Mr. PIC. Kept waiting and robbing Peter to pay Paul until you were
finished with your boot training as your letters indicated you would
send a hundred fifty dollars and about fifty dollars a month."
Mr. JENNER. Had you so indicated?
Mr. PIC. I don't believe so, sir. I don't see how, I wasn't making but
$80 per month.
Mr. JENNER. What truth was there in her statement that it was you who
insisted that she buy the car?
Mr. PIC. Well, that old jalopy I have a picture of was falling apart
and before I went in the service she had a ride home from work and the
generator wouldn't generate, and the battery wouldn't battery and it
just kept cutting out, so we needed a new car.
Mr. JENNER. Was that particular car about which you have just
described--about which you were having trouble--was that the family
car or a car owned by you?
Mr. PIC. A family car, I never owned a car, sir, when I lived at home.
Mr. JENNER. I take it you had urged her to buy a new car to replace
that one?
Mr. PIC. We all wanted a new car, sir, because the other one wouldn't
run. She had to get it pushed every morning to get to work. She would
have us out in the street waving down people to help her get the car
pushed.
Further on, sir, "I wrote you and told you about a girl loaning me $50
on my ring. I lost the ring and wasn't able to pay it." Sir, I wouldn't
believe that. I am sure at that time I didn't. And the way she goes on
the next page, "Cox found out about me borrowing" and let her go. I
don't believe this.
Mr. JENNER. The next letter, Exhibit No. 32-B, and in an envelope
marked in 1950, it says "Dear John, Well, I have the house in Benbrook
up for sale." Could you read the name?
Mr. PIC. It appears to me to be J. Piner Powell Real Estate is handling
it. Do you want me to read on?
Mr. JENNER. Yes.
Mr. PIC. "The problem is to find someone with enough cash as a loan
company won't make a new loan and I have about $2,600 in it. Nothing
but bad news. Up to date I am still not working." Read on, sir?
Mr. JENNER. That is about enough. Did your mother write you a letter
that had good news in it?
Mr. PIC. I never recall one, sir.
Mr. JENNER. Around your home was the atmosphere that, "We are poor
but we will get along?" as your mother sought to lead you boys to
accommodate yourselves to the circumstances that everything would turn
out all right eventually?
Mr. PIC. None of us really paid much attention to this, sir. I didn't,
and I am sure Robert didn't. I don't think Lee did because Robert and I
would probably talk and we didn't pay much attention to it.
Mr. JENNER. You heard it so often you just became inured to it,
hardened to it; is that it?
Mr. PIC. Well, we didn't believe it after the problems she put on.
Just like when my wife and I got married she sent a package containing
Revere Ware which I haven't received yet and she swears up and down she
sent it, and she has never gotten it in the return mail either. And I
know she never sent anything. When we would be home alone, before she
would return from work, we have a rather friendly atmosphere, but as
soon as she came home we all got into that depression rut again.