A Father's Legacy

Martin Vol. 2 (Continued from Vol. 1)

When I Was Growing Up, Did I Have Any Animals?
What Were Their Names? Was It Important To Me To Have A Pet?

I would like to begin these answers by saying that I have previously answered these questions along with the next 4 or 5 questions that follow but some glitch in the way I handle this computer I managed to accidentally delete every word of it…..Woe is me.

Answers as follow -- Yes I did have an animal, but she was not really mine because she belonged to the entire family. I am speaking of Tiney-gal our pet dog, that I mentioned earlier. Tiney was a beautiful dog that looked somewhat like a small Collie but my mother said she was very likely a Spits & Rat Terrier mix. Tiney was really my Mothers special friend and she would talk to her and ask her questions and Tiney would always respond by way of my Mother speaking for her with a ventriloquist type of voice and if you were listening in on the conversation, you could become enchanted and come to believe that they were actually talking to each other.

My Mother was a very special, well-educated Lady and I loved her very much. Mother was a ‘people person’ and could mix very well, with any group of people, but she was much at ease with all animals.

Tiney was such a good mouse & rat catcher that our neighbors would ask to borrow her, to help kill out a rat of mouse nest. Tiney only had one litter of pups but we did not keep any of the puppies. The one we kept the longest time was given to my Uncle John & Aunt Dollie. We had already named him Rudy because it was probably the most popular name of the day due to the great romantic movie star by the name of Rudolph Valentino.

Yes, we had a cat(s) and it also was a family pet. The cat was usually just a common mixed breed and often had the run of the house and yard. You know how independent cats are and how they somehow don’t stay around a real long time, so as a result of this trait, we just named them all ‘Tessie-Cat’ as they came along.

***

Tell You About My Mothers Cooking.
Can I Recall My Favorite Meal?

The answer is understandably rather simple since every one knows that I like any food that is properly prepared & ready to be eaten. Mother was a very good cook -- She made the best meatloaf, the best homemade rolls, the best food selections that could be arranged. But let me tell you about her mince meat pies and above all her super special, out of this world Lemon Pie.

One day Mother baked a Lemon Pie with a fancy meringue top and set it out to be ready for the forthcoming meal. The flies were kinda messing around the fixings and someone got the notion that they should spray the room with the Flit (Flit was the fly spray of the day, but had a kind of coal oil smell).

Well, anyway it just made a mess of the meringue and no one would even attempt to eat the pie, but I somehow reasoned that if you removed the meringue from the top of the pie that the pie would be ok. So, guess who ended up with the whole pie? (Makes you think of arithmetic when you start talking about certain portions of a pie, doesn’t it?)

***

Did I Ever Get Into Fights With Other Kids?
Did I Ever Start A Fight? Or Stop One?

I only had one experience that could be regarded as a fight by some people but for the most part I would not classify that occasion as a regular fight as I think your question seems to address.

It was during Physical Education class and we were playing volley ball on the gym floor. I did not seem to please one of my team mates by the manner in which I played the game and he kept bad mouthing me every time I made a bad play…. This went on for some time until I finally got tired of hearing it and I decked him forthwith.

Mr. Dyrlie, our teacher, stopped the game and announced that Delton & I were to put the gloves on for a boxing bout to be scheduled two weeks ahead in order to settle the matter for good.

Until I had gone to Uncle Purlees farm I had been quite frail and a likely target to be bullied around but since I had filled out and had gotten in pretty good physical shape, I knew I could handle myself. My dear brother, Calvin, was quite a scrapper and seemed to always come out ahead when he had a fight. I went to Calvin for some sage advise. Calvin advised me to not let Delton get the first blow and besides when I needed to punch him to just hit him square in the face --- I wasn’t sure I could actually hit someone in the face & such a thought would have never occurred to me. The match finally began & after I knocked Delton down several times the coach stopped the bout and made us shake hands. Delton Shillings and I became very good friends and some few years later, Delton lost his life in battle during WWII.

Did I Ever Start A Fight? Answer is No.

Did I Every Stop A Fight? Answer is Yes. Hollis Medford was a kid that lived just outside of our immediate neighborhood but he seemed to always be unhappy about something.

He didn’t have any close friends and sometimes he left the impression that he was looking for someone to fight. Well, I guess I was the chosen subject to get his head bashed in because Hollis met me on a rather secluded area and announced that he acquired some knucks, to wear on his hand, and he intended to try them out today, and on me. I didn’t think too kindly of such a method of fighting and besides it struck me as a form of cheating. I wasn’t sure that he couldn’t whip me without the knucks but in order to buy time I explained to him that he just may have to end up eating those knucks if he persisted and when I got by with that I pushed a little further by shaming him for having to stoop to such a low level, that he had to use knucks to beat me and besides, why not do it in a crowd in order to demonstrate how brave a fighter he really was. You know what, he dropped his head and turned and walked slowly away, never looking back. Hollis and I got on friendly terms after that but we never did go on vacations together, or go hunting together.

By the way, have you ever tried walking away from an unpleasant situation without looking back? I’ve done it, and I can assure you that it is very difficult to do.

***

What Chores Did I Have To Do When I was Growing Up?
Did I Get An Allowance?

After Dr. Gordon announced that I was suffering from a lack of Vitamins D & A and a lack of Calcium my parents borrowed a cow from Uncle Purlee to bring to our place in order that we could have a reliable source for all three. This did not foreclose on my privilege to ingest copious amounts of the fore mentioned Cod Liver Oil (imported from Norway). When we got Betty Jo home she soon gave birth to a heifer Calf, which I named Little Pet. I was promoted to the position of Cow & Calf tender, which meant, leading Betty Jo out to the edge of town (edge of town was only a short distance back then) so she could graze. I would stake her out to graze and through the day I would go to her location and move her over to a new spot.

I also carried bucket after bucket of water to her. I didn’t know how to milk a Cow, in fact at first I was sure that some Cows gave only sweet milk and then there was a special sort of Cow that just gave buttermilk. Daddy milked Betty Jo for a while then Calvin let it slip that he too could milk a Cow and from then on it was Calvin’s job to do the milking twice a day, Morning and Evening. I begged Calvin to let me try milking Betty Jo but he would say "Oh No! Pop would get him if he knew he was letting me do that; however eventually he relented and would let me watch real close to see how it was done. After a while, he would look over his shoulder to see if anyone was watching, and if the coast was clear he would actually let me try my hand at it. Well of course Calvin was about the best con artist I ever knew (besides he had read Tom Sawyer) and as a result I became the sole manager of Betty Jo & Little Pet.

We kept the Cow for a reasonable time before we took her back to Uncle Purlee’s but he told us to keep the Calf for a while longer, so we brought her back to Ardmore with us. It worked out that much later Little Pet would become my very own Cow and this came about by Aunt Lucy & Uncle Purlee giving me the Calf because I had spent two summers down on the Farm working with them. This was a gift from the Heart because I never felt that I had earned anything.

I was happy just being on the Farm with them and whatever chores I had done were done because I wanted to do them and I enjoyed learning a valuable lesson of life….. That you earn your bread by the sweat of your brow.

Some years later when I went out to Lone Grove to help DeWitt & Ruthelle (Susan) on their Dairy Farm I took Little Pet out there to join Dewitt’s milk herd…. But that is ahead of my story for now.

Then You Asked If I Received An Allowance --

No & I would be surprised if any of the kids did receive an allowance back then. If a young boy had any money of his own he had to earn it and it was usually from a part-time job, if he could find one. Usually a boy would try to get a paper route to earn at least two dollars a week, but since there was a limit to those positions, a town boy would go from house to house until he found someone interested in having their lawn mowed (with an old fashioned push mower) or some trash hauled off.

If he had a garden, and worked it properly, sometimes he would have a surplus of vegetables and would go around town looking for someone interested in buying them for less than they would have to pay at the Grocery Store. A boy that lived in the country had a fair chance to work doing farm labor.

This could be working in the fields or cutting fire wood, helping to bail hay, milking cows or about anything some neighbor may need help doing. If he was lucky he could make 50 Cents or maybe a little more than that. Usually though, his work was already scheduled for him at home, doing what his daddy needed to try & make a living for the family. Usually there was no work available for the young girls, because back then there were no fast food places but if they were lucky, and were old enough, they may could get a Job at Kress, or some other 5 and 10 Cent store for 6 Dollars a week.

Usually the girls stayed at home and helped their mother doing the general house work like cooking, sewing, washing clothes or picking and preparing food from the garden. Sometimes a close neighbor lady may need her to baby sit for her for a special occasion. Those times were extremely hard for the family to get by financially.There was a World wide depression going on & The United States had just gone through the collapse of the Stock Market, the drought and resulting Dustbowl had destroyed the crops in the "Breadbasket" States. Even the boll weevil destroyed the most drought resistant crops, such as Cotton.

There was much unrest around the world and soon the entire World would be engaged in a World Wide War and consequently many Nations would be destroyed – Millions of people would be left dead before WWII came to an end.

***

Who Gave You Your First Job? What Kind of Job Was It?
How Much Money Did You Make?

The answer to number one is I applied at the local Daily Oklahoman & Times Distributing Office for a paper route, but there was a long waiting list ahead of me. I managed to talk one of the Route boys into letting me go along with him on his route, for no pay at all. I reasoned that by being seen around the Distributing Office and creating the illusion that I was ‘available’ if someone happened to quit his route this may give me an advantage over others ahead of me on the list.

Yes, I was given a route and it was made up of only about 100 subscribers and the area covered Main Street, First Avenue SW, Broadway Street NW and all streets in between. The Morning route which was the Daily Oklahoman route started around 4 o’clock in the morning and the evening route, which was the Oklahoma City Times, began in the afternoon about the time school let out. I did not have to collect for the papers, we had a supervisor to do that since money was involved and the Circulation Manager wasn’t sure how trustworthy the kids were. I forgot to mention that there was still another edition, which was like a third route and that was the Sunday Oklahoman. None of the 3 routes were made up of the exact same number of customers and there would be some people that would take the Daily Oklahoma but not the Times. Then we had some customers that subscribed to the Times but neither of the other two publications.

The Sunday route actually had more customers than either of the other two. At that time the Newspaper office was located in a building just north of the present Sprecklemyer Printing Co. and directly across the street from the bus station, which was located in the east wing of a much larger office building. The newspapers arrived atop a Jordan Bus that came from Oklahoma City at least twice a day. That building is long since gone and is presently the‘Exchange National Bank’ along with a Drive Through business lane is now located in that location. Across Main Street directly North of the then bus station was the ‘Ardmore Hotel’ but is now refurbished and is the home of the "Lincoln Bank & Trust Co". Across the street (C St.) east from the bus station was the largest grocery store in Ardmore known as the A&P Grocery….. This building is referred to now as the Clay Building, but is owned and used by the First Baptist Church which was and is located one block south at the corner of First Ave. and C St. SW. I was paid a weekly wage of $2.00 in Silver Certificates -- which are now labeled Reserve Notes. (Paper money).

I had wanted a bicycle every since I could remember and each Christmas I had hoped that my present, of all presents, would be a big shinny brand new bicycle, but it never happened. Bicycles were very expensive and probably cost at least twenty five dollars. I know my Mother and Daddy just could not afford to buy such an expensive gift for me. Fortunately, the first paper route I had was a walking route but I knew that if I ever got a larger route which could pay more money I would have to have a bicycle.

My Dad could buy certain items through the Drug Store at wholesale price and when I discussed my problem with him, he suggested that I bring a certain amount of money to him, to be placed in the Store Safe. Then when I had saved enough to pay for the bicycle he would place the order for it. I don’t remember how long it took to save up enough to justify ordering the bike but when Pop felt that I had enough money on deposit he ordered it for me. I put the bicycle together and now I was ready to go for a larger route. My next paper route, with the Oklahoma Publishing Company, was six miles long and located in the SW part of Ardmore. Since that route had more customers, I earned $3.50 per week.

I carried that route for quite some time but eventually managed to get a route with the Daily Ardmoreite. The earnings were better and I only had to get up at 4 o’clock in the morning, and that was Sunday. I was expected to be finished in time for Sunday School & Church, which I was.

Our family was always in Church on Sunday morning, Sunday evening, Wednesday evening for Prayer Meeting and every evening of the year whenever a Revival was going on, which could go more than two weeks at a time. Oh yes, & Bible School every morning during that period of the Summer. I should also mention that during the summer time it was common practice for the Church to find a vacant lot, in some part of town, and pitch their rather large tent (Tabernacle) on that location. The summer revivals lasted for as long as the people attended the meetings and especially if there were people being saved or making professions of faith.

I carried the first Daily Ardmoreite route for some time and later graduated to a much larger route which turned out to be in the NE part of Ardmore. There were virtually no paved streets in that part of town and when it rained it really was a tough route to carry. The route was a large one but many of the customers were late to pay their bills and I had to pay for the papers out of my own pocket when they failed to pay me. Eventually, I discovered that you couldn’t get anybody arrested for not paying their bill and since I was loosing a lot of my profit, I quit the paper business for good. (amen)

[End of Vol. 2, Next is Martin Vol. 3]