WORLD WAR II WAS ON--WE WENT TO CALIFORNIA
Well, the Great Depression was not something we would want to
live through again, but all in all it wasn't so bad. We were
broke, but then, so were our neighbors. We had plenty to eat and
wear--and we had each other. The lean years seemed to bring us
even closer together; we had to stay together, we didn't have
enough money to go our separate ways. And of course we had our
children.
Dennis was ten and Anita was eight when Larry became one of the
family in 1942. And then when he was six weeks old, the little
tyke almost left us for good. He was one sick little baby. We
took him to a chiropractor who gave him adjustments and told us
to feed him goat's milk. I drove all over the country looking
for a goat that was giving milk. After finding one I kept
looking for more goats that would be giving milk after the first
one stopped. It took awhile, but then I found a man with a whole
herd of goats. He didn't need them because he was going to war,
so we bought all twelve of them.
When we sold out a year later and went to California to get into
war work, we bought goat's milk on the way out there and for
eight months after we got there. In El Paso we bought milk from
a man who owned a herd of registered goats. He sold goats for as
much as $80 each. The ones we had at Royston were of the $4
variety. I was glad the El Paso milk wasn't registered; we
couldn't have afforded it.
Bill Carriker, a neighbor at Royston, said Larry was sure going
to be mad when he grew up and learned that his mama had been a
goat.
When our two oldest kids were little bitty kids, and we had this
two-holer off down there under the shade of a mesquite tree, Ima
said to me one day, "I wish you would go down there and peep and
see what those kids are doing. They've been in there a long
time. No telling what they're doing in there."
I peeped, all right, and found them just sitting there, doing
their thing and talking with each other.
As our country got deeper into World War II, the quality of
kerosene went way down. It didn't burn well enough in our Servel
refrigerator to make the box cold, and it left a lot of soot on
the wick. So I mixed white gasoline with the kerosene to bring
the quality back up. I told my neighbors the good news but they
were afraid to mix the gasoline in. So they suffered with warm
refrigerators while we enjoyed cold luxury. Again I was out
front, but my neighbors thought I was crazy.
We heated our Royston home with oil. It was much more convenient
than wood. And although we had plenty of wood, the oil proved to
be cheaper than hauling and bothering with the wood.
We had an oil heating stove that heated all four rooms of our
house. It would burn used lube oil with just a little kerosene
mixed with it. Some filling stations in Hamlin saved their used
oil for us. We lighted our heater in the fall and didn't shut it
off until spring. I kept an expense account one winter and our
entire fuel bill was $12.
By 1940 the price of cream was up and a year later it was up even
more. We had a lot of cows that gave a little milk each, and we
already had a cream separator. So we bought a gasoline engine to
run the separator and I started milking the cows and selling
cream. That paid so well that we started feeding the cows more
and selling more cream. Our cream was bringing three dollars a
day and we were feeding the skim milk to hogs that were gaining
two dollars a day. Oh boy! The depression seemed to be over for
us. But it turned out that this business had another side to it.
The work was killing us.
I sat there milking by hand three hours in the morning and three
hours in the afternoon, and the weather was hot. By the time I
had milked those twenty cows, I could almost swim in my own
sweat. When I walked I could hear it squash in my shoes; and I
smelled so bad I had to bathe before the tractor would let me get
close to it. There was only one good thing about it; it beat
maize hauling ten to one.
While I was milking one cow, Anita was feeding the next one and
getting her ready to be milked, Dennis was carrying milk to the
house and pouring it into the separator which was being driven by
the gasoline engine, and Ima was filling in here and there and
keeping house and seeing after Larry.
The kids always wanted me to milk Old Pet last. They could ride
her out of the pen and up by the house as she went on her way to
the field to graze. They got a free ride home and Old Pet didn't
mind. She wouldn't pitch nor run, but just walk as though there
were no kids around.
But there was one day Anita fell off Old Pet. They were riding
the cow in the cow lot after a rain and the lot was boggy and
messy. Dennis was in front and Anita was on behind him. The cow
started under a low shed and Dennis realized that he would be
dragged off it he didn't do something. There was no way to stop
the cow nor turn her, so Dennis did something all right. He
grabbed hold of a joist above his head to avoid being dragged off
into the filth below. Meantime, since Anita was behind Dennis,
she couldn't reach anything to hold onto, so she was forced off
backward and landed in a sitting position, momentarily, until she
lost her balance and fell backward in six inches of cow-lot
slush.
Guess what Ima thought when Anita got to the house. She could
hardly recognize her little girl, but she could tell where her
little girl had been. The evidence was not all on her back. She
had to roll over on her stomach to get up and out, so her front
and her long hair had quite a bit of evidence on them also.
Experimenting had taught us that cows would do almost as well
grazing sudan grass a couple of hours in the morning and a couple
of hours in the afternoon, as they would if they grazed all day,
and the grazing would last twice as long. So when the weather
was dry and grazing was scarce, we would drive the cows out and
close the gate after a couple of hours grazing each morning.
Then we would turn them back in at four o'clock in the afternoon.
But this presented a problem. We were not always home at four in
the afternoon. What could we do about that? Let the alarm clock
turn them in, of course. And that is what we did. I rigged it
up and it worked perfectly. It opened the gate a lot better than
it built the fire in the wood heater many years before.
We had no electricity on the farm until 1949. Before that time
rural electricity was only a promise of better things to come.
Sometimes the summer heat teamed up with the lack of a breeze to
make the weather almost unbearable. But since I wasn't very well
known in Washington at that time, and since I wasn't personally
acquainted with my congressmen, I didn't ask them for an air
conditioning unit. Instead, I did what I could on my own. I
took the gas engine from the cream separator and put it on an oil
drum outside one window. Then I put a large fan blade on the
shaft, aimed it toward a window, cranked it up and let it blow
air through the window and all through the house. It was far
short of air conditioning like we have today, but it was a
lifesaver sometimes, and it wasn't inflationary.
Now, all this hard work, dry weather, inconveniences, and low
farm wages got us to wondering if we might be missing something.
So in the fall of 1943 we toyed with the idea of getting into war
work. Later the toying became a definite plan which led to the
purchase of a travel trailer. In November we stored our
furniture, left our farm machinery for Earl to sell, and headed
for California. We knew some folks who had gone to California
from Royston and they told us to come on out, the wages were
fine. We called it war work, but its purpose was twofold, to
help produce the weapons of war and to help the Clarence Johnsons
make more money faster. But getting into war work wasn't all
that easy.
Before I could work at any job I had to get a release from
farming, because farming was an essential industry in the total
effort toward winning the war. I went to the Sweetwater
Employment Agency Office and they couldn't give me a release.
They sent me to the Abilene office, and Abilene didn't have the
authority to grant me a release either. They told me I would
have to go to the Sweetwater office. I told them that Sweetwater
had sent me to Abilene. Then they told me I would have to go to
Dallas.
But I didn't go to Dallas, I went home. I figured that Dallas
might send me to Chicago and Chicago might send me to Washington,
and I didn't want to go to Washington. I kept hoping someone
would send me to Los Angeles, because that's where I wanted to
go. But they didn't. So we got ready and headed for California
anyway. Crazy, you say? Sure, most of my friends thought so,
too. But I knew what I was doing. I was backing my judgment and
going out on my own again, like building a tractor, like
repairing a motor bearing, like not letting Federal Offices shove
me around.
Every town of any size had an Employment Agency. Every Agency
had the authority to grant a permit to work. All I needed was to
qualify for a permit. They called the permit an availability
slip. And without the slip, no one could hire me. They didn't
want people switching from job to job. They wanted all of us to
stay put and produce goods to win the war. Now, I was producing
about enough on the farm to feed my family. And I figured most
any of my neighbors could make the old farm produce that much
while I was away. That's one reason we headed west.
We stopped somewhere west of Hamlin and east of California and I
applied for a permit. They handed me a form and I filled it out.
But, since I was a farmer, they couldn't release me and give me a
work slip. So, what now, go back? Certainly not. California
was west and that's where we were going. We never could get
there by turning back.
So we drove on westward and I tried another office. I filled out
a form just like the one before, only this time I knew not to be
a farmer. This time I was a welder, self employed. Now,
actually that was no fib. Many of my friends back home would
tell you I was a better welder than I was a farmer. In fact, I
was better at a lot of things than I was at farming. I was a
lousy farmer.
Welding rated high in war work, so I had no trouble getting the
work slip this time. Now we could go on to California without
looking for Employment Agencies.
At Vega Aircraft in Burbank they wanted me to build boxes. But
welding paid more money, so I went to an employment agency
looking for a welding job. They said they had no welding jobs
open at present, I would have to wait until one opened up. I
asked if I could go on out to Vega and build boxes, but they told
me welding was a much higher skill and I would not be allowed to
work below my highest skill. Then I asked the man, "What do I do
while I am waiting, starve to death?" He didn't know about that,
but he knew I could not take the box-building job. And that's
when I told him, "That's what you think, you just come along with
me and watch me." I went out to Vega the next day and signed up
and went to work.
At Royston labor was a dollar a day, out here I was making $12.35
a day. Then after a few days, Ima told me I would have to take
off from work and help her get the kids started in school. I
told her that if she couldn't do that without me, we didn't have
any business in California.
After thinking it over a few days, we decided that Ima and the
kids might be a lot better off back home in Texas. So, I quit my
job and asked for my availability slip, but they wouldn't give it
to me. So I took my family to Texas without it. Lucky for me, I
had a pocket full of gasoline ration coupons left over from
farming, and I knew how to get another work slip. I was still a
welder and had not been employed in war work as a welder. When I
applied again for an availability slip, I didn't have to tell a
fib, I only withheld some of the truth.
I left Ima and the kiddos at Hamlin and I drove on to Orange,
Texas, to work at ship building. I signed on as a welder and of
course they took my availability slip. Then after that, the
welding foreman told me they didn't need welders, and I learned
that I would have to work at common labor at about half the pay.
I told them, "No, thanks. How do I get out of this place?" The
gates were locked and I couldn't get out to go to the office
until noon. That was fine with me. I had my work badge on and I
could go anywhere I wanted to. I made like a VIP and had a
holiday. I figured no one would stop me, and even if they did,
they couldn't fire me because I wasn't working. I made a two-
hour tour of the shipyard, saw everything and answered to no one.
At noon I went back to the office where they had fibbed to me and
asked for my availability slip, but they wouldn't return it. I
asked, "Where is the next man higher up?" They showed me his
office and I told him my story. But he was not impressed and he
could not return my slip either. Then I asked him who was the
top man. By this time I was tired of going up step by step. He
told me and I went to see him and told him the same story. It
was easy to tell by now, I had it memorized word for word. I
told the same story and got the same results. Finally I told
him, "It looks like you fellows want my slip more than I do.
Okay, you can keep it. I'm going to California and go to work at
a better job." He warned me that I would get into trouble and
couldn't get a job without the slip. But I told him to just come
along and watch me, I'd show him.
I drove back through Hamlin and took Ima and the kids to San
Angelo. They stayed there with Ima's folks and I went to
California alone.
At the employment office in California, I told the lady I didn't
want to get into trouble, so I wanted to tell her the whole story
and then ask her what I should do. She told me that wouldn't be
necessary, and added, "Texas and California are two different
countries; I'll give you another slip. We need you out here." I
took the slip--my third one--and went back to work at the same
job at Vega, through the same office where they kept my first
slip when I quit and went back to Texas. I gave them this new
slip and I guess they were happy, now they had two of my slips.
Anyway, I went back to building boxes for them.
All that running around had cost me quite a bit of money. I
needed to make up for some of the loss so I worked ten hours a
day at my regular job, got off at five in the afternoon, ate
supper at the company cafe, drove seven miles and went to work at
another plant that belonged to the same company. This second job
paid time-and-a-half, and I could work an hour or all night, they
didn't care which. The work was there to be done and laborers
were scarce. I usually worked until ten o'clock and got to bed
by eleven, so I wouldn't lose too much sleep. However, on
Saturdays I worked all night.
Then one day I got this telegram from Ima that read something
like this, "Can you meet me at the Union Depot on Thursday, March
19th at 5:45?"
Well, on my way down to my other place of work I had noticed a
telegraph office. So I stopped in one afternoon and sent Ima a
reply. After all, she had asked a question; the least I could do
was to answer it. But I didn't see any need to send her a long
message. I figured we could talk with each other after she got
to California.
Now, if her telegram had said, "Meet me at a certain place at a
certain time on a certain day, I could have replied, "Okay." But
since she put it in the form of a question, I replied, "Yes."
I wrote her name at the top of the form, my name at the bottom,
and handed it to the man behind the Counter. He looked at it,
and then he read it, which didn't take long, and turned to me and
asked, "Is this all?"
I told him, "Yes, that's enough."
And it proved to be plenty because, on that appointed day at the
appointed hour and at the appointed place, here came that woman
with those three kiddos, and they all looked mighty good to me.
I don't think I ever got around to telling Ima how proud I was of
her for having learned so fast. Only three short months before,
she couldn't take three kids to school a few miles away in
Burbank. Now she had learned how to take those same three kids
halfway across this big nation of ours.
When they returned to Burbank, Larry was just a bit over a year
old and mighty spoiled. Remember, he had been sick when he was
very young, and I have yet to see a sick little baby who doesn't
become spoiled. He would cry at the drop of a hat, and when it
was time for him to sleep, Ima would have to rock him to sleep.
He had no intention of going to sleep without being rocked. Then
she would try to get him down on the bed without waking him. She
failed more times than not. And after each failure the rocking
had to be done all over again.
Larry also gave Ima trouble in other ways. When supper was
ready, she had trouble getting him to come in and eat. And when
she finally got him in, he would fuss and cry while she washed
his hands and face and got his food from the stove to his plate.
Then they would have another fuss-and-cry battle at bedtime. She
could never get him to go to bed without crying and having to be
rocked.
Then Ima went to work at Lockheed Aircraft during the summer.
Her hours were from four until midnight. So it became my job to
get Larry in, get him to eat, and get him to bed. Now, I had
heard that, in order to train a dog, you have to know more than
the dog. And I figured the same was true with training little
boys. And I also figured I was smarter than most any little kid
18 months old. So the first thing I did was shift most of the
responsibility to Larry. I didn't try to get him in, I didn't
try to get him to eat, and I didn't try to get him to go to bed.
I reasoned that he would come in when he wanted to, eat when he
was hungry, and sleep when he was sleepy. In short, I left him
alone.
We lived in a trailer park. And when all the other kids were
called in at night, Larry found no pleasure in playing alone, so
he came in out of the dark. And he didn't fuss while I put his
food on his plate. I knew when he was coming in for supper. I
could hear all the other kids going home, and I had his supper on
his plate ready for him when he got there. When he came in
through the door. I would wipe his hands and face with a wet
cloth. Usually I was through with that little chore before he
had time to cry. Then I would tell him to climb up there and eat
it. That is, I told him the first day; after that he didn't have
to be told. He ate like a horse because by that late hour he was
half starved.
At bedtime Anita and Dennis would go to bed in our trailer, and
Larry and I would be left alone in our cabin. I knew what was
coming next so I was prepared. I beat him to the punch, so there
was no fussing at bedtime either. And not one time did I ever
have to rock him to sleep or tell him it was time to go to bed.
Larry had a regular baby bed and he also had this habit of never
going to sleep without his bottle. Even when Larry woke up
during the night, Ima would have to get up and get his bottle and
then try to rock him back to sleep. But when Ima started working
at Lockheed, we stopped all that monkey business.
I put a pull-chain switch in the light fixture in the middle of
the ceiling. Then I put a long pull-cord that would hang loosely
across Larry's bed and I tied it to the far corner of his bed.
He could reach the cord easily while lying on his back in bed.
Then I put two of his bottles in two corners of his bed, down by
the mattress so they couldn't fall out or turn over. One was for
going to sleep and the other was for going back to sleep after he
woke up during the night.
He must have been fascinated by the newness of the whole thing
because he listened well as I explained it all to him and showed
him just how to reach up and turn out the light before he
finished his bottle, and how to wave his hand sideways to find
the light cord in the dark, how to get his second bottle when his
first one ran empty, and how to be quiet and not wake me up.
After that first night I would merely say something like,
"Goodnight, Larry, I'm going to sleep. You can go to bed when
you want to." Most of the time I went to sleep while he was
still playing in the floor. I often woke up with him lying in
his bed nursing his bottle with the light on, but not one time
did I ever wake up to find the light on after he had gone to
sleep. And he never cried.
Larry was 18 months old in May. When he made up his mind to go
some place, he didn't fool around. He didn't walk, he ran. He
learned to run about the same time he learned to walk. At our
trailer court he was known as Cyclone Johnson.
During the summer of 1944, by correspondence, we made a deal with
Uncle Jim to buy the Royston farm from him. So we began thinking
about when we should be getting back to Texas. Benny Carriker
was living on the farm at that time and when I let him know that
we were buying the farm, he wrote that he wanted to move to town
by the first of September and we could move onto the place at
that time. So we loaded up and moved back to Texas in the latter
part of August. But we didn't hurry right straight back to
Royston.
We reasoned that we might never be in that part of the country
again and I wanted to see a part of Death Valley. I had read
quite a bit about it and it fascinated me. So we drove about
three hundred miles out of our way that trip just to see the
valley. But when we came near it, we learned that the touring
season in Death Valley was in winter time. In August it was
really a valley of death and almost void of people, especially
tourists--and more especially, during the war. Okay, so I goofed
again.
At least we were not bothered with traffic. And since we were
about the only ones using the road, and since there were some
long downhill slopes, and since Dennis had his bicycle in our
trailer, he wanted to ride it down at least one of those long
slopes. So we got his bicycle out and he got on it and he must
have coasted for miles, I don't know how far. We saw one highway
sign that read, "Next seven miles downhill."
Then coming up out of Panamint Valley our car had a vaporlock in
the gas line. I could blow hard into the gas tank and blow gas
into the carburetor. Then the motor would start but by the time
it got the car and trailer going up the hill, the carburetor
would be empty again.
Now, we had quite a few tools in the car and I always carried
some emergency repair parts. A good supply of survival items was
a "must" with me. I was sure I would need them some day. And
this looked like a good place to use some of them. We drilled a
hole in the gas tank cap, cut a valve stem out of an old inner
tube and fitted it into the hole. Then Dennis sat in the back
seat with a tire pump, pumping air through a long hose into the
stem in the gas cap. He pumped and I drove. We came right on up
out of the valley without any more trouble. After we reached the
top, he quit pumping and we had no more vapor lock. This goes to
show why I never throw anything away. Even today I still carry a
good supply of old tire tubes, valve stems, lengths of rubber
hose, and plenty of hay wire.
We stopped for gas at Stovepipe Wells and the man there seemed to
think we would make it okay. The temperature was only 113
degrees. I've seen it hotter than that in Phoenix and they
thought nothing of it.
We arrived at Royston only to find that Benny Carriker had
changed his mind. He wanted to stay on the farm until the first
of the year, and of course we couldn't move in. So, now what?
It would be four months before we could get possession of the
farm. So we moved in with Mama and Papa in Hamlin and I looked
for a job. I thought just about anything would do for four
months. I signed on at the Gyp Mill and went to work making wall
boards. I worked just one day at the mill, the hardest work I
had done in years.
When the alarm clock sounded the next morning, it was raining all
over the place. It took me about five seconds to decide what to
do. Of course I had been thinking quite a bit about it before.
The rain merely pushed me over the line of decision.
The road was not paved from Hamlin to the mill. It would be a
mess every time it rained. What's more, the work there was four
times as hard as building boxes in California. So I shut off the
alarm and rolled over to go back to sleep. Ima asked me what I
was going to do. I told her I was going to get some sleep and
then go to California. And as usual she thought I was crazy.
Well, I sort of agreed with Ima, but not altogether. This job
would just barely pay for rent and groceries. Out west we could
live on half my salary and save the other half. So, Burbank,
we're coming again. But this time I had an additional problem.
For the first time, I was about out of gasoline ration coupons.
And when I went to the ration board in Hamlin, the lady told me I
would have to work at least six months before I could get gas
coupons to go somewhere else. I was in trouble and I could see
that I was going to have trouble convincing her. But I told her
the whole story. I really spread it on thick and made it sound
rather pitiful--at least I thought I did. I told her I knew I
was needed on the farm here, but the other man had changed his
mind and I couldn't get on the farm. It was not my planning nor
my fault that I couldn't move onto the farm. I couldn't help it.
And now I was needed in war work in Burbank.
After all my pleading she had the same answer, "No gas coupons."
Well, I could see that I was getting nowhere with the lady. I
figured I had to change my approach or I would never get to
Burbank. So I stopped begging and pleading with her, and with a
little more firmness in my voice, I said, "Now look, Lady, I'm
going to California and I am going to get gas coupons one way or
another, and however I get them, it is going to take the same
amount of gas to make the trip, and if you will just issue me the
coupons it will save me an awful lot of trouble and I will get on
out there faster and get on the job sooner."
Well, I could hardly believe my ears. She asked me how much gas
I needed. I told her and she gave me the coupons. We were on
our way west again.
If all Americans had helped out as much as I did during the war,
I know we would have lost to the enemy.
Ima cried off and on all the way out there this trip. It had
been hard to find a place to live the first time. She just knew
we couldn't find a place this time. And it proved to be just
that way--that is, for average people. But I wasn't going to
settle for being just average. I knew there was a place for us
to live somewhere in California. I simply had to get busy and
find it.
When we finally got to California, we heard the same story
everywhere we tried, "No vacancy." Real estate firms gave us the
same answer. But I reasoned that, if you go fishing and don't
catch a fish the first hour, you don't just lie down and cry; you
fish some more. There's got to be a fish somewhere in the lake.
You just go find him.
After a few hours of the same kind of disappointment a realtor
had a listing, "Garage apartment for rent."
The lady asked, "Do you have children?"
I replied, "Yes, three."
"Sorry, no children allowed."
"Would you give me the address?"
"There's no need, no children allowed."
"Would you just give me the address and let the owner tell us,
'No children allowed'?"
By this time I knew she was anxious to get rid of me, so she gave
me the address. It proved to be quite near, so we drove out to
the place and talked with the woman about twenty minutes. Then
we parked our trailer beside the apartment and moved in. Then
Ima really cried, but for a different reason. She was so happy.
This proved to be the best place we had ever lived while in
California. And our landlady was a queen.
I went back on the same job, building boxes. Vega had sold out
to Lockheed but the change was not noticeable. Lockheed was
looking forward to the time when the war would be ended and the
company would have to operate with more efficiency. They
encouraged employees to submit ideas that might save the company
money and speed up work. If an idea was good enough to be
adopted and put into use, they would pay for it. I submitted a
few ideas, some good, some bad. In all they paid $72 for my
ideas.
Much of the time I was at Lockheed I worked in a department where
we coated aircraft parts with oil and other coatings for their
protection against rust and salt water. The oil was heated
before it was applied to the parts. Then when it cooled it
became a tough, durable coating. Electric heating units heated
the oil, and it got to where the units were not working right.
So I asked the electricians to remedy the problem. They mostly
ignored my request. After all, who was I, certainly not a
bigshot. They didn't have to obey my request. They treated me
as though I were a rug for them to wipe their feet on. And after
having trodden me under foot they walked away in a manner
altogether unmannerly in the eyes of a Texas farmer. I don't
think they were really a bad sort, maybe just native Californians
acting natural. And maybe they were not quite at home when
dealing with a Texas farmer who was also acting natural.
Now, I thought I could repair the heating units, but I knew that
a country boy like me might get into trouble with the union if I
did anything except just what my card said I could do. So, one
day when no one was looking, I repaired the units and got the
thing to working like it should work. Then in about three weeks
the unfriendly pair of electricians came and notified me that
they were ready to repair my hot-oil bathtub. When I told them
it had been repaired, they were surprised. They didn't know
there were other repairmen around. They asked who did it and I
told them. But they didn't believe me. They left quietly,
acting as though they thought I was pulling their leg.
One month the box-building crew was packing airplane nosecones
for shipment. They had two men, each working ten hours a day,
sawing plywood lumber into oddly shaped pieces to fit snugly
against the fragile parts to protect against breakage. I was
working in the hot-oil department and I had improved the
efficiency of the department to the point where my job was easy
and I had a lot of time to loaf.
Many of the boards the men were sawing were inaccurate and had to
be thrown away as scrap lumber. I recognized their problem and
set about to find a solution. Then, working in my spare time one
afternoon, I built a jig, made of plywood and fitted onto a
sawtable, that enabled me to saw out the pieces accurately and
fast.
The next day I used two hours of my spare time and sawed more
pieces than the other two men had been sawing in 20 man-hours.
Not only that, my pieces fitted better and there were none to
throw away. From then on, I sawed out all the pieces in my spare
time, and the two sawmen went back to packing nosecones.
One of the Lockheed supervisors saw a lot of the little
efficiencies in my work and he told me that, after the war, if I
would team up with him, we could make a million dollars. He said
that with my brain and his "gab" we could improve the efficiency
of factories all over America.
For an example, they gave me charge of the hot-oil department
which had been keeping two men busy. I soon had it so I could
handle it alone. Then I made more improvements and could loaf
half the time. When I took over the job of sawing the plywood
pieces, I was doing the work that four men had been doing, and
still had time to loaf and see who else needed help. Lockheed
was paying me $12 a day and I was saving them the other $36 a
day.
During those four months that fall, there was an awareness in the
back of my mind that the day was coming when we would need gas to
get back to Texas in December. I had saved all the coupons I
could, but it looked as though we might be about 25 gallons
short. And since I hadn't worked six months at this job, I knew
I wouldn't be able to get coupons this time. So, I asked my
straw-boss, "Don't you have a gasoline camp stove up overhead in
your garage?"
He said, "Sure have. You can use it any time you want to."
I said, "I don't want to use it, just want to borrow it."
We left it up in his garage. But now that I had one, I went to
the ration board and applied for gasoline coupons for it. The
lady at the board told me she thought 50 gallons would last six
months and she issued me coupons for that amount. And so, in
just a few minutes I walked out of there a lot happier than I was
when I walked in.
Now we had plenty of coupons to take us to Texas. But we still
had a little problem. The coupons each called for two gallons
and each one had "stove" printed across the front. Some service
station workers might frown on the idea of pumping stove gas into
Buick automobiles. So we bought our stove gas in five gallon
cans and then poured it into the Buick's tank after we got away
from the station. The Buick liked it. It didn't know the
difference.
Now, you can be sure I didn't enjoy doing these little things
which were maybe just a little bit outside the rigid rules laid
down by Washington. Of course I didn't. And I'm sure Moses
didn't enjoy seeing the waters of the Red Sea close in and engulf
thousands of Pharaoh's soldiers. But we both did what we had to
do. I was crossing a Red Sea 1200 miles across--and I made it,
just as he made it. I'll admit there's one little difference
here, God told Moses to do what he did. I'm not quite sure God
was the one who told me to do what I did. Maybe the devil made
me do it.
Anyway, we got back to the Royston farm that last time and stayed
until we moved to Arkansas five years later. It was the first of
the year of 1945 and Uncle Jim had not yet started to have the
papers fixed up for me to buy the farm. I asked him to go ahead
and get the abstract in shape for me as agreed. But three months
later he still had not begun. It looked as though he had decided
not to let me have it. I couldn't buy it without his
cooperation. So I finally made a deal with him to operate the
farm on a percentage basis.