FOREWORD


Dear David and Mary, Susan, John and Beth Ann, and Erin,

After having written MY FLIGHT PATH I thought that a book on
stories of my childhood, school and work would be a natural follow
through. Initially I was going to include stories about our family,
but they did not fit. Also, you already know most of them. Maybe we
should all get together and combine these stories.

At some points, my stories might seem like an autobiography,
but that is not the case. This is just the stories I remember best in
somewhat, but not exact order.

This took much longer than I expected, and was not as
enjoyable or exciting as writing MY FLIGHT PATH. Both flying and
wartime are unforgettable experiences.

I gave copies of MY FLIGHT PATH to many friends and a few
organizations, but I intend this only for family, and maybe a very few
close friends.

Again I want to thank Jerri for her editing and proof reading.

I want to thank your cousin, Ann Patterson Dee, for the help
of her genealogical records that I used for references.

I want to thank Danielle Bluestein for the typing and computer
production.


Love,


Dad/Granddad





April 2006
San Diego, California


PROLOGUE


On December 6, 1880 John Palmer Crouch was born to Steven
Douglas and Betty Lynch Crouch in Willisburg, Kentucky. They moved to
Sangamon County, Illinois in 1881. Then they moved to a rented farm
about three miles east of the village of Nashville, Missouri. At
about the same time about fifty families moved from the same
neighborhood to the Barton County area. Included were Steve Crouch’s
sister and brother-in-law, Aunt Em and Captain Crouch and their son,
Claude, and his recently widowed sister, Kate George and her two year
old daughter, Clara. The area east of Nashville was known as the
Shapley area. Dr. Harlow Shapley, the world famous astronomer and
Harvard University professor was born there. My parents both knew him
and thought that his twin brother, who spent a working lifetime on
their farm, was the smarter one. I went to school with seven of his
grandnieces and nephews; they were all smart and a couple were near
geniuses.

Steve and Betty Crouch went on to have six sons and a
daughter. In three or four years they moved to another rented farm a
couple of miles north of Nashville. In another three or four years,
Steve Crouch was sick for about a year. The oldest son, Palmer,
stayed out of school and did the farming. It proved to be an
excellent farm year and the next year they paid cash for a large
fertile farm a mile west of Nashville. A large new house was build
and many new barns and other improvements were made. It was
considered one of the better farms in the southwest part of Barton
County.

Steve Crouch was a large man, and known to be a great worker.
It was said that he had cradled five acres of wheat in one day when he
was a young man. He took a keen interest in local affairs. He was
president of the school board for many years and a leader in the
Christian church. He was elected as a county judge, now called
commissioner, and from then on always called Judge Crouch. He died at
an early age, 57, from an internal cancer. His funeral was held in
the front yard of the family farm, and was said to be the largest
funeral ever in Barton County. It was estimated there were between
one thousand and fifteen hundred mourners, with many people coming
from nearby towns. The funeral procession was a mixture of
automobiles and horse carriages, and over two miles long. The hearse
reached the cemetery east of Nashville before the last people left the
farm.

The Crouch family came from Crouchborough, England, a small
hamlet, that is now part of London, in the early 1700’s. Three
brothers settled in Virginia, and their families moved on to West
Virginia, Kentucky and Illinois. There are still many Crouches in
those areas.

Jonathan (John) Crouch as a boy lived close to Abraham Lincoln
when he was a young man. Lincoln kept missing eggs from his barn.
One day, Uncle John was playing ball nearby, and went into the barn to
retrieve a ball; Lincoln caught him and accused him of stealing eggs.
Later Lincoln discovered that a weasel was getting his eggs and
apologized to him. Uncle John moved to Seattle and went into the real
estate business. He had a boy named Herbert Hoover as his office boy.
When Uncle John was ninety years old, he received a greeting and
letter from President Hoover.

The Lynch family came from West Ireland in the early 1700’s.
They settled in Virginia in the area that is now Lynchberg. They
moved west to Kentucky. In 1827 the Virginia General Assembly passed
a resolution freeing my great-great-great grandfather from paying any
more taxes for his support during the Revolutionary War. Also he was
cited for contributing to the growth of the state by having
thirty-four children by four wives.

On August 10, 1888 Roxa Beamer was born in the Shapley
community to Arch and Ida Waters Beamer. She was the third girl in
the family that would eventually reach four girls and five boys.

The Arch Beamer family moved to the College Hill Farm at the
south east edge of Lamar about 1898. It was about 1200 acres, owned
by Col. Dave Beamer and was under contract to the University of
Missouri as an experimental research farm. The farm was adjacent to
the Lamar College. It was also owned by Col. Beamer and the three
oldest Beamers went to it. They also became teachers.

The Beamer (Boehmer) family came to Erie County, Pennsylvania
from Bavaria, Germany after being expelled as political exiles. The
youngest son was George William Beamer, my great grandfather. He
married in 1850 and lived in Iowa, Kansas, and Green County, Missouri
before moving to Barton County, Missouri in 1880. Four of his
children came with him, George, David, Archibald (Arch) and Clara.

William Henry Waters was born in Harpers Ferry, Virginia in
1840, and moved to Sangamon County, Illinois where he married in 1863.
He and his family moved to the Shapley area about 1870. He was a
very successful farmer and businessman, and a leader in his community.
His first wife, my great grandmother, died in 1880. She was buried
in Waters Cemetery. Earlier they had lost two small children and
established a cemetery on their farm since there were none nearby.
Today it and the Nashville cemetery are active and both are well
maintained.

The first time my father remembered seeing my mother he was
about ten years old and living north of Nashville. Grandfather Crouch
had a letter he wanted to get to my Grandfather Beamer. My father
rode horseback about eight miles to deliver it. When he rode up to
the house there were the four little Beamer girls playing in the front
yard.

THE FIRST SIX YEARS
1923-1929


I was born 17 September 1923 in Asbury, Mo. to Roxa (Beamer) and
Palmer Crouch. I had a sister Elizabeth 5, brother Arch 3, and a
sister Margaret 1. Asbury was a small town at the edge of a
prosperous lead and zinc mining area northwest of Joplin and about ten
miles from the village of Nashville. My dad was a plasterer and
concrete worker. He owned and operated a pool hall in Asbury for a
few years. One of his stories about the pool hall was when an obvious
pool shark came in and wanted to play. He told dad to go first and
break the balls. Dad made a ball on the break and proceeded to run
the table. The shark paid for the game, hung up his cue, and walked
out without saying anything. My mother joined him in Asbury when they
were married.

One of the stories my mother told many times was about the
first house they lived in. Before prohibition beer came in wooden cases
for twenty-four bottles. My father had many empty cases from the pool
hall. For the house he sawed the cases in half and laid them up like
bricks for the exterior walls and framing. She always said that it
was a great and convenient small house. They moved into another house
that burned down shortly before I was born. One reminder of the fire
I had was that my mother had a set of fifty volumes of Harvard Classic
books, and two or three volumes fell off the shelves while neighbors
were removing the furniture during the fire. The fire was discovered
late at night by two men who were driving by. Many things were lost
in the fire including the family pictures. Shortly after I was born we
moved to Nashville next door to my great Aunt Em and her son Claude.
Aunt Em was what we would now call a local icon, a good Samaritan and
a good Christian woman. She was a strong willed lady and was widely
loved and respected.

Every morning she would come over and take me home with her
and keep me for most of the day. Relatives have told me that she
loved to hold me while she rocked in her rocking chair.

After living in Nashville for a couple of years, my parents
decided to move to California. To prepare for the trip, my father
took a model T truck and built a small shell on the bed. This must
have been one of the first motor homes on the road. I do not remember
it, but have heard about it many times. My brother, sister and older
cousins told me of their interest in it while it was being built. Dad
said he got many favorable comments and offers to buy it. He finally
sold it.

Aunt Em who was born in 1849 told mother she would not allow
her to take me to California if she were ten years younger.

The one story I have been told so many times was about the
wooden road. In the sand dunes in California west of Yuma, Arizona,
was a wooden plank road. It was about twenty-eight miles long, single
lane with a passing turnout every quarter mile. If a car was coming
from the opposite direction, the first one to the turnout pulled over
and let the other one pass. The brakes were bad on our model T truck,
so mother had to jump out of the truck and put the jack in front of
the wheel to ensure the truck would stop and not roll off onto the
dunes. To make traffic worse, there was a carnival caravan coming
from the opposite direction. It took seven hours to go the
twenty-eight miles.

My memories of Los Angeles have no time sequence to me so I
will write a few unrelated ones. I remember seeing a Rose Bowl float
and mother telling me it would be in a parade. One Fourth of July we
went over to Aunt Bess’s and Uncle Guy’s house and saw their night
fireworks display on a vacant lot next to them. Another night I
remember staying overnight with them and Betty. One time Betty,
Elizabeth and Arch were playing on Pogo sticks and Betty gave me a
ride on her back. Arch had a minor operation and Aunt Lil came over
to help take care of him. He was her favorite. The only time I
remember seeing my Grandmother Beamer was when we went to her house
that she shared with Aunt Lil. Aunt Sophia Waters, who was actually
my mother’s step-grandmother, lived in the L.A. area with her son
Heber. Heber was a young man who was a reporter and writer for one of
the major newspapers. He made a very favorable impression on me. I
have since learned that often he took the locally famous Lamar,
(Missouri) Democrat to work with him and shared its stories with the
soon to be famous Ted Cook, national columnist, and another man who
became one of Walt Disney’s primary writers. Heber died a few years
after I saw him, but these two men continued to take the Democrat.
Ted Cook often quoted the Democrat and Arthur Aull. The Disney writer
was on vacation and stopped by Lamar to call on the Boss, Mr. Aull,
while I was waiting to start my paper route. His clothes and
automobile made quite an impression on me. A boy I went to school
with for a while learned to imitate Donald Duck. He quit school and
went to work as the shoe shine boy at the shop that the Boss went to
for his morning shave. The Boss wrote about him a few times and
Disney acknowledged him. During World War II, the boy was killed and
Disney sent his parents a condolence message.

Aunt Em and Claude came to visit us. Frank Williams, who as a
boy and young man lived next to Aunt Em in the same house we lived in
while at Nashville. Aunt Em took care of him and he became very
attached to her. After he left Nashville, he went to Hollywood and
got into the technical end of the movies. He was the first man to
attach the sound track to the edge of the film. He became very
successful and paid for Aunt Em and Claude’s trip. While they were
there, a “Barton County picnic” was held, I think, in Riverside. I
remember going and today have a picture of the attendees.

(Aunt Em in center, Claude Crouch to her left, Palmer Crouch to his left, Palmer's wife Roxa

in front of Palmer - looking to her mother Ida Beamer, Dick Crouch is in front of Roxa,

Claude Mock is in front of Aunt Em holding his daughter and son to their left. Frank Williams

and his mother are above Aunt Em. The picture is dated November, 1927 - Pomona, CA)

Aunt Maude also visited us. I remember she was fond of me and
that she was a college teacher.

There was a big police dog that was sleeping at a nearby
service station. I thought that the dog was dead, but he finally woke
up. My first awareness of police activity was for parking
enforcement. A foot patrolman was walking down the street marking the
car tires with white chalk. Mother explained the parking time limit.

I remember going to kindergarten for half days but little that
we did. One afternoon mother took me to a department store. We got
on an elevator that was crowded, and I was at the back. I reached up
to hold mother’s hand and got another lady’s. I was very embarrassed,
but they both laughed.

On out trip back we were in a Model T touring car that was
rather small. Dad had built a trunk and attached it where the spare
tire was usually carried. Still with the children the car was very
full. Dad also had a canvas cover for the entire car. Once it rained
and we just sat beside the road covered up. The rain lightened up and
dad rolled the front of the cover up clear of the windshield and
started down the road again. The old wood road had been replaced and
I remember seeing some of the old sections, and the folks talking
about the trip over it two years earlier. In Yuma, it just barely
sprinkled and at a service station an attendant was so happy. Later I
remember dad saying that was the first rain the man had seen in
twenty-two months.

In Phoenix we stopped for the rest of the school year and the
winter season. We stayed in a tourist court. Dad worked for a local
contractor. Elizabeth had stayed with Uncle Guy and Aunt Bess for
awhile, but joined us before we left Phoenix. While the other
children were in school, I spent a lot of time with the maintenance
man, who would sometimes take me with him on short trips to the stores
and shops. The court was close to the insane asylum, and a lady who
had a son in the asylum stayed in the court. A pilot with four young
children stayed there, but left shortly after we came. He was killed
and his widow and children came back. We had a very heavy
thunderstorm. It was the first storm that I remember. Many of the
cars were drowned out and would not start. Dad with his little Model
T helped several much bigger cars start.

Dad became very ill with pneumonia. The doctor prescribed
some whiskey; this was during prohibition. After Dad got well, this
half full bottle sat on the top shelf in the bathroom. A man dad
worked with came by to help him with something. This man eyed it and
kept looking. Dad finally asked him if he would like it. He quickly
accepted. I remember very little about the trip to back except that
it rained again. Also we passed some very big irrigated farm fields.

GRADE SCHOOL YEARS
1929-1932


We arrived in Pittsburg, Kansas in the early summer of 1929.
We moved into a house, with a big garden, after buying a houseful of
furniture from someone who was moving away. Just as we arrived I came
down with a case of double mumps. I stayed with Aunt Ruth and Uncle
Arch since we were not settled yet. I was not very sick, but was kept
in bed. Uncle Guy sent me a letter with a picture he had drawn
showing what I must look like.

One morning a tramp stopped at the back door wanting something
to eat. Mother fixed him a plate of food that he ate on the back
porch while we had breakfast. In the fall I started the first grade.
I remember playing tag in the school yard. Some older boy touched the
wire fence right next to me at the same time. Somehow he tore his
glove and blamed it on me. He insisted that I tell my parents and
have them pay for his glove. I never did tell them and he kept asking
me when we would pay him. I tried to evade him as much as possible.
Finally he stopped harassing me.

In the spring I came down with the small pox. I was not very
sick, but the family was quarantined. Dad moved out into the garage.
He brought us food and other supplies, but could not take anything
away from the house. The school sent homework for each of us children
each day, but we could not send anything back. We played out in the
yard, but could not leave it. I have no special memories of my
teacher, and do not remember her name nor any of the other students.

In the fall I remember the World Series, and the newspaper
office that had a big sign that showed the result of each play and the
status of the game. Also the first new car display I remember was of
a new Austin which was manufactured in England. Miniature golf was
introduced then, and Pittsburg had a new course.

Aunt Maude made a Christmas visit and was loaded with gifts.
There was at least one toy and one article of clothing for each of us
children. Arch received an Erector Set and a very small steam engine.
Dad received a fifty tin of Camel cigarettes, the first one I had
seen. I don’t remember any of the other gifts. The next summer Betty
Axline made a train trip from California to visit us and some of Uncle
Guy’s relatives in Nevada, Missouri. She was fifteen at the time, but
she looked and acted very sophisticated to me.

I remember visiting with Uncle Carl and his family many times.
Uncle Arch lived close by so I played with Jack many times. What I
remember, but he does not, was looking through a catalog with him. He
always took everything on one side of the page and I took the other.
He already knew which side to take before we started.

Just before school we moved to Medoc, Missouri a small village
south of Nashville. After leaving the College Hill Farm in Lamar,
Grandfather Beamer bought and lived on a farm between Nashville and
Medoc. The house we moved to was a very big and old one. It had a
very large haystack nearby that was great for playing. We all went to
a one room school, our teacher was Miss Twilight Flaker and she was
very nice. We had a school fair and I had written a short story for
display. My handwriting was beautiful. Mother had it for years, but
it has since disappeared. Everyone said that when I grew up I would
have great handwriting. Mother said no, because he draws instead of
writing. She sure was right. I can never remember when I believed in
Santa Claus, but Arch tried to talk me into it. Christmas day was
bright and sunny so I knew he couldn’t come but Arch insisted he saw
him come in an airplane. Then I knew for sure the truth about Santa.

As soon as school was out we moved to Nashville. What I
remember most was that Uncle Aris Parker helped us with a team of
mules and wagon. I had a lot of fun the next two summers playing with
my cousin Carl at their farm and with cousins B.J. (Pete) and Howard
at the old Crouch farm. Howard was the oldest and the leader of all
the seventeen Crouch cousins. Pete took me to the timber and creek
areas on the farm and I got my first realizations of nature. He also
let me ride Grandmother’s horse, Trixie. She still had a buggy in the
tool shed, but I don’t think she had used it for years. Pete took
care of Trixie like it was his own riding horse.

I visited Carl a lot at Uncle Aris and Aunt Emma’s farm which
was all good field and pasture land with two ponds. Uncle Aris had a
good balanced farm operation so I got to observe a variety of farming
procedures. He raised corn, wheat, beans, oats, and other small grain
feeds. He also raised cows, pigs, sheep, chickens and guineas. He
had three good teams, one of mules, one of older mares and one of
colts that he was just breaking in. His mules were considered the
best in the southwestern part of the county. One time a good team of
horses were in the village and the talk was about which team was the
best. The result was that there were a few small bets made, and the
great pulling contest was conducted on the main street. Someone had a
heavily loaded wagon and the wheels were locked in place with log
chains. Both teams moved the wagon then two or three men got on and
both teams still moved it. Three or four more men got on and the
other team moved it, but had to really struggle. Uncle Aris hitched
up his mules but could not move it. I think Uncle Aris lost five
dollars, which was a large amount then. Several other bets had been
made.

On his farm, I observed the wheat thrashing crew work. In
those days most wheat was cut with a reaper, tied into bundles then
put into shocks by hand. It was left to cure for a while and did not
have to be threshed on a rigid schedule. People with threshing
machines started in Texas or Oklahoma then slowly worked north.
Usually ten to twenty farmers would help each other when the thresher
was there. Threshing time was also a great social event. At the farm
where the threshing was being done the farmer’s wife with the help of
four or five others would put on a good big dinner at noon. A short
rest time was taken before heading back to the field to finish the
day’s job. The children usually ate first.

The threshing machine was usually at the edge of the field or
in a nearby pasture. There were many jobs to do. A few men loaded
the shocks on wagons which hauled them to the thresher where someone
unloaded them and put the bundles on a moving belt that took them to
the hopper. Out came the grain in a chute on one side and the straw
was blown out the other side to form a big stack. Men with wagons or
trucks hauled the wheat to the farmer’s granary or a nearby elevator.
The thresher was usually powered by a large belt from a tractor with a
belt drive.

Now almost all wheat is harvested with a combine. Much larger
fields are raised and much less labor per bushel is needed.

Sheep shearing was also an interesting operation to see. A
small crew with the specialized equipment and skills worked the
countryside each spring. The farmer and his helpers rounded up the
sheep and held them down while the shearer cut the wool. The
interesting part was to watch the lambs searching for their mothers
after the shearing. The mothers were not as interested in finding
their lambs as the lambs were in finding their mothers. Lots of
bleating would be going on. At the end of the day they always found
the right match.

In the fall, filling the silo was another interesting job.
Corn was usually the primary feed. The corn was usually cut with a
sled and put into a shock then left to cure until it was time to fill
the silo. The corn was put into a silage cutter, some enrichment food
was added and it was blown into the silo from the top. The proper
amount of water was added.

I never did watch a hog, calf or cow being butchered, but I
did see the preparation for it.

I was not at all favorably impressed by my third grade
teacher. She was great for giving whippings, fortunately I missed
them. The school had two rooms and a two year high school program. I
think the seventh and eighth grades were in with the high schoolers.
Recess for both rooms was at the same time. Howard was the leader of
the boys group. That was the last year for the two year high school
program at Nashville; but there were others in the county that lasted
until the war. The next year the high schoolers were bused to Minden,
but we moved to Lamar for their school.

Nashville had two blacksmith shops, three grocery stores, a
post office, a café, a barber shop, and a Saturday night movie
theater. They had silent movies and admission was a nickel. Westerns
were the usual picture. I remember seeing a couple of old fashioned
medicine shows. They were very much like we see them depicted in the
movies. I spent a lot of time at the blacksmith shops, watching them
shoe horses, sharpen plow shears, and making repairs to machinery. I
especially liked to watch the forge with the hand cranked blower.

In the fall Nashville had a fair that was held on the school
grounds. It seemed to me that there were many booths, and lots of
pens for the cattle, pigs and sheep. One covered pen was not used and
it served as an excellent den for us boys at recess time, especially
during cold weather. The most exciting event to me was watching a
horse being broken for riding.

The first baseball game I saw was at a close cow pasture
field. Both Uncle Carl and Uncle Arch came over from Pittsburg to
play for the Nashville team. Dad’s job for the game was to pass the
hat and try to get a nickel from each adult. We won the game, but
someone got a broken windshield from a foul ball.

Uncle Ralph, Uncle Paul and Aunt Emily came to visit. I spent
a lot of time listening to tales from the oil fields.

Aunt Em had me over for lunch very often, and I often played
at her house. Her old smokehouse was filled with artifacts from the
eighties and nineties. She had a large garden and raised chickens
also. Frank Williams bought her a new radio. It was a large console
and was powered with very large dry cell “B” batteries. I remember
thinking the government should require all companies who made radios
have a broadcast station so that people who had one would have
something to hear.

Claude took me with him several nights to nearby towns usually
for some church activity. He was a big eater and when we would go to
a restaurant he always ordered a big meal and then the same meal for
me. I could never eat but a small portion, but he always got the same
thing for me that he got for himself. He also took me swimming and
fishing.

Margaret got scarlet fever at the tail end of an epidemic so
we were quarantined again. This time dad stayed in a room that was
separated from the rest of the house. Margaret was not too sick and
the rest of us did not catch it. Aunt Em sent over an old phonograph
that used cylinder records. Most of the records were religious songs
and I spent a lot of time playing them over and over. The one song I
remember was “In the Sweet Bye and Bye.”

We had a big garden and mother spent a lot of time canning
food. WE also picked blackberries mostly beside the road; that was a
job I did not especially like. She had one hundred quart jars of
blackberries along with a lot of other fruits and vegetables.

Clara Thompson with her step-father, Uncle Doc Smith, came to
visit Aunt Em a few times. Clara drove a big twelve cylinder Lincoln
limousine. That car looked very big next to a Model T Ford. Clara
was a first cousin of dad and Claude. She was probably the richest
widow in Lamar at that time in spite of a very modest childhood.
Uncle Doc was born in Lamar in 1849 and had lived all his life in
Barton County. He was an excellent storyteller. His tales of riding
with a posse after horse thieves and the hangings after catching them
were very intriguing, the tales of the Civil War and frontier living
were very interesting. He was proud of the fact that he saved the
life of a fourteen year old boy who was with his father when they
stole a couple of horses. The posse wanted to hang the boy, but he
told them the boy had seen enough when the father was hung. There
were always a bunch of young boys around when he was in the
storytelling mode.
LAMAR GRADE SCHOOL
1932-1935


We moved to Lamar on the first day of school when I was in the
fourth grade. We were a little late getting there and I had to share
a desk with another boy. This was a major turning point in my life.
We had about thirty in class and about a dozen graduated from high
school with me. I was first introduced to football at recess. Being
small but fast, I quickly made my mark in our class.

In these three years in grade school, I did not have any
outstanding or impressive teachers. My best subject was arithmetic
and worst was spelling. In the fourth grade we were supposed to make
a drawing of a zoo animal in a cage. Aunt Maude had given me some
small carved bears she got in Switzerland. Instead of making a
drawing, I put my bears in a cage made from a shoe box. I had the
best display in the class. The next day my friend Pickle Glaze made a
cage, but did not have any animals.

One thing I did observe was that the east coast of North and
South American would cradle nicely into the west coast of Europe and
Africa. I wasn’t too surprised when some scientist came to this
conclusion years later. Also I thought that the international
boundaries of all countries were fixed and there would be very few
changes. One right and one very wrong.

When we got to Lamar I met my Great Uncle Dave Beamer for the
first time. He quickly made a great impression on me. My
grandfathers both died before I was born. I had only one memory of
Grandmother Beamer and very few of Grandmother Crouch. Aunt Em was
more like a grandmother. Now I think back on these two people that
affected my life. They were both icons of their time and leading
citizens in their community with love and respect, but totally
different in their characters. Aunt Em was a large woman, a good
Christian and dedicated church worker, a perfect example of a good
Samaritan, a good housekeeper and cook, and the leading lady of her
community. Uncle Dave was a small man with a good education, a great
salesman, and outstanding civic booster and contributor and an avid
politician but not office holder, and a generous man to both family
and the community. He was a colonel on two different governor’s
staffs. He was a very successful businessman and real estate
salesman. At one time he owned over five thousand acres and estimated
that he had sold over ten percent of the land in Barton County. He
was ahead of the times in promotion of energy in that he tried to
develop what eventually turned out to be the Bagnel dam for
hydro-electric power, he drilled for oil at two locations on his
College Hill farm, and owned a large part of a coal mine in Oklahoma.
He owned and promoted the Lamar College which was a two year high
school and a two year college. Although he was an agnostic, he was
the primary supporter to establish the Catholic Church.

When I first saw him he was over seventy and had just been
diagnosed with throat cancer. He had spent most of his money and had
lost a lawsuit for most of his interest in the coal mine that was
supposed to be his retirement income. The judge in the case went to
jail because of it but Uncle Dave still did not recover his
investment. You would think that he would be broken and discouraged,
but he was still an optimist. He was still trying to promote a big
asphalt plant in the county.

He visited our house frequently in the evening. He enjoyed
reading poetry along with story telling of personal and local
happenings. He was a very interesting man. He proved to me what a
good salesman he was. We lived where we had a large garden area. He
talked me into going into partnership with him furnishing the
knowledge and me doing all the gardening. Then after he walked around
the place a little he decided that he was too old and that I should
buy him out for a dollar. Of course I did not have the money so he
talked me into signing a note. A little later he threatened to have
me jailed if I did not pay off the note. Somehow I finally realized
he sold me something he did not own. After he died his son gave me
the note. That was another think I wished I had kept.

One Sunday afternoon he came to our house to visit. He had
just sponsored a meeting of five potential investors and an engineer
for his proposed asphalt plant. He opened his purse and gave me a
nickel and said that now he was broke for the first time in his life,
but he did not seem despondent. After Uncle Dave died, the engineer
was still trying to promote the project and had dad obtain some
property leases. Mr. Patsulky, or Pat as we called him, was a Jew.
He wrote dad a letter and said that he was going back to Poland for a
visit and would write when he returned. We never heard from him even
after dad wrote him a couple of times. This was in 1933 or 1934 just
when Hitler took over Poland. It is still hard to imaging this large,
well dressed intelligent man in a concentration camp, but that is
surely what happened to him.

When Uncle Dave died, Arthur Aull gave the eulogy. This was
the first funeral for me. When he died he did not have enough money
for his funeral so Aunt Maude paid for it, but finally got the money
back from what was left of his interest in the coal mine. His death
was reported in a front page article in the Kansas City Star about a
half column long and Arthur Aull filled the entire front page of the
Daily Democrat. This man made hundreds of thousands of dollars and
died even, but he was probably the most generous and most widely
respected man I have known. He made a lasting impression on me during
the short time I knew him in his final months of life.

During this period I acquired a lifelong interest in reading
newspapers. The main stories were the rise of Hitler and Mussolini,
the Japanese war against China, the Spanish Civil War, the Ethiopia
War, the sickness and death of Pope Pius XI, and the abdication of
Edward VIII. I wondered what newspapers wrote about in normal times.

Many times I went swimming in Old Muddy Creek, a two mile walk
from home. Most of the time, I went with my brother and occasionally
with others. Now I can’t believe how muddy Old Muddy really was.

During this time, we had the first of the mid west dust
storms. I think the first and worst year for us was 1934. Also we
had a massive invasion of bugs. This was terrible for us, and we were
in the edge of the dust bowl. It was devastating for farmers in
western Kansas and Oklahoma.

One of my happiest days was when my brother got his first
bicycle. It was an old second-hand one that he paid five dollars for.
He had a paper route to earn the money for it. I did some
substitution for him and also got a few odd jobs.

One thrill I got was to ride in some old World War I solid
tire chain driven trucks. We lived next to the Hatfields and some of
them were in the National Guard at the time. They had the trucks out
to get them ready for their two weeks active duty. They were massive
and a very hard ride, but it was still a thrill to ride in them for a
short distance. They must have been terrible for a long highway trip.
LAMAR JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
1935-1937


The summer before I started the seventh grade was the
beginning of my individual contact and recognition with the outside
world. I started carrying papers for the Daily Democrat. Nell
Casement, a childhood friend of my mother, was my boss. I had one of
the short routes and the pay was seventy-five cents a week. At the
same time, Diddy Duncan, just out of high school and an old Democrat
carrier, started as a printer’s devil; and Wally Daetwyler started as
a reporter and linotype operator. I had a quick bond with all of
them. I loved to watch the linotype and the press and was thrilled
when Diddy asked me to oil the press for him. I also was an errand
boy for all of them while waiting to get my papers.

That summer 1935 was one of the hottest ones ever and that
winter one of the coldest. For over six weeks the temperature stayed
below freezing. Water pipes were freezing all over town. One nice
lady invited me in to warm up every time she saw me. Her house
smelled terrible, but I appreciated the warmth of their wood stove.
When I got home I frequently put my feet in a pan of water to slowly
warm them. Standing in front of our coal stove it was warm, but your
back was cold so I turned frequently.

As soon as I was twelve I joined the Boy Scouts. This was a
great adventure for me and I was encouraged by my mother, brother,
Diddy, and Wally.

School was a big change. We stayed in the same room most of
the time, but had a different teacher for each subject. The girls all
took home economics and the boys all took science. Our teacher was
easily led off the subject, but we learned a lot of other things from
him. Our math teacher was a very big man and brilliant. Math was my
best subject and he took a liking tome. A couple of weeks after
school started he told me and a couple of other boys to write down ten
numbers he gave each of us, and to ask him anytime during the year
what they were. Later he gave several others each another list. He
always knew the first lists he gave out, but sometimes when asked
about the other lists; he would look at the ceiling and ask for the
first number. Then he always completed it correctly. Some of us
studied the numbers and tried to detect a pattern, but we were not
successful. My Social Science teacher was Woody Hatfield, our one
time neighbor, who was in his second year teaching and coaching. He
was a Lamar High School graduate and had an outstanding athletics
record. At the University of Missouri he lettered in football,
basketball and track setting several records. He was a good teacher,
but what impressed me was his control. Everyone called him Woody
since they had always known him by that name. While coaching or
teaching, if there was a little horseplay or off subject humor he
would go along with it for just a minute then go right back to the
subject. You had the impression he could and would pull you right out
of your seat and work you over, but I never saw him come close to it.
By the way he was a relative of Wyatt Earp. I always thought of him
as a perfect example of how a home town person could be a good
teacher. I saw a few terrible examples of those who could not. Our
English teacher was a beautiful young lady, who was adequate but not
outstanding.

The high school building was old and small. One night the
school board met and voted to put a school bond proposal to the public
for voter approval. The next day every teacher spent most of the
period campaigning for the bond issue. The bond issue was approved
and the new school building was ready for my freshman year.

AT the Democrat I got a second job of stuffing papers which
was a needed job when the semi-weekly paper was over eight pages.
That pay was fifty cents. Then I got a bigger paper route that paid a
dollar twenty cents a week. I stopped stuffing papers for a regular
job of wrapping the semi-weekly bundles, for fifty-six cents a week.
For the first two winters that I carried papers I had a Saturday
morning job of carrying out the ashes for the thirteen room old
Crenshaw house. That Crenshaw had been a bank president. He sold the
bank and house, moved to Los Angeles and became a real estate
developer, named a primary street Crenshaw Boulevard, which is still a
primary L.A. street. On cold weeks that was a big job for twenty-five
cents.

After I completed my paper route, I came back to the office to
do the single wrap papers and take all the papers to the post office.
These two jobs paid one dollar and ten cents a week. Diddy Duncan, by
then the primary printer, wanted a little help doing odd jobs and
cleaning up the plant. I started working four hours a week on
Saturday morning for another fifty cents. I had jobs that paid $1.20,
$1.10, $0.56 and $0.50 each week.

During this time I bought my first used bicycle. The bicycle
and I were never far apart for any long period of time for the next
two or three years. During this time I started advancing in the Boy
Scouts and spent time camping, swimming and fishing. I did a lot of
this with my fellow Democrat carrier, Don Vlazny.

In the eighth grade I had three new teachers; Byron Calloway
was my math teacher and became one of my mentors for the next five
years. Butch Houston became the new coach and social science teacher.
He was an interesting teacher, but his lifestyle limited his tenure
to one year. Much later I learned that he was a high school friend
and college roommate of my very good friend Paul Kaesser. My English
teacher was an old maid and one of my worst teachers.

I went to the Boy Scout camp for the first time. This was a
great experience for me and the first time I had been away from home
for a week. The next year Don Vlazny and I rode our bicycles to camp.
This was to get our fifty mile trip for one way and one of the six
required twenty-five mile trips. The route was down the main highway
between Kansas City and Joplin and was just a two lane road. We went
early in the morning, but there were still many trucks on the road.
At camp Don got poison ivy and could not ride back. One of the
Scout’s father had his boss’s truck to bring us all home. He wanted
to bring me home also, but I declined. That was Sunday evening and we
had planned to stay another night at camp and start back Monday
morning. One of our adult counselors lived just a couple of blocks
off the highway just north of Joplin, and he insisted that I ride to
his house that afternoon and stay the night. He had a son about my
age. That was the first time I stayed all night with a strange
family. I was very comfortable but still did not go to sleep the
entire night.

His son decided to ride a few miles with me then turn around
to go back home. We got to Webb City and it was still dark. As we
were going through town a night watchman on foot yelled out and asked
where we were going. We yelled back to tell him, but kept riding.
Soon a patrol car stopped us, and asked who we were and what we were
doing. I whipped out my Boy Scout identification card and explained
our mission. For some reason I never did tell my parents about that
stop. I told Don but made him promise not to tell anyone else.

That summer Don and I went fishing at the north dam while
Don’s folks were on a fishing vacation in Colorado. We had a very
good string of bass and took them into town to show them off. Mr.
Aull, the Boss, wrote in the Democrat that if Don’s folks found out
about it they would probably come back to Lamar to finish their
vacation.

Thanksgiving day 1936, I saw one of the best punts I ever saw.
Our football team was playing the arch rival, Nevada, at home. The
day was very cold and the ground was frozen. We were playing for the
last time on the east-west field. In the fourth quarter after a big
loss and a penalty we were backed up close to the goal line and the
fourth down coming up, Jack Isenhower stood in the end zone to punt.
He got off a very good high punt. The wind carried it over the head
of the punt return man, it hit the frozen ground and bounced high with
the wind carrying it farther, after again hitting the ground it kept
rolling towards the opposite goal, and it finally rolled out of bounds
at about the ten yard line. We still lost the game for the eighth
year in a row.

HIGH SCHOOL
1937 – 1941


My freshmen year in high school started in the new building
and we had over one hundred in our class, a new record for Lamar. We
had four buses for the rural students, who out numbered the city
students. We had a new gym, new library, many new classrooms and
lockers for the students. We had several new teachers, a new football
coach and new basketball coach. All students had physical education
for the first time.

The first story I remember reminds me of the dumb blonde
example, even if it was by a very beautiful brunette. The school
superintendent, Dave Craig, had all the freshmen in the auditorium
filling out a personal questionnaire. One of the questions was, what
does your father do? Margie raised her hand and asked what she should
put down because her father was a butcher. Mr. Craig just smiled and
said “put down a butcher.” She got the intended notice.

Martin Rhodee was the new football coach and my physical
education teacher. Many years later he was the father-in-law of Bill
Russel, the Dodgers star shortstop. I went out for football but at
one hundred five pounds did not get a uniform. Coach Rhodee was a
good coach, good teacher and a fine man who was admired by all.
Almost all of his players say that he had a great positive influence
on their lives.

Tommy Foraker was a new social science teacher; he started
teaching at Nashville the year we moved to Lamar. He announced to the
class that I had moved away once to avoid going to school under him,
but that he finally caught up with me. He was essentially correct.
During the year he posted in big letters on the blackboard the ten
people in each class who had the highest workbook scores. Anyone who
looked at the lists should have known that something was wrong since
in our class Carl Finley, Billy Phander and Gwyneth Jean Craig, by far
the smartest in our class, just barely made the list. What happened
was that Butch Houston had not collected all of the workbooks the year
before. I don’t think Foraker ever figured it out.

My English and Latin teacher was a new first year teacher and
was a good teacher, nice and good looking. She got married that year
and transferred to her husband’s school.

I was still working all my jobs at the Democrat. We had a
Democrat sand lot football team. Neil Daetwyler was our team captain,
quarterback, passer and punter and I was the primary ball carrier. We
beat Jack Turner’s Southenders a couple of times, but lost a couple of
games to Pete Ihms’s Alleycats. Pete was on the school football
squad, but not a game player. Anyway when coach Rhodee read in the
paper that Pete’s team had beaten us, he told everyone on the squad
that if they didn’t get enough football that he would give them a
harder workout. The school season ended on a harder workout. The
school season ended on Thanksgiving Day so we scheduled another game
with Pete on the day after. During the third quarter we were a
touchdown ahead. Our line stopped a drive on our two yard line. I
thought Neil would punt the ball on the first down, but he called for
me to run around right end. There was a big hole between the tackle
and end. Preach Haddock blocked the line backer and Neil had a great
block on Pete. I went ninety-eight yards and no one got within two or
three yards of me. I had three other touchdowns for my best game
ever.

One Saturday morning, shortly before Christmas, just as I was
finishing up my work at the Democrat, word came in about a bad
accident at the highway railroad crossing just west of town. Wally
and Diddy took me along in the old yellow buggy, a Chevrolet
convertible, to the scene. A mother, grandmother and two young
children in an old car had been hit and killed by a train and their
bodies were scattered along the railroad right-of-way. I just watched
as the bodies were being removed and Wally and Diddy were getting the
story. The family was coming to town for Christmas shopping. That
was the first time that I had seen bodies at an accident site. It
made quite a sorrowful impression on me. Many years before two people
had been killed at the same intersection. A little more than a year
later four men were killed at the same intersection. One was the
father of a good friend, and two others were fathers of acquaintances.
A viaduct was built there a couple of years later.

I tried to go out for basketball but the principal would not
let me change my schedule. After coach Stevenson had the varsity
teams organized he started a junior high squad. The day after the
first practice, he told me to go to the varsity practice. He had a
second “B” team game scheduled that he let me play in. Then he had me
stay suited up to sit on the bench for the regular “B” team. After we
were well behind with about two minutes to play he put me in. I think
I got my biggest ovation just for getting into the game.

Near the end of my freshman year, Mr. Calloway selected Carl
Finley, Bill Phander and myself to prepare for the area algebra
competition. We stopped the regular class assignments and went ahead
to study on our own. I did not take this as a challenge, and did not
study as hard as I should have. Carl and Bill got to compete in the
regional competition, but they were both much smarter than I.

At the start of my sophomore year I was still working at the
Democrat and active in the Boy Scouts. At one hundred fifteen pounds,
I was issued one of the old football uniforms and allowed to practice.
I was taking English, World History, Geometry and Latin. I had all
good teachers, Miss Lyon, Coach Rhodee, Callaway and Mrs. Castle.

Clara Thompson came back for a visit. For some reason her new
car was small instead of one of her old big cars and was discussed at
the Democrat on a Saturday morning while I was working. The “Boss,”
who knew that I was a distant cousin, said “everyone says that Clara
married Jimmy for his money, and of course she did, but she earned
every damn cent of it.” Her car was a new small Ford, and I rode out
to Nashville with her on Sunday. She said “you know this is the best
car I ever had.”

In the fall of 1938, my sophomore year, I received a
devastating blow. The social responsive government passed a law that
would not allow a company engaged in interstate commerce to employ
anyone who was less than sixteen years old. The Boss put the paper
carriers on a commission basis, and called them merchant carriers.
There was no way he could protect all of my extra jobs. My paper
route had been one that had few customers that were at the edge of
town and a long way apart so this put me in one of the lower paid
routes instead of the highest paid ones.

I had paid all of my own expenses, my sister’s school expenses
and sometimes helped my mother. This was a huge loss for me, but I
soon obtained another job.

The Northside Bakery, just a few doors away from the Democrat,
changed ownership and changed their baking hours. Their bread
wrapping job changed from starting at five o’clock in the morning to
eleven o’clock at night and the bread wrapper quit. The bread wrapper
was Jay Isenhower who was a Democrat carrier and sixteen years old.
He had taken over one of my jobs at the Democrat. I took his job at
the bakery.

The graveyard shift lasted from eleven until about two or
two-thirty except Friday night when it was about five o’clock before I
was through. This job paid three dollars a week plus some overtime at
fifteen cents an hour for peeling potatoes for French fries. At lunch
break I ate all the bakery pastries and drank all the milk I wanted.
The retail value of my food must have been more than my pay.

At school, I made the football practice squad, but not the
traveling squad. At basketball I made the “B” team traveling squad as
the last man. I did not get to play much but did letter. Working the
graveyard shift and playing basketball was a heavy load, and my
studies suffered.

In geometry class, the teacher, Mr. Calloway, was out of the
classroom for a while and we were supposed to be studying. Someone
started throwing chalk and erasers. Soon we had a small war going on.
Someone looked out the door, saw the teacher coming and issued a
warning. Everyone except Carl Finley and Pete Ihm stopped
immediately, but they each had to have the last throw. Today we would
call that felony dumb. Just as the teacher entered the room, the bell
rang and he saw the last eraser flying through the air. He was
furious and asked who threw it and at whom. Carl and Pete confessed
so Calloway let the rest of the class go. He soon figured out that
more had been going on. At the start of the period the next day he
was in a good mood. He had a clipboard in hand and went to the first
table and said to me “Dick you were throwing things yesterday, weren’t
you?” I stuttered a little and said yes sir. He went through the
whole class and guessed right on everyone. I forget what our short
term punishment was, but the long term was that we did not get our
daily papers back to put into our notebooks so we had to make two
copies of all of our assignments.

At the end of the year in geometry, I led the class on two
statewide tests and on the final. I think that was the last time I
ever led the class at the completion and the last time I beat Carl
Finley at anything.

Carl Finley was an unusual student. He thought that you went
to school to have a good time, and then spend a couple of hours
studying before taking an exam. Then he would always ace the exam.
Some of the teachers did not approve when he inserted a dozen pages of
the Revolutionary War in his incomplete outline during the Civil War
period; or when he made a Turkish pipe during chemistry lab; or when
he rigged an unattended typewriter to operate the spacing bar during a
typing test. He took an extra course almost every year, and always
got an “E,” today’s “A,” in all courses. With one exception; during
his senior year he decided to take typing since it would be an
advantage in writing reports in college. He learned you could not
goof off in typing classes then study for two hours and pass the tests
with an “E.” The result in his case was that he got an “I” in typing.
This “I” averaged in with his “A’s” put him behind Bill Phander for
class valedictorian. Bill also went on to get his doctorate degree, a
long list of honors, and became a dean at the University of Missouri.
Carl went on to being a partner in a large and successful engineering
company.

During the summer between my sophomore and junior years, I was
still carrying papers and wrapping bread at the bakery, and I also
started working at the fountain on Saturday nights at the bakery.
That started at about six, ended about two on Sunday morning and paid
fifty cents. At the start of my junior year of high school, I figured
it was time to stop carrying papers and that the graveyard shift of
wrapping bread was not compatible with going to school. The bakery
offered me a job to work in the front during non-school hours. My
hours were longer, but I got off for all school after hours events
like football and basketball games. One week on Monday, Wednesday and
Friday I worked from six in the morning until a few minutes before
eight; in the evening from after four until five and at night from six
until around midnight. On Tuesday and Thursday I worked from after
four until six. On Saturday I worked from nine until ten at night
with an hour off for lunch and dinner. On Sunday we worked from seven
in the morning until about midnight with an hour off for the two
meals. The next week I shifted the weekday hours and on Saturday
worked from six in the morning until about one on Sunday morning with
the same meal breaks. Then Sunday was a day off.

The pay for this which was forty plus hours a week was four
dollars. One thing that I was always proud of was I was the only
person in my class or the classes just ahead and just behind me that
always had a paying job during my entire high school. The bakery was
a unique establishment. It was owned by the mayor and two young
brothers. They were all very likeable and were also known to take a
drink now and then.

The business of the bakery was to sell bakery goods both
wholesale and retail also we had a soda fountain and an ice cream
parlor. We also had hamburgers, chili, some sandwiches, and prepared
egg breakfasts. We sold many cigarettes, cigars, and tobacco both
wholesale and retail. We also sold bottled beer over the counter. We
had bulk candy, boxes and bars. We froze our own ice cream from
purchased mix and sold ice cream both wholesale and retail. In the
room behind the parlor, where I had wrapped bread, was the town’s high
class illegal bar where the respected patrons could buy a mixer and
bring in their own whiskey or other liquor. The liquor inspector
lived in a town about thirty miles away and was well known in town.
Somehow we always knew when he was in town. I stopped selling beer
and we were all very careful about selling setups in the back.
Selling beer to minors was always a no-no. The bakery and fountain
were popular with the young crowd and high schoolers. The older
ladies liked the ice cream parlor. The Northside Bakery, Rutherford
and Webb, was the in thing and the place to be. I received a unique
education at the bakery and remained friends with the owners during
their lifetimes. I got to know most of the business people and a good
share of the residents and local farmers.

At school, during my junior year, Mr. Calloway selected me to
grade papers for him under a program of the National Youth
Administration, NYA. The maximum pay was six dollars a month, and I
usually made three or four. I was really too busy so I normally
graded two or three papers and took all home. My sister, Margaret,
would finish them for me.

My history teacher was Coach Rhodee, and he called on me about
every third question. I enjoyed the honor. My seat was next to his
desk with my back to him. I always went by the name Dick not Richard.
One day I had my hand up to answer a question and he called on
Richard. I kept my hand up, but did not respond and again he called
on Richard. I just sat there before he called on someone else. He
never did say anything to me about it, and I didn’t know if he thought
I did not know the answer or whether I was just being ornery. Another
time he was out of the room for a while, and we were supposed to be
studying. One of the boys at our table suggested that we all look up
at the ceiling. When he came back the other boys looked down, but I
still stared upward. He did not say a word, but he picked up a
yardstick from his desk. He took a good swish just over my head that
hit the hair on my head. I looked down, but he did not say a word and
went on with the class like nothing happened.

Another time before class one of the boys wrote on the
blackboard the nickname of some of the town’s characters. Some of
these were, Brother, Tootle-Bug, Asa, Chickie, Tuby, Polar Bear, Big
Ann, Henry, Barney and Charlie. Then he put our last names after
them. Two of the nicknames stuck for their lifetime. Unfortunately
they both became alcoholics. I forget what name he assigned to me.

Bob Potter had a Saturday night date to go to the movies with
a girl in our class. Our good friend Norman Letsinger went to her
house and told her that Bob could not go, but he would take her. Bob
went to pick her up and upon finding out she was gone went to the
movie alone. He sat down not knowing who was already sitting next to
the seat he chose. Of course it was Norman and Jane. Bob and Norman
both thought it was funny, but Jane was not amused. She ended up
going with Norman for the rest of the year. Bob and Norman remained
best friends.

At football I made the squad on the third team at two
positions my junior year. At right halfback I had two seniors, both
two year lettermen and on the first team their sophomore year. At
left halfback I had two seniors; one was on the first team his
sophomore year and the other joined the team his junior year and was
an all conference selection. One at each position was team
co-captain. Some competition, but I did get to play a little and
letter. We had a good team.

Lamar’s traditional rival was Nevada, and the game was always
played on Thanksgiving. The rivalry with Carthage was building up to
almost the same level. The day of the Carthage game Bud Moore, a
local young businessman and ultimate sports fan, went around the
square collecting a dollar a piece from almost all of the businessmen
to send the team to Columbia to see M.U. play Nebraska if we won.

We had a good win, but some members of the team had to make
some fast plans. The game was at night and at Carthage. The country
boys had to find a place to stay and perhaps borrow a little spending
money. We got home about eleven and the bus for Columbia was to leave
before six. Everyone helped and all the team made the trip. There
probably weren’t more than two or three boys who had ever seen a
university game before. M.U. won and we got to see Paul Christman and
the Orr twins in action. It was a great trip for us and we were young
enough to make a fast recovery. We were all very thankful for Bud
Moore’s support along with all the one dollar contributors.

For me there was also an excellent example of small town
friendship and help. The week before the game I had purchased my
first suit. It was supposed to be ready for pickup on Monday after
the pants cuffs had been tailored. The store I got the suit from had
the Wardrobe Cleaners do their tailoring. It was owned by Mr. and
Mrs. Coiner the parents of my good friend and classmate Kathleen.
When I got back from the Carthage game Friday night, I stopped by the
Bakery before going home. Mrs. Coiner had completed my suit Friday
night after hours and left it at the bakery knowing that I would
probably stop by there before I went home. I thanked her for her
special service, but I don’t think she realized what it meant to me.

My senior year for football we had a new coach, a small squad
but five of the best players from the year before. We had six
backfield men and I was supposed to be the right halfback. Because of
injuries I started at least two games in every position and on two
occasions played three different positions in one game. We had a
4-4-2 record that year, but one big tie and two big wins. We beat
Joplin, 7 to 6, a much bigger school, for the first time in several
years. We beat Nevada at home on Thanksgiving Day for the first time
in twelve years or our entire school tenure. We tied Carthage, 7-7,
at home, and under another offer from Bud Moore to go the next day to
the M.U. game. I walked off the field somewhat disappointed in not
getting to go to M.U. again. The enthusiastic Bud Moore was in the
dressing room saying “we’re going.” We had a good trip, but it did
not come up to the prior trip.

After another home game that we won, I went to the bakery to
work the remainder of the shift. I ask Bud Moore for his order. He
could not believe that I got dressed and beat him to the bakery where
he was still pumped up and replaying the game.

During my sophomore year we had a good “A” basketball team.
At one home game there were a lot of fouls called, and we ended up
with only four men playing and the other team had only three. At the
end of this season we were in the regional tournament. The “A” team
played a team from a nearby small town, Jasper, that they had beaten
before. During the first half they did not miss either a field goal
or a free throw shot. At the half our coach, Hattie Hatfield, just
shook his head and said “I don’t know how to beat that kind of
playing.” During the second half they missed only one field goal
shot. Our team played an excellent game and just barely lost. That
was the best game I have ever seen. At one “B” game I started, one
player called out to the captain to call a timeout. That was at the
time when teams huddled on the floor and the coach could not talk to
the team. As soon as we got in the huddle, he said look at that
blonde down at the end of the bleachers.

My junior year I was a regular on the “B” squad. All of the
others on the “B” squad from the year before moved up to the “A”
squad. They had a good year and went to the state tournament. Our
“B” squad had a very median season.

Our senior year our basketball team won only one game out of
seventeen. That game was one of my best. It was on a Tuesday and the
week before I was out with the flu. I think the rest had been good
for me.

Coach Rhodee insisted that everyone who went out for football
also went out for track. Rhodee had been an outstanding sprinter and
a good football halfback at Kirksville Teachers College under Coach
Don Faurot, before Faurot went to M.U. for an outstanding record and
national recognition. I wasn’t too excited about track but did have
some potential as a long distance runner and for very short sprints.
I worked just hard enough to keep the coach satisfied. During my
junior year I became the team’s best half-miler. We had only two
meets scheduled. The first was the regional meet at Springfield. The
coach took me and a relay team that ran two different relays. We just
went in the afternoon and the half mile had been run in the morning.
The coach had me run in the mile instead. I think that was only the
third mile race that I had run. We were at about the three-quarter
mile mark, and I was in the middle of the pack, feeling good. I
decided it was time to move up so I increased my pace. At about the
last 220 yard mark, I was leading the pack. With about 100 yards to
go one man passed me, and soon afterward another passed. I was
feeling tired and another passed me just before the tape. I came in
fourth and placed for a medal. If I had held off a little before I
started my more, I would have done much better. AT the conference
meet, I ran the mile again. The host team had an expert miler, and I
was trying to beat him. My strategy was to let him set the pace and
try to beat him on the final. After the race started, I kept about a
yard behind him and kept that position. There was some unknown runner
out ahead of him. The dark horse led the race all the way and set a
conference record. The supposed expert was about two paces behind him
and I was another pace behind at the finish.

My senior year I did not get in condition and did not place in
the long distance races. I did run on the relay team and placed and
lettered. During my junior and senior years I was the only one in my
school to letter in all three major sports, football basketball and
track. I don’t think that my mother ever saw me play a game, but I
always knew that she was my best fan and supporter.

AT the end of my junior year, I took a history/civics exam to
go to Boy’s State. I came in second. The winner could not go, but
the American Legion picked a member’s son to go instead of me.

One of the big events of the year for the football team was the annual
banquet for the players and their fathers. The event was put on by
the mothers who also put on the Junior-Senior banquet to raise money
for the football banquet. These were also great social events for the
mothers. The banquets were always great.

One Sunday during my senior year, I had an eventful day in my
employment. In the winter, the Democrat fired their older full time
printer, and hired me to replace him. I opened up the office at six
in the morning and worked until about eight cleaning up from the
previous day. Then I came back about four to help get the papers out
working till about seven thirty for the daily and eight-thirty or nine
for the daily and semi-weekly. About a month before school was out, a
local grocery store fired one of their full time employees and Eddie
Casement from the bakery took his place.

On Sunday morning Harold Webb came by our house and offered to
hire me back with a raise to take Eddie’s place. I agreed and went to
the Democrat office to tell Mr. Aull, the boss. He offered to give me
a raise to keep me on. I went back to Harold and told him of Mr.
Aull’s offer. Harold upped his offer to ten dollars and fifty cents a
week to start while I was still in school and working only part time.
I accepted and worked there until I quit in the fall to go to college.
Anyway during my senior year, I was hired to replace a full time
adult who had been fired. I remained on good terms with both the
Democrat and the bakery.

In the fall of my senior year the local National Guard was
called up for one year of active duty. Our superintendent, Captain
Dave Craig, was the commanding officer and another teacher was a
platoon officer. About half of the boys who had just graduated were
in the guard. We had three boys in our class who were in the guard,
but they got out because they were under age. One boy claimed to be
eighteen and stayed in.

One summer day after I had graduated, a man came into the
bakery looking for me. After I had identified myself he handed me a
subpoena to appear at a court hearing in Joplin. It was by the
printer, whom Mr. Aull had fired for stealing money, and I had
replaced. It was about unemployment benefits and based on the number
of employees and if the carriers were employees. I contacted the Boss
and he told me about it. On the hearing date he hired a taxi to take
him down and took me with him. I’m not sure just how it came out, but
it was unusual for the Boss to bring a witness for the other side. It
was another interesting event.

I had always planned to go to the University of Missouri and major in
Civil Engineering. Mr. Calloway and Wally Daetwyler both went to
Southwest Missouri State Teacher’s College at Springfield and talked
me into going there for pre-engineering because it was cheaper and I
would have an easier time getting a job.
SPRINGFIELD
1941-1942


My first trip to college was also my first hitchhiking
experience. My friend Norman Lestinger was also going to school at
Southwest Missouri State Teachers College and he was going out for
football. He lived in Lamar with an aunt and uncle, but his mother
and step-father lived in Springfield. I stayed with his folks for a
couple of days while finding a place to live, and hunt for a job. I
rented a basement room at a boarding house just across the street from
the campus. The cost was five dollars a week. I put in a few feelers
for jobs, and got one offer, but turned it down. After all I had
saved almost two hundred dollars so I was not in too big a hurry.

The college had just over a thousand students, and the campus
was beautiful with four primary buildings, an Olympic size swimming
pool, and a football stadium for about four thousand. The school
auditorium was large enough to hold the entire freshman class. On our
first day when we were all in the auditorium we were told to look to
our right, left, forward and behind and introduce ourselves. Then we
were told that one of the persons we had just met would not be here
for the start of our second term.

School was fairly routine with no outstanding teachers. One
thing different was that the term Mr. was used frequently to address
me by some teachers. My first term classes were English,
trigonometry, algebra, chemistry and physical education. The whole
school was on a strange schedule. Each term was for twelve weeks and
each class was for two and a half credit hours. Each class had four
days of attendance. The eight o’clock class did not meet on Monday,
the nine o’clock class did not meet on Tuesday, the ten o’clock class
did not meet on Wednesday, the eleven o’clock class did not meet on
Thursday and all afternoon classes did not meet on Friday. That way
there was an opportunity to schedule all school functions two or three
times a term. All home football games were scheduled for Friday
afternoons or at night.

I got a job working as a bellhop at a downtown small hotel. I
worked nights from six until twelve. I made about ten dollars a week.
The morning bellhop was going to a business school and the afternoon
bellhop was a senior in high school. The owner was a man who was not
well liked, but it was a job and an interesting experience. The bus
ride to town was a nickel and a taxi ride was a dime, but I still
walked most of the time. A few weeks later I was called into the
school administrator’s office to be offered a job as one of the
janitor assistants. As soon as he found out I already had a job, he
withdrew the offer. That job would have been better in many respects,
but did not pay quite as much. In January a senior I met, that knew
Aunt Maude, was graduating and helped me get his paper route. It was
near the college and in the best part of town. I made about sixty
dollars a month from it.

Our football team had a twenty-six game winning streak. In
the middle of the season we had a home game against a Tahlequah,
Oklahoma team. Our coach, Howard (Red) Blair, was an outgoing man who
was loved by his players and liked and respected by others. Late in
the game a call was made right in front of his bench that was
favorable to our team. The other team protested the call. Coach
Blair said the call was wrong so it was reversed and we went on to
lose the game. He received national recognition for good
sportsmanship, and his stature went up with the team and the fans.
Some of today’s coaches should take a lesson from him.

On the team was a pair of identical twins who were in my class
and who I had played against. I kept seeing this one player and I
thought he sure gets around. Then during a timeout I heard the
loudspeaker say that the other team had two sets of twins in the game.
I got to know them but I never could tell them apart. They looked
and sounded just alike. When I would talk and visit with either, one
would always soon say something about the other and then I would know
which one I was talking to.

At the boarding house was a boy whom we called Arkansas who
was a freshman. He was a good person, but always acting crazy. One
of his favorite tricks was cackling like a chicken especially when a
girl went by. He became well known very quickly. A young man, who
lived there but had stopped college and started working full time,
wasn’t around too much. After we had been there over two months, this
young man was talking to his roommate and said something about “that
boy who is mentally retarded.” Arkansas wasn’t especially a good
students but he was a good actor.

One thing that happened at the boarding house the year before,
but was often retold, was of the poor city boy who was an outstanding
football player, Russ, and very well liked, and his well to do
roommate, Pat. They were the same size. The week before Easter, Pat
bought a new suit and a new outfit. He laid out his new clothes and
went to take a shower before going to the school dance. Russ quickly
put on Pat’s new clothes and went to the dance. Pat was furious, but
put on an old outfit and went to the dance. Russ told all of their
friends about Pat’s new clothes and told them to tell Pat how much
they liked them. Pat finally relaxed and enjoyed the prank. He was
the one who told the story the most.

Bob Murrel was a year ahead of me, and was a chemistry major.
He was taking an advanced chemistry course, and was supposed to make
some grain alcohol. He and his partner made it with no trouble. His
partner drank it instead of turning it in to the lab, and they flunked
that part of the course.

My drafting teacher was a real character. What I remember
about him was his World War I stories, and his favorite expression,
“In the main – I’ll grant you.”

I wrote previously about the trouble I had enlisting in the
Navy. At the end of the fall term at Thanksgiving, my sophomore year,
it was close to the time to be called to active duty. I did not
enroll for the winter term. School at Springfield was a good
experience, but it was time to move on.

Harold Webb, at the bakery in Lamar wanted me to work for them
while I was waiting, but I decided to go to Kansas City to try my
luck. I ended up working at the Muehlebach Hotel as a bellhop for a
few weeks. At the time it was one of the most luxurious hotels west
of the Mississippi. There were a couple of Lamar guys working there
at the time. Docky Diamond and Pete Ihm. That was also a good
experience and I got a chance to see how the upper five percent lived.
I was still very anxious to go on active duty.
The event I most remember was when a crazy man went into a
banquet room, broke a feather pillow and scattered the feathers over
everyone. I made good tips trying to brush them off from some guests.
There were many New Years Eve special parties and many wanted extra
help serving drinks to their guests.

There was one old man of fifty or more that worked as a porter
in the barber shop. He did not appear too bright but was very polite
and helpful and had been there for years. One of the older bellhops
told me that “a lot of old customers slip Teddy a dollar or two each
time they see him, and he earns more money than most of them.” I
understood that he had a big home in the best part of town.

Orders to active duty came right after New Year and I was very
happy to go.
COLLEGE AGAIN
1946-1949


I got out of the Navy in late August 1946, and was enrolled to
start at the University of Missouri in mid September. A civil
engineering degree was still my goal.

In early September the college announced the full semester
would start two weeks late. The problem was the increase in
enrollment from about five thousand before the war to over ten
thousand for the fall of ’46. The college had obtained some surplus
army barracks and were attempting to rebuild them on campus for
housing for two thousand veterans. They were running behind schedule
for completion and habitability.

Hook Dermott, who was my classmate at Lamar, and I were both
going to stay in the new dormitory. We went to Columbia the day
before school started and stayed in the back bedroom of my sister
Margaret and her husband Kenneth’s, trailer home. When we went to
check into the dorm the next day, we along with two thousand other
veterans, found that half the rooms were not close to being finished
and we were all doubled up. For the rooms that were assigned there
was no heat, no hot water and the workers were still installing the
outside doors. Hook and I ended up staying with Margaret and Ken for
two or three weeks. I guess the others just camped out during that
time. Fortunately the new cafeteria, which was in the old armory
building opened on time. Before the year was over the dorms were
heated first by coal stove, then by heating oil stoves and finally by
gas. In mid-winter the rest of the dorms were completed, and the
doubling up was over. At first I was in a two bedroom suite with a
sitting room with seven other men. In the group were two guys from
Rolla, Missouri, Randall Smith and Francis Vickers. Randall remained
my roommate until I graduated.

Almost all of the new students were veterans going to school
under the G.I. Bill of Rights. Each honorably discharged veteran with
at least ninety days service received twelve months of coverage plus
month for month coverage for up to forty-eight months credit. A vet
with two years service could easily get a four year degree. Also
veteran could take exams for up to twenty semester hours advance
credit. Also they were excused from physical education and military
classes.

The G.I. Bill gave each veteran fifty dollars a month for
living expenses. Before I started college it was raised to sixty-five
dollars and before I graduated it was again raised to seventy-five.
Married students were given twenty-five dollars more. Each G.I. also
could get up to five hundred dollars a year for tuition, books and lab
fees. Many still complained that it was not enough. I always said
that it was much better than working and paying all your own expenses.
I did not learn any more, but I had a lot more time for playing poker
and drinking beer. I also earned from forty to nearly sixty dollars a
month from the Naval Reserve drills at St. Louis by getting in four
drills for one weekend each month. I also had a good reserve from
wartime service.

Shortly after school started some of the students from the new
temporary dorms held a mass demonstration and hanged the university
president in effigy. I did not attend. The new dorms were commonly
called pneumonia gulch and sometimes splinterville. That fall the
college had its annual election for homecoming king. Kilroy, the
famous WWII fictional soldier, won the election.

Stephens College, the elite finishing school for girls, had an
open house one Saturday night shortly after school started. Naturally
I decided to go check it out. What I found was a massive army of
young men, each in a new suit and tie, heading east down Broadway. I
did not realize that we had that many young men enrolled. The crowd
seemed larger than that coming from the football games.

A few weekends later Stephens had its homecoming. A recent
graduate named Virginia Wells had become a Hollywood starlet, and came
to the homecoming. The sorority house where she lived had a large
sign, that said “VIRGINIA WELLS SLEPT HERE.” That sign ended up in
front of our dorm suite and stayed there for the rest of the school
year. Of course the men who lived in the area paid no attention to
it, but it was fun to watch a stranger come by and take a second look
at it.

The first semester I took differential calculus, physics,
statics and psychology. The calculus teacher was an older jolly man,
Professor Duncan. He told us that sometimes there were mistakes in
the book, and if we found one and sent it to the publisher they would
probably send the person five dollars. In the class there was a young
serious man, Harold Fieth, who had a few jolly encounters with the
professor. One day he came to class and said “Professor Duncan I
found a mistake in the text book.” The professor again explained that
he should write the publisher and he might get five dollars. Then he
asked where the mistake was. Fieth said “in the example problem on
page SS they started the solution then said the rest of the solution
is obvious. Well it is not.” We all got a good laugh out of that.
The head of the physics class was an older professor who enjoyed
bringing in a swear word or two, and would then look up to acknowledge
that he was getting away with something.

My faculty advisor enrolled me in the statics class. To take
it you were supposed to have completed or currently be taking Integral
Calculus. I was doing well until a little over half way through and
we started the Integral Calculus phase. The instructor was a young
prissy man who was not a veteran but his wife was. When I told him my
problem he was no help and said that it was too late to drop the
class. I struggled along and finished with a “M” or “C” in today’s
grading. I memorized the derivation of a couple of formulas I knew
might be on a test. When it came time to insert the upper and lower
limits in an equation, I just subtracted them and went on. This
always worked when one limit was zero or when the upper and lower
limit were the same except that one was positive and one negative.
After I started taking Integral Calculus I wondered why I didn’t
figure out this was not always the case.

I had that same instructor several times later. After about
the third class I noticed that he seemed very helpful, and I wondered
- why the change. I soon discovered. One student was discussing a
problem with him in private. He was on his high horse again. The
student was furious and told the instructor off. The student expected
that he would be expelled from the school. Instead the instructor
admitted to the student that he did have a personality problem, and
that he would try to improve his relationship with the students. From
that point on he was very helpful and very friendly. I have noticed
that he did not become a tenured professor. Later I had him for
another class and was doing fine, until I was taking a routine midterm
exam. The first problem was a routine problem. I tried to take a
short cut for a simple reaction solution. For some reason it took me
almost thirty minutes to get it corrected. The result was that I
never recovered from that test grade and ended up just average in that
class.

Foundation class was a hard one and took a lot of time. One
student, ahead of me, failed it the first time and on the second try
received a D - - - . The student thanked the instructor for passing
him. The instructor told him, “If I thought you would learn anything,
I would make you take it again.” When I took the final, I thought I
had a high average grade. The last of the five written problems was a
long drawn out statement with several assumptions given. That was my
last final and when I read it I thought that it was just a simple
problem. I read it again with the same results, but knew we would not
have a simple problem like that on the final. I knew that problem
would not change my final grade so I just gave the simple solution and
went on my way, done for the semester. I was one of only two or three
who got the correct solution. My final grade for the course was an
S-. If I had known that I had a chance for an S, I would probably
have found an incorrect answer for the last problem and not have
gotten the S.

I took a Modern Civics class that had an old professor for a
teacher. He also liked to use a few swear words and would look over
the top of his glasses and grin. One day we were in early A.D. years,
and the Pope’s son was a major factor in government. One red haired
girl, who was a little flaky, told the professor, “I thought that the
Pope could not be married.” This prompted the professor to get into
his top form and say, “Well hell you don’t have to be married to have
children, do you?”

I also had an American Government course that I enjoyed. On
one test the instructor put in a question of who is Burten K.
Hickenlooper. Out of a class of almost fifty, I was the only one who
had the correct answer, then current Senator and an ex-governor of
Iowa. On another test he asked a question that started with “In your
opinion will Congress pass a Universal Military Training Act.” I said
yes. He marked my answer wrong. I tried to argue that was my opinion
and could not be marked wrong. I did not win that argument. Time
proved him correct.

Professor Harry Ruby was the Chairman of the Civil Engineering
Department. He was quite a character and ended up still teaching when
he was in his nineties. He mainly taught surveying, we used his
textbooks, but he also taught a couple of senior classes on
Engineering Administration and Engineering Management. One of his
mannerisms was to stroke his mustache and the hold up his right index
finger when he made a point. He asked a lot of true false questions
on tests, and took off two points for every one missed with only one
point credit for each correct answer. Also he graded on a curve, and
this made his classes hard to get a good grade especially for senior
classes. On one test with twenty-five true false questions, I started
to mark the answer one way, thought what is old Harry thinking, and
then changed my answer. I did this twice. On the review I missed
each question. I raised my hand and stated what I took as his
position. In each case he stroked his mustache, raised his index
finger and said “That’s right, count either answer correct.”

I had a bridge design course and had to design a concrete arch
bridge. I could find very little in the library on concrete arches.
I went to the instructor, the same one who enrolled me in the statics
class prematurely, he led me down a path that I was sure would lead to
a failed structure. I went ahead with the design but destroyed the
drawings as soon as the class was completed.

One professor, LaRue, had gone to M.U. as a student. One
spring day he and many of his fellow students decided it was too good
a day to go to school so they cut classes for the rest of the day.
Then someone remembered that it was St. Patrick’s birthday and another
said the St. Patrick was an engineer. That started the strong
tradition of St. Patrick’s celebrations at all engineering colleges in
the Midwest.

One semester, I had a hydraulics lab on Friday afternoon.
Larry Wright and myself had a great time directing water down flumes,
through pipes and over weirs. After that we usually went to the Shack
for a couple of beers. The Shack was an old streetcar imported from
St. Louis many years earlier. It had been expanded by a low shed on
each side, and had been carved up by many would-be sculptors. The
Shack was an icon that managed to survive until about 1980.

For Christmas vacation my first year back, Hook, myself, and
another boy rode home with my old friend Don Vlazny. He had an old
DeSoto and at that time all tires were of questionable quality. In
the early evening near Booneville we had a flat tire. We changed the
tire in about five minutes and decided that one flat on one trip was
enough. It would be safe to continue on. About fifty miles down the
road just before dusk, sure enough we had another flat. We did not
know where the closest service station was, but did know there was not
one close behind us. Don and I started walking down the highway
seeking help. A little over a mile away we came to a small store that
had a gas pump but no service. We were telling them our problem and
seeking the best solution. It seemed there was no close place for
help. While we were talking there was a customer who joined the
conversation, and he finally said “I might have a wheel on a wagon
that will fit the car.” He put us in his car and we went a few miles
out to his farm, and helped him remove the wheel from his wagon. Then
he drove us back to Don’s car. Fortunately the wheel fit. It turned
out that he was a dentist from Kansas City and was a weekend farmer.
He also was a good friend of a Lamar man. Don returned the wheel on
his way back to school. I have often wondered how long we would have
been stranded if that man had not been in the store when we came in.

The summer of 1947 Randall and I went to summer school. There
was a vacant room in Defore Hall, the only permanent men’s dorm the
University had. We managed to get it, but were not promised to get to
keep it for the fall term. That fall we managed to retain the room,
but we now had two new roommates for a two man room. Bob Dowgray from
Kansas City and Joe Patki from rural Washington, Missouri joined us.
One of the results of this combination was the number of newspapers we
took. We had the Columbia paper, the Kansas City Star, and Times, the
St. Louis Star and Times, the Lamar Daily Democrat, and a weekly paper
from both Rolla and Washington.

Joe Patki was an unusual college student. He had never been
to high school. He lived in the country, was from a large family,
there were no buses to take him to high school and his parents could
not afford room and board for him. Also he went to grade school for
only seven years. At that time in Missouri the rural schools would
teach the sixth and eighth classes one year and the fifth and seventh
the next year. The result was that many of the slower students were
held back a year and many of the better ones were advanced a year to
get them in the proper sequence. During the WWII, Joe was in the Navy
and was discharged early in 1946. He went home and joined the
fifty-two twenty club, sometimes called the beer drinking social.
That was a G.I. Bill program that paid unemployed veterans twenty
dollars a week for up to fifty-two weeks. In the summer Joe decided
to go to Columbia to take a test to get a high school equivalent
classification. His buddies went up at the same time to enroll at
M.U. and take tests for up to twenty-four hours of advanced credit.
Joe did not have anything to do while his friends took their tests so
Joe took them also. After he went back home he was informed that he
passed his high school equivalent test and that he also passed all of
advanced college credit. At the end of the summer his friends were
all leaving for college. Joe figured that he would have to go to work
or maybe join his friends at college. He chose college. After he had
been in college a couple of years, he got a card from the V.A. asking
him to come to the office when he had time. He went to the office
threw the card on the counter and asked, “What did I do now?” They
looked at his record and said “you were one of the twenty-seven
veterans who started college who did not graduate from high school.
Your are the only one left and we just wondered how you were getting
along.

I took a speech class and there were only about twenty in it.
All of the classes for the initial course had over three hundred
students, and we held joint sessions several times. At the end of the
semester, there was a contest for the best speaker. The rules set
time limits and directed that the subject had to be serious. There
were about ten final contestants and the students voted for the
winner. One student made an excellent humorous speech and won first
place. I was waiting for some of the instructors to disqualify him,
but none did. Immediately I was disappointed that I did not bring the
subject up. The result was that today one man can brag to his
grandchildren that he won first place in a speech contest and another
man or woman who should have been able to could not. I have always
been disappointed that I did not speak up at the right time. From
time to time you should always speak up and still not be seen as a
naysayer.

Harold Fieth who lived down the hall often came to our room
for assistance on some class or just to visit. Randall and I kidded
him a lot. It came to the point that he would believe anything I told
him, but nothing Randall told him. One day we made up a big story
that Randall was born in China and that his father was a missionary.
There was a pre-med student who lived next to us who was very smart,
but also very sacrilegious. One evening at dinner, Randall sat down
beside him and he started out on his sacrilegious bent. Randall
finally told him that he did not like it because his father was a
minister. I had been held up in the cafeteria line and when I arrived
at the table Randall told me “tell Bill what my father does.” I
thought back and told him that his father was a missionary. Bill took
it in hook, line and sinker and from that time on he was noticeably
less vocal.

Penny ante poker with wild games was played a lot while I
lived in splinterville. When we moved to Defoe Hall we continued with
it and also played a lot of gin rummy. We usually had several poker
players join us in the evening before supper. We stopped the game by
any dealer calling last round. That sometimes made us rush to get to
the dining hall on time. We started setting the alarm clock ten or
fifteen minutes before closing time to stop at the conclusion of that
hand.

Bob always slept in just his shorts and just a sheet over him
and said he just wanted something to break the wind. One night when
it was way below zero, we decided to freeze him out. After he went to
bed, we opened two west windows all the way. I had my two blankets
doubled over on top of me. I also got his two blankets and doubled
them over. I had eight layers of blankets over me and I almost froze
to death. Randall and Joe were also heavily bundled up. Bob stayed
in bed all night with just a sheet over him. He was always first up.
When he got up all he did was close the windows, light up his
cigarette and said “you S.O.B.s.”

The telephone for our wing was just outside our door, and
sometimes no one would answer it for a long time. I started answering
it “Kelly’s Pool Hall, Kelly speaking.” I usually got a surprised
response. One time a girl must have been expecting it. She shot
right back “Mr. Kelly trot right down the hall and get John Parker for
me.”

Charlie Black was from Rolla and was a good friend of
Randall’s. He was also a good prankster and a fun loving guy. One
Saturday afternoon he was visiting our room. I don’t remember what we
were doing, but soon there was a lot of horseplay. We good naturedly
were telling him to go home, but he stayed on. I finally threw his
coat out the window.

We had a good football team the three seasons I was there.
One year we played Colorado for the first time. It rained all during
the game. When it was over they had a minus eleven yards total
offense. Another year we played Kansas State at their homecoming. At
that time the conference had a thirty-nine player limit for the
traveling squad. Our third team was almost as good as the first team.
In the middle of the third quarter we were ahead fifty-two to
nothing. At that time Coach Faurot had the team punt on the first
down each time we got the ball. During the 1948 season I saw one of
the all time great M.U. games. We beat SMU and the great Doak Walker
in a game that wasn’t decided until the last play.

One year Randall and I made a wager on the score of each game.
What we did was write down our predicted score, put it in our wallet
and not tell the other until the end of the game. We both predicted
the winner in eight of the ten games, the same number of touchdowns
seven times, and identical scores three times. We would talk all week
one way and write down different scores for the wager.

For basketball games we could only get tickets for half of the
games since the field house had only half as many seats as there were
students. Usually we could get a ticket for our off games from a
student who did not want to go. We had just an average team.

I had a hydraulics class that had only about twelve students.
It was a fairly easy class and many of us let the homework slide.
Almost all of us had a free period just before the class met. At that
time many of us, if we had not completed our daily assignment, got a
little help from someone who had already completed it. One day I had
completed all the problems and no one else had. They all took my
solution for one problem. During class time, I presented the problem
and process for the solution. I made one obvious mistake. Almost the
entire class made the same mistake on their papers. I don’t know what
the professor thought about all the students making the same mistake.

I graduated on the last day of January 1949, in the first
mid-term ceremony for M.U. There was ice over everything and it was
cold. It still was a relief and also a realization that it was now
time to enter the outside world as a contributing member. That
evening I got a ride to Kansas City with my friend, Harold Fieth, who
also graduated that day, and his father. We were driving on the ice
covered highway, several miles west of Booneville in an area with
several feet of fill above the Missouri River alluvial bottom, when a
car passed us at a high rate of speed. When that car was about two or
three hundred feet ahead of us he went into an uncontrolled skid. He
went into a tail first course off the highway. We waited for him to
roll over. When we passed him we saw that he had entered a farm house
driveway tail first. He pulled out of the driveway and followed us
into Kansas City until we lost him in the heavy traffic.

That night I stayed in Kansas City and in the morning
interviewed for a couple of jobs and received one offer. That
afternoon I went shopping for a new car. At that time shortly after
WWII it was almost impossible to buy a new car. I was turned down at
all the downtown Plymouth, Ford and Chevrolet agencies. In the later
evening, I went to a Plymouth dealer in the outer limits of the
downtown area. I approached an older man and he asked me if he could
help me. I asked what is the chance of buying a new Plymouth. He
said what do you want and I said a four door black sedan with radio,
heater and seat covers. He said what about a two door. I asked what
was the price and he said I’m not sure but it is right. He looked it
up and said “$1,726.90.” I said that I would take it. I had told him
that I had just graduated and I would have to go home to cash some
bonds to pay for it. He said can you just put something down on it, I
said one hundred dollars, and then he said how about two hundred. I
said sure. Then he asked if I wanted him to fix it up so that I could
drive it home. I told him “no, that with the ice on the highway I did
not want to drive it without insurance.” That evening I caught the
bus home, the next day cashed some bonds and bought insurance from my
future wife and her boss. The next day I picked up my first car.

I was home for a few days, and went to Oklahoma for a couple
of job interviews with oil and gas companies. When they did not pan
out, I went to Memphis to take a job with the Corps of Engineers.