A change of venue

            In 1955 I graduated from Witts Springs High School with no idea on what my future would be like. I had planned on joining the Air Force when I graduated but changed my mind several months prior to finishing school. My high school coach told me he could get me a full basketball scholarship to attend a small college in Clinton, Arkansas. I had no plans whatsoever to attend college. I was tired of book studies. The principal of the high school wanted me to go into business with him. He would put up the funds to build a store in Witts Springs and I would run the store. It would be a blind partnership. This fell through when another local man opened a store. The principal did not believe the community could support two stores. So what was I going to do?

            My best friend at the time was Sammy Judd and I was also dating his sister who was too young to even consider marriage. Their folks were heading to California to work for the summer months. So I decided to hitch a ride to California. I would live with my older sister and get a job in the Los Angeles area till I could make up my mind as to what I wanted to do with my life.

            I arrived in Compton Ca. sometime in May or June, I don’t remember the exact date. I had no money, no job and no automobile. I began looking for a job in walking distance from where my sister lived. I found a job rather soon after my arrival working for a company that manufactured back yard swing sets. It did not pay very much but boarding at my sister’s home was not very costly. After a few weeks of work I had enough money to buy a used auto.

For fifty dollars I bought a 1939 four door Chevrolet. It was one of my better decisions. It was clean, mechanically sound but needed a paint job. I kept the car for over three years and other than tires, brakes and a carburetor overhaul I had no problems with it. I did the brake job and the carburetor overhaul myself so it was just a matter of buying the parts. Car gas was rather cheap, 17 and 19 cents per gallon.

            After a few months my brother-in law got me a job working for Trojan Battery Co. He had worked for the company for several years and was well thought of by the management. The neighbor who lived across the street also worked at the same place so we car pooled. I drove my car and they paid for my gas. 

A Wagon on the School House

            The Witts Spring School House was built by the WPA in 1935. This may have been the most exciting thing that had happened in our community up to that point. Of course in October of 1936 I was born and for me that was the most exciting thing ever to take place in our community, according to me, myself and I.

            The building was built of native stones. It was a rectangular building, which at first housed first grade through 12^th grade. It also had a gym for basketball with a too short court and a much too low ceiling. There was a crawl space under the whole building which was not tall enough to stand up in, but could house a bunch of things, including benches to be used for seating in the gym for graduation, drama presentations, etc.

            How do you drive a wagon on a building of this height? The answer is you don’t drive the wagon. You wait until Halloween night and get a bunch of country boys who are looking for mischief to perform on their community. They found one of the neighbors who had a rubber tire wagon and after failing at killing themselves by riding it down a curvy hill they came up with the idea to put the wagon on the school house. They roll it up to the school and disassemble it and using ropes they haul it piece by piece to the top. They reassemble it on top of the school. They accessed the roof by finding a window that they could go through into a class room. There was a small room on the stage side of the gym that had a ladder into the ceiling and a trap door onto the roof itself. I don’t know how they got it down. I was not present to witness that event. I assume that adults are as smart as boys and that they reversed the process the boys used to put the wagon there in the first place.

School Dramas

            One bad thing about attending a small school is all the things you miss out on. One good thing about attending a small school is all the great things you get to participate in. I got a part in a school play when I was in the 8^th grade. There were not enough high school boys interested in getting up before a live audience and acting or they did not want to take the time to memorize a three act play. But their slackness became my opportunity.

             The school put on two plays, one in the fall of the year and one in the spring. I  performed in every play for the rest of my years in public school. Back in those days I could memorize my part in a three act play from the time I was given the part on a Friday evening and came to school on Monday morning. My first parts were very small parts with very little dialogue. But by the time I entered high school I had a major role and most times one of the lead roles. Some of the plays were about country hicks so I had no trouble being in character. All I had to do was memorize the words and then just talk naturally. Most of the dramas we did were more laughs than serious stuff.

            We always played to a packed audience. There was not much competition in the way of entertainment in a small community, no television, no Movie Theater, etc. The money we raised paid for the books and the fee that the company who published the plays charged; and the rest, which was most of the funds, went to the school.

Death and funerals

            One thing about living in a small community is that you know everyone who lives there.Therefore when there is a death the whole school can go to the funeral. They are not required to attend but most did. This meant that I went to a good many funerals between first and twelfth grades. Most of them were for old people, some were infants. But the one which affected me the most was when my best friend died unexpectedly.

            His name was Crandfiel D. McGovern. He lacked 3 days being exactly two months younger than myself. He was 9 years, one month and 17 days old when he died. He was on school on Friday and sometime Saturday morning he died. He woke up during the night and told one of his older brothers he was thirsty. His brother got up and went to get him a drink of water. The water bucket was empty so his brother went out of the house to the spring and got a fresh bucket of water and gave him a drink. When morning came, they went to wake him, they found him dead. They never did not know what the cause of his death was.

            My dad went to town on Saturday morning and came home and told my mother that he had died during the night. I overheard him talking with my mother and went and told my older sister and brother that he had died and they accused me of telling a lie.

            At his funeral I looked on my best friend lying in his coffin and seeing the freckles on the bridge of his nose and on his cheeks and thought what a good looking boy he was. His death was a hard thing for me to deal with. This was the first time that I had felt a personal loss at a funeral.