THE OLD TIMER’S FUN AT A PICNIC

By Norris Chambers

Every summer there was a picnic and carnival on Onion Creek, just outside of town. Everyone looked forward to three days of fun. There were boxing matches, music contests, beauty contests, a rodeo and a lot of other fun things to see and do. Clifton and I got our first taste of cotton candy at one of these festivals. This is where we first learned about small time gambling. There were wheels that you turned for prizes, floating fish you dipped out of trough of running water, balls to throw and guns to shoot for prizes and even nails to drive and your weight to be guessed. There were many very good looking and valuable prizes offered, but usually the customer got one of the “penny prizes” as we called them. These puny prizes were all day suckers, pencils, tiny lead toys, etc. The better prizes were pistols, knives, cameras, pretty dolls and expensive looking watches.
On this Saturday afternoon Clifton, Elbert Hall and I were strolling around with our two or three dollars trying to burn holes in our pockets. The money hadn’t been acquired easily and we were anxious t put it to the best use. The opportunity began to come to light when one of the wheel operators motioned us to come over to his establishment. We strolled over to see what he had to offer.
“Boys,” he said, “this is a game that you can’t lose. All you have to do is play it.”
He had a long, straight spinner in the center of the device and a row of fancy metal posts along the outside. The posts were about an inch and a half apart and between each pair there was a painted arrow leading to a prize. Some of the items were really desirable and some were of the throw away type that we normally won.
“This wheel is different,” he told us. “You can win on this one. Come on, I will let you try it for free!” He was talking to Clifton. Then the operator gave it a whirl and it came to rest on a nice looking camera. “See how easy it is.” Then he placed the pointer adjacent to a winning space and gave the stick a slight tap. It slid into the winning slot. “Why don’t you try it, just for fun? Clifton was definitely interested.
“O.K.” Clifton agreed. He placed it one post away from a nice nickel-plated pistol and gave the stick a slight push. It stopped silently in the slot! The operator invited him to try it again. This time he overshot it but he was offered a third try. This time he won again. “Not bad,” the operator exclaimed, “Two out of three, not bad at all. You might win a cheap gun that way. Only twenty five cents a flip!” Clifton pulled out a quarter and positioned the pointer. He overshot the big win. He tried three more times and lost all three.
“You’re just nervous. Try another free one for practice.” The disappointed Clifton positioned his pointer. Again the free flip won! “O. K.” Clifton said. “I’ll pay for this one.” He pulled out another quarter and carefully positioned the pointer. While he was getting it in position I saw the plastic tip on the front of the arm rotate to the left. I instantly figured out what the trick was. The posts around the circle were made of twisted metal about one fourth of an inch in diameter. When the pointer was in one position it hit against the edge of a twist and stopped. If it were in the other position it would pass through a twist and hit the twist edge on the next post. He had some method of controlling the position of the plastic pointer. Then I noticed that the good prizes and the booby prizes were alternated from one slot to the other. In a regular spin you got a good prize if the pointer were in one position and a poor one if it were in the other.
“Just a minute,” I exclaimed excitedly. “I saw that pointer twist. You’re cheating us!”
“Oh, no,” he said. “There’s no way I could do that – see, this is just an arm with a bearing in the bottom of the shaft.” He lifted the arm out of the wheel and held it up. There was a shaft about three eights of an inch in diameter with a ball bearing on the bottom. I reached for it but he pulled it back. I grabbed one side and started pushing up on the bearing at the bottom. Every time I pushed the bearing up the pointer on the end turned sharply to the left.
A crowd was beginning to gather. Clifton immediately demanded his money back. The operator told us to move on or he would have us moved. Elbert had a quick question.
“You and what army? Give the money back, you cheat!” I had to agree with them and gave him a little bit of my good advice. Two or three onlookers agreed with us.
“O. K.” he agreed as he slipped the arm back into the machine. “If you want to be a poor sport about it.” He handed Clifton a quarter. Clifton let him know immediately that he owned him a dollar. After a little more babbling he handed him the rest of the investment.
The operator didn’t thank Clifton for playing and Clifton didn’t thank him for returning his money. The crowd dispersed and another valuable lesson was apparent: never bet on another man’s tricks!

Did we have fun that day? We always had fun. If you can’t have fun doing it perhaps you should avoid it.

OLD TIMER DOES WIRE WALKING!

By Norris Chambers



When I was in the fifth grade Mrs. Dryden was my teacher. She was a good teacher and I learned many useful things from her. She often told us about her son, Bunny Dryden, who performed as a high wire walker in circus acts, at county fairs, etc. She told how he turned flips on the wire, carried men on his back while high up on a wire, hung from his toes and many other interesting things. I was interested in wire walking and was thrilled when she announced that he was coming to Texas to do some performances and that we might get to meet him.

When Bunny arrived one of his first appearances was in our school gymnasium. He set up a portable wire about seven or eight feet above the floor and did many unbelievable stunts on it. He also did some strong man stunts, such as bending steel rods, standing erect on one arm and carrying two men on his back. I thought it was a very good show.
When the show was over Mrs. Dryden introduced me to him and he took the time to talk with me for several minutes. He performed at most of the schools in our end of the county. The admission prices were very reasonable and I attended three of them. Besides the school shows he performed in most of the towns in the area. The merchants in the towns paid him for the performance and the show was free. The wire was stretched from the tallest building on one side of the street to one of similar height on the other side and the act was performed high above the street. Usually some local dignitary rode on his back while he walked across the wire. He carried a long piece pipe as a balance pole and the crossings were made safely.

The pipe, or balance pole, makes wire walking much safer. The pole has considerable weight and cannot be moved in either direction quickly. By allowing the legs and lower part of the body to become limp there is no way to become unbalanced as long as the feet are on the wire. Holding to a balance pole is like holding to a fixed object and any tendency to become unbalanced can be instantly corrected. I attended most of these Saturday afternoon free town shows and talked with Bunny about his profession.

When I asked him how he learned the art he told me it was a matter of practice and then more practice. He said that when he wasn’t working he practiced at least eight hours a day. He also told me it was a dangerous profession that required hard work and he didn’t recommend it for anybody. “It takes a crazy nut like me to do something like this!” he explained.

Bunny Dryden continued to pursue his profession or several years. He never returned to our area and in 1936 was killed when he fell many feet from a wire above a street. The short account of the incident said that a supporting wire broke and allowed the main wire to go suddenly slack.
My first experience with wire walking was on cables that were run in all directions from the power houses that pumped oil wells. The power house had a very large eccentric wheel that moved cables back and forth in all directions. Each cable went to a well and moved the pump jack up and down. The cables moved back and forth over the tops of 2” pipe stakes with wooden inserts in the top that were called “doll heads”. The power house pulled the cable and raised the pump and the weight of the rods in the well kept it tight as it descended. These cables made an excellent place to practice wire walking. Clifton and I found some suitable 1” pipes about ten feet long and used these for balance poles.

I was surprised at how easy it was to stand and walk on a cable with a balance pole. Holding the pipe was just as Bunny had described. It was like holding on to a solid rail. The physics explanation of inertia explained it perfectly. The resistance to movement by the pipe served as a remedy to any tendency to become unbalanced. When walking without the balance pole the arms served as the balance tool. After much practice the arms worked almost as well as the balance pole. When first switching from the pole to the arms weights held in each hand made the balance easier. After a few days of practice the weights could be discarded and the arms served well as balance poles.

I built a practice cable about fifty feet long and a little over three feet high. I had a metal barrel on each end turned upside down which made a nice little platform for starting a walk. Then I graduated to an eight foot one. The highest wire I ever practiced on was about twelve feet above the ground.

The only public performance I ever did was at school when I was in the tenth grade. I stretched a rope across the stage and did my show there. The kids thought it was a good thing to keep them from classes.
From a financial standpoint the only money I ever made from wire walking was on a bet when I was working in the oil field a few years later. I bet the roustabout crew that I could walk a guy wire to the top of the drilling floor house, about 12 or 15 feet high at the top and 75 feet long. Some of them pooled their money and made the bet. Of course I took a joint of pipe as a balance pole and walked up the cable, then turned around walked back down. They didn’t know that I knew how to walk a wire.

The lesson projected in this tale, if there is one, is to NEVER bet on another man’s tricks.

IF YOU’VE NEVER MADE SYRUP, MAYBE YOU SHOULD!

By Norris Chambers

We were never big sugar cane plantation owners, but every year up in the east sandy section of our north field, we planted about an acre of sorghum cane. This was for the purpose of having syrup on the table to eat with the hot biscuits and butter. Sorghum syrup was one of the staple items that small farmers produced each year, mostly for their own consumption. Some large families even saved it in 55 gallon wooden barrels. I know one old farmer who threatened to put the barrel in the attic with a pipe coming down over the table. The rest of the family thought this was a little crude, even for our crude way of living, and he never did do it.

Just about every community had a man who owned a sorghum mill, and he made the syrup for others for a small percentage of the output. He usually sold it or traded it for things he could use. Nobody went syrupless in those days. There were a lot of bees in the woods, and most people found enough honey to alternate with the sorghum at the table. I will tell you about robbing a bee tree later. That can be an experience for an inexperienced bee man, and when Clifton and I robbed our first one, we were definitely inexperienced.

A syrup mill was a rather simple machine. There were three big steel rollers, about a foot in diameter and two feet in height, standing side by side with about an eighth of an inch between them. There was a heavy gear on the top of each and they meshed in the center. A shaft from one of the rollers extended above the frame that held them for about a foot, and a long pole was attached to this shaft. The pole extended about fifteen or twenty feet in a horizontal position, and a horse or mule was hitched to it. He walked in a circle, pulling the pole and turning the three rollers. At the bottom of the rollers a metal pan collected the juice as cane was pushed between them.

Before going further with the explanation of syrup making, I will tell you how we prepared the cane for the mill. We carefully carved wooden swords from an old oak tree, using an axe and knife. Clifton and I went a step beyond this - we hardened the wood over a fire, holding it in the flame until it almost ignited, then withdrawing it and letting it cool. After many trips over the fire, the sword was just about as hard as a wild walnut. After hardening, we held them to a grinder that we were fortunate enough to have in our blacksmith shop and sharpened them to almost a knife edge.

These weapons, or tools, were used to strip all the foliage from the cane as it stood in the field. After going over the patch and stripping it, we took a sharp hoe and chopped it all down close to the ground. It was then packed in the wagon, or trailer, with the tops all pointing in the same direction. It was now ready to haul to the mill.
Usually two boys fed the mill. One carried the cane from the wagon to the mill and the other fed the stalks between the rollers. The pan had a spout from which the juice flowed. The pole that pulled the mill was well above the heads of the boys, and the mule was far enough away to offer no problem. When the bucket under the spout was full, another was placed under it and the first one was emptied into the cooking pan.

The cooking pan was about three feet wide and twelve or fifteen feet long. It was made of metal, and had baffles across it so that fluid flowing from one end to the other had to go around them to the side, where it passed around the baffle and into the next compartment. The raw juice was poured in one end and worked with specially built wooded paddles toward the other. This pan was mounted on a rock base with fire underneath. There were holes in the side of the rock base through which wood was thrown in to fuel the fire. A tall smoke stack on one end kept air flowing and made the fire burn nicely.

The juice started cooking at the upper end, and was pushed around the baffles by the operator who used a special wooden paddle. As new juice was added, the mass was kept moving toward the far end. At the finish line, there was a drain on the side with a home-made gate that allowed it to be opened and closed. There were about three men pushing the juice along the cooker, and one manning the gate and filling gallon cans, jugs, kegs or whatever the cane producer brought to put his syrup in. The mill operator usually put his syrup in gallon buckets with tight fitting lids.

Some syrup makers added baking soda as the syrup was drawn and put in the container. This helped to keep the syrup from turning to sugar after several months of exposure to the air. Syrup that was not treated with soda would form heavy, brown sugar in the bottom of the bucket. This was not a serious thing because the sugar hardened and made a very tasty candy just as it came from the bucket. It could also be melted in a frying pan and used as hot sorghum. Some people said that the soda ruined the taste of the syrup. I could never tell the difference.

When the sorghum began to turn to sugar, some of the farm cooks would mix it with corn syrup, which was cheap but had no flavor of its own, and cook it. This made excellent sorghum flavored syrup that would keep indefinitely. In fact, I have known people to mix their syrup in the pan, adding a bucket of KARO occasionally when the mix was nearing the drain.

That was the syrup making process practiced in our area, and the story should end here. Clifton and I decided to build our own blending vat. We found an old iron tool box that had been abandoned in the oil field. Its dimensions were approximately two feet by six. We thought this would serve our purpose well, so we took it to the shop and began working it over. When we got through, we had a pan, complete with baffles and standing on six two inch pipe legs that held the pan to a height of about two and a half feet. The installation was completed by stacking rocks around the pan, permitting a wood fire to be built beneath it. This was much smaller than the regular cooking pans, but we were not cooking juice, which took a lot of evaporation. We tried different ratios of sorghum, Brer Rabbit Ribbon Cane, Karo and honey, cooking them and adding water as required to keep the thickness about right. We poured the ingredients in the top of the pan and pushed them along with the special paddles as in regular syrup making.

We were well pleased with the results, and got a few compliments on our special syrup blends. Perhaps our best version consisted of nothing more than brown sugar and water with a touch of vanilla flavoring. Brown sugar was cheap and could be bought in the grocery store by the pound. The brown sugar then was much better than that which is available today. It still had much of the syrup still in it. Now it is refined so much that it has little more flavor than white sugar. This mixture, when cooked to a rather heavy consistency, made great syrup for pancakes. Pancakes were served with regularity on most farms in the days when most of what you ate was what you cultivated on the land. Waffles did not make their general appearance until much later. Pancakes were also called hotcakes by many old timers, and many a farmer prided himself on his ability to flip them with the pan.

It's not likely that any of today's youngsters will have the opportunity of making syrup, but that was one of the experiences that those of us still living and remembering the good old days will never forget.

To find FUN in syrup making, we sometimes resorted to a dirty trick. We dug a hole to bury the skimmings. A lot of foam came to the top when cooking, and this was skimmed off with a long handled ladle. The skimmings were poured in this hole, and when it was about full, it was covered with the squeezed cane stalks, which were called "pummies." An unsuspecting watcher (there were those who came to watch the process and to taste the new syrup} who tramped around the area and inevitably stepped in the hole. His foot quickly submurged in the sticky mess. It went over the pants leg and in the shoe and was very uncomfortable and hard to get rid of. There was always a roar of laughter when this happened. Experienced "syrup making watchers" were very careful where they placed their feet. But there was always a greenhorn or two to catch with the trick.
Making syrup was one way of having FUN.

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JUST USE A WASHPOT


By Norris Chambers

We don't think much about getting our laundry clean in these modern times. We either take it by the cleaners, put it in the laundry bag or wash things as we need them in a modern automatic machine and a dryer. It is a chore - but it is a simple one that does not require much time.

This has not always been the case. During most of the thirties, and prior to that, keeping the family's clothes reasonably clean was a very important and trying operation. One day of the week was usually designated as "WASH DAY." and most of that day was devoted to that task. In the country, this day was Saturday or Monday. Those who chose Saturday usually lived so far from town that they just stayed home and washed. Those who lived closer, went to the village on Saturday afternoon and did their washing on Monday.

The most important part of the washing equipment was an old black pot, about eighteen inches in diameter and rounded on the bottom. It held about 20 gallons. There were three short, evenly spaced protrusions on the bottom which held the pot upright when these were pushed into buggy hubs or short pieces of 1" pipe. If neither was available, a rock under each leg served the purpose nicely.
There were also two iron loop handles cast with the pot, one on each side. These could be used with a chain or cable and the pot hung or hoisted. Ordinarily these were not used on the farm. This container was appropriately called a "wash pot."

In addition to the pot, there were two or three galvanized steel tubs, also aptly named "wash tubs." The tubs were placed on a bench side by side. The first one on the left was the actual washing tub and the other two were rinse tubs. The "rub board" was the only tool used. Of course most people have seen the old rub boards - a corrugated metal surface mounted in a wooden frame. When the clothes were rubbed up and down over this surface, with a generous application of lye soap, they eventually were reasonably clean. If they were not clean, at least they were disinfected.

The pot was filled with water, and a wood fire was kindled all around and under it. Before too long, the water was near the boiling point, and was carried to the first tub in buckets. Enough hot water was left in the pot to make up a soapy solution. The dirtier clothes were thrown in and punched up and down for a long time in the hot soapy water before being transferred to the first tub. At the first tub, all clothes were rubbed up and down many times and with considerable pressure on the rub board. The water was then twisted out into the tub and they were thrown into the first tub of rinse water. Here, they were agitated thoroughly to remove the soap, and were twisted again to get them as dry as possible. If only one rinse tub was used, they were taken to a "clothes line" and straightened out and hung to dry. This is where clothes pins came in handy. If no clothes pins were available, they were usually laid across "barbed wire" fences. Those using two rinse tubs ran them through the third tub, removing even more of the soap and dirt. If only one tub was used, the water had to be changed regularly to keep it clean enough to do the rinsing. This twisting process was called "wringing." Twisting a chicken's neck to kill it was also called "wringing its neck."

This process was repeated several times, starting with the light colored and less soiled clothes. With a large family, it was necessary to heat several pots of water and change the tubs regularly.

The last tub often contained "bluing." This was a blue solution that caused white clothes to come out of the rinse whiter. There was also a large pan or small tub containing "starch." Saturating the clothes in this last solution caused them to become stiff when they dried, and made ironing easier and more effective. Starch might only be applied to the collar and cuffs of shirts, and to certain parts of ladies' attire. Bonnet brims were always starched.

After washing and gathering the dry clothes, another tedious chore began. Ironing was done with two "smoothing irons." These were heavy iron implements shaped like an arrow tip - pointed on one end and square on the other. They had a metal handle that was usually cast with the iron when it was made. Since the handle was steel, it was almost as hot as the ironing surface. The operator used quilted pads, or rags, known as "ironing pads." The irons were placed on the top of the cook stove, which had a smooth top that got pretty hot. The temperature of the iron was checked by moistening the end of a finger and touching it quickly. If it sizzled, it was hot enough. When one got too cold to use, it was exchanged with the other and left on the stove. Of course all the clothes had to be folded, separated and placed in the appropriate clean clothes spot.

Clothes were referred to as Sunday, First Fiber, Second Fiber, Third Fiber and Work Clothes. Of course the Sunday clothes were worn only to church or funerals. First Fibers were town, party and general going duds. Second and Third Fiber were used for general visiting and gallivanting. Shoes fit into the same category. There were Sunday shoes, knock-about shoes and work shoes.
Washpots were also used to make soap. All country folks made their own soap from lye and fat. Since hogs were the staple meat, and hogs produce much fat, there was always an abundance of lye soap. Lye came in a small can, and was inexpensive, even for money-scarce settlers. The pot was often used to heat bath water for the Saturday night scrubbing of people. A smaller family might get by with one or more large kettles on the cook stove. The No. 3 wash tub made an adequate bath tub. Tubs were numbered 1, 2 and 3 according to size. You could put ten or twelve gallons of water in a No. 3 and have a little room left to splash.
The house floors had to be scrubbed, and the same soap and hot water was also used for that. When slaughtering hogs, which was something that started with the first cold spell in the winter and continued as long as necessary, a lot of hot water was required. The old black water heater was employed for this, also.
The wash pot has been used for soaking grain to feed hogs, squashing grapes to make wine and cooking various vegetables before canning.

When we were quite young, Clifton and I threw a handful of shot gun shells into the fire under a wash pot. It sounded like World War I had reopened for a few seconds. Clifton's mother got hit on the leg with a flying shell. She thought she was shot. But it is interesting to note that when a shotgun shell in put in a fire, usually the shot will remain and the shell will be hurled out of the fire. Needless to say, we were in deep trouble! We were also guilty of firing a shotgun straight up in the air, and one of the lead pellets made a hole in by brother's hat brim. More trouble!

We got our first gasoline powered washing machine in 1931. It was still in use as late as 1950. With this machine, the hot water and tubs was still required, but the rubbing and wringing labor was gone. It speeded the process to a half day, or less.

If you haven't had fun on this trip back through the years, remember that many of the GOOD OLD DAYS were not all that good...but in looking back, it is easy to remember the FUN things and ignore the bad. So, always have FUN, even if only in your thinking.
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MY FRIEND THE HERMIT

By Norris Chambers

When you hear the word "hermit" you usually think of an old man with long whiskers living in a little cabin up in the mountains. Perhaps he comes down twice a year and takes a few furs for flour, sugar, coffee and few more conveniences of modern living. I also had that picture of a hermit when the folks in our part of the country talked about a hermit living in a cave four or five miles up Red Creek.

Clifton and I talked about it a little, but pretty well dismissed it from our minds until one day when we were 'possum hunting up that way. It was an isolated section of an eight or ten mile stretch of rugged country where there were no roads. There were a few wagon tracks to some parts of the area, but generally it was not accessible to any vehicle. There were a few very small farms, but mostly it was just pasture land inhabited by beef cattle.

Red Creek wound through the low places between the hills and made its way, eventually, into Pecan Bayou and on through to Lake Brownwood. There were a few deep holes that held water even through dry summers. A big rain brought a roaring torrent of water that overflowed its banks in all low places.

It was good 'possum country, and we usually hit pay dirt when we climbed the hollow trees in this vast area. It was on this hunt that we met the hermit.

We had built a big fire in a dry branch just above the creek bed and were in the process of skinning two 'possums. Suddenly, the brush parted and we were startled to hear a friendly exclamation.

"Hello, boys." We turned and were startled to see a very young man standing there.

"Looks like you got a couple of fine 'possums," he said, stepping closer to the fire. He was young, but his hair was long and he had a full face of beard. He was dressed in ragged blue denims and a shirt in similar condition. His shoes were intact, but in pretty poor condition.

We told him that the hunting had been good and inquired where he lived. Neither of us had ever seen him, and we thought we knew about everybody within ten or twelve miles.

"Oh," he returned, " my name is Ben Gray. I live up the creek here a little ways. What are you going to do with the 'possums. Most people throw them away, but I eat them. They are real good eating." We told him that we just left them where we skinned them.

He said he'd like to have them, if we didn't mind. Of course we were glad to let him have them. We had heard of people eating 'possum, but had never tried it. It was very good looking meat. Parts of it was pretty fat, but other parts looked very good. Ben took one of the animals and after taking a nice looking pocket knife out of his denim pants pocket, proceed to cut out three choice pieces of 'possum meat and skewer it on a willow switch that he cut from a nearby tree. He then stuck it over the fire and held it while it cooked.

While the meat was cooking, we talked about several things, and became quite friendly with Ben.
He told us that he lived alone and had been there about three years. "I don't have any family," he explained. He had been raised in an orphanage down near Waco and when he was falsely accused of stealing something, he ran away. He came to this area because the kind man who gave him a ride was going no farther than Rising Star. After walking in the country for several hours, he arrived here at night and camped on the bank of the creek. The area was isolated and there was plenty of food. He gathered pecans up and down the creek and sold them, along with some hides, for enough money to buy things he needed. He like the place and started building his shelter.
"I don't need much." he told us. "Just enough for clothes and a few tools and some food items that I can't grow or find in the woods. I'm real happy here."
"Are you the hermit that they say lives up in this area?" Clifton asked.

"I guess so," he replied. "No one else lives within three or four miles of here. Once in a while Mr. Miller, who owns this land and the cattle, comes by on horseback. He says he doesn't care if I live here and have a little garden and fish and hunt."

We both thought it sounded great. By this time the meat was ready. It smelled great cooking. We decided to take a taste. I didn't think I was hungry enough to eat the whole piece, but I carefully bit off a small portion. It wasn't bad. I continued until I had eaten the whole chunk. Clifton was having similar doubts. But he managed to eat his, too. It was well past dinner time and had been a long time since breakfast. We both assured Ben that the 'possum was good. He told us that young 'possums were better. The one we ate was definitely mature and was a little bit tough.

Ben invited us to come see his living quarters. We walked off up the creek, Ben carrying the 'possums and Clifton carrying our hides.

We probably would not have seen his living quarters. There was a thick patch of brush near the bottom of a high hill, also covered in brush. We followed a trail to a flat spot a few feet up the incline, and on the side of the hill there was a home-made door. It opened directly into the hill. He opened it and we walked into a short hallway about three feet wide, lined with rock. The ceiling was of logs with the bark peeled off, placed side by side. The hallway opened into a room about 10 feet wide and 14 feet long. It, too, was lined with flat sandstone, placed one on top of the other without mortar.

The ceiling was about seven feet from the floor and was made of logs. On the right side was an old ducking cot with a few blankets piled on it. On the left was a crude table, constructed of smaller logs. On top was a piece of sheet iron that had been flattened to form a smooth surface. This was his cooking and eating area. There were several lard buckets with lids arranged along the wall and on one end was a big ten gallon can with a tight fitting lid. This was his flour bin. Probably the fanciest thing was the fireplace in the end of the room. There was an area about two feet wide and two feet deep made of rock. Directly from this box, leading up through the ceiling was about an eight inch steel pipe. I figured that he had salvaged it from an oil well site. On the bed side of the room was a large metal box with a lid. This was the type used around drilling rigs for a tool box. There were three or four wooden stools, apparently built from salvaged lumber. He invited us to sit and we did.

"It's real comfortable here," He explained. "I have everything I need. This cave is warm in the winter and cool in the summer."

"Don't you ever get lonesome?" I asked. He admitted that he did occasionally. Especially he missed not having a radio.

I told him I would bring him a crystal radio with a headset.

"It doesn't use any batteries, and with a long antenna and a good ground it will get one station in the daytime and three or four at night." This pleased him.

"And," I continued, “Why don't you come visit us. We live about three and a half miles south. We'd be glad to have you visit us."

Clifton told him that we would show him some 'possum hollows that almost always held a sleeping 'possum in the daytime.

He walked back with us so we could show him the hollows and where I lived. He came in the house with us and after a brief introduction, my mother offered to cut his hair. This pleased him. Apparently he hadn't had a haircut since leaving the orphanage. We gave him an old .22 rifle and a box of cartridges along with three or four old steel traps. Mama insisted that he take some canned vegetables and berries back with him. When he left he was a very happy boy. I told him I would come by in a day or so and bring the crystal set and some wire for an antenna.

We strung the antenna through the tops of some tall trees for about two hundred feet, and the crystal set worked well.

For the next year we saw each other often. We worked together shocking grain and when the thresher crew was assembled, he got a job traveling with the thresher. The thresher crew went from farm to farm during the grain harvest and camped where they were at night. This was hard work, but it was an enjoyable time for those involved.

I was at home for brief periods during the next three years. Mama and Papa said that Ben hadn't been around for several months and that he had told them on his last visit that he was thinking of joining the army. I heard later that he was in the South Pacific after Pearl Harbor, but never knew if he survived. We visited the cave on one of my visits home, and it was still intact. The door was closed and barred and the antenna was still strung through the trees.

Ben is the only hermit I ever met. Knowing him gave me a better impression of them and I like to feel like Clifton and I made his life a little better and started him on the road to a life outside of a cave.

HOW WE MADE GASOLINE

By Norris Chambers

In my early years I spent many hours following mules up and down the rows and milking the half Jersey cows that produced hereford-looking calves. We sold these little fellows for about $25.00 each at some stage in their development.

But as the years passed, we went modern and bought an old Fordson tractor. It had an engine much like a Model T, except it was bigger. It had a large cast iron radiator in front and a long wide fuel tank on top. This tank held kerosene, which burned nicely after the engine got hot. There was a small gasoline tank used for starting the engine. As cheap as fuel was in those days, it required an item that was extremely scarce - cash. So we did as many others in that part of the county did. We decided to make our own tractor fuel.

There were many oil wells in the area, and anyone who wanted oil felt free to help themselves. The price was so low that it barely paid the operators to pump it, and they didn't care if you took a few barrels for your own use. The process of making gasoline from oil was pretty well known among those in the area. It was quite simple. Heat the oil in an enclosed container, and condense the vapor by running it through a coolant.
My dad and I built a small dirt tank about a half mile from the house, and before making the dam we ran a 1" pipe through it. On the low side of the dam, we dug a hole large enough for a five gallon can. This is where the fuel would come out. Above the tank we placed a fifty-five gallon barrel on some rocks and fitted the pipe to the vent hole in the top. When it rained and filled our new tank, we were ready to start refining.

Two fifteen gallon barrels were filled with fresh oil and poured in the barrel. Then we started the fire under it. Before long fumes began to come out of the pipe below the dam, and shortly thereafter the gasoline began to run out in a small stream. The first that came out was very high in octane, and would evaporate from your finger as soon as you dipped it in the mixture. But as it continued to distill, it became less volatile. We found from experience that the first ten gallons that we got made good automobile fuel, and that the next six or eight gallons was composed of varying grades of kerosene. But all of it mixed together made excellent tractor fuel. After the first batch, we used the black tar-like residue to fuel a fire for the next cooking. Because of the heat involved, we never made more than once a day.

This process continued for many months. I want to tell you about one time in particular. It was about three o'clock in the afternoon, and we had just fired up for the day's production. But today we had a vapor leak around the union that connected our cooling line to the barrel. Of course the vapor ignited, and started blowing a stream of flame down on the barrel. The barrel kept getting hotter, and the gasoline was shooting out of the pipe in a gushing stream. The fire down the side of the barrel was getting larger.
My dad said, "You better run to the house and tell your mother that we are all right. It's going to blow. I'll stay here and catch all the gas I can." I took off in a fast run, jumping the fence into the calf pasture, hurried across it and jumped it on the other side. I was just below the hog pen, which was on the top of the hill. It was at this point that it exploded.

The ground trembled, and there was a blast that sounded like thunder. I looked back, and there was a large, black ring about two or three hundred feet in the air flaming in the center. Soon the flame burned out, and there was a tremendous black doughnut high in sky. It was a beautiful sight, in an awesome sort of way.
At the same moment the shock wave struck, the chickens got excited and ran squawking in all directions and, believe it or not, one of the pigs jumped out of the pen. It is unusual for a pig to jump. One might root his way under, but never jump. I will always remember that lost pig "oinking" and trying to find his way back into the pen.

I continued my journey to the house and informed my mother that we had anticipated the blast, and all was well. She insisted on accompanying me back to the scene. When we arrived, everything was quiet. My dad was pouring his gasoline into the storage barrel and was grinning from ear to ear.

"You should have seen how fast it came out before it blew," he told us. "The explosion went straight up, and didn't do anything except blow the top out of the drum." He was right. The barrel still stood there on the rocks, its top missing. The pipe that ran into the tank was curled up for about fifteen feet. The top was missing. We found the top several weeks later, a few hundred yards from the scene, well hidden in some brush. The barrel was burned so nice and clean that we used it for years for hauling water.

We had some old clothes hanging on the bushes that we used for wiping our hands. About thirty minutes after the explosion, one of our few neighbors came hurriedly through the brush toward our site. He saw the old rags on the bushes, and he thought that was all that was left of us after the explosion. People as far as ten miles away heard the explosion and saw the ring in the sky. There were all kinds of guesses as to what happened. One theory was that a balloon had exploded at a picnic in the next county.

It never occurred to us that our process was dangerous. If the drum had burst on a side, or on the bottom, all of that fire and smoke could have been directed toward my dad, and the gasoline he was catching could have ignited. We got another barrel and continued to make gasoline for several seasons without further mishap.
This is not a project that I would recommend. Besides being very dangerous, it is no doubt illegal. (It might have been then).

So pay the high price for gasoline and stick to your profitable knitting - and above all, HAVE FUN!

EVERYBODY NEEDS A SPOOL TRACTOR!

By Norris Chambers

Back in the old days we made a lot of toys. I reckon one of the most popular was the spool tractor. The materials were readily available because all you needed was an empty spool, a rubber band, a slab of soap and two matches. The construction was quite simple. Take the spool and cut notches along both edges to provide traction over rough terrain. This also makes it look a little like the old tractors with the steel lugs on the wheels. A notch is cut across one end of the spool for the match to hold the rubber band that is placed through the center of the spool. On the other end of the spool the rubber band goes through a hole in a thin piece of soap that has been rounded to size a little smaller than the spool end. A full match, or other stick, is placed through the rubber band.
When you wind up the full match the rubber band is knotted inside the spool. The short match on the other end keeps it from turning and lets it wind up. After a few turns, you can place it on a surface and the rubber band will unwind. The long match presses against the surface and causes the spool to move along slowly, like a tractor.
The purpose of the soap is to provide a smooth bearing that permits the unwinding. If the soap is too dry or too rough, it might not unwind properly. If it is too slippery, the tractor will go wild and turn a few flips. A longer stick than the match will help to stabilize it if it tries to go too fast.
Clifton and I were hunting one day when we saw an abandoned cable spool that some drilling operation had discarded. This spool was about 18 inches wide and probably about two feet in height. It looked a lot like a regular spool. There was a hole through the center about two inches in diameter. Of course we immediately thought of a spool tractor.
Clifton had the first idea. “We could use a bicycle inner tube for the rubber band and a thin willow stick for the match.”
I agreed that it sounded like a lot of fun to build.
“We might even find a good use for it,” he suggested. We couldn’t think of anything at the time, but decided to build it.
We rolled it about a mile and pushed it into the blacksmith shop. We thought we could build about anything in the shop and we didn’t lose any time getting started. We quickly made a notch on one end with a wood chisel. A little work with sand paper got the other end smooth so the soap would turn on the wood. A saw soon made the v-notches in the round ends. The soap presented more of a problem. We found an old round hoop off of a keg about eight or ten inches in diameter and about two inches wide. We borrowed several chunks of lye soap from the smoke house and melted it. We poured it in the hoop and leveled it off. When it cooled we had a beautiful round soap slab. We cut a three inch hole in the middle.
A short willow stick, a bicycle inner tube and a longer willow stick completed the operation. The bicycle tube was long enough for us to double it and thread it through the hole in the spool. Our tractor was finished. The next thing was to take it outside for a test run.
We placed it on end and turned the long stick around and around, winding the rubber tube. After many turns we had it double knotted and ready to go. We straightened it up, holding on to the stick to keep it from unwinding. If we had turned it loose it might have slapped us around quite a bit. After pointing it toward the barnyard we turned it loose.
The contraption moved a few feet and slowed to a crawl. The trouble was quickly diagnosed as a bearing problem. The soap wasn’t slick enough to permit a quick unwind of the tube.
“I’ll get a little water and loosen it up a little,” Clifton volunteered. He came back with a small can and poured a little water between the spool and the soap. The machine started moving and was rapidly gaining speed. It was soon evident to us that it was out of control. We tried to catch it and slow it down, but it was too fast. Before we could do anything it hit a setting hen pen. Setting hen pens were just a wooden frame with net wire covering it. There was no bottom on the pens so they could be easily moved for cleaning. Setting hens were kept there until they gave up and were returned to the free range. The runaway tractor climbed over it, kicking it backward and throwing it upside down when it went down on the opposite side. Old clucking setting hens scattered in every direction.
And that wasn’t all! It continued a short distance and hit the low hog pen fence. That fence was also net wire, and the tractor lugs climbed that fence also. This scared the four hogs almost out of their wits. Then the thing turned over on its end with the long willow stick on top, spinning around like a merry-go-round and bouncing up and down banging the hogs in every direction. I never knew hogs could make so much noise. The old setting hens hadn’t calmed down any.
My mother came running out of the house to see what calamity had befallen the chickens and hogs. It took some patient explaining to get her to see the importance of our tractor experience. Actually, I’m not sure we ever did. We parked the nice tractor and postponed any more tests to a future date.
I’m not sure if this tale has a moral. Just be careful with your spool tractors!

BUILDING SAND CASTLES

By Norris Chambers

When you think of "sand castles" you think of a long, sandy beach with the swishing sound of waves rolling in and receding and perhaps low flying birds squawking occasionally. Such a memory brings back many pleasant thoughts to a multitude of people who had happy experiences on the beach. Those who haven't built sand castles have missed a lot of relaxation and fun....and maybe a case or two of severe sunburn. Of course sunburn is not as common now as it once was, since there are so many gooey preparations now that can be spread on to give a tan instead of a burn.

Our beach was not a beach with rolling waves and squawking gulls, or long, wide expanses of clean, white sand. But we did have sand. Our "beach" was simply called "BRANCH". If it had another name, we never knew it. It was a wet weather stream about ten to twenty feet wide and about four to six feet deep. It drained rainwater from the sandy farm lands north of us to a larger creek a few miles to the south. This was not the rough and almost inaccessible area where I lived, but the flatter and more populated area where Clifton lived. We didn't spend all of our childhood at our place. Much of the time I was at his house, which he shared with his parents and five brothers, ranging in age from just below Clifton’s to a baby in diapers. About seven or eight miles separated our homesteads.

This branch was dry most of the time, but after a rainy spell, a small stream ran for several days. We played up and down this little branch for two or three miles from daylight until dark. Each brother took care of the one just younger while their mother worked. Sometimes we came back by the house around noon and found something to eat. On other days we took a lunch with us, supplementing it with roasted birds, rabbits or fried crawfish tails. We didn't know that you could eat the whole crawfish, and we spent considerable time peeling the tails and frying them over an open fire. Occasionally we found some fish that had migrated up the branch during a heavy runoff.

But this story is about our greatest engineering achievement. A few days after a heavy rain, we were playing on the sandy bottom, throwing sand in front of the small, gurgling stream that made its way down the middle of the sandy stream bed. When an accumulation of sand stopped the flow of the water, it began to back up and form a pool. In a matter of minutes, we were all wet and sloshing around in the water. To keep our pool useable and to make it deeper, we continued to pile sand on our dam. Two younger brothers went to the house and brought back a wheel barrow and a couple of shovels.

The construction project began in earnest as we hauled sand and threw it on our reservoir’s dam. From bank to bank, it was probably twenty five feet long. The water didn't rise as quickly as it moved farther upstream. We had plenty of time to add to the height and thickness of the dam. All day we worked steadily at the job, taking time out occasionally to go swimming. Before nightfall, it became too deep for the younger boys to use. We discussed a fill of sand by the dam to make it shallow enough for the small ones, who did considerable howling when they were denied access to the pool.
When we called it a day, we had a nice sand dune about five feet high and water backed up as far as we could see. Since we had about two feet to spare, we figured it wouldn't run over the top during the night. Our plans were to come back the next day and do something about a spillway.

The next morning when we went back to the branch to continue our dam building we were disappointed to see that it had apparently run over the top and was washed away completely. We busied ourselves with other things and forgot about it for the day.
That night we heard a strange tale. Jess Adams, an old fellow who lived south of us about a half mile was coming home after dark the night before and had been involved in a peculiar accident. Between the little town and his house was a steep dip across the same branch we played in. People liked to hit the concrete dip at a pretty lively speed and get the roller-coaster effect when the car went swiftly down and up. Evidently Jesse did the same thing.
What he didn't know, and what we hadn't thought of, was that there was about two feet of water over the dip. When he hit it, the splash was so great that it blinded him and when he came out he missed the road and went through a fence and into old man Byron's cow lot. His milk cows escaped and invaded the garden area just north of the house. Jesse was knocked out cold but wasn't seriously injured.

Everyone said that he was just drunk and passed out on the road. They didn't believe the water tale that he told because the branch hadn't been over the dip in several days. We talked about it a little in private and wondered if we should tell folks what really happened and that Jesse wasn't just imagining the water.
Do you think we should have told?

THE CLOCK MONSTER STRIKES AGAIN

By Norris Chambers

In an era when toys were scarce some of us came up with the idea of making a tractor out of the works from an alarm clock. The mechanism for a wind up alarm clock was rectangular in shape and had several flat round gears inside. The big power spring moved very slowly and each meshing gear increased in speed. The last action on the chain was the balance wheel. It went back and forth, powered by one of the gears and an escape wheel actuating a small vibrating spring. Each time it moved back and forth it clicked and another second was measured.

Embedded in this long chain of geared wheels was one that protruded slightly out of the open edges of the rectangular frame. When the balance wheel was removed this wheel rotated at a relatively slow speed. Some of the other wheels were slower or faster. The mechanism could be placed on its side and that wheel would provide traction, causing it to crawl along a little faster than a snail’s pace. It was a lot of fun to see them move along.
I’m telling you all this so you will understand what happened when one of the boys brought one to school one day. I believe we were in the fifth grade that year. We had a nice middle-aged lady for a teacher that year. Her name was Leona Marshall.

A girl by the name of Mary June sat in the seat in front of me. She had long, blonde curly hair and it usually appeared to be well groomed. Some days it even had a colorful ribbon delicately displayed. I was guilty of dipping a strand or two in the ink well occasionally, but generally had been pretty well behaved.

A boy by the name of Mike Barron sat behind me. He was not so well behaved. Many times he punched me with a pencil, tickled my neck with a feather or something that tended to bother me. But that was part of a day’s operation and I tolerated his aggravating annoyances. Another boy whose name was Billy sat in front of Mary June. He was a little on the mischievous side, but seldom did anything serious.
On this day Mike had one of those alarm clock tractors. He wound it up tight and pushed it in front of my face. The wheels were turning and making a little noise.

He held the clock monster with his left hand and was punching Billy with his right. It appeared to me that he was going to hand Billy the package. I moved sideways while the thing was moving forward. The teacher was busy writing something of the blackboard and hadn’t seen the activity in our area.

Mary June was sitting low in the seat and the monster brushed against her curly. blonde hair. Some of the strands apparently made their way through the thin frame to the whirling gears inside. Before I realized what was happening something inside was pulling the hair inside and the unit was climbing through her hair to her scalp. I’m sure it was pretty painful as it wound up the hair and kept digging in!

The victim came to life suddenly and jumped out of her seat, screaming like a scalded cat. She was jumping up and down in the aisle, both hands pulling on the contraption that was well entrenched in her hair and pressing against her scalp.
“Get it off! Get it off!” she kept yelling. She had everyone’s attention, including the teacher’s. The teacher ran back to see what was wrong and was having a hard time getting her still enough to determine what the problem was.

Finally Mary June calmed down enough for Miss Marshall and another girl or two to diagnose the trouble. They agreed on what the problem was but they didn’t have any luck pulling it out of the hair. Mary June was still wailing like a sick calf.
“I think we will have to cut some hair,” Miss Marshall said, and asked one of the girls to find some scissors.

Someone had a pair of blunt nose scissors and handed them to the hair surgeon. It was a relatively simple matter to cut the hair beneath the machine. When it was pulled free it had stalled and was full of blonde hair. Miss Marshall held it up and looked it over. Several students started laughing. Mary June was crying softly and was feeling of the small bald spot on her head. Miss Marshall looked at me and asked, “Norris, did you do this?” I was prompt in replying, “No!” Mary June stopped feeling and crying long enough to point to me and say, “He did it. He did it!”

“It just passed by me,” I said. “It was an accident that her hair got caught in it.”

“Norris,” she said sternly, “Don’t you lie to me. I want you to stay after school is dismissed.” I didn’t like the sound of her voice and I had a deep feeling that I was in serious trouble. Mike just sat there in his seat looking innocent.

Everything calmed down and the afternoon passed in the usual manner. When it came time to go home and I stayed for the mandatory appointment, Miss Marshall walked back to my seat stood glaring at me.

Before she said anything, she reached and caught me by my hair and pulled my head back, staring angrily into my face. My attempt to tell her that it was an accident and I was innocent was a dismal failure. She gave me a strong lecture and kept pulling my hair to emphasize every word. Eventually she turned me loose and told me I would get a “D” in deportment on my next report card.

I still worry about my unjust accusation, reprimand and bad grade for something I was not guilty of. But every time I think about the blond hair being wound into the clock monster I have to laugh. It was pretty funny.

The moral of this story is: “If you see a strange contraption headed for a girl’s hair, put some distance between you and the victim!”

Old Timer's Tales