WHAT TO DOI signed up in the government program which provided $20 per week for 52 weeks----the famous 52-20 Club. Jobs were not readily available due to strikes and retooling of factories from war goods to peacetime output. With some of the savings I had sent home, I enrolled at the University of Pittsburgh for brush-up courses in Math, Chemistry and English.The worst part of attending Pitt followed a Sunday afternoon of pitching horseshoes with friend Bill Hamilton and brother Ray. It was a hot day so I wore shorts. The pits were set up in an old pasture field with a crop of...POISON IVY which I failed to notice. In a couple of days my legs below my knees were covered with a pustulated throbbing mess. Going to classes during the next week or two, it was necessary to wrap the resulting exudate to prevent it from oozing through my pant legs. After enduring such suffering, I think the only thing worse than Hell is ending up there with a case of IVY POISON! Once the Luther League youth group made a trip on a Sunday afternoon to the Passavant Orphans Home in Zelienople. I was driving a carful of us home that evening on Route 19 south. Traffic was heavy and there was a 'slow down, speed up' pattern going on. On one of the 'slow downs', the auto I was trailing came to an abrupt halt. Being too close, I hit his bumper with my front fender, putting a two-inch concave, wide dent in it. His car suffered no damage so we all went on. Next day, Dad took the event in stride, probably happy that no one was hurt. For days later, with limited swing room, I pounded on the inside of that fender with a ball-peen hammer cushioned with a piece of tire sidewall. I never got all of the dent smoothed out but I ended up with a sore arm and a reverence for the thickness of the body metal on that 1936 Chevrolet! A word to the wise: leave plenty of braking room between you and the car ahead. Air is cheap insurance. Nope, I never went on a hayride! I had a date to go on one but ended up in bed with the mumps. I was advised to stay immobile to preserve any virility I might have at age 21! Sometime, maybe post-war, some of us got a bug to build horseshoe pits on our church grounds for some recreation. Where does one go to find suitable "free" clay for such a project? The Mother of Invention guided us to the footer area under the new high bridge over the Thompson Run valley on Route 22 east, very near the future Monroeville Mall! The Department of Highways never charged us for the material (they never caught us) and the stuff turned out to be ideal for the purpose. Next, I matriculated at the Pennsylvania State University under the G.I. Bill and, because of overcrowding at the main campus, my first year took place at Clarion (PA) State College. An aptitude test indicated that my interests leaned toward earth sciences so I majored in Agronomy. This course entailed the study of crops and soils, fields in which I had utterly no experience. My rationale for this choice was that when it got down to basics, people had to eat, ergo I would always have work. Very shortly after entering Clarion, I received the following letter from a fellow-GI vet: ••• Olathe, Ks-Sept. 18, 1946 Dear Dumpy Stumpy, Received your august epistle not ten minutes back, and I must say I am surprized. I can remember your declaring whilst you blew mother of pearl smoke rings through the moonlit spaces of my tent that you Robert I would not suffer your lion-head be turned by some cypress-slender member of the fair sex. But-sadly alas-what find I here? The once mighty heart dawdling like any common lute player o'er the blandishments of a lovely head. For shame, great soul! Arise from the couch of dalliance, gird thy loins with resolution, and away with these sirens. Else inform your humble correspondent by what wolfish wiles, what amorous potion, what moon-blossoms, or witch's wand you charm these mortal treaders of amour's divine heights. O, speak happy one, what's your line Stumpy. Your old buddy bides his time at home, not tasting of the wine which you bespeak. True, I journey to Chicago at the end of the week to take up my academic round in the cloistered pale of the University of Chicago, but there if I am to remain beyond my first inquisition I must ply my book for all that's in me and not seek a more "liberal" education. Like you I have played the scholar during the summer, unlike you I have mimed my role at home, not in the great Gothic piles of some university, nor have I accomplished as much, merely getting through two courses, trigonometry & English composition. You are truely versatile my un-able-coursed friend. I have some sad news to report. You remember Mutchko, no doubt. Well, the other day, as it must to all men, marriage came to him. I burnt a candle for him, and I suggest you do the same. Dave Hirst, the only other member of the old Hump gang I know of, is going to Ohio Wesleyan this fall, and has some nebulous plans to enter Chicago in a year or so. I'm certainly glad to hear, young man, that you're giving the academic world such a whirl and sincerely expect to see you in Kansas in the next few years managing many acres. I hear there are plans in Washington right now to convert all of Pennsylvania into a national park as most of the land is sub-marginal anyway. Is this true? Yours, C.C. [Carmen C. Payne]•• The year at Clarion was satisfying. I was back to sleeping in a bunk, one of sixteen in a big dorm room converted from a campus machine shop. Most of us were ex-GI's and got along well. Extra activities included waiting tables and singing in the chorus. One evening after supper, some of us were having a bull session in the dorm. The subject of "snipe hunting" came up and my buddy Lew Clayton showed exceptional interest in such a sport. He had put in a hitch in the Navy which caused us to believe that he was wise to the world's ways. I thought he was 'putting us on' but he went so far as to check the word 'snipe' in a dictionary. Thereafter, he became an easy mark for a hands-on snipe hunt. We hiked him from the campus way down through the hillside woods to a spot just short of the Clarion River. There, at about 7 PM, we set up a snipe-trap with a bag placed between large rocks. Leaving the tyro alone with a flashlight to watch, the rest of us moved up the hill "to round up and chase the snipe toward the trap." Of course we kept going on back to our dorm. As a couple hours passed, we wondered whether Lew had tricked us and maybe had gone to a movie to let us 'stew'. But after a few more minutes, our victim came back from his lonely outpost and good-naturedly took his ribbing. It was there in that dorm room during a friendly discussion that I made an offhand suggestion. I don't remember how the subject arose but I merely said, "Let's go to Alaska". The following link describes the resultant action. |
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The next summer I worked on a local dairy farm as hired
help. One of the first jobs was helping fill in a drainage ditch with a
team and a hand scoop. I gladly accepted a chaw of tobacco during that
ordeal. Most of the time I worked with a wiry older fellow named
"Tiger" Woods. We milked the cow herd, made hay, stacked the wheat and
oat sheaves, and followed the combine through the neighborhood. I felt
tough as a railroad spike by the end of that season.. During the summer of '49, I contracted under the owner to spray paint barns and other structures. I was provided with a truck, the portable compressor, ladders, and paint. I learned how to combat wasps while hanging onto the top of a forty foot ladder propped against a round silo. I got by college without taking a course in Philosophy or Psychology. Hurray! But I did take quite a potpourri of subjects. Chemistry, Mathematics, History, English, Economics, Speech, Sociology, Agronomy, Bacteriology, Botany, Dairy Husbandry, Political Science, Entomology, Meteorology, Forestry, Engineering, Genetics, Geology, Animal Husbandry and Cartography. I sang tenor in the Glee Club and went on Spring tours. We were guest-directed for a couple of songs at Hunter College (NYC) by Fred Waring and sang a number on his radio show. We found the acoustics at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia was tops. I spectated at wrestling, basketball, gymnastics and football events. Took hikes into the Barrens and the mountains. Ice skated at Whipple Dam. I would hitchhike home to Franklin for weekends, sometimes popping in to see my grandparents at DuBois on the way. I went home one weekend with Jim Mitchell who farmed near Mahaffey. He had to clean out a pigpen where corn stover had been used for bedding. I grabbed a fork to help load the manure spreader. That stuff was meshed and trodden in such a way that I found I could only pick up dainty amounts at a time. Of course Jim was farm-bred, stronger than me and onto tricks of the trade, but I was still humbled. On that next Sunday morning, we two sang an impromptu duet at the CM&A church. While I was still at Penn State, I received notice from the Air Force reserves that they had changed my MOS from a 2756 Radio Operator Mechanic to a Flight Veterinary Assistant. It sounded too much like I might end up baby-sitting a bunch of hysterical mules in the back end of a C-46. So I opted out! During my last semester, I had a part-time job helping with grass research in the greenhouse and field plots. After I graduated I had not received any job offers, so I stayed on helping on research. It was soon evident that I had inherited my mother's predisposition to hay fever and I soon quit. It must have been around this time that I gave up a decades-old habit which maybe was taught to me by my parents. I quit parting my hair! Maybe it was because I liked to sleep in to the last possible moment. Anyway, nobody complained so I dropped the habit. I figure that by the time of this writing, I have gained over 609 hours of extra sleep. |
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