle Albert had only two speeds; wide open or shut off.

Although he had no rigid pattern (actually, that's the ideal pattern), he worked about eleven months out of twelve. Although he was a genuine workaholic, he took time out for a trip back to Texas now and again, and if he hadn't been huntin' or fishin' for a spell, work became harder to find. Actually, he chose his jobs rather carefully most of the time.

Sometimes the great Uncle did make a bum decision. He had worked long hours, seven days a week at the Safeway warehouse in Oakland, throughout most of World War II, and doubtlessly had retained a high percentage of his pay. He came to the Porterville area looking to buy property. He was astounded by the high prices, and declared that he would rent until the prices came down. He rented about twelve years; then paid probably double the 1945 price for a modest house and lot.

FAH I was a much better than average cotton picker, and Uncle Henry was about the same, but Uncle Albert was among the top hands in the cotton patch. FAH I, fortunately, had found something better: the dehydrator. As foreman, it paid him $1.00 per hour 84 hours per week from about mid August to late November, every year, overlapping the cotton harvest. Even so he'd sometimes come out after he got off at 6 a.m. and drag up a weighin'.

I picked cotton with the two uncles with full intent to beat them both, if only for one day. After about ten days, I pulled my first ever 600 pound day, 624 as I remember; about 10 pounds more than Uncle Henry. Ever stoic and dignified, Uncle Albert never acknowledged that he was in any kind of competition; nevertheless his production increased to the point that neither Uncle Henry nor I beat him any day that year. By mid season we were each topping 600 almost every day, and I was beating Uncle Henry about one out of four. The following year, I managed to beat Uncle Albert about a third of the time, but I knew better than to crow about it. I think he felt a measure of pride in being my mentor, although such was never mentioned. He didn't practice self aggrandizement and had little use for anybody that did.

One of Uncle Albert's specialties was knockin' olives. One January and Febuary when I was foolishly not attending school, he took me on as a full equal partner in a knockin' job out of San Fernando. The drill in that job was thus: A set of four sturdy but lightweight canvas sheets, each about 16 feet square is spread under an olive tree after the groundfall has been picked up by hand. Then, working off extension ladders, the tree is thrashed with poles 20 plus feet long until every olive is on the sheets. Each tree is a 'knock' and each set of four trees is a 'knock'. I did some of the knockin', but he did most of it. Generally, I'd pick up groundfall under the next tree as Unc started the knock, then I'd start dragging back the lightest outside corner of a filled sheet to concentrate the product toward a gathering point. We had a portable 'shaker' to catch the leaves and other debris to be skimmed off. We'd set four lugs (boxes) under the shaker and fill them level full, then repeat the action endlessly.

We worked from daylight till dark, of course, but they were relatively short days that time of year. It was an amazing time. We camped in the open; had sleeping bags, and minimal camping gear, including a kerosene lantern. We had a cold water shower at one of the two groves that we knocked. That's a bit chilly after sundown, so Uncle Albert acceded to my wimpy suggestion that we shower in mid afternoon. We showered instead of eating lunch. There was no rain all thru the job, but we sometimes hung an olive sheet over the sleeping area, at an angle, just in case.

I had known many of Uncle Albert's proclivities and peculiarities for a long time, but I'll repeat: This was an amazing time. Without knowing how it came about, some of his persona was transmitted to me. Right away I came to expect each morning to hear "It's five o'clock" at five o'clock, in the dark, with no time piece anywhere near us. Before the job was finished, I could do a passable job of telling time without a watch, but I hadn't yet learned that those acquired skills can atrophy rapidly when they're not honed regularly.

Another of the Uncle's awesome characteristics was his internal global positioning mechanism. He knew where the sun was, even at night. He knew which side moss grows on, of course, but it was a lot more than that. His love of the outdoors, and four plus decades of adding to his awareness kept him pretty well focused. We sometimes had a newspaper, and sometimes listened to the car radio. However it was, there was a hot story about a search and rescue effort on the western slope of the Sierras and a media speculation about the probable cost of the operation. Uncle Albert snorted, "We're payin' taxes to find them idiots! They oughta leave the sonsabitches up there! They had no bizness goin' up there anyway. Any damn fool knows which way is downhill!"

Well, the old boy is at rest now. I hear he had Alzheimer's. It would have been painful to see him in that condition, but I can't help but suppose that he fought it tooth and nail from within, for as long as he could. I adopted and kept one of his favorite adages, "Never holler 'whoa' in a mudhole."

owl 7. Soda Jerk
The Orange Blossom* was ideally located on West Olive Street between Porterville Union High School and downtown Porterville, California. A boisterous elementary school, where my brother Wayne attended, was next door to the OB, and those denizens, as well as high schoolers, helped fill the coffers of Haigus M. Surabian, proprietor and, presumably, sole owner of the Orange Blossom. The building, about 24' x 36', housing Haig's lucrative enterprise was ample in the early days, but it's relative smallness limited its potential. The unpaved lot, about 80' x 120' was adequate to accommodate bare bones drive in facilities, but it was surrounded on three sides by the elementary school, further restricting physical expansion.

1944-45 was the first of my three senior years in high school. After all the nearby cotton had been gathered that fall, I sought a part time agricultural job at the going scale of eighty cents per hour. Part time work was not in the plans of either the farmers or the farm labor contractors. A hand was expected to work nine or ten hours, minimum. The town cat jobs like box-boy and half-shift dishwasher positions were already filled by mid November, so I took the leavings.

As with sharecropping, I never heard the term soda jerk used in those days. Haig (pronounced Hi'g or Hi) just called us the help. There was one of him and one of me, and one to four of the 'girls'. Sometimes it was only one of him. He certainly wasn't inclined to pay anybody forty five cents an hour for doing what he could do by himself, during slow times.

Slow times, however, became less frequent and of shorter duration as Porterville basked in the glow of an expanding economy. The OB prospered remarkably. At one point at a later time, I brashly asked Haig if he owned the land and the building that contained the OB. His response was immediate, "Whadda ya' think"?

Haig, an ethnic Armenian, was a straight arrow, I'm fairly sure, and a classic case workaholic for certain. He was present at all times when the OB was open for business. The establishment was closed Tuesdays, and he conducted corollary business such as banking on that day. During business hours, he manned the cash register most of the time, but not exclusively. Any of us could ring up tickets, but generally, we didn't need to do so. Haig seemed omnipresent. Adept at multi-tasking, he was one of the most focused people I have known. Instructions were rarely necessary. Haig tended to keep people who had some capacity to think, and to not need extensive and repeated programming. He was taciturn but not surly; soft spoken and benign, but able to define limits on boisterousness. High school kids in any era that I know of tend toward a measure of rowdiness. On occasion, Haig needed to take a step or two in the direction of escalated enthusiasm, and it was nearly magical how quickly the noise abated when he did so. Even more rarely, he had to step outside into the drive in area, and his mere presence was just as commanding there. It would be interesting to see how effective that tactic would be in this era.

In later times, I came in on Tuesdays also, but the establishment remained closed Tuesdays. There was always a multiplicity of chores. Haig seldom spoke more than three consecutive words, but each Tuesday, (banking day) before locking the building, with me inside, he admonished me, "Don't let anybody in." On one occasion, Haig's wife came to, and knocked on, the side door. I opened it and spoke with her but, fortunately, she didn't ask to be admitted. Haig could speak very concisely when he deemed it necessary, but, usually, it was obviously not necessary. In retrospect, it seems that at least a full half of his verbal delivery was, "Whadda ya think?"; and that was seldom regarded a question.

My duties included mopping, of course, but if I was busy at something else, Haig mopped. After I learned how, I made nearly all the ice cream, ice milk, and flavor bases. Washing windows and walls was a never ending job. There was quite a bit of painting, but usually only in favorable weather, and interior painting was only on Tuesdays, with the windows open. I did the bulk of the painting, but Haig did the trim. Any of us could take and fill orders, but the girls did most of the serving. They could wash dishes, clean tables and counter tops, and wash the front windows. They did all the drive in service. Once a girl went in the back room and fetched a broom, but Haig gently took it from her,and started sweeping himself. When a potential customer approached the candy case, Haig handed me the broom and took his own place behind the cash register.

There was usually one or more girls on duty when we were open, but not always. On one occasion, a car pulled into the drive in area before a girl had come in. I asked Haig if I should get it. He spoke almost four words that time, "let 'm come in." Having no burning ambition to be a car hop, I didn't ask that question again.

I remember a smile on Haig's poker face only once. The OB's hot chocolate orders were prepared individually in a metal canister heated over a coil, plugged into an electrical outlet. Orders for hot chocolate were relatively rare, and Haig usually prepared them himself. It was a fairly slow time when he said to me, "stir this". Unknowingly, I touched bottom with the spoon and got a mild shock. Being a farm boy familiar with electric fences, I'm not particularly sensitive to mild shock, but the setting made it startling. I flinched, of course, and instinctively looked in Haig's direction to see him turn away, with that noteworthy expression of amusement distorting his stoic countenance. Robbie Jo, the senior 'girl' guffawed like a burro, but a bit later clued me on not touching bottom. I awaited a chance to brace myself and deliberately take the shock to demonstrate my macho image, but it never came about.

I worked for Haig more than once, but truly don't remember if it was more than twice. In about May 1945, I bounced him for a raise in pay, and he outdid himself in a spate of verbiage. He very calmly replied, "I told ya I pay forty five cents, but I'll let ya have all th' hours ya want." I worked a few more days and gave notice. On my final day, he was talkative again. He said, "If ya change yer mind, c'mon back."

When school started in September 1945, I commenced my second senior year. On day one, I stepped into the OB and ordered a Chocolate Marshmallow Ice Cream Shake, one of the fanciest items on the menu. A girl took my order, but Haig brought me the shake. He set it in front of me, and we both nodded, but not a word was exchanged. I drank the shake slowly, exchanging a little banter with others. When I was down toward the bottom, Haig appeared with a string of five or so words, something like, "Ready 't go 't work?" Well, I did, but that shake had already cost me forty minutes pay.

My second senior year was two weeks long, and that last OB job was of about the same duration. At 16 years of age, with cotton pickin' paying $3.00 per hundred and up, and my needing a car so badly, I made the "mature" decision to take my place in the adult world. I certainly do not recommend that course, but ironically, that negative decision figured prominently in my very slow and agonizing decades long search for something worthwhile. In all likelihood, most of us would, or think we would, make better and more productive decisions if we could hold our present day knowledge and run back the clocks and calendars to a more propitious time.

Early on, I was on course to graduate from high school at mid term in January 1945 at age fifteen years and five months. To have done so may well have calamitous, but I'd surely try for it if the big rewind button were functional. However, I do have fond memories of almost all my several jobs, and the one just described is among my favorites. The low pay would never have produced a satisfactory standard of living, but the work itself tended to enhance a tolerable self image, and the sense of having a saleable semi-skilled ability lends confidence for expanding those skills.

*For many years I thought that the Orange Blossom building had been removed. Then Mozelle and I stopped in Porterville to visit other Harveys in the fall of '06. I was delighted to discover on 25 September 2006 that the old structure is still there in good condition in the guise of a washeteria.
*2011 update Frank III and I entered the open washeteria

on Saturday morning, 02 April. No customers were present so I was not embarrassed to introduce my son, Frank to the ghosts of Haig and Robbie Jo. Haig was 106 and Robbie Jo was pushin' 83.

owl 6. Paper Route
- Summer 1943 thru early 1944--& 1965-1966

Many accomplished writers have written on this subject, so I may as well get my two cents worth in. That's about the amount that I gained in that work.

Mr Winkler, circulation manager for the Denison, [Texas] Herald, was in mid 1943, all heart; that is to say, a very efficient pump. He pumped us up on many subjects, chief of which was our duty to be loyal, humble, and grateful to him, the Herald, the press, the government, and God, pretty much in that order.

(Several decades later I came to grudgingly appreciate Mr W's dire warnings of the consequences of our latent addictions. We consumed prodigious quantities of sody pop @$.05 per hit, lesser numbers of milkshakes @ $.10, and all too much hard stuff such as tailor made cigarettes @ $.18 per pack. The latter offense was sorta grounds for a summary court martial.)

The main catalyst for commanding our loyalty and submission, was the $10.00 surety bond that each of us had been required to post. Few of our number actually had $10.00, but there were several ways to arrange that, none of which were advantageous for anyone not in management. However the deal was struck, the victim owed his soul to the company store. I had been prudent enough to have amassed a bit more than $10.00 in ten cent U S savings stamps. That stamp program was the lowest rung on the War bond ladder. The drill was to fill, in this case, three $5.00 books of 10 cent stamps [purchased at the post office], and put another $3.75 therewith to purchase a $25 War bond, Liberty bond, or Victory bond, depending which term was in vogue at the time of conversion. An $18.75 investment would produce a $25 payout after ten years. The stamps produced immediate revenue for Uncle Sugar, but earned no interest for the investor. That was incentive to convert them rapidly. Of course, you can't convert them when they're held hostage by a Circulation Manager.

Mr Winkler was a long suffering soul. There was little doubt about that, because he didn't allow doubts in that field. Possibly, the $10.00 was released to us after a time, because we were frequently reminded of the Plant's magnanimity in restoring a deserving lad's $10.00 and holding hostage his honor instead. Maybe that came about at age 21, with a 4.0 performance and conduct record or with Eagle Scout status. I've forgotten some of the particulars.

We assuredly did often glimpse previews of the real world when customers moved out sans payment, kept the drapes drawn on collection day, disputed the bill [youngsters were disinclined to get in adults faces then, even of those who were jerks, cheats, liars, thieves, and deadbeats]. I learned early on to carefully count the payment change before accepting it and delivering the receipt. I'd preferably have the money laid on a table and delineate it with a pencil or it's eraser, before touching it. Failing that, I'd hold my hand out flat, and count with a pencil, or whatever. A favorite fraud of some customers was to substitute a shiny 1943 steel penny for a dime and then deny having done so. Also, all too many pedestrians bummed an "extra" and muttered "thankee", or just nodded instead of rendering our due nickel. I learned to get the nickel in hand before surrendering the paper, in most instances. Some customers would request free extras from previous days, because there had been articles they'd neglected to clip out before using the paper for kindling. That was always gratis, of course. I never once received any form of gratuity or heard that any of the others did.

"Kicks" [customer complaints] were recorded on bright pink paper and placed face up in each carrier's "box". The box was simply a bin in a wall mounted compartmentalized display case. Sometimes the kicks were many and sometimes they were few, but never were there none. We, some of us, were convinced that Mr Winkler originated a goodly percentage of them himself.

There were somewhat more than a score of us paperboys that were captively loyal to the Herald. There could have been papergirls, but Mr W. rather effectively discouraged that. When a girl applied for a slot, she was told of the bond requirement and not offered leeway. All applicants needed parental consent of course, and the female candidates were more thoroughly screened than the males, as were their parents. The horror stories about the risks for girls shot down most of the applications, and the chaperone requirement card downed the rest.

My first route was in a class by itself. It was a fifteen plus mile pull from the Herald plant to our country home, seemingly uphill in all directions, via a 120 spot delivery arrangement. It had been a motor route, and I rode with the folks who were resigning at month's end, to learn the route. Mr W explained the Herald's and his generosity in allowing me to keep forty cents of each customer's monthly seventy five cent subscription payment. He also gave me a list of several potential customers, some of whom were former customers that should be brought back into the fold. Ostensibly, my take would be about $48+ per month, but each no-pay took away seventy five cents of that.

We were allowed to turn in a small percentage of unsold papers for credit, provided that we physically returned the papers and explained in an acceptable way why we were wasting the Herald's resources. A number of those former customers had been cut off from delivery by the former carriers, for varying reasons. I didn't winnow much from that re-subscription effort. I later learned that the motor carriers had been getting fifty cents instead of my forty cents. Also, the Herald did the collections for them. The erstwhile carriers stated that the only reason they had the route in the first place was for help from the Herald with gas [rationing] stamps.

My second route, after we moved closer to town, was the entirety of East Texas street, from the Junction of U S 75 to as far east as there was human habitation, about six miles in length, but about 13 miles from the Plant to the end, and back to where we lived, at 1030 East Texas Street. This route was also uphill in all directions, especially on Sundays and in the rain, mud and snow. This one was a weekly subscription route, and also a "subsidized" configuration. At about 100 customers @ twenty cents per week, it was supposed to gross about $20 per week, and I was to keep twelve cents of the twenty cents. After listening to Mr Winkler's spiel re their incredible generosity, I learned that the deadbeat rate was nearly thrice that of the rural route.

I girded my loins, and respectfully requested an audience with Mr W, with the full intent of suggesting which orifice he could place the Herald and the system in. To my profound shock, he expressed much empathy, and like a Dutch Uncle, committed to taking my complaints under advisement, with "staff", whatever that meant. Nothing ever came of it, of course.I just this moment remembered, but I'll not go back to re-write: My $10.00 in stamps was handed back to me by Mr Winkler along with a hearty smile, and a man to man handshake, after all accounts were settled on my very last day, in February 1944. That was the only time I touched his person, or knew that any 'boy' did.

Then there came a welcome 22 plus year hiatus in this minimally gainful pursuit. But, remembering the universal axiom that a paper route and character training are two sides off the same coin, and having children who were fascinated with the idea, Audree and I gravely considered the pros and cons of applying this means of edification.

In early to mid 1965, I acquired an Operating Engineer Union card, and with the aid of Herb Taylor, my boss and friend, was able to suspend use of my Teamster union card, and switch to use of the Operating Engineer work status at a slightly higher pay rate. However, the down side of that switch was that the graveyard shift lead man got my day shift job, and I became graveyard shift lead man. More about that sort of thing later.

Arlington, Oregon and it's environs boasted four bicycle paper routes, but the system was constantly in a state of flux. This was partly because of the shifting population, and of the ongoing move of the city itself onto higher ground to accommodate the impending flooding of the John Day reservoir. FAH III as a strapping eleven year old, and Pamela, 21 months younger, were well qualified to handle paper routes, but the Oregonian's Columbia River distributor had reservations about their youngness.

A single advantage of working graveyard shift is that it allows a measure of quality time with the family. Thus it came about that we five, FAH II, Audree, FAH III, Pamela, and Steven John, b. 01 July 1960, assumed a monopoly on delivery of the Oregonian, including the coin op boxes, in and around Arlington. As FAH III was the central figure in this enterprise, I'll leave much of the telling to him. There were, however, a few anecdotes that he may not have been fully aware of. Some of these I'll chunk in from time to time while this work is building:

1. Raleigh [or Rollie, pronounced Rahlee] Cox, like William Shaxpere, and like myself, spelled his own name however it suited him at any given moment. At one point, Audree and I deemed it in our best interests to downsize our little empire, so Rollie was coming aboard to take on some or all of the distribution. Although Rollie knew everybody in town and all of their ancestors, and most of their scandals, he accompanied us sporadically to learn the route[s].

At this juncture, there came a glitch in my regular job pattern. I had about eighty pieces of earth moving equipment to service, and, since anti-freeze time is hectic every year, and requires considerable overtime to complete, I stayed over Saturday morning after finishing the Friday graveyard shift. I worked both the day and the swing shifts, making a continuous 24 hour stretch. As the time for the Saturday graveyard shift approached, I left instructions for the other two hands and went home. The plan had been for Audree and the kids, and Rollie, to deliver the Sunday Oregonian when it arrived about sundown. That inopportune Saturday it didn't arrive about sundown. It also didn't arrive about 10 pm as projected via a late notice phone call. It arrived around midnight, as did I.There were from one to six of us delivering papers that night. It was only a short distance/time from our house to any part of the routes, so we went forth and back, in a fox,goose, and corn mode, placing kids, parents, etc in safe and/or productive positions, as seemed fit. Largely, all were in a festive mood. We sang "Little Jimmy Brown" and other tear jerking ballads, and Rollie felt compelled to explain to each and every customer why the Sunday paper was "late" in the wee hours of Sunday morning. Some of them he had to awaken to render the explanation. All too many of them invited us in for a drink, and all too many times we accepted.

We picked up a half-case of Budweiser at Les Wheelhouse's Watering Hole just at closing time. I don't recommend this kind of bizarre behavior; I'm simply reporting it. Before this time, the kids were all bedded down, and Audree stayed with them part of the time; also, we'd go home to check on them between drops, and that tended to increase the work load. By sunup, Rollie was singing, "Here's yer mornin' paper, sir , muh name is Drunkie Brown" and other such nonsense. Strangely, some of that seemed amusing at the time. These odd happenings were not the end of our paper route days, but there were times when I fervently wished they had been.

...........to be continued.................

owl 5. Houseboy
Paradoxically, in a time of full employment, and an acute labor shortage, I had no job.Lemon Grove, California was, in October, 1942, a rural and distant underdeveloped suburb of San Diego. FAH Ist had "kicked the traces" on farming after "laying by" the 1942 Texas cotton crop. He took a shipyard job in San Diego, leaving Mom, Wayne, and me to gather the crop. With much help from Mr. Gilley, the 82 year old landowner, and others, we got the crop in early that year, and joined Dad in the golden state in October.

The housing shortage was acute, but FAH I (my dad) was ever resourceful. Joe Magnell, one of Dad's fellow transplants, [that was a catchall term for members of the hordes of defense workers], had an Aunt who owned a rather impressive home in Monterey Heights, a suburb of the suburb of Lemon Grove. The Aunt, Mrs. White, who was a widowed and quasi-retired RN, about seventy five years of age and, as events unfolded, proved to be a very gracious lady. On the day of our arrival, Mother stated her intention of soon going to work. Daddy at first, for whatever reasons, resisted the idea. I wasn't privy to any further exchanges on the subject, but as a matter of fact, Mother went to work for Lockheed Aircraft right away. She qualified as a riveter and was so paid, but each team of two riviters alternated between themselves the task of "bucking" the rivets on the obverse side of the work. Mom was better at, and preferred, the bucking.

Neither of our parents worked full time, by cotton patch criteria; Dad's work week was usually under 80 hours, and Mother's was usually under 60 hours (6x9=54)+ other overtime. The car pool commutes, however, lengthened their portal to portal time. Mom worked swing shift, and Dad worked night shift; pretty much all night long (6x12=72)+ other overtime.�.

Having no regular job other than attending school, my sophomore year at Grossmont High, I was assigned corollary employment in the Houseboy/Gopher mode. I was paid two dollars per week, and Wayne was paid, too, but I can't remember the amount. Some of my duties were inferred, rather than stated. To my knowledge, the modern day terms, baby sitter , latch key kids, juvenile delinquency, etc didn't exist in that time and place.

Unbeknownst to Wayne and me at the time, there was a tacit understanding between our parents and Mrs. White that our little community would be a safe and orderly one. It was. The term "houseboy" came more or less unbidden, into my vocabulary at this juncture. I do recall, hazily, [probably from Mrs. White] that a description of a houseboy's realm often included yard and home orchard work.

Mrs. White's shrunken estate was about one and a half acres. There was a vegetable garden, of course. There was the obligatory feminine requirement of flower beds, but Mrs. White generally didn't trust a male Caucasian in that bailiwick. She was quite able to attend to that. There were several avocado trees, everyone's favorites. There were two banana trees that brought forth woody fruit, not very desirable. The remainder, while impressive to cotton patch kids, was mediocre by California standards. The orchards had retrogressed in the previous decade, but still yielded lemons, limes, tangerines, oranges, three varieties of grapefruit and some citrus mixtures that even Mrs. White wouldn’t deign to name.

Wayne and I managed to get into our share of mischief, of course. It would have been unnatural to not do so. For instance, Lucifer matches were so named in the previous century, presumably because they were "bringers of light", but they can be devilish tools in the hands of inquisitive kids who need to know the flash points of various household substances. Some of these escapades I'll refrain from describing in detail, lest the descriptions prove dangerously tempting to younger readers.

For whatever perverse reasons, Wayne and I spent a lot of time and energy hiding from each other. Being five years the elder, and generally supposed to be more accountable, I felt superior, and felt justified in hiding from him in order to observe and monitor his deportment from a distance. Obviously I underestimated the complexity of his eight year old sense of intrigue. He often aced me in delightfully inducing a state of panic.

Mrs. White kept several elderly patients, all in the main house, and had one full time aide, plus assistance from her nephew, Buddy White, who, at 19, was a college sophomore. She found enough work for Buddy, that he had little time for frivolous pursuits such as outside employment, dating, or golf. She didn't exactly assign work to Wayne or me, but leading suggestions usually produced the desired results. I think it fair to say that Mrs. White was deeply imbued with the old fashioned work ethic, for all ambulatory humans of all ages.

Wayne and I were not employees, so pay was not an issue or subject for discussion. We were, however, rewarded fairly, if not lavishly for our labor.

Joe and Gladys Magnell, with their son Donnie, and Gladys' brother and his wife, had the larger "staff" house a slingshot stone's throw away. Our "cabin", presumably, had been housing for past staff that remained mysterious. Mrs. White was warm, supportive, and honest, but somehow not desirous of dwelling on the past. She recognized my inquisitive nature, but skillfully channeled it to constructive ends, such as mending fences.

My folks rented "the cabin" from Mrs. white for $50 per month. To my 13 year old Texas mind, that seemed an outrageous gouge, but in reality, it was more nearly a token charge. The cabin, about 30'x40' originally had been a several car garage, but had been impressively furnished and finished, probably to accommodate a small family of household staff. As previously stated, I was unable to learn the particulars of those days of yore. I simply thought of it as the houseboy house.

The Estate, sans the Magnell house, was walled in adobe on three sides, with a carefully crafted southern exposure providing a sense of comfort and privacy. None of the three gates were ever locked, but, but the locks were in place, to be used if needed.

Monterey Heights had many characteristics of a ghost town that never was. Located between Lemon Grove and Encanto, it was the site of an ambitious 1920's development project intended to spawn an upscale bedroom community for San Diego and an Eldorado for it's promoters. The streets were paved, many of the curbs and sidewalks were finished, and the storm sewer system was in place. There was not yet water or electricity, so there were no structures extant when bankruptcy wiped out further advance.�� In 1942-43 lots were for sale at $25 and up, but with wartime shortages of means and materials, there were no takers. My Dad and Joe, and others, spoke of buying in, speculatively, but none of them did.

Before 1960 that land was worth multiple millions of dollars. When Wayne took our Mom back to view the old place, sometime in the 60's or 70's or 80's, there were no vacant lots. Wayne estimated the property values at a quarter million and up. Today's estimates would be astronomical.

It could be said that Wayne and I were both houseboys. We pretty much shared the work, though not necessarily equally. We walked to the store in Lemon Grove every Saturday and carried the week's groceries home. Sometimes it took two trips. We didn't own a car, so it was pretty much a pedestrian life for those not in car pools. For Wayne and me, the round trip to town was seven days a week. Church on the first day, school on the next five, and shopping, the seventh. Wayne was in third grade at Lemon Grove elementary school, and I saw him in each day before catching the school bus to Grossmont.

My Dad took several decades to decide whether or not he was a farmer. Likely, he never fully resolved the question. Bureaucracy burgeoned in the 30's and 40's and brought about many restrictions on personal liberty that had been taken for granted. A particular ukase emanating from the WPB (War Production Board), was singularly offensive to FAH I's yeoman mind. Defense industry jobs were "frozen", ostensibly to maintain a productive work force. The snafus resultant from attempted enforcement of that edict were horrendous. Many outraged folk expressed the opinion that FDR and his minions were puppets for Josep Stalin and his minions.

Initially FAH I had been hired as a plumber, a job he was ill suited for, and dissatisfied with. He was much better qualified to be a carpenter, but he came in on plumber hiring day. All the applicants needed to know was that effluent runs downhill and payday is on Friday. One of Dad's apocryphal renditions of this uncomfortable time was that while "hiding out" (under orders) for the first several nights, he noticed a stranger surreptitiously following him. Fearing that he and his foreman would be cited for goldbricking, fraud, or worse, he duly reported the fact, and his foreman replied, "Of course he's following you; he's your helper."

Dad successfully bid on a specific carpenter job, day shift, I think, and arranged for the necessary changes re transportation and security clearance. He bought a 14 year old Model A Ford, and got a class B gasoline ration card. Then the hammer fell. His carpenter job was held up because he hadn't been released from his plumber job. It was only a matter of filling out and filing several reams of paper, and waiting patiently and obsequiously for the ponderous bureaucratic wheels to turn in his favor, but subservience and patience were never Dad's long suits.

Harvey-like, he made an end run around the problem. The government perceived a shortage of farmers, so lo and behold, a corridor opened to grant exit from his plumbership. Mother was released from her frozen state, of course, for in those days a wife's obligation to her husband trumped government claims. Houseboys were never accorded their just due; we weren't even recognized in the scheme of things. Dad promoted enough gas ration stamps take the Model A back to the gumbo prairie, so we headed east, thus reversing the previous decade's "Grapes of Wrath" picture of itinerant labor. Our little clan experienced many other forms of more or less gainful employment over the ensuing years, but March 1943 was the end of our professional forays into plumbing, rivet bucking, and houseboying.

owl 4. Cotton Pickin'
To paraphrase our Uncle Albert [1903-1993]: I've been a farmer all my life.........'course I didn't do much the first year or so except milkin' an' strowin' fertilizer....

Fannin county, Texas exploded in development during the latter half of the nineteenth century; Its several communities prospered hugely and established norms for life in that time and place. Our Great Uncle Charley Harvey, Grandpa Babe's older brother 1868-1948 was, in the early 1930s, the latter day sole proprietor of the Ely community that had boasted about 1000 souls around the turn of the century.

Fannin county, and much of the adjacent territory turned and remained prosaic in all of the twentieth century. Sometime between April 1994 and May 2004, the population of Ely reached zero. Primarily agricultural, the county, along with the rest of our planet, experienced dramatic changes throughout the latter half of the twentieth century. King Cotton died--all over the nation. Fannin county seemingly experienced both dynamism and stagnation, and, while continuing to ride the coattails of general prosperity, it remains, possibly forever, both agricultural and imperturbable.

In days of yore, particularly in the 1930s and 1940s, Cotton was King. Eli Whitney hadn't concerned himself with its laborious gathering. We were critically immersed in concern for its profitable harvest. Among my earliest memories, Cotton was a main focal point. Fannin county, Texas, like the rest of the world, was in the throes of the Great Depression, but wasn't the most poverty stricken of our national parts. In fact, remuneration was mildly lucrative for those willing to work all day, every day, six days a week.

Sunday was regarded as"the Lord's day" in the "Bible Belt", and no work was done therein, except four to ten hours of animal husbandry, unfinished domestic chores such as wood cutting, cleanup, home repair, etc.; but there were exceptions to that rule, due to changeable weather, crop anxiety, and unadulterated greed.

"All day" meant the non chore time between first light and slap dab dark, plus whatever work time could be wrenched from moonlit nights. In 1933 my Daddy, Frank Allan Harvey I, with considerable help from kith and kin, and, likely, from Our Benevolent Creator, brought forth a bumper crop of cotton. As I recall, both from memory and from contemporaneous lore, these are the highlights of that year and that crop:

1. I never heard the term "sharecropper" uttered at any time in that era. For whatever reasons, they were simply called farmers. A typical farmer owned a little land and rented more. My paternal Grandpa's holdings had been in this range, but he never controlled enough dirt to accommodate all of his "Git". My 24 year old father didn't own any land at the time so he had scant wherewithal to operate on, but our family reputation counted for something.The term sharecropper likely would have fit in most or many cases, but it wasn't used among the principals, that I know of.

2. My folks' contractual lot was [I think] forty designated acres, plus several ill defined "patches", plus an indeterminate swatch of "new ground' that my Dad, and others before him had been wresting from the unforgiving black gumbo prairie for nine plus decades prior to that time. Stump and rock removal from "new ground" assured the farmers that they need not be anxious about unstructured time.

3. Landowners,countywide, generally, and in this case specifically, were dirt poor like their tenants. It was a hardscrabble way of life. There was no Aristocracy.

4. There was no money. There was very little credit. It was a mark of distinction, and of necessity, to have established enough credibility in the community to minimally function as a contract farmer. Those who didn't reach that threshold sought day labor and catfish and poke greens and wild onions and soft bellied turtles.

5. My folks had two of my Dad's Arkansas cousins,Oscar and Ernest Lambert, plus a Yarnaby, Oklahoma acquaintance, Luther McEwen, involved in their endeavor. Also my Mother's widowed sister, our Aunt Lorene, and her progeny were with us much of the year.

6. I was "credited" a penny a pound for the cotton that I picked that year. At age four [or close] that was the catalyst for my cotton pickin' greed. I probably earned between two and four dollars at that unrealistic rate that year. Would surely like to see the original payroll record. I'm confident that my credited earnings were fully delivered.

7. My Dad and another cousin, Gus Burchfield, had some kind of convoluted arrangement with Tass Faro, the landowner. Tass was likely hard pressed to make his mortgage payments, but of course, the bank didn't want to foreclose. What could a bank do with a section of black gumbo prairie?

8. On one occasion [or maybe several] my Dad bespoke to his immediate household a notion for an early start for the following morning, and as in a WalMart pep rally, the troops heartily agreed. A number of them, unknown to any of the others, set the singular alarm clock ahead one hour. Consequently, they arrived in the cotton patch not long after midnight, observed that the moon hadn't advanced to its appointed place, and were astounded to hear Dad's cousin Gus inquire of his wife, Ola [Vera's and Ross' Mom], "Olar, how much did we git that first weighin'?

9. Generally, womenfolk, particularly mothers, only worked eight to ten hours in the fields. Of course they had extra minor chores such as housekeeping, food preparation, washing, sewing, mending, canning, milking cows,tending to chickens and hogs,etc.

10. My Dad borrowed or somehow promoted means to provide each of his two cousins a new pair of shoes and new pair of overalls, and a crisp Yankee Dollar. That was risky for him because it was before the cotton was sold. Anyway, that was their [the Lamberts] total wages.

11. Luther McEwen averred to Uncle Albert that "thangs are goin' purty good at Frank's but he's got a purty sore hand. He went to light the lamp this mornin' an' took aholt of the lamp globe afore it had cooled off frum blowin' it out."

12. As I recall [hearing], my dad came out with twelve Yankee dollars in the black in December that year, after all accounts were settled. He paid off the remaining $3.00 medical bill stemming from my terrestrial debut in 1929. It isn't clear whether or not that came out of the $12.00. My brother Wayne [1934-1990] was born the following year, and his natal expense wasn't amortized until several years later. One wonders where Daddy squandered the rest of that $12.00.

We moved from the Ely area to the Ector area indirectly, haphazardly, in stages, and for no clear reasons. Ector school district, like most area wide school districts tailored its academic year to the harvest. We had six weeks of school, starting in mid July; then six weeks "vacation" before resuming our quest for secular edification. Under this format, I was an eleven year young freshman in July 1941.

In many severe instances, I'm told, people worked for only room and board in the 1930s, and their board was mostly cornbread and milk, but we didn't experience that degree of penury. Cotton pickin' paid from about thirty five cents per hundred pounds in the Texas 1930s to about $3.75 per hundredweight average in the California mid 1950s.

Nodding to the social reforms that didn't go overboard regarding child labor usage, I'm grateful for my background. Unlike many kids, I was permitted and encouraged to keep and manage all my earnings. Of course, we were expected to pay our own expenses such as school supplies and school clothes, or the material to make the clothes. We weren't charged for room and board until later years when we thought it cool to quit school and work full time .

California's San Joaquin valley was a veritable paradise for a cotton picker. A la Merle Haggard, we arrived a year and a half after his "California Cotton fields" subject did, and I remember well the Tulare dust that he sang of. Whereas my top day had been slightly over 300 pounds of Texas cotton, I met and raised my production goals steadily over the next five years to over 700 pounds per day. Not every day, of course. 700 pounds was the lofty acme that I reached a few times.In some rare cases, those who were willing to glean behind the developing and inefficient mechanical cotton picking machinery were paid up to $9.00 per 100, but for obvious reasons, that was not a productive program.

The San Joaquin valley's west side was favorable for cotton pickers over its east side for these reasons:
1. Its relatively sparse population resulted in a labor shortage during peak harvest time.
2. The whole valley's agricultural work force, both migrant and stationary, tended to remain on the east side, where work was more diverse and accommodations more abundant.
3. The west side's crop was almost exclusively cotton, and was planted on fewer ranches, of massive acreage; ergo the farm labor contractors, who had more than half of the cotton harvest under contract, were obliged to be much more lenient regarding standards of purity, in order to complete their contracts. Cotton gins, in earlier years were unable to efficiently remove extraneous material, so pickers were expected to "pre-gin" in the fields.Some of the eastside small farmers still expected it. We picked cotton "rough as a cob", pushing the envelope all the way. In one instance, in 1955 I hired out to run a DW-10 [Caterpillar scraper] on a land leveling project, @ $1.10 per hour, but went back to picking cotton because, by that time, I could top $2.00 per hour pulling a 15 foot picksack.
4. The west side's burgeoning development was, largely, a post World War II phenomenon, and some aspects of it had not yet been fully and efficiently exploited by entrepreneurs. We wolf and wolverine cotton pickers exploited the remaining possible advantages however and whenever we could.
5. The scant available labor force was further depleted by a chronic demand for semi-skilled operators of equipment used in irrigation/drainage and land leveling projects, advanced technology farm machinery, and movement of product within the cotton based industry.
6. West side cotton tended to be of uniform size and, with the advent of chemical defoliation, was gathered all at once, rather than in the old style first pickin', second pickin', third pickin' mode.
7. There was no formal hiring involved. You drove around, saw what you liked, dropped your picksack at the nether end of the first unclaimed row and commenced gathering. You drew cash or a printed ticket at the scale, and the beat went on. In very rare instances a picker might be fired by the "tromp boss" after dumping an extremely rough gathering, but it didn't mean much. You could gather another sackful, draw your cash or ticket, and dump again. Chances were the tromp boss wouldn't recognize you if your present dump was passable. All cotton pickers look alike anyway. And if you're fired twice, there's another field next to that one. Every weighin' was a brand new job.

August 1953 was an eventful time. With my wife, Audree [1934-2002], and my wild cousin Bill [1930-1959], I was again pickin'cotton. I'd left a good paying Euc* spread job in Oregon, and we had covered many miles in a short while, just missing more good paying jobs in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, etc. Late August is first pickin' time in Texas when it's 110 degrees in the shade, and there's no shade.

*Euc: Euclid earth moving equipment and/or, collectively, as in Euc spread, an earth moving project utilizing largely Eucs.

Audree was definitely a trooper. Really. But she wasn't born in a cotton patch like some of us had been. She had neither hat nor bonnet, so she fashioned a head cover from my navy neckerchief. That tended to retain heat, of course. Her being three months pregnant was another minus. She was able to gather almost as much cotton as my seven year old niece did, for a while. About ten pounds of cotton in a sack makes a fairly comfortable seat. Audree, reflecting on the benign Oregon weather and the miles between it and us, declared with sweat drenched weariness, "this kid'll have wheels for arms and legs and a cotton boll for a head."

That remark came to be more prophetic than hyperbolic. Frank III hit the deck a runnin' on 13 Febuary 1954. A true tow head, he learned to walk several years later; in the meantime running, mostly, I think, to be in several places at the same time. He, Harvey like, hewed to his own schedule and arrived an hour and a half before his maternal Grandma's forty first birthday anniversary began. She, Grandma Frances, b.14 February 1913, had prenatally assigned her own birth date as Frank III's birth date. Like his later siblings, Frank tends to march to his own drummer. But a la Roy Clark, he never picked cotton.

Our daughter, Pamela, made her debut on 02 November 1955 in Roseburg, Oregon. Until late October that year I had been working steadily since the 1953 wild goose chase, but had bought and was making monthly payments on a house, a new Ford pickup, a washing machine, a dining room set, a bedroom set, and who can remember what all else. There was no solid medical coverage in the construction game then but I managed the pre-natal and hospital bills. The times were easier than the 1930s had been.

Facing the difficulty of stretching unemployment checks to battle the front door wolf, I remembered the easy money route of cotton pickin'. It turned out that 1955 was the very last year for that lucrative pursuit, and that it had already become much less lucrative than in former times.

Parking Audree and the kids with my parents temporarily, I'd made a deal to share expenses with Jerry Tembrock, an acquaintance, so we partnered and made a bee line for the West Side haven of White Gold. In Corcoran, California my Oregon license plate attracted attention from "Dobbin", an Oregon expatriate. More of him later.

The work was there all right. I lit into it with the fervor of a maniac. Had a couple of pretty good days. The third day, my wrists screamed in agony. It was something akin to carpal tunnel syndrome, I suppose, but I didn't speak much anatomical jargon, and still don't, so I bowed my neck and agonizingly forced my will on the outrageous circumstances. That was one of the longest days of my life up to that time. At one point, I shed the first tears of my adult life, (in a fit of rage, agony and self pity).

My partner Jerry, was a Minnesota Catholic, a frustrated ex-C.I.A. operative (that was documented), a mildly successful salesman type, a purveyor of promotional hype, an honest (by his lights) man, a true workaholic, a whistle blower (which was why he was ex-C.I. A.), a holder of two bachelor's degrees, and a Doctoral aspirant. He was many things, but a cotton picker he was not. As I dimly recall, Jerry had his first and only 200+ pound day that [third] day and, by sheer will and bullheadedness, I topped him by about four pounds. As I imperfectly remember, that was Jerry's last cotton pickin' day. He was not enthralled with the program. I truly cannot recall the specific circumstances of Jerry's departure, except that it was done with amity and mutual respect.

We had met and pooled with "Dobbin" on our first day in the valley. That first day was not a work day because it had rained, in a tropical way, and it was nearly sundown when we arrived in Corcoran. Charles [or maybe James, or Samuel; I can't remember] Dobbins was a castaway from Sweet Home, Oregon. As I faintly recall, he was native to the Willamette Valley. [Truth, wherever you encounter it, is often stranger than fiction.] Dobbin was a WWII vet and didn't want to talk about it [WWII]. In his cups, tho, he spoke at some length on many other subjects.Dobbin was a well rounded tire man, having left a lengthy career of tire work behind him. He'd worked for the likes of Les Schwab, or whatever predominated in the mid-Willamette valley in his time. I really can't imagine why Dobbin was seeking tire work in the San Joaquin valley's west side in 1955 but quin sabe? He was ever so slightly amused when I pointed out to him that cotton pickin' was indeed "tire" work.

Dobbin proved, rather than stated, his worth as a friend and fellow human. I'm saddened to have lost contact with him. Dobbin was many things, and, maybe, many people, but a cotton picker he was not. A loyal friend he was. I cherish the memories of Dobbin and many other cotton pickers and would be cotton pickers.

The late autumn of 1955 would not have been a propitious time for any agricultural endeavors. Bullheadedly, I fought logic and common sense.----[story of my life]...............We experienced rain, fog, inflamed wrists, [I think Dobbin was either tougher or more desperate than Jerry...], mild hunger, agonizing choices between 28 cent gasoline and 29 cent baloney, and other impedimenta.

Dobbin and I, sharing immediate expenses, made a round trip to Oregon. He visited his estranged family in Sweet Home, using my heavily mortgaged 1955 Ford pickup [to my Dad's outraged horror].....Well, some naive trusts turn out well and some do not.

I brought my expanded family to abide with me in the Golden State.[..pretty much what I had had in mind in November 1952.]

The trip back to the San Joaquin valley was a whole 'nother story. I rented cheap accomodations for my growing family in Porterville, and charged Dobbin for half the rent, which he gladly paid.I maintained the rent payments in California, and maintained the various monthly committed payments on the Oregon expenditures. However, I was unable, even with Dobbin's full support, to amass enough money to meet the required deposit to provide electricity for my family. We had heat, as I had been able to meet the California Edison gas company's deposit demand. It was kind of a downer to come home with no money, to a candlelit cabin, but not totally a disaster.

Again, Audree was a trooper. She took it all well, and, I think, understood, 'tho perhaps she didn't fully agree with my fanaticism re financial discipline. We ate adequately, and rather well, generally. For entertainment we went over to visit Uncle Albert, et al.

The fog rolled in...I hadn't fully learned in previous encounters that the San Joaquin valley fogs can and do destroy the best laid plans of mice, men and cotton pickin' mercenaries. In mid to late November, we were compelled to stand by each day until the cotton was deemed dry enough to pick! Each day! Every day! In one instance, 28 November, I think, we pulled a zero. Stood by till about noon and swallowed a ukase to the effect that it was a non day!

During this unfamiliar time, I continued to minimally meet my contracted payments to those to whom I had committed. Rightly or not, that was paramount. As my progenitors had declared, and as my immediate mentors had added: Baby's milk First, Union dues Second, personal honor next and anything after that, negotiable. Hard to say how much blind luck was involved, but I was never late a day on any payment, nor did my family suffer hunger.

On or about the fifteenth of December 1955, my cotton pickin' career ended. I'm prone to look back nostalgically and reflectively, but never regretfully. So be it.

Our daughter developed, as daughters are wont to do, into a very grand daughter. She grew to appreciate very small flowers, and, generally, all living things. But a la Roy Clark, she never picked cotton..

Although my sporadic schooling, my mediocre and relatively short military career, my embarkation on the stormy sea of matrimony, my commencement of fatherhood with its myriad demands, and my perseverance in carving out a niche in the construction game made many heavy hits on my cotton pickin' ambitions, it was the infernal cotton pickin' machine that finally did us all in. Like John Henry, who was immortalized by the Smothers Brothers, we were laid low by technology. [Yew know yew cain't beat a steam drill!]

Well, you can take a boy out of the country, but you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear or roller skate in a buffalo herd. But, contrary to Roger Miller, you CAN go swimmin' in a watermelon patch. More of that another time.

..to be continued...

owl 2. Work Ethic
History's influential characters were laborers before they were noteworthy:

Adam was a gardener, although not well focused.

Cain was a farmer and Abel raised sheep. Those two occupations still tend to clash.

Noah was a shipwright, and after about 100 years in the trade became the first Fleet Admiral.

Many folk from Abraham to Amos were shepherds, and I can attest from hands on experience that herding such domestic critters is work.

Jesus was a carpenter, and the apostle Paul a tentmaker.

Euro-centric history tends to focus on celebrities, but any honest in depth account of successful cultural development reveals the necessity of allowing productive workers to realize some measure of satisfaction from their efforts. Any system that overly exploits and enslaves its workers is inherently self destructive.

On a personal level, I learned by example that there is gainful employment available for anyone who wants it, yes even the "disabled". Even 'tho we tend to let object lessons fade over time, a singular happening stays in my memory, and has served me well over the past several decades:

My Dad had just finished a labor intensive irrigation job out of Tulare, California in mid August 1944, and took me with him to Porterville to cast about for another job. We rented a small cabin, which wasn't quite ready for occupancy. Told that it would be ready later that day, we started exploring. We stopped at a farm labor camp where there was an enormous oak shade tree with built in benches and tables. There were 12 to 15 people, mostly adult men, lounging about, drinking ice tea, and bemoaning how slack the work picture was. It was a time between cultivation and harvest, so it was indeed slow. We visited with them a while, then Dad told me to watch our 'stuff' while he looked around a bit. He took off on foot, as we had no car at the time.

I truly enjoyed visiting with those people. They were hospitable, full of good humor, and not really too distressed about their temporary idleness. And Porterville was another new world for my growing collection of worlds. Time passed quickly. Dad was back in about two hours. He exchanged a few pleasantries with them, and said to me, "Let's go see if the cabin is ready." It was. We took our 'stuff' in. Among our 'stuff' was enough snack items for a meager single lunch. Dad gave me a couple of 1944 dollars to go grocery shopping, but told me to make his lunch out of what we had while he took a bath. He had to be to work at six p.m. There was no lecture, no crowing. Just matter of fact statements. His newly acquired job was running a prune and raisin dehydrator, 12 hours a night, 7 nights a week for about a three month season.

As he left for work, I reflected on the pleasant day just ending. I kinda wished Daddy had heard all the amazing yarns those guys spun. The guys were not deadbeats, they were simply between jobs. And they were right about work being slack. Not once while I was enjoying the shade, iced tea and atmosphere there with them did anybody stop by to offer us gainful employment.

..to be continued..............