V1938-01HSS

High School, Sophomore Year, Fall 1938 to Fall 1939

Decatur Community High School was built in 1037-38 with PWA funds while Hitler Armed

The Model-T and Us Kids

Cars were parked in front of our new High School. After completing my work as janitor of the Farmers National Bank and delivering the Topeka Daily Capitol newspaper I'd be late and would park at the end nearest town. My first class was at that end of the building. After hurrying in & noting the teachers glance at his watch I'd settle into my chair and try to orient on what the lesson was about. I was seldom more than a minute late but also seldom early. The teacher had just started when BANG!.... One of the front tires on my Model-T had blown out! The old girl was just sitting there, resting, but the tired tube just couldn't hold it's air any longer and gave out with a Bang. Similar sounds thereafter drew good natured kidding about my remarkable automobile.

There evolved a broad interest in the car, in part because I made it available to anyone that wanted to use it – the option to drive it reinforced interest. It was fun to drive and its idiosyncrasies made excellent topics of conversation.

Things didn't always go well. One kid banged into a curb and badly bent the steering link. It turned abruptly to the left and negligibly to the right; however, they forgot to tell me. I took off in my usual hurry and in the middle of trying to turn right found it wouldn't! Intending to turn back straight found myself abruptly across in front of traffic and around through a filling station before I could pull the left lever up to take it out of gear, press peddles to get it stopped and collect my wits. The trouble was quickly diagnosed and fixed, as my pulse rate came back to normal.

While taking a load of girls riding it began running badly. One said she smelled gas. Sure enough a plug in the bottom of the carburetor had fallen out and gas was draining on the ground! We followed the wet trail, found the plug, replaced it and drove on. Thereafter they delighted in a play on words about me arranging to run out of gas with a carload of girls.

Wires were fastened to spark plugs with a small knurled brass nut. While taking a girl home from a date a plug went bad. When replacing the hot plug I dropped the nut in the spark plug hole in the top of the engine and it fell inside. The engine ran fine for a few moments then a piece of the pounded brass nut caught under the exhaust valve. The engine continued to run but produced noisy explosions alerting the neighborhood of the late hour of our return.

I started painting the wooden wheels to preserve them. Soon my sisters and other kids wanted to help paint. When we finished the bottom 1/3 was blue, middle 1/3 white and top 1/3 red. It looked like a gaudy circus wagon! It was unsophisticatedly primitive but people seemed to laugh with us rather than at us. Perhaps there's a bit of uninhibited kid in all of us.

One evening we had a Hi-Y picnic. Three of us took our dates in my T Model. After supper there was hiking about the hills followed by a program and roasting marshmallows about the campfire ending at 10:00 pm with someone blowing taps and another some distance away playing the echo. In the meantime the radiator had dripped dry. We couldn't find any water so I drove the three miles back with it dry. Coming into a filling station for water I turned off the ignition....... but it kept running unabated right on through the filling station! On the second pass circling back through the station I killed the engine by slamming down on all three pedals. (I later found you should never add cold water to an over heated engine that' s not running, your liable to crack the block.) Lizzy regurgitated water as steam like old faithful for about 10 minutes before she could keep any down. I was very lucky it didn't crack the block.

David Mc Gee New Band Uniform Won at Colby Addison Colder Bert Hostinsky

Doc and I played in the high school band. Transporting large instruments as bass drums and bass horns was always a problem especially if the event was not strictly a school affair for which the school buses could be used.

There was a Fair at McCook Nebraska and our band was invited to play. Doc and I drove my Model-T and carried the band instruments. When we got there we noticed that the generator wasn't charging the battery. We planned to stay at the Fair after dark so we'd need headlights to get home.

We probed around and determined the generator was bad. We'd never worked on a generator before so we decided to see how much it would cost to get it fixed. A garage mechanic looked at it, made some quick adjustments and said, "the voltage wouldn't adjust, it probably has a short." We asked, "How do you set the output?" He said, "You rotate the third brush." We asked, "How much will it cost for you to fix it?" He looked at the car and us then said, "Oh about $1.00."

His price was certainly reasonable, he was trying to give us a break, but we had very little money and it would have left us nothing for the Fair. We thanked him and told him we'd need to find a friend to loan us the money.

We drove to the city park as a place to meet some of the Band Gang and borrow enough quarters to get it fixed. While waiting we decided we didn't have anything to lose if we took it apart ourselves. If we couldn't fix it we could always go back to the garage.

With our ever present tools we proceeded to dismantle the generator. We studied every piece just to figure out how it worked, then to find out what might be wrong. We found there were three brushes and one was adjustable. We also found that some insulation under an adjustment screw was missing and decided that was the problem. We bought a 5 cent roll of friction tape, made an insulator, assembled the generator and tried it out, it worked! We experimented adjusting the output and soon had the battery charging at a good clip. The old battery wouldn't hold a charge over night but it didn't need to as the generator would run the lights. This did wonders for our disposition!

Other kids wanted to stay late at the Fair. Many had caught rides with people who farmed and needed to get home to do chores; in those days all farmers had chickens & hogs to feed plus cows to milk. These band kids asked if they could ride back with us. Our motto was, "There’s always room for one more!" Before realizing it we over filled our accommodations, we ended up with 12 people!

We tied the bass drum and bass horns on the top then filled the car with people and still had about six left. We had two sit on the front fenders with their feet on the bumper. The remainder stood on the running board.

We tied bailing wire to the radiator fill spout as handholds for the front two. We also used bailing wire and rope for hand grips for the rest so they wouldn't fall off.

We started out. When we hit a bump the tires would rub on the fenders. We would accelerate going down hill and could roll right along on the level but the guys on the running board had to jump off and push on the hills when the down hill momentum ran out. We made it back in fine shape and from then on that Model-T was like a member of the band.

Another time we were asked to haul band instruments to a band contest and fair at Norton, Kansas. After school we hurried to get the Model-T ready for the trip. This included a two gallon can of used oil (we couldn't afford to buy oil; besides not having funds, the engines leaked too bad), an extra spare tire, tools, an extra coil, gassed up, filled the radiator and pumped up the tires. When this was done we went to the high school band room to load the band instruments. The door to the band room was locked! Everyone else had gone on to Norton.... it took us an hour to find Addison Colder who had the keys. (Addison was all things to all people, from fix it to janitor. It was said the Addison never seemed to be doing anything, but what ever he’d been asked to do, you could be sure it would soon be done.)

The trip was over a dirt detour, the old Kanona road, as highway 36 was being rebuilt. We'd lost so much time we were certain to be late. We had to make maximum speed. Finally underway we were leaving a cloud of dust in our wake.

We knew that if we drove the old girl wide open all the way she'd run hot, lose water and throw oil. We decided it would run cooler without the hood. Doc kept her at full speed while I got out on the running board removed the hood and tossed it overboard near the Sapa Creek bridge. (We picked the hood up on the way back.)

We kept estimating the time and just knew we'd be late. About 1/3 of the way we decided to add some oil & water. Without slowing down I did it. It was tricky as the oil fill port was close to the fan. I blocked the air blast with a piece of cardboard as I poured, getting most of the oil in the engine.

We made a rapid pit stop for water in Norcatur, the halfway point, and roared out again. At the 2/3 point I added oil & water again.

We knew we wouldn't have time to change into our band uniforms when we arrived so we vented our underwear to the breeze in the process of changing to band uniforms.

The engine was hot and the old Lizzy was really moving. About 8 miles from Norton we saw Earl Brown coming toward us in his V-8 Ford. He'd been sent out to find us as they thought we'd broken down. He turned around and followed us in. He said we were making just over 60 mph on the flat and decided we'd lose time by switching to his car. We didn't think the old girl would go that fast, but her adrenaline was matching ours.

We maintained speed as long as we dared right into town and headed straight down main street. Crowds of people had lined the street and a cheer went up as they saw the wildly painted car, with hood removed, us in band uniforms and the instruments on top. They waved and pointed where we were to go! Model-T's were becoming uncommon but they triggered fond memories to those in the crowd. We were told later that the other bands had already marched, the crowd knew our band was held up for us.

We spied our band lined up at the end of the street. They had formed up and seeing us coming started to march. We wheeled to the side in front of them and fell in while others broke ranks, gathered their instruments and rejoined. Bert Hostinski our band instructor and others had been quite upset. Earl Brown told him why we were late and how fast our T Model was going. By the time we finished marching scowls had changed to grins.

After marching we drove to the Fairgrounds. It was getting dark. When we pulled into the Fairgrounds parking area the old girl sputtered and stopped. We tried to start her but nothing worked! We knew we'd better fix it before going to the Fair.

We turned on the dash-light to find our flashlight and tools and began looking for what was wrong. The coils wouldn't buzz & we couldn't figure out why. The dash light was on so we knew we had power to there. We did everything including complete continuity checks on the wiring and possible shorts using the flashlight as a continuity tester. We reasoned and discussed checked and rechecked. We couldn't find anything wrong, the coils should buzz, it should run but wouldn't!?. Finally we decided to start all over, this time going to the beginning, the battery. That was it! That was it all along. During our wild ride over the detour road the battery cable had come loose and was laying on the terminal. There was just enough contact to light the dash light but not enough to run the coils. For three hours that dash light had convinced us the battery and its cable was all right. It had also shown us that we weren't the hot shot mechanics we thought we were.

At 11:00 pm we went to the Fair. We were just in time to see them close. It was only then we realized we hadn't eaten since noon, we couldn't even buy a hot dog. We made it home by 2:00 am.

The Tin Lizzy ran like a dream, it's un-muffled roar floating out across the prairie. We were too tired to talk. We just relaxed and enjoyed the beautiful moonlit night. A sick Model-T didn't attract riders, male or female. To us she was temperamental and a bit old fashioned but she always eventually responded to our attentions and we loved her.

Goodland Band Trip

The league band contest was held on a Friday and Saturday at Goodland. Concert bands competed the first day and marching bands the second. We drove there the first day, stayed overnight and drove back the second day. The first day was a great success - youthful enthusiasm expended energy with abandon. After the days contest we chatted and scurried about the hotel as if we'd never run down. There were chaperones of course.

Our car load consisted of my Mother, my Aunt Edith, her son Barton (a small boy then), my girl friend, two other girls and myself the driver for a total of seven. An adult was assigned to each hotel room as a room mother. We kids were continually roaming from room to room full of song, laughter and fun. It was very late before we settled down and very early when the first were up awakening others. We were young and too busy to sleep.

The next days contest went well and all gathered to read the posted results of combined and individual performances. There was a general let down as people parted and clustered for the ride home. It was almost dark when we started our 100 mile drive.

At first everyone discussed the outcome of the contest then conversation faded. Each individual settled into their own world of thought or dozed as the miles rolled by. Driving had not been a burden while everyone talked. As they fell silent I realized how tired I was, my but I was drowsy. We'd started very early the first day and I'd had little sleep the next night. I doggedly kept awake mentally ticking off progress; then the last stretch, I counted the hills to home. Driving with heavy eye lids is a form of torture with a thin line between full and no control. At last we came over the top of the last hill to the down hill grade, I could see across the creek bridge and into town. It was a pretty sight, just one mile to go, thank goodness, I wouldn't have to fight off sleep much longer.

1936 Ford, before bridge On bridge

Someone yelled, "LOOK OUT"!! The bridge rail was coming up dead ahead! Whip the steering wheel...front wheel missed....Bang, the back wheel hit throwing the back end across the road in a skid aiming the front end back into the rail....forward momentum was causing the right the right front to climb the rail.... the left front wheel was still down.....were staying on the bridge..... but we're rolling over..... we're upside down, sliding on the top....it's not an all metal top....will it wear through!!....how about those in back??.. it's stopped sliding. We were all huddled on the ceiling, I spoke, "keep calm, is anyone hurt? Please, each answer, are you all right?" The six affirmative answers, that they were all right, was like sweet beautiful music! Thank God!! My but we were lucky, we could have all been killed, no one was even hurt! Now to get out, "Keep calm and relax we'll soon find away out".

The front door windows were shattered but still together. I kicked what had been the left front window out and all those inside came out taking care not to cut themselves.

We were in the center of the road on the center of the bridge. Everyone was soon out and OK, now what? Cars would be along soon to bring help. Both tires were blown on one side. The car would need to be towed back. Better put the spare on the blown out rear tire as it will be best to tow from the front.

I had the spare out when other cars with band members arrived. Some of the boys stayed and helped rotate the car on its top so the cars could get by. The girls went on and soon the tow car was there.

Dad and my Uncle Lee, who ran the Ford garage, came with the tow truck. After looking things over they simply looked at me and said, "You were mighty lucky no one was hurt, how did it happen?"

I had expected to get a bawling out, but nothing of the sort was ever said. Perhaps it was because my Mother and Aunt were along, perhaps it was because everyone was so happy no one was hurt. By comparison the car didn't matter. It was a 1936 Ford sedan and had been immaculate. Insurance on the car had run out two days before, Dad was in the insurance business and had simply not gotten around to renewing his own. The body work on the roof was extensive, battery acid ate upholstering on one side.

When I came home from the garage Mom told me my girl friend had reluctantly gone on home with her folks, they lived on a farm. Now wide awake with adrenaline still flowing I felt at a loss not being able to talk with her. It took a while to relax to a normal state.

The Dance Band Studebaker

Oran Hughs, Doc's older brother had purchased a big old Studebaker, about a 1928 model. It was a four door sedan, a luxury car of it's time with a large single seat in front and back plus fold down jump seats in the spacious area between front and back. All four tires were the size of Model-T truck tires, you rode up in the air with a feeling of traveling in real class. Oran and some of the other older fellows had formed a dance band, Oran played trombone and once in a while when Charles Madox couldn't go Doc would fill in on clarinet. I believe Carl Frickey was in the band but I don't recall now who all they were. But this big car was the equivalent to a bus. This was a time when all the Big Bands were making a name for themselves and traveling about to the big cities. This left many small towns in western Kansas delighted to have fellows show up for a dance and play the latest songs on the Luck Strike Hit Parade, few persons in that part of Kansas played cowboy music and what later evolved as country music was unknown by us then.

Doc borrowed the Studebaker one day and we decided to take a drive out to Sweden to show my girl friend Fern Erickson & family Oran's Band Bus. We let it cruise at about 50 mph, which was moving right along for graveled US 36 west. We didn't want to push it too fast as by then we had developed a healthy respect for the limits of those early day engines having spent a lot of time fixing them. When you planted yourself in the drivers seat and took hold of the steering wheel you knew you had hold of a lot of car. Henry had been very Spartan when he made the Model-T. This big old Studebacker was equipped with instruments and we found it a delight to monitor them to be sure the engine did not get too hot, that it's generator was working and that the engine was maintaining oil pressure. Ah but the use of Oran's car was limited, besides it took more gas and when you only make 25 cents an hour, your aware of how many hours of work a drive cost. With the Model-T's we could go for day's on 25 cents worth of gas when it was less than 15 cents per gallon.

Another Model-T Summer

Doc & Oran Hughes moved with their folks to Colo. Our world of Model-T's together seemed as if it had come to an end. Before Doc left we did a lot of dreaming under the headings of "What If". Our friendship had been as wonderful as any two kids could expect. Some of our what if pertained to how we could modify a model-T to give it more power and speed. The model-T was very low cost horse power and we had reached the point of having learned enough to want to do bigger and better things. Had Doc still been there we probably would have taken on some significant projects we would not do alone. Our relationship was such that 1 + 1 = 3 together we achieved more.

David McGee became my helper. David lived across the street and was about 7 years younger but very willing and helpful. One hot summer day he helped me carry the rear end housings from the highway north of town to the Blacksmith shop at the south edge of town.

The Unger brothers Albert & Ernie had built a filling station along the highway and I had been helping them with their delivery truck hauling fuel to the crew rebuilding US 36 to the east of town. One day I pulled in with ol’ Red-White-Blue and it wouldn't go any more, the differential gears had become so worn they wouldn't mesh any more. It was obvious what was wrong so I started the process of taking the rear end apart. The rear axle had a center piece which held the drive shaft and an axle housing on each side that extended hold the wheel bearings and brakes. The single multi-leaf heavy rear spring attached to each housing near the wheel. The biggest problem was spreading this large rear spring in a permanent way and lifting the rear end up till we could get the housings off and replace the gears. Finally after mush work and innovation I managed to use combinations of heavy weight and wheel jacks to spread the spring then placed a 2x4 to keep it spread. Once this was done I soon had the housings off. I had walked to Rub Pearson’s near by and obtained better used gears from a junked car but then had to get the housings to a large drill press to drill out some broken pieces and replace them with good pins. I had worked for Ed Hunt while in grade school and knew he had a large drill press in his blacksmith shop which I knew he'd let me use for free.

When I went home for lunch David came over and wondered what I was up to as he hadn’t seen the Model-T out in front in it's usual place. I told him I had to carry the housings down town but would have to make two trips as they were too heavy to carry both at once. Dave offered to help. Half an axle housing was a heavy load for David then only half way through grade school but he'd carry it as far as he could then have to rest. I'd try to carry them both so we could keep going but in a bit Dave would recuperated enough to carry it some more. It was a very hot day and we both worked up a sweat. But Dave hung in there showing lot's of determination.

I finally got the thing back together and Dave was still with me when I started the engine ready to drive the thing home. I started it up and looked back to see when I backed up. Only the car went forward!! I thought I'd missed the center pedal & pressed the right one, the low peddle instead. So I looked, placing my foot on the center, the reverse, peddle looked back and pressed to again to back up...... only we went forward again! What in the world was wrong?

I soon found I had made what was a common error, I had placed the housings on backwards! Dave & I said "Oh no!" at the thought of having to spread the rear spring again to put the thing together right. At least by then I knew how and it didn't take near as long.

When telling others of this I found some farmers had take advantage of this and had converted some old Model-T's to run forwards-backwards and equipped them with rake arms for gathering up alfalfa. One told of having rigged up a saddle over the steering column so it could be ridden like a horse while manipulated to run forward-in-reverse. They don't make them that way any more.

Working for Earl & Nina Talley:

Busting Lister Ridges: Earl & Nina asked if I'd like to go to work part time for them in the summer of 37' when I was leaving grade school and starting high school. I drove Earls Allis Chalmer crawler (track type) tractor north of the house busting open Lister Ridges. The tractor was connected to a three bottom plow (Lister) with double sided plow blades; i.e., they folded dirt over each way. This kind of plow had been used to furrow the field and now Earl wanted to plow into the ridge and cause the dirt to fold over into the furrow, in effect reversing hills to furrows and furrows to hills. My task was to keep the tractors tracks riding on top of the furrow ridge. This was not especially difficult but it did keep one awake else it would drop off into the groove. I don't believe this method of summer follow is used any more but it was common practice in those years close after the dust storms.

Keeping on the Road: After they and I thought I knew how to drive the tractor Earl asked if I'd drive the Cat to the South Pasture which included a small segment of cultivated land. I started after chores were done and Earl went ahead in the truck. All was going fine, I'd been warned it would be a long slow drive, when I came upon the first significant down hill grade. The section line road was all dirt with little gravel, typically the graded ditches at the edge of the road had eroded into channels about 3-6 feet wide and 3-10 feet deep. The road had a crown which sloped to the sides. I came down the road headed more and more down hill. Under load & on the flat the tractor was readily steer by pulling on one or the other of the large clutch handles. Now the effect of these was becoming anemic? For a while it would respond as if reluctant then not at all? I was pondering what was wrong when the tractor began an accelerating drift toward the deep gully at the side. Earl had started the cat and set the throttle, I'd released the main clutch peddle & was off at a fast turtle pace. I became aware I had to do something, but what I only knew how to turn on/off the ignition, set the throttle and wiggle the side and main clutch's. I figured I could turn off the engine but there had to be a brake. There didn't seem to be a brake peddle by the clutch peddle, my glance was from cockpit to the ditch and back to the cockpit estimating distance and time. I then noticed two peddles never used before, one on each side. I decided to try it. It was a long reach for me but I pushed. Thankfully I pushed the correct one, one side slowed and the other advanced correcting my aim down the road. The outside track had come close to the edge, it was a good thing the road was not muddy and the edge unstable. I thought my gosh it would have helped if Earl had told me about how to run it, but since I thought I knew he'd taken my word that I did. Several years later I was to use what I learned about driving that tractor to back a B-29 into a wind break when it became necessary to walk the tractor sideways alternately using brake & clutch.

Not Worth Cutting: I was going to help him by driving the tractor for harvest but the wheat was lousy. We pulled into a field that belonged to his father making a swath about the field. Earl waved for me to stop, running his hands through the wheat and biting the grains with a look of consternation said, this is terrible. Let's cut up through there which looks like the best there is and if it isn't any better we'll quite and just feed cattle on it for what they can get out of it. We made the pass & Earl wave me to head to the edge of the field and shut down. Earl said we were only making 11 bu to the acre at best and it wouldn't pay to cut it. He tried not to show his disappointment but we didn't talk much going back to the house.

The next summer they asked me to come back and drive the tractor for harvest again. This time the wheat was great and we worked from early morning till late each night. One summer they hired Harold Dyer a recently graduated Sr. to drive the truck, another summer Wayne Lohefener to help during the peak cutting period. We cut Earls, then a neighbors then Edna Loctor's wheat. We went full out till there was no more wheat in the area to cut. This was a period before anyone had heard of Custom Cutters.

Gentleman Cow: Edna was our next door neighbor in town and had a farm south of Earl and just north of Holden. Edna was quite a character, she had some milk cows on her place which was operated by a tenant farmer. One of her cows needed to be bread so it would come fresh again and bring milk. Earl had a beautiful looking bull to service his and Holden’s heard. Edna wanted to obtain the services of Earls Bull for her cow but didn't know how to ask. In a very lady like demeanor she approached Earl who was then cutting her wheat, there was something else on her mind. She said she had a very nice milk cow and wondered if Earl thought he could let his Gentleman cow come visit with her lady cow for a while, he wouldn’t need to stay for long just so it was long enough? Earl & Nina would get to laughing when Earl would tell of Edna's request to let his Gentleman cow come for a visit.