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Growing Up
Running Off

Before I was old enough to go to school, I used to run off now and then.  I liked to go visit the neighbors--especially Mrs. Thompson who lived one-half mile east.  She'd always give me cookies or cake, or something good to eat. One cold day, I took off, and ended up to Mrs. Thompson's.  My mother missed me, and hunted all over, especially the creek near where we lived. She called in all the neighbors to help look. Why Mrs. Thompson wasn't contacted, I'll never know, but anyway, Mrs. Thompson evidently became suspicious, because she carried me home.  I remember coming down over the hill with her and seeing everyone out looking on the creek for me.  I sort of remember my pants getting a good warm feeling when my dad got ahold of me!

My North Ear

When a small child, we had to walk east a mile and a half to school.  One very cold day, my left ear froze while we were going to school.  After that, I always called it my "north ear."  I wrote a story about it in a college creative writing class, and received an A.  Evea Jane had proofread it, and had me correct it.  (Then she got a B on the story she wrote in the same class.)

Friends

When I was going to high school, there was a family that lived in the old Sandy house on the east side of the road just south of the creek. (The Post Rock Corral is there now.) Their name was Crane. There were Jack Gordon, Kenneth, and a younger girl. They played guitars and were excellent singers and attended the Nazarene Church.

The boys were good friends of mine, especially Kenneth, who was nicknamed Kelly. He was in my class. I stayed overnight at his house many nights, and he stayed at our house about the same. His brother Jack had an old guitar that he wanted to sell for $5. I really wanted it. The folks had given me a pig. It was worth about $3 at the time. Finally Jack and I made a trade. I got the guitar and he got the pig. They fed the pig out and butchered it. I practiced on the guitar, but never did learn to play it. Someone tore it up for me--I won't mention any names. (Note from Donna:  I seem to remember that guitar. I also remember a few of my brothers and myself playing with it.  I'm sure I didn't tear it up!!)

Walking Home From School

Walking home from high school was much different than walking to high school, especially when I had a basketball game to play, and walked home afterwards. Two and one-half miles north of our home was a creek that had lots of trees in and around it. For about one-fourth mile of that distance, the trees were on both sides of the road. Coming home after dark--which was quite often--I could see lots of "eyes" in the darkness. It always seemed that they followed me. Sometimes, only one set of eyes, sometimes more. One thing for sure, I'd hot foot it through that creek pretty fast. Seldom did I cut across at night, which would have made nearly a mile more of timber and "eyes". Maybe that's why I was in pretty good shape to play basketball, softball, and track. (I might have showed Garry a fair race in those days for about five miles.) Note: Garry, Richard's youngest son, was an All-American runner in college.

My First Bicycle

It was a lot better, I thought, after my folks allowed me to take $6 out of my savings account and buy a wooden-wheeled bicycle from Woodards. It had tubeless tires, no brakes, no lights, no fenders. It was just a frame, two wheels, pedals, and handlebars. The wheels creaked, and they rubbed on the frame because they were warped. We didn't have a bicycle spoke wrench, and probably couldn't have trued it up if we'd had one. Anyway, with all the noise, the "eyes" in the creek didn't bother nearly so much. It was a pretty speedy ride when I'd come to the creek. Oh, yes, I think there was less than $l left in my savings account after I paid for the bike, but it was worth it!

I can't remember what year it was, but late in the summer, after most of the work was done, my folks let me ride that bike down to Uncle Frank's one hot Friday. I really don't remember much about the ride except I almost thirsted to death. I remember stopping at the Cheyenne school house to get a drink of water out of the cistern.

I think it was about 28 miles down there. It's a wonder I didn't have a flat tire. Anyway, that night Howard and Delbert took me to a dance at Hunter. Then on Sunday Uncle Frank's tied my bike on their car, and all of us went up to our home for Sunday dinner.

Queenie, The Dog

Uncle Frank's had given me a bitch collie pup that we took along. When my dad saw it, he was more than a little mad. But he finally let me keep it, and it turned out to be one of the best dogs we had ever had. One morning the dog, Queenie, went with me out in the pasture to get the horses. There were probably ten or twelve head all together, and they were hard to drive. I sicced the pup on them. She ran up and bit one on the heel. That darned horse kicked her, and she flew up in the air higher than the horse's back, going end over end. When she hit the ground 'Kaplunk', she just laid there. She was out like a light. I thought that she had been killed. Finally she came to, got up, and headed for home. She didn't go with me to get the horses for two weeks.

Finally one morning she did go along. When I was trying to drive them, she ran in and, on the heel, bit the one that had kicked her. The second she bit him, she lay down flat on the ground, and the horse kicked over her head. When the horse's hooves hit the ground, Queenie was up and had another bite, then was back on the ground when the feet kicked again. She did this repeatedly with any and all of the horses. From then on, we never had any trouble driving them into the barn as long as Queenie was there. She was the only dog that I ever knew that could drive horses.

Dad was talking to John Lake about how good she was, and that he'd give her to anyone that would give her a good home. John lived out at Palco, and he took her home with him. She made such a name for herself out there, that one day, when John and his wife went to town, leaving Queenie tied up at home, someone stole her.

Winning A Radio

In the early 30's, I believe it was, the Osborne County Farmer announced a contest.  I don't remember who sponsored it, but it involved creating a grid with nine numbers in it like this:


Each line had to add up to 27, in  every direction.  First prize was a radio, and the ad said that neatness would count.  My mother solved the puzzle, and, in place of sending the answer in on a piece of paper like everyone else, she made a red satin pillow trimmed in gold fringe around the edges.  She cut out cardboard numbers needed for the puzzle, and wrapped them in gold colored yarn.  They were sewed on to the pillow in the right places to make the puzzle correct. Mother submitted the pillow to the judges, and she won first prize--the fine battery-operated cabinet radio. That pillow was displayed in the store window for some time.

Hot Water

In the late 30's--probably around 1937 or maybe it was 1936--I got a job with Frank Wineland, driving his tractor.  It was an old steel-wheeled John Deere, with two forward and one reverse gears.  It had no oil pressure gauge--just a small wire approximately 1\8 inch in diameter that bobbed up and down to show that there was oil pressure.  Frank would take me to the field by sunup, leave me with enough grease, fuel, and water for the tractor, my dinner and a jug of water wrapped in burlap. By 10 a.m. that water was hot enough to be terrible to drink, but by 3 p.m. I believe it would have worked really well in a modern day steam iron. About the third day I was out there like that, the neighbors, Jess and Goldie McReynolds, evidently felt sorry for me, and she sent her kids over with a half gallon of lemonade.  I was so thirsty, I drank the whole thing.  Nothing had ever tasted so good before in all my life. I'd still like to know which of her children carried that lemonade over to me!

Hitching Back Home

In the summer of 1940, Dwight DuPree talked me into the notion of going to southwest Kansas with him to harvest.  My folks didn't like the idea very much, but they went along with it.  On the road out there, driving Dwight's Ford Co9 convertible, a water pump went out, and, of course, I had to furnish the money to fix it. I gave him my last $10, that he knew about, (I'd already bought the gas), and from then on it was up to him. Well, we finally made it south of Sublette to where his sister lived. We stayed all night. We slept out in the yard on the ground, and the next day, we went into Sublette to look for a job.

An old farmer came along and offered us a job of shocking barley.  We took it, and we were in the field by sunup. That field was so big that the tractor and binder would only come around about every hour.  All the boss did was ride around in a car, and give his hired help "hell" for not working fast enough.  

We never knew what wages we were getting, and he had many people working at shocking. They would be in groups of two to four, just here and there over the field.   I was told he had around 20 sections of land.  In those days that was a lot.

On the third night after we got back from shocking, I received a telephone call from my folks telling me that Harold's Uncle Bud Melchert would give me a job all summer if I'd come back. He lived south of Ellsworth near Lorraine.  I didn't particularly like shocking, and a job for all summer sounded good, so I hitchhiked back home on a Saturday. I got a ride to Dodge City, and walked about a mile or two to the outskirts of town and got a ride right away to the town of Wright. It had a filling station, elevator, and that's all--not even a slow sign for the cars.

The cars whizzed by me from 10 in the morning until 2:30 p.m. before an old boy came along. He stopped, backed up, and gave me a ride. He said he saw a Fort Hays State sticker on my suit case, so he stopped.  By 4:30, after fixing a flat tire, I was in Hays, and by about 7:30, I was in Natoma, after walking a few miles.

I found some friends riding around Natoma with their dates, and they said they'd take me home after the show.  So by 12 midnight I was home--right in my own yard.

Uncle Bud

On Monday my sister Wilma and Mother took me to Lorraine to meet Uncle Bud.  We drove into his yard, and they introduced me, then they went on into the house, while I went to work.

Uncle Bud's nephew and niece, the Charlie Heitschmidt kids, were over there on their pony.  Uncle Bud slapped the big old fat horse on the rump with his hand, and the horse jumped, spilling the kids off.  Uncle Bud just split a gut laughing.  I thought that was the weirdest man I'd ever met.

He turned out to be the best man I ever worked for.  I made the whole sum of $35 per month, plus my room and board. Toward the end of the summer I had a breaking out all over my body. Bud took me in to see a doctor.  After examining me, he told Bud to tell the cook to cut out all the rich food.  When he told Aunt Edith that, she said,  "We will just have pie once a day now."

I did all his work.  He worked in town at the ASCS office. When it came 7 p.m., we quit, regardless of what we were doing.  We'd be cutting 40 bushel wheat, and a cloud would come up, looking like it was going to rain.  But when 7 p.m. came we'd quit, anyway.

If I was off helping the neighbors thrash, and would be coming home with the team and rack, he'd stop me and have me drive the car on home.  He'd drive the team and wagon on in so I could get cleaned up before supper.

Some of his relatives stopped in from California for a short visit. It was his aunt and cousin, who had been back to Michigan to buy a new 1940 Chevrolet Coupe.  They seemed to like me, and offered me a chance to drive them to California.  They would show me around out there, and pay my way back on the train.  I told Bud I couldn't afford to because I needed the $17.50 that I'd make during the two weeks I'd be gone to go to Fort Hays when school started. (That was another dumb mistake.)

In 1942 I went back and helped him harvest his wheat.  That year he paid me 70 cents an hour.  I scooped about 2000 bushel of wheat a day for two days in a row.

Coach John Locke

I played basketball at Covert high school.  John Locke was our coach. He was later known all over Kansas for his winning teams.  We were one of those teams.  I was proud to have been chosen on the All Tournament team.

Tripping

I was a typical teenage brother.  One evening, I tied a rope across the gate to trip Helen's boyfriend, but it sort of backfired.  I tripped, instead, Cleo's fiancé whom I really liked.