Grampa’s Stories
Grampa’s Stories #1
Time: 1939
Location: Alta Iowa
We lived in a big rental house in the little town of Alta in northwest Iowa. I was five
and brother Tom was seven. Dad was a traveling salesman so we usually only seen him on
weekends. Mother worked as a school nurse. We had a big white Bulldog named whitey.
On Sunday afternoon we often drove to Storm Lake to go to the movies. This was the
highlight of the week, even better than sitting in the car on Saturday night on main street
and watching the people. Dad got a newer car that we were going to use this Sunday, I
think it was a Stutz. It was a four door, and the rear doors opened from the front ( illegal
now). Tom and I were in the back seat as we drove toward Storm Lake. Mothers door
wasn’t closed tight up front so she opened it and slammed it shut. I thought that was pretty
cool and decided to do that with my door in the back seat. I opened the door, and the wind
caught the door, and it sailed me out like a frizbee. We were going about sixty MPH so I
flew into the ditch, bounced and rolled a long ways. By the time they realized what
happened and got the car stopped, I was up and running after the car. I can still remember
seeing that car going away, and chasing after it. I had scrapes and bruises all over, but
nothing was broken. I still insisted on going to the movies, as they had a three stooges
cartoon and I wasn’t about to miss it.
Grampa’s Stories #2
Time: 1940 ,fall
We bought a small farm (acreage),on the edge of the small town of Alta Iowa. This is the
first home we have ever owned. I was six, Tom seven. There was ten acres, house, barn,
and chicken coop. The land was about half pasture for animals and a field for crops. The
house wasn’t modern, we didn’t have running water, there was a pump outside, and a
hand pump in the kitchen near the sink. On Saturday night dad brought in a galvanized
metal tub which we filled with water heated from the stove, and we all took a bath. The
outhouse was near but cold in the winter. We had electricity, so we all huddled around the
radio on the weekend evenings to hear, Jack Armstrong, The Green Lantern, Fibber Magee
and Molly, etc. At first we didn’t have a refrigerator, but had a ice box. The ice truck came
around every few days and brought the ice for the ice box, which we kids looked forward to
in the summer, because we usually got a sliver of ice from the chipping to suck on. Dad got
two cows and a Shetland pony (another story later) for livestock. We had around a hundred
chickens and sold eggs and friers. Every morning we had to get up and help mom milk the
cows , feed the livestock, collect the eggs and clean out the chicken coop. Then we had to
light the fire in the furnace, we burned wood and some coal. As the holidays approached,
dad used to quiet us kids down by pretending to hear Santa Claus outside. He would say
shush “I think I hear him now”, and we would quiet down and look out the window. Since
dad’s language was like mine now, he evolved to saying “ shush I think I hear the old son of
a bixxxx now). A few weeks later we went to a holiday parade in Storm Lake, It was
crowded and so dad put Tom on his shoulder so he could see. As the parade started to come
by Tom looked up the street and yelled very loud “here comes the old son of a bixxxx now
dad”. This caused quite a commotion in the crowd and we quickly retreated. For Christmas
we wanted a basketball. However money was tight and rubber in short supply as the
country was tooling up for war, and we were helping England, as they were in the middle
of the Blitz. As dad was a traveling salesman he found a “deal” and Christmas morning we
,with much excitement, opened a big package that we was sure had a basketball in it. It was
a white volleyball. Dad wasn’t much into sports. We didn’t tell dad it wasn’t a basketball,
and for years later we played basketball with that volleyball, and took some gaff from some
of the town kids.
Grampa’s Stories #3
Time: 1941-42
Location: Alta Iowa
We were getting established as farmers, (at least mother ,Tom and I). Dad was gone most
of the time, as he was a traveling salesman for a oil company. I can remember the concern
everybody had when the Japs hit Pearl Harbor, and we declared war on Germany. Lots of
things were rationed because of the war. We had to get ration coupons for tires, gas, cars
and some kinds of food (i. e. beef). You had to go to the war office to get the coupons, and
each merchant collected them when you bought something. You had to register every tire
you had, even the spare. Dad got better coupons than most because his job depended on
travel. We went out along the roads and collected milkweed pods, when they were in
season, they were used to make parachutes. Also everybody in town collected tin cans, and
donated them. We spent many evenings listening to Edward R Morrow on the radio about
activity in the South Pacific and North Africa. For livestock we accumulated two cows, a
dozen or so geese (mean critters), about a hundred chickens, and to Tom and my delight a
Shetland pony named Blacky. Blacky was kind of ornery, that was how dad got a “deal” on
him, but Tom and I were finally able to tame him. One of the things we learned was, he did
not like to have anybody ride him while sitting back. If you slid the slightest bit toward
the rear, he would buck until you were off. He was OK if you sat far enough forward.
Naturally we learned to take advantage of this information to limit the number of town kids
who wanted to ride our pony. One of the worst was a ornery neighbor boy named Jimmy
Zubrat. We advised him as he was getting ready to ride Blacky, that he would have to slide
back as Blacky did not like people to sit too far forward. Jimmy did not last five seconds
until Blacky threw him. Jimmy’s dad happened to be there and he gave Jimmy a hard time
for getting thrown off, so we asked him if he would like to show Jimmy how. The dad was
over six feet tall. And this was a small pony, so the guy’s feet almost touched the ground.
We naturally advised him to be sure he stayed far enough back on Blacky. Blacky had
him on the ground in about three seconds. After that we did not have too much trouble with
town kids wanting to ride Blacky
Grampa’s Stories # 4
Time: 1942-43
Location; Alta Iowa
Subject; Screwy Obanion and the Sececure Twins.
Our small town was different, now that the war was on, and everybody was concerned, as it
wasn’t going very good at first. Most of the young men had been drafted, including my
half-brother, cousin etc. Some of the wives and most of us kids were enlisted to help with
the farm work to make up for the missing men. Tom and I were in fifth and sixth grade
and enjoyed ourselves on the farm, as well as playing with the town kids, as we were within
walking distance of town. A couple of kids moved into town, and they were twins, the
Sececure twins, Mervyn and Leveryn. They came from somewhere back east, and although
they were not very big. they were aggressive and ornery. They had all the other kids
intimidated, as they were mean bullies, especially with smaller kids. One of our friends was
a small kid with a crippled leg due to a birth defect. He was a friendly little guy, but kind
of unusual. He would wonder out in the fields and talk to the animals, sing songs when he
was alone etc. Therefore he got the name Screwy Obanion, attached to him by the town
kids. He didn’t seem to mind. One of the Sececure twins started picking on Screwy. He
took it for a long time, but when Mervyn started pushing and hitting him he got fed up and
came at him like a maniac, with fists, and feet flying. Mervyn was down, with Screwy on
top, beating him something fierce, when Leveryn attacked. This made Screwy madder and
he went after both of them. They ended up running like turkeys from him, yelling that he
was crazy. However as this was seen by a quite a few of the town kids, and the story told
many times, it changed the status of the twins, and they could no longer bully anybody.
They settled down and there was no more trouble.
Grampa’s Stories # 5
Location; Alta Iowa
Time: 1945
Subject; Sandy
Things were looking good in Northwest Iowa in 1945. I remember the celebrations for
VE day, and later VJ day, as well as how happy everybody was to have most of our young
men back. Dad got a used truck and we collected milk cans from farms in the area and
hauled them to the creamery everyday. His job of selling motor oil to garages was not so
hot during the war and we had to do something to make ends meet. Tom and I helped
loading and un-loading the milk cans, singing Marze-e Doats, and Sue City Sue, as load as
we could. Dad got a “deal” on a registered race horse that was getting to old to run on big
race tracks. However he was still very high strung and a handful to ride (hence the deal).
However Tom and I got him relatively calmed down and rode him regularly in the pasture.
He would spook if something happened, like a pheasant flying up, and then he would run
wide open. It would take us a few turns around the pasture to get him under control again.
Over time he seemed to settle down. One day I decided to take him out of the pasture and
walk him down the road a ways to show one of my friends. There was a steam train that
came through town twice a day. Unfortunately it came just as I was walking Sandy along
the road. It blew it’s whistle and Sandy took off heading toward town. Sandy covered the
two miles to town in no time and proceeded to run at full speed down main street
(about two blocks). Fortunately it was mid morning and there was not much traffic, and
what there was could get out of the way. We ended up about two miles on the other side
of town after crossing the railroad tracks, fortunately after the train went through.
However as we later got Sandy under better control we were able to enter him in the
horse race at the county fair each year. Tom and I took turns and we always won as their
were not any other race horses in the county.
Grampa’s Stories #6
Location: Alta, Iowa
Time: 1946
Flunking sixth grade?
We still are living on the farm, although times are tough, so dad bought a old truck and we
collect milk from farmers and deliver it to the creamery for extra money. Tom and I got up
every morning to help haul the milk cans. (while singing Mares e dotes, and Sioux City
Sioux). We used to ride our bicycles over to a bay off of Storm Lake where we found
you could catch Bull heads from the shore. We used cane poles and night crawlers, and
could catch lots of fish at the “hidden spot”. Mother loved to fish so one day I showed
her where it was.
I was doing fine at school but never took it too seriously, and never bothered with home
work or taking time to study. I got good grades but the teachers always reported to mother
that I could do much better if I applied myself. One day mother told me that she had talked
to Mrs. Chambers who was my sixth grade teacher, and she said I would flunk sixth grade
if I did not improve. I was panicked. This would be a disaster! I would be put back with
those snotty little fifth graders next year and away from all my friends. I started studying
like a fanatic and did all my homework.
One Saturday we were riding over to the fishing hole and I noticed our car parked nearby.
We decided to sneak up on mother. When we got close we could hear her talking and
laughing with somebody. It was Mrs. Chambers, it turned out she liked to go fishing also
and as mother was the school nurse, they went together. They were talking about how
well I was doing at school, and how they had fooled me by the flunking threat. It was all a
con! I was never in danger of flunking! I got out of there without them seeing me, and
went back to taking school as easy as ever. I never worried about grades again there.
Grampa’s Stories #7
Time: 1946
Location, Alta, Iowa
Trouble along the river:
After the war, times were still tough for a while. We had to sell the farm and move into a
upstairs apartment. It was sad to part with all our animals. To make matters worse, the
family who owned the house we were renting from had two twin girls who were in a grade
behind us at school. Of course we studiously avoided them, but still took a lot of crap from
our buddies. A highlight of the summer however was that Tom and I got to ride the
Inurband Electric trolley from Storm Lake to Perry and visit Madelyn and Johnny.
Madelyn was my half sister (dad was married twice). She graduated from Simpson
college and, much against her parents wishes, married Johnny, who was a coal miner
from the small town of Melcher, Ia. They moved to Perry, which was my dad and
Madelyn’s home town. Johnny was a big rough guy who loved to hunt and fish. He
worked ,under terrible conditions, in a foundry. Tom and I would visit him for a week or
so each summer, and he would take us hunting and fishing. We would often go out to the
Coon River at night and run Trot lines. This involved building a camp fire along a isolated
section of the river, and throwing lines with a series of baited hooks out across the river,
by tying a rock to the end of the line. We would set a series of these lines along the bank,
go back to the fire and roast hot dogs and tell stories until it was time to go check the lines,
take any fish off and re-bait. Sometimes we would do this all night long, and usually Tom
and I would fall asleep somewhere along the line. One night Tom and I were asleep and
Johnny was out checking the lines when three young men came to our camp and started to
go through our things.. There was a road a mile or so away and they apparently saw our
campfire. Tom and I woke up and tried to stop them but they had been drinking and
roughed us up, as they were much older than we were. Finally Johnny came out of the
darkness and let out a roar. The three took off as Johnny was a really big rough guy, who
they did not want to fool with. However he was able to grab one, and he drug him down to
the river and threw him in. Johnny knew who they were as they were teenagers who had
been in trouble in Perry before.
In later years Johnny retired from the foundry, joined the police force and
eventually became the chief of police in Perry. Unfortunately he died young from lung
disease because of his time in the foundry.
Grampa’s Stories # 8
Time: 1948
Location: Indianola, Iowa
Subject: New school initiation
Mothers sisters, who were also nurses, owned and ran a hospital, in the small town
of Indianola, just south of Des Moines. Dad wanted to move further south in Iowa, as his
territory was in southern Iowa. They bought a small farm on the outskirts of town. It had
sixty acres, of which 40 was farmable and the rest pasture. There was a two bedroom
house, barn, cattle shed, corn crib and a chicken coop. None of it was in good shape so it
was a fixer-upper. This meant Tom and I had to say good-by to all our friends in Alta, and
it was traumatic. Indianola was more than twice the size of Alta, and they had grade school
, junior high and high school that were in separate buildings. We moved during the school
year so we had to start school right away. The first day of school mother dropped me off at
the principles office, of the grade school and took Tom to the junior high school. The
principle took me to the class room and just essentially shoved me in the door and left. The
teacher looked up and said “who are you”. I looked at the forty or so kids in the room who
were all staring at me and was finally able to blurt out “Jerry“. She said you can sit over
there pointing, at the only spare desk on the other side of the room. The class room was
crowded and the only way I could see to get to the desk was to go behind the teacher and in
front of the blackboard. It was a tight space, as the teacher never got up, and as I was trying
to squeeze past her, my pants caught on the back of her chair and it tore the buttons open on
my fly. I looked down and tried to button them back up, as the class was giggling and
twittering. I wanted to crawl in a hole, but there was no place to go so I just continued on
to my desk. This is one of those things you never forget, and I can remember it clearly
today, even though in a few months I had made lots of new friends and nobody ever
mentioned it again.
Grampa’s Stories # 9
Location; Indianola Iowa
Time; 1949
Title; Judy and the rats.
Our farm in Indianola, had more than twice as much land as the one in Alta, plus a lot of
old buildings, such as a barn, cattle shed, ,corn crib, chicken house etc. There was also a
“wilderness area” with a creek, woods, a ravine, and lots of great things to explore and
hunt. Unfortunately there was about 50 acres of land that had to be plowed, planted and
harvested, and that amounted to a lot of work for Dad, Tom and I. In addition we had four
cows to milk every morning, chickens and geese to feed, and lots of other chores. Dad
got us a nice sized Welch pony to ride, which helped to counter all the work.
There was a old corn crib out back that had not been used in a long time and the
door was nailed shut. It was about the size of a garage, and was the walls were slotted to
let air in. Dad told us not to bother it because it was invested with rats and he was going to
tear it down when he got around to it. Of course this was like a green light to Tom and I,
so one afternoon when dad was gone, we decided to explore it. At that time we had a dog
that was out inseparable pal. It was a buff Cocker Spaniel named Judy, about two years
old. We pried the door to the crib open and got up enough courage to go inside. It was
mostly dark inside but some light came through the slots in the walls.
All of a sudden there was a rustling and squealing sound and rats started running in all
directions! There were dozens of them, and they were big! We ran screaming for
door, but they were panicked also, and some of them came running out with us. Judy ran
in to our defense and started after the rats. She would run one down, grab it by the neck,
shake it to break it’s neck, and throw it away, to grab the next one. In no time there were
dozens of dead rats piled around. We were amazed as we never thought of Judy as a
hunting dog, but we gave her a lot more respect, after that. Judy was a great dog, and we
would have many like her over the next 60years.
Grampa’s Stories # 10
Location: Indianola Iowa
Time: Spring, 1946
Story: Frank the Raven
Brother Tom and I enjoyed exploring the wooded area of our new farm. There was a
creek running through it, with lots of interesting wildlife. We saw raccoons, great horned
owls, gophers, mink and other critters as we spent lots of time in the woods. One day in the
spring we were watching a nest of Ravens, that had chicks, when one of the chicks fell out
of the nest. Tom picked it up, it did not seem hurt too badly but it certainly wouldn’t be
able to fly soon, and if we left it , it would be eaten by some critter. Tom took it back to the
house and, over the objections of mom and dad, put it in a box and tried to feed it. At first it
did not appear it would help, but finally the bird took some food, and in a week or so began
getting bigger. Within a month it had feathered out and grown as big as a black bird. The
first time he took it out to fly, we expected it to leave, however, it apparently considered
Tom it’s parent because it just flew around a bit and went right back to Tom. In another
month it had grown to be much bigger than we expected, as we did not realize how big a
raven gets. Tom called it Frank, and it got so it would come when he would call it, and ride
on his shoulder. As the summer went on Tom and Frank were almost always together.
Frank would wait outside and as soon as Tom would come out of the house would swoop
down and land on his shoulder. Tom could ride his bike and Frank loved to ride on his
shoulder. In the Fall, when Tom and I rode our bikes to school, Frank would ride on Toms
shoulder, hang around the school, and land on his shoulder for the trip home. This went
on all winter and into spring. That spring dad and mom decided the family was going to
take a two week vacation and go to a Minnesota resort on a fishing trip. Tom didn’t want to
go, but he couldn’t stay home alone. Dad hired a old man and his wife to take care of the
farm while we were gone. Frank had never been separated from Tom for more than a day,
but when we got in the car, there was no hope of him following. We hoped he would hang
around the farm until we got back. When we got back the old farmer said that Frank hung
around everyday, but didn’t eat, and the morning of the day we got back he found him dead
in the yard. Tom never completely got over that and was not the same for a long time.
Grampas Stories #11
Location, Indianola, Iowa
Time, 1949
First Jobs
My first job was when I was about 10 or 11, working for my cousin who ran a gas station/ car
dealership in Indianola. I pumped gas some, but mostly washed cars and pushed a broom. It paid
30 cents an hour, when I got paid. The cousin wasn’t too reliable about pay, so dad got mad and
made me quit, When I was in ninth grade I got a job in a Lumber yard, during the summer, and
continued in the winter, weekends and before and after school. It paid well, 50 cents an hour and I
worked that up to 60 cents over three years. I worked with a kid a few years older than I, and we
unloaded lumber and cement from trucks or railroad cars, and delivered lumber in a old truck.
Charlie Moen my buddy had a drivers license, however I was too young to get one, but I still drove,
when Charlie was off, or doing something else. The toughest job was unloading cement from
railroad cars, as the bags weighed 90 pounds, and there were hundreds of them. We used push
carts and had to stack the cement bags over six foot high. Another tough job was delivering stoker
coal around town. We had to shovel it onto the truck, and into the bins of each house. Old Poo
(Harry) Taggart knew how much we should be able to get in each bin, and so we had to crawl
around on top of the coal and push it back in to get that much in the bin. I had to do this sometimes
before school started, between six and eight, and didn’t have time to clean up, just change pants.
At first some of my classmates gave me some guff, about the coal dust on me, then they got
used to it. Kept that job until I was a junior in high school, when I took a construction job with a
company who was black topping the streets in town, hard dirty work but it paid a dollar an hour. At
the end of that season, I was holding a bucket to catch hot oil, when the foreman screwed up and
turned the valve wide open on the hot oil tanker, and it splashed hot oil all over my hands and
face,. Started that school year with my hands bandaged with third degree burns. The company at
least paid my medical bills, but that was it. Later I worked for the Pittsburg Des Moines Steel
company, where we were spraying red lead paint., and finally got a good job at Iowa Power and
Light , which primarily paid for my education and lead me into Electrical Engineering.
Grampa’s Stories #12
Location: Indianola Iowa
Time:1946-56
Transportation.
We lived on a small farm on the edge of town. It was about two miles to the center of town,
or to the school. It was too close to let us ride a bus, but quite a walk, so we rode our bikes.
In junior high school I had a paper route, and used the bike to deliver papers early in the
morning. When I got the job in the lumber yard, I went to work at 6:30, before school and
sometimes didn’t get off until seven, which meant in the winter, it would be dark, so I
rigged up lights out of a flashlight. Finally when I was in high school, I had earned enough
money to get a used motor to put on my bike. This was called a “Whizzer” and consisted of
a small motor, that mounted under the crossbar and a v-belt drive to a pulley on the rear
wheel. It wasn’t too reliable, so I had to repair the motor fairly often. It was a four cycle
engine and I tore it apart and put it back together several times. On a hill the motor wasn’t
enough so you had to pedal to help it. Mother took me several times a year to Des Moines
where I could buy parts for it.
I learned a lot about engines from fixing that motorbike,
that helped me many times later. I often rode the bike eight miles out to the local lake to
go fishing. I used that motorbike for transportation all through high school, and never
owned a car until I was a senior in college. I always wanted a motorcycle but never got
one. Then my aunt Ethel died and I was able to buy her 1950 Plymouth. I was driving that
Plymouth when we were married, and in the army at Fort Monmouth where Steve was
born, and when I was working for Westinghouse in Des Moines and Mark was born. .
Grampa’s Stories # 13
Indianola, Iowa, Oct 1949
Halloween Stories
There was a group of us, who would get together on Halloween and do mischief. We put
tires over the light-posts around the town square, put a toilet on top of the town hall
building, decorated the school with TP etc. This year the school principal sent out a
notice in September that there had better not be anymore pranks or somebody would get
expelled. The day before Halloween, we got the whole group together and decided we
would make a statement. Late that night we went to the lumber yard and got a very large
pole that would later be a utility pole. This thing was so big it took the whole group (about
a dozen) to lift it. We carried it to Harry Grange, the principals house, and laid it up
against his front door. They never did prove who did it, which was amazing, as half the
boys in the class were involved, and nobody caved in to questioning.
Grampa’s Stories # 14
Location: Indianola Iowa
Fall 1950
Art Cox
My brother Tom had his drivers license, and dad let him have the car on Saturday nights, or special
occasions. I, however, still had to ride my Whizzer or walk, and was not happy. Fortunately I had a
best friend who was a year older and had his drivers license. Art was not very big but he was a
great athlete and was playing varsity basketball in 10th grade. His dad let him buy a old Model A
ford with a rumble seat. I spent many nights driving around the town square with Art in the ford.
One Wednesday night, the folks wouldn’t let me go out as it was a school night. Art was coming
back from lake Ahquaube across the south river bridge, It is a flat stretch of road where the high
school kids often tried to see how fast their cars would go. Art was apparently going around eighty,
when he lost control of the old Ford and hit the bridge. He was killed instantly. I was traumatized,
and never tried for my license for a year or more. Finally when I was in my Junior year I got my
license, but always thought of Art when going fast, and never took that route when coming back
from the lake.
Grampa’s Stories # 15
Location: Indianola, Iowa
Time: 1950
One of the girls I dated in 1950 was Kathleen Prall. She was nice but I was intimidated by
her father, who was Judge Stanley Prall. He was the local district judge and since I had a
few minor scrapes with the local police, I decided this was not good, so we broke up. Now
fast forward about sixty years, in 2009. Toot’s and I were visiting my half brother Jack in
Dallas Texas. My dad was married twice and I had a half brother Jack ,who was 12 years
older than me, and a half sister Madelyn, who was about 16 years older. Madelyn had died
a few years earlier. I didn’t know anything about Jacks younger years and he was filling me
in. Much to my surprise they had lived in Indianola, years before we moved there,.
Madelyn had gone to Simpson College there, and had been engaged to a young guy in law
school. A few days before the wedding she had ran off with a coal minor from the nearby
town of Melcher and got married. This caused a minor scandal and resulted in Madelyn’s
mother and family ostracizing her and Johnny Williams, her new husband. Madelyn and
Johnny became relative outcasts, although Johnny later was a great friend of my brother
Tom and I (reference Grampa’s Stories # 7). Jack then said the guy she was supposed to
marry was named Stanley Prall. I didn’t know it but, the girl I was dating then almost
turned out to be my niece.
Grampa’s Stories # 16
Indianola Iowa
1948-1951
Working at Poo Taggarts Lumber Yard
When I was in ninth grade I was able to get a job at the lumber yard. I went to work at 6:30
until school started during the week, and from about 3:30 to six, on week days and all day
Saturday. This meant I had to give up any extra- curricular activities at school, I played
basketball and football in Junior High, but we needed the money and I liked the job. It
also kept me in spending money, and let me buy things like my motor bike, a saddle for our
pony etc. I worked with my buddy Charlie Moen who was two years older than I. We
hauled coal filling customers coal bins, unloaded coal, cement and lumber railroad cars,
stacked lumber, and as we got older helped customers and sawed lumber for them. I can
still rapidly figure the amount of board feet in any length of dimensioned lumber in my
head. We also had fun playing games on the owner, Harry (Poo) Taggart. Poo was a portly
guy around fifty years old, who always seemed flustered. Poo had a younger lady as his
book-keeper, who we became convinced he was fooling around with. We had lots of fun
trying to catch them. We did find pretty good evidence, because one of our chores early in
the morning was to sweep Poo’s office out, and we found left over rubber things behind
the file cabinets. Chuck and I had a good time with the job. He had a drivers license so
he was supposed to drive the truck when we delivered, but we actually shared driving.
Chucks main activity was buying various used cars from the R M Hale Ford garage in
town. He always owed most of his salary to R M Hale. Sixty years later I met him at a
reunion and he still owned money on a car. One fall Poo let girls from a sorority at
Simpson college, build their home coming float in the main alley of the lumber yard.
Chuck and I snuck in and pulled the main light switch about nine at night. It was pitch
black in there and we added to the commotion with some animal noises. On Halloween
we pulled various stunts, including putting a whole toilet up on the flag pole at the top of
the building. Finally we may have gone to far, when one Halloween we released the
brakes on a coal railroad car and used the jacks, we use to move the cars around to get it
rolling. It broke through the gates to the rail yard, about three blocks through town, across
the highway and ended up three miles outside of town before it hit a incline and stopped.
Over time Poo grew more and more suspicious that Chuck or I were behind these antics.
Finally in the spring of 1951 Poo fired Chuck and I soon took a job with the construction
company who were black topping the streets. My wages went from sixty cents an hour to
$1.40 but the work was hard.
Grampa’s Stories #17
Fall 1951
Indianola, Iowa
Getting my drivers license
My brother Tom was a year and a half older than I, and had his drivers license. On Saturday
nights he got to use our second car, a 1940 Chevy. He would take me up town and drop
me. I would usually go to the movie, and when I got out I was stuck waiting for him to
come and take me home. I spent many a night watching him drive around the town square
with his buddies while I waited in the lobby of the theater. Many nights I gave up and
walked home ( about four miles). Needless to say I was anxiously waiting until I could get
my license and he would have to share. In the fall of 1951 I was all set to get my license,
having studied the manuals and had dad take me driving. Then one night while I was
waiting at the theater, the town policeman came in and told me there had been a accident .
I rode out with the policeman and we found the car upside down in the ditch, with no sign
of Tom or the others. We drove around the area and finally found Tom walking across the
corn field. They had been burning a corn field with a carload of his wild friends. This
was in the fall after the corn had been picked, when many farmers would burn the corn
stalks. These guys were burning fields on their own. As they were driving away from
the scene, Tom looked back and ran off the road, rolling the car over. Luckily nobody was
seriously hurt but the Chevy was demolished. The fire had gone out, or otherwise the car
would have burned, as it was along the corn field. Of course that took care of Tom’s
driving privileges for quite a while. After all my waiting I now had no car to drive, even if
I got my license. Fortunately we had to have two cars, since dad was a traveling salesman,
only home on weekends and mother worked as a nurse. Finally, after a few months dad
bought a used 1948 Chevy coupe, which was the car I was able to use occasionally when
I was a Junior in high school, and after Tom went to college, and I was a senior, quite
often. This was the car that I used after I discovered girls, and we had a ball with it my
senior year and the summer before going to college. My normal mode of transportation to
and from school and work was still my motorbike. I was still using this car when I was
home from my junior year of college and met Toots (Gramma)
Grampa’s Stories # 18
Indianola Iowa
1951-52
High school years
As with most people, these were some of the most memorable years. I had access to a car
fairly often, had a steady girl friend, and done a lot of partying with Pat Burd, my girl, and
several of her friends, my buddies, Aubrey Reed, Gerald Higens and several others. We
went ice skating at the local lake , swimming bowling, ball games, and had a grand time.
The summer after graduation I worked with a construction company that was black topping
the streets. It was hard, dirty work, sweeping streets and shoveling hot black top. We had a
foreman who was a mean little troublemaker, who everybody, including me, hated. His
name was Bert. Near the end of the season, Bert told me to get a bucket and get some hot
oil from the big tank truck they used to pour oil on the streets. He was up on top and ,as I
was setting the bucket down, he turned the valve full on. The hot oil came charging out of
the four inch pipe, hit the bottom of the bucket, and splattered all over me. My clothes
kept it off me, except for my hand and face. My hands were covered but fortunately my
face was only splattered. When Bert came off the tanker I went after him with what was left
of the oil in the bucket, but he ran into the office, and some of the rest of the crew stopped
me, although I think most of them would have preferred it if I caught him. I got third degree
burns on my hands and in some spots on my face. That was the end of work for that season.
The construction company contacted a lawyer as they figured I would sue. They also ,I
found out later, expected me to take a few months off and get workers compensation. I
did neither but they did at least pay my medical bills. It was near the end of the season and
I was to go to college in a month , so I had to take a short vacation, and took a exciting
trip (next story).
Grampa’s Stories # 19
Indianola Iowa
1952
The California trip
In the summer after high school graduation, I worked for the construction company long
enough to make the money I needed for spending at college, and then if I made any more
Dad couldn’t claim me as a dependant on taxes, so I quit with several weeks left to fool
around. At that time you could contract to drive a luxury car, usually a Cadillac to Los
Angeles, as dealers could sell them for much more out there, and it was cheaper for them
than having to ship the car. So a buddy of mine Larry Starr and I took a new Cadillac from
a dealer in Des Moines and began to drive to California. We traded off driving and drove
straight through to Las Vegas, where we fooled around for a few days. We didn’t have
much money, but with the car, we were able to pick up a lot of women, who we told we
were rich kids who were soon to get our inheritance. Before long however, each of them
figured out we were broke and split, but it was fun while it lasted. We then delivered the
car to a place in Santa Monica California, where we fooled around for a few days sleeping
on the beach. Then we began to walk and hitch-hike back. We worked our way over to
highway 66 and were hitch-hiking near Azusa, on our way to Cucamonga towards San
Bernardino. We were came on a liquor store as we walked, so we went in and asked for a
six pack of the strongest beer they had. It was called Bulldog Drummin. We stopped in a
peach orchard along the road near Cucamonga and each had three of those beers. We had
never drunk beer like that, I don’t know how strong it was but we were both zapped. We
started throwing rotten peaches at the cars that wouldn’t stop, and were having a ball, when
a police car stopped. I don’t really remember much of what happened after that but we
woke up the next morning with big head aches, and we were in a jail in San Bernardino.
They released us after a they chewed on us a while and we resumed hitch-hiking. I had the
address and telephone number of a cousin who lived in a resort area called Big Bear lake,
which was in the mountains 30 miles or so from San Bernardino. Her name was Audrey,
she was about ten years older than I, was raised by my Aunt Nell in Eagle Grove Iowa. She
was good looking and wild and after she got out of school she headed for Hollywood to get
into the movies. She actually did get some bit parts but never became a star, then married
a air craft company executive, who she didn’t get along with to well and he put her in Big
Bear where she partied every night and he came to see her sometimes on weekends. We
hitch-hiked to Big Bear and spent a wild week with her and her friends. She lived with
another girl her age and we would start going the route to the various bars and clubs around
six each day and finish up around four in the morning. We never bought a drink, neither did
the girls as they knew everybody in these places and lots of people were buying us drinks.
Finally Larry’s liver gave out and we had to stop, so we began hitch-hiking back.
Audrey drove us down to route 66, and we decided if we were going to get back in any
reasonable time we would have to split up. We drew lots and so Larry walked down the
road a mile or so from me. Finally a car stopped for me. It was a relatively new
Kaiser-Fraiser with a young guy driving. I asked if he would pick up my buddy and where
he was going. He said yes and he was going to Kansas City, we had struck it rich. This
guy was bringing this car back for a finance company as the owner was behind on his
payments. However this guy drove like a maniac, going 80 MPH all the time. When we
stopped for gas I noticed the tires were bad, so we were getting worried. Also he intended
to drive straight through with-out stopping. Finally in the middle of the night we blew a tire
near Albuquerque New Mexico. Fortunately it was in the desert instead of the mountains
and we just left the road and spun around in the desert. Larry and I talked it over and we
decided we would not get back in the car unless he let us drive, which he did, and he got in
the back and slept until we were in Kansas City. We then were able to hitch-hike on to
Indianola in two days without any problems. During those years I hitch-hiked all over
mostly back and forth from college, but also up north fishing. However this was our
longest trip. The secret for getting rides was my suitcase with a big Iowa State college
sticker on it.
Grampas Stories # 20
Indianola, Iowa
1952
Started college at Iowa State this fall. The dorm was full so we had to get a apartment off
campus. Got my notice from the draft board, so had to join ROTC to stay out of Korea, at
least for a while, and so am on my way to be a officer and a gentleman in the US army,
and have to wear the uniform two days a week for classes and drilling. . With all the
returning service men on the GI bill the freshmen class was too crowded, so they told us in
the first Chemistry lecture they were going to flunk a third of us. Fortunately I was
assigned a class with a bunch of foot ball players and a grad student instructor who was a
foot ball fan. He “helped” them with the labs and the tests, and they still had a hard time but
I got all A’s. The second semester they used Physics and mechanical drawing to weed
people out, but I survived. Some times on week ends we would hitchhike down to Des
Moines, about 40 miles to party, since the ratio of men to women on campus was about ten
to one. A buddy and I were hitchhiking back one night, on the outskirts of Des Moines,
when a guy picked us up in a new car. As we were getting in, a police car pulled up behind
us with it’s lights on. To our chagrin the guy took off at full speed with the police car
close behind. We raced north on highway 65 at more than 90 mph. It was dark and the first
thing I saw was the flashing lights of a railroad crossing and a train was coming. I thought
the guy would stop, we yelled stop, but he ignored us and blew through the crossing just
in front of the train and cutting the police car off. He continued north at this speed, and we
expected to see more police cars chasing us soon, so as we approached Ames we
convinced him to turn off the highway and we steered him, on back roads, to the college.
Paul and I jumped out when he got in the vicinity of the college. We never did hear what
happened to him.
Grampa’s Stories # 21
Des Moines Iowa, 1953
Pittsburg Des Moines Iron and Steel works
During the summer between my Freshman and Sophomore years at Iowa State, Tom and
I both worked at Pittsburg Des Moines Steel works. We were assigned to a painting crew
that was spraying red lead paint. Our plant section was making steel for water towers, and
it was in very large steel sheets, some of which were fabricated into tanks. We were
assigned to clean the welded seams both inside and outside the tanks. This involved
using a heavy hand electric grinder, and wearing a mask. It was hot , heavy work and it was
exhausting until you got used to it. Also being newcomers, and also “college kids” we
were often harassed by some of the old timers, who would take a sledge hammer and hit
on the side of the tank when we were inside. The crew was spraying red lead paint, and
the leader was a man named Fred who looked to be 60 years old, and was thin and weak
looking. It turns out this guy was only 35 but had been spraying that red lead paint for 15
years. He was a nice guy and helped Tom I and out on several occasions. I noticed the
other painters that had been doing it for a long time looked similar. The overhead crane
would sometime be used to turn over one of these very large steel plates that formed part of
a water tank, so we could clean the welds and they could paint the other side. This
involved fastening the crane to one edge of the sheet, lifting it to vertical and letting it down
so that it rested on the other side. One day we were painting a big sheet and the crane was
being used to turn the sheet, when the hook some how came out and the sheet began to fall
over on the other side. I saw it happen and was able to get out of the way as I was not far
under it. The Fred however was not able to get clear. He was running but the sheet hit his
leg and foot about at the calf. It crushed his lower leg and foot flat. The ambulance
finally got there and they carried him off, but he would never walk again on that leg. We
finished the summer working there and before we left asked about Fred, and they said he
was doing fine and on disability pay. I think the accident probably prolonged his life,
because if he had continued to spray that red lead (not allowed today) he would have been
dead in a few years.
Grampa’s Stories #22
Ames Iowa (Iowa Stare College)
Your in the Army now.
1954
The Korean war was going on when I started college, and I was about to get drafted, so I
joined the Reserve Officers Training Corp (ROTC), in order to stay in college. We had to
wear uniforms two days a week, when we had our drill periods, and one class a week but
otherwise it was not bad. After my junior year we had to go to Camp Gordon Georgia for a
eight week (Officers basic training). I hitched a ride down to the camp with a college
friend and two others. We were each assigned to a barracks with other guys from around
the country, and mixed up so you didn’t know anybody in your section. We were assigned
a Drill Sergeant who was to train us. These guys didn’t like officers, and they were given
the assignment of giving a section of future officers a hard time, and they had a ball. The
first week or so we got almost no sleep. We had to clean the barracks over and over,
sometimes with tooth brushes. We had inspections several times a day sometimes
scheduled and some not. If there was a speck of dust anywhere in your area, or your bed
was not perfect and would bounce a quarter, or any thing in you footlocker was out of
position by a quarter of an inch you would get demerits, A few demerits and you would
lose what little freedom we had and draw KP, which usually meant you had to clean out
the grease pit, too many, and you could be washed out. If you washed out they would notify
your draft board and request you be drafted and presumably sent to Korea, therefore there
was a lot of pressure. Reveille was at five AM and then exercises, classes, and drills such
as, the obstacle course, 10 mile hikes in full gear, The first few weeks we were all
exhausted. We had to qualify to fire almost every weapon the army used such as M1
carbine, M30 rifle, 45 caliber pistol, machine guns, anti- tank bazookas etc. and throw hand
grenades, If you failed to qualify in any thing you were washed out. Of the 26 guys in
our section, 8 washed out. I developed a buddy from South Carolina who had the bunk
next to me. He was having trouble but was hanging in there. Dickie had a lot of
demerits, and spent most of his time on KP. But he was hanging in there and got to the final
week, where we had a dress parade and inspection by the company commander. They
formed us in our dress uniforms for the inspection, but the CO was not on the post yet so
they left us stand there for a long time, finally they gave us an “at ease” but we had to stay
in place, Dickie smoked, and he had to light up a cigarette. All of a sudden the first
sergeant ordered us to fall in for inspection. Dickie didn’t know what to do with his
cigarette so he stuffed it in the barrel of his M1. This CO was one of those guys who
would stand in the face of each recruit and inspect you with lots of intimidation. Sometimes
he would ask you a question, sometimes he would grab your rifle and open the breach and
then, with great showmanship hold the rifle up, in the air to verify the barrel was clean.
Unfortunately when he got to Dickie, he grabbed his rifle and held it up in the air.. I will;
never forget his reaction, it went something like this J----- Chr------ I CAN’T EVEN
SEE THROUGH THIS S-- OF A BIT---. Dickie went back on KP and presumably
washed out, but I don’t know for sure as I never saw him again after that. All of us from
Iowa State survived and were commissioned as Second Lieutenants on graduation. More
on the army later.
Grampa’s Stories # 23
Des Moines, Iowa
May, 1955
Grampa meets Grandma:
On weekends some of us often hitchhiked home to Indianola, from College at Iowa State.
Sometimes, on Saturday night, I could use the folk’s car, and go to Des Moines (about
twenty miles). We met and were dating some girls from Roosevelt high school in Des
Moines. I dated a girl by the name of Sandra Pigott, who was a tall, good looking girl,
with a great body, but sort of a air head. After a few dates I asked her to set up a date for my
high school best friend Aubrey Reed. Aubrey was my room mate at college, but was having
trouble with his grades and finances. He came from a broken home and was raised by his
grandparents. That Saturday, we picked up the girls and went to a drive in movie. The girl
Sandra had set up for Aubrey, was a short good looking blond whose name was Ann
Baker. Sandra and I were getting along fine in the front seat, but things were a little slow in
the back seat. I don’t think ‘Aubrey had ever been out with a girl before and he was a little
up-tight. However we had a good time and I was impressed with Ann, who had a good
personality, a great smile and a good sense of humor. She didn’t seem at all like, air head
Pigott. Aubrey went out with Ann once more and it apparently didn’t go to well. I
asked Aubrey if he was going to call Ann again , and he said he didn’t think so, as he didn’t
think she would go out with him again. He said he thought she was out of his league.
Aubrey always had a inferiority complex. Since I kind of liked her, I asked him if he
minded if I called her. He said no and gave me her phone number. I called her and asked
her out and she said yes. So began a relationship that has lasted ,so far, over 56 years, and
affected many lives. Not just myself and Toot’s but five kids, 18 grand kids, and one great
grand kid. I have always said, the smartest thing I ever did was to make that phone call, and
I have never regretted it. I still remember the number Crestwood(CR) 74968. For you
kids reading this, to help you understand how important certain milestones in each persons
life can be, there are at least 23 people who would not exist today if I had not made that
phone call, including you.
Incidentally Aubrey dropped out of school shortly after this and went into the army.
I lost track of him for almost 50 years. We met again at our fiftieth high school reunion.
After he got out of the army, he married a girl from Carlyle Iowa and moved to Omaha.
For the last five years Aubrey, and his wife Marvel, have been our guests at the island for
one weekend each summer.
Grampa’s Stories # 24
Indianola Iowa
Christmas 1955
In the summer of 1955 I was able to get a job with Iowa Power and Light. I was a junior in
Electrical Engineering at Iowa State, with reasonably good grades, so was able to arrange a
job as a student trainee, through the college placement service. I was finally in a job where
I didn’t have to shovel coal, stack cement bags, shovel hot asphalt, or grind welds. What a
deal! This was a white collar job ( at least blue collar), and I finally realized that all the
money and work I was putting in to get a engineering degree might be worth it. I did some
design of substation steel work, surveyed substation locations, and power line right of
ways. I worked under a young engineer, Ralph Schlenker (Flash-forward 30 years and I
would be a executive with Control Data, working on a multi-million dollar negotiation
with Iowa Power for a computer system. By then Ralph had been promoted to Senior
Vice President and was instrumental in us getting the order.)
During the summer
my Aunt Ethel died. Ethel and Nell were my mothers two sisters. They, like my mother
were nurses and owned and ran the hospital in Indianola. In the early fifties they sold the
hospital, drove to Alaska and worked there. They bought land up there that later became
very valuable, as there was oil on it. When Ethel came back she became the school nurse, at
the time when I was in high school. She had a 1952 Plymouth ,when she died and left it to
me. It was my first car and I was delighted, as I was now more mobile and could drive to
work in Des Moines, to college in Ames, and down to Des Moines to see Toots. (I had this
car until 1961 after both Steve and Mark were born.)
In December of 1955 I was in college and IPALCO called to see if I could work
over the Holidays, and I happily accepted because I could sure use the extra money. They
had a large regulating transformer in a substation in West Des Moines that was over loaded
and heating. They had ordered a replacement but it wouldn’t arrive until after the
holidays. This thing was as big as a large truck and the tank was full of oil. If it failed ,the
results would be spectacular and result in a long power outage for west Des Moines. It had
a temperature gauge on it and if it got above 145 degrees, it was likely to fail, and it would
be better to take it out of service, for a hour or so, than let it fail. The substation was not
attended and the peak heating would come over the holidays at night. They wanted me to
stay near the substation and monitor the temperature every half hour or so all night. If it
got above 145 degrees I was to get out of there and call dispatch to have it taken out of
service, this would cause a outage until it cooled for an hour or so and then they would
pick it up and start over. They warned me not to stay near it any longer than necessary
because, if it blew, the tank could explode and send hot oil all over.
The first night Toot’s and I got out there around nine and I parked the car outside
the substation. I took the keys they had given me and unlocked the gate. I could hear the
transformer making the deep roaring noise a overloaded transformer makes. I took my
flashlight and made my way to the beast. For some reason, I can’t explain, I was
sneaking up on it, as if I didn’t want it to know I was there. I had to walk around the side of
the thing and shine the flashlight up on the side, as the temperature gauge was mounted
about ten feet up on the right side and hard to see. It read 142, so I turned and got the hell
out of there much faster than I got in. For the next three hours we stayed there using the
time productively, between my visits to read the beast’s temperature, every half hour. I
had to take her home at eleven and went back until about three o’clock in the morning. This
went on for almost a week during the holidays. I never called for it to be taken out of
service, but several times the temperature crept up to 145, but never got above it. You can
be sure I didn’t spend much time taking the reading or in the area of that beast. It finally
blew the first week of January and they had a major outage but were able to get the
replacement into service in a few days.
We spent Christmas evening with Toot’s folks and Christmas day with my folks.
We opened our presents in the morning, and had Christmas dinner at noon. I gave Toot’s a
gold watch that year and she opened the package with my family. After all the packages
had been opened and after dinner, Toot’s and I were getting ready to leave but she couldn’t
find her watch. We looked all over with no luck. My mother had collected all the Christmas
wrapping paper and took it out to the fire barrel to burn. I had a horrible thought and went
out to the fire barrel, tipped it over and used a rake to go through the ashes, and sure
enough there was a small glob of gold in the ashes. Mother was traumatized , we couldn’t
get her to stop crying, she loved Toot’s and she felt so bad. We all tried to console her but
she really was hurting. Mother and Dad went to Des Moines the next day to Zales ,where I
had bought the watch, to get her another one for me to give to her that night.
Written /Dec/2011
Grampa’s Stories # 25
Winter of 1956;
Graduating from college;
In the winter of 1956, I was a senior due to graduate in the spring in Electrical
Engineering. At that time there was a severe shortage of engineers and there were
companies literally following us around in the dorms to interview us. Most of my
classmates were taking expense paid interview trips all over the US, so I finally decided to
take one also. I booked a trip to New York to interview Sperry Gyroscope out on Long
Island, and then a stop in Columbus Ohio to see AC Spark Plug and Delco Remy a
couple of companies owned by General Motors. A buddy was to go with me, but he got
sick so I went alone. I had never been out of the Iowa, other than to Minnesota fishing,
and never been in an airplane. I landed in New York and took a shuttle bus to the down
town air line terminal. The plan then was to take a taxi to Grand Central Station, however
there was a monster snow storm and there were no taxis running, or at least none who came
to the terminal, and there was a big line waiting for them. After a hour or so I found a map
and picked up my bag and walked through the snow to Grand Central. It was about eight
blocks, and it was tough walking but fortunately I had a good coat and a hat. I then took a
train out to Long Island. This was a electric train that ran under ground in the city, but
when it got out on Long Island it was above ground. The snow was so heavy that the train
kept loosing contact with the third rail where it got it’s power. We finally stopped out
there, some where, and lost all power, except for emergency lights. We were there for
hours and the train kept getting colder and colder. Fortunately I was dressed for it but many
were not and panic set in. They began burning all kinds of things in waste baskets, which
just made everything worse. It was snowing hard outside and the visibility was bad, and we
appeared to be on a raised road bed or trestle so there was no way we could leave the train.
Finally, after about five hours, they reached us and got power restored and we slowly crept
into our station on Long Island about three in the morning. Again I had to walk through
the snow to my hotel which fortunately was not too far from the station. The people from
Sperry picked me up in the morning for the interview. I don’t remember too much about
the interview but I was not impressed. They got me back to the train station that afternoon
and I made my way back through New York City to the Airport with out too much trouble,
only to find all airplanes grounded, and the airport crowded with stranded passengers. I
slept on a bench that night and was finally able to get a plane to Columbus the next day, so
I made my next two interviews and got home without further trouble. No more interview
trips! I made them come to me.
I had many offers, a lot from defense contractors on the west coast. My brother
Tom who graduated the year before me, went with Douglas Aircraft in California. I had
been a student trainee with Iowa Power and Light so they expected me to go with them
but I decided to take a job with Westinghouse Electric. I would become a field engineer
working on electrical apparatus. I would be based in Des Moines but traveling in the
Iowa and the Dakotas. In May I graduated, was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in
the army, began my career and got engaged. Big things were happening!
Written March 2011
Grampa’s Stories #26
Summer 1956:
Graduated, Commissioned, began work and got married.
I graduated from Iowa State and was Commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Army in
May. Started work for Westinghouse as a Field Engineer for 412$ a month (I was rich).
After going to a training course in Pittsburg, and touring all the Electrical Apparatus plants,
I began traveling Iowa and the Dakotas supervising the erection and startup of all sorts of
large equipment. This included large transformers, generators , circuit breakers and
motors, most of which were as large as a small house. I was over my head at first and kept
a steady phone conversation with the factories, but soon got the hang of it and faked it
when I didn’t know. Late in the summer I drew a large electronic and communication
system startup with a utility in both North and South Dakota. I was gone most of the time
that first summer and only got home about every third weekend. I supervised the
installation of the generators and the transformers at the Gavins Point dam in South
Dakota. As was typical, when we had to move a large piece of equipment we called for
the over-head crane to move down the isle to lift it for us. Unfortunately one of the
electricians was working on the crane rails and was run over and killed. They sued
everybody in-including Westinghouse as we had called for the crane. I ended up
testifying as to our involvement and we didn’t get assessed any damages. That summer I
crawled inside of lots of transformers and circuit breakers and always had to be near when
we first energized them. That was always exciting because there would often be some
interesting noises the first time the high voltage hit them. At first I almost filled my pants
until I got used to it, as it was just bursting bubbles that had formed in the oil. One of my
other assignments was to investigate when there were failures of Westinghouse apparatus,
this resulted in lots of interesting stories I will cover in later stories. I spent lots of
weekends in small towns in South and North Dakota and generally had a good time.
Almost never bought a drink in a bar ,as the locals were always willing to buy to get to
talk with a outsider. Stayed in a lot of small hotels some of which used to be banks that
went broke in the depression, and if you got one with three or more stories there was a
rope tied to the radiator with instructions to throw it out the window, instead of a fire
escape..
Toot’s dad Clark Baker had been sick with emphazema for years
and was in bad shape. I went with her and the family to visit him in the hospital and stayed
after they left to talk to Clark and ask for Toot’s hand in marriage. He kidded me at first and
said “what did I think he could do about it”, and then said yes, and made me promise to be
good to her. Clark died later that night, I gave Toot’s a ring I got from Zales in Des
Moines and we set the date for Oct 6. The week before the wedding, I was in North
Dakota, and the plan was, I would start back on Thursday arrive on Friday in time for the
rehearsal and the wedding on Saturday. Unfortunately there was a early season snow
fall that came across the Dakotas. I was driving the old Plymouth and got as far as Carrol
Iowa about 60 miles from Des Moines and the snow was so heavy they had the road closed.
I ended up sleeping in the high school gymnasium as all hotels were booked. The roads
were closed until some time Friday night before I finally got home. Fortunately it was a
small wedding in the choir loft of the Grace United Methodist Church in DesMoines
and a rehearsal was not critical. Just family from both sides were there, probably around
30. The preacher was reverend Lamb who was more interested in the Iowa/Michigan
football game than the wedding. He whispered the score to me during the service. We had
a reception at Maggie and Art;s house where we had a larger group than at the wedding.
Five or six of my high school buddies and I got snorked in the basement, much to Toot’s
discomfort. We got as far as a motel in Ames Iowa that night. The next day we made it to
Minneapolis and I took her out to what was described as the best restaurant in town
Charlies Café Exceptional. We had a great meal and snorks and she got sick, couldn’t
take the high living (also revenge for my hangover from the night before). We then went
fishing at a place I used to go as a kid on Cass lake for a few days. And came back through
Decorah Iowa to visit Pretzel and Keigh and see there new baby Karen. Then back to
North Dakota, as I could only get a week off.
We rented a up-stairs apartment on Cottage Grove Ave in Des Moines, as that was
in the neighborhood where she used to live and she worked for the school district as a
secretary. Her mother gave her the car her dad had before he died, a 1948 Mercury and
she used that to get to work, until she got hit by a bus. The bus hit the car in the rear section
and spun it around. Toot’s was pregnant but fortunately not hurt. It so happened that I was
in town and was able to get there soon after it happened. The bus left the scene, with out
calling the police, so later I went to the bus company and raised all kinds of hell. The car
was totaled . They were very apologetic but claimed it was her fault as the bus had the
right away. I had left some expensive telemetry equipment that I was going to take back
with me to North Dakota, in the trunk of the car. I found it still in the box on the front
porch of a house near where she was hit. It was damaged, but fortunately I was able to
repair it and installed it with no problems.
Next: We leave for New Jersey to go on active duty in the army and Steve is born.
Grampa’s Stories # 27
January 1957
We are in the Army now;
I drove the old Plymouth to Fort Dix New Jersey and joined my training section as a
shave tail second Lieutenant. The first eight weeks we spent in officers basic training. I
had already been through this once, but this time was tougher in some ways, although the
DI’s could not rub our face in it as much as we were commissioned officers. We had to
qualify in every weapon the army had. One day we were to run the infiltration course,
which involves crawling across a field with live machine gun fire over your head and with
explosives going off in bunkers scattered over the field. They had a group of enlisted
trainees from New York that they knew would have a hard time, so they assigned each of
us, one of these guys to get them across. These guys were some type of Latinos couldn’t
hardly speak English and were dumb as stumps. We lined up behind a dirt wall and they
started firing the machine guns The guns were arranged on a tripod so that they could
sweep the field, but not fire lower than about six or seven feet. They gave the command “up
and over” and we were supposed to crawl
over the wall and start across the field. The
idiot I was assigned and most of his buddies stood up, I tried to tackle him without getting
too high, Fortunately the guns were operated by experienced gunners who got off the
trigger fast. And nobody was killed. Finally I got him down and we started across the
field, I can still see the look of terror that idiot had on his face. We got about half way
across and were near one of the bunkers they had scattered across the field and they set off
a explosion in the bunker. The idiot stood up and was trying to run. I was hanging on to his
foot and finally got him down again. I think the only thing that saved him was he was
short, only about five feet tall.
After basic I was assigned to the signal school at Fort Monmouth. I was assigned
a officers BOQ and could look for a apartment off post if I could find one. I found a house
to rent that was owned by a sea captain ,who just died, and his widow rented to me. We
made arrangements to fly Toot’s and her mother out to join me. Toot’s was around six
months pregnant but wanted to come out so I agreed as long as her mother came along. I
was to meet their airplane at the Newark airport so I drove the old Plymouth , only to
find out when I got there that the Airplane had been diverted to Idlewild Airport. This was
all the way across New York City and I was already late! I drove like mad right through
New York City and some how got there just as they were getting off. The airplane was
interesting as it was the first turboprop airline to fly, it was a Capital Airlines Viscount.
Toot’s was airsick, but her mother really enjoyed the flight as she had never flown before.
We made our way to Her uncle Bullet’s who lived in New York City, where we stayed the
night. Bullet had been a professional basketball player and he took me to lunch the next
day at the New York Athletic club.
At that time we had the choice to go to a post doctor for Toot’s or to the hospital in
Long Branch New Jersey. We elected to go to the hospital for medical care and she was
assigned a doctor who had a very heavy Russian accent, but seemed competent. The house
we rented was near the Monmouth Park race track and we could hear them calling the races
in the evenings. We enjoyed the area, went to the beach and socialized with the other
officers in my section, about twenty. I went on post each morning and came home in the
evening. The house had a upstairs but the door to it was locked and the widow told me not
to go up there. The problem was it stunk and there were ants that keep crawling under the
door. We gradually developed the fear that the captain was up there. Finally I took the
hinges off the door and crept up there. He was not there, fortunately but it had been left as
it was the day he died, with food laying around, newspapers etc. It was laid out like the
captains cabin on a ship.
One day while I was in class on post, I got a call to check the day officer who told
me Toot’s had been taken to the hospital. I hurried to the hospital and was just walking in
when I saw the Russian doctor. He came up to me and said in his heavy accent
“lieutenant you have a future general”, she had Steve before I could get to the hospital. She
had started having cramps that morning and they had taken a cab to the hospital. We
brought him home a few days later and uncle bullet and his wife came down to see him.
He had a full head of hair and screamed with colic most of the night. The guys in the
section took up a collection and gave him a savings bond
Next we finish signal school and on to Fort Riley Kansas
Grampa’s Stories #28
Fort Monmouth New Jersey 1957
On to Fort Riley Kansas
We settled down to life in the army, and with a new baby. Although it wasn’t easy, as Steve
was colicky, and cried most of the night, so nobody got much sleep. A day or so after we
got him home I noticed his head was lopsided. He had a large mound on the side of his
head. We rushed him back to the Russian doctor, who said it was a hematoma that was
caused by the forceps he had pulled him out with and not to worry. In a few more days it
went away. We socialized quite a bit with the 28 guys in my signal school section, and
there were a few guys there with their wives. One of the guys was very wealthy and he
rented a large beachfront home where there were parties on the beach almost every night.
For us that almost stopped after Steve was born. We had weekly subjects in class and there
were tests at the end of the week that you had to pass to stay with the section. Somebody
in our section, got the tests from prior students and so we had sessions each Thursday night
on the beach to go over the answers. Therefore most of the guys didn’t pay to much
attention or study. However the final week was a new subject that had not been taught
before. Since by that time Steve was around, and I was missing the beach parties, I had
been doing some studying to be sure I could pass each segment. The rest of the class was
relying on the beach parties and were caught not prepared, there fore I got the highest
grade by far and graduated the head of the class. Other than a medal and a letter I didn’t
think this was a big deal until I found out I could choose the post I was to be assigned to
next. The rest of the section went to Korea, and I was able to pick Fort Riley Kansas, the
closest post to home.
We loaded Toots Grandma and Steve into the old Plymouth and headed to Fort Riley with
a stop in Iowa and Kansas City to show Steve to all the relatives. He was a strange
looking thing since he had long black hair. Think Mr Magoo with a wig.
Grampa’s Stories #29
Fort Riley Kansas;
Summer 1957
We were able to get a nice officers apartment and settled in to Fort Riley. We had lots of
neighbors, many with kids and developed lots of new friends. Toot’s was close to the
couples with kids on both sides of us, One was a black couple who had two kids and the
wife kept a super clean house like Toot’s, the other were a white couple from Georgia and
their apartment was a mess. We took hundreds of 8 MM movie and 45 MM still pictures of
Steve.
I was assigned to the 267th Signal Construction Company, of the 161 Signal
Battalion, of the First Infantry Division. The Division had just returned from Korea and
was pretty beat up. The 267th was where they put all the trouble makers, and one third of
the men were in the brig. I was assigned a platoon but never saw about one third of my men
because they were in the brig. I had to sign for all the platoon’s equipment, which
included individual hand tools, which was a problem because they kept selling them in
town. Then they would exchange them between themselves to cover it up. I would have
had to pay a lot, except when I left the company a few months later, the new officer that
took over had the same trouble I had, and he had to sign for them.
One Sunday I was assigned to be officer of the day and was in the headquarters
room when there was a commotion in the day room where most of the men, who were out
of the brig and who did not have passes hung out. I strapped on my 45 pistol and headed
over to see what was going on. When I came in there was a big black guy standing in the
middle of the room with a bloody knife in his hand. Near him, was another black guy
screaming his lungs out with blood all over him and his ear laying on the ground. I first
thought to go for my 45, but it was buttoned down in the military stile holster and there was
no way I could get it out before he could make Swiss cheese of me. So I looked at the
dude and yelled “give me the knife” and ,thank the lord, he did. Somebody had called the
MP’s and shortly after they took the big dude to the brig, and the other guy to the hospital
carrying his ear.
Since the Korean war was over, the army was cutting back on troop levels and
was reverting many enlisted officers to their permanent rank. Each reserve officer carries
a permanent enlisted men’s rank. Most of our officers were reserve, as was I.
Therefore most of the Battalions officers were reverted, however since I was eligible to get
transferred to inactive reserve in six months, I was a short timer and was not reverted. I was
transferred to battalion as the S3 officer replacing a Captain who was now a Master
Sergeant. Even the Lt Colonel who was the battalion CO got reverted and a first Lt who
went to West Point ended up CO. I did not have the foggiest idea what I was to do as a S3
and the guy who I was replacing, who was now a Master Sergeant ,was not about to help
me. To make matters worse we got notice that Three star General Matthew Ridgway who
just came back from Korea was coming to inspect the signal schools that the battalion
were running for the infantry troops. Also there was to be a division parade the next
Saturday and the 161st was selected to manage the parade and issue the parade orders. This
was supposed to be the job of the S3’s staff. I was in deep doo/doo. Finally I got a Staff
Sergeant to help me and we were able to issue a parade order. The inspection of our
classes by Ridgeway was a disaster, however. Theoretically when a inspecting officer
entered a classroom their was supposed to be a officer at the rear of the class who was
supposed to yell ‘attention” and after the general gave at ease, offer a copy of the days
lesson plan to the general. None of this worked and there was no one at the rear of the
class and the instructor got so flustered he sat down. The morning of the parade
somebody asked me where the band was. What band? I didn’t know we were supposed to
order the band. I was panicked! but my sergeant buddy had an idea, and we went to the
training aids warehouse and got a record player and large speakers that we spread out
on the parade ground. The Division marched with John Philip Sousa playing and nobody
questioned it. I had to march the headquarters company in the parade and it went OK until
I forgot to order “eye’s right” as we passed the reviewing stand, fortunately my sergeant
buddy did it from the front row. Somehow I survived all this, without being court
marshaled and things settled down until my time was up and I got off active duty. Back
to Iowa and resuming my job as a field engineer with Westinghouse.
Grampa’s Stories # 30
Indianola Iowa
1957/1958
Field engineering stories, and Mark is born.
We returned to Iowa after I got out of the army and I resumed my job as a Field Engineer
with Westinghouse Electric Corp. Since I was now making the amazing salary of 450$ a
month, we hired a contractor to build us a three bedroom house in Indianola and we settled
down to suburban living. As a field engineer I traveled Iowa, North and South Dakota
supervising the installation of large electrical apparatus, trouble shooting equipment that
was not working correctly, or investigating failed equipment. Most of the work was with
electric utilities, but some was with industrial companies. I would be gone a lot of the
time, although usually home weekends. I put a lot of miles on the old 52 Plymouth, and
finally it gave out, and I bought a recycled salesman’s 1956 Chevrolet from the company
that Westinghouse leases cars from.
I supervised the installation and start-up of apparatus such as large power
transformers, circuit breakers, generators etc. It was always interesting when we first
energized this high voltage equipment as you never could be sure what was going to
happen. Out of hundreds of start-ups I only had a few failures, but they were exciting.
Most of these units were as large as a small house, and high voltage, up to 345 thousand
volts. One transformer blew the pressure relief valve with a noise you could not believe.
Another scattered porcelain and material all over the substation. Until you have heard the
raw energy of a high voltage/ high capacity electrical arc, you can not appreciate the
sound. We had just started up a 60 mega-watt hydrogen cooled generator at a power plant
in Ames Iowa. I was on the turbine room floor, there was a tremendous roar and the
ground shook. There was dust and dirt flying all over. The deafening noise kept up for
several minutes as the generator which had been turning at 3600 revolutions per minute
ground to a halt. It turned out the surge protective equipment on the generators output had
failed, and since it was right on the generators terminals there was no protection, This was
a multi-million dollar failure, which everybody blamed on the ‘Westinghouse surge
protective equipment. In the days following the failure I verified that the electrical arc had
caused a failure of the protective equipment. However it didn’t look like it was a internal
failure. This equipment was in a box that the electrical contractor had built, and was
mounted just below the generators terminals. The box was made of angle iron and
covered with transite sheeting, which is a electrical insulator. The generator terminal
leads went into the box through the top. The box had completely disintegrated. I spent
the next two week collecting parts of the box from around the basement of the power plant
and putting in back together like a jig-saw puzzle. It turned out the transite had been wet ,
apparently left outside before the box was built. And the arc had started by going through
the transite from the generator leads to the iron frame of the box. Westinghouse was off the
hook and the contractors insurance had to pay. I had several investigations of failures like
this over the years.
I investigated lots of cases where a manufacturer had misapplied Westinghouse
motors in equipment such as silo un-loaders, grain elevators, crop dryers etc. Some of
these motors were on the top pf elevators where I had to climb or ride man lifts to get to
them. I had a little fear of heights but I had to get over that. I had to connect a box to the
motor that monitored the electrical and physical parameters that the motor operated in to
see why they were failing. In many cases it was obvious such as the crop drier where the
idiots had mounted the motor and blower down stream from the gas burners. When they
started that thing up I couldn’t believe it. This thing was like a large jet engine and the
flame burned off my monitoring box leads and charred the paint off the motor. Once I was
nearly run over by the auger on a silo un-loader, until I finally yelled loud enough they
heard me, and shut it down.
We were energizing a transformer at a substation in South Dakota. This was a
new 500KV substation the highest voltage in use anywhere, and the first time it had been
used in the Midwest. However the circuit breaker that stood in front of the transformer
did not arrive in time. The contractor and the utility wanted to energize the transformer
anyway with no load on it, so we strung three 4/0 cables across the 30 yard opening where
the circuit breaker would be, in order to energize the transformer. I was in the substation
yard when we energized and it was late in the day. There was a roar and hissing sound and
that 4/0 cable lit up in blue light, with tenacles stringing out five or six feet. I looked at
my car beside me and the antennae had a corresponding blue tenacle coming off it. My
hair, and that of the contractor standing next to me was standing straight out. We shut it
down immediately and realized why all the bus bars in the station were so big in diameter,
and all 500KV line conductors bundled. You cannot energize at 500KV with a small
radius conductor without getting a lot of corona. We all learned something.
Toots was pregnant again in the fall of 1958 so I tried to stay in Iowa and not get
caught in any long term jobs. There was no hospital in Indianola, so we would have to
drive to Des Moines, therefore I was concerned, because of the fact she had Steve so fast in
New Jersey. Finally after Christmas she started to have labor pains so we hustled up to the
hospital in Des Moines. When we got there they were not too concerned and put her in a
room and said to call if the contractions got very close. I tried to tell them what had
happened in New Jersey with Steve, and that she probably would have it fast , but they
ignored me. Her contractions started to come faster and faster, each took about half the
time of the next. She had Mark before they even got her in the delivery room.
Grampa’s Stories #31
Indianola, Iowa
1959-60
More field Engineer stories;
As a field engineer working on Westinghouse electrical apparatus I was commonly
exposed to the risk of contact with high voltage. One of my friends from college, who also was a
field engineer was killed while working on a circuit breaker at the North western Steel works in
Sterling Ill. Working around high voltages is in many ways more dangerous than ,for example, high
steel construction, where you are constantly aware of the danger. There is no visible warning of
the danger and it is very easy to momentarily forget where you can put your hand.
One instance of this, I still have night mares about, was when we were working on 13,800
volt switch gear at a plant in Keokuk, Iowa. The metal clad switchgear were lined up along a wall,
with about twelve cabinets, each identical. We had the back off about five of these cabinets and the
two we were working on were de-energized, the others hot. As I was inside the cabinet, my boss
from Des Moines walked up, I came out as was surprised to see him as I did not know he was in
town. We talked for a while and I didn’t notice but we slid down a ways until we were outside
one of the energized cabinets. When we finished talking I shook hands with him and turned
around and entered the cabinet. I was reaching my hand out to grab the lead of the circuit
breaker, I had been working on, when I felt a feeling of magnetic flux in my hand, and instantly
jerked back. I was in the energized cabinet! If I had not felt that flux and moved my hand a inch
closer, I would have exploded in a ball of fire. Fortunately in addition to the 13,800 volts in that
lead there was four or five hundred amps that caused the feeling of flux I had felt.
Another situation happened as we were installing a emergency mobile substation at the
Maytag washing machine plant in Newton Iowa. They had a failure of the main transformer feeding
the plant, and the plant was down until we could get the emergency substation in service. I was
checking out the transformer on the mobile substation. I was assured that it was not energized and
the electrical grounds were on, by the head of the construction crew. Unfortunately I had to take
his word for it as the grounds were not visible from the site. As I reached out to connect my test lead
to the 13800 volt bushing of the transformer, a arc shot out a good six inches to my hand! It
knocked me down, and for a instant I thought I was dead! At first I could not understand why I
was still alive! Then I finally realized what had happened, The grounds had been removed in the
rush to get the unit on line, but it was not energized. However the unit was connected to a 13800
volt line that was not hot, but it ran for several miles under a 69000 volt line that was hot, and it
picked up a static charge from the line above it on the same poles. That was why it arced to me, but
did not have enough capacity to burn me. I also have nightmares about that caper every once in a
while.
Fortunately over time I had less contact with high voltage as I became a specialist in
control systems. Utilities about this time began using a remote control system to control substation
equipment from a dispatch office miles away. The Westinghouse version was called Visicode and
was a very complicated scheme using hundreds of telephone type relays. I studied the drawings,
went back to Pittsburg for training, and became a expert in this equipment and over the next few
years traveled all over the central part of the US installing and trouble shooting this equipment as
none of the other field engineers could deal with it. This was the beginning of my career in Electric
utility control systems and digital computers where I would eventually spend the rest of my
working life.
About this time I got interested in amateur radio and decided to get my FCC license and
become a ham radio operator. Both Toot’s and I studied the test manuals and learned Morse code
enough to pass the test to become Hams. I was KNOSHY and she was KHOSHX. Over the
next few years I acquired, or built a radio set for the house and one for my car. This was when
transistors were new and I began playing with them as a hobby. I built a transistor transceiver and
put it into a small aluminum box that became a form of walky-talky. This was before the citizens
band existed as that band was then the eleven meter amateur band. I refined this unit and on advise
of some friends, thought about manufacturing it. However about that time the FCC established
the citizens band and WRL radio in Council Bluff’s came out with a unit that they sold. So my
thoughts of becoming a manufacturer went away but a lot of companies made big money in the CB
radio business.
Grampa’s Stories # 32
Indianola Iowa; 1960
Moving On from the field
As I came to specialize more on control systems, they sent me farther and farther from
home. I had to meet a Ore Boat on the great lakes once to work on it’s ships radar. It
only took an hour or so to fix it, but I had to wait two days before we made port to get off.
I spent a week laying on my back with the controllers walking over my legs, in the control
tower at O Hara airport in Chicago. rewiring a supervisory control console that controls
the runway lights. The controllers caught it on fire while smoking. I worried a lot more
about flying after I heard what went on in that tower. I got my first taste of computer
based control systems when I was assigned ,with a large crew of specialists, to install and
start up the first computer controlled hot steel rolling mill at U S Steel in Gary Indiana. This
was during the winter and many of the motor and control rooms were hardly heated, so it
was miserable work. The mill was late to be brought on line so it was 24/7 with no time off.
The computers were as big as a small house that you walked through with walls and walls
of printed circuit cards in racks. ( It didn’t have the computing power of an I phone 5)
.Finally we were ready to roll steel. All of the executives of US Steel were there to watch
the first load. I had tried to suggest to the lead engineer that we should run a mattress
through first, but he said no. The first hot slab came out went through the rollers once and
was picked up and turned around to go through again when one of the turn around rollers
suddenly reversed sending the slab up in the air and down through the opening between
rollers. A week or so later we finally got it rolling steel. By that time I had been there over
three months working 24/7 with no time off. I called my boss in Des Moines and said I
was coming home, He said there was a emergency in Duluth Minnesota and I had to get
up there and show the utility crew how to tune a power line carrier wave trap. I told him
no way I was going home, and would call him in a week or so and discuss if I was going to
work for Westinghouse any longer at least as a field engineer. I then started to get calls
from various managers offering me jobs back at the main Westinghouse works in
Pittsburg. I always said I wouldn’t go to Pittsburg because I had been there several times
on training courses and I hated the place, as it was a dirty steel mill city. However one of
the jobs was at the research labs with a new group who was developing analog and digital
control systems for power system control. They were just starting to use computers and
the job was just too interesting. So my field engineering career was over and we were off
to Pennsylvania, I began what would be the field I would specialize in for the rest of my
career, computer based Electric Utility power system control.
Grampa’s Stories #33
Indianola Iowa, 1960
I flew to Pittsburg, and interviewed for the job, which turned out to be at the new
Westinghouse Research labs in Churcill Boro,. This was a nice area, and the facility
looked like a college campus. It was a newly formed group made up of young bright
engineers chosen to develop analog and digital Electric Utility Power System control
systems. I had a major advantage from my field engineering years, as I knew first hand the
equipment we were trying to control, and most of the rest of them had never actually seen
most of it.
I rented a apartment, in a house, in East Pittsburg, from a elderly widow. The plan
was for me to get settled and rent a house so we could move Toot’s and the kids out.
Meanwhile Toot’s was working on selling the house. We had bought a used 1958 Ford and
I had installed my mobile ham radio equipment in it. I drove it to Pennsylvania. I was
there for about a month alone, but it was not too bad, as a could use the Ham Radio to
talk to Toot’s almost every evening and quickly made new friends with the young
engineers. The apartment was OK but I was a little concerned about the widow, The only
bath for me was a shower head in the basement that was open with no curtains and once
when I was taking a shower I caught a glimpse of the widow watching me through the
basement window.
Finally I was able to rent a three bedroom home in the suburb of Monroville and we
moved the family to Pennsylvania. It was a good group of engineers at work and we
socialized a lot with them and Toot’s got close to our neighbors, so we settled in. I became
a project manager responsible for a small group of engineers who were building a control
system for a Utility in Spain. We developed a lot of friends many of whom we hear from
and still occasionally see today. After a year or so we contracted to have a home built in the
same neighborhood. We had built one of the best homes we ever had, it was a two story
five bedroom colonial with brick construction typical of the area. After a year or two we
really got to like Pittsburg, most of the steel mills were gone, the air was clean and it was a
beautiful area in the foothills of the Allegheny mountains.
One of the
neighbors, we became friends with, invited us to their lake cabin for the weekend. He took
me fishing on the lake Canadota, which was the largest natural lake in Pennsylvania. This
was surprising as this was a small lake and as most of my fishing was in Minnesota I
didn’t expect much action. However I put on a large daredevil and after a hour or two
caught a nice 10 pound northern. Carl got all excited and said it was a Muskie. I tried to
tell him it was not a Muskie but he insisted, and we took it to the bait store where they also
got excited and said it was another Muskie. I finally busted there balloon by convincing
them it was a northern by comparing pictures in a fish book. That was the reason the
lake had a reputation for Muskies, they didn‘t know a Muskie from a northern. Later we
were having a snork in their living room and the two boys were playing somewhere, with
their two boys about the same age.. Suddenly we heard a noise d looked up, and Mark came
crashing through the ceiling He hung a while and we were able to catch him, wasn’t hurt,
but shook up, as he was only five years old. The boys had been playing in the an
unfinished attic and he had stepped in the wrong place.
By now the two boys were in school, little league etc and I started to play golf in
a league from work, It was a lot of fun as nobody knew how to play and we partied after
each Friday night attempt.
One Friday night Steve and I drove into town to pick up a pizza, and on the way
back, we saw a glow in the sky behind our neighborhood, The house was on a hill at the
end of a cul-de-sac with woods around it. As we got close to home we ran into fire trucks
converging on our street. There was a forest fire in the woods behind the neighborhood.
When we got to our house it was really close and there was a lot of smoke. I got out the
garden hose and tried to hose down the area around the house. We got everybody out of the
house and watched the fire crews fight the fire from the street. Fortunately the fire
department got it under control before it got any houses but it was close
Steve was in Little League baseball, but had never got a hit while at bat, so we told
him if he gets a hit, we would buy him a banana split Finally near the end of the season, he
got a hit, but when we got him the ice cream he wouldn’t eat it because they put nuts on it.
Next Toot’s and I take a trip to Europe and I take flying lessons.
Grampa’s Stories #34
Pittsburg Pa, 1963
Trips to Spain
Since I was the project engineer on two control system jobs in Spain, I would have
to make trips to Spain, one by myself to instruct the utility staff, and a second a year later,
to install the systems On the second trip I took Toots and we spent two weeks touring
London Paris and Spain after which I put her on a plane for home and I went up to Northern
Spain for the start-ups.
This was my first trip overseas and I traveled to a rather remote area in northern
Spain, after landing in Madrid I took a sleeper train to Oviedo on the northern coast. I tried
to learn some Spanish before I left but they talked so fast I could not understand anybody,
and unlike now, very few people spoke English in Spain. After much confusion I got on the
train but was worried about figuring out when to get off. Fortunately a nice porter took
charge of me even though I could not talk to him, and he woke me up at the proper time the
next morning. I stayed at the hotel Principado in Oviedo the best hotel in town, the room
was 15 dollars and the price of dinner, and lunch etc. was less than 5 dollars. I didn’t drink
the water as wine was cheaper than bottled water; the best local wine was less than a dollar
a bottle. The first night in my room I was trying to turn the light off over the bed, and there
were three or four buttons hanging over the head board of the bed. I pushed them all trying
to get the light out and people started knocking at my door, mostly women but some
men, not sure who all I called for. A waiter in the restaurant helped me with the menu
drawing pictures of what was on the menu. He drew pictures of a cow or sheep and
indicated where the meal came from. I tipped him a dollar and he was always on his feet
calling for me when I entered the dining room. Over the next twenty years I had several
occasions to visit Oviedo again, and he was always up to welcome me.
After meeting with the utility in Oviedo I was picked up by a young Spanish
engineer Hymei Ouro.( James Ouro I found out later) and taken to La Coruna on the
Northwest coast of Spain, to meet with the next utility. Here we had dinner with the owner
of the utility, who was a lieutenant of Franco during the Spanish civil war and was given
the utility as compensation by Franco. His name was also Lacoruna and the town was
named after the family. He asked what wine I would like and I said the local wine I had
been drinking for a week in Oviedo. They brought a bottle that had been opened but when
I tasted it I said that was not the wine I asked for, as I had been drinking nothing but that
for a week, I knew it’s taste well. I meant no harm but all hell broke loose when Senior
Franco accosted the restaurant owner and he confessed they did not have the wine from the
Oveido region and had substituted thinking I would not know the difference. After that all
went smoothly and I would run into Senator La Coruna and his son several times over the
next 30 years.
About a year later Toot’s and I made a trip to Europe as I had to go back to Spain to
install the two systems.
Grampa and Gramma came out to Pittsburg to mind the boys
and Toots and I took off for a two week European vacation. We stopped in New York to
get
Toots an emergency passport and got caught in a mob on the streets, as the Pope was
visiting New York, and the Catholic church was across the street from the passport office.
This was really scary for a few minutes as we were jammed in with the crowd and squeezed
and jostled about.
Finally got away and got on the airplane for London. We did the
normal tourist thing in London, i. e. Tower of London, St Paul’s, West Minister Abby,
Buckingham Palace etc.
Went to several live theater performances and then took the
train to Paris. Had a good time there but did not particularly like the French people as they
seemed shallow and vain.
Had an instance of anti-American feelings when we stopped
in a tobacco store to buy some tobacco for my pipe, and a guy came up to me in the store
and began yelling at me. He followed us out of the store and down the street yelling at us
and finally grabbed Toot’s by the arm. He was not a big guy and I shoved him and he went
down, and finally left us Otherwise we enjoyed Paris and rode the underground a lot.
Toots would not go beyond the first level of the Eiffel tower as she is afraid of heights.
Then we flew to Madrid and rented a car to visit southern Spain. Had an interesting trip the
first day as we headed south in our little rented Fiat. Followed a map with a new road
shown headed for Seville. Got about half way there and the road stopped. It was on the
map but not completed yet, and we had to retreat about a hundred miles to take a different
route. Also as we were going across an open area we passed an Ox cart along the shoulder.
A short while later a police car stopped us and the officer said we passed the ox cart without
using our turn signal and fined us 150 dollars. It was a strictly tromped up deal and the guy
wanted cash for himself. We visited Cordoba which is an old mosque that was converted to
a catholic cathedral, dating from the time the Moors controlled
Spain. Then to the Alhambra in Granada which is a spectacular Moorish castle and
grounds. Finally we finished up in Seville with its beautiful cathedral and history.
Took toots back to Madrid and put her on an Airplane for home, and drove to
Oviedo to install the first system. The installation went fine but had some trouble with the
language as when I first sent a load change signal to the generator. I was in the control
room talking to the turbine room operator by phone to confirm what happened. Apparently
the change was more than the operator expected and he responded with an excited version
of Spanish that I couldn’t understand. We finally got it sorted out and all was well. The
installation in La Coruna went well and I started back to Madrid in the Fiat. I was driving
through the mountains at night when I came around a curve and there was one of the civil
guard guys in the middle of the road with his rifle out. These guys are what were left over
from the war and they wear a flat napoleon like hat, and we are told not to mess with them.
The guy got in to the back of the car and indicated to go, which I did, although shaking in
my boots a little. After about a half hour he indicated to stop and he got out. All he was
after was a ride, I was glad to find out. Later that day I was driving along an open flat plain
area and noticed a couple motorcycle police along the road ahead of me. There was a car
ahead of me and when he got to the motorcycles one of them decided to cross the road and
pulled in front of the car ahead of me. The car hit the motorcycle and the bike came over the
top of the car. The car was disabled and the guy on the motorcycle in bad shape. I stopped
and the other motorcycle cop asked me to help load the injured cop in the back of my car.
His leg was crushed very badly. He had me turn around and we started back in the direction
I had come from, with him in the lead, sirens and lights flashing and the Fiat wide open.
The guy in the back was delirious moaning and crying. I was concerned as I had not seen
much sign of civilization for a long way in the direction we were going. Finally we got to
a small town and came to what must of been some kind of hospital, although not much of
one because the cop and I had to unload him and carry him inside. I was able to go but had
to come back after a few miles because I looked in the back and I had his boots and helmet.
Finally made it back to Madrid and my adventure was almost over but not quite. I
stayed the night in an older Spanish hotel in Madrid that had an old fashioned wooden type
elevator with an operator. There was a tour of older English ladies there when I checked in
and a crowd waiting for the elevator.
A group of ladies and I got on the elevator and it
was a bit crowded. We were headed for the 12th floor, but before we got there the elevator
got stuck between floors. The Spanish operator got excited and was trying to move the
elevator up or down with his controller. I could hear the cable piling up on the elevator
roof, and decided this was not good, and was able to convince the operator to tighten the
cable and only try to go up. The women panicked and it was a very bad situation.
Finally heard action out side and they were opening the doors on the 12th floor by force.
When they got them open the top of the elevator was about three feet above the floor.
We began lifting the women out of the elevator with the operator and me pushing, and
people on the floor pulling.
Finally got everybody out and there was much hugging and
appreciation.
Got on the airplane and had an uneventful trip back to Pittsbug
Grampa’s Stories # 35
Pittsburg Pa:
1964-1965
We finally bought a new car. Our first new car was a Volkswagen beetle. It was
the hot car of the time and we had to pay list price (1700$), and wait three months for
delivery. Since we were going to take a trip to Iowa, two days after getting the car, and
you had to take it in for an oil change after two hundred miles, the boys and I, drove it back
and forth to the airport, to get the miles and the change from break-in oil before we left.
I always said if I ever made 10K a year I was going to take flying lessons. I signed
up for lessons with a flying club operating out of a little gas strip in Zeleinople Pa. They
flew Cessna 150’s at 13$ an hour, which seemed expensive then, but would be dirt cheap
now. My instructor was 82 year old Pete Tauson. He said I was a quick learner and after 8
hours of instruction, he got out. I went around solo twice and thus, I began my flying
career. Over the next 50 years I would own three airplanes and fly over 4000 hours, over
the United States and Canada.
The marketing department at work needed an engineer to make presentations to
utility company people to help sell our systems. Since I had the most experience on dealing
with utility system operation people, they drafted me. This required that I make
presentations to groups, sometime of 30 or 40, and it scared me to death. I had never had
a speech course all the way through high school and college. I had to do something, so I
signed up for a Dale Carnegie course that was held at a Hotel in down town Pittsburg. It
was a three month course and met weekly. You had to make a speech each night, starting
with just introducing yourself and including later a fifteen minute speech where you had to
harangue on a subject and beat a rolled up newspaper against the table. This helped a lot
and I finally got to where I could do it without too much fear. It was good I did this, as I
continued to have to make presentations and in later years while an executive at control
Data, I had to make hundreds of presentations all over the world, many of them at
conferences and seminars with 200 to 300 people attending. I never got over being
worried about each one and finally figured out it was necessary to sweat each one and to
“get up” or you couldn’t do a good job.
One night I was coming home from the airport after a meeting with Atlantic City
electric. I was walking to my car in the parking lot from the terminal building, it was a
pretty isolated area. There was a girl ahead of me wearing a server’s uniform, probably
from one of the food concessions at the airport. A guy, obviously drunk, was coming
from the other direction, stopped the girl, and was giving her a hard time. I told the guy
to leave her alone and he got belligerent and started pushing me. I finally shoved him down
but he came up wild. And came after me. He was about my size, but very drunk, so I was
able to wrestle him down and hold him there. After a little he calmed down so I let him up
and picked up my bag to get out of there. He came flying through the air at me so we
wrestled again and I held him down again. This went on for several rounds. By then a few
more people had come out of the airport. At first they were yelling at me to get off, and
calling me a bully. But after they watched a few rounds, they were yelling “hit him”. So I
did, and knocked him down, but that just made him worse. After a few rounds of this. he
was having trouble seeing and I was able to hobble away. I was limping because during one
of the rounds he fell against my leg and jammed it up against a parked car twisting my
ankle. When I got home my suit was torn and my ankle swollen badly. The next morning
the doctor confirmed I had broken my ankle and I was on crutches for six weeks. I still
traveled and will never forget having to work my way up the narrow isle of a North Central
airlines DC 3 on crutches.
Because of the marketing exposure, I was offered a District engineers job. This
was a high level job in the marketing department where you covered a section of the
country and provided support for the sales men in that area. They wanted me to go to New
York City, which I resisted, but the pay was so good, I agreed to go have a look. I went
there met the people, rode the subway, checked out the commute and housing. I went back
and told them they could not pay me enough to move there, and I thought that was that.
However they came back with the same offer except this time it was San Francisco. When
I visited there, my office was a 13th floor corner office in the Alcoa building with a view of
Alcatraz, and both the Golden Gate and Bay bridges. It was a beautiful view, in fact so
spectacular, as I found out later; it was hard to get any work done.
So we put the house up for sale and after making the necessary arrangements,
packed the two kids the dog and cat, in the Volkswagen and headed for San Francisco.
Grampa’s Stories #36
Various Locations;
1960’s through 2007
After I went into marketing support for Westinghouse, I started doing a lot of travel
on the airlines. This started in the 60’s mostly out of Pittsburg, where I was a charter
member of United’s 100 mile club, and continued with Control Data out of Minneapolis
during the 70’ 80’ and 90’s. During these years I flew a lot both domestic and
international and have been to almost every country in the world. These are some of my
memories from flying commercial airlines.
In the sixties I flew mostly DC 3’s, DC6’s and 7’s, Convair”s and Lockeed
Constalation”s. In those days the airlines were much more accommodating than they are
now. One flight in a DC6 out west, the guy next to me, as we were taxing out for takeoff,
suddenly jumped up and said he forgot to leave the car keys for his wife, and she would be
stranded at the airport. He called the Stewardess over and she went up to tell the pilot, after
a few minutes she came back and asked for the keys and took them up forward. The pilot
actually taxied the airplane back to the gate! And threw the keys out to ground personnel. I
think that was the best service I ever saw from an airline, it was North Central Airlines
and I often thought how nice it would be if they would do something like that in later years.
In the early seventies my associate Roberto Delariva and I made a marketing trip to
China. We flew from Hong Kong to Beijing on a Chinese airline flying old 707’s. I
could tell the airline wasn’t too interested in safety procedures, because Roberto smoked a
cigar during check-in and boarding, and nobody bothered him. However what happened
next I couldn’t believe! The airplane was full but they just kept on boarding. They took
off and flew several hours to Beijing with at least a half a dozen people standing in the
isles.
One snowy morning I was flying from Pittsburg to Philadelphia. The airplane was
an old Martin 404, a twin engine propeller plane competitive with the Convair. It was
snowing but we had enough visibility to take off. We were in the air about a half hour
when there was a big bang and the plane yawed to one side. I was sitting near the rear and
looked out the window, and the left engine was on fire. There were flames all the way
back to the rear of the plane. The stewardess jumped up and went up to the cockpit. In a
few minutes the flames went out, apparently the fire suppressant system worked, but there
was still a lot of smoke. The pilot was having trouble keeping the thing flying straight, but
I could tell he was turning around and heading back toward Pittsburg. The stewardess came
back into the cabin looking white as a sheet, and went along the left side closing the
window shades. She then set down and began to cry, this of course scared everybody. I
knew the weather back in Pittsburg was bad, and was worried about them trying to land
there on one engine. The pilot kept jamming the rudders causing the plane to whip back
and forth in the rear; apparently he was testing to see how much control he would have
when he slowed down. I was looking out trying to see ground as we approached the
runway, but didn’t see anything till I heard the wheels hit. However we were not safe yet,
as he couldn’t reverse the engines, with one out, without skidding us off the runway, and
the runway was snow-covered and slippery. The Pittsburg airport is built on a hill and the
runway drops off at the end so I was sweating bullets. We went clear to the end and ended
up partway off the end at a slight angle. A while after he shut down two tugs came out and
pulled us to the terminal. They brought in another airplane but of the 40 or so people on
the plane only three of us got on to go to Philadelphia.
I was flying out of Chicago going to DC, connecting through Baltimore. After we
got in the air the young lady beside me called the stewardess over and said she had left her
purse in the gate area. The stewardess went forward and in a little while came back and said
they had found it, and sends it to Baltimore the next day. However I could see she was
still upset, and I talked to her and found out she had never flown before, was from a small
town in Illinois, and was on her way to Baltimore to go to a TWA stewardess training
school. She was afraid because, when she got to Baltimore she didn’t know how she
could get to her hotel with no money. I gave her two twenty dollar bills and my card and
wrote my address on the back and told her to send it to me when she got around to it. I
forgot about it until a week or so later I got home and Toot’s was waiting for me with fire in
her eye. She had a letter the girl wrote with the forty dollars and saying how wonderful I
was. It took me several hours to talk my way out of that.
In the early 80’s I was working a big system job in Yugoslavia, and was going back
and forth to Belgrade a lot. I took Yugoslav Airlines (JAT) connecting from Chicago.
They only owned one DC10 and it went non-stop twice a week. After I flew that route a
few times I got to know the crew and the gate agent. I sat in the same first class seat each
time and had it marked. After eight or ten times I could call the gate agent when I was
flying and he could make sure I got that seat. I got the best service possible including the
best meals, drinks, slippers and cigars. JAT is not in business any more when the country
split apart with the war, they folded.
During the late seventies I was working a large system negotiation in South Africa.
This involved flying to Johannesburg via New York on a twelve hour noon-stop flight: (It
actually landed in Isle Del Sol, in the middle of the night to re-fuel and change crew). On
the way back on one of my trips down there, we were going to stop in Rome, so took an Air
France flight that had a stop in Entebbe Uganda. We got there late at night and the crew
advised not getting off, but after five hours on the plane I decided to get off and walk
around the airport, since it was a long stop. There was a group of ladies on a tour that also
got off. When it came time to board there was some tough looking back guys carrying
AK- 47’s that searched us. They were very rough but I knew better than to complain.
However they took the ladies in a room and told them to take off their clothes for a strip
search. These ladies refused to do this and there was a commotion with threats by the
blacks shaking their rifles. I tried to intercede on behalf of the ladies, as did one of the
crew members but they made it very clear, that if we did not back-off we were going to end
up in a Ugandan jail, which would have been a disaster, so I got back on the airplane.
After about a half hour, the ladies finally got back on board, although they looked very
disheveled and up-set. A few weeks later, there was a lot of press coverage of a major
international incident at that airport. They had hijacked an Air France airplane and took
all the Jewish passengers as hostages and threatened to kill them. Israeli commandoes
raided the airport in the middle of the night using paratroops and transports. They killed
most of the terrorists and rescued the passengers and the airplane. I vowed never to stop
there again although it wouldn’t have been possible anyway since all air lines refused to fly
there after that.
Grampa’s Stories #37
The San Francisco years 1965-68
San Francisco, CA
We rented a condo/apartment in Rheims, just over the ridge east from Oakland,
when we got to the bay area and put the boys in school there. I had a long but beautiful
commute over the mountains into downtown SF. However I had a company car and
usually shared a ride with the other district engineer Hank Lightec. While in the
apartment the boys learned to swim as there was a pool. We then got a contractor and had a
house built in Moraga. It was a two story five bedroom colonial, the best house we ever
owned. It cost 43000$ and ten years later was worth over a million. I joined a flying club
in Livermore and continued my flying in a variety of airplanes. After a few months and
about 40 hours of flight, I signed up with a flight examiner and took my private pilots flight
test. The examiner was Warren Boggus who was also the morning traffic pilot/reporter
for KSO. We had quite a few relatives in the bay area because my Brother Tom and his
family lived in Cupertino, and my mother and dad moved to a trailer park in San Jose. Also
a cousin on mothers side Eldon Asher and family lived in nearby Orinda. After I got my
license I was able to use the airplane in my job, as I worked with two utilities in
Sacramento that I had to visit once a week and also one in Reno Nevada that I saw every
other week. I had salesmen who would pick me up at the airport and I got lots of hours
flying to these places. Some of the trips to Reno got pretty exciting because coming back
over Donner Pass with a stiff west wind blowing was an experience. Many times I had to
tighten the seat belt as tight as I could to avoid hitting my head on the ceiling, and there was
stuff like books and papers flying all over the cockpit
The house was built on a lot that used to be a walnut orchard and the soil was a
black type of adobe, that was very rich but when dry got as hard as a rock. We had to
roti-till wood chips and compost into it to raise a lawn. Then we dug out and put a
sprinkler system in with a timer to keep it moist. After a lot of hard work we finally got a
nice lawn.
One weekend I flew the boys over to Reno for the National Air Races. When time
came to come back the airplane wouldn’t start, so we stayed overnight. We were able to
get a room in the offices quarters at the Air Force base, and we went to a movie that night at
the base theater and saw Flight of the Pheonix. The next morning I was able to get a guy
to hand prop the engine and we flew home without incident.
Toot’s soon got pregnant with David (this seemed to happen each time we moved).
She was at the grocery store with the boys and fainted at the checkout. She was lying on the
floor and nobody seemed to notice or care. She finally came around enough to give some
money to Steve to pay the bill, and was able to call Helen Lightec to come and help her get
home. She was fine later as it appeared to be just dehydration.
We enjoyed all of the bay area from Monterey to Point Ray and did the tourist scene
any time we had. Of all of the beautiful areas we liked Point Reys National Seashore the
best because of its remote isolated beauty. This was the time of the Hippy movement and
to drive through the Height Asbury district and Golden Gate Park was fascinating, with all
the Hippies and flower girls camped out there.
Unfortunately it was also the time of the Black Panthers and they were shooting white
people on the streets in sections of Oakland. At the time we were installing a large system
at the dispatch office of P G & E and the office was right in the middle of the problem
district in Oakland. I had to go and come to the dispatch office with a police car guard,
which the company arranged for us.
I had to do a lot of entertaining of customers, and visiting people from
Westinghouse, so most of my lunches were on expense account. I was there about two
years and we rarely ate in the same restaurant twice as there was such an amazing choice of
restaurants in the city. Walking around the city in those days you saw a lot of weird stuff,
like naked people, people who yelled repeatedly. And one guy who would repeatedly take
three big steps and take a big roundhouse swing while yelling. Nobody paid any attention
to them except maybe tourists.
When Toot’s started to have contractions, I was fortunately home this time, and we
headed fast to the Alta Bates hospital in Berkley. Fortunately there were no street
demonstrations that day. I warned them she would have it quick and she did, as usual.
We enjoyed San Francisco but I was getting bored with the job. It was great in a
lot of ways but I didn’t like all the sales/entertaining/bullshit, and there was no technical
challenge. Every other job I had I felt I was good at, this one I didn’t feel that way. It was a
great place to visit but we were concerned about the kids. It was not a good place to raise
kids; there were drug problems even in grade school. So I accepted a job back at the
Research Center in Pittsburg to head a project to develop a hybrid computer power system
load flow system.
We sold the house for more than we paid for it, if we had waited a few years it
would have doubled as the housing boom in the bay area was just starting. We loaded the
Volks Wagon in the moving van and got on an airplane for Pittsburg. Mitzie our Cocker
went in a box in the baggage compartment, which worked out good because the pilot also
had a cocker and he looked out for her on both ends, even getting her out first thing and
getting her to the kids.