Stained Forever

I was just a kid about 9-10 years old. We went to Sears-Roebucks up in Kansas City (that's what Sears was called way back when) to buy some clothes etc. We always went to the sales floor to look at the items we were interested in and then went to the catalog order desk and placed our order because the items were less expensive at the catalog desk. Of course you had to wait and wait and wait and wait and wait to get your order processed. But hey, my dad
thought it was worth the wait to save a dollar. So we did ... we waited.

My parents let me buy a new pair of white high-top Converse basketball shoes. We didn't call them sneakers back then. We either called them basketball shoes or tennis shoes ... not sneakers! Anyway, when I tried them on at the shoe department, I could jump at least a foot to a foot and a half higher (I thought) with them on. They were super. I couldn't wait to go out for the basketball team because now I thought I could get up around close to the rim ... NOT ! I was proud of my new basketball shoes ... I was standing tall ... I was sitting in deep cotton ... I thought I was "hot stuff" because I had a new pair of shoes.

On the way home my dad always liked to stop at an old-fashioned Dairy Dip for some ice cream. It was located on the corner of 40 Highway and Noland Road in Independence. I liked to stop there too.

We all got our favorite dairy treat and then headed home in the truck ... Dad driving, mom in the middle, and me riding shotgun. It was chilly and windy so we had the windows barely cracked in the truck for some much needed fresh air.

Back in the day before the awareness of keeping the roadside environment clean by not throwing trash out the window, most everyone just threw their car trash out the window of their vehicle and littered the side of the roadway. Well were no different than anyone else. We thru our fair amount out the window too.

I remember I was sitting in the seat looking at my new white basketball shoes while riding down the road. I sat them on my lap and was admiring them. This was the first time I remember getting any new shoes ... I'm sure I had some before but I don't remember. I finished my dairy treat, rolled down the window and threw my cup out the window and then rolled the window back up. Mom, sitting next to me, almost finished her dairy treat, didn't want any more of it, and promptly threw the remains out of what she thought was a rolled down window. It wasn't. The window was rolled up. So, all of her left-over purple colored raspberry syrup fell into my lap all over my new white basketball shoes. Man, what a deal! I was horrified and heartbroken! My new shoes were ruined. Now I could never jump high again! My mom was horrified too and very apologetic. Dad was just pissed off because the juice had gotten on the window and the door panel and now he was gonna have to clean it up.

Well ... mom tried and tried and tried to get the stain off my shoes but nothing worked. I had to wear them to school with big purple stains on them ... and they were brand spanking new! Mom felt terrible and said she was sorry, sorry, sorry that she had ruined them. I forgave her because I knew it was an accident, but my shoes were "stained forever."

Burn Baby Burn !

I was a senior in high school. One night my sister Betty called on the telephone and asked my mother to let her talk to me. When I answered she asked me, "Guess what's on fire?" My first thought was that the First Baptist Church was on fire because I used to help my grandpa clean the building and I was always seeing dirty rags in the furnace room and I was afraid they would spontaneously combust and burn down the church building. When I told her I thought it was the church she said "no, it's the high school." My first thought was "Hallelujah, hallelujah, the school is on fire. I hope it completely burns down." It did. It was a two story brick structure with a basement and the fire totally gutted the building. Nothing was salvageable. Fire authorities concluded that the fire had started due to the old furnace exploding and catching the building on fire.

This was great, I thought. No school. No school building. No where to go to school. But wait ... the school board had other ideas. The school burned on Friday and we went back to school on Monday, just like usual. The school board decided to hold all high school grades and classes in the school gymnasium. They had card tables and long tables set up in the gym and even had room for two classes on the stage. The building burned in January so we had 5 months of classes in the gym. It was a hoot. No one learned anything because it was just one big party after another for the rest of the year. People made and threw paper airplanes, wads of paper, balls of paper, spit balls, books, and all sorts of other kinds of shenanigans. If you sat close to the curtain on the stage you could part the curtain a little bit and cause all sorts of distractions to the classes on the gym floor. I don't know how the teachers put up with the situation.

We were assigned seats and had to sit at certain tables. It was total chaos when we changed from class to class. At one of my tables we had a kid that would drink Wildroot Creme Oil (a hair dressing) and he could also fart on command. We were always getting him to take a swig of hair oil and if he drank too much he would always go to the bathroom and puke. Of course we thought that was hilariously funny. It was even funnier to make him fart whenever we wanted to. We would wait until things were pretty quiet and then make him fart. That would crack up everybody and the teachers would lose control and begin yelling for us to restore order.

One time during an episode like the one described above, I didn't know it but the PE teacher was standing directly behind me where I couldn't see him. He was also the football, basketball, and track coach. Well, we made our classmate fart and I began to laugh silently and about to bust a gut. Then I lost it and laughed out loud. Suddenly, I felt a firm hand on my shoulder and a stern voice from coach Coen. He spun me around and told me I had just laughed myself off the track team. He suspended me for the next two track meets. We only had three left, so while I was disappointed, it wasn't as big of a deal to me as it was to him.

The last five months of my senior year in high school was total chaos as far as learning anything. I think all the school did was to meet attendance requirements so they could continue to receive state funds to operate the school. I'm convinced no learning took place.

I think the board of education graduated all seniors whether they had earned the right or not. All students in grades 9-11 were promoted to the next grade at the end of the school year.

During our time in the gym most of us were in trouble most of the time (this included the girls as well). I'm sure our teachers wanted to pull their hair out. I'm sure they were frustrated to the 'nth degree.

I remember on one occasion after school we pulled Johnny Shelby's bicycle up the flag pole. Of course, the school principal was watching us out of his office window. We thought he had gone home but he fooled us. The next day he made the four of us go out to the flagpole and hold on to it for an hour. If we took our hand off the pole he would yell at us from his window.

This wasn't the only trouble I got into but I'll not reveal some of the others. Just junky kid stuff that was probably perceived as "bad behavior" at the time but not really. Only fun lovin things that most any kid would do if they had the opportunity.

As a kid I was fun-lovin-ornery. Only did one thing that was really bad and not acceptable, but I paid the price for doing it. That's a whole different story.

Burn baby burn!

Grandpas Rubbers !!!

When we moved to town we lived right next door to my grandmother and step-grandpa. Grandpa was deaf as a door nail and he read lips to understand what you were saying when you talked to him. He was a little guy about 5 foot 6 inches tall and didn't weigh very much. I think he had to hold on to a tree or something if he got caught out in a strong wind to keep from blowing away. He was a pretty cool ole guy and I always liked being around him. He chewed tobacco and smoked a pipe which my grandma didn't like. He always had tobacco juice stains on his shirt.

When we got our TV he would come over a lot and watch. He loved to watch 'rasslin and would get all worked up watching the matches. He swore that the matches were real. His favorite 'rasslers included Gorgeous George and Wahoo McDaniels.

Years ago people wore goulashes (rubber foot wear) when it was wet and rainy outside to keep the mud and water off your shoes. Some were real fancy and just slipped over your shoes and some went clear to your knees with fancy buckles or zippers to close them up on your pant legs.

One time when grandpa came over to watch 'rasslin it began raining and then it started storming. The weather turned really nasty and our drive way was real muddy. Grandma called my mom on the telephone to see if we were okay during the storm. While she was talking to grandma, grandpa got mom's attention and asked her to ask grandma to bring over his rubbers. Well, when I heard that, I freaked out. I was about 10 or 11 at the time and was just beginning to learn about the birds and the bees and learning what all the graffiti on the bathroom walls meant. I was learning all the "dirty" stuff and had just learned what prophylactics were and that the common name for them was "rubbers."

A few minutes later grandma showed up carrying grandpa's goulashes (rubber foot wear) which he called his rubbers. You can imagine how shocked I was to learn that rubber foot wear were also called rubbers.

I was shocked and thoroughly disappointed to learn that grandpa didn't want his rubbers for what I thought he wanted them for.

Busted Again !

Me and my friends were always sneaking around and smoking whatever we could find to smoke. One time I found an open pack of Camel cigarettes in our garage. I was about 12 or 13 years old. The cigarettes belonged to my dad and he had left them there, probably for future use. I thought about not taking them for a minute but my friends encouraged me or dared me to take them anyway. So we were standing there talking about where we could go to smoke them. One of the guys had a lighter so we decided we would go across the street and go out behind Leonard Johnson's barn and smoke all we could before supper.

While we were standing there my mother drove in the driveway and I panicked when I saw her. I shoved the pack of cigarettes into the front of my pants. I didn't realize that the pack was upside down and that when I started walking up the driveway the cigarettes were coming out of the pack and falling down my pant leg onto the ground. We walked on out of the driveway and headed for Leonard's barn. We smoked all of them, probably 10 cigarettes. There was 3 of us so we each had a good smoking session. After we finished smoking my friends went on back to their houses and I headed home for supper.

When I went in I washed my hands and face and proceeded to the supper table. When I sat down I noticed my plate was turned upside down. I knew I was in trouble but I didn't know what for. After my dad offered a prayer of thanks for the meal, I turned my plate right side up and then I knew what I was in trouble for. There lay 3 Camel cigarettes. I looked at mom and then dad and they didn't say a word ... they just looked at me with a stare that would kill.

I was busted, again!

Stop and Get Me a Wolf's Head !

On the same trip to Salt Lake City, when we crossed the state line into Colorado, I began to see signs that read, or at least I thought the signs read: "Ask for a wolf's head." I kept seeing them pretty often and I began to think how cool it would be to have a wolfs head. Any cowboy worth his salt would like to have a wolf's head hanging somewhere in his room and I would like to have one too. Sometimes there would be 6 or 8 signs in a row, closely spaced, so my anticipation rose that I could get me a wolf's head.

After hours, or what seemed like hours to me, I finally asked my dad if we could stop and get a wolf's head at the next place where they had them. He asked me what was I talking about. He had never heard of such a thing and didn't know where I had come up with such a hair-brained idea. It wasn't too long until I saw another sign and told him to look, see, the sign says: "Ask for a wolf's head."

He saw the sign and laughed. He told me it said: "Ask for Wolf's Head Oil." I found out that a certain kind of gasoline station was advertising their oil lable brand: WOLF'S HEAD OIL.

I remember how disappointed I was that it was only a brand of oil and not a real wolf's head !!!

Watch Out !!!

My parents seemed to always take vacation breaks on the spur of the moment. As I remember the vacations were more of a break from routine rather than a bona-fide planned vacation. Dad was self employed so I guess he was free to decide when he could be away from his work.

On one occasion however I remember a vacation to Salt Lake City, Utah was planned well in advance. We were going to visit my mothers brother who lived there. So we departed on schedule and made our way across Kansas, into Colorado, and then into Utah. I really don't remember much about the vehicle excursion but I do remember some of the things we did in Salt Lake City. I remember driving out to a hill-top and viewing the great salt lake from a distance. It was pretty cool to see but also very boring for a youngster of my age (about 9 years old). We visited the Mormon Tabernacle and listened to the choir sing. It was awesome. We took a tour of the place and I remember the tour guide standing at the front of the auditorium and dropping a pin on the floor. You could hear it hit the floor from any point in the room because the acoustics are architecturally perfect. I remember going up into the mountains outside of Salt Lake City to a state park for a picnic. A mean cousin of mine put me up to hiding from my mother who promptly concluded that I was lost in the wilderness and she wanted to call out the National Guard to help find me. She was convinced that I would never be heard from again. My mean cousin had hid me in the back seat of his familys car and when he saw my mother crying and panic stricken, he confessed and I was found. He was in big trouble and so was I. My mother made me promise I would never do anything like that again. At the time I thought it was funny to hide from mom and dad but I soon learned by the heat on the seat of my pants that it wasn't.

When we were driving around the streets of Salt Lake City I kept seeing a sign that read: WATCH OUT FOR PRESBYTERIANS. And since we were in the heart of Mormon country it made perfectly good sense to me to watch out for those heathen Presbyterians. I kept seeing the sign and seeing the sign. I finally asked my dad: How do you tell a Presbyterian from anyone else? He said, "What?" I asked again "how do you tell a Presbyterian from anyone else?" Well, he went into this long explanation of what he thought the theological beliefs of a Presbyterian were. He said you couldn't really tell if somebody was a Presbyterian just by looking at them; you would have to talk with them. He asked me why I wanted to know anyway. What was it that intrigued me about Presbyterians?

After many more times of seeing the sign that read: WATCH OUT FOR PRESBYTERIANS, I pointed it out to my parents. I said, see, look, there is that sign again. When my dad saw it he began to laugh and laugh and laugh and then laughed almost uncontrollably. Finally I asked him what he thought was so funny. He told me.

He told me the sign read: WATCH OUT FOR PEDESTRIANS. (Not Presbyterians).

I was thoroughly embarrassed.

Outstanding Pupil a Conservationist

I have an original copy of an article published Wednesday, May 17, 1961 in The Kansas City Times newspaper. I quote:

"A slender 5-foot 8-inch Oak Grove youngster plans to pit his 140 pounds against the adversities of nature in order to help conserve wild life.

Harvey F. (Pete) Grayum, a member of the Oak Grove high school graduating class of 32 seniors, at 17 years old has a realistic conception of the duties of conservation agents.

'In hard winters I want to be out in the weather to keep the wild life going,' he said. 'I want to work in restocking streams with fish and keeping records of the number of deer killed.'

To start, he will attend William Jewell college, Liberty, this fall and major in biology.

The beginning of his interest in conservation came from three years at the Boy Scout camp at Osceola. He has read the Missouri Conservationist for years. He hunts rabbit and quail and 'fishes all I can.'

In high school he served as treasurer of the Student Council and art editor of the yearbook. (He does still life paintings, 'every once in a while, when I get the urge,') managed the football team, played guard and defensive line backer on the squad and was on the track squad.

Pete also had time for church. The faculty named him the outstanding student.

At the exercises last night at the auditorium, Dr. Don W. Holter, president of St. Paul School of Theology, gave the commencement address. B.B. Robinette, president of the board of education, presented the diplomas.

The valedictorian was Carol Helman. Sharon Shrout and Harry Riead tied for salutatorian honors. About 500 persons attended the ceremony in the junior high school gymnasium."

(NOTE: My, my how things can change!)

Tough Guys !

When I was in the seventh grade me and my close friends thought we were tough guys and bad boys. We weren't but we thought we were.

We decided to form a gang. We had heard about big city gangs and thought we could have a gang too. To show our togetherness we decided we didn't want to get tatoo's but rather curl our hair. We all got our mothers or sisters to give us a "permanent" on the front half of our hair. The curls stood up right above our forehead and looked ridicolous, I'm sure. We thought we looked cool. We wore the collars on our shirts turned up the way Elvis wore his collars. This made us even cooler (we thought).

We decided each of us needed a weapon. We talked it over and thought a billy club that would fit in your back pocket would be the way to go. We went to the local hardware store and we each bought a bar of solder that was used by plumbers to join copper pipes together. The bars were 12" long and 3/4" square. A perfect size. We took the bars to my dads garage/shop/warehouse and wrapped about 2/3 of the length with strips of rags to form a bulge on the end of the club. It worked perfect. We now had our weapons.

All of a sudden it dawned on us that there weren't any other gangs in town. No one to fight with. Oak Grove wasn't a huge community. The population when I was growing up was 761. So we thought we would "beat up" a few of the nerdy kids but we never did.

My dad saw the club one day and asked me about it. I was proud and eager to tell him. Instead of taking it away from me, as he should have, he told me: "Son, no bigger than you are someone will take that club away from you and beat the living snot out of you."

I told my friends what my dad had said and we all agreed he was probably right. As soon as the permanents in our hair "failed" and grew out we disbanded the gang. No fights ever occurred because there weren't any rival gangs roaming the streets. There were no turf wars. There were no drive by shootings. No one claimed a corner to sell illegal drugs. All-in-all it was a pretty boring experience. But we had fun, I guess.

Tough guys? Not really.

Straightened Out

I really don't remember much about the first three grades of elementary school except for recess and lunch break. Me and my close friends couldn't wait until recess so we could go outside and play cowboys and Indians. When it rained and we couldn't go outside it was terrible. Of course everyone likes lunch hour.

I remember alot about fourth grade. Fourth grade was horrible. I hadn't paid attention in the first three grades and now in the fourth grade I had a teacher that expected me to know something. I knew a little bit but I didn't know the things I should have. I was an expert on cowboys and Indians but those subjects weren't covered in the curriculum.

My two sisters and brother, who had gone before me, were "brains" of the highest caliber. At least my fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Cline, told me they were. She was always ridiculing me when I didn't know the answer to a question. She would go into a tirade and tell me, in front of the entire class, how I should know the material and how smart my brother and sisters were and how I should be smart like them. Instead of challenging me to do better she would just brough-beat me and embarrass me. She was mean! I hated her and I hated going to school. It just got worse and the fourth grade was a total disaster for me. Of course I passed the fourth grade and was promoted to the fifth grade at the end of the school year. You had to be a real moron and idiot not to pass from one grade to another where I went to school. And there were a couple of those in my class. I'm just glad I wasn't one of them.

The fifth grade was an entirely different story. My teacher, Mrs. Levy, for some reason took an interest in me and wanted to help me get on track and straighten out some of the bad academic habits I had developed. I never figured out why she thought I could be a good student. She had a meeting with my parents and called their attention to the fact that I was a horrible student. She told them she felt she could help me and would be glad to keep me after school each day for an hour for a few weeks and see what we could do together. When my parents told me the plan of action I panicked. I think I was more worried about staying after school for an hour and missing out playing with my friends. I also thought all my friends would be convinced that I was a real "dummy" and the teacher just had to keep me after school because I had been behaving badly.

I don't remember all the details but Mrs. Levy did straighten me out and helped me alot with academics. I guess she just had a great desire to teach students and saw a student who needed some help. I'm thankful she helped me. One of the greatest helps was the fact that she never compared me to my siblings and never embarrassed me in front of the class. She treated me like I was worth the effort on her part to help get me on the right adacemic path.

From that experience in the fifth grade I began to like school. I didn't always do so well but I at least tried. When I went to school the national grading system was E, S, M, I, and F. E stood for excellent, S was for superior, M stood for average, I was inferior, and of course F means failure in any language. Even after Mrs. Levy inspired me to do better I still got alot of M's, some I's, and once in a while I would get an F. I think I remember getting very few S marks and I don't ever remember getting an E until I got to high school.

Thanks Mrs. Levy wherever you are!

What's that Smell?

When I was in the 1st grade I pooped my pants! I remember sitting in the room, holding up my hand to get the teachers attention, to ask permission to go to the bathroom. I held and held and held up my hand but the teacher ignored me. Now it was too late. I pooped my pants right there at my desk!

Of course it started to smell. I remember a couple of girls that sat in desks next to mine began to ask "What is that smell?" And, "Where is it coming from?" I played along and acted like I didn't have a clue as to where the smell was coming from. Of course, it was coming from me.

When the teacher finally figured out the scenerio, she escorted me to the principals office. Of course there was a stinky trail following us. They were unprepared in the office to handle a situation like this, so once again they called my aunt Bea to come get me.

Aunt Bea came and took me home to her house which was only about 4 blocks from the school. She cleaned me up and called my mom to bring some clothes and to come get me.

One of the worst things was having to wear my girl cousins underwear, Mary Lou's, until my mom could get there with my clothes.

The other tough thing was going to school the next day and having all my friends rag on and tease me. It was especially difficult to face the two girls who set next to me.

Where's My Pencil?

When I began the 1st grade in elementary school there wasn't any pre-school or kindergarten. So you just went without any preparation for getting ready to start school. The room was set-up with old fashioned wooden desks in a straight row. And the room housed both the 1st and 2nd grades. All the 1st graders sat on one side of the room and all of the 2nd graders sat on the other side. It was cool. There were probably 12 1st graders in my class.

The school building was a two story brick structure with a partial basement. The building housed both the elementary and high school. Elementary grades were on the first floor with the second floor housing the High School. There was a shop in the basement for industrial arts classes for the high school. The furnace was in the basement as well. There was no air conditioning system.

There was no cafeteria so everyone had to bring their lunch. There was a water fountain on each floor but that was it. We had no lockers but there was a coat rack in the hallway.

On the first day of school my mom put two brand new #2 wood pencils with erasers in my lunchbox. Dad had sharpened them for me. When I went to school and looked inside my lunch box to get my pencils they weren't there. I panicked. I cried. I bawled. I thought someone had stolen my pencils. I continued to cry and it just got worse. The teacher tried to console me but nothing would work. The teacher ended up taking me to the principals office and the secretary called my aunt Bea to come get me from school. Of course by the time she got there I had calmed down. I went with her anyway. I was just way too upset to stay at school.

When we got to aunt Bea's we talked about what on earth could have happened to my pencils. She asked to look in my lunch box. There was a big napkin in the bottom of the lunch box and when she looked under the napkin, there they were! My two new pencils.

I guess if I had used the napkin rather than wiping my fingers on my pants I would have found the pencils.

All-Star

The Little League Championship World Series just ended with a team from Southern California defeating a team from Chinese Tai-Pai for the title of World Champs. Watching the entire championship series for more than a week reminded me of when I played Little League ball. They are good memories and I loved playing baseball. Our high school did not have a baseball team and I wasn't good enough to play in college so my Little League experience was it.

I played pitcher and second base. The coach told me I had a rather nasty natural curve ball. I didn't know the mechanics of "how" to throw it ... I just did. I also had a good change-up and a decent fast-ball. I could throw the curve ball on either side of the plate according the whether a batter was a "righty" or a "lefty." I had a very high strike-out ratio and was also successful at getting hitters to hit playable ground balls. When I lost my "stuff" I would get sent to the bench or to second base. I liked second base but it wasn't as much fun as pitching.

I played Little League for 3 summers. Each of the 3 years I was elected to the District All-Star team by my coaches as a pitcher. Only one other kid on our teams got elected to the All-Star team, so I was pretty proud and honored. I have some beautiful medals packed away somewhere but I don't know where. If I ever find them I'll put them somewhere easier to find.

The Tribe

The H. Roe Bartle Scout Reservation located near Osceola, Missouri is quite a place. I don't know how long it has been in operation, but when I was a kid, it had been operating for several years and it is still growing and going strong. I visited about 6 years ago and was amazed at how much the camp had expanded with new buildings, swimming pools, etc.

Central to the experience of Scout Camp was the tribe of Mic-O-Say. This program was based on folklore, fiction, and history about an Osceola Indian tribe that lived in the region way back when. H. Roe Bartle, a former mayor of Kansas City, Missouri and a powerful political leader in Missouri founded the camp and the Mic-O-Say program for scouting in Missouri.

Being "called" into the tribe was a great honor for a scout. It didn't come automatically just because you were at camp but was something you attained by being recommended by your scouting leaders. You had to be a model scout and live as such even to be considered.

No scout was ever "called" into the tribe at their first year of camp. This was something reserved for second and third year scouts. There were 3 levels of being a tribesman. You were called as a "Foxman," then progressed to a "Brave," and finally you attained "Warrior" status. Other levels of Warrior were attained with projects, programs, and various other things to advance you in the tribe. You could become a fire builder, or drummer, or shamman, but H. Roe Bartle was the chief until he died a few years ago. I don't know who is the chief now.

I was called into the tribe as a Foxman my second year of scouting. The name given to me was "He Who Builds With Wood," based on information I gave the elders of the tribe. I told them how I liked working with wood and my dad had taught me several things about carpentry.

When you were called into the tribe it was done at a huge campfire. Your name was called and you proceeded to an outer circle around the fire ring. Then after everyone was called and assembled a pair of runners came by and literally threw you from the ring and said, "Leave this council ring!" You left with the runners and were taken into the woods to spend the night by yourself and not come back into camp until the runners came and got you the next night about 6PM. It was a long night and you had to stay in the woods no matter what the weather was. In addition you were placed on "silence" for 48 hours. This made meal time at the mess hall a real interesting experience. You couldn't talk and if the campers didn't like you they would ignore you and not pass you any food. Some guys went hungry for several meals. But of course, this made you more of a man!

My third year of camp I made Warrior but this was the last year I attended camp. I never advanced in the tribe.

All-in-all my scouting experience was good. I earned over 30 merit badges. I earned the rank of "Life Scout" but did not complete "Eagle." My troop disbanded when I was a Junior in High Shool and that was the end of my scouting experience. I should have gone to another town and another troop to complete the Eagle rank but I didn't. Now I wished I had. Only 2% of scouts earn the rank of Eagle.

Sinker, Frog, Shark

I was a member of the Boy Scouts of America when I was growing up. Before becoming a Boy Scout I was a Cub Scout. You don't have to be a Cub Scout to be a Boy Scout but it's kind of like going to pre-school before you go to kindergarten.

I remember the first year I went to summer camp at the H. Roe Bartle Scout Reservation near Osceola, Missouri. It was a 10 day camp and cost $18.00 per camper for the entire time. Our Troop #266 in Oak Grove would have paper drives and other work projects so we could apply our earnings toward the cost of camp. I was a "tenderfoot" with all of the anxieties you have going to summer camp for the very first time. All of the stories you heard only added to your already preconceived ideas of horrification about what might happen to you. They were all true!

I remember being horribly homesick after the first three days of camp. Our scoutmaster told the first year campers parents not to send any letters because it would make us homesick and that is something he didn't want to happen. For me it would have been better to get a letter during mail call. Hearing most of the other boys names called at mail call and not hearing your own name wasn't fun.

The highlight of camp for me was swimming. In order to be able to attend the "open swim" sessions you had to be able to swim 50 yards. If you couldn't swim the 50 yards you had to attend a swimming class for beginners. Well, I couldn't swim the 50 yards and I was labeled a "Sinker" and had to wear a circular red tag with a hole in it around my neck. You were required to wear it outside your shirt at all times. This was humiliating and embarassing because I was the only one in our troop that was a "Sinker."

The second year I was able to swim the 50 yards and was labeled a "Frog" and got to wear the Frog tag. My third year I was able to swim 100 yards and earned the coveted "Shark" tag. I was proud to wear it on the outside of my shirt. I even took Life Saving merit badge my third year and received Red Cross certification in Life Saving.

Meal time was a real experience at camp. We ate in this huge dining hall. I don't know how many tables there were but it seemed like there were a hundred. KP (Kitchen Police) was not a duty you wanted to do. You had to go to the dining hall 30 minutes early and set the table(s) for your troop. Then you had to go to the kitchen and get the bowls of food and put them on the table. Of course all the first year campers had to rotate for KP duty. I think I did it about every other day for the 10 days.

My least favorite foods included "Shit-on-the-shingle" (Corned beef on toast), "Buzzard Puke" (Oatmeal with raisins), and Breaded Tomatoes (we had no special name for this dish).

I'll share more of my scouting experiences in future posts.

My First Set of Wheels

I wanted a bicycle and my dad said I would have to work to earn the money to buy it. So he bought me an 18" lawnmower from Sears and said I would have to find some yards to mow. I never did figure out why he bought me the lawnmower rather than just buying me the bicycle. I guess he wanted me to learn that if you wanted something you had to work for it. I used to mow yards for $3.00 (at the most) and some of them I mowed for $2.00 As I remember they were big yards. I drove by them later when I was older and they were very small yards!

I had a bike picked out at our local Western Auto store in Oak Grove. It was a Western Flyer with white-wall tires, a mud flap on the back fender and tassles hanging off the handlebars. It was fire engine red. The bike cost $18.00 so I had to mow a lot of yards to save up the money. Gasoline cost me 18 cents a gallon and I could mow most of the summer on 2 gallons of gas. Anyway I thought the gas was expensive.

I finally saved enough to get the bike and now the world was mine. My parents would let me ride the bike most anywhere in town that I wanted to go. There was only one paved road in town and that was a state highway and I wasn't allowed to ride on this road. I could ride anywhere else that I wanted to.

One time me and my friends decided we would "ride the highway" to Sni Mills, 6 miles south of Oak Grove. Of course we hoped our parents wouldn't find out but of course they did. Before we went on our bicycle trip I "borrowed" a plug of tobacco from my grandpa. It was a brand called Tinsley's Thick. It was awful but we thought we were "tough" and could handle it. None of us had ever chewed before.

What we didn't know was that you weren't supposed to swallow the juice from the tobacco. We were all chewing and swallowing and after about a mile into the trip we all got sick. One guy was throwing up but I never did. I just got very sick and had to walk my bike back home. My mother was waiting on the back porch when I got home and wanted to know why I was looking so green and grey and I told her. She asked where I had been and I told her. I was in trouble again.

I got busted and my bicycle riding was suspended for two weeks. I got in trouble for riding on the highway AND for "borrowing" the chewing tobacco from my grandpa.

I've never tried chewing tobacco again!

I Knew Nothing

My dad bought me a Daisy "Red Ryder" BB gun for my birthday one year. Don't remember how old I was but dad must have thought I was old enough. I loved it. I played cowboys and Indians with it nearly every day. All of my friends had BB guns and I think I was the last one in my group to get one.

We used to go to a friends barn and shoot at each other. Yes ... shoot at each other. The standing rule was to shoot below the waist but of course, there was an accidental shot once in a while that landed above the waist. It is a wonder that someone didn't get hurt seriously.

There was a street light on the corner next to my house. We would shoot out the bulb because it was great target practice. Someone, probably my grandma,would report that the light was out and the city would come and replace the bulb. Of course, usually that same night, we would shoot out the light bulb again. After a while the city just ignored the street light so the corner was in the dark most all the time.

We never did get caught shooting out the light but the town marshall did come by and talk to me one time about it. Of course "I knew nothing ... nothing at all."

Another Cowboy Episode

Another thing I liked that cowboys did was to set traps. I remember from the old movies that when the cowboys wanted to catch the bad guys, they would dig a trench across the road and cover it with tree branches and sticks and leaves, etc. Then the good guys would get the bad guys to chase them and of course, the bad guys would fall into the trap (trench). Then the good guys would beat up the bad guys, have the sheriff take the bad guys to jail, and then the good guy got to kiss the girl and ride off into the sunset with her.

I thought this was pretty neat and I thought I would try it. There was a chicken house on our property and a garage. There was a walk space between them about 5 feet wide. I thought this would be a great place to dig a hole in the ground, cover it with sticks and leaves, and set a trap for some unexpectant weary soul. I would trap somebody! I would get'em!

I dug the hole right in the middle of the walkway about 2 feet wide and 12 inches deep. No one could miss stepping on the sticks and leaves and fall into the hole. I had a rope in the garage that I thought I could tie up the unsuspecting passerby, thus capturing the "bad guy."

My brother-in-laws grandfather lived in the chicken house that had been converted to a one room apartment. He was about 75 years old and rather thin and frail. He walked with a cane. His name was Jasper Scott.

Well, as fate and my luck would have it, Jasper stepped in the hole. I'd caught my first person in the trap! Of course I had no intention of catching a 75 year old frail grandpa that walked with a cane. I thought I would get someone my own age so I could beat them up and then tie them up with my rope. I don't know if I would have called the local police to get them thrown in jail ... after all, they had committed no crime. And where was the girl that I was going to ride off into the sunset with? Where, oh where was she?

Jasper sprained his good ankle really bad. He was able to get up and get into the chicken house, now an apartment, and call his grandson, my brother-in-law. When my brother-in-law arrived and surveyed the scene, it didn't take a New York detective to figure out the scenerio. I was in trouble ..... again!

I don't remember what my punishment was but I do remember having to apologize to Mr. Scott, fill in the hole-trap, sustain a really good tongue lashing from my hot-headed brother-in-law, and promise I would never do anything like that again.

Dad told me that if I ever did anything like that again, and hurt somebody, there would be hell to pay and I would pay it at a costly price.

I never set a trap again!

I Wanted To Be A Cowboy

When I was a kid I always wanted to be a cowboy. I would have been a good cowboy. When I lived on the farm I used to set up hay bales in the barn and pretend it was a horse and ride miles and miles. When we moved to town and got our first black and white 13 inch television I watched every cowboy and Indian show that was broadcast on Saturday mornings. Then on Saturday afternoons if there was a western movie at the local theatre, I would scrape up the 10 cents to go to the movies. No drink and no popcorn ... just the movie.

I was "eat up" with wanting to be a cowboy. I paid attention to every detail in the television shows and the Saturday afternoon movies. The thing that particularily excited me was when the cowboys were chasing the Indians or the Indians were chasing the cowboys. I also loved to watch the cowboys blow-up something with dynamite. I especially liked it when they would blow-up a shack on a hillside.

Well .......... I got a bright idea one day. I decided that I was going to make a bomb and blow-up the neighbors garage. It was falling down anyway and was an eye sore to the neighborhood. So I figured out that I would take 4 of my brothers shotgun shells and tape them together. Then I fugured out that I could use wax paper for a fuse.

I got all my stuff together and left to go to the neighbors across the street. I planted the bomb on the ground up against the back side of the garage. Then I proceeded to lay out the wax paper fuse across a vacant lot that was next to the garage. I layed it out and down into a ditch that was about four feet deep. The ditch would give me good cover to hide in and protect me from the huge explosion that I visioned in my mind.

As soon as I had the fuse layed down into the ditch I lit it with a match. The fuse burned up out of the ditch and the fire was on its way to the bomb. I dove into the ditch to take cover ..... and I waited. I waited. I waited. I waited and waited and waited for the explosion.

After waiting some more, I peeked up over the edge of the ditch and much to my surprise, the entire back yard was on fire. The grass was burning toward his house and I just knew it was going to burn his house down. I panicked and didn't know what to do.

As luck would have it, a neighbor lady was watching the whole episode out her kitchen window. She had called the volunteer fire department which took forever to arrive. They put out the fire and everything was under control. But the bomb never went off and I didn't have the pleasure of hearing the explosion that would have wiped the neighbors garage off the map.

Of course everyone in the whole town knew about my episode within the hour because news like that travels fast in a small town. My parents knew about it before they ever got home from work and I was in big trouble. My punishment was NO television and NO cowboy movies for a month.

I also had to go knock on the neighbors door and apologize to him for burning up the yard and trying to blow up his garage. He just smiled at me and then he laughed.

New Fun Begins

The move to town was over. We were all settled in. I didn't have to make new friends because I already had plenty of friends from school and church. I just had to learn where they lived. With a population of only 761 people it wasn't too much of an area to learn.

We lived on the west side of town about 3 blocks from what we called "downtown." There were no street signs and the streets were a dirt-oil mix with some gravel mixed in. There was no home mail delivery. Everyone went to the post office to get their mail. It depended on where you were in town as to whether it was "uptown" or "downtown." Downtown consisted of two short city blocks with a four-way stop right in the middle of town. Town was bordered on the north end by the Grease Palace, a full-service "filling" station. It was bordered on the south end by Shelby Motor Company. I can only remember seeing maybe one or two cars inside on the showroom floor at any one time. I don't think they sold many cars. Downtown consisted of a grocery store, a post office, a drug store (pharmacy and soda fountain), hardware store, funeral parlor, bank, movie theatre, gasoline station, restaurant, dry cleaners, car dealership, a telephone office, and a local newspaper printing shop. There may have been more businesses but these are all I can remember. The bank is the only business that exists today and of course it has changed ownership through the years. None of the other business are in existence.

The "drug store" was on the busy corner at the four-way stop and was my favorite place to go. You could buy a small fountain drink for 5 cents. A scoop of ice cream cost 7 cents. I remember when the cost of a small drink went to 8 cents. I was crushed. It was just too expensive.

You could buy liquor by the bottle at the drug store. The owner had it stored and locked up in a cabinet all by itself. There was a sign hanging over the cabinet that said: NO SALES TO MINORS. I thought that was pretty interesting and curious. I wondered why he wouldn't sell it to minors. I deciphered that it must be because when the workers got down in the coal mines they would get drunk and couldn't find their way out. Then it dawned on me that there weren't any mines within hundreds of mile of Oak Grove. I finally had to ask my dad what the sign meant. He told me. I felt rather foolish.

There was an electric cigar lighter in the drug store that fascinated all of us boys. You could pull down on a lever and it would create a spark that lit a wick and then you could light your cigar. Well, we devised that we could smoke a paper straw or a grape vine, so we would sneek in the back of the store and light a straw and smoke it. It was good for about 3 puffs before fire would burn your tongue.

My fascination with smoking continued. There will be other stories of smoking.

Stay or Move?

The year was 1950. I was seven years old. Hard times fell on the farm. After five years of tough times dad was between a rock and a hard place. With the cost of supplies rising that were needed to continue the farming operation dad tried to purchase the farm from the landlord. The landlord quoted dad a price he could not afford and thus began the shift in thinking about what dad was going to do. He opted to move to town, Oak Grove, and he didn't know what he was going to do. Grandmother Walraven, dads mother, gave him a small lot to build a house on for the family. Dad had never built a house but he thought he would give it a try.

The house was small. Back then they called it a "cracker box." I don't remember the dimensions but it was really small. The bathroom was so small you could wash your face in the sink while sitting on the pot! There was just enough room in the bedrooms (2) to walk around the bed. The kitchen was unbelievably small. The front room, as we called it, was the largest room in the house. I would guess it was about 10 feet by 12 feet. But the house was our home and we loved it.

While dad was building the house someone stopped by and asked him if he would build them a house. And since he had no prospects of doing anything else, he said that he would. That job led him to another building job and then another and then another. Soon after Grayum Building Company was born and the stage was set for dad to be a small-time builder in and around Oak Grove.

One interesting note about when we were packing up to leave the farm and move to town. My dad told my brother to not forget the plane that was in the barn. Well, I went nuts when I heard that we had a plane in the barn. I had never seen an airplane in the barn and I had played all over every square inch of that barn. I immediately ran to the barn ahead of my brother to see if I could find the plane. When I told my brother I had never seen an airplane in the barn and I didn't even know we had an airplane, he began to laugh hilariously. He took me to the workbench and showed me a tool used to plane smooth edges on a board. A plane. Not an airplane like I had thought.

I was almost eight years old when we moved to town.

A new saga began and the story continues.

Go Fish !

My first time fishing was in Sni creek, bordering the western part of the farm. My mothers nephew, Ed Lawson, took me. He was about 16 or 17 years old. He was visiting us during the summer and decided he wanted to go fishing. He rigged up a cane pole and we headed out for the quarter mile hike to the creek. We caught some grasshoppers along the way to use for bait.

It seemed like a long time passed but he finally caught a fish, a ten inch long catfish. I had caught nothing ... nada ... zilch-o! I was really excited that he'd caught a fish and I wanted to clean it, take it back to the house and eat it.

He didn't want to do that and instead proposed that we cut the fish up and use it for bait ! I was very opposed to the idea but my opposition was over-ruled. I said we could walk back through the hay field and catch some more grasshoppers but he said the "cut bait" would work better and that we would catch a whole bunch more fish.

Well ... the "cut bait" didn't work and we didn't catch any more fish the rest of the afternoon. I was crushed. My first fishing trip and I was going home empty handed!

But that's the way it goes. Sometimes you just "go fish" and at other times you "catch." I would rather go "catching" than just "fishing" any day.

Camel Cigarettes

I remember harvest times on the farm were good times. Harvesting was hard work and I mostly watched because I was too little to be of much help. There are two primary times for "putting up" hay. One in late spring and one in late summer. Once the hay is cut, it has to lay for a few hours, and then be baled before the evening dew sets in. So, depending on how large the field is, it can run into late night before you are done hauling in the hay and getting it in the barn.

I remember on one occasion dad had several men come over to the farm and help him put up the hay. They came to our house around noon and immediately went to work doing whatever it was that they did. I remember being down in the hay field with them and dad called to me to come over to where he was. He told me to go to the house and get him a pack of cigarettes. He smoked Camels and I thought the camel on the front of the pack was pretty cool. I went to the house and told mom that dad needed a pack of cigarettes, so she gave me a pack to take to him. I took them to him and gave them to him.

Then I got a bright idea !

I thought that I'd like a cigarette for me to smoke. I couldn't go to dad and ask for one because, of course, he wouldn't give me one. So I went back to the house in a little while and told mom that dad needed another pack of cigarettes. She questioned me rather thoroughly but finally gave me another pack. So now I was set.

Well, I didn't have anything to light the cigarettes with so I just pretended to smoke them. It was pretty cool smoking (or at least pretending to smoke) like all the other big men on the hay crew.

After the hay was cut and left to dry for awhile in the field, all the men went to the house for a meal before they began to bale and haul in the hay. Before we sat down at the table mom asked dad why he needed another pack of cigarettes since she had already sent one to him via me. He asked her what did she mean? And she told him about me coming to the house for a second pack. He said he didn't send me for a second pack. Well, I was in trouble.

My punishment for lying and making up such a story was that I didn't get to set at the dinner table with all of the big tough hay haulers. I had to sit in the corner of the kitchen and look at the wall and eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. They all had roast beef.

As I remember, that was my first time trying to smoke.

Little Lamb

The first pet I ever had was a lamb named Duz. He was named after a popular laundry detergent at the time. His wool was as white as freshly laundered bed sheets ... and that was the theme of the laundry detergent.

I don't remember where we got him and I don't know that I ever even knew where he came from. But we got him when he was just a baby. I do remember being told that his mother sheep had died and dad brought him home from one of our neighbors. I had to feed him warm milk from a glass bottle with a rubber nipple. I remember how cute he looked when he was "nursing." Slobbers included!

As he grew he became more frisky with every passing day. And of course he was puttin' on the pounds. As lambs, sheep, and goats will do, he began to "butt" me with his head and anyone else that looked like a good target. When I would ride an old beat-up-hand-me-down tricycle he began to "butt" me off and turn me over. Well as he grew larger the "butts" became harder and harder and more severe. One day he "butted" me really hard and then began to maul me and dad had to come to my rescue. I remember at the supper table that night mom and dad talking about what to do with the lamb, now grown into a sheep. Dad told mom and me that he thought he would just take Duz to town. Well, little did I know at the time what that meant.

I thought taking Duz to town was a great idea. Then he could run all around town up and down the streets playing with the dogs and cats and anything else that was interested. I wanted to go with dad when he "took him to town," but dad said no ... he had to do this by himself.

For a short time after dad took the lamb away and we went to town, I would want dad to drive around and see if we could find Duz. That happened a couple of times and I soon forgot about him.

Well, as time passed, I later learned that when a farmer talks about taking something "to town," it didn't mean what I thought it meant. When a farmer talks about taking something "to town," he is referring to either a grain elevator, if it is a crop, or he is referring to taking livestock to the slaughter house.

"Oh my," I thought, when I learned what the real meaning was when dad said, "I think I'll just take him to town."

(I have a picture of me feeding Duz with a bottle and if I can find it I will try to put it by this post.)

Remembering the House on the Farm

The house I grew up in was located on a knolly hilltop overlooking the west forty acres near Sni Creek. The house was a two-story, five room, clapboard siding, with a front and back porch. No basement or garage, just a basic house. The kitchen, a living room, and a front room were on the first floor. Two bedrooms were located on the second floor. No plumbing. We had a two-holler outhouse out back and a "thunder bucket" for use inside the house when we couldn't go outside. We did have limited electricity with one ceiling light in the kitchen and one ceiling light in the living room. The rest of the rooms were illuminated with kerosene lamps. Our heating system was a wood-burning cook stove in the kitchen and a wood-burning stove in the living room. The rest of the rooms had no heat source and were cold as hell in the winter and hot as hell in the summer. (By the way ... is hell "hot" or "cold?")

My brother and I slept in the same bed upstairs, my two sisters slept in a bed together ... all in the same room. My parents used the other bedroom for their own. Sleeping conditions were tricky ... especially when getting up or gowing to bed. I guess the "sleeping" part was okay.

The outhouse was a real trip. It was about one hundred feet from the house with a board walk to it. It stunk to high heaven in the summer time. You had to hold your breath when you went in to do your business. Instead of having nice soft toilet paper we had the Sears Roebuck mail order catalog ... OUCH! Anyway, I will never forget going to the outhouse! For that matter I will never forget using the "thunder bucket."

There was no insulation in the house so the wind blew through with little resistance. Sometimes the curtains would swing and sway as the wind blew. It was especially uncomfortable in the winter time.

Our water source was a fresh water well just outside the kitchen window. There a pump handle at the sink in the kitchen and another one on the back porch.

The house is still standing today and is probably near or over one-hundred years old. I can tell by looking at it from the outside it has been remodeled since I lived there. It's probably been remodeled several times through the years.

I remember good times in the old farm house and I guess that is all that really matters.

Milk ..... YUK !!!

My dad have several animals on the farm. He had milk cows, beef cattle, work horses and hogs. In addition to these animals there were also two or three dogs, several cats, some chickens, and one pet lamb named Duz. Duz was named after a popular laundry detergent because his wool was so white.

Dad kept the milk cows so we could have milk to drink and to sell milk to a dairy Co-op to generate some income. There was a milk barn where dad and my brother milked the cows by hand. Later on dad bought an electric-powered milking machine that made the milking of the cows faster and more efficient. When dad bought this machine it was "the news of the day" all over eastern Jackson county. It was a step toward modernization that only one other farmer in the area had taken.

I used to go to the milk barn early in the morning when dad and my brother were milking. And on a cold winter morning nothing tasted better than a tin cup of warm foamy milk straight from the cow. Of course my brother would squirt me from time to time and that of course made me mad and I would throw something at him. There was always a small war going on between me and my older brother. Through the years I began to not like milk and I think it is related to the "warm milk mornings." To this day I can't stand to drink a glass of milk ... even with cookies. I don't remember the last time I drank a glass of milk. It has probably been over forty years. To this day I can't stand to drink a glass of milk or watch anyone else drink a glass of milk. However, I do like milk on a bowl of cereal. Weeeeeeiiiiiiiirrrrrrrrrrddddddddddddddddddd !!!

Early On

Some of my earliest memories, when I was about five years old, was looking out a kitchen window and watching my dad leave to go to town on the tractor and then waiting for him to return. It was six miles to town so the round trip too quite some time. Upon his return he always brought me a pack of Juicy Fruit chewing gum. It was a real treat for me and it cost him a whopping three cents a pack.

Another early memory is climbing trees in our backyard. I remember I liked to climb as high as I could to where the limbs would actually sway, sit on a limb, and sing like a bird! I have a photo of me sitting high atop my favorite tree.

Two scary events remain in my memory. One event was my falling off the back of my dads tractor and landing on a piece of farm machinery and splitting my tongue wide open, about an inch long. I bled profusely. I nearly bled to death before my parents could get me to a hospital in Independence, Missouri. There was no ambulance to call and the 911 emergency system didn't exist. They transported me in the trusty old 1934 Pontiac that would run all of thirty miles an hour downhill on a windy day! I barely survived and was in the hospital for an extended stay. I remember drinking liquids through a straw for months because I couldn't eat any solid foods until my tongue healed.

The other scary event was when I sat down on a hornets nest on an old hay bailer. Again, I nearly died before my parents could get me to the doctor in Oak Grove. My brother rescued me from the hornets and sustained several stings himself. To this day I am extremely allergic to any kind of insect sting, especially a sting from a hornet, wasp, or bee.

"In the Beginning ........"

I was born October 18, 1943 at Research Hospital in Kansas City, Missouri. My family lived on an eighty acre farm located six miles south of Oak Grove, Missouri, some thirty miles east of Kansas City near the unincorporated town of Sni Mills. The farm is located on Jim Cummins Road off F highway west.

I am the last in line of four children born to my parents, Harvey Warren Grayum and Mary Aileen Lawson Grayum. My oldest sister Betty Elaine Grayum Powell, my brother Walter Edward Grayum, and another sister Norma Jean Grayum Cummins Horner are my siblings. My sister Betty died of ovarian cancer in 1972. She was just forty-one years old at the time of her death. She is buried in the Oak Grove Cemetary located in Oak Grove, Missouri.

My father, Harvey Warren Grayum, was born on a farm near Lone Jack, Missouri on November 16, 1910 and died at the age of seventy-seven in 1987. He is buried at the Holiness Cemetary near Lone Jack, Missouri in eastern Jackson County on Colburn Road.

My mother, Mary Aileen Lawson Grayum, was born on a farm in Carroll County near Bosworth, Missouri on May 20, 1913. She died on October 28, 2008 at the age of ninty-five. She is buried in the same cemetary next to my father.

My childhood years were good, fun years growing up on the farm. My life was fairly normal. (Someone told me one time that "normal" is only a setting on a clothes dryer!) My dad was a sharecropper and worked the eighty acre farm that was owned by Charles Pewitt and they split the profits from the crops dad grew and the cattle and the pigs he raised. The sharecropper deal was fifty percent of the profits to the owner and fifty percent of the profits to the tenant. The tenant bought all seed, feed, and necessary items for the operation and did all of the farming furnishing his own equipment, etc.

I didn't know it at the time but we were "dirt poor" and barely harvested enough crops, beef, pork, and garden items to stay alive. My father never had enough money to purchase things at the grocery store except for the very basic necessities. I wore "hand-me-down" clothing from my brother and my cousins. I seldom ever got anything new. Shoes were the only item I remember getting new when I was a kid.

We always had enough to eat because my mother and sisters worked a garden plot and canned vegetables from the garden each season. We had an underground cellar where we stored the canned vegetables that were "put-up" in glass jar containers. Dad would butcher a beef and a couple of hogs each fall so we could have meat to eat. My mother raised chickens so we could have eggs and she would kill a chicken once in a while so we could eat some pan-fried chicken. Dad always kept a milk cow or two so we could have fresh milk.

Our means of transportation included a 1934 Pontiac with hard rubber tires and wooden spoke wheels. It rode like a broken down log wagon. Rough. No heater, no air conditioner. It didn't even have a defroster for the wind shield. You had to crank the motor to get it started. It had a gas-feed lever on the steering column. No foot accelerator. The other means of transportation was a farm tractor, an Oliver Row-Crop Model 88. Dad drove the tractor to town about once a week to get some basic groceries and other farming supplies he needed. We only used the car to go to church on Sunday's at the First Baptist Church in Oak Grove. Mother used to give me "spit baths" on the way to church because I would miss some dirty places on my face. Her spit! Yuk, yuk! When the Pontiac quit running I remember dad bought a 1933 Model-T Ford. It looked like the ones Al Capone and the mobsters of Chicago drove. It was cold black. It was cool.

For My Sons

I'm not new to blogging but I'm new at being a "blogger." So ... bear with me as I begin to learn the process of how to do it, what to write, and how to write it so that it communicates the way I want. My wanting to blog is mostly a response to one of my sons (Aaron) encouragement to write my legacy. I tried this in book form but it just wasn't working. So I want to write this mainly for my sons (Dann, Ross, Aaron, Clayton). Dann and Ross live in Seattle, WA while Aaron and Clayton live in Nashville, TN. The blog will mostly cover events of my life as I remember them so they can know about me. To that end, I write. Thanx.