Read Ebook: The Biography of a Rabbit by Benson Roy

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For a change sometimes in the summer, we would go down about two miles toward Honeoye and there was a place you could drive a car along the creek away from the road to where the banks got steep. There was a nice point by the creek where the ground was level and there were lots of tall pines. Clarence had a panel truck and there was a mattress in the back to sleep on. We would set up a canvas cover to cook and eat under. It was a beautiful spot where we could stay for the weekend. Sometimes I would take Ray Smith or Chuck Spears with me. There were places where the creek was a couple of feet deep and we would go skinny dipping. I often think of all that I would have missed doing if it had not been for Clarence.

About 1930 or shortly there after, Clarence and Gordon bought five acres of land from Tony Miller along the edge of his farm. They paid an acre for it and about four and one half acres of woods, then the creek with a clearing beside it. After we had it surveyed we put up some markers at the back corners which were up the hill. It was level for about 1/2 to 1 acre at the bottom and the woods went up the hill fairly steep. About two months after buying the land we were walking around the property line and found that Tony Miller was cutting down the big trees, 2 to 2 1/2 feet in diameter, and dragging them onto his property. He had cut about ten of the big trees and didn't think we would be over there to find out. We went down to Bristol Center and got the local Sheriff and had him serve papers of some sort on Tony Miller. We never got any of the big trees back, but he didn't cut any more. There was one big oak about 3 1/2 feet in diameter that had been cut down and still on our property. I would go up there and sit on it and hunt squirrels. We never did cut it up for firewood as we never had a saw big enough to do it. The knowledge of trees that I learned in Boy Scouts gave me an interest in the trees that were on our property. There were pine, oak, maple, beech, basswood and a very hard wood. The ironwood did not grow very big and had a twisted trunk. The bark was slate grey, smooth and it was properly named because it sawed like iron.

We bought the lumber for the cabin at Davidson's Lumber Yard on West Avenue in Canandaigua and they delivered it for us. I remember being over there and waiting for the truck to get there. The driver got lost and it took him half the day to find us. After we had unloaded the lumber, he sat and visited with us the rest of the day. I was about 12 or 13 years old so could help my brothers saw the boards and nail them up. I recall putting the wood shingles on the roof. We even had a front door that we could use when we had company. Gordon was good with mason work so he put in the cement block foundation and built the big stone fireplace at one end of the cabin. We had a lot of good fireplace fires and used to sit around it by the hour. Sometimes we would find a piece of apple wood to burn, which makes a beautiful fire. We also had a wood burning stove which we used for cooking. The cabin had one large room and two bedrooms partitioned off at one end by six foot high partitions. The walls were just the clapboards on the outside so it was not very warm in the winter. Just about like Horseshoe Camp I imagine. It was nice and warm, however, if you kept the fire going.

We had a wood bin in the back of the cabin that came out into the room a couple of feet and had a cover that lifted up. On the outside we had a door on hinges that would raise up and thus we could fill the wood box from outside. One time someone broke in through that woodbox and stole a couple of my brother's guns, but that was the only time we were ever robbed. We used to drink the water from the creek even though there were cows pastured not far up stream. We thought that if the water ran five hundred feet from the cows that it would be pure again. It never hurt us but we soon found another way to get water. There was a small gully next to the cabin that was wet most of the year, so we drove an iron pipe back in the shale three or four feet and put a pan under it to catch the water that dripped out. In the summer it would drip about a gallon a day which was enough for drinking.

I forgot to mention that the first thing we had to do before we built the cabin was to build a bridge across the creek. We cut two trees about the size of telephone poles and nailed boards on top. At least twice during our years there, the bridge was washed out by the spring floods. Usually it was found not very far downstream so we would drag it back and renail the boards down. I mentioned before, the Scout trips to Camp Woodcraft which usually took place on a Saturday. It must have been nice to have all the energy that we had at that age. After running all day at Scout Camp, Ray Smith and I would walk to Berby Hollow after the rest of the troop left for home. We followed the edge of the big gully down into Bristol Valley and then walked south on the road until Mud Creek passed under the bridge to our side of the road. It was too deep to cross anywhere else. Then we would climb the hill to the west, which is about where Bristol Mountain Ski Area is now located, then cross the top of the hill, which was fairly flat, and Down into Berby. We Couldn't get lost because I knew this area very well and when we came to the Berby Hollow Road I knew whether to turn right or left to get to the cabin. It was about a six mile walk and we could make it there by dark. We only did this when Clarence was planning to be there and we could spend the night and come home with him the next day.

After we got the cabin built we planted some pine trees in the yard along the creek. I remember getting six pine trees from a nursery. They were so small that I carried them inside a small cereal box. The last time I was by there they were all living and about fifteen feet tall. We named the camp "Hunting's End" and we had a sign on a post out by the road near the gate we made to keep people from driving in. When you crossed the bridge we had three stone and concrete steps up the bank and Gordon cemented a sundial on top of a three foot high stone and concrete base. It was accurate and we used it to tell time.

This area of Bristol was sparsely populated in those days and there was no house between the cabin and Honeoye. Sometimes we would need extra groceries and would go to Treble's store in Honeoye for them. After high School I went with his daughter Althea for a while. We bought most of our groceries in Canandaigua before we left for camp and could get enough food for two of us for a week for . We bought them at a little grocery store on South Main Street owned by Ernie Watts. Most of our meals consisted of boiled ham, Pancakes and jello. We probably had other things but these are what I remember. Most of our meat is what we got hunting. We often had fried squirrel, rabbit or partridge. We used to start hunting partridge right from the back door of the cabin and once Gordon got a bird about 100 feet up the hill. At times in the winter we would get up in the morning and see deer and fox tracks in the snow within ten feet of the cabin. The cabin was in a valley with a hill to the west so it would be almost dark by 4:30 PM so we would start a fire in the fireplace and eat our dinners early. We would heat up the sliced boiled ham and eat it with pancakes. We had a large round cast iron griddle and cooked with it on top of the wood stove. Clarence would make his pancake and then sit at a table in front of the fireplace to eat. While he ate his, I would cook mine and he would be done when mine was ready. We took turns like this until we were full and then we would eat our dessert together. We didn't have to hurry any as the evenings were long.

The only lights we had in the cabin were Coleman gasoline lanterns and we would read by it at night. We had an outside "john" about 30 feet up the hill in back of the cabin with stone steps cut in the bank. It was a one holer surrounded by blinds we took off an old house somewhere. You could sit inside and run the slats up and down to see out. Sometimes we would take a gun with us and watch for partridge while we sat.

One weekend we arrived at camp to find a dead partridge on one of the beds. It had flown through a window and couldn't get out again. Another time a red squirrel got down the fireplace and really made a mess of the cabin. He even chewed off the wood around the glass in the windows. He didn't get out and we found him in there dead.

We built a dam in the creek to make a place for our Saturday night bath and it was about two feet deep with a nice smooth rock bottom. We had an overflow in the dam to raise or lower the level by inserting or removing planks. We took the planks out during the spring floods. The level area between the creek and the road was large enough so we could have softball games and park cars there.

In those days we often hunted squirrels as I have mentioned. There were many pure black squirrels then and we would hunt for them just because they were different. One place up on top of the hill there were fox squirrels but we never killed one of them. Fox squirrels are much larger than gray squirrels and they have a long bushy tail like a fox. We could see them in the woods but were never able to get close to one. Most of them were up on top of the hill on posted property belonging to the Sanetarium in Clifton Springs. It was called the Sanetarium Farm and they raised farm and dairy products for use at Clifton. It seemed strange that they would have a farm so far away.

You can check the map for the location of some of the places I write about. We were told about a spring on the Lower Egypt Valley Road where we could get water that was really pure. Just down the bank at the side of the road there was a pool of clear water about three feet across with the water bubbling out of the rocks at the bottom of it. This water was so cold that it didn't even freeze in the winter time and on the hottest summer day it was so cold that you couldn't hold your hand under it. Eventually, Stuart Caves of Caves Lumber Company in Holcomb, built a lovely summer home on the lot including the spring, but they always allowed people to get water there.

There was an intersection in the road just down from the cabin with a telephone pole. We made arrow signs with cities and mileage painted on them and nailed them to the pole. They pointed towards Honeoye, Naples, Rochester and Canandaigua. They were still there for years after the camp was sold. Several times Clarence and I walked home to Canandaigua just to see how long it would take us. It was about 15 miles distance and we always made it in about four hours and fifteen minutes. One time when it was snowing I was wearing a heavy pair of overshoes and about halfway home they got too heavy for me, so I took them off and hid them under a large rock beside the road. The next time we went to camp I picked them up.

We had a black and white cow hide for a rug in the cabin. Across the road and up on the hill was a berry patch and in the spring there would be berry pickers up there, when they looked our way, I would put the cow hide over me and chase Clarence around the yard. They were just far enough away that it may have looked real to them. At least they used to stand there watching us.

One of Clarence's friends had a fox hound that we would keep with us for fox hunting. His name was "Shimmer-boo" and he was large. One Christmas vacation we got snowed in and the fellow who owned the dog came after us in a truck. I lost three days of school which was a treat. We slipped and slid around in the snow on the hill, but finally made it up the hill, on to home and back to school. We all rode in the front seat of the truck with that big smelly dog on my lap all the way home. You know how big and gangly those fox hounds are. I'll never forget that ride home.

We had a trapdoor in the floor of the cabin with a four foot square pit dug out beneath. We would store foodstuffs down there where it was cooler. There were all kinds of nut trees around and at one time we had two bushels of butternuts, one of walnuts and two of hickory nuts down under the floor. After they were there a couple of years we took them out and burned them in the fireplace. Two bushels of hickory nuts would be worth a fortune now. Halfway up the hill on our property there was a pine tree about three feet through the trunk and very tall. The limbs came straight out of the trunk so you could climb up it just like you were climbing a ladder. About forty feet up I built a platform and used it for my secret hideaway. I could see down to the road and when we were expecting company, I would go up there and watch for them.

We used to do a lot of partridge hunting and there was an older man by the name of Bill Brooks who went along with us, without a gun, just for the joy of walking in the woods. He carried a flask of whiskey and every so often would stop to sit on a tree stump and have another nip. He never bothered our hunting and was nice to have along. He was the father of one of the girls Gordon used to go out with.

We had to cut all our firewood with a two man crosscut saw or a one man crosscut saw about three feet long. Our only problems were when we went over to camp for a weekend, we had to spend the first day cutting wood and the second day hunting. We never got very far ahead with our woodpile. We would cut trees one to two feet in diameter. At the back corner of the cabin there was a gully that went up the hill but it never had any water in it's six foot deep depression. After we cut the trees into chunks we would roll them over to the gully and start them down the hill. They would bound up in the air and sometimes jump out of the gully where trees would halt their flight. They would go about 40 feet and then we would start them out again. At the bottom they would be traveling quite fast so we made a barricade of chunks about the size of a cord of wood, to protect the cabin. It was an easy way to get the wood down the hill and the chunks ended up right by our wood pile for splitting. We would cut the basswood chunks about a foot long as it was a very straight wood, soft and wonderful to split for kindling. I would sit on one chunk of wood and split another with my scout hatchet. It would split almost down to the size of a pencil and I always kept a big pile of it to start fires with. When we were cutting down trees we would put all the brush into piles so that there would be places for the rabbits to hide. When we were hunting rabbits, we could kick the pile with our foot and scare them out. We had a basswood tree with a nest of honey Bees in a hole about 10 feet up the trunk. One day when it was about zero degrees out, we cut the tree down and when it hit the ground the bees flew up in the air about ten feet before the cold got them and they fell to the ground. We got out all the beeswax comb and took it back to the cabin and made honey.

On top of the hill in back of the cabin there were a lot of open fields and in one we found a big old wagon wheel that we could roll way up to the top and start it down into the open fields. It would roll a long way before it came to the woods. Next time we came up we would bring it with us. Sometimes we would carry our skis with us about two miles up the hill and then ski down criss cross all the way back to the cabin. Once I was sitting on top of a brush lot hunting fox and I heard a noise behind me. I turned around very slowly and there were three deer eating grass about ten feet behind me! One moonlit night at midnight we went up there and sat watching for foxes to cross the open field. With the moon light on the snow you can see for a long ways and it was very quiet. It is amazing how you can do something like that just once in your life and never forget it--the sight, sound and feeling. I can close my eyes right now and see those open fields and trees just as clearly as fifty seven years ago.

We did not have anti-freeze for the car in those days. We put alcohol in the radiator to be safe at about zero degrees. You couldn't put anymore than that because every time the car got warm it would boil over. On very cold nights we would drain the radiator into a large pan and take it into the cabin. One night it went down to 26 degrees below zero and I believe that is still the record for this area. We took the mattress off the other bed and put it over us and a big wooden chair on top of that to keep it from sliding off. Clarence always got up first in the morning and I still hear him crumpling newspapers to start the fire again if it was out. We had a trap line to see to as we were leaving home later in the day. I put on every piece of clothing I could find and was so stiff I could hardly walk. We had to go around the whole line and spring the traps as we would not be back for a week. We then put the anti-freeze on the stove and melted it as we had left it outside all night and it was frozen. We put it back in the radiator and headed home.

Halfway down the road into Berby Hollow was an old dirt road to the right that went along the hill through the woods. It crossed a deep gully with a sharp S turn and crossed an old wooden bridge. Just on the other side was an old abandoned house whose basement windows were covered by iron bars. It was all grown up with brush and vines and we speculated that slaves or prisoners had been kept there in the basement. It was a very interesting spot to a boy. Near the back of this house we found the remains of an old wooden railway track. It went from the top of the bank alongside a deep gulley and down to the creek in Berby Hollow. The ties and rails all made of wood and rails were about 18 inches apart. It was very steep and ended at the top of a cliff down by the creek. We never did find out what it was used for. It was still recognizable as a track however. It may have been used to get logs down to the creek and a sawmill when the water was high enough.

We had a 22 rifle that was probably purchased in the 1920s by one of my brothers. When he needed money he sold it to another brother for less than he paid for it. Whenever the owner needed money, he would sell it again with the one dollar loss. I finally bought it for and still have it. It is a very good gun and shoots straight. I used it to hunt woodchucks for many years up to the 1960s when I hunted with Harold Kennedy and Brownie. It is the rifle I taught Lynn to shoot with.

My time at Berby was from age 9 to the end of high school in 1935. After that I used to go there with the fellows I played ball with and we would have parties and go hunting. After high school I never spent a night there. When I was in the Air Corps, Clarence and Gordon sold the camp for 00. If I had been home at that time I think I would have bought it. It would make a beautiful summer camp even today. Goodbye to a lot of good times.

School Years

I started school in 1923 and went to the Adelaide Avenue School for grades 1 to 3. I attended the old Union School, where the YMCA is now located, for grades 4 through 8. I attended High School at the Academy on North Main Street. My first two years of high school were uneventful. In my Junior year Ken Montanye and I were on the baseball team and from then on all we could think about was baseball. Ken was so crazy about playing that he would stay for practice after school and then have to walk all the way home to Cheshire.

Being able to run so fast, I might have been very good on the track team or at soccer. All the meets would come on the same day so I had to choose just one and baseball was my choice. One time they needed someone to run the hundred yard dash in the sectional meet at Geneva. as there was no baseball game that day, they showed me how to use the starting block and away we went! I came in third place about three feet behind the winner so there is no telling what I could have done with training and practice.

The boy next door and I would walk to school together and had one thing we loved to do. We would save firecrackers from the Fourth of July and in the winter time, going up Main Street, we would put a firecracker in a snowball, light it, throw it up in the air over the kids walking on the other side of the street. We were real proud because we were the only ones with firecrackers. We also would build forts of snow in the lot behind our house and then put firecrackers in snowballs and throw them into the front of the enemy's fort, trying to blow it down. We were just lucky that no one ever got hurt during these pranks.

I never had to much homework in school because I could remember everything I read. History dates and Chemistry formulas were easy for me although sometimes I didn't know what they meant. English, math and algebra were almost impossible for me and I barely passed. I got only 52 in Latin and didn't know why anyone would take that subject anyway.

I had a small part in the Senior Play and the night before the performance the male lead came down with acute appendicitis and went to the hospital. They wanted someone else in the play to take his place and they would prompt him from side stage. I knew all his lines by heart and I could have played the part with no prompting at all. But, to my utter dismay, the hero had to kiss the heroine!! She naturally was the prettiest little girl in the whole school. I realized that kissing her would be a whole lot different than playing baseball and I couldn't take the chance. Imagine turning down the chance of the lead in the Senior Play for a stupid reason like that! Three or four years later I began to notice girls and wished that I had taken the lead part.

In 1936 I took a post graduate year just so I could play baseball another year. Ken Montanye was in his senior year so he would be playing too. I hadn't decided what kind of work I was going to do, so thought that I might as well go to school. I took just morning subjects, Physics and Chemistry because I liked the teacher so well. I had gotten 91 in Chemistry my Senior year and took it over again to try to raise my mark. When I took the Regents Exam at the end of the year, they gave you three hours to do the exam. The Chemistry and Physics exams were both the same afternoon. I completed both in 1 1/2 hours before anyone else had finished even one. I got 96 in Chemistry and 99 in Physics. This was about the only good thing I did in high school.

On St. Patrick's Day in 1936 we had a very bad ice storm and the big trees in our front yard were hit hard. Big limbs about one foot in diameter were coming down. They sounded just like cannon shots and kept us awake most of the night. One big limb was laying across the roof and we had to get up there and saw it in pieces and patch the hole in the ridge. Every time I go by the house I can still see the indentation in the ridge of the roof where the tree hit 50 years ago. The winter pear tree in the side yard by the driveway is still there and bears fruit as it did in the 1920s. There was no traffic on the road during that storm as the roads were filled with trees. I started for school with my lunch bag in hand, and going up Main Street the only place to walk was about six feet wide in the center. I got almost to the Academy when I met kids coming back who were saying there was no school. I started for home and stopped at the bridge over Sucker Brook on Chapen Street. I went down under the bridge and ate my lunch. My father and brother spent the next three days cutting up the trees in our front yard. We kept warm because of the coal furnace but had no electricity for days.

I still believe that we had more snow in those days than we do now. One time we made a tunnel out from the back door about fifteen feet before we got into the open and used it that way until it melted. Another time Jack VanBrooker's car was stuck up on Thad Chapin and the next day we went up to look for it digging holes in the snow until we found the roof. My lunch time during my Senior year was an hour long and I would run all the way from the high school to the west end of Chapin Street, get a sandwich and run back to school. I ran down Main Street and cut through Wilcox Lane, near where the Palmers lived, across the railroad tracks and through the swamp where the Elementary School was eventually built, then over Pearl Street. It was almost two miles each way so if I had been on the track team I would have done well. That swampy area below the tracks had enough water in it in the winter time to make a hockey rink if you didn't mind a few bushes growing up here and there. I was on a hockey team and played there a couple of winters. Sometimes we would also play hockey on the lake by Kershaw Park.

After High School 1936-1940

During the summer of 1936 I tried working as a grocery clerk on Main Street. The people who traded there were mostly Italians and most spoke very little English, so I couldn't understand them. At that time you had to get each item for the customer and after two days of trying to figure out what they wanted I was so nervous that I had to quit. Then I went to work for my father in the painting business. My first job was painting a wooden railing down to the lake at a cottage on the West Lake Road. I started out at fifty cents per hour. My father used to take all the jobs, arrange the work and do the collection. We had a very good line of customers and in all the years I worked with him, we only had one customer who refused to pay all of his bill.

About 1937 Dorothy was working for a state official as a secretary, in Hornell, New York and she had a 1929 Ford coupe that she wanted to sell. She and Barney had been married and they didn't need two cars. They were living in an upstairs apartment and Barney had started working as a plumber for the man in the lower apartment who ran a plumbing business. My mother bought the car for me for .00 and I went to Hornell to get the car. I had just got my drivers license and driving alone for the first time I didn't dare stop the car on the way home. I just slowed down a little at intersections and I remember making a right turn in Dansville through a red light as I didn't dare stop. I soon got used to the car and admired the rumble seat in the back. Ray Smith and I used this car to go to all our baseball games and take our dates to all the square dances. I named the car "Little Eva".

We went to square dances every Saturday night at Baptist Hill, Cheshire, Bristol Springs, Honeoye or Atlanta. I didn't know a thing about dancing so the first date I took to the dance, I had several drinks and they pushed me out on the floor keeping me there until I learned how. Ray Smith didn't drive and he was always getting me blind dates so he could have a ride. I went with a lot of girls-Althea Treble and Rosemary Schmuck from Honeoye, Barbara Sherman from Gainsville, Julie Jones from Bristol, and Earnestine Fairbrothers from Atlanta, New York. For about six months I went with a beautiful girl, Ruth Richardson from Woodville. She was so pretty I guess I was lucky to have gone with her that long. These dances were all in the winter time and we had to ride four in the front seat of the car. We went to a lot of movies too, in Rochester and Geneva.

I played baseball for several years with Ken Montanye, Skip Dewey, Ray Smith and Len Pierce. I played for the Cheshire team and the Canandaigua town team. It was called semi-pro ball and we played teams from all around this area. The only one that got paid was the pitcher. They had a try-out camp for the Red Wings for three days at Red Wing Stadium in Rochester. Ken and I signed up for it and we lasted two days before being eliminated. Some of the pitchers were so fast I could hardly see the ball go by. I wish that I had been six feet tall and weighed more because I really wanted to be a baseball player.

It was during these years that Len Pierce and I became good friends. When we played for the Cheshire ball team we would hang out a lot at the barber shop in Cheshire. They had two pool tables and a coal stove at the back of the shop with chairs around it. We used to get warm in winter while waiting for a haircut or the chance to play pool. The barber was John Johnson, an older man with white hair. We got a haircut for $.25 and I went there for several years.

The gang used to hang out at Chase's Ice Cream Store on South Main Street several evenings a week. We ate a lot of ice cream and sundaes. Sometimes around 1938 I sold "Little Eva" and bought a 1935 Ford coupe that used to belong to a dentist. The finish was so dull from sitting out in the sun behind his office that I polished it for about a month before I got it to shine well. There were about six of us who went to all the square dances together every Saturday night. We would buy a half gallon of wine and at the dance we would set the jug on the hood of the car and keep running out to it for drinks. Nobody ever touched our bottles--probably didn't care for our cheap wine.

One day in 1938 when we came home from work we found my mother standing on the back porch with her head jerking and she was unable to talk. We called the doctor and he said she was having a stroke. We had no idea how long she had been like this, unable to call for help. She was paralyzed in the right arm completely and partially in the right leg. Her speech was affected a little. In those days there was no kind of rehabilitation so she was unable to do any work. My father had to continue working so we hired a housekeeper to come in days to do the cooking and housekeeping. I can imagine what this did to my mother, having a stranger doing all the things she had done for so many years. I am not sure as to how many months she lived before she had the second stroke, which was fatal. She never did go to the hospital because doctors made house calls in those days. We had a Dr. Stetson and he would walk right in the house without knocking and sit down at the dining room table and visit with everyone before he would see the one who was sick. I suppose with a family of nine children he made enough visits to feel like one of the family.

After having the stroke, my mother slept in a downstairs bedroom and my father would sit by the bed in a rocking chair and hold my mother's hand. He slept in the chair and still worked every day. In my memory this will always be the perfect definition of love. It must have been wonderful for them to have a relationship filled with such love. At this time, my mother, dad and I were the only ones living at home.

My mother's funeral was held at home in the front room which was called the parlor in those days. It was a common practice to hold funeral services in the home at that time. As I was 19 years old, playing baseball, working and in love with the girl next door, the full impact of my mother's death did not hit me until years later. Like I suppose everyone else feels, I now regret not doing more for my mother to have made her life more enjoyable and easier for her.

When I was in high school I went to a Dr. Brockmayer who had an office on Chapin Street almost down to Main St. His office was in his house, in the front room. The charge was either a dollar or two. He had a large roll top desk with a bushel basket beside it. When anyone paid, he would throw the money into the basket. I can still see that basket about half full of bills.

After my mother died, my father and I tried having a housekeeper but that didn't last long and we decided to keep house for ourselves. Dad did the cooking and as near as I can remember we ate pork chops and canned peaches most of the time. I did the washing and ironing and I could do the shirts quite well. My father had a big oak roll top desk he used for all his book-keeping. He saved dimes in a codfish box with a slot in the cover. He nailed the cover on so he wouldn't use them before it was full. He couldn't resist knowing how much he had so every few days he would pull the nails out and count it. I remember one day he was sitting at the desk with one of those little rubber bladed defroster fans that they used to put in the rear window of cars. He was trying to fix it and he plugged it into the outlet. It ran like hell for a few minutes before it burned out the motor. It surprised him so he dropped it like a hot potato.

About 1937, a couple of years after high school, Skip Dewey, Ray Smith and I went to Florida for two weeks. We went in Skip's car which used a lot of oil so we carried a case of oil in the trunk and would stop a couple of times a day to add more. We rented a small cabin in Ft. Lauderdale and stayed for a week. We didn't do much while there except lay on the beach and watch the girls. At that time there wasn't much else to do as it wasn't developed the way it is now. As I recall it only cost each of us for the two week trip. On the way home I remember one morning on the road through Georgia when we passed an old shack occupied by a black family. The fields were white with frost and a little boy in a white nightgown was running through the field to the outhouse way out in the back.

We stopped late one night in Pennsylvania to put more oil on the car and it would not pour out of the can. We had intended to spend the night in a nearby town with Skip's brother so we just drove the rest of the way. When we arrived we found out that it was 15 degrees below zero and that was why the oil would not pour!

My mother died in 1938 and the following winter my dad and I went to Florida for two weeks. We stayed in a tourist home in Orlando and drove around the state to places of interest. I was in love with the girl next door at the time and couldn't wait to get home. I probably made my father come back sooner than he would have liked for that reason. However, when I got home, she had become engaged to someone else and they eventually married. Oh--such is life! We drove all the way to Florida and back and only made one wrong turn. That was in Dansville, New York and so close to home that it didn't make any difference.

When Gordon returned from Nebraska, he started painting by himself. I never knew why, but he always worked alone and had his own line of customers. When work was hard to get just after the depression in the early 1930's, Leon got a job as a painter at Brigham Hall. He worked all his years there, for low wages, just for job security. He built a house on Chapin Street just across from our house. We dug the foundation with a scoop pulled by Clarence's panel bodied truck and a chain. We also used a wheelbarrow and shovels. He put up a ready-cut house from Sears and Roebuck that cost ,500. All the pieces came cut and numbered, with instructions to tell you how to put it together. He hired one carpenter and all of us boys to help him. This must have been in the early thirties and the house is still a nice looking one. Last year I noticed that they put on vinyl siding. Leon had to sell it years later for financial reasons and has had to rent since that time as he never made enough money to buy again.

Dad, Clarence and I painted together and my father arranged all the work and did the collecting. Clarence did most of the high work and Dad did the open places as he was a fast painter. I did the windows and became good at it. We worked together well by each doing what he could do best. That saved time and money. When my father was in his 70's he could spread more paint than the rest of us, although he began to miss spots when his eye sight was beginning to go. My uncles Jim and Ed were in the painting business also; Uncle Ed wore a tie and a celluloid collar all his life, even when painting in hot weather. His wife did all the book keeping for him.

In 1939 my father married my Aunt Constance and I guess he thought she was like my mother. She was just the opposite and I don't think my father enjoyed life as much after that. He worked right up until his death at age 75. He used to get up with the sun and work in the Garden or mow the lawn until it was time to go to work. He was a very good bowler and traveled to cities in the area to bowl for money. I recall one time when he won 0 in Auburn. One time he and Leon went with a team to bowl in the national tournament in Chicago. When he married again I moved out of the house and rented a room on South Main Street, staying there about a year before moving to another place just below Clark Street on Main. I also lived there about a year.

There was a diner next to where I was living--one of those diners made from an old trolley car--and I ate my meals there for two years. I got to know them so well that I would just walk in the diner, tell them I wanted dinner, and they would fix me a plate. I never did know what I would be getting until it was in front of me. On the nights I was going to square dances I would tell them to give me fried foods so the alcohol would not give me too much of a hangover. The food was good and they gave you a lot of it. In the winter I remember the windows being all frosted over and you couldn't see in or out.

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