Part 8
Letters came from grandfather and Uncle Gene, telling us that he was well and on the road to recovery. Then, unexpectedly, word came that grandfather was gone, already in his grave. I felt sure that if somehow I had been able to get to him to help him, that he would still be alright. My sense of personal loss was deep and hurt greatly.
To be alone one day soon afterwards I skipped school once again and began climbing the high hills above our house. Following a trail that wound in and around ever larger trees I steadily climbed toward the tallest peaks of the Pinal Mountains.
After a long climb alone up the mountain a large buck deer suddenly broke my sad and brooding mood as he bounded away in great leaps. I had seen a great many antelope on our ranch in New Mexico, but never had I seen a deer in the wild, and I was simply awed by its size, strength and beauty.
As the deer bounded away my sadness seemed to leave with it. I knew grandfather would have enjoyed seeing that deer with me, and thought to myself that maybe he was watching as I climbed the mountain and saw that beautiful buck.
No longer feeling alone, an additional climb up the trail brought me face to face with a beautiful, friendly bay horse that carried a star blaze on his forehead and three white stocking feet. We looked at each other, neither of us fearful.
I spoke to him and held out my hand. He came and touched my fingers. I put my hand on his face and he did not draw back. Patting his neck and talking to him, I knew he was pleased to see me. I wanted to ride him but did not have even a string or belt with me to use for a bridle, so I started on up the trail again as he followed along keeping me company.
I had not ridden a horse since we left our ranch. While watching the horse over my shoulder my foot tangled in a long trailing wild vine runner, and I thought to make it into a bridle so I could ride the horse. Finding still other vine runners I twisted them into a crude halter with a single rein. When I had it properly on the horses head I grabbed his mane and climbed onto his back.
He sensed I was a good rider and responded to my wishes, taking me up a long ridge trail until we entered pine forests high on the mountain. I found that I needed no rein with him. He went wherever I wanted him to go simply by the pressure of my knees against his sides.
As the steepest part of the big mountain loomed above us, a small clearing in the trees with a trickling stream of water was located. Looking back down the trail there was spread out before me a marvelous view of the town, the mine, and the smelter with its tall stack pouring out a great stream of white sulfur smoke that flowed away to the northeast.
The morning hours and early afternoon passed in that peaceful place, then I mounted the horse again and rode towards home. When we arrived at the spot where we had met on the trail I removed the halter and told him to go his way and not follow me as I hiked back home.
That day, drinking in the beauty of that quiet high mountain side solitude, was a soul refreshing experience in the wake of losing my grandfather. Finding a new horse friend, and seeing a buck deer for the first time, helped me get past the shock of knowing I would no longer have grandfather in my life as my own special person, someone who loved me unconditionally just as I loved him.
Adjusting later on to a new High School, new home, new friends and new school mates was once again an emotional experience, made more so because I was at the dramatic age of being a freshman. There is without any doubt no more confusing time in life than the teenage years, at least that was how it seemed to me, and honestly I am tempted to skip any telling of these times except that my readers might forever wonder why.
High school years for me were filled with a many exciting and satisfying events and activities, as well as with all the personal challenges and pitfalls that come as a boy grows towards manhood. Athletics played an important part of school life, with basketball my favorite sport. I also enjoyed football, baseball and track in season. Track events and baseball often conflicted, so I concentrated on baseball and ran only sprint events whenever possible.
I suppose I was odd looking at that time, neither boy or man, not very tall, yet exceptionally strong and fast for my age. Only one person, a junior, could at times beat me in a dash, even though my legs were bowed, which I guess came from growing up on horseback. My hair was natural cut, with straight cut bangs.
With a front tooth knocked out by a bad hop baseball while in grade school in New Mexico, I greeted the world with a "one tooth minus smile" for many years. Whatever athletic contests I took part in were done with intense abandon, seeking to be seen as the equal of anyone who might have been physically larger than myself. Having been dubbed "the little bulldog" years earlier because of my no holds barred approach to sports, that nick name stuck throughout my school years.
High School years passed by, and although I never considered myself as having had much to start with, I discovered there was room for a lot of growing and began to enjoy the journey more and more.
A time to develop, I think, is what the teen years are all about; socially, in knowledge, in one's physical skills, in understanding self as well as others, in learning to constructively philosophize, and in seeking to understand and make sense of the conflicts between competing religious ideas.
My senior year saw me greatly changed from the raw boned freshman I had begun High School as. Playing in the final basketball game of my High School carrier against our traditional rival school, we were competing for our state conference championship and a shot at an undefeated season. We won that contest and I was cited the following day in our local newspaper by the sports editor as a "flashing comet in a game of stars".
Making that event even more special, my High School girlfriend was in the stands cheering me on, and she remained at my side following the game. Somewhere along this growing up trail my front tooth was replaced by our town's Dentist, and at about the same time I adopted a neatly trimmed, parted in the middle hair style, all of which was a big improvement.
Each summer during High School I found work in town. One summer I worked delivering blocks of ice to homes so people could keep food and drinks cool in their iceboxes. This was before electric powered refrigerators were common. Other summers I worked in the assay department for Inspiration Copper Company, and each summer I spent two full weeks at scout camp on Tonto Creek in the mountains near Payson.
My High School years ended in 1929, the year of our nation's great economic crash. Several years of steep decline and stalemate in national economic growth followed, and many mining families, with work cut off, moved away leaving the bustling, aggressive community of Miami, Arizona at almost a complete standstill. The only work left at the mines was in maintenance, keeping equipment in shape and ready to work when copper prices rose again and production resumed.
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I.O.'s story continues at the following link:
http://rltdsr.blogspot.com/
Friday, March 28, 2008
Part 7
My first day of school in Miami was an unforgettable experience. I went alone, knowing absolutely no one. At the bottom of a hill I was directed up a path to the top where I was told I would find the school. The path was straight and steep, with steps in the steepest places. Along both sides of the path, sitting partly on the steep hill and partly on supporting poles, were miner's houses.
Half-way up I caught sight of the school, a building such as I had never dreamed existed. It was so big and beautiful it startled me. I was more scared with each halting step. Twice I turned to go back home. My mother would have been disappointed had I not enrolled that day, so it was for her sake alone that I finally arrived at the foot of the broad steps spread the full width of a massive porch, the roof of which was supported by giant fluted pillars with carvings and scroll work at the top. These rose so high that I could not imagine for the life of me how such a thing had ever been made.
Boys and girls my age and older were going up the stairs and through the great doors into the buildings. They were dressed in neat, clean clothes, some even wearing what I thought of as "fancy clothes", but no one had on big ribbed black stockings with long underwear knots on the legs like me. And no one had on knickers with button straps just below the knees. In my eyes they all looked so confident, and I felt that I looked exactly like what I suddenly realized I was, a frightened little boy.
Two boys I had seen go into the building ahead of me came back out in a matter of minutes and headed straight for me. One of them said, "You're new. I'm Richard Thuma. This is my friend Leigh Gardner. We're in the seventh grade. What grade are you in?" He was so nice and clean and handsome in his beautiful clothes, and I was so relieved to have someone actually notice me. I poured out information about myself, and they walked me to the Principal's office where I enrolled in school.
Finding myself in the same class with Leigh and Richard, somehow I was able to survive that first confusing day, made all the more so because we never stayed in the same room with one teacher except for one class. As the current hour's class ended everyone got up and moved to another room and another teacher for their next class. This was a strange way to conduct school from my point of view, and I was quite ill at ease that day.
I had no books, pencils, pens, or paper with me. Each student furnished his or her own supplies, which could be purchased at the school bookstore. However I had no money with me to buy anything, but classmates shared with me, and each teacher was helpful and kind.
I became self conscious during my first class at this new school when someone asked how I lost my front tooth. Lottie Crabtree, the school librarian and class instructor, became my friend forever when she said, "I.O., you have the most charming one tooth minus smile I have ever seen. I know you're planning to have a new tooth put in but please don't hurry about it." I knew that she was explaining to my classmates, once and for all, exactly what I wanted to say, while telling me at the same time that I looked fine, even without my front tooth, until my parents could afford to have it fixed.
The most distressing thing that first day was learning there was a physical education class and that each person had to have his own gym clothes and tennis shoes. Not being able to participate because I didn't have the necessary clothing or shoes, I sat on the side lines and watched. I did not go into the locker rooms, and could only wonder about getting undressed in front of strangers. I had never in my life been naked in front of anyone except my own family, and was certainly glad that I didn't have to dress out for P.E. my first day at this new school.
By the end of the final class that day I was about to burst with the need to get home and talk to mother about the strange way things were done at this beautiful new school. Before that day was over mother took me to the J.C. Penney store where we purchased my first ever long legged trousers, tennis shoes, a gym suit and two shirts – the first clothing she had not made for me herself. My pride and confidence were greatly renewed by these valuable and prized possessions, and I went to school the next day without any real doubts in my mind or fears in my heart.
The starting wage for a new workman in the mines was $4.40 per day. We were a typical miner’s family, and quickly slipped into the payday to payday routine that is standard fare in mining towns. Purchasing supplies at the company store with the limit on the amount that could be had on credit not to exceed the amount of the expected paycheck, still we saved enough from dad's earnings and mother’s thrifty approach to finally move into a better house and buy some furniture and new clothes.
Money from the sale of the grazing land in New Mexico came in occasionally. There was also a bit of income from the sale of the few horses we had left at the ranch. Fortunately there was no sickness in our family. We attended Church and Sunday school, and us boys joined the Boy Scouts. The younger children started school when they reached the proper age. We used the same little Model T Ford car we had arrived in throughout the years we lived in Miami.
School was an enjoyable and pleasant routine. Youth programs at the YMCA were inviting, occupying a great deal of our leisure time. Without distractions such as TV, which consumes so much of people's time today, my brother Chuck and I soon had our own paper routes, selling newspapers on the streets of Miami to earn money for use as we saw fit.
The task of adjusting to a new school and community was not lessened by the loss of my grandfather's counsel and gentle companionship. When we heard from Uncle Gene that grandfather had broken his hip, I felt so sorry for him that I secretly made plans to run away and return to New Mexico, where I could be with him and take care of him. Leaving home for school at the usual hour I hurried instead down the hill to the highway. Soon a car stopped and gave me a ride to Globe. Another car gave me a ride from Globe to Bylas.
By mid-morning, as I was nearing Ft. Thomas, I began to realize that I did not have enough money to feed myself all the way to New Mexico. I was thinking a lot about baby Betty Flo and mother, and love for my family filled my heart to breaking. Thoughts of maybe never seeing them again changed my mind about the trip. At Ft. Thomas I walked across to the other side the road for a drink of water at a gas station. The driver of a new car that was stopped at the station asked if I was going his way. "Where are you going?", I asked. "To Globe" he replied. "May I ride with you, really?" "Sure, hop in", he said, and in a few minutes I was on my way back home again.
I don't remember the answers I gave to questions he asked about who I was and where I was going. I think I must have been rather convincing, otherwise he might have stopped and put me out. I remember asking what time it was as we neared Miami.
Realizing it was still early enough to be back home at the same time I always arrived home from school, I strolled casually into the house as mother poured a glass of milk for me. Then she asked me to go to the store for her. Somehow I expected her to ask where I had been that day, for I thought surely someone would have told her that I had not been in school.
Days passed without any hint that she was aware of my leaving, and finally that aborted trip was put out of mind. I wrote to grandfather and told him that when he was able to travel we had a home now and wanted him to come live with us, but I did not mention my attempted travel adventure.
-------------------------------------------------------
My first day of school in Miami was an unforgettable experience. I went alone, knowing absolutely no one. At the bottom of a hill I was directed up a path to the top where I was told I would find the school. The path was straight and steep, with steps in the steepest places. Along both sides of the path, sitting partly on the steep hill and partly on supporting poles, were miner's houses.
Half-way up I caught sight of the school, a building such as I had never dreamed existed. It was so big and beautiful it startled me. I was more scared with each halting step. Twice I turned to go back home. My mother would have been disappointed had I not enrolled that day, so it was for her sake alone that I finally arrived at the foot of the broad steps spread the full width of a massive porch, the roof of which was supported by giant fluted pillars with carvings and scroll work at the top. These rose so high that I could not imagine for the life of me how such a thing had ever been made.
Boys and girls my age and older were going up the stairs and through the great doors into the buildings. They were dressed in neat, clean clothes, some even wearing what I thought of as "fancy clothes", but no one had on big ribbed black stockings with long underwear knots on the legs like me. And no one had on knickers with button straps just below the knees. In my eyes they all looked so confident, and I felt that I looked exactly like what I suddenly realized I was, a frightened little boy.
Two boys I had seen go into the building ahead of me came back out in a matter of minutes and headed straight for me. One of them said, "You're new. I'm Richard Thuma. This is my friend Leigh Gardner. We're in the seventh grade. What grade are you in?" He was so nice and clean and handsome in his beautiful clothes, and I was so relieved to have someone actually notice me. I poured out information about myself, and they walked me to the Principal's office where I enrolled in school.
Finding myself in the same class with Leigh and Richard, somehow I was able to survive that first confusing day, made all the more so because we never stayed in the same room with one teacher except for one class. As the current hour's class ended everyone got up and moved to another room and another teacher for their next class. This was a strange way to conduct school from my point of view, and I was quite ill at ease that day.
I had no books, pencils, pens, or paper with me. Each student furnished his or her own supplies, which could be purchased at the school bookstore. However I had no money with me to buy anything, but classmates shared with me, and each teacher was helpful and kind.
I became self conscious during my first class at this new school when someone asked how I lost my front tooth. Lottie Crabtree, the school librarian and class instructor, became my friend forever when she said, "I.O., you have the most charming one tooth minus smile I have ever seen. I know you're planning to have a new tooth put in but please don't hurry about it." I knew that she was explaining to my classmates, once and for all, exactly what I wanted to say, while telling me at the same time that I looked fine, even without my front tooth, until my parents could afford to have it fixed.
The most distressing thing that first day was learning there was a physical education class and that each person had to have his own gym clothes and tennis shoes. Not being able to participate because I didn't have the necessary clothing or shoes, I sat on the side lines and watched. I did not go into the locker rooms, and could only wonder about getting undressed in front of strangers. I had never in my life been naked in front of anyone except my own family, and was certainly glad that I didn't have to dress out for P.E. my first day at this new school.
By the end of the final class that day I was about to burst with the need to get home and talk to mother about the strange way things were done at this beautiful new school. Before that day was over mother took me to the J.C. Penney store where we purchased my first ever long legged trousers, tennis shoes, a gym suit and two shirts – the first clothing she had not made for me herself. My pride and confidence were greatly renewed by these valuable and prized possessions, and I went to school the next day without any real doubts in my mind or fears in my heart.
The starting wage for a new workman in the mines was $4.40 per day. We were a typical miner’s family, and quickly slipped into the payday to payday routine that is standard fare in mining towns. Purchasing supplies at the company store with the limit on the amount that could be had on credit not to exceed the amount of the expected paycheck, still we saved enough from dad's earnings and mother’s thrifty approach to finally move into a better house and buy some furniture and new clothes.
Money from the sale of the grazing land in New Mexico came in occasionally. There was also a bit of income from the sale of the few horses we had left at the ranch. Fortunately there was no sickness in our family. We attended Church and Sunday school, and us boys joined the Boy Scouts. The younger children started school when they reached the proper age. We used the same little Model T Ford car we had arrived in throughout the years we lived in Miami.
School was an enjoyable and pleasant routine. Youth programs at the YMCA were inviting, occupying a great deal of our leisure time. Without distractions such as TV, which consumes so much of people's time today, my brother Chuck and I soon had our own paper routes, selling newspapers on the streets of Miami to earn money for use as we saw fit.
The task of adjusting to a new school and community was not lessened by the loss of my grandfather's counsel and gentle companionship. When we heard from Uncle Gene that grandfather had broken his hip, I felt so sorry for him that I secretly made plans to run away and return to New Mexico, where I could be with him and take care of him. Leaving home for school at the usual hour I hurried instead down the hill to the highway. Soon a car stopped and gave me a ride to Globe. Another car gave me a ride from Globe to Bylas.
By mid-morning, as I was nearing Ft. Thomas, I began to realize that I did not have enough money to feed myself all the way to New Mexico. I was thinking a lot about baby Betty Flo and mother, and love for my family filled my heart to breaking. Thoughts of maybe never seeing them again changed my mind about the trip. At Ft. Thomas I walked across to the other side the road for a drink of water at a gas station. The driver of a new car that was stopped at the station asked if I was going his way. "Where are you going?", I asked. "To Globe" he replied. "May I ride with you, really?" "Sure, hop in", he said, and in a few minutes I was on my way back home again.
I don't remember the answers I gave to questions he asked about who I was and where I was going. I think I must have been rather convincing, otherwise he might have stopped and put me out. I remember asking what time it was as we neared Miami.
Realizing it was still early enough to be back home at the same time I always arrived home from school, I strolled casually into the house as mother poured a glass of milk for me. Then she asked me to go to the store for her. Somehow I expected her to ask where I had been that day, for I thought surely someone would have told her that I had not been in school.
Days passed without any hint that she was aware of my leaving, and finally that aborted trip was put out of mind. I wrote to grandfather and told him that when he was able to travel we had a home now and wanted him to come live with us, but I did not mention my attempted travel adventure.
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Part 6
The day we were to depart finally arrived and our brave adventure began. Our Model T Touring car with its little trailer, hand made by my dad from the rear wheels and axel of another Model T, started down rutted, rocky roads towards Arizona, a strange sounding land of mystery and promise that none of us could quite imagine. We waved to grandfather as long as we could see him standing in his front yard.
Trying to subdue our excitement while lying still under the blankets mother put over us in the back seat, doing our best to keep the icy February morning air at bay, was hard for us three boys. Juanita was snugly seated between mother and Dad, while baby Betty, wrapped in warm blankets, lay on mother's lap. Unless one has experienced the smallness of a Model T seat, the 600 mile trip that lay ahead of us to Miami, Arizona over unpaved country roads cannot truly be appreciated.
The first day’s travel of 80 miles to Roswell was through familiar country. Beyond that the trip was a completely new experience. Mountains with tall pines, clean smells and curving shelf roads were so beautiful we wished we could stay in them longer. Often we stopped, our little car struggling to conquer the steepness of mountain grades. Traveling down the other side we were almost as slow. To avoid overheating the brake band and remain in complete control at all times, dad drove cautiously in lower gears.
After we were through the mountains there were long miles of perfectly straight, rough, country roads with never a rise or fall in the prairie grassland around us. This was tiresome for us boys after the excitement of the mountains. Hour after dusty hour we traveled at a deliberate pace, designed to keep our rig in one piece during the whole journey. We had flat tires to fix on occasion, and we stopped from time to time so we could eat and us boys could run off stored energy.
Night camps were orderly and comfortable. Dad made good beds for everyone while mother cooked hot meals over a camp fire. We awoke refreshed and ready for each new day. Twice we came to a windmill and stock watering tank during the day. We stopped at these places and put the clothes washing pot on a fire to heat. Mother washed and dried the baby's diapers and a few other clothes. We bathed ourselves and put on clean clothes. These house cleaning chores required several hours each time we stopped but were entirely necessary.
In 1923 there were no such things as Motor Hotels between Tatum, New Mexico and Miami, Arizona. There were not even paved roads. It is a real tribute to my father's attention to detail that he was able to make this trip over such primitive roadways with his family in our little Model T Ford without any breakdowns except for flat tires. He knew the limits of his machine and refused to go beyond them with so much at stake.
Out on the flat-lands we passed Deuring and Lordsburg, finally crossing over into Arizona on the dirt road to Safford. The land began to change into hills and valleys with high mountains in the distance. We had been on the road for five days from Ranger Lake when we camped for a final night between Ft. Thomas and Globe. We were weary of traveling, yet knowing we would arrive the next day helped keep our spirits high.
A small three room cabin in a canyon at the west edge of Miami, Arizona was our first home away from New Mexico. Going out to play us boys raced to climb the low hills behind the cabin. We had never before climbed so high a hill. The grand adventure of finding completely new things to do kept us in a state of high excitement for days. There were oak and cedar trees, red barked Manzanita, strange flowers, and rocks of all sizes, shapes, and colors.
By any modern standard of living you can compare us with we would have qualified for poverty assistance. However, one doesn't know he is poor until someone calls it to his attention. We were happy and well in our new surroundings, comfortably warm and adequately fed. Our clothes were by no means new, but were clean and neat. We had good shoes for school and no one indicated we looked at all strange. Our well worn knickers and long black rib stockings were not the kind of clothes we would find our new classmates at school wearing however.
Dad applied for work at both the Miami and the Inspiration Copper Companies. Every day he would go to the employment offices, which was a very strange thing to do in his view. He had not worked for a company since he had been a street car conductor in Dallas, Texas, before moving to Ranger Lake with mother and myself. It seemed like a long time before he came home one day and told us that he had been hired by Inspiration Copper Company, however it was actually only about a month. He was very excited to have been hired, and all of us had ideas about what he should take for lunch in his new lunch pail with its Thermos bottle inside.
I walked to the road with him early the next morning and watched as he got onto the company bus that picked up workers needing rides to the Porphyry Shaft, where he was to report. In the afternoon we went down to the road again to meet him when he got off the bus. He brought home his carbide light and showed us how it worked. A carbide light became a fact of life essential to our family's well being from that day until the time we moved away from Miami some eight years later.
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The day we were to depart finally arrived and our brave adventure began. Our Model T Touring car with its little trailer, hand made by my dad from the rear wheels and axel of another Model T, started down rutted, rocky roads towards Arizona, a strange sounding land of mystery and promise that none of us could quite imagine. We waved to grandfather as long as we could see him standing in his front yard.
Trying to subdue our excitement while lying still under the blankets mother put over us in the back seat, doing our best to keep the icy February morning air at bay, was hard for us three boys. Juanita was snugly seated between mother and Dad, while baby Betty, wrapped in warm blankets, lay on mother's lap. Unless one has experienced the smallness of a Model T seat, the 600 mile trip that lay ahead of us to Miami, Arizona over unpaved country roads cannot truly be appreciated.
The first day’s travel of 80 miles to Roswell was through familiar country. Beyond that the trip was a completely new experience. Mountains with tall pines, clean smells and curving shelf roads were so beautiful we wished we could stay in them longer. Often we stopped, our little car struggling to conquer the steepness of mountain grades. Traveling down the other side we were almost as slow. To avoid overheating the brake band and remain in complete control at all times, dad drove cautiously in lower gears.
After we were through the mountains there were long miles of perfectly straight, rough, country roads with never a rise or fall in the prairie grassland around us. This was tiresome for us boys after the excitement of the mountains. Hour after dusty hour we traveled at a deliberate pace, designed to keep our rig in one piece during the whole journey. We had flat tires to fix on occasion, and we stopped from time to time so we could eat and us boys could run off stored energy.
Night camps were orderly and comfortable. Dad made good beds for everyone while mother cooked hot meals over a camp fire. We awoke refreshed and ready for each new day. Twice we came to a windmill and stock watering tank during the day. We stopped at these places and put the clothes washing pot on a fire to heat. Mother washed and dried the baby's diapers and a few other clothes. We bathed ourselves and put on clean clothes. These house cleaning chores required several hours each time we stopped but were entirely necessary.
In 1923 there were no such things as Motor Hotels between Tatum, New Mexico and Miami, Arizona. There were not even paved roads. It is a real tribute to my father's attention to detail that he was able to make this trip over such primitive roadways with his family in our little Model T Ford without any breakdowns except for flat tires. He knew the limits of his machine and refused to go beyond them with so much at stake.
Out on the flat-lands we passed Deuring and Lordsburg, finally crossing over into Arizona on the dirt road to Safford. The land began to change into hills and valleys with high mountains in the distance. We had been on the road for five days from Ranger Lake when we camped for a final night between Ft. Thomas and Globe. We were weary of traveling, yet knowing we would arrive the next day helped keep our spirits high.
A small three room cabin in a canyon at the west edge of Miami, Arizona was our first home away from New Mexico. Going out to play us boys raced to climb the low hills behind the cabin. We had never before climbed so high a hill. The grand adventure of finding completely new things to do kept us in a state of high excitement for days. There were oak and cedar trees, red barked Manzanita, strange flowers, and rocks of all sizes, shapes, and colors.
By any modern standard of living you can compare us with we would have qualified for poverty assistance. However, one doesn't know he is poor until someone calls it to his attention. We were happy and well in our new surroundings, comfortably warm and adequately fed. Our clothes were by no means new, but were clean and neat. We had good shoes for school and no one indicated we looked at all strange. Our well worn knickers and long black rib stockings were not the kind of clothes we would find our new classmates at school wearing however.
Dad applied for work at both the Miami and the Inspiration Copper Companies. Every day he would go to the employment offices, which was a very strange thing to do in his view. He had not worked for a company since he had been a street car conductor in Dallas, Texas, before moving to Ranger Lake with mother and myself. It seemed like a long time before he came home one day and told us that he had been hired by Inspiration Copper Company, however it was actually only about a month. He was very excited to have been hired, and all of us had ideas about what he should take for lunch in his new lunch pail with its Thermos bottle inside.
I walked to the road with him early the next morning and watched as he got onto the company bus that picked up workers needing rides to the Porphyry Shaft, where he was to report. In the afternoon we went down to the road again to meet him when he got off the bus. He brought home his carbide light and showed us how it worked. A carbide light became a fact of life essential to our family's well being from that day until the time we moved away from Miami some eight years later.
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Part 5
I was better prepared on account of the trials I had endured during my first year of school at Ranger Lake when I started attending school at Tatum, where there about two hundred other children. Some of these were not at all friendly at first, but at least they were more respectful as I stood up for my rights and refused to take any abuse.
In school at Tatum I competed in organized athletic events for the first time ever. No one in my classes could beat me in sprints through the 440, and I could outrun many boys several grades above and years older than myself. The first praise I ever received for a public performance was while running track.
In contact sports I became known as the "Little Bulldog," and loved the acclamation I received. I exerted tremendous energy, even in those early grades, to maintain an image of myself as a competitor who never gave ground and always was on the attack.
The years went quickly by as the triumphs and failures of my lower grades faded. Summers on the ranch brought increasing responsibilities. School playmates were constant by this time since there were so few in my age group. Henry Pittman, Waldo Duncan, and Son Anderson were best friends. Georgia Anderson, Lexie Hall, and Velma Lee Kay were best girlfriends. We were unbelievably uninformed and enjoyed the smallest scrap of information however it came to us, whether from our teachers, our parents, or by talking with each other.
There was no other way to learn except to read and study. We had no library readily available to us. What reading we did was from school books. We would read these in a few days, then read them again as we studied for our lessons, and we believed anything and everything we read. There was no reason to question these writers or our teachers. We had no outside source for current news. Newspapers that came our way were brought from Roswell or Lubbock, and were always several days or even weeks late. We were ignorant, innocent, naive children. Our parents in many ways were equally uninformed when it came to current events and world affairs.
The first radio at Ranger Lake was installed in the school room during my first grade year so everyone could come in and listen to voices coming to us through space. I excitedly took part in the installation, having been selected to crawl under the floor of the building pulling wires after me to feed them through a hole drilled in the floor. Everyone in the community who could possibly get there sat assembled in rapt attention that afternoon while Mr. Falconi explained the principles of radio and what it would mean to the community as a continuous source of information.
The snap of the on/off switch was heard as the Attwater Kent Radio Phone, with its row of mysterious dials and knobs, was turned on for its first test. Nothing happened. A short time later, as the tubes in the set warmed up, whistles, screeches, wails, and moaning noises came out of the speaker horn, much to the delight of everyone. No words were heard coming forth, but every time Mr. Falconi turned a knob a new wail or screech developed.
Some were sure they heard a few words a bit later, however no one could agree on exactly what they had heard, so ultimately no one was positive. This brought speculation by some and conviction with others that it was just plain silly to think you could hear someone talking all the way from Roswell. After all that was 80 miles away. It was about all you could do to hear Mr. Bass calling his cows from two miles away, and everyone knew he had the strongest voice in the community.
The new radio thing never did work. Mr. Falconi gathered up the wires, insulators, and batteries, put them in a box, and took the whole lot all the way back to Roswell. When World War One was finally over the news came to our community in the good old slow but reliable word of mouth manner.
There were several families in the community who had sons in the armed forces. Glendon Hooper's brother Bill was the first soldier I ever saw in uniform. The exact neatness of the rows of brass buttons on his coat, with leggings wrapping each leg from knee to shoe top in perfect spirals, was so impressive to me that for days I wrapped my own legs with "leggin's" so I would be properly attired for playing soldier. Bill brought home his metal helmet with a bullet crease in it, and we never tired of listening to him tell of being "knocked down like a pole axed ox" when that bullet struck his helmet.
Our knowledge of what war was like was purely imaginative. Anything we heard was accepted as God's own truth, yet Bill's story telling ability was limited. We were told "not to pester Bill, he doesn't want to remember those horrible things." Carl, Pete, Guy and Sylvester were the other Hooper boys, and they couldn’t get much out of Bill either. I never knew for sure why Bill drank so much as time went by, but believed it was because of his "war memories." People seemed to agree that was the reason.
When Betty Flo was three months old Carl Hooper came to our house to visit. He had been away for a year, working in the copper mines in Arizona. He had new clothes, a pocket full of money, and was excited when he talked about how much money could be made and how easy it was to get a job. He asked our father, "Why don't you and Beulah come to Arizona? Sell your old place and I'll get you a job the first week you're there, then you can get the kids into some schools where they'll get a real education." It was that thought that persuaded my mother, and she finally convinced Dad we should make such a move.
The dream of being a land owner was one my dad had made real at Ranger Lake with years of hard work. But the hard fact was that our homestead ranch did not produce a good enough living for a growing family, and that was a sad certainty. The thought of selling our animals and tools and leaving grandfather was almost too much to consider. The anticipation of such a long trip to a completely unknown place like Arizona was frightening to think about. After days and weeks of talking and planning, and another letter from Carl urging dad to come because the mines were hiring, the decision was made to sell out and go to Arizona.
Friends and neighbors came from all over to help out, many hoping to buy some of our goods and livestock for less than what it was really worth. This did not happen. Russ Anderson, a large rancher and close friend, made a fair offer for all of our livestock and ranch lands, with our family retaining mineral rights to the property. He agreed to buy whatever stock we still had on the place when we were finally ready to go. This allowed us to sell everything at a good price.
Never had we known such conflict of emotion as was involved with our preparations to move. Each day animal after faithful animal, the furniture in our ranch house, plows, wagons, tools, saddles and harness, piece by familiar piece, was hauled or driven away. Finally the day came when we had only our beds, kitchen utensils, and the clothes we would take with us packed in the small trailer we would tow behind our Model T Ford. With everything gone the place didn't seem at all like home any longer.
Grandfather Hodge was not sure we were doing the right thing. In fact, he thought it was just plain foolish for us to leave. Although he repeatedly assured us he would be all right, you could tell he was worried about being alone and lonesome, and was trying to reassure himself as much as he was us. However he was the Postmaster at Ranger Lake, and would have people coming after their mail everyday, so he would not be without care or help if needed.
As our days together became fewer and fewer, grandfather and I spent much time together. We talked of things we had done, and things we would do again someday soon when we had ourselves settled and sent word for him to come live with us. I did not question the certainty of this happening, but I am sure grandfather doubted he would ever see us again, and he was right.
Not long after we left grandfather was thrown from one of his horses and broke a hip. Before he had completely recovered, while staying at Tatum where he could be cared for, he was writing a letter to us and his great heart simply stopped. He died with his head on the desk and his pen in hand lying on the uncompleted letter.
------------------------------------------------
I was better prepared on account of the trials I had endured during my first year of school at Ranger Lake when I started attending school at Tatum, where there about two hundred other children. Some of these were not at all friendly at first, but at least they were more respectful as I stood up for my rights and refused to take any abuse.
In school at Tatum I competed in organized athletic events for the first time ever. No one in my classes could beat me in sprints through the 440, and I could outrun many boys several grades above and years older than myself. The first praise I ever received for a public performance was while running track.
In contact sports I became known as the "Little Bulldog," and loved the acclamation I received. I exerted tremendous energy, even in those early grades, to maintain an image of myself as a competitor who never gave ground and always was on the attack.
The years went quickly by as the triumphs and failures of my lower grades faded. Summers on the ranch brought increasing responsibilities. School playmates were constant by this time since there were so few in my age group. Henry Pittman, Waldo Duncan, and Son Anderson were best friends. Georgia Anderson, Lexie Hall, and Velma Lee Kay were best girlfriends. We were unbelievably uninformed and enjoyed the smallest scrap of information however it came to us, whether from our teachers, our parents, or by talking with each other.
There was no other way to learn except to read and study. We had no library readily available to us. What reading we did was from school books. We would read these in a few days, then read them again as we studied for our lessons, and we believed anything and everything we read. There was no reason to question these writers or our teachers. We had no outside source for current news. Newspapers that came our way were brought from Roswell or Lubbock, and were always several days or even weeks late. We were ignorant, innocent, naive children. Our parents in many ways were equally uninformed when it came to current events and world affairs.
The first radio at Ranger Lake was installed in the school room during my first grade year so everyone could come in and listen to voices coming to us through space. I excitedly took part in the installation, having been selected to crawl under the floor of the building pulling wires after me to feed them through a hole drilled in the floor. Everyone in the community who could possibly get there sat assembled in rapt attention that afternoon while Mr. Falconi explained the principles of radio and what it would mean to the community as a continuous source of information.
The snap of the on/off switch was heard as the Attwater Kent Radio Phone, with its row of mysterious dials and knobs, was turned on for its first test. Nothing happened. A short time later, as the tubes in the set warmed up, whistles, screeches, wails, and moaning noises came out of the speaker horn, much to the delight of everyone. No words were heard coming forth, but every time Mr. Falconi turned a knob a new wail or screech developed.
Some were sure they heard a few words a bit later, however no one could agree on exactly what they had heard, so ultimately no one was positive. This brought speculation by some and conviction with others that it was just plain silly to think you could hear someone talking all the way from Roswell. After all that was 80 miles away. It was about all you could do to hear Mr. Bass calling his cows from two miles away, and everyone knew he had the strongest voice in the community.
The new radio thing never did work. Mr. Falconi gathered up the wires, insulators, and batteries, put them in a box, and took the whole lot all the way back to Roswell. When World War One was finally over the news came to our community in the good old slow but reliable word of mouth manner.
There were several families in the community who had sons in the armed forces. Glendon Hooper's brother Bill was the first soldier I ever saw in uniform. The exact neatness of the rows of brass buttons on his coat, with leggings wrapping each leg from knee to shoe top in perfect spirals, was so impressive to me that for days I wrapped my own legs with "leggin's" so I would be properly attired for playing soldier. Bill brought home his metal helmet with a bullet crease in it, and we never tired of listening to him tell of being "knocked down like a pole axed ox" when that bullet struck his helmet.
Our knowledge of what war was like was purely imaginative. Anything we heard was accepted as God's own truth, yet Bill's story telling ability was limited. We were told "not to pester Bill, he doesn't want to remember those horrible things." Carl, Pete, Guy and Sylvester were the other Hooper boys, and they couldn’t get much out of Bill either. I never knew for sure why Bill drank so much as time went by, but believed it was because of his "war memories." People seemed to agree that was the reason.
When Betty Flo was three months old Carl Hooper came to our house to visit. He had been away for a year, working in the copper mines in Arizona. He had new clothes, a pocket full of money, and was excited when he talked about how much money could be made and how easy it was to get a job. He asked our father, "Why don't you and Beulah come to Arizona? Sell your old place and I'll get you a job the first week you're there, then you can get the kids into some schools where they'll get a real education." It was that thought that persuaded my mother, and she finally convinced Dad we should make such a move.
The dream of being a land owner was one my dad had made real at Ranger Lake with years of hard work. But the hard fact was that our homestead ranch did not produce a good enough living for a growing family, and that was a sad certainty. The thought of selling our animals and tools and leaving grandfather was almost too much to consider. The anticipation of such a long trip to a completely unknown place like Arizona was frightening to think about. After days and weeks of talking and planning, and another letter from Carl urging dad to come because the mines were hiring, the decision was made to sell out and go to Arizona.
Friends and neighbors came from all over to help out, many hoping to buy some of our goods and livestock for less than what it was really worth. This did not happen. Russ Anderson, a large rancher and close friend, made a fair offer for all of our livestock and ranch lands, with our family retaining mineral rights to the property. He agreed to buy whatever stock we still had on the place when we were finally ready to go. This allowed us to sell everything at a good price.
Never had we known such conflict of emotion as was involved with our preparations to move. Each day animal after faithful animal, the furniture in our ranch house, plows, wagons, tools, saddles and harness, piece by familiar piece, was hauled or driven away. Finally the day came when we had only our beds, kitchen utensils, and the clothes we would take with us packed in the small trailer we would tow behind our Model T Ford. With everything gone the place didn't seem at all like home any longer.
Grandfather Hodge was not sure we were doing the right thing. In fact, he thought it was just plain foolish for us to leave. Although he repeatedly assured us he would be all right, you could tell he was worried about being alone and lonesome, and was trying to reassure himself as much as he was us. However he was the Postmaster at Ranger Lake, and would have people coming after their mail everyday, so he would not be without care or help if needed.
As our days together became fewer and fewer, grandfather and I spent much time together. We talked of things we had done, and things we would do again someday soon when we had ourselves settled and sent word for him to come live with us. I did not question the certainty of this happening, but I am sure grandfather doubted he would ever see us again, and he was right.
Not long after we left grandfather was thrown from one of his horses and broke a hip. Before he had completely recovered, while staying at Tatum where he could be cared for, he was writing a letter to us and his great heart simply stopped. He died with his head on the desk and his pen in hand lying on the uncompleted letter.
------------------------------------------------
Part 4
As the summer of 1922 drew to an end, my father, my brother Charles and myself were staying at the ranch, working crops, tending livestock, and weeding grandfather Hodge's garden. Charles and I stayed with grandfather at his home. He prepared our meals, and we slept on a pallet laid out on the front porch because it was uncomfortably warm inside the house.
The magic of early daybreak created strange shapes and shadows among the trees in the orchard, and my brother and I awoke listening to the rhythmic noise of the windmill turning ever so slowly as a gentle morning wind propelled its blades. In the early half light we talked about what we should do that day, then suddenly remembered it was Charles's birthday. He was turning nine while I was still ten, only one year older than Charles. That would hold true until my own birthday in September when once again I would be two years ahead of him.
Dad was away on an area wide cattle roundup, but we figured he was not too far away for us to ride out and see him. Besides we wanted to learn if he had received news about whether our new baby brother or sister had been born. Mother had been in Lovington for three weeks and we were lonesome for her. Hodge and Juanita were there with her, and we were lonesome for them as well.
Our lonesomeness and it being Charles's birthday made us want to get in touch with Dad, and we decided he would be surprised and happy to see us if we rode out to the Bowen ranch holding corrals and waited there for the herds to arrive that he was helping round up. The men in the Ranger Lake area were taking part in bringing in the scattered herds to be sorted, each head of livestock to its ranch owner, then moved homeward to graze their own pasture lands during the fall and winter, and we wanted to be part of this exciting and important effort.
Whisper quiet we dressed ourselves, ate breakfast, and gathered supplies to take with us. We then went to the corrals where we caught our horses, saddled them, and soon were on our way to the Bowen ranch, before the sun had come up over the distant edge of the world. Seven miles lay between us and the gathering spot. On the way we spooked and ran a small bunch of antelope, then pulled up to watch as they crawled under a barbed wire fence and raced away across the flats.
Prairie dog holes were everywhere. There was always a danger that a horse might step into a hole and break a leg, especially if running hard enough that they could not watch for and avoid the holes. Prairie dogs watched as we passed, dropping off the edge of the mounded earth around the openings of their underground burrows if we made even so much as a slight motion in their direction. Chirping and whistling they barked dog town messages one to another until the danger of our intrusion was past. Always, in prairie dog towns, numerous small owls shared the burrows with the dogs, and it seemed there was never any conflict between them.
An hour later we rode up to the Bowen ranch catch pens. The corrals, pens and windmill were well kept. Remains of an old homestead settlement was still scattered around there, however anything and everything of value had been hauled away for use elsewhere. Inside an old piece of rusty half buried pipe we found a cottontail rabbit that we killed, cleaned and roasted over a small fire for our lunch.
It seemed a long wait before the first sign of the cattle herds finally appeared, trailing clouds of dust and coming our way from a great distance, headed for the pens. When the herds and the men began arriving, hot, sweaty, and covered with dust, everyone was happy to see us. Dad said there was no news yet about the baby. It was not until several days later that we received word from Lovington that we had a new baby sister named Betty Flo, and that she had been born on Charles's birthday.
Before mother arrived home again Charles fell and broke his arm. While father was taking a bath and changing clothes to go to Tatum, we boys decided we would ride one of the calves in the corral. I told Charles he could ride the calf if he really wanted to, and I would hold on to it so it would not buck too much. However the calf proved much stronger than I, and he bucked so hard that Charles fell off, striking his arm against a fence post and breaking both bones cleanly in two. His arm hung down between the wrist and elbow like a broken wing on a bird. He held up that pitiful looking little arm crying "I broke my arm, I broke my arm," over and over again.
By cradling his broken arm with his good arm he was able to walk just fine, so we went quickly to the house for help. Dad and grandfather pulled the splintered bones gently apart and expertly fitted them together again. Grandfather whittled splints from a cedar shingle taken from the edge of the roof. Clean white strips of an old bed sheet served as bindings. Although the doctor in Tatum looked at the arm some time later he found nothing more that needed to be done. The bones had set straight and true and were mending just fine. Mother and our new baby sister Betty Flo, together with Hodge and Juanita, came home a few days later, and once again everything in our world was right.
As happens to many children, faith in people and naive innocence was sorely and shockingly tested when I first began school. Having enjoyed almost no everyday playmates except for my brother Charles, I was much less prepared and more seriously disturbed than a child accustomed to the give and take of preschool play and socializing with others would have been.
An older boy, whom I liked least of all the people in the entire school, abruptly informed me and others that my beloved Daddy was, according to him, not my real father. I soon fought about every boy and some of the girls in school, vehemently defending my conviction that this was nothing more than a mean and hurtful lie. I hit one of my tormentors on the foot with a half brick and was punished by having to stay in from play at recess. My world had been shattered and was suddenly bewildering, filled with conflicting emotions of shame, hate, fear, rage, and a burning desire for revenge on my "enemies," who I imagined to be everyone in school.
I was tortured with this several days until I finally burst out and told my mother of my problem and its cause. She did her best to explain how this was true, that my real father was not my present father, and tried to assure me that this was not a bad thing as my schoolmates had teased me into believing.
Knowing the truth did not make me any happier about going to school. I knew I was going to have to fight even more people who would tease me, and I was afraid of the larger boys that I knew I couldn't whip in a fair fight. I had to conclude for the first time in my life that the judgment of my parents was not always right. They had taught me not to fight, yet I knew I had to fight to maintain any degree of self respect. Secretly I was proud of the sense of self-vindication and self-assurance I experienced whenever I subdued a "enemy."
Soon my tormentors had had enough of me, and for the most part we became friends again. Then I began to wonder about my real father. Where was he? Would I ever see him? What did he look like? Would I like him if I talked to him? Why did he and my mother not stay together? Even though I tried not to deliberately think about it I could not help but be aware of a perceived difference between my position in the family and that of the other children.
I watched my father closely, not knowing particularly why except I hoped he would say something or do something to reassure me of his love. I came to understood that he would not talk with me about this matter, and accepted that as fact. However it is only fair to him to say that he was a very shy man, reserved with people, and not at all good at expressing himself, in particular about family affairs or emotional matters of any kind.
As time went by I came to know these things about him, and began to understand his deep and abiding love for me. I was in fact his oldest son in the truest sense, and he was openly proud as I did well in school, in athletic contests, or in whatever work he assigned me. However my first year in school at Ranger Lake was a challenging and emotional experience, with the weight of perceived problems often so great that I could only rage and hate and fight against what I felt were the vicious and unfair accusations and attitudes that others exhibited towards me.
-------------------------------------------
As the summer of 1922 drew to an end, my father, my brother Charles and myself were staying at the ranch, working crops, tending livestock, and weeding grandfather Hodge's garden. Charles and I stayed with grandfather at his home. He prepared our meals, and we slept on a pallet laid out on the front porch because it was uncomfortably warm inside the house.
The magic of early daybreak created strange shapes and shadows among the trees in the orchard, and my brother and I awoke listening to the rhythmic noise of the windmill turning ever so slowly as a gentle morning wind propelled its blades. In the early half light we talked about what we should do that day, then suddenly remembered it was Charles's birthday. He was turning nine while I was still ten, only one year older than Charles. That would hold true until my own birthday in September when once again I would be two years ahead of him.
Dad was away on an area wide cattle roundup, but we figured he was not too far away for us to ride out and see him. Besides we wanted to learn if he had received news about whether our new baby brother or sister had been born. Mother had been in Lovington for three weeks and we were lonesome for her. Hodge and Juanita were there with her, and we were lonesome for them as well.
Our lonesomeness and it being Charles's birthday made us want to get in touch with Dad, and we decided he would be surprised and happy to see us if we rode out to the Bowen ranch holding corrals and waited there for the herds to arrive that he was helping round up. The men in the Ranger Lake area were taking part in bringing in the scattered herds to be sorted, each head of livestock to its ranch owner, then moved homeward to graze their own pasture lands during the fall and winter, and we wanted to be part of this exciting and important effort.
Whisper quiet we dressed ourselves, ate breakfast, and gathered supplies to take with us. We then went to the corrals where we caught our horses, saddled them, and soon were on our way to the Bowen ranch, before the sun had come up over the distant edge of the world. Seven miles lay between us and the gathering spot. On the way we spooked and ran a small bunch of antelope, then pulled up to watch as they crawled under a barbed wire fence and raced away across the flats.
Prairie dog holes were everywhere. There was always a danger that a horse might step into a hole and break a leg, especially if running hard enough that they could not watch for and avoid the holes. Prairie dogs watched as we passed, dropping off the edge of the mounded earth around the openings of their underground burrows if we made even so much as a slight motion in their direction. Chirping and whistling they barked dog town messages one to another until the danger of our intrusion was past. Always, in prairie dog towns, numerous small owls shared the burrows with the dogs, and it seemed there was never any conflict between them.
An hour later we rode up to the Bowen ranch catch pens. The corrals, pens and windmill were well kept. Remains of an old homestead settlement was still scattered around there, however anything and everything of value had been hauled away for use elsewhere. Inside an old piece of rusty half buried pipe we found a cottontail rabbit that we killed, cleaned and roasted over a small fire for our lunch.
It seemed a long wait before the first sign of the cattle herds finally appeared, trailing clouds of dust and coming our way from a great distance, headed for the pens. When the herds and the men began arriving, hot, sweaty, and covered with dust, everyone was happy to see us. Dad said there was no news yet about the baby. It was not until several days later that we received word from Lovington that we had a new baby sister named Betty Flo, and that she had been born on Charles's birthday.
Before mother arrived home again Charles fell and broke his arm. While father was taking a bath and changing clothes to go to Tatum, we boys decided we would ride one of the calves in the corral. I told Charles he could ride the calf if he really wanted to, and I would hold on to it so it would not buck too much. However the calf proved much stronger than I, and he bucked so hard that Charles fell off, striking his arm against a fence post and breaking both bones cleanly in two. His arm hung down between the wrist and elbow like a broken wing on a bird. He held up that pitiful looking little arm crying "I broke my arm, I broke my arm," over and over again.
By cradling his broken arm with his good arm he was able to walk just fine, so we went quickly to the house for help. Dad and grandfather pulled the splintered bones gently apart and expertly fitted them together again. Grandfather whittled splints from a cedar shingle taken from the edge of the roof. Clean white strips of an old bed sheet served as bindings. Although the doctor in Tatum looked at the arm some time later he found nothing more that needed to be done. The bones had set straight and true and were mending just fine. Mother and our new baby sister Betty Flo, together with Hodge and Juanita, came home a few days later, and once again everything in our world was right.
As happens to many children, faith in people and naive innocence was sorely and shockingly tested when I first began school. Having enjoyed almost no everyday playmates except for my brother Charles, I was much less prepared and more seriously disturbed than a child accustomed to the give and take of preschool play and socializing with others would have been.
An older boy, whom I liked least of all the people in the entire school, abruptly informed me and others that my beloved Daddy was, according to him, not my real father. I soon fought about every boy and some of the girls in school, vehemently defending my conviction that this was nothing more than a mean and hurtful lie. I hit one of my tormentors on the foot with a half brick and was punished by having to stay in from play at recess. My world had been shattered and was suddenly bewildering, filled with conflicting emotions of shame, hate, fear, rage, and a burning desire for revenge on my "enemies," who I imagined to be everyone in school.
I was tortured with this several days until I finally burst out and told my mother of my problem and its cause. She did her best to explain how this was true, that my real father was not my present father, and tried to assure me that this was not a bad thing as my schoolmates had teased me into believing.
Knowing the truth did not make me any happier about going to school. I knew I was going to have to fight even more people who would tease me, and I was afraid of the larger boys that I knew I couldn't whip in a fair fight. I had to conclude for the first time in my life that the judgment of my parents was not always right. They had taught me not to fight, yet I knew I had to fight to maintain any degree of self respect. Secretly I was proud of the sense of self-vindication and self-assurance I experienced whenever I subdued a "enemy."
Soon my tormentors had had enough of me, and for the most part we became friends again. Then I began to wonder about my real father. Where was he? Would I ever see him? What did he look like? Would I like him if I talked to him? Why did he and my mother not stay together? Even though I tried not to deliberately think about it I could not help but be aware of a perceived difference between my position in the family and that of the other children.
I watched my father closely, not knowing particularly why except I hoped he would say something or do something to reassure me of his love. I came to understood that he would not talk with me about this matter, and accepted that as fact. However it is only fair to him to say that he was a very shy man, reserved with people, and not at all good at expressing himself, in particular about family affairs or emotional matters of any kind.
As time went by I came to know these things about him, and began to understand his deep and abiding love for me. I was in fact his oldest son in the truest sense, and he was openly proud as I did well in school, in athletic contests, or in whatever work he assigned me. However my first year in school at Ranger Lake was a challenging and emotional experience, with the weight of perceived problems often so great that I could only rage and hate and fight against what I felt were the vicious and unfair accusations and attitudes that others exhibited towards me.
-------------------------------------------
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Part 3
School was a new experience for me. I was seven when I started and could already read beginning school books. I knew my numbers, how to count, and had learned to phonetically "sound out" words for spelling. Mother and grandfather had taught me these things before there was ever a school to go to in our area.
Our first teacher was Miss Eula Mae Pittman. School was held in the Ranger Lake community building. Children from beginners to eighth grade, with one teacher instructing all the classes in a single room, learned what interested them most from whatever was being taught at the moment.
School was not held during periods of heavy snow and extremely cold weather. The distances were too great, and with roads virtually nonexistent traveling to and from school in bad weather was out of the question. Our woefully inadequate school system was a worry to parents in the community, all of whom wanted their children to receive a good education.
Mother was a tireless worker for a better school system, and took the lead in organizing a consolidation of local community schools. A single school district was formed, complete with rural buses hauling farm and ranch children back and forth to Tatum. There we enjoyed proper school buildings, and teachers with real "certificates" and "degrees" instructed the classes. Mother saw to it that a consolidated school district became a reality by the time I was in second grade.
Our first consolidated school system bus was a Model T Ford truck outfitted with wood benches to seat seven children on each side in the back. This passenger section had a wood frame with a canvas cover. Tie-downs on the inside were used to close the rear flap. Our morning ride to the school in Tatum during the winter was bitterly cold traveling over frozen slush, ice and snow.
Paved roads did not exist, just well used deeply rutted tracks across rolling pasture lands. Heat in our pioneer bus was from hot irons that mothers would heat over their cook stoves of an early morning and send with us in metal buckets wrapped in old blankets. These fireless heaters quickly grew cold, doing little to keep us warm. We had to huddle close together in the back of that Model T truck to keep from hurting with the cold before arriving at school in Tatum.
Returning home after school was a completely different adventure. By four o'clock the dirt roads had usually melted into slush and mud. When the bus got stuck, as it almost always did, everyone had to get out and push. I became acquainted with the shocking force of electricity while pushing that old Ford bus. Touching a sparkplug while the engine was running I received a bone jarring jolt. I thought I might have ruined the engine as it stopped running smoothly after that, however our driver told me it had a bad plug.
We often arrived home after dark in the winter, having left for school before daylight that morning. Mother became disenchanted with this unsatisfactory way of getting her children to and from school, and set out to solve the problem by moving our family closer to the school. Before another school year passed we moved into a nice farm house only a mile from the Tatum school grounds. Although we were still relatively close to our home ranch, and continued to work it while spending as much time as possible with grandfather Hodge, we never again lived permanently at our childhood Ranger Lake home.
For several years we lived "in town" while attending school. For me these years were filled with the many things grade school boys find to do. Our new place belonged to Ben and Era Alford, close friends of our family. They had to move to Fort Worth, Texas and were pleased to have our family in their Tatum home to care for it.
About this time dad received a contract to carry the rural mail route from Tatum to Ranger Lake where grandfather served as Postmaster. We soon became the proud owners of a 1917 Model T Ford Touring car, one of the first in the area. Dad often stayed overnight at the ranch to take care of the livestock and tend to chores. However as time passed we became less dependent on the ranch and more dependent on the mail route and dad's freighting business for our family’s livehood.
Whenever dad was on a freight run to Roswell or Lubbock, mother drove the mail route. It was my privilege to help her since there were a great many gates to open and close and frequent flat tires to change. I was good at cranking the engine as well, and never once did I sprain a thumb or break an arm as so many Model T engine crankers did in those days.
I learned to drive the car on those trips with mother, and she was proud that I could drive as well as I did. One day I turned suddenly to avoid hitting a cow and a tire rolled off of a front wheel. I remember the great ball like balloon of salmon red rubber inner tube that came out of the tire when it separated from the wheel, and was sure that I had ruined the car. Soon we had the tire repaired and everything turned out just fine, the car wasn't ruined after all.
Automobile tires in those days were of questionable quality at best, and roadside tire repair skills were often tested. Tire tools and patch kits were survival gear that needed to be carried at all times. The best roads in our area were no more than rough trails strewn with sharp rocks. Nearly flat Devils Head cactus waited in hiding, no taller than the low growing grass, for the unlucky driver who dared leave a well traveled track for any reason.
Mother tried to teach grandfather Hodge to drive the car, but he never could get the hang of turning the steering wheel in the direction he wanted to go. His reflexes were those learned as a long time riverboat pilot, and after nearly 80 years it was hard to forget that the stern doesn't swing in the opposite direction from where the bow is supposed to go. He was determined however, and would have wrecked himself and anyone he chanced to meet had there been any traffic to contend with.
Flat pastures were a perfect place for him to learn. There was nothing to bump into except cows, and they generally managed to get out of his way even though he gave a few a real scare. When he was alone he would come back thoroughly convinced he had mastered the art of "steering". However when he drove with someone he invariably got excited, and turned the wheel in the wrong direction, going around in a big circle until he came back to the track. Then once again he would feel he had things thought out and could "steer" a straight line, that is until the next lapse of attention when his old riverboat reflexes took over and around he went again. It was all great fun at that time and place, and just about the only thing grandfather could not do well.
Grandfather was my best friend, comforter, teacher, confidant and companion, and we shared many pleasant hours together. From my earliest memories he was there to help me do and make things, all the while teaching me what it meant to live a happy life. He was physically sound and active, doing much of the gardening and caring for the orchard.
Grandfather taught me to wrap fruit trees so winter cold would not freeze and split them. We dug potatoes from the garden putting them in a pile that we covered with straw. A final covering of earth completed a potato mound. There the potatoes were safe in the darkness from spoilage until needed. Through a hole at the base of the mound we could reach the warm dry potatoes. When the hole was uncovered to retrieve some of the potatoes we would always push a stick in first to see if by chance a rattlesnake had its found a way into the mound.
Grandfather taught me how to shoot rifle and shotgun as we hunted rabbits, geese, prairie chickens, and ducks for winter food storage. The tender loins of rabbits we shot, packed in layers in empty 10 gallon lard cans, were covered with newly rendered lard. As the lard was removed and used for cooking, the rabbit loins would be uncovered and ground up to make chili meat and other delicious dishes. We hunted ducks on our pond as well as on his, and among the shocks in the corn fields we shot geese. Prairie chickens were a rare treat found in the Shin-oak areas up in the sand hills. They would burst into flight from under our horses feet and sail away before we could fire a shot. Sometimes we were lucky enough to get one or two of these scattered game birds, finding them particularly delicious.
Summer months were working months. With school out we often stayed at the ranch to plant crops, care for the orchard and garden, and tend the livestock. Summer days were happy and busy, filled with adventures as we learned new and exciting things.
When I was 9 years old I was given my own colt to break and train, and helped my father in the fields, weeding and cultivating our grain crops with a two horse drawn "go devil." Riding a "go devil" pulled by a team of horses required skill and focused alertness. This was my first man sized job. The “go devil” was made from two 2x12x8 inch planks set on edge, 14 inches apart. These were held in place by a steel framework on which was mounted a seat for the operator. Sharp edged, 3 inch wide steel blades swept back from the center of the machine on the side of each runner. The front of each runner swept upward and the full length of the bottom edge was faced with a steel strap.
Crops were planted in the bottom of the furrows, and with a “go devil” runner on each side of a row of corn, maize or cotton, the horses were to move steadily forward down the row as the swept knives sliced under the beds between the rows, cutting the roots of growing weeds. If the Go Devil was pulled to either side of its proper track the cutting blades would cut the roots of the crop as well as the weeds. I quickly learned how to talk the horses around turns at the ends of the field, then line them up carefully, resting them for a few minutes before starting to the other end.
Our fields were on mellow soil at the edge of sand dune pastures. The warm earth with growing crops was a haven for rabbits, field mice, and various snakes. Bullsnakes, black racers, brown racers, diamondbacks, sidewinders, and hognose snakes were those we saw most every day. We killed all the rattlers we could because our colts were at times bitten on the face as they curiously nosed a coiled snake. A snake bite made them very sick. Their heads would swell up until their eyes were nearly closed, and their lips became so large that they could hardly nurse their mothers milk.
We were curious about snakes and learned they were rodent eaters, so we encouraged some of the bullsnakes to live in the barn and the feed storage areas. We would catch them behind the head and they would coil themselves around our arms as we carried them from the fields.
As we became more familiar with snakes we would sometimes catch a rattler. Once we tied one to the top wire of a pasture fence to see how long he would remain there. Several days later we found he had loosed himself and crawled away. Another time we found a large rattler with a grown cottontail rabbit he was trying to swallow. The snake had the rabbit halfway down and could not spit it out or swallow it quickly. In this condition he was completely helpless. A coyote happening onto the scene would have made a quick meal of both rabbit and snake. We watched him for a long enough time to see the rabbit completely disappear inside the snake and the snakes head once again shaped itself into a normal appearance. With the rabbit inside the snake was still extremely sluggish, moving with great effort.
We picked up a large bullsnake one day and took it into grandfathers bedroom where we placed it under the covers of his bed. We waited for days, hoping to hear him say something about a snake in his bed. However he never gave any hint of such a thing, so we could only guess that the snake had crawled away before being discovered. However knowing grandfather as we did he may have found it and decided not to say anything about it. Such occurrences were rather ordinary, and snakes hunting mice often found their way into houses, so such an event would hardly be worth mentioning.
The only snake bitten person I ever saw was our friend Glendon Hooper. Just at dusk one evening a rattler struck him on his bare right foot. A hen was quickly taken from the roost and killed, and a sharp knife used to enlarged the puncture wounds on his foot so they were bleeding. Then his whole foot was placed inside the warm body of the chicken, which acted as a hot poultice to draw blood and poison from the wound. An hour later another freshly killed chicken was put on his foot.
All night Glendon was kept awake with coffee and conversation. By morning the poison had swelled his foot and leg nearly to the knee, and appeared to have localized in that area. About 2:00 p.m. that day my father returned from Tatum with old Dr. Rumph, who immediately put Glendon to bed so he could sleep. I have no memory of what medication he may have been given, but we were reassured that he would be well again soon. In a few days he was hopping around on a crutch, but the swelling and discoloration lasted for several weeks.
I was extremely happy when Glendon was well again, for he was an imaginative and exciting companion. The youngest child in a family of six boys, he had a decided advantage in general knowledge that was refreshing to me. Although he was somewhat bored with the games we played, he was never critical or demanding. Only when we were riding, working or building something did he seem truly comfortable. He did not seem to know how to enjoy playing, preferring instead to work at something constructive. He was a visionary and a dreamer, and a friend I enjoyed greatly.
Once when we rode to the cliffs near Ranger Lake, after having tired of jumping into and rolling down the sloping sand dunes at their base, we were lying on our backs resting, looking into the bottomless blue of the sky and talking of things we would do one day. Glendon said he was going to build a building so tall the top would be out of sight in the clouds. He also said he would make a machine you could ride in and just wish you were any spot on earth, and you would be there in a few hours. This was far fetched for me to think about, yet somehow I never doubted that Glendon would or could do the things he dreamed and spoke of.
Sharing ideas and dreams with a good friend constituted an unspoken bond of trust, and I was very sad when I heard that Glendon had died of pneumonia after getting drunk and wet and cold one night when he was only seventeen. He didn't live to build his tall buildings or his travel machine, but had he lived I'm sure he would have become a hard driving successful man, a business executive. I have known several highly successful men in my life who exhibited the sort of drive and impatience with small everyday things that Glendon seemed to have. Many times such men exhibit a singleness of purpose that causes other people hurt when they find themselves positioned in such a way as to impede the accomplishment of that purpose.
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School was a new experience for me. I was seven when I started and could already read beginning school books. I knew my numbers, how to count, and had learned to phonetically "sound out" words for spelling. Mother and grandfather had taught me these things before there was ever a school to go to in our area.
Our first teacher was Miss Eula Mae Pittman. School was held in the Ranger Lake community building. Children from beginners to eighth grade, with one teacher instructing all the classes in a single room, learned what interested them most from whatever was being taught at the moment.
School was not held during periods of heavy snow and extremely cold weather. The distances were too great, and with roads virtually nonexistent traveling to and from school in bad weather was out of the question. Our woefully inadequate school system was a worry to parents in the community, all of whom wanted their children to receive a good education.
Mother was a tireless worker for a better school system, and took the lead in organizing a consolidation of local community schools. A single school district was formed, complete with rural buses hauling farm and ranch children back and forth to Tatum. There we enjoyed proper school buildings, and teachers with real "certificates" and "degrees" instructed the classes. Mother saw to it that a consolidated school district became a reality by the time I was in second grade.
Our first consolidated school system bus was a Model T Ford truck outfitted with wood benches to seat seven children on each side in the back. This passenger section had a wood frame with a canvas cover. Tie-downs on the inside were used to close the rear flap. Our morning ride to the school in Tatum during the winter was bitterly cold traveling over frozen slush, ice and snow.
Paved roads did not exist, just well used deeply rutted tracks across rolling pasture lands. Heat in our pioneer bus was from hot irons that mothers would heat over their cook stoves of an early morning and send with us in metal buckets wrapped in old blankets. These fireless heaters quickly grew cold, doing little to keep us warm. We had to huddle close together in the back of that Model T truck to keep from hurting with the cold before arriving at school in Tatum.
Returning home after school was a completely different adventure. By four o'clock the dirt roads had usually melted into slush and mud. When the bus got stuck, as it almost always did, everyone had to get out and push. I became acquainted with the shocking force of electricity while pushing that old Ford bus. Touching a sparkplug while the engine was running I received a bone jarring jolt. I thought I might have ruined the engine as it stopped running smoothly after that, however our driver told me it had a bad plug.
We often arrived home after dark in the winter, having left for school before daylight that morning. Mother became disenchanted with this unsatisfactory way of getting her children to and from school, and set out to solve the problem by moving our family closer to the school. Before another school year passed we moved into a nice farm house only a mile from the Tatum school grounds. Although we were still relatively close to our home ranch, and continued to work it while spending as much time as possible with grandfather Hodge, we never again lived permanently at our childhood Ranger Lake home.
For several years we lived "in town" while attending school. For me these years were filled with the many things grade school boys find to do. Our new place belonged to Ben and Era Alford, close friends of our family. They had to move to Fort Worth, Texas and were pleased to have our family in their Tatum home to care for it.
About this time dad received a contract to carry the rural mail route from Tatum to Ranger Lake where grandfather served as Postmaster. We soon became the proud owners of a 1917 Model T Ford Touring car, one of the first in the area. Dad often stayed overnight at the ranch to take care of the livestock and tend to chores. However as time passed we became less dependent on the ranch and more dependent on the mail route and dad's freighting business for our family’s livehood.
Whenever dad was on a freight run to Roswell or Lubbock, mother drove the mail route. It was my privilege to help her since there were a great many gates to open and close and frequent flat tires to change. I was good at cranking the engine as well, and never once did I sprain a thumb or break an arm as so many Model T engine crankers did in those days.
I learned to drive the car on those trips with mother, and she was proud that I could drive as well as I did. One day I turned suddenly to avoid hitting a cow and a tire rolled off of a front wheel. I remember the great ball like balloon of salmon red rubber inner tube that came out of the tire when it separated from the wheel, and was sure that I had ruined the car. Soon we had the tire repaired and everything turned out just fine, the car wasn't ruined after all.
Automobile tires in those days were of questionable quality at best, and roadside tire repair skills were often tested. Tire tools and patch kits were survival gear that needed to be carried at all times. The best roads in our area were no more than rough trails strewn with sharp rocks. Nearly flat Devils Head cactus waited in hiding, no taller than the low growing grass, for the unlucky driver who dared leave a well traveled track for any reason.
Mother tried to teach grandfather Hodge to drive the car, but he never could get the hang of turning the steering wheel in the direction he wanted to go. His reflexes were those learned as a long time riverboat pilot, and after nearly 80 years it was hard to forget that the stern doesn't swing in the opposite direction from where the bow is supposed to go. He was determined however, and would have wrecked himself and anyone he chanced to meet had there been any traffic to contend with.
Flat pastures were a perfect place for him to learn. There was nothing to bump into except cows, and they generally managed to get out of his way even though he gave a few a real scare. When he was alone he would come back thoroughly convinced he had mastered the art of "steering". However when he drove with someone he invariably got excited, and turned the wheel in the wrong direction, going around in a big circle until he came back to the track. Then once again he would feel he had things thought out and could "steer" a straight line, that is until the next lapse of attention when his old riverboat reflexes took over and around he went again. It was all great fun at that time and place, and just about the only thing grandfather could not do well.
Grandfather was my best friend, comforter, teacher, confidant and companion, and we shared many pleasant hours together. From my earliest memories he was there to help me do and make things, all the while teaching me what it meant to live a happy life. He was physically sound and active, doing much of the gardening and caring for the orchard.
Grandfather taught me to wrap fruit trees so winter cold would not freeze and split them. We dug potatoes from the garden putting them in a pile that we covered with straw. A final covering of earth completed a potato mound. There the potatoes were safe in the darkness from spoilage until needed. Through a hole at the base of the mound we could reach the warm dry potatoes. When the hole was uncovered to retrieve some of the potatoes we would always push a stick in first to see if by chance a rattlesnake had its found a way into the mound.
Grandfather taught me how to shoot rifle and shotgun as we hunted rabbits, geese, prairie chickens, and ducks for winter food storage. The tender loins of rabbits we shot, packed in layers in empty 10 gallon lard cans, were covered with newly rendered lard. As the lard was removed and used for cooking, the rabbit loins would be uncovered and ground up to make chili meat and other delicious dishes. We hunted ducks on our pond as well as on his, and among the shocks in the corn fields we shot geese. Prairie chickens were a rare treat found in the Shin-oak areas up in the sand hills. They would burst into flight from under our horses feet and sail away before we could fire a shot. Sometimes we were lucky enough to get one or two of these scattered game birds, finding them particularly delicious.
Summer months were working months. With school out we often stayed at the ranch to plant crops, care for the orchard and garden, and tend the livestock. Summer days were happy and busy, filled with adventures as we learned new and exciting things.
When I was 9 years old I was given my own colt to break and train, and helped my father in the fields, weeding and cultivating our grain crops with a two horse drawn "go devil." Riding a "go devil" pulled by a team of horses required skill and focused alertness. This was my first man sized job. The “go devil” was made from two 2x12x8 inch planks set on edge, 14 inches apart. These were held in place by a steel framework on which was mounted a seat for the operator. Sharp edged, 3 inch wide steel blades swept back from the center of the machine on the side of each runner. The front of each runner swept upward and the full length of the bottom edge was faced with a steel strap.
Crops were planted in the bottom of the furrows, and with a “go devil” runner on each side of a row of corn, maize or cotton, the horses were to move steadily forward down the row as the swept knives sliced under the beds between the rows, cutting the roots of growing weeds. If the Go Devil was pulled to either side of its proper track the cutting blades would cut the roots of the crop as well as the weeds. I quickly learned how to talk the horses around turns at the ends of the field, then line them up carefully, resting them for a few minutes before starting to the other end.
Our fields were on mellow soil at the edge of sand dune pastures. The warm earth with growing crops was a haven for rabbits, field mice, and various snakes. Bullsnakes, black racers, brown racers, diamondbacks, sidewinders, and hognose snakes were those we saw most every day. We killed all the rattlers we could because our colts were at times bitten on the face as they curiously nosed a coiled snake. A snake bite made them very sick. Their heads would swell up until their eyes were nearly closed, and their lips became so large that they could hardly nurse their mothers milk.
We were curious about snakes and learned they were rodent eaters, so we encouraged some of the bullsnakes to live in the barn and the feed storage areas. We would catch them behind the head and they would coil themselves around our arms as we carried them from the fields.
As we became more familiar with snakes we would sometimes catch a rattler. Once we tied one to the top wire of a pasture fence to see how long he would remain there. Several days later we found he had loosed himself and crawled away. Another time we found a large rattler with a grown cottontail rabbit he was trying to swallow. The snake had the rabbit halfway down and could not spit it out or swallow it quickly. In this condition he was completely helpless. A coyote happening onto the scene would have made a quick meal of both rabbit and snake. We watched him for a long enough time to see the rabbit completely disappear inside the snake and the snakes head once again shaped itself into a normal appearance. With the rabbit inside the snake was still extremely sluggish, moving with great effort.
We picked up a large bullsnake one day and took it into grandfathers bedroom where we placed it under the covers of his bed. We waited for days, hoping to hear him say something about a snake in his bed. However he never gave any hint of such a thing, so we could only guess that the snake had crawled away before being discovered. However knowing grandfather as we did he may have found it and decided not to say anything about it. Such occurrences were rather ordinary, and snakes hunting mice often found their way into houses, so such an event would hardly be worth mentioning.
The only snake bitten person I ever saw was our friend Glendon Hooper. Just at dusk one evening a rattler struck him on his bare right foot. A hen was quickly taken from the roost and killed, and a sharp knife used to enlarged the puncture wounds on his foot so they were bleeding. Then his whole foot was placed inside the warm body of the chicken, which acted as a hot poultice to draw blood and poison from the wound. An hour later another freshly killed chicken was put on his foot.
All night Glendon was kept awake with coffee and conversation. By morning the poison had swelled his foot and leg nearly to the knee, and appeared to have localized in that area. About 2:00 p.m. that day my father returned from Tatum with old Dr. Rumph, who immediately put Glendon to bed so he could sleep. I have no memory of what medication he may have been given, but we were reassured that he would be well again soon. In a few days he was hopping around on a crutch, but the swelling and discoloration lasted for several weeks.
I was extremely happy when Glendon was well again, for he was an imaginative and exciting companion. The youngest child in a family of six boys, he had a decided advantage in general knowledge that was refreshing to me. Although he was somewhat bored with the games we played, he was never critical or demanding. Only when we were riding, working or building something did he seem truly comfortable. He did not seem to know how to enjoy playing, preferring instead to work at something constructive. He was a visionary and a dreamer, and a friend I enjoyed greatly.
Once when we rode to the cliffs near Ranger Lake, after having tired of jumping into and rolling down the sloping sand dunes at their base, we were lying on our backs resting, looking into the bottomless blue of the sky and talking of things we would do one day. Glendon said he was going to build a building so tall the top would be out of sight in the clouds. He also said he would make a machine you could ride in and just wish you were any spot on earth, and you would be there in a few hours. This was far fetched for me to think about, yet somehow I never doubted that Glendon would or could do the things he dreamed and spoke of.
Sharing ideas and dreams with a good friend constituted an unspoken bond of trust, and I was very sad when I heard that Glendon had died of pneumonia after getting drunk and wet and cold one night when he was only seventeen. He didn't live to build his tall buildings or his travel machine, but had he lived I'm sure he would have become a hard driving successful man, a business executive. I have known several highly successful men in my life who exhibited the sort of drive and impatience with small everyday things that Glendon seemed to have. Many times such men exhibit a singleness of purpose that causes other people hurt when they find themselves positioned in such a way as to impede the accomplishment of that purpose.
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Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Part 2
Freighting earned our family cash and credit at the General Store. After such a trip we hurried home from Tatum to see mother, grandfather and the children, bringing with us presents brought from Roswell. Dad made sure that there were always gifts to pass around, and anything that was received, no matter what, was of great value and deeply appreciated.
An empty wooden packing crate, large enough to use as a playhouse, caused no small amount of excitement with us kids. After setting it up like we thought it should be, we sat our baby brother Hodge on top. He promptly fell off and apparently broke his leg. We didn't actually know that his leg was broken but figured it might be. He couldn't walk on it and dragged it along for some time as he crawled. However the leg remained straight and finally healed, so we guessed that it had not really broken.
Yet another time Dad came home with a gunny sack that had two Greyhound pups inside - one black and one gray. These pups became our pride and joy, growing to be so fast that they could catch a rabbit after a very short run. They would close in from behind, one on each side of a running Jackrabbit, then snatch him out of mid air as he tried to dodge back between them.
We had another dog given to us by a J.R. Watkins Co. "drummer." A drummer at that time was a sales representative who traveled the area in a buggy carrying with him several suitcases of merchandise, each containing more wonderful bottles, boxes and items than the last. There were medicines and perfumes of every description, and that was just the start.
Our drummer always seemed to arrive at about the same time each year, just as we were completing evening chores and getting ready for supper. Our parents never failed to invite him to put his horse away, eat supper, and spend the night. I think they enjoyed hearing him talk. He was good at telling one story after another, but later when he was gone my father would tell us the fellow was a "big windy".
The dog our drummer gave us was a slick haired terrier mix, gifted with curiosity and intelligence. We named him J.R. in honor of the drummer, and he became our playmate and constant companion. He died some time later after eating poisoned coyote bait that he came across while hunting. We were very sad when J.R. died, so we made a grave and said a proper funeral to see him off.
When the greyhound pups arrived J.R. showed his disapproval of the attention they received by ignoring them and the people around them. He moved outside the circle of action, lay down and pretended to sleep. He did this so believably that it was difficult, unless you watched closely, to see his eye flutter open ever so slightly, then close just as quickly. Again when he sensed no one was watching, his eyes would flutter open for yet another peek.
Father was the most skilled horseman I have ever known. He grew to manhood on a Wisconsin farm where the breeding, raising, and training of draft horses was central to the work that was done and key to the income it produced. He worked his horses with firm handed gentleness and voice control, and while the colts were learning his patience was infinite.
Colts were born into gentle familiarity with the people in our family, and had only to be taught proper responses to the harness or saddle in order to become good work animals. Running beside their mothers as they worked in harness or under saddle, the colts were not strangers to or fearful of the rigging they would be required to wear when old enough to begin training.
Catching up eight horses that had spent the night grazing in hobbles so they wouldn't stray far, is in itself a seemingly insurmountable task for many. Harnessing them, each in turn, and having them stand calmly in place while the others were being rigged out and the team made complete, was a familiar and routine task for my father. I began to help him harness up as soon as I could reach high enough to buckle a hame strap, snap a belly band or hook the traces. There were never mix-ups or runaways with father's horses, even when young animals were part of the team. Each animal was gentle and cooperative because they had been gently yet firmly handled and taught from their earliest days.
Dressing up on Sundays and riding with the family in our best buggy to the community school house for Sunday School and Church was a fun part of each week. Buck and Bug stepped out eagerly, seeming to appreciate the light work and special occasion. The buggy and leather harness were highly polished, brass buttons and buckles sparkling. We looked a handsome family in a handsome rig on Sunday mornings, and were proud of our pretty span of buckskins with their shiny black mains and tails. We were in fact putting on our best public display, the closest thing to affluence we could muster, however we didn't think of it in those terms.
After Church we often traveled in company with others to visit a neighbor, or neighbors would come to our place and spend the day with us. The women prepared a bounteous Sunday feast in a warm kitchen, with all the talk and socializing that accompanies such an effort. Men sat outside under shade trees talking about crops and cattle, making horse trades, and dealing with other matters that grabbed their interest in our remote Ranger Lake area. As children we would run and play, looking at baby calves, piglets and colts as they were available, and climbing on hay stacks – all the while trying not to get our Sunday best clothes dirty.
When such a Sunday afternoon visit occurred at our place we boys would show off our play "ranches" to our friends. We made miniature fences by lining play pasture areas with small stones gathered in an old milk pail. Designated winter grazing lands, summer grazing pastures, cultivated fields, and trap and holding pastures finished our make believe ranching world. Play corrals were made of sticks driven into the ground for posts, then finished with miniature rails cut from apple box slats and tied to the posts. These made realistic replicas of working corrals, branding chutes and turnout pins. Play barns, houses and out buildings were made of apple box parts cut to size and roofed with flattened tin cans.
Miniature windmill towers were put together of pieces of plank from which we cut and shaped poles to make the four legs of the tower. To those we attached cross braces, then cut a square from the center of a lard can lid so it fit securely in place to make a realistic working windmill tower and platform.
Making windmill wheels and wind vanes was a special task that required patient effort. The correct size tin can or bucket lid was located. A hole was punched exactly in the center, just large enough to fit around a small piece of tubing that would serve as hub and bearing. The lid was cut into equal segments, with each section twisted just right so it would catch the wind and spin the wheel just like the real windmill that pumped our water.
We stocked our pretend pastures with play cattle and horses. Cattle were cow horns found around the branding chutes or on dead animals we came across. Horses were bottles, each different sized and shaped bottle a special animal. Brown beer bottles were prized as the best horses, and to us "Ranching" was a real and exciting game requiring attention to detail, lots of patience. and a great deal of ingenuity and imagination. A ranch once constructed was never destroyed, but repaired and played with on a continuing basis as time and circumstance allowed.
When company came to visit "Ranching" was an important and favorite game with local boys. Branding newly "rounded up" cow horn cattle required a small fire. Branding irons were made of stiff wire bent to shape, and when they were red hot we would burn our "OU" brand into each cow horn, forever marking it a part of our herd. OU was also the brand we used on our real cattle and horses.
Our play world was built inside the fenced area of grandfather Hodge's irrigated vegetable garden, with tiny fences and buildings placed on the slope of the earthen dike that formed the water storage pond. Such ponds were built by excavating earth from the center of an area and stacking it on the sides. The "tank dam" around grandfather’s storage pond was the "hill" we played on, into which we scraped winding roads curving down to "ranch headquarters" from the "mountains" above.
A vivid imagination was an important part of all we did, and "Lets pretend" was "play like". "Play like we're going to Roswell for lumber to build a barn.” Or "play like you have to ride to the north pasture and bring in those bulls to dip them for ear ticks. ”Play like” covered any of the myriad things that busy ranchers do. "Play like" was a great childhood word, a freedom word, allowing us to cast off the limitations of the real world and create imagined worlds as vivid to us as life itself.
Without "store bought" toys we made play wagons from small boxes with wheels cut from round broomsticks. Holes had to be drilled in the carefully marked center of each so it could be pinned to an axle we carved from a proper piece of wood. A nail served as a front bolster pin, and a small branch was used for the wagon tongue. Earth moving scrapers were made from old tobacco tins, and a piece of cast off leather strapped to a beer bottle horse became a silver mounted saddle especially made for breaking a tough bronco.
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Freighting earned our family cash and credit at the General Store. After such a trip we hurried home from Tatum to see mother, grandfather and the children, bringing with us presents brought from Roswell. Dad made sure that there were always gifts to pass around, and anything that was received, no matter what, was of great value and deeply appreciated.
An empty wooden packing crate, large enough to use as a playhouse, caused no small amount of excitement with us kids. After setting it up like we thought it should be, we sat our baby brother Hodge on top. He promptly fell off and apparently broke his leg. We didn't actually know that his leg was broken but figured it might be. He couldn't walk on it and dragged it along for some time as he crawled. However the leg remained straight and finally healed, so we guessed that it had not really broken.
Yet another time Dad came home with a gunny sack that had two Greyhound pups inside - one black and one gray. These pups became our pride and joy, growing to be so fast that they could catch a rabbit after a very short run. They would close in from behind, one on each side of a running Jackrabbit, then snatch him out of mid air as he tried to dodge back between them.
We had another dog given to us by a J.R. Watkins Co. "drummer." A drummer at that time was a sales representative who traveled the area in a buggy carrying with him several suitcases of merchandise, each containing more wonderful bottles, boxes and items than the last. There were medicines and perfumes of every description, and that was just the start.
Our drummer always seemed to arrive at about the same time each year, just as we were completing evening chores and getting ready for supper. Our parents never failed to invite him to put his horse away, eat supper, and spend the night. I think they enjoyed hearing him talk. He was good at telling one story after another, but later when he was gone my father would tell us the fellow was a "big windy".
The dog our drummer gave us was a slick haired terrier mix, gifted with curiosity and intelligence. We named him J.R. in honor of the drummer, and he became our playmate and constant companion. He died some time later after eating poisoned coyote bait that he came across while hunting. We were very sad when J.R. died, so we made a grave and said a proper funeral to see him off.
When the greyhound pups arrived J.R. showed his disapproval of the attention they received by ignoring them and the people around them. He moved outside the circle of action, lay down and pretended to sleep. He did this so believably that it was difficult, unless you watched closely, to see his eye flutter open ever so slightly, then close just as quickly. Again when he sensed no one was watching, his eyes would flutter open for yet another peek.
Father was the most skilled horseman I have ever known. He grew to manhood on a Wisconsin farm where the breeding, raising, and training of draft horses was central to the work that was done and key to the income it produced. He worked his horses with firm handed gentleness and voice control, and while the colts were learning his patience was infinite.
Colts were born into gentle familiarity with the people in our family, and had only to be taught proper responses to the harness or saddle in order to become good work animals. Running beside their mothers as they worked in harness or under saddle, the colts were not strangers to or fearful of the rigging they would be required to wear when old enough to begin training.
Catching up eight horses that had spent the night grazing in hobbles so they wouldn't stray far, is in itself a seemingly insurmountable task for many. Harnessing them, each in turn, and having them stand calmly in place while the others were being rigged out and the team made complete, was a familiar and routine task for my father. I began to help him harness up as soon as I could reach high enough to buckle a hame strap, snap a belly band or hook the traces. There were never mix-ups or runaways with father's horses, even when young animals were part of the team. Each animal was gentle and cooperative because they had been gently yet firmly handled and taught from their earliest days.
Dressing up on Sundays and riding with the family in our best buggy to the community school house for Sunday School and Church was a fun part of each week. Buck and Bug stepped out eagerly, seeming to appreciate the light work and special occasion. The buggy and leather harness were highly polished, brass buttons and buckles sparkling. We looked a handsome family in a handsome rig on Sunday mornings, and were proud of our pretty span of buckskins with their shiny black mains and tails. We were in fact putting on our best public display, the closest thing to affluence we could muster, however we didn't think of it in those terms.
After Church we often traveled in company with others to visit a neighbor, or neighbors would come to our place and spend the day with us. The women prepared a bounteous Sunday feast in a warm kitchen, with all the talk and socializing that accompanies such an effort. Men sat outside under shade trees talking about crops and cattle, making horse trades, and dealing with other matters that grabbed their interest in our remote Ranger Lake area. As children we would run and play, looking at baby calves, piglets and colts as they were available, and climbing on hay stacks – all the while trying not to get our Sunday best clothes dirty.
When such a Sunday afternoon visit occurred at our place we boys would show off our play "ranches" to our friends. We made miniature fences by lining play pasture areas with small stones gathered in an old milk pail. Designated winter grazing lands, summer grazing pastures, cultivated fields, and trap and holding pastures finished our make believe ranching world. Play corrals were made of sticks driven into the ground for posts, then finished with miniature rails cut from apple box slats and tied to the posts. These made realistic replicas of working corrals, branding chutes and turnout pins. Play barns, houses and out buildings were made of apple box parts cut to size and roofed with flattened tin cans.
Miniature windmill towers were put together of pieces of plank from which we cut and shaped poles to make the four legs of the tower. To those we attached cross braces, then cut a square from the center of a lard can lid so it fit securely in place to make a realistic working windmill tower and platform.
Making windmill wheels and wind vanes was a special task that required patient effort. The correct size tin can or bucket lid was located. A hole was punched exactly in the center, just large enough to fit around a small piece of tubing that would serve as hub and bearing. The lid was cut into equal segments, with each section twisted just right so it would catch the wind and spin the wheel just like the real windmill that pumped our water.
We stocked our pretend pastures with play cattle and horses. Cattle were cow horns found around the branding chutes or on dead animals we came across. Horses were bottles, each different sized and shaped bottle a special animal. Brown beer bottles were prized as the best horses, and to us "Ranching" was a real and exciting game requiring attention to detail, lots of patience. and a great deal of ingenuity and imagination. A ranch once constructed was never destroyed, but repaired and played with on a continuing basis as time and circumstance allowed.
When company came to visit "Ranching" was an important and favorite game with local boys. Branding newly "rounded up" cow horn cattle required a small fire. Branding irons were made of stiff wire bent to shape, and when they were red hot we would burn our "OU" brand into each cow horn, forever marking it a part of our herd. OU was also the brand we used on our real cattle and horses.
Our play world was built inside the fenced area of grandfather Hodge's irrigated vegetable garden, with tiny fences and buildings placed on the slope of the earthen dike that formed the water storage pond. Such ponds were built by excavating earth from the center of an area and stacking it on the sides. The "tank dam" around grandfather’s storage pond was the "hill" we played on, into which we scraped winding roads curving down to "ranch headquarters" from the "mountains" above.
A vivid imagination was an important part of all we did, and "Lets pretend" was "play like". "Play like we're going to Roswell for lumber to build a barn.” Or "play like you have to ride to the north pasture and bring in those bulls to dip them for ear ticks. ”Play like” covered any of the myriad things that busy ranchers do. "Play like" was a great childhood word, a freedom word, allowing us to cast off the limitations of the real world and create imagined worlds as vivid to us as life itself.
Without "store bought" toys we made play wagons from small boxes with wheels cut from round broomsticks. Holes had to be drilled in the carefully marked center of each so it could be pinned to an axle we carved from a proper piece of wood. A nail served as a front bolster pin, and a small branch was used for the wagon tongue. Earth moving scrapers were made from old tobacco tins, and a piece of cast off leather strapped to a beer bottle horse became a silver mounted saddle especially made for breaking a tough bronco.
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