GOT MARRIED, DROVE TRUCK, FARMED, CATTLE DRIVE

A year or two after I quite high school I got married. It was either in 1928 or 1929. The stock market crash came in one of those years and I got married in the other one. I keep getting them mixed up. I know we got married June the second, and I believe it was in 1928.

After our honeymoon Ima and I became sadly disappointed. Things were not as we had expected them to be. For years we had been courting and seeing a lot of movies. And every love story we ever saw ended by showing the couple getting married and living happily ever after. They didn't say one single word about the husband having to drive a truck six days a week, and sometimes on Sundays, nor the wife having to wash and iron and cook and keep house. Those were our big disappointments. We got married and had to work hard ever after.

After we married Ima and I lived in Hamlin in Papa's rent house west of the truck warehouse. I was driving a truck on a daily run to Abilene and back to Hamlin. That was when I learned that a truck driver could live on two meals a day. I didn't have time to eat three meals.

The rule of command, mentioned earlier, where the oldest in the group had authority over, and the responsibility for all the younger ones, proved to be a poor ruling after kids become men. So I began to drift way from doing any and all things whatsoever Earl told me to do. After all, I was a big boy now, even big enough to drive a truck to Abilene, which was twice as far away from Hamlin as Earl drove his truck. His regular run was only to Stamford.

At times I even hauled a lot more freight than Earl did. I had to deal with people he didn't even know and I had to conform to trucking methods which he had not been exposed to. Why, I saw trucks on U.S. Highway 80 headed for California with greater loads than Earl's truck and cargo combined. I saw those same trucks return with more miles added to their speedometers in one week than Earl might drive in ten weeks. I witnessed the advent of balloon tires on front wheels of large trucks and I saw them run as many miles as heavy duty, high pressure tires had been running on front wheels, and at half the cost-this before Earl realized that balloons were even being used on trucks.

Conflict between Earl and me was inevitable. I realized that he was not just trying to shove me around-not trying to be bossy just to see if he could be. Rather he was trying to do what he thought was best for the company. But he didn't always know what was best for the company. Progress had gotten way out ahead of Earl and he had not realized it. What was good for Earl and the truck line to Stamford was not necessarily good for me and the truck line to Abilene.

So, one day I thought it was time to disobey Earl and make some decisions of my own. I fought back. I was tired of listening to him and doing all the things his way. But he didn't think it was time for me to be weaned as yet, so he fought back also.

We didn't take time to put the boxing gloves on; we just went to slugging, bare fisted. I wasn't mad at him, just tired of taking orders which didn't always fit the occasion. However, I was glad he remembered Papa's old rule of not hitting each other in the face. That could have hurt; noses bleed and teeth cost money. Our chests took a terrible beating-at least mine did. I'll admit he hurt me, and I tried to hurt him. It was not that I really wanted to hurt him, I just wanted him to get the idea that I was driving my truck and he was driving his. He was too small to drive both of them.

Finally I said, "Boy, I'm tired and sore. How about you?"

He said, "Naw, I'm not tired."

I told him, "You sure jarred me. Did I hurt you?"

Again he said, "No, I'm not hurt nor tired."

Anyway, we stopped hitting each other, We rested awhile, got us a drink of water, and went on with the business of getting our trucks and cargo ready to roll. All this took place without a cross word from either of us-and without a witness. And with no witness, I can tell it like I want to; it's my word against his.

About this time, Papa needed a good used tire for his Hupmobile. Earl was unable to find a suitable one in Stamford, so I was asked to pick up one in Abilene. And Earl warned, "Be sure you don't get a Goodrich."

Well, I looked all over Abilene and the only tire I found that I would consider buying was a Goodrich-a half inch oversize. It only cost $4.50, so I bought it. Of course I didn't buy a Goodrich just to bug Earl, but when I showed up in Hamlin with it, you would have thought I had set fire to another keg of powder-with Earl sitting on it. He was sure the tire would break and blow out. Besides, he had told me not to get that brand.

I told him that if it blew out, I would pay for it. But it didn't blow out; it gave good service. This was another case where I had to make a decision without Earl's presence. It proved to be a good decision. It was another step toward my independence from Earl.

During this time I'd had experience with oversize tires and low air pressure on my own car, and it worked well. I had also seen trucks running through Abilene with low pressure in front tires, and it worked there also. So, I wasn't surprised that it worked on the Hupmobile.

One year Papa bought a new Dodge truck with all four wheels and tires the same size. Up until that year they had used much smaller tires on the front wheels. But this truck had heavy-duty wheels and tires in front just like the ones on the back.

I told Papa that, if he had the money and wanted to invest in two balloon tires for the front, at $30 each, he could save the $60 heavy-duty tires to use on the back wheels later when needed.

Earl told Papa that I was crazy to think that a $30 tire would run as far as a $60 tire.

Papa listened to me and bought the balloons, and they did run as far. This pushed me a little further away from my big brother. Of course, I though it was time he should review some facts and notice that I might have a little more sense than he was giving me credit for. If Earl had been willing to follow a leader, who knows, he and I might have worked happily together ever after.

Other problems came up in Abilene, the likes of which Earl never had to face in Stamford. One day the shipping clerk at Wm.

Cameron Company told me he had a shipment of windows going to Stamford and he wondered if I wanted to haul them. I told him, "No, Earl told me to let Rountree's truck haul all shipments to Stamford."

The clerk asked, "Clarence, when are you going to stop listening to Earl and start telling Earl?"

Well, Earl was the acting manager of the truck lines-not authorized, but acting, and he had told me not to pick up any Stamford freight.

Then the clerk told me that the man in Stamford ordered the windows shipped either by Johnson or by rail. Then the clerk added, "By law we can force you to haul them, but we wouldn't do that. We'll just ship them by rail."

Now, I never did enjoy holding back when there was something to be done. I had always been a "go-getter." But now I was being held back by an invisible force 40 miles away, Earl. And I was beginning to feel about as useless as a knot on a stick, and I was being treated as such by big freight men who were beginning to wonder why W. F. Johnson didn't get a driver with the ability to solicit and haul freight. Compet.i.tion was the name of the game and I wasn't competing.

Anyhow, in this case, if I hauled the windows, I wouldn't be competing with Rountree, it would be with the railroad. I reasoned that Earl shouldn't be opposed to that. But my Stamford freight had to go by way of Hamlin, and Earl would have to take it from Hamlin to Stamford the following morning.

I made my decision, loaded the windows, and took them to Hamlin. But Earl was very unhappy with me. He was never one to calmly ask, "Why?"-and then listen to reason. He had one uncompromising att.i.tude, "I told you what to do. You must do it."

Naturally, Earl was upset toward his little brother. He even refused to haul the windows, and went to Stamford without them. Finally, after two or three phone calls from the consignee to Wm. Cameron Company and then to Papa, Earl delivered the windows, reluctantly and under protest, and only at Papa's order. And Papa told me to get all the Stamford freight I could, and he told Earl to deliver whatever I brought to him.

Although Papa was owner of the truck lines and was supposed to be in full command, Earl had ways of making life miserable for both Papa and me. And as time went by, our relationship didn't improve.

Remember now, this is my version. If Earl were writing this, I'm sure it would read differently. And actually, it wasn't all that bad. Earl was a good boy, and he still is. He's my brother. I loved him then, and I still love him. That was a long time ago. I don't hold any of this against him. I'd do anything I could for him. And I don't think he holds anything against me, except maybe my writing about it like this. But then, we are big boys now and we probably don't have more than forty years left to enjoy living and reminiscing. Why not enjoy it while we can?

I was a Jonah to Earl and perhaps to Papa also. At any rate, Papa found a way to throw me overboard. In 1931 he asked me if I would like to farm. He said he would invest money in a farm for me like he had invested in a truck for each of the other boys and I could pay him rent from the farm.

I agreed and he made a down payment on a farm nine miles southwest of Roscoe, Texas. That is where Ima and I lived during the year of 1932, and that is where we lived when Dennis, our first born, came to live with us.

But the national economy was such that many farmers lost their farms to mortgage holders. By the end of 1932 the Federal Land Bank had repossessed more farms than they knew what to do with. I was told that they were begging farmers to hold onto their farms without making their annual payments-pay only the interest and let the princ.i.p.al wait until they were able to pay. By this time Papa could buy better farms for less money than he still owed on this one. So he let it go back to the mortgage holder.

At the beginning of 1933 we moved onto Uncle Jim Johnson's farm at Royston, 14 miles west of Hamlin. He offered to sell me the place for five thousand dollars, with nothing down and nothing per year except the interest until I was able to pay some on the princ.i.p.al. I turned it down. During the depression of the 1930s there were a good many years that the farm didn't make enough to feed our family and pay the interest.

Then soon after we moved to Royston, Papa came to me and told me that he would have to sell the plow-tools and horses to me "Because," he said, "They keep hounding me and won't leave me alone as long as I try to help you as I am helping the others." He didn't tell me who "they" were and I didn't ask him; I didn't even care who they were.

The 1930s. .h.i.t most all of us pretty hard, including those who were still in the trucking business. I knew men with families drawing wages of less than two dollars a day. When I was building a tractor, I hired a man, who was a good welder and mechanic, for 50 cents a day plus a hamburger for lunch. The burger cost me a dime. Those were the good old days. It was a wonderful depression but I'm glad it's over.

Dennis was eight months old when we moved to the Royston farm. The farm had been neglected for years and things were quite run- down-fences, barn, the house, everything.

My youngest brother lived with us three months after we moved to Royston. He and I would take our 22 rifles and go out after the milk cows in the afternoon, and it was a common thing for each of us to kill from three to ten rabbits each day. Our pasture had the smell of dead rabbits for three months.

Rattlesnakes were also plentiful on our farm during warm weather. We even killed one in our back room-that is, Ima did, with a 22 rifle. And when Anita was two years old, Ima and I were out early one morning milking cows and when Anita woke up she came out to join us. Ima picked her up and carried her back to the house, and there under the icebox, right by the door through which Anita had pa.s.sed, was a rattlesnake.

Big rats and mice had their heyday the first few months we lived there. Rats would often wake us up at night gnawing holes up through the floor in our house. We managed to catch those in the house in traps, but those under the house sometimes kept us awake gnawing. I got out of bed one night and poured carbolic acid around a hole where one had been gnawing up through the floor. Later that same night one woke me up again and I found the hole large enough for a rat to come through, and I found the rat in the house feeling very sick-from acid poisoning.

We often saw mice run from furniture to furniture or peep out from their hiding places. Many times I carried my rifle to the dining table with me and also placed it by my side when I sat down to read. If a mouse hesitated just a moment he was apt to find himself to be a dead duck. One more little bullet hole added to the big holes in the floor didn't mean a thing in that house. Of course, as we continued living there we made some improvements and it became quite comfortable.

When Dennis was two years old, just about a month before Anita was born, Ima, Dennis, my brother, my brother's wife, and I all went to the Rocky Mountains sightseeing. We were driving my old Dodge sedan that wouldn't stay in high gear, leastwise it wouldn't voluntarily. We had to prop the gearshift lever in high with a forked mesquite limb about a foot long.

There in the Rockies one afternoon we had left Cripple Creek and were driving down Phantom Canyon when night overtook us. But before night had come on so strongly, we had gotten a good view of the canyon. On one side of our car we could see straight down hundreds of feet, and on the other side the mountain was straight up just about as far. And every few miles the road crossed to the other side of the deep gorge over dilapidated bridges with big holes in their floors. Most of the bridges had been patched with boards running lenghthways. And some of the patch-boards had holes in them also, and some of them were broken and split up. Others had come un-nailed and were loose and out of place.

Once we came to an abrupt stop on a bridge when a front wheel pushed one end of a board down through a big hole and kicked the other end up against our differential. We had to back up and detour around loose boards and big holes in the floor of the bridge,-all this at night, high above the floor of the gorge below. They condemned the bridges and closed the road soon after we made that trip. As a matter of fact, ours may have been the last car over it before they closed it.

We didn't have much time nor money for such trips. We were too busy farming and raising cattle. The pasture on our Royston farm was a mile and a half long, and when Dennis was three years old he often went with me to drive the milk cows home in the afternoons. He usually walked all the way there and half way back. Then he would ride my back the rest of the way home. Just as my father and I did a lot of things together when I was a small boy, so did my children and I do a lot of things together

While we lived on the Royston farm, Ima was telling me about the death of a kinsman at Gordon. Ima didn't attend the funeral but many of her people did. Families had gathered from far and near to pay their respects and to attend the funeral the next day. The house where visiting was taking place that night had no electric lights but was lighted instead by kerosene lamps. Ima's sister, Mary Beth, was five years old at the time, and when one of the men struck a match to light his pipe, she said, "Oooooh! Don't it get light when you strike a match."

The story is told that just before it got dark that night, one woman, perhaps an Aunt Minnie or an Aunt Hattie,-she was blessed with an oversupply of aunts by both names-anyhow, one of the women went out on the back porch and, looking toward the outhouse, said, "I want to get a good view of that outhouse before dark. I have an idea I'll have to make a beeline for it before morning and it's going to be dark."

Well by midnight all were bedded down, on beds, on cots, on pallets, in hallways and in corners. Then for the next three or four hours all was relatively quiet except for snoring and other occasional noises made unintentionally.