As I have stated before, my mother refused to sign my enlistment
papers granting her consent for me to join the Navy with my
cousin, Nolan. Therefore, I had no choice but to wait for my
Selective Service number to come up sometime after my 18th
birthday. During World War II, you could enlist before your 18th
birthday with parental consent, but after you turned 18, you
were not permitted to enlist. You had to wait to be
called. Therefore, I had to find a job until my number was
called.
As you know, by this time, Evelyn and I had become engaged and
decided to be married as soon as we could get organized. That
could not happen until she graduated and I turned eighteen on
November 2, 1942. In the small town of Cooper, there was no
work to be had, and I had to find something to provide some
income.
The Federal Government had funded a program called the National
Youth Administration, and young people who qualified could join
and be paid a small salary for their services. In many cases,
kids could work as librarians in their schools and earn a few
dollars a month. Evelyn did just that. However, I had already
graduated, so I had to find something else.
I finally contacted the NYA people and discovered there was an
NYA school in South Houston where they were teaching several
different trades. I decided to join. I was transported to the
Houston area in an old worn-out school bus. Along the way, we
would stop in small towns and pick up more boys. By the time we
arrived, we had a bus full!
I was really surprised when we pulled onto the campus. It was a
very large campus with many new dorms, a new recreation hall,
football fields, baseball fields, track, and many other sports
areas. It was the nicest school campus I had ever seen. I was
glad I had joined!
I chose sheet metal and ship-building as my program. Our
instructor was Mr. Jesse Maddox. I started my studies on
September 3, 1942, and really enjoyed the challenge. About half
the time was spent in the classroom, and the remainder was spent
in the shop where we got hands-on experience. Mr. Maddox proved
to be a very effective teacher.
The campus was operated almost exactly like a military camp. We
had white glove inspections almost every day. Any lint picked
up on the gloves meant extra KP duty. Bunks had to be squared
at the corners and, when a quarter was tossed on top of the
blanket, it had better bounce! I passed inspection most of the
time, so I never got into a lot of trouble.
After the evening meal, we had some time before ten o'clock
Taps. There was usually a game of craps going on someplace. I
was watching the crap game one night, and this one kid kept
losing until he was flat broke. Just a few days before, he had
purchased a pair of low-cup western shoes that I called boot
shoes. He offered to sell those shoes for $5.00 to raise money
for his game. I offered to buy them if they would fit me, so
off they came. To my surprise, they fit like a glove!
I was being paid $20.00 a month and had no place to spend it. I
had more money than I had ever had before, so I bought the
shoes. I never saw much of that kid after that because we were
in different work groups.
One day at Camp Pendleton in California, when we were forming the
Fourth Marine Division, I heard a guy telling about selling his
shoes for five dollars at an NYA school in South Houston in
order to get money to play craps. I walked over and introduced
myself as the buyer of the shoes. His name was W. C. Reeves and
he was in the same company in JASCO that I was in. We became
very good friends and remain so to this day!
My cousin, Nolan Crockett, with whom I tried to join the Navy,
went with me to the NYA school until it was time for him to go
in, but he was very unhappy there. He had chosen welding as his
subject. After a few weeks, the shipyards at Beaumont, Texas,
needed welders very badly. They requested permission to hire
out of the school. Several young men signed up to work at the
shipyards, including Nolan. He found he hated the work, even
though the pay was good, and decided to activate his Navy
enlistment early. He soon left for Great Lakes Naval Training
Center, and it was a long time before we saw each other again.
After Nolan left, I was lonely, but I was determined to stick it
out -- until they moved in a large party of young girls. When
they came aboard, the males had to give up their new dorms and
recreation hall and several other goodies previously ours. We
were moved into some old run-down building. Needless to say, we
were not very happy.
On top of that, the girls didn't give a hoot about learning
sheet metal or much of anything else. They were looking for a
good time. In the shop, they drove those of us who wanted to
learn up the wall, asking us to show them how to make little
metal trinkets, etc. I know some of you guys out there reading
this are making some masculine noises about now, but believe me,
there is always a time to play and another time to work. To me,
the shop and classroom was a time to work and study. I was
hoping things would improve, but they got worse.
That is when I decided to leave and return home. In order to
leave, you had to provide an acceptable reason -- one of which
was that you were entering the military service. That's the
one I used, so I packed up and set out, using my thumb to get me
to Dallas. Somewhere outside Houston, I was picked up by a guy
driving a Chevrolet coupe.
When he stopped, I asked to put my bag in the trunk, but he said
there was no room. I wondered about that, but kept quiet and
nursed my bag in the front seat. The guy was beginning to
frighten me with his fast driving and habit of constantly
looking to see who was behind him. He paid no attention to what
was in front of him. Well, it happened.... He lost control,
rolled over into a ditch, and landed almost on the side. I had
just enough room to crawl out the window.
As soon as I did, I could hear liquid running from the trunk. I
walked to the back of the car and discovered that the trunk had
been full of bootleg whiskey and he was a smuggler. That was it
for me -- I made a hasty retreat out of there and soon found
another ride.
Late that day, I arrived in Dallas and went directly to see my
young fiance, who was living with her brother and his wife.
They lived very near the Sears Roebuck Mail Order House, and
that is where Evelyn was working. She and I spent some long
hours discussing our future, which is when we decided to go for
broke and get married. We then started planning the wedding and
decided we should be married on my 18th birthday, November 2,
1942. We were to be married in a small church nearby and the
pastor, Reverend Harris, was to perform the ceremony.
After we made all our plans, I left and returned to my mother's
place in the old Mt. Joy community. On the way through Cooper,
however, I stopped at one of the banks, the Delta National. I
went in and gave the teller a $20.00 silver certificate and told
her I wanted to redeem the certificate for silver, and that I
wanted twenty silver dollars. No one in the bank wanted to
grant my request, so I finally demanded to see the manager.
Only after an argument with him did I succeed in getting my
twenty silver dollars. Two of those silver dollars are the same
two dollars we had left after the wedding. As I have stated, we
still have them -- fifty-four years later.
It was only a few days later that I wrote the letter to Evelyn
suggesting that we not get married until after the war. You
have already heard about her reaction -- she took the bus from
Dallas, about 90 miles away, and arrived in Cooper that night.
My uncle, Wayne Cooper, brought her out to the farm where I was
staying. The rest has already been told, but one funny episode
has not.
After we made the decision to get married right away, it started
to rain. We considered getting married in Texas, but there were
several roadblocks in our way. First, both of us would have to
have a blood test that required three days. Then there were
some problems of an 18 year-old male getting married at all.
Our farm was located almost exactly one mile beyond any paved
road, so my step-father had to leave his car parked on the
pavement and walk the mile to our house. We finally decided to
elope to Oklahoma, and my step-father agreed to take us. Evelyn
and I got dressed, except we had to carry our shoes and walk,
barefooted, in the black mud to the car.
I don't remember just where, but we stopped and washed the mud
off, dried our wet feet, and prepared to put on our shoes.
However, in my haste to get going, I had forgotten to bring any
socks! We were already well on our way, and there was no way we
were going back!
Luckily, the city of Paris, Texas, was only about twenty miles
away and between us and Oklahoma, so we planned to stop there
and I would purchase a pair of socks. Not long afterward, we
arrived in Paris and found a store where I could buy a pair. I
went in, picked out the socks and, to my horror, discovered I
had left my wallet in the car, which was parked some distance
away. Evelyn, who was with me, had to pay for the socks. By
that time, I had lost all my pride, so I said "Why not?" Why
not borrow money from your future wife so that you could wear
socks to your own wedding?
Years later -- in 1959 -- Evelyn went with the Little League
mothers to the television show "It Could Be you." The host
surprised her by saying "It could be YOU, Evelyn Duncan!" and
presented her with a large plaque with a pair of socks crossed
like swords on it. We will never forget the affair of the
socks!
You have heard the rest of the story -- how, when we arrived
back in Dallas, we had only the two silver dollars to start our
life together. Evelyn already had a job at the Sears Mail Order
House, and I found a job driving a moving van for a furniture
and moving business.
When you are an 18 year-old male, married with a world war
raging, you work wherever you can. Until then, I had never in
my life driven anything larger than a half-ton pickup, and here
I was, telling this business owner that I could drive anything
with wheels. He hired me on the spot and gave me a work order
to take the big International moving van and drive about fifty
miles outside Dallas, load up all the furniture, etc., at the
large estate, and deliver it to the new address. To say that I
was a little apprehensive would be the understatement of the
year.
I went in the office, picked up the keys, and found the van in
the yard. Already at the truck was my helper, a huge black man
who could lift almost anything. I crawled in behind the wheel
and sat there, dumbfounded. I looked over at my helper and
asked him if he could drive a truck. He said he could. "Well,"
I said, "You show me how to start this thing and we'll get
underway."
To make a long story short, we did, in fact, get started --
after a fashion. I think I was out of the city before I figured
out how to get the shift out of what I called compound low, and
had run over half the curbs in the city. Every time I tried to
shift gears, the transmission sounded as if it was coming
apart.
Finally, my helper suggested that it might work better if I
double-clutched it before trying to shift. "What in the heck is
THAT?" I asked. I finally got the hang of it, more or less, and
arrived at the home where I got the next shock. The owner
demanded that I back the moving van up the long, winding drive
between large trees and through a large breezeway to the back of
the house. They wanted me to load from the rear of the house
because it would present a neater view to the neighbors! I
finally got the truck up the drive and through the breezeway,
but it took me well over an hour.
I survived that first day and things got better after I (more or
less) learned to drive that van. One thing became more and more
muddy in my mind, however -- why had this man hired a green 18
year-old who had never really SEEN a moving van, much less
driven one?
If I live to be 150, I will never meet a man who was more
selfish, greedier, stingier, and just plain mean than this man I
worked for. So you might know that I didn't stay with that job
long, even though I badly needed it.
The final straw broke one day when he sent me out on a job to
move a family from near Southern Methodist University to a place
across the Trinity River to the Oak Cliff section. The fuel
tank was almost empty and I told the owner I needed a full tank
to make the trip. At that time in history, all fuel was
rationed.
Just before rationing went into effect, he had me storing all
types of fuel in 55 gallon drums all over the yard. In short,
he was in total violation of the law, but his greed was so
strong he ignored it. As I suspected, he refused to let me have
any fuel, and when I reached the house where I was to pick up
the furniture, the truck was out of fuel.
I called in and asked the owner to send enough fuel to complete
the trip. He sent out just a couple of gallons, not nearly
enough. Sure enough, I ran out of fuel again. This time, he
sent out another truck and towed me back to the yard.
Many times, he would send me out on a job at about 4:00 p.m.,
telling me it would only take an hour or so. When I arrived, I
would find a full house of furniture to move. I wouldn't get
home from work until around 10:00 p.m., and he refused to pay me
for the extra hours, saying it was my fault that I took so
long.
Finally, my number came up, and I decided to join the Marines.
THE NATIONAL YOUTH ADMINISTRATION
THE BOOTLEGGER
THE SAGA OF THE SOCKS
THE MOVING VAN MAN
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