Ancestry



Updated January 12, 2009

THE PERSONAL HISTORY

OF KENNETH GAGE JONES

1939 -

[pic]

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword

Brief Summary of My Interaction with My Parents 1

Formative Years

Early Years

My Spectacular Entry into the World 3

Earliest Memories 6

Chickens and Other Creatures 6

Cows 7

Ice Cream 7

Playing in the Pond 8

Catching Crawdads with My Toes 8

Mary=s Love of Snakes 8

Playing With Snakes………………………………………………………….....................9

My Formative Years 9

My First Bicycle..................................................................................................................10

Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts 11

Growing Up in the First Christian Church Religion 12

Learning to Play Table Tennis (Ping Pong) 13

Discovering Tennis 14

Harry Carter, One of My Best Friends 15

Joy and Steve During the Korean War 16

School Years

Elementary School 17

Junior High School 18

Getting a Nickname 18

Boxing 19

My First Job at a Public Library 19

High School Years 20

Gym Class 20

Car Travels 20

A Turnaround in my High School Grades 21

Selling Shoes at Penny=s Department Store During Christmas 22

Choosing a College Major 22

i

College Years

Cameron Junior College 22

Introduction and Algebra Class 22

Spilling Sulfuric Acid 23

The Cat in the Lectern Box 24

Experience with Potassium Iodide 24

Fighting Forest Fires in Idaho 24

The Trip North 24

Picking Ribes 25

Me and the Blueberries 26

The Deer Fawn in the Nest 26

Doing Lunch with the Bear 26

The Bear Doing Lunch in My Tent 26

Almost Getting Eaten by the Bear 27

The Bear and the Food in the Trunk of the Car 27

Fighting Forest Fires 27

The Wilderness Vista 28

Oklahoma University 28

Living in the Dormitory 29

Social Life 29

Academics in General 29

Summer Job Selling Bibles in Muncie, Indiana 30

Basic Training in ROTC at Ft. Hood, Texas 32

Post College Years

Linde Corporation of Union Carbide 33

Welcome Received in Buffalo, New York 35

Living and Working in Tonowanda, New York 35

Social Life 36

Enjoying the Wonderful Winter 38

U.S. Army 38

Doing Artillery School in Lawton, Oklahoma 38

Shipping off to Bamberg, Germany 39

Ending up in Bad Kissingen, Germany 40

Returning by Troop Carrier to Fort Dix, New Jersey 41

General Dynamics 42

Doing Work 42

Meeting Mary 43

ii

Teledyne Ryan 45

SCI Corporation 46

Working for Richard Hartley 48

Northrop Electronics 48

Job Transfer to Utah………………………………………………………………………………………..50

Retirement 51

Do I Really Want to be a Teacher? 51

Selling Life Insurance 52

Religion 52

APPENDICES

Appendix A - Personal History of Leonard Gage Jones by Kenneth Jones 54

Appendix B - Personal History of Hettie Morgan by Kenneth Jones 55

Appendix C - Personal History of Charles Lee Jones by Kenneth Jones 57

Appendix D - Personal History of Alice Adelle Eidson by Kenneth Jones 58

Appendix E - Personal History of John Nathan Morgan by Kenneth Jones 59

Appendix F - Personal History of David Jones by R. L. Jones in 1939 60

Appendix G - Personal History of Jabez Jones by Kenneth Jones 65

Appendix H - Patriarchal Blessing of Kenneth Gage Jones 66

Appendix I - Church Positions Held by Kenneth Gage Jones 67

Appendix J - Family Genealogy 69

Appendix K - Photographs 70

Personal Vignettes…………………………………………………………………………………………..70

iii

FOREWORD

This is written to my wife, Mary Ellen, and our three children, David, Nicole, and Jason. This is also written to educate, inform, entertain, as well as bear testimony of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I hope the writing of my personal history will inspire each of my children to write their personal histories for the benefit of their children.

Brief Summary of my Interaction With My Family

My parents were both about 41 years old when I was born June 13, 1939. My brother and sister were 11 and 13 years older than I respectively. We lived in my grandmother’s house at 907 C Street, Ardmore, Oklahoma. My grandmother is Alice Adeina (Eidson) Morgan being my mother=s mother.

[pic]

Picture of Alice Adelle Eidson (Morgan) with children Kirk Morgan and

Hettie Adeina Morgan (my mother)

907 C st North West Ardmore, Oklahoma (about 1907)

That=s right, my parents moved in with grandmother as soon as their honeymoon was over. The story goes that mother refused to live separate from grandmother after they were married. I imagine that dad didn=t object too much since he calculated that living rent and mortgage free for 60 years does have its monetary advantages. I remember very little about my sister (Joy Jones) until she went away to college at Oklahoma College for Women in Chickasaw, Oklahoma. In fact I only remember two instances of my sister before she left home to go to college. The first was when grandmother Morgan was in an old rocking chair and she did something to upset both mom and Joy, my sister. There was a big bowl of peach peelings involved with all of this, but I don=t know what it was and Joy does not remember the incident. It appeared to me that the bowl might have spilt and grandmother made a scene. With Joy on one side of grandmother=s rocking chair and Mom on the other, they picked up grandmother in her chair and very quickly moved her out of the house onto the front porch with grandmother hollering. This was the only instance of contention between grandmother and any member of our family that I know anything about. I also remember grandmother responding with a question put to her with Awhat did you say?” but when she was in the next room and someone would say something quietly about her, she knew exactly what was said! When Fariss had his friends over I would follow them around like a little puppy dog every chance I got. Fariss was always kind and considerate of me and was as much like a father as an older brother. Mom and dad were very caring of me in their own way. Mother was very doting and would make sure that she woke me up with a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice. Many times when I was in a hurry, my breakfast would consist of a raw egg beat up in milk with a liberal amount of chocolate malt added. Of course mother always fixed my breakfast for me, even when I got older. Dad insisted on having three warm meals a day. He would actually leave work and come home for his noon meal, which was just as big a meal as the evening meal. I guess the tradition started in his family when they had a farm and needed three big meals a day because of the heavy physical workload. Unfortunately, mom spoiled me rotten, and I was quite a self-centered brat. After all, I was the center of my own universe. I did not have any siblings that I had to share with. I think that this adversely affected my social skills.

Dad generally did not pay very much attention to me until I reached my teens. I cannot remember either mom or dad ever taking a book and reading to me. I cannot remember mom or dad ever sitting down and playing with me before I became a teenager. When I became a teenager the relationship between dad and I changed a lot. We became chums of a sort. When dad got home from work he had a fixed routine. He would first eat, read the paper and listen to the radio, and then get out the card table and play a card game called solitaire. He played a lot of solitaire. When I became old enough for him to teach me how to play solitaire, he taught me other card games, like Pitch, as well as how to play dominoes. Dad and I played a lot of dominoes. Interestingly enough, dad never asked me how I ever felt about anything. We simply sat and played games, concentrating on the games without any side conversation. Evidently this was the way that dad was raised with his other brothers and sisters. He was quite close to several of his other brothers and sisters who lived in Madill, Oklahoma with my Uncle Potter living there in Ardmore. I only remember going to Uncle Potter=s when we would get turnip greens from his garden. His daughters were quite a bit older than I. I really think that I was dad=s favorite son. Fariss had given dad quite a few problems. Fariss essentially disliked dad for most of his life and would quite often blame dad for being the cause of his own problems. I could never really understand my older brother=s attitude toward dad. In his own way, I could tell that dad was very loving and caring of me. He just didn=t know how to communicate this to me. He was one of the most honest

men I had ever met. I never saw him and mom have a disagreement or say an unkind word to each other. On the other hand, the only time I ever saw dad kiss mom, or show her any affection, was when she went into the hospital to have an eye operation for glaucoma.

Formative Years

Early Years

My Spectacular Entrance into the World

I arrived on this earth June 13, 1939 at Ardmore, Oklahoma. I was told by my mother and sister that I was a rather puny baby when I was born and not too healthy. In my baby book, my mother entered four items and four items only: she entered my name, date of birth which was Tuesday, June 13, 1939 (thank goodness I wasn=t born on a Friday the 13th), my weight, 7 2 lb., and a good size selection of pretty blond hair that was cut for the first time on my first birthday. My blond hair reminds me of my daughter, Nicole=s, hair at the same age. I will have to compare my hair clippings with hers. Of course, my wife, Mary Ellen Leishman, also had pretty blond hair when she was very young.

Earliest Memories

My earliest childhood memories are when I was about three or four years old. I slept in a baby crib in the same room as my parents, Leonard Gage Jones and Hettie Adeina Jones. This was not by choice of my parents. It was by necessity. My sister, Joy Jones, and my grandmother, Alice Morgan, slept in single beds in one bedroom, and my brother, John Fariss Jones, slept in the other spare bedroom. So where else could I have slept, in the hallway? One of my first memories was waking up at the break of dawn with the morning rays of sunlight just reaching into our bedroom. I was amazed to notice all of the lint and dust particles floating in the air. The rays of the sun just made them sparkle. Have you ever noticed lint and dust particles suspended in air and illuminated by the morning sun? Maybe after 55 years, this doesn=t happen anymore. Did we live in a very dirty room or what? I hope all of my grandchildren will tell me if they can see dust particles in the early morning sunlight. There is a secret to this adventure. The dust particles are only captured when the first rays of the sun come into the room!

I still vividly remember a very strange vision I had at this young tender age. I awoke one morning, very early, before the sun was shining into our easterly facing bedroom window. I stood up in my crib and grabbed the top railing, which was just about level with my chest. In looking at my sleeping parents, I noticed two personages, a man and a woman, dressed very nicely in light brown tweed. The man had a suit and tie on. The woman was also smartly dressed in the same type fabric. I was quite startled to see them by the side of my parent=s bed. They both appeared to be leaning over my father and gazing at his sleeping body. I was very much alarmed at the sight of these intruders and yelled very loudly for my parents to wake up. As soon as I did this, both visitors calmly turned their heads only to look at me, and then calmly took a step or two forward and just disappeared. I make no claim that I actually saw two spirit beings, even though to this day I think I could recognize them if I saw their pictures. They did not look like any of my relatives that I have pictures of. Neither was large of stature and they appeared to both be about the same height.

A good reason for me to be skeptical of this vision was another one I had at about the same age that was even stranger. I was outside on the front porch at night and saw a lightening bolt strike not too far from our house. In this lightening bolt I thought I saw a very stern, scary-looking man, with a pointed goatee. I immediately bolted for the front door and ran into the house with the wits scared out of me. Was I a strange child or what?

Another memory is when I was taking a bath and got out of the tub to dry off. The only heat in this bathroom was a gas stove in the center of the bathroom. I=m surprised we didn=t all die of affixation from the burning gas fumes. Maybe that is why they built homes with 15-foot ceilings. At any rate, it was wintertime, and the bathroom was cold even with the stove on. So I decided to back up to the stove and warm my bottom. Unfortunately I slipped and fell on top of this very hot stove and burned my buttocks pretty severely. Not a very pleasant experience to recall. My dad had a very unusual method of bathing. I never saw him get into a bathtub while I was growing up. He would fill up the kitchen sink with water and wash himself all over with a wet washrag. I was surprised he didn=t get more water onto the bathroom floor than he did!

I have fond memories of my grandmother telling me stories of her childhood. She would relate such stories as Indians chasing one of my great uncles as he rode for the Pony Express and how he set the prairie on fire to escape them. When she was only five or six years old, she rode up to a settlement with her father that Geronimo had just attacked and left his grisly remains. She claims that she saw Geronimo as he was riding off in the distance. He had a beautiful horse and a headdress that nearly fell down to the ground while he was mounted on his horse. She related the story of the Oklahoma land rush when she was a little girl and how many settlers had already settled Oklahoma prior to the rush. The settlers were allowed to homestead the amount of property they could circle in a day. You can imagine where the name boomer sooners comes from. These were the people that entered the Oklahoma Indian Territory and marked off their claim before the official opening date of the land rush.

The house we lived in was the same that my mother moved to when she was very young. The house she had been born in was in the southeast part of town going toward Washington Park where the swimming pool used to be. Just before you passed under the railroad trestle, the house used to be in the same location as the Colvert milk store. When I was in high school, there used to be a miniature golf course just to the south of this area. The house had been torn down before I was born. The home we lived in at 907 C Street North West in Ardmore, Oklahoma was built in about 1907. It was one of those old, high-ceiling, ornately designed frame houses. It was a bit crowded as far as sleeping space was concerned. I slept in a baby crib, as previously mentioned, until the age of five years, when my sister went away to college. I then got to use her bed.

I evidently had some bad feelings about having to sleep so long in a baby crib. I remember on a trip with mom for the weekend to OCW (Oklahoma College for Women in Chickasaw, Oklahoma) to visit my sister, I had fallen asleep and the only thing that my sister could get conveniently for me to sleep in was a baby crib. When I woke up in the middle of the night and found myself in a baby crib, I immediately began to make a fuss. My mother decided to take the quickest way to quiet me by putting me in her bed, and she slept in the baby crib the rest of the night! More than likely, I slept in a sleeping bag on the floor the next night. During this same trip, one of Joy=s roommates had a baby alligator about a foot long she had bought at a circus. She showed it to me, and I just went nuts wanting to take this baby alligator home with me. My mother would have nothing to do with me having this alligator as a pet. It was okay for me to have snakes, horny toads, chameleons and box turtles as pets, but she would not allow me to have this baby alligator. Many times my mother would give in if I really badgered her on something I wanted, but on this occasion she could not be persuaded. I=m sure she had visions of this alligator eventually reaching the size to fill our whole bathtub, and then what do we do with it? I was very reliable in nurturing my pets so they survived. The last thing she needed was her son to eventually be eaten by his pet alligator.

About the age of four, my best friend was a boy by the name of Harry Manson Carter. He was a year younger than me. I recall it was a lazy Sunday afternoon, and we were dressed in our Sunday best. We had just returned from church (I grew up in the First Christian Church), and Harry and I decided to go outside and play. It had just rained the night before so it was muddy outside. Together we both found a nice mud hole to squat by. How is it that boys only need dirt and water to have so much fun? Before long our Sunday best clothes were soiled with mud. It was red clay mud. Don=t ask me how this happens. It was almost as if the mud jumped out of the mud hole and attached itself to us. When our mothers called for us, we were having too much fun playing to pay any attention to them. They soon found us. Harry=s mother was very upset, scolded him severely, and pounded his bottom. My mother simply picked me up, without a cross word of any sort, and helped me change my clothes.

At the age of about five years, I went with a friend of mine, who was about a year older, and we decided to take a little trip, without telling our parents. We left early in the morning and decided to walk to the railroad yard, which was about two miles away. To get to the railroad yard we had to walk over an old wooden viaduct, which crossed over the railroad tracks. For some reason we found ourselves walking on the railing of this structure. It was only about a forty-foot drop if we fell. My friend walked on one railing, and I was walking on the other. After crossing over, we were able to explore the insides of the railroad cars. The results of our exploration were fascinating! There had been a circus in town a few days previously, and these railroad cars had been used to carry all the animals. The animals were no longer present, but the evidence of their previous presence was undeniable. We were simply fascinated at the varied remains of the animals. We were particularly impressed with the poops of the elephants. They were huge! I believe that we took sandwiches with us on our venture because we didn=t get home until late afternoon, and I didn=t recall being particularly hungry. I can=t imagine what we did for those eight or nine hours. We must have had a lot of railroad cars to inspect. When we got home my mother was very worried, even though she didn=t scold me. I suspect my friend’s parents were worried, because they moved soon after this. I can=t remember this friends name because our acquaintance was so brief.

This also brings to memory when the circus would come to town. Yes, it was the P.T. Barnum and Bailey Circus! After unloading at the train station, the whole circus would parade down Main Street. After seeing all the elephant poops left in the street after the parade, it made us glad that elephants didn=t fly!

Chickens and Other Creatures

My dad would occasionally buy a live chicken from our next-door neighbor who had a chicken coup with several dozen laying hens.

We have to take a side trip on my narrative. My favorite chicken story is the one of the famous actor, James Cagney, who decided to buy a ranch and stock it with a few animals. (This story was reported in Readers Digest years ago.) When it came to the chickens, he couldn=t decide how many hens and how many roosters to buy. None of his friends knew anything about chickens and they couldn=t advise him. So he decided that to keep the hens from being too lonely, he bought a rooster for each hen. It did not escape his attention that it was very noisy in the chicken coop, most of the time, and that for some strange reason the hens were laying very few, if any, eggs. You=ll have to figure this one out for yourselves. I am not going to tell you. But when you figure it out, it is very funny. (I=ll give you a hint. One rooster normally services one or two dozen hens. Can you imagine the pandemonium with a chicken coup having a rooster for every hen?)

Dad would kill a chicken, and then we would eat it. Killing a live chicken and preparing it to eat is a lot different than just buying it at the store. Dad had a very unique method of killing a chicken. He would grab the live chicken by the head with his right hand and then swing the chicken over his head and wring off its neck. Have you ever heard the expression “I=m going to wring your neck!” Well that is where the expression comes from, wringing off a chicken=s neck. Some people would wring the chicken=s neck until it was dead and then simply pull the head off. The only problem with this method was that there was a danger of a lot of chicken blood squirting on you. This is why a lot of men would cut the chicken=s head off with an ax on a chopping block. Dad would pride himself with wringing the head of the chicken so expertly that the chicken head would come off in his hands and the chicken would fall away from him so that no blood squirted on him. Then Dad would remove the innards from the chicken. Mom had a big pot she would fill with water and bring it to a boil. She would then put the chicken, feathers and all in this boiling water for just a few minutes. The wet chicken feathers in boiling water have a very distinctive smell. To put it plainly, it is just a terrible smell. The boiling water would loosen the chicken feathers so the chicken could have its feathers plucked off by hand. Mom and I would remove the chicken feathers. I was responsible for making sure all of the feathers were plucked off. My eyesight was better than my mothers, so I could make sure that the small neck feathers were all removed. Mom or dad would turn on one of the gas-stove burners and rotate the chicken over the flame to remove the fine chicken hairs. Dad would then gut the chicken and cut off the feet. After cutting up the chicken, we would have a wonderful fried chicken dinner.

The interesting thing about chicken coups is that snakes are not far away. Bull snakes just love to eat chicken eggs. I remember a lady across the street beating a six-foot long bull snake with a broom and killing it. It was quite a spectacle. She would jump up and down and whoop and holler and beat on this snake with her broom. It reminded me of the expression of someone working like they were “killing snakes.” A woman trying to kill a big snake with a broom is anxiously and very energetically engaged. I never could understand why people didn=t eat big snakes like that. My sons David and Jason used to tell me, from their Boy Scout experiences, that snake meat tasted just like chicken or even better. But then all different meat tastes like chicken, right? You have seen the bumper sticker that says, “I love cats, they taste just like chicken.”

Cows

I wish each of my children and grandchildren could have the opportunity of milking a cow. The neat thing is aiming the tit of the cow at your mouth and seeing, when you squeeze the tit of the cow, if you can get any milk in your mouth. There is no better tasting milk than that which comes directly out of the cow. Of course if you are not a very good shot, you get more milk on your face than in your mouth.

Ice Cream

Going out the back door to our house was a small, raised porch with three wooden steps leading to the ground. In the hot summertime, my mother would mix the ingredients for homemade ice cream. It made better tasting ice cream than you could buy in the store. It was very rich in taste with a surprisingly icy taste, even though there was a lot of sugar, milk and cream and about a dozen eggs added. As I recall, the container for the ice cream maker held almost two gallons. Dad would buy a block of ice and some rock salt. He would then get an ice pick and chip the ice into pieces that would fit between the wooden ice cream bucket and the container that spun in the center as it was cranked with a handle. After filling this cavity, that went all the way around the container, he would add a liberal portion of rock salt. I had the pleasure of turning the handle of the ice cream maker until I got tired. My brother would then take a turn along with my dad, and we would then rotate our turns in this fashion. In about thirty to forty five minutes, the ice cream handle would become very hard to turn, which meant the ice cream was just about ready. Dad would get an old rug and cover the top of the ice cream maker and sit me on top while he and Fariss finished off making the final cranks of the handle. Dad and my brother would take out the container and hand it to mother who would take the screw top off and remove the paddle assembly that churned and made the ice cream. Boy was that good ice cream! We made ice cream several times during the hottest part of the summer.

Playing in the Pond

Off of the back porch was a huge hackberry tree that must have been four feet in diameter. Mom always claimed that this tree became so big because she and grandmother would throw the wash water out by the base of the tree. They figured something in the soap made the tree grow. Between the tree and the porch steps was an indentation of the earth that made an ideal shallow pond for me. Grass would not grow very well here because it was shaded too much by the combination of the house and this big tree. There was a water faucet about four paces from the porch steps. It was another six or eight paces from the faucet to the tree. I loved to make my little pond of water and play in this water with my pet frogs and snakes. As a family we would go fairly often to Lake Murray to fish. One time I was playing by the water=s edge and noticed this cute little black snake in the water. I immediately scooped him up and dropped him into my front pocket. When I got home I kept him in a jar. I really can=t remember what I fed him. It was probably flies and stuff like that. One day I had made and dammed my little pond and was having a great time sitting in the middle of my pond and playing with my pet snake. One of dad=s friends dropped by and walked over to where I was playing in the pond. I don=t remember who he was or even if I knew him at the time. He went in the house, and my mother came out shortly. Mom asked to see my snake and to my surprise, very gingerly took the snake and put him back into his bottle. What was surprising was mom didn=t think anything about boldly picking up a snake like I did. The fact that she was so careful was unusual. She then told me that my little baby snake was a very poisonous cottonmouth, which came fully equipped to make me very sick if it ever bit me. She then gave me the ultimatum to get rid of this snake. I almost had an auction with several of my friends trying to trade me several garter snakes for my cottonmouth. So I traded the snake away. I can=t recall the friend I traded it to being bitten or dying. But then who knows. I can=t recall who I traded it to. Interestingly enough I never knew my mother to be scared of any insects, snakes, mice, rats, or other creatures.

Catching Crawdads with my Toes

Just north of 12th street, which runs east and west, and C Street which runs north and south, there was a little stream, running east and west. The stream was at the bottom of the hill going north on C Street. We would take our shoes off, walk in the stream barefooted, and catch crawdads with our toes. For some reason, we would never eat the tails of the crawdads. These are a delicacy in the deep south around New Orleans.

Mary=s Love of Snakes

This is certainly different than the attitude of my wife, Mary Ellen Leishman. One time in Escondido, California she entered the bedroom and noticed a black snake with a yellow strip lying on the floor. She figured that, Ricky, her nephew, or one of our children had left a rubber snake on the floor in our bedroom. When she threw my hairbrush at the snake it actually moved! Boy did Mary get excited! She immediately got a broom and tried to kill it. The snake escaped and got under the master chest of drawers. When I got home from work, Mary said she wouldn=t sleep in our bedroom until I got rid of this snake. I moved all of the furniture as well as everything in the bedroom. There was no evidence of the snake ever existing. When Mary mentioned this incident to one of her friends she off-handedly remarked, “Oh, that was just one of those snakes that crawls up into your bed springs!”

Playing With Snakes

An interesting sidelight to my pond making was that grandmother would come outside and try to remove the handle to the faucet before I could make my little pond. It would make me very angry that she would interfere with my fun in this manner. Years later I realized that water to her had been a very precious commodity when she had been growing up, and that it was almost a sin to waste water in Oklahoma and Texas at the turn of the century.

One time as I was digging a small hole by my pond I noticed my digging had disturbed a rather large worm or snake. It immediately disappeared down a hole it had already made. It is hard for me to believe that it was a regular earthworm, even though it had the color and texture of one. I was fascinated by this occurrence and immediately tried to unearth this worm or snake. As I dug deeper I covered up the hole the creature had made and I was not able to unearth it. Years later I found out that earthworms can burrow down to four feet deep. I certainly didn=t dig down to more that an additional foot.

My Formative Years

I was always a skinny little weakling growing up. I remember in the first grade there was a very big and attractive girl named Bonnie. She was a knockout. She didn=t know it at the time and neither did I. I made the mistake of calling her “Bonnie Battleship” after school one day. She hated that name. She was determined to catch me and prematurely end my scrawny, miserable little life. As big as she was, she was not nearly as fast as a “scared to death” little runt of a kid like me. She would chase me for about a block, and I could run like a deer. Boy could I run when I was scared! I would then slow down and look around. She would take courage, and with the gleam of murder in her eye and her teeth gritted, chase me another block. After about a quarter mile of this, she could see that her efforts were a lost cause and quit chasing me. She got over it by the next day and we became friends. I can=t remember anything about our brief friendship other than I went to her house to play one time. As I recall her house was on the northwest corner of C Street and 6th avenue. Her family moved within just a few months.

I learned about zero in the first grade. Even though my first grade teacher, Mrs. Reed, was a personal friend of the family, she had over 35 students in her class and could not give me any personal attention. I finished the first grade without being able to read a lick or even count. Even though I had a very loving mother, I never remember her reading to me or teaching me to count or anything like that.

One of the few things I enjoyed was the first and second grade choir we had in school. We met most every day before school started and practiced. One song I remember singing was “Sue City Sue.” At least I think that was the name of the song.

I also had difficulty in the second grade of school. I remember having to stay after school because I couldn't count or write past 20. The teacher was very mad at me and evidently thought I was putting her on when I told her I could not write my numbers from 1 to 20. She told me I had to stay after school until I figured out how to do this. After about 15 minutes of frustration, I turned to the side and noticed a calendar on the wall which numbered up to 30. After studying the calendar for a few minutes, it finally dawned on me how to write my numbers sequentially, and I rapidly completed the assignment. At the end of my second year of school, I remember my mother and I being in conference with this second grade teacher. She told my mother I would have to repeat the second grade.

At this point mom and dad enrolled me in a private school for the third and fourth grades. It was called “Mrs. Stanley's private school.” Mrs. Stanley recommended that one of her friends should tutor me over the summer. I remember this lady using flash cards to teach me addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division during the summer. By the end of the summer, I was a whiz at manipulating numbers and enjoyed it immensely. In the fall, Mrs. Stanley=s school met in her home. Mrs. Stanley was a widow about age 65, and she had converted her living room into a school classroom. She held class for about 15 students grades one through six. The thing that made the difference for me was the personal attention and direction from her when I needed it. I have always been easily discouraged trying to do and learn new things. Mrs. Stanley gave me confidence and encouragement. Each student learned at his own pace. I don=t remember but one or two girls who were her students. I only remember being discouraged twice in her class. Once was when she wanted me to make a series of telephone calls. I was petrified! Here I was in the third grade and had never made a telephone call! She made me do it, and I crossed another giant hurdle in my life. Of course I had talked on the phone before, but I had never initiated a phone call up to this point! Another time was when I was having trouble understanding how to do long division. She tried to explain it to me, and I just couldn=t understand how to do it. She told me to keep working until I figured out how to do it by myself. When I got home I told my brother, Fariss, about the problem I was having trying to learn how to do long division. Within less than 30 minutes, my brother had helped me learn how to solve these types of problems. I am a firm believer in the “little red schoolhouse concept.” With patient encouragement, I was able to excel and do well in private school.

I recall a couple of interesting experiences while at this private school. One was when we had just come in from recess when I noticed a dog from across the street running toward our school at full speed. When the dog reached our porch, he continued running at full speed until he hit the screen of the locked front door. When I saw this dog frothing at the mouth it was obvious to me that he was in the last stages of rabies. If we had stayed out for recess another 10 minutes before coming in, this dog would have probably bitten all of us. Someone told me that the only way to escape a rabid dog was to face it as it was charging you and to run sideways when it almost reached you. A rabid animal has very poor balance and can=t change direction very easily. You can never outrun a rabid animal if you are trying to run away from it. Another experience, probably not worth mentioning, was when we had a real dry spell over the summer and Mrs. Stanley had a one-inch crack in the ground of her yard. We turned on a hose full force, stuck it in this crack, and let the water run for over an hour. The crack never filled up with water. I would almost swear the water ran all the way to China.

My First Bicycle

When I was in the 3rd grade my dad finally bought me my 1st bicycle. The only wheeled conveyance I had before this was a wagon and a tricycle. At about the age of about 9, I was no longer interested in either of these, so I started bugging my dad for my 1st bicycle, since all of my friends had bicycles and I did not! All of my friends had owned bicycles for some time, but they were grubby from constant use, while I was the only one with a nice shiny new one! So the first thing I did was show off my bicycle to 3 or 4 of my best friends. I rode my bicycle over to 12th and D street, in Ardmore, Oklahoma, where Kenny Smith , Dale Givens and Robert Ledbetter lived in the 1st 2nd and 3rd houses going East from this corner. Their houses faced North. Since I lived at 907 C Street North West, this was only about two blocks away. This was about the year 1948. After showing my new bicycle to them they were excited and want to ride my new bike. So what they would do is ride eastwardly on 12th Avenue to C Street, make a right-hand, to go South on C Street to 11th Avenue, make another right-hand turn on 11th Avenue to D Street, and then take a really steep drive down this dirt road to come back to 12th Avenue. They all took their turns, told me what a great bike I had, and then gave me my turn. I rode around the block to D Street and started down the really steep dirt road to 12th Avenue. I was going very fast. Near the bottom of the hill, I noticed a gasoline truck traveling westerly on 12th Avenue. He happened to notice my rapid rate of speed and that my bicycle was on a collision course with truck. He decided to stop his truck, in the middle of the intersection, so that if I was not able to stop and ran into him, he at least wouldn’t run over me with his truck. Since riding my bicycle from my house to theirs was my first experience riding a bicycle, going down this steep hill for the second ride was too much for me. I had not ridden a bicycle enough to have an instinctive braking action to stop the bicycle. I froze when I saw the truck and could not apply the brakes at all. I hit the side of the truck probably going 20-30 miles an hour. When my bicycle hit his truck, I remember putting my feet up so that my feet would hit the truck before my head! The next thing I remember was seeing great big stars. Yes, you can see stars when you have a collision and it knocks you out. The frame of the bicycle was actually shattered. Pieces of my bicycle were strewn all over the roadway. What actually happened was that my feet acted like an accordion to cushion the impact. Unfortunately after impact, my body acted like a compressed spring, and I ended up with my body twisting so that my face was pointing down to the brick roadway. I did a face-plant. I ended up breaking one front teeth in half, and my face was a bloody mess. My chest was also scratched up.

I remember waking up, in my gore, and immediately trying to stand up. Kenny Smith’s mother came out of her house with a horrified look on her face when she saw me. This resulted in she and the truck driver restraining me from getting up. They told me to lie still until the ambulance arrived. I followed their directions and I was lifted on to a stretcher. Arriving at the hospital, the emergency room entrance was visible for the waiting room for patients. When I was carried in, I partially sat up and waved to the sitting room patients. They all had horrified looks on their face and must have thought that I was drawing my last breath. In actuality, all of my wounds were superficial, even thought my mother made me stay in bed for several days. I had to have my front tooth capped. This is why I have always had a bridge across my front teeth.

Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts

The Cub Scout and Boy Scout experiences were wonderful for me. I definitely remember earning all of the Cub Scout bear, wolf, and bobcat badges and the fun times I had. I specifically recall carving a bar of soap into something I cannot remember what. I also remember making a paddleboat with a rubber band driven paddle at the back. The Cub Scout uniform really made it special. I think I also remember making a racecar out of a block of wood and racing the car on a track. The Boy Scout program with our scout uniforms was a fun time also. I especially remember the exciting adventure of learning to tie different knots in a rope. This might sound a bit trite, but I really felt that way about it. Unfortunately our scoutmaster, Mr. Pifer, got tired of the program and quit as our scoutmaster. Before he quit, we were able to have several successful camp outs. A fun time I had in scouts was a weeklong scout camp one summer. We had a log cabin dining room that served pretty good food, with the exception of powdered scrambled eggs. Powdered scrambled eggs were a popular group food when I was growing up. I just never liked the taste of powdered scrambled eggs in comparison with scrambled eggs using real eggs. Back to Boy Scout summer camp. We were able to use a 22-caliber rifle range that we enjoyed. I was a very good shot with a B-B gun, so shooting a rifle was a natural extension of my capabilities. We slept in a two-man tent on cots with sleeping bags. Harry Carter was my partner. I recall looking up in the corner of the tent one night and seeing a family of spiders minding their own business. At that time in my life I was completely unconcerned with those spiders over my head up in the corner of the tent. At my current stage in life now, I would probably freak out if the same thing were to happen now. Later that night when we went to sleep, I vividly recall a sound like a freight train going through our camp. I was so sleepy that I only momentarily woke up. The next morning when I woke up I was greeted with an unusual surprise. A tornado had touched down about 500 yards from our campground. During the middle of the night, this tornado had literally cut off the top of a small hill ridge to the east of us. It was as if a huge giant had taken a gigantic sword and chopped off the top of this ridge, unearthing gigantic boulders lying helter-shelter along the top. The only effects we felt of this tornado were several tents were blown over and one of the boys had his cot lifted off the ground and then dropped to the ground. If this tornado had hit our area, we probably would have been severely injured. We had quite a wilderness area we could explore as a group. We saw a small bunny rabbit scurrying along the ground and decided to capture it by forming a circle around the rabbit and then the group tightening the circle by walking toward the rabbit. We managed to capture the rabbit and put it in a gunnysack. Unfortunately the rabbit died from heart failure due to the stress of being captured. Another time Harry and I pinned a huge centipede with a forked stick. The centipede stung the stick so violently that we could actually feel the stick vibrate. Another time one of my good friends, Ronnie Lasiter, found and cut up a copperhead snake with a machete. This is the only copperhead snake I have ever seen before or since. Unfortunately Ronnie was a bit too exuberant in killing the snake and it was cut up into too many small pieces to even tell that it was a snake. We also got to “skinny dip” in a cool, refreshing pond in the middle of the day.

I only had time to earn my tenderfoot badge before our scoutmaster quit. When we joined another troop, almost all the boys were several years older, and they played kind of rough with the younger ones like me. As a result I quickly quit scouts and never earned another rank past tenderfoot.

Growing Up in the First Christian Church Religion

My dad was a Deacon in the First Christian Church. Interestingly enough, the Deacons passed the “Communion” in our church, and they all had to be seasoned adults with long activity. He had previously been the church treasurer for many years. My earliest memories are of going to vacation bible school in the summer time where we would sing songs such as “Jesus loves me this I know, because the bible tells me so---.” Our younger Sunday school classes met in the basement of our church. I remember in particular, a picture on the wall of Jesus knocking on a door that is without a doorknob. In fact that, this is why I have this same picture hanging above the television in my computer (the great) room. It is the same picture I grew up with as a small child when I went to church. Our ward libraries have a replica, which the LDS church has reproduced that I do not like as well.

I recall coloring pictures with crayons and playing with flour dough. This activity would be interspersed with singing and learning about Jesus. I really don=t recall very much about these early years. I do recall my years starting with grade school though. I wasn=t very interested in my teachers in Sunday school. I was more interested in pulling the pigtails of the girl in front of me! Of course every year we had the manger scene reenacted every Christmas season. We also had a youth organization with the initials YFC. I think the acronym mean AYouth For Christ.@ I recall in my early teens when a visiting pastor for the Christian Institute in Enid, Oklahoma came to visit. He came to our YFC activity. In a private conversation, I had the opportunity to ask him the question, what do you think heaven is really like? He was a bit taken back by the question initially, but then after a reflective moment he said, “I think that heaven is just a continuation of our life on this earth.” Now this certainly was not our official church doctrine. Our official church doctrine was that if you were good through your life you would go to heaven, and if you were bad you would go to hell. He was closer to the truth than he could have realized. During my junior high school years, we had a very influential church member who dressed well and drove a Ford Thunderbird. He came to substitute teach our Sunday school class. The only problem was that he was almost too drunk to teach the class! I certainly don=t remember anything of what he tried to teach us.

The Communion we had in our Christian church every Sunday was very similar to the Sacrament in the LDS Church. The only difference was that we had grape juice served in little glass cups, just a little larger than our sacrament cups. We would then partake of a little cracker in place of the bread. One time I vividly remember that the grape juice had become fermented. Of course I did not realize this until I had drunk the entire contents. Boy you should have seen the strange looks on faces of people after they drank their juice. Some had a look of amazement, and others just had a smile on their face. I would just about bet that our substitute Sunday School teacher, we discussed earlier, reached for another before it got away from him.

I recall as a teenager going to a Christian youth camp near Stillwater, Oklahoma. We sang a very strange camp song that I have not heard since. It went something like “Green grow the rushes hole, I=ll give you one hole. One is one and all alone and every one shall be his own.” Another part of the song went “three-three the rider, I=ll give you two-two the little white boy, dressed in all the green and all, one is one and all alone and everyone shall be his own.” You can see that the song would build and then repeat itself much like “A Partridge in a Pear Tree.” During break time we had a dance floor with a jukebox that played all the popular songs. I remember pairing off with this little Indian maiden from Tahlequah, Oklahoma and we really “cut a rug” doing the jitterbug on the dance floor. We were probably the best jitter- buggers. My jitterbugging was comparable to my son, David=s, waltzing. This is kind of a lame story, but it is all I can remember about this youth camp, except that the powdered scrambled eggs for breakfast were just terrible.

Learning to Play Table Tennis (Ping-Pong)

At about age seven my brother, Fariss, taught me how to play table tennis. We had a solid oak dining room table that we could install extra leaves in to make the table about the size of a ping-pong table. My brother installed a table tennis net at the center of the table and taught me how to play. I caught on very quickly. The table had a very hard surface and the ball would move faster than on a regular table. I would hold the paddle in a very peculiar way. I would put my thumb and forefinger behind the paddle in a sideways fashion and then swing the paddle from side-to-side, coming up over the ball to smash the ball each time I hit it. I always kept the same side of the paddle facing the ball regardless whether I hit the ball on the backhand or forehand side. By the age of 10 or 11, I was beating my 20-year old brother at the game. By the age of 12, a new family moved next door. There was a boy about a year younger than I, and he had a ping-pong table in his house. His dad came home from work one day and noticed me playing ping-pong with his son. He almost immediately took the paddle away from his son and said “here son, let me play this game with your friend.” I immediately beat him in a game. He said “Let=s play another game.” We had the opportunity of playing many times. I=m not sure he ever beat me in a game. The local Methodist Church had a recreation room in the basement that included shuffleboard and a ping-pong table. Every Saturday night the high school students would gather and enjoy playing games. The rule at the ping-pong table was that the winner got to remain on the table and play all challengers until he was defeated. I recall being so short that my waist was about even with the top of the ping-pong table. I proceeded to play all of the high school students, in order, and beat all of them. After I started beating repeat customers, they all informed me that only high school students were allowed to use the facilities and that I was too young! I wish I could have had better competition growing up and could have played with players who could beat me regularly. When I got to college I found players who were much better than me. The Orientals would chop the ball and I couldn=t smash the ball consistently without hitting the ball into the net. I therefore decided to hold the bat in the western grip so I could chop the ball like the Orientals and not have to smash the ball all of the time. My game never became as good as it was before I changed my grip.

I would like to share an interesting story about the origins of the name ”ping-pong.” When I worked at Northrop Grumman in Los Angeles I had a friend who sat next to me named Sean Chen, who was obviously of Chinese extraction, and spoke very broken English, even though he was a brilliant engineer to work with. I asked him, “Sean, where did the name ping-pong originate from?” He looked at me quizzically, his eyes got big, and then rolling his head from side to side and said “ping, pong, ping, pong.” Get the picture?

Discovering Tennis

Just east of our house was several nice tennis courts about a block away. I remember walking to the tennis courts at a very early age and watching grownups play tennis. It was natural that I wanted to learn how to play. My parents purchased a very special tennis racket for me that I have not seen since. It was a small metal racket with metal strings. Not only was the racket difficult to play tennis with (the ball had very little bounce after it hit the strings), but also it was virtually indestructible. I started throwing it straight down to the concrete tennis surface every time I lost a point. It would bounce 6 feet high into the air and then fall to the ground undamaged. I then realized more stringent measures were required it I were going to get a decent replacement racket. Since throwing the racket to the ground was doing very little to damage the racket so I could get another one, I decided it would be more efficient to swing the racket, very hard, against one of the posts that held the tennis net suspended. This began to produce the desired result much more efficiently. Very soon the racket head dangling loosely form the handle and almost severed. I approached my dad and said, “Gee dad, look what happened to my racket!” He realized the difficulty I had playing with that racket and soon bought me a decent tennis racket to play with. I was well instructed. The men at the tennis court taught me how to hold the racket and swing the racket correctly. A cousin of mine, with the last name of Taylor, taught me how to serve the tennis ball very well. He was a very good tennis player. He was then currently the number one tennis player at Oklahoma University and had won the midwestern tennis championships. He was ranked in the top 20 in the nation. Unfortunately, I never was as good at tennis as I was at table tennis. I could not move quickly enough around the court and my game was spotty. I am trying to indicate that my tennis play was inconsistent. I also easily tired. I would generally do well playing the first set and then not do so well playing the second or third set. One shot would be a brilliant winner and the next two shots would be plunked into the net. I very seldom won when I played others. I was the 3rd rated player on our high school tennis team. We had no coach or school support. Jerry Moon was the top-rated player and Thomas Eppler was the number two-rated player. Their best finish was placing 4th at a state tennis match in doubles. They got beat by the top-rated team and made a pretty good showing. One of my favorite stories of playing match tennis was when we played the high school tennis of Lawton, Oklahoma my junior year. I played on the second-ranked Ardmore tennis team with Billy Baird, as I recall. The Lawton tennis team coach decided he would have a little fun and assigned us to play his number-one ranked women=s doubles team. One of the young women on this team was the number-one ranked women=s player in the state. Even though we got beat by them, the interesting thing was, this number-one women=s player couldn=t come close to getting my serve back across the net. On my serve, I hit the ball so hard and at such an angle that most of the time she couldn=t even get her racket on the ball, much less return it successfully. She finally got so frustrated that she ended up throwing her racket over the backstop and had to go get it. She was just too upset that a member of a male “scrub doubles” team could serve a ball that she couldn=t touch.

I never won a match in a sanctioned tennis tournament. I would always freeze up and not play my best. This was much different than my table tennis local match play. I even represented Cameron Junior College in a tennis tournament in Corpus Christi, Texas one time. Unfortunately I let my tennis partner down and did not play well.

Harry Carter, One of my Best Friends

I told a story of Harry earlier in my narrative. Harry and I had many interesting experiences together and I have to choose the most interesting, even though none of them might be very interesting to you. Even though I was kind of scrawny, Harry was smaller than me. He weighed about the same as me, but he didn=t know how to fight or wrestle very well. In other words I could always get the best of him in whatever we did. For example we were about nine years old and having a nice rock fight. He was behind a whole mound of gravel, an unlimited supply of nice size rocks to throw at me and pound me with. But he couldn=t throw hard enough or straight enough to hit me very well. I was simply picking up the rocks he was throwing at me and able to hit him while he was hiding behind this mound of gravel. All I could see was his face and I had absolutely no cover. When I hit him in the head with a nice-size piece of gravel, he called it quits and went crying to his mother.

Another one of our more intelligent activities was taking his new bow-and-arrow set and shooting his arrows straight up into the air. I had my own bow-and-arrow set and had done much target practicing. Once I managed to kill a robin in a tree with a bow-and-arrow. I was a good enough shot to shoot the arrows almost straight up and have them land in front of us about 20 feet. Unfortunately Harry got a little anxious to gather the arrows in front of us before the arrow I had shot into the air had landed. As soon as be bent over to pull the first arrow out of the ground, the arrow I had shot up into the air struck him in the back. Since we were in his front yard doing this clever activity, he only had a few steps to his front door to get his mother. I don=t recall her being too upset at us. I think his mother had to patch him up a little bit, but he was none the worse for wear.

One time we rode our bicycles about 10 or 15 miles to where Harry=s dad had a horse corralled. We decided to ride this horse without a saddle. Harry got on top of the horse and grabbed onto his mane. I got up behind him and grabbed hold of Harry. The horse took off at a run. Harry was holding on to the mane of the horse for dear life, and I was holding onto the waist of Harry to try and keep from falling off. As the horse would go up and down while running, Harry would shift sideways back and forth. I would shift behind Harry even more. At the moment I thought we would go tumbling off the back of the horse, the horse stopped and we were able to jump off unhurt.

Another time I went with Harry, his father, and his uncle to one of his dad=s rental properties. Harry and I found a ladder that was propped up against the garage, so we both decided to climb up to the top of the garage. After climbing to the top, Harry feigned some reason for returning to the ground and then immediately removed the ladder from the garage and gloated over stranding me on top the garage. Undoubtedly getting even for some past offense I had created against him. After pacing back and forth several minutes I panicked and jumped off the garage onto the ground. Unfortunately when I landed, I twisted my ankle pretty badly. I had a history of bad ankles. Boy, did Harry get it from his dad when he found out the trick that Harry played on me!

My last story of Harry and I was when were about nine years old and at his house. For some unknown reason, we decided to determine who could damage each other=s bicycle the most. He would kick my bicycle, and then I would kick his bicycle. It was=t long before we were kicking each other. Of course he lost as usual. He immediately ran into the house and came back a few minutes later with his whole family! His mom and dad and younger sister were in tow. They sat down on their back step and told Harry to go and kick my butt! He gave it his best effort, but he just lost again. I had never fought a fight with a cheering squad rooting against me! But then we both needed to lick our wounds after it was all over. Let us fast-forward to the year 1992, which was about 44 years later. I visited with Harry in Ardmore, Oklahoma after attending my brother Fariss=s funeral in Tulsa. He related the following story. “Ken do you remember when you and I had the fight over our bicycles in my back yard many years ago?” I responded yes, because of the curiosity of his sister and parents on the front steps rooting for him to beat me up. “When I went inside the house I headed straight for my dad=s pistol that he had in a dresser drawer in his bedroom. I was going to take that pistol, go back outside and shoot you. For some reason, my dad had come home from the office right after lunch, which he very rarely did. He saw me trying to take the pistol outside and ask me where I was going. I told my dad that I was going to take his pistol and kill you. My dad said for me to give him his gun and said there was a better way to settle the issue. He said that he and mom would go outside with him and root for him to kick Ken=s butt!” All of my children can be thankful that Harry=s dad came home early that day. Otherwise I might have ceased to exist and you wouldn=t be here today.

Joy and Steve During the Korean War

My brother-in-law, Ralph Starner, was an officer in the 101st Airborne Division during the Korean War. As a result, Joy, my sister, being 13 years older than me, and Steve, her son, being nine years younger than me, found it best to come back to the old homestead. I was about 10 or 11 at the time. Joy was able to live in the smaller house next door and my parents, my brother, and I were living in the smaller house next door just to the north. My grandmother had always owned two houses right next to each other and had generally rented out the smaller house. My nephew, Steve, was a very active child. He had barely reached the age of three years old when Fariss taught him how to get out of his crib. Very soon he could get to the ground in less than three seconds. I recall waking up one morning. I could feel something small raining down upon me from above. I woke up to see Steve with a salt and peppershaker. I was being salted and peppered!

One summer it was the hottest in memory. It was so hot and humid that you could lie down on the bed and you would sweat. The bed sheets were even hot to lie on. Steve had been running around the house, completely naked, trying to catch a cool breeze. He then came in the house, very exhausted, and crawled up on the couch. He went to sleep with his legs pulled up to his stomach, and his naked rear end stuck straight up in the air to try and catch a breeze. As Steve got a little older, he became very talented mechanically. At the age of about four, he got on the hood of Joy=s and Ralph=s 1952 Pontiac and managed to bend both windshield wipers into Figure S=s. In addition he managed to break both front headlights with a hammer.

Fariss had placed a ladder against the top of our carport. Steve managed to crawl up the ladder and get on top of the carport. Fariss went up to get him and Steve started running away from him and laughing at the same time. We were afraid he would run off the top of the roof, so Fariss climbed back down the ladder. After a while Steve got tired of this game and decided to let Fariss bring him back down the ladder.

Joy held up well with this separation from Ralph, but then she always was a trooper.

School Years

Elementary School

After two years of private school, I could have probably skipped the 5th grade and gone into the 6th without any scholastic difficulty. Mrs. Stanley did a fine job. However, back in grade school, I soon fell into my lackadaisical school habits. I don=t recall my parents expressing much interest in what kind of grades I got. While in the 5th grade of school, my mother suggested that I take voice lessons from a Mrs. Brockoff, whose husband was the Lutheran minister of a church just ”caddy corner” from the elementary school I went to - about the corner of 7th and D Street in Ardmore. Mom told me that the teachers in “Vacation Bible School” at or church, the First Christian Church, were impressed with my singing when I was in kindergarten. Five years later she encouraged me to develop what little talent I had along this line. This resulted in about two years of private voice lessons which I have always been grateful for. I recall singing solo before a group of several thousand people at the civic center where I received a rousing applause. However, my music teacher had a female student who could sing much better than me. She was singing advanced stuff and I was singing much less so. Even though I sometimes sound more like an “old frog” when I sing now, I recall two different people commenting to me. “You are the man with the golden voice.” One was President Dow, the Stake President of the Escondido Stake in the early 1980's and the other was a man by the name of Dallin Syphus of the Uintah 3rd ward, in late 1999.

I recall having difficulty reading in the 5th grade, even though I had been to private school at Mrs. Stanley=s. She had no appreciation for literature and thus I received very little motivation to read good books.

Junior High School

Junior High School years were a fun time. We spent time playing marbles, before, during recess, and after school. We would draw a circle in the dirt and then put ten marbles in the center of the circle. After then determining the shooting order by some method I have forgotten, the first shooter would continue shooting until he did not knock a marble outside the circle. Of course the marbles he knocked out of the ring, he got to keep. The really good players would use a “steely” as a shooter, which was nothing more than a ball bearing. The succeeding marble shooter would then shoot in the same manner. We would also spin hickory tops, with sharpened chisel points, to damage other=s tops. Another game we would play was to get our pocketknives and stick them in the ground. The way this game worked was for each player to take turns throwing their knife outside the foot of the other player. The object of this game was for the player to move his foot to the point the knife hit the ground. When you couldn=t stretch your legs any farther apart, and throw at the same time, the other person was the winner of the game. How we kept from sticking a knife through the other person=s foot is beyond me. I never remember it happening to either myself or any of my friends.

We had a four-inch metal railing that divided various play areas at our Junior High. For some reason I remember one of my playmates walking along the top of this railing. The reason I remember him walking on the railing is because of what happened next. He slipped and fell. The way he fell was not a very good way to fall. One leg ended up on one side of the railing and the other leg ended up on the other side of the railing in such a manner that his crotch landed directly on top of the railing. I never did check back with him to see if he was ever able to have children after he graduated from school and got married.

Getting a Nickname

A friend of mine named Charles Tate was walking with me outside of my house and was inspired to call me “Bones” as a nickname. The reason for this nickname was obvious. I was skinny as a rail. At first I got mad at people calling me this nickname. After a while I realized that it was only my friends that called me this name. I was one of the few people in school that really got a nickname that his friends called him by. Several other nicknames I remember were “Cootie” Giles and “BG” Billy Guy Givens.

Boxing

It seems like I almost grew up with boxing gloves. My brother, Fariss, who was 11 years older, thought it would be a good idea to teach me how to box so that a skinny little kid like me would be less likely to get beat up. Even though he bought me a pair of boxing gloves when I was in the 5th grade, I didn=t really get into boxing until later. He started out crouching, trying to be at my level, to teach me how to box. I remember catching him by accident with a right cross that knocked him back on his heels. He was leaning backwards at the time and it didn=t take much push on my part to unbalance him. I was used to boxing friends who were bigger than me and just barely able to hold my own. A new kid moved in town, by the name of Tom Kaufman. He was actually smaller than me. I thought I would probably really cream him. He happened to casually mention that had boxed in the Golden Gloves program prior to moving to Ardmore. We hadn=t boxed more than three minutes when he landed a well-aimed blow to my mid-section. All the fight went out of me instantly. I knew when I had been licked. That was the last time I boxed with him!

My First Job at a Public Library

The first paying job I ever had was at the public library. I got paid a whopping sum of 15 cents per hour. I had it one summer when I was in the 7th or 8th grade. I would ride my bicycle a little over 1 miles to work. My primary responsibility was shelving returned library books. We used the Dewey Decimal System for shelving order. I really enjoyed this job. This is where books became my life-long friend. The group of books I read the most were the series of mystery books written by Agatha Christie. About half the time the chief librarian would come to work completely stoned. I think he might have had an addiction to morphine or some similar drug.

This experience at the public library encouraged my life-long interest in books. Since I don=t ever recall my parents reading to me when I grew up, my first interest in reading was spawned by science fiction books. I got hooked by reading an author with the last name of “Sturgeon.” All of his books were very imaginative. I particularly enjoyed his stories of men with super powers that discussed mental telepathy, etc. In those days, a sheet was attached to the back inside cover of a book and my unique library card number was stamped on this sheet when I checked out a book. With over one hundred science fiction books I eventually read, I noticed that someone else had read all of these books before I did. I began to recognize that particular library card number. Unfortunately, science fiction books had little in the order of stimulating vocabulary. In fact I would sit in the back of my English class, in Junior High, and read my science fiction books while the teacher was trying to teach me English! Is it any mystery why I never did very well in English? Unfortunately, my overactive reading of science fiction book was a little bit of an escape from reality. The reality that my English teacher was trying to teach me was English.

High School Years

Gym Class

I recall several experiences during high school gym class. I was a little-bitty runt of a kid as a freshman in high school. I probably weighed 120 pounds soaking wet, but I was very wiry. The instructor decided we would have a class contest to see who in the class could do the most situps. After a while, everyone dropped out of the contest except Jerry Acres and myself. I could not do another situp greater than 196 and he finally stopped at 205.

We played a lot of basketball and I was not very good at this sport. I could not dribble worth beans, and I was not a very good shot because no one ever taught me how to shoot the ball correctly until I finished college. A good friend by the name of Nick Panos finally taught me how to do this at the age of 22 or 23, but by then it was too late. Interestingly enough if I was able to get the ball down to the other end of the court, I could jump high enough to have the second joint of my right hand press against the basketball rim. Even with this, I was lucky if the ball went in the hoop.

Car Travels

Several stories come to mind during my high school years. One story was a friend of mine named Tom Kaufman. He was driving his parent=s new Desoto with a bunch of us kids piled in the car. At the time, frontage roads were being built parallel to the old highway 77 that ran along the east and west side of town north and south. The driver decided to take the new east frontage road off highway 77. The driver headed south at a high rate of speed until we were going about 85 miles per hour. At that moment, the road ended! There were no warning signs or anything. We found ourselves straddling a ditch that fortunately ran along the same path the car was traveling. After a few anxious moments, the car came to a complete stop just 10 feet or so short of a huge boulder that would have totaled the car and us too boot. Another narrow escape that could have ended in my premature exit from this earth. My wife and children can now applaud the fact that I lived to tell about this story.

Another story like this that comes to mind was when one of my classmates, Jerry Moon, was driving, and we decided to drive over “lovers leap.” This place is probably different than what you think. It was an old dirt road that had a crest of a hill that you would drive over. The idea was to travel at a very high rate of speed and then crest the hill and plunge through the air until you finally landed very hard on the road at the other side. It is a wonder that the springs and shock absorbers were not broken when we landed after doing this several times. The doors would even fly open when we landed on the other side. Of course cars didn=t have seat belts in those days. It would have been very easy to have fallen or been thrown out the car. Another interesting thing also happened this same night. I was in the back seat behind the driver. In the passenger seat was a fellow from England who we had made friends with through our tennis-playing association. He was a carpenter by trade and a few years older than us. He decided that he needed to take a pee, but Jerry Moon, the driver, said it was too much trouble to stop. Jerry then told the Englishman to find a can rolling around in the front floorboard to pee in while the car was traveling down the road. This all worked out just fine until the Englishman decided to throw away the can of pee. The guy in the back seat behind the Englishman had his window rolled down. Guess what happened when the can of pee was thrown out the front passenger window? You guessed it! It came right back into the back seat and doused the guy behind the passenger. Fortunately all of these “bodily fluids” landed on the guy by the window and none of it got on me! Boy, was he howling and swearing! We were all highly amused by this incident.

A Turnaround in My High School Grades

I was a “C” student until my senior year of high school when I made the honor roll for the first time. An interesting event changed my study habits during my senior year of high school. My parents, along with my brother, sister, and brother-in-law were evidently talking about me as I walked into the house. As I walked into the room, my parents expressed concern about my schooling and my future in college. My brother-in-law, Ralph Starner, (Joy=s husband) looked me straight in the eye and said in effect, “You'll never amount to anything if you don't try harder in school.” With the great respect I had for my brother-in-law, this blunt talk “jarred” me mentally. At that point, I resolved to do my best in school. More than one of my classmates and teachers were surprised when my grades began to get better. At one point I had made the best grade on one of the tests in my high school physics class. Since the teacher graded on the curve, he awarded me a B+ on the exam. On all of the previous exams he had always given the highest grade in the class an A. I was the one exception. One of my classmates sitting next to me noticed I had the highest grade in the class. He drug me up to the front of the class with my test paper, in front of the rest of the class members, and challenged the teacher why I didn=t receive an A on the test The teacher responded “because Kenneth isn=t smart enough.” You see, I was failing one of his geometry classes the previous year and had to be pulled from his class. In this teacher’s mind, I was labeled as not very smart, and he didn=t want me changing his opinion of me.

After taking the SAT exam during my junior year, I received a score of about 700 on the math and 350 on the English comprehension. This made me realize that I was very weak in language skills. I then and there resolved to increase my word comprehension. I checked out all the books by Joseph Conrad that I could find. While reading each of these books, I would write down every word I did not know the definition. I would then look up the definition of each word in Webster=s dictionary, write down the definition next to the word, and periodically review these new words and try to incorporate them into my vocabulary. This technique produced one or two hundred words and made a significant difference in my word comprehension ability. This was the start of my quest to read many of the classic books. Over the years I have read the “Complete Works of Shakespeare” among other classics.

Selling Shoes at Penny=s Department Store During Christmas

I got a job during the Christmas season at the local Penny=s Department Store during my tenth grade in high school. The man I worked with taught me all that he knew about shoes, so to speak. This knowledge has served me well. The shoe manufactures were even then putting cardboard

in-soles in shoes instead of leather. One of the more interesting aspect of my job was trying to fit women with shoes. They would often ask for shoes several sizes too small and then almost “bust” the shoe trying to shoe horn their feet into them. In those days, women would do terrible things to their feet just so their feet would look smaller. Most women were interested in my opinion of how their shoes looked on them. Particularly if their shoes were two sizes too small. Of course I could care less, but I managed to act enthusiastically. I purposely reinforced their original opinion of what they thought looked best on them. This technique has served me well during my married life. After the Christmas holidays, my boss wanted me to continue working with him. I declined his offer. The only reason I did not continue working with him was because I was more interested in playing tennis than working.

Choosing a College Major

My brother, Fariss (John Farris) had gone to Oklahoma University many years before and had flunked out of college. He had joined a fraternity and simply got into the party scene too much. Since I had no clue what I wanted to get a degree in, I asked my brother, Fariss. He suggested, very strongly, that I get a degree in engineering. The very field he was enrolled in at Oklahoma University and flunked out of. I said, “Okay, why not!” My sister, Joy, also persuaded me to go to school at Cameron Junior College in Lawton, Oklahoma since she and her family were located there. Her husband, Ralph Starner, was a military officer who just happened to be stationed at Ft. Sill, which was located just outside of Lawton. In retrospect I think this was a good idea. If I had gone to North Eastern Oklahoma College in Durant, Oklahoma I would have probably been too involved with my buddies who ended up going to school there. In fact, my best friend, Kenny Chaffin, went to school there and flunked out. I=m sure he would have wanted lots of help from me in goofing off, and I might have had the opportunity of flunking out also. I eventually graduated with an Associates of Arts degree in 1959 with a GPA of 3.85.

College Years

Cameron Junior College

Introduction and Algebra Class

I was offered a tennis scholarship at Southeastern Oklahoma University by a friend of my dad=s who was the tennis coach there. His last name was Sullivan. My sister, Joy, encouraged me to attend Cameron Junior College in Lawton, Oklahoma where her husband, Ralph, was stationed at Fort Sill, which was the Army base outside of Lawton. Since I really wasn=t that good of a tennis player, and I could be around family at Cameron Junior College, I decided to go to Cameron. Cameron was what you would call a sort of “back water” college. Most of the students came from the local farming communities, and they did not have very good public schools in these areas. Cameron was the caliber of school that was more of a high school than a college. I will illustrate with a poignant example. My first math class as a freshman was trigonometry. I had already taken the equivalent course in high school and should have received credit to skip this class. Of course in those days they would never have considered the capability of “testing out” on a class. After the first test, this squat little red-haired, ancient-of-age, teacher announced that she would take the highest score on the test in conjunction with the lowest score and scale the intermediate letter grades accordingly. She then proceeded to have each student in class read their test score out loud. I recall scores of 15, 35, 40, 23, etc. All the students were very encouraged until I announced my score of 97! You should have heard the combined groan of the rest of the students in class. A retired military officer by the name of Poindexter got a score in the high eighties. There were no other scores above 60. Of course, this was totally unfair to the rest of the class and simply reflected upon the inadequacy of the teacher in her teaching technique.

Spilling Sulfuric Acid

Another course I found interesting was college chemistry. The teacher was a crusty, but amusing female, who was my mentor. She asked me to be the chemistry lab technician and I was paid pretty good wages. I recall breathing in a lot of chemical smells. I am surprised my lungs were not affected later in life. One lab story that comes to my mind was an unforgettable experience, for me. My teacher asked me to dilute a mixture of sulfuric acid. The concentrate acid is very thick, like molasses, and clear in color. I mixed the solution correctly by filling a 1000 ml beaker with 500 ml of water and then gently filled, while stirring, the remaining 500 ml with the concentrate of sulfuric acid. What I didn=t realize was that the solution in the beaker was getting very hot due to the process involved. After completing this task, I picked up this beaker with two hands, by the side, and tried to carefully move the beaker over to the table. Either the beaker was cracked at the bottom or the heat of the mixture helped crack the bottom plate of the beaker. In any event, the contents of the breaker broke through the bottom plate and spilled all over me. The result was that the acid literally ate my blue jeans right off me, as well as ruining my shoes. I immediately got that “burning sensation.” The lab table to which I was trying to move the beaker had a small sink with a faucet. I immediately positioned myself in this sink and had the water going full blast. While turning on the water with one hand, I was removing my blue jeans with the other and splashing water on my acid-burned legs, as well as splashing water onto my shoes. Fortunately my quick thinking saved me from any real damage due to the acid. I managed to walk back to my dormitory with wet, very holey, blue jeans, and shoes that were more holes than leather, to change clothes and shoes.

The Cat in the Lectern Box

The dollar amount eludes me, but as I recall, my total cost for my first two years of college was a whopping $650. Back to my story. One of the funniest incidents in this class was a stunt pulled by a practical joker in our class, which started just after lunchtime. Our chemistry teacher had an elevated podium where she would stand and teach. This podium was supported by a metal pole with a base plate and a considerable storage area just under the top of the podium, which had a lid that lifted up. The practical joker had placed a cat in the podium just before class started. Interestingly enough, the cat was quiet until the teacher approached the podium and started teaching. When she grabbed the podium, the cat started making strange sounds. When she opened the podium, all hell broke loose. The cat jump out at her in a snarling rage and just took the breath out of our teacher. Fortunately she was not injured. I do not recall what we learned during the rest of this class period.

There was only room in the dormitory for about 250 girls, whereas, there were about 1000 guys. The girls had their pick of the guys. I didn=t have much of a social life at Cameron.

Experience with Potassium Iodide

A friend of mine enjoyed messing around with chemical compounds. He decided to put together a solution of potassium iodide, which he proceeded to spread on the floor of the men=s dormitory. When the solution dried, it would generate a small popping sound when stepped on. The Dean of the College immediately tracked me down and accused me of the foul deed. When I expressed wide-eyed innocence, he backed down and looked elsewhere.

Fighting Forest Fires in Idaho

The Trip North

During my freshman year at Cameron Junior College, I was offered a summer job working for the forest service in the northern neck of Idaho in the Priest Lake area in the summer of 1958. My roommate=s friend was a “straw boss” previous at this job and had a responsibility for recruiting summer hires. I was fascinated at the job opportunity! I have always loved the thrill of adventure and of being able to have different life experiences. I very vividly remember riding a bus for two nights and three days from Ardmore, Oklahoma to the Priest Lake area of Idaho. As a result of this trip, I couldn=t ride any distance in a car without getting carsick. This phobia lasted for years. The problem was primarily generated by me having to sleep on a very bumpy bus for two nights. The reason the trip took so long was because the bus stopped at every little dinky town along the way. I also remember a very poignant moment on this trip. When we were driving through the state of Nevada we stopped at a small town and picked up a mother with her small baby. The baby was shabbily dressed and not very well cared for. The next stop we all got out to eat at a cafe and this lady sat down next to a table of military soldiers who were also riding on the bus. She was having a very grand time in conversation with them when the bus driver announced for all to board the bus. This lady got back on the bus and had completely forgotten about her small child who could barely walk. The child frantically tried to catch up with its mother and was not doing very well. The toughest military man in this group tenderly picked up this struggling child, gave it a tender kiss (I can=t imagine this neglected child smelling very well) and gently restoring the child back to its mother. This was one of the most powerful and tender moments I had ever seen when it comes to the demonstrated love of a child, which this old tough Marine manifested.

When we arrived in Spokane, Washington, those of us who had traveled from all over the United States to work this summer for the forest service met with a Forest Service worker who took us by bus to our destination in Priest Lake, Idaho. We arrived at a primitive campsite at the foot of Priest Lake. This area was so primitive that the closest log cabin was about a mile south of us. We were paired off into two-men pup tents with a wooden floor and a cot with a sleeping bag to sleep on. Of all things, I was a tent mate with a Mormon from Provo, Utah! I do not recall his name nor did he make much of an attempt to share his religion with me. I do not recall, but I am sure that I did not encourage him at all to share his religion with me. A wood-burning Benjamin Franklin stove was in the center of this canvas-covered tent. The two cots were situated on each side of the stove. We had a total of one week of weather you could call summer weather. It actually got up to 85 degrees during that week. It was so cold in the morning when we woke up that we had to take turns starting a wood fire in the stove before the other person would want to get out of bed.

Picking Ribes

The work we did was very interesting. Our major role in this job was to Apick ribes.” The ribe is a plant, which harbors blister rust that was in danger of wiping out the entire pine tree population of the northwest in the late 1950's. This blister rust had to operate in a certain cycle. It would host only on these certain plants, previously mentioned, for one year. The next year it would migrate to the pine trees and kill the branches, eventually killing the tree. The following year it would migrate from the pine trees back to the plants. It would be much easier to destroy the ribe plants, thus interrupting the infection cycle of the pine trees and thus saving the trees. Our summer job was to track down each and every ribe plant we could find and eradicate it. Can you think of how you would do this? The plan was simple; string was used by one crew to lay out sections of wilderness the width of a football field and a thousand yards long. My job (along with the other junior workers) was to tie a parachute cord to my belt, which was about fifty yards long, and then weave back and forth between these string boundaries and visually search for ribe plants. I could see the parachute cord on the ground from my previous traverse and I would visually look for ribes from where I was to the parachute cord as I snaked back and forth. If I spotted a ribe plant I killed it with a vengeance! But what wonderful distractions I had!

Me and the Blueberries

I can recall running into huge blueberry patches growing in this wilderness, almost waist high. I would just stretch out my hands and walk through these blueberry bushes and grab-on to all the blueberries I could reach. I didn=t have to reach very far. I would just casually walk in a straight line, with my arms loosely at my side, and sweep through the blueberries. They were delicious. I would eat them until they almost made me sick. If a bear was nearby when I approached, he would usually leave the blueberry patch to me and then come back after I had left. I only had one exception to this experience.

The Deer Fawn in the Nest

Sometimes wading through thick, dense underbrush can yield interesting surprises. Coming out into the clearing one day from underbrush I ran into a “doe=s nest.” A female deer will quite often sleep in dense underbrush where she has tramped down the vegetation and made a sleeping area. I accidently exited the thick underbrush right into one of these nests. In fact a little fawn had been sleeping in the nest and looked at me as I broke through into the nest. I could have reached out and touched the little critter. This little creature was not afraid of me, and we just stared at each other in silence. Within a few seconds the fawn ambled off.

Doing Lunch with the Bear

We always carried a sack lunch to work. We would walk about15 miles during a regular workday, which was quite often straight up and down a mountain. It was always necessary to walk through all underbrush, regardless of how thick it was (you never wanted to miss spotting a ribe.) This particular underbrush was so thick that I was in danger of having the paper lunch sack ripped off my belt. So I carefully unfastened my lunch, laid it on top of a tree stump, and then decided to make one more pass through this thick underbrush before I ate my lunch. When I finished my loop and came back to my lunch, I was greeted by a very unpleasant surprise. I found a great big bear, sitting on the tree stump, very carefully eating my lunch! While enjoying my lunch immensely, he looked me straight in the eye and made it clear that he wasn=t leaving until he had finished eating. So what is the moral of this story? I hope one of my grandchildren will tell me.

The Bear Doing Lunch in My Tent

One of the guys in our party decided to pull a practical joke on me. After I had left my tent to eat breakfast, he crept into my tent and smeared honey on the bottom railing of my bedstead. When we returned from work that afternoon, I found all of my belongings strewn all around the campsite. A bear smelled the honey on my bedstead, tipped the bed over to lick off the honey, and then went through all of my belongings to find anything else he could eat. Amazingly none of my belongings were destroyed. The bear had very gently scattered all of my stuff on the ground, outside the tent, looking for something else good to eat. So I just gathered up all my things and my belongings were no worse for wear.

Almost Getting Eaten by the Bear

A healthy bear, not acclimatized to humans, will generally give us a wide berth and you will rarely know they are in the vicinity. The exception is when they have too much exposure to humans or they become old and weak. One such old bear made a habit of raiding our garbage dump on a regular basis. The interesting thing about bears is that they have terrible eyesight, but a very acute sense of smell. As we were coming out of the lunchroom after our evening meal, the supervisor of our group had his little dog by his side and decided to play a trick on the bear. He should have known better! The garbage dump was about 20 yards up the hill from us and this old bear was eating voraciously. The supervisor said to his little dog, “sic him.” This little yipping dog then charged this old bear at top speed. What this dog didn=t expect, and what we didn=t expect, was that this bear would turn around and try to have this dog for lunch. I could not believe how fast an old bear like this could move. Fortunately the bear smelled us before he was right on top of us and stopped immediately and ambled off at a leisurely pace.

The Bear with the Food in the Trunk of the Car

A friend I worked with forgot and left some food in the trunk of his car. When we came back from a day of work he discovered that a bear had tried to get into the back of his trunk and get to the food. It looked like someone had taken a sledgehammer and bashed in the trunk lid of his car. The bear had used his paw to smash in the trunk lid.

Fighting Forest Fires

Upon occasion we would need to set aside our ribe picking and go fight a forest fire. I remember one fire we fought near Missoula, Montana that burned about 20,000 acres of land. A forest fire in pine tree country burns differently than most people realize. The forest floor has a layer of pine needles five or six inches thick. The fire will go up one tree, spread to another tree through the canape, and then go down that tree to the forest floor and burn through the layer of pine needles on the forest floor. As a result the fire is not a clean burn through the forest, unless the pine tree population is thick enough for the branches to be touching between each of the trees. What generally happens is that the forest will be burned in patches with the forest floor smoldering with fire in the pine needles. This smoldering is generally not visible to the fire fighter. For this reason, the way to control a forest fire is to create firebreaks. This is done by a flat-blade tractor cutting a fire lane around the existing fire. If the terrain is too rocky and steep, the fire fighters have to come in and cut down trees that are too close together and dig a fire trench in the forest floor with their pilaske hoe. Fire cannot cross a six-inch wide trench cut into the forest floor. I can recall hoeing and cutting down trees with an ax for about twelve hours straight. We also had to be careful of trees that had already burned, leaving a charred pole without branches. The danger was that one of the poles could fall over, without making a sound, and hit one of us during the fall. We had really good food given to us while we were fighting fires. We also made extra money. I recall bringing home about $1200 for my summer=s work, which was a princely sum back then.

The Wilderness Vista

I can recall climbing to the top of a tall tree and looking out over the vast expanse of wilderness. This is wilderness very rarely seen. As far as my eye could see, there were no signs of civilization in any direction. Just me, the wilderness, and Priest Lake visible in the distance. The weather was just perfect. At the top of this tree, the cool, wafting breeze cooled me off by drying my perspiration. What a delightful feeling!

I particularly remember climbing to the top of a tree, finding a nice crotch in a tree branch, and then going to the bathroom from the top of the tree. This was a lot better than squatting over a hole in the ground! Of course after wiping my bottom with toilet paper, the toilet paper would then blow to never-never land. I remember what a soothing feeling it was to have the wind caress my bare bottom at the top of the trees.

Oklahoma University

After graduating with an Associate of Arts degree from Cameron Jr. College in Lawton, Oklahoma, in June of 1959, I transferred all of my credits to Oklahoma University in Norman Oklahoma. I started school in September of 1959, and it was not an easy academic adjustment for me. Cameron was kind of a “backwoods” small-town college and did not prepare me very well for some of the technical courses I was required to take. For one thing, many of the professors were not very good instructors. The professors in the physics department were more interested in doing research with their graduate assistants than having to teach. One of the professors actually wrote the junior level textbook for the course “Electricity and Magnetism.” It was so poorly written that there were 50 mistakes in the first chapter alone! It was a terrible book! Physics and math were my most difficult subjects. The textbooks of the late 1950's and early 1960's were not very well written. I generally did well on all of the other courses I took except the ones that were the most important to my major! I still graduated with an overall grade point average of 3.14, which was pretty good in those days. I had several courses in school that just about brought me to my knees. One of the most difficult courses I had to take was a math class called vector analysis. The reason I had such a problem with this course was because I had not received the prerequisites that I needed from Cameron Jr. College. I ended up receiving a D in this course and having to take it over again. I got so bent out of shape while taking this course the first time that it got to the point where I couldn=t sleep very well at night. When I told mom she immediately got some prescription sleeping pills for me and told me to hire a tutor to help me, which I did. I guess I needed this experience even though it was very painful for me. There is nothing like facing up to the fact that regardless of how hard you try, you efforts were just not good enough. Another impossible course for me was quantum physics. The professor was originally from Belgium, spoke very broken English, and it was hard to understand what he was saying. This was probably the professor who would write with one hand and then erase with the other hand before you could copy down all of his lecture notes. When he informed us that there was no textbook for this course, and that we could go to the library to get one or more of the 50 books available, I knew I was done in. I learned absolutely nothing in this course, and he gave me a C out of the goodness of his heart. I found out later that I had difficulty doing very well in theoretical academics. When I started taking engineering math courses years later I always ended up making A=s. Some subjects were very easy for me, like fluid mechanics, physical chemistry. Others like I just mentioned were not very easy for me. I just have to tell you about a physics lab in which I had a very interesting lab experiment. We had two very heavy lead balls supported in a frictionless fashion through an elaborate suspension setup. We could actually measure the gravitational attraction between these two lead balls! I was always fascinated by that lab experiment.

Living in the Dormitory

I started out living in a dormitory on the west side of the campus that had the girls living on the north side of the building and the boys on the south side. A cafeteria was situated in the center separating the two sections. As I recall, the food wasn=t very good and I wasn=t even a fussy eater in those days. I was always a loner, so I didn=t really need someone to “hang out with.” In fact I spent most of my time studying, or trying to do the best I could. Of course, I made some friends.

.

Social Life

I was naturally attracted to religious organizations (even though I had convinced myself that I was an atheist.) There was a First Christian Church fellowship group that I gravitated to. Unfortunately, most of the youth that attended were kind of “social misfits” and couldn=t fit in anyplace else. I met one neat young gal by the name of Kay Caswell. On our first and only date I was a total self-conceited bore, and she would hardly have anything more to do with me. I really can=t blame her, she had a lot on the ball, was very attractive, and I was just another jerk she had to put up with. Boy did I have a lot to learn in relating to the opposite sex! I kind of joined a “rat pack” from the dormitory. There were three guys and three girls and we just kind of hung out together. This consisted of two couples paired off and this other girl that I kind of hung with. Boy could she jitterbug! We would literally jitterbug all night long! I was too selfish to have much of an interest in any of the girls I dated. Most girls I would have a first date with and then never bother to call them back again. Most of them were pretty attractive. I think I was so concerned about my schooling that I just sort of considered the girls a temporary diversion from my studies.

Academics in General

My last semester of school consisted of 18 hours of course work in mostly math and physics. I

probably spent, on average, about 6 hours a day studying over all seven days of the week. This

still yielded me mostly C=s in my final semester of school.

Summer Job Selling Bibles in Muncie, Indiana

During the summer of 1960, I ended up selling bibles and cookbooks for the Southwestern Bible Company. A high school friend by the name of Billy Guy Givens convinced me to join with him and learn how to sell these books. A boy one year younger than me, by the name of Pat Berryhill, became my companion. Pat graduated from Ardmore High School the year after I did. I only knew him by sight. Dad had given me his 1949 “baby blue” Plymouth automobile, and he bought a 1962 Plymouth. The way I got this automobile was as follows. After my first two years at Cameron Junior College I told dad that I needed to buy a car with my savings, and he suggested to me that he would have the engine overhauled on his 1949 Plymouth (so that it would make the car like new) and then give the car to me. He would then buy a new car. I think he eventually regretted this decision, because I can remember driving home from school in Norman, Oklahoma (Oklahoma University) in the wintertime, and it turned off real cold over the weekend. He tried to start his car Saturday morning and his car would not start. I then suggested that he use my car and the car turned over and ran on the first start. Any way back to my story. I drove my car with Pat Berryhill, as my passenger, to Nashville, Tennessee for our one week of sales training. It was a very intensive course with us learning our sales pitch down pat. It was six long days of training. The technique was described as “taking the shirt off of someone=s back and selling it back to them.” We were encouraged to get up every morning, look in the mirror, and then talk to ourselves and say something like “Boy I sure am glad to be alive. I=m really going to be a great success today in my selling opportunities.” We slept on mattresses placed on the floor. One guy in the next room decided to play a trick on me during the middle of the night. He put on a bed sheet, cut holes for his eyes so he could see me, and then made the mistake of waking me up in order to scare me. What he didn=t know was that this had been great sport at Cameron Junior College. People would pick up my bed about a foot or so off the floor and then drop the bed with me in it. Half the time I got where I wouldn=t even bother to wake up. They put a guy=s hand in a pan of lukewarm water because they had heard that it would make the guy wet his bed. This did not work, at least on this individual. Another thing they did to discourage snoring was to squeeze a tube of toothpaste into the mouth of an unfortunate individual caught snoring. Boy that was fun. I am reminded of the story at Cal Tech University where someone took a very large roll of plastic vinyl, completely covered the room of the victim from floor to the ceiling, and then filled his room with water to the top of the ceiling. This made a giant fish bowl. When the victim returned and opened his door, the water rushed out to the extent that he was washed clear out of the building. Back to my story. When this guy woke me up, he thought he had just aroused a Tasmanian Devil. Of course I wasn=t scared at all. Since I wasn=t among friends where I would have considered this a joke, I really tore into this guy not really knowing what I was doing. It was simply a reflex action. Anyway, among other things, I kicked him, really hard, right between the legs. I really felt bad about hurting him. As you can imagine, I slept soundly without further molestation during this training period.

We were assigned to sell in Muncie, Indiana. Our trainer, back in Nashville, suggested that we contact a local church congregation and talk to the pastor to see if he had any parishioner that would be interested in housing us for the summer. Since the Methodist church in Muncie, Indiana seemed so much more prosperous than my church, the First Christian church, we went to the richest Methodist church in town. We parked outside the Methodist church and Pat went inside. Pat came back with the name of a very wealthy patron who would let us stay in her big, rambling house for free, if we would just mow her lawn and do some odd jobs around her house. I can=t even remember her name, but she lived on the north edge of town. We did not have kitchen privileges, but it was nice having a place to stay for free.

Selling bibles and cookbooks door-to-door was an interesting experience. We had been trained for the “hard sell” approach. It has been described as Ataking a person=s shirt off his back and selling it back to him.@ Essentially we would just pick a section of town and knock on every door of every residence in that area. We would approach a house, hopefully with the name of the resident of that house learned from the next-door neighbor we had just come from, and say something like this “Hello Mrs. Murdock, we have just come from your next door neighbor=s, Mrs. Martin, and we had something she was interested in that we think you will be interested in. May I come in for a minute and explain our product to you?” I would then reach for the handle of the screen door and start to walk in, uninvited of course. Most would let me in and listen to my sales speech. Unfortunately, most were not interested in buying a bible from me because they already had one! Interestingly enough, the sales ratio was about one house out of every twenty that I approached. In retrospect I wish I had more products that I could have sold. I had a number of people say to me, “I sure wish you sold encyclopedia sets, I would surely love to buy one of those from you.”

As you can imagine, all salesmen have interesting stories they can tell. I also have a number to share. One of my most memorable experiences was walking up to this house with the lady outside working in her flower garden. In my most bright, cheery, enthusiastic voice I said to her, “Hi, how are you today?” She turned around and looked at me in sheer terror and dislike. I probably portrayed a “body snatcher” in my countenance or something. She immediately ran into her house, shut the front screen door and locked it, shut the front door and locked it. Then she proceeded to go throughout the house and close every window facing the street, lock it, then lower the shutters and close them. I was simply mesmerized by all of this arduous activity. Under my breath I said to myself, “Well I don=t guess that she is going to be buying anything from me today!”

Almost every house I approached already had a bible in their homes and here I am trying to sell them another one. I never sold a bible to a Methodist or a Presbyterian. They simply never read their bibles in their homes. I did best with the Nazarenes. They were very regular bible readers and just loved this one leather-bound bible, which I sold, that was very similar to a Scofield bible, because of all its references, outstanding bible dictionary, and having the words of Jesus in red and the pronunciation of each proper noun listed. I still have one of these bibles that I purchased as a memento. It is in a zippered covering on the top shelf of my bookcase on the left-hand side of the room in the spooning room, lying crosswise on the top of these books. Maybe one of my grandchildren would like to look at it. The first one that asks for it can receive it as an inheritance, if they wish. You need to remember that I bought this bible when I was a complete atheist and really saw no future use for the book. I simply bought it because it reminded me of one of my “best sellers.”

Another incident that comes to mind was knocking on the front door of one house and no one came to the door. For some reason, I decided to walk around to the back door to see if there was any activity in the house. There was. This lady was working in her kitchen with the door open. I started with my very enthusiastic greeting and she cut me off short. She started using a string of continuous profanity that I had never heard before. She called me everything but a “white boy.” I was amazed at her colorful and inventive string of profanity, directed at me. I stood there for several minutes, and she never stopped swearing at me. In fact, I just turned around and walked away, and I could still hear her swearing at me until I got out of hearing range.

Basic Training in ROTC at Ft. Hood, Texas

During the summer of 1961, I had to do Army Officer ROTC basic training at Ft. Hood, Texas. The purpose of this training was to deprive the students of sleep and see how well they react under simulated battle conditions. I can remember marching around in the mud in a downpour of rain very early in the morning, like at 6:00 a.m. The mud was so deep and the rain was falling so hard that one of the platoon members started quacking like a duck. Before long, all of us in the platoon were quacking like a duck, much to the chagrin of the training Sergeant. During the hottest day of the summer, we were marching around part of the day in full battle pack. The instructor was concerned that we would become dehydrated during the march, so he had us consume salt tablets with water so we would not lose too much salt out of our system. At the end of the military exercise, our fatigue shirts were covered with salt as a result of sweating so much and the salt condensing on the outside of our shirts. We estimated that it was 115 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade. We had several cadets collapse from heat exhaustion.

I recall a simulated combat demonstration where an 8-inch Howitzer was shooting point blank at a tank hulk. The shell round hit the tank turret and completely sheared it off from the tank. That was an impressive demonstration!

After our marching instruction, we looked forward to returning to our barracks and cleaning the scuffmarks off the tile floor that resulted from the polish of our boots leaving these marks. By the time we finished removing the black polish scuff marks off the floor and polishing our boots one last time, we got to go to sleep at about 1:00 a.m. and then arose from our sound slumber by 5:30 a.m.

POST-COLLEGE YEARS

Linde Corporation of Union Carbide

I ended up with a Bachelors Degree in Engineering Physics in January 1962. The fact that I was actually able to get a job for the three-month period between graduation in January 1962 and my call to active duty in the U.S. Army in April of 1962 (only three months) was almost a miracle in itself. The story unfolds:

I was very lucky to get a job for those three months prior to my military duty. Before graduation they had job recruiters come on campus and interview. My first interview was with an aerospace firm called Martin Marietta out of Colorado. The interviewer, right off the bat, told me that the job paid $250 a month working not only five days a week, but also a half-day on Saturday. I was very non-plussed by this offer, because I realized that it was easy for companies on the west coast to pay less than other aerospace companies that offered employment in less desirable locations. So during the interview I responded with “yea” and “uhuh”. He would ask me what I was interested in regarding my future profession and I would respond with “Gee, I don=t know.” At the end of the interview, he told me, “Young man, you are never going to get a job if you just sit there like a bump on a log during a job interview. You need to impress the job interviewer that you know what you want to do and that you will be excited about doing it if he hires you!” I thought that was a rather novel approach since I had no idea previous to this first job interview what I should do or how I should act. The next job interview the following day I put into practice what he had taught me. A man representing Linde Corporation of Union Carbide out of Buffalo, New York, was my interviewer. He started out with something like “our particular subdivision is involved with designing a unique method of providing refrigeration to 18-wheel trailers using liquid nitrogen.” I responded with ”Oh that is exactly what I want to do! I took courses in both thermodynamic and fluid mechanics that would apply directly to this type of research. I would really be excited to do work like that.” It was so funny to see his response. His eyes got big, his mouth fell open, and he said “Really?” I couldn=t believe that it was so easy to fool someone on something like this. Of course, I was just “playing the game” and had no real interest in this field of expertise. But you see, my motive was to try and get a good paying job for the three-month period between graduation and going into the Army. His response was something like “Well, we will probably hire you on the spot, and we would like to pay you to fly out to our company and meet the people you will be working with and make sure you would really want to work for us.” I responded that I would really look forward to flying out to Buffalo, New York, and having a further interview with them. I then said, “Oh, by the way, I do have a slight little problem. I have a two-year military duty contract, I have to complete with the U.S. Army. I leave in April of next year, and I graduate in January of that year only three months before I would have to leave your employ.” He said, “Oh, that=s okay. I think you will work out very well, and we think you would probably want to return to work with us after your two year military obligation is completed.” I was offered $50 per month more than Martin Marietta would have paid me if I had been hired by them, plus I would only have to work a 40-hour week, which did not include an extra half day on Saturday.

I paid off my last rent installment, checked out, and then put every thing I owned into my 1949 Plymouth automobile and drove to the airport in Oklahoma City. They had two different parking areas. One was a little more costly because it had a full-time guard on station. I approached the guard and asked him. “I can see that I could park just a dozen cars away from your guard station and pay less money. Since everything I own is in this car, would their be any problem with me parking my car out here in full sight of your?” He assured me that my car would be perfectly safe. So I parked outside the secured area and flew to Buffalo, New York, for my official job interview. When I arrived, I was treated very well with a tour of the facility and a good meal to boot. In fact several of the guys were looking for a third roommate and made an offer for me to be the third right on the spot. I took both the offer of the job and the room rental and told them I would return and be their roommate as soon as I graduated. When I returned to Oklahoma City, I found that my car had been broken into and they had stolen all my clothes and virtually everything I owned, which was very little of practical value. The only thing of any value was a small-size Underwood typewriter. It might have been worth $50. I suspected that the guards at the guard station were in cahoots with the thieves, but of course, I couldn=t prove it. I reported the theft to the local police and nothing ever became of their investigation. I did not get anything back that was stolen.

When I completed all of my course work and determined that I would actually graduate with a B. S. in Engineering Physics, I prepared to leave immediately for my new job in New York. I did not even take the time to go through the graduation exercises. I did have to go to the ROTC Department and tell the Commanding Officer that I was not going to be able to attend the graduation ceremony for the graduating cadets. He was really miffed at this because all of the other cadets were going to be there at the ceremony except me. He called over the assistant commander and said in my presence. “I don=t want to swear in this new Lieutenant, I just want to swear at him.” I=m sure he thought he was really cute with his remark, but I was definitely non-plussed. His assistant came over and issued the oath to swear me in as a Lieutenant in the United States Army.

After spending a couple of days home with my parents, I was driving my 1949 Plymouth to New York. How exciting! I am always excited about doing different things. Particularly doing something for the first time. I have always loved adventure! I was finally on my way. I had thought about putting a sign on my car that said “New York or Bust.” But then that is kind of an Okie thing, and I didn=t want to let the cat out of the bag that I was from Oklahoma. When I arrived outside of St. Louis, I found myself having to go through a lot of small towns. I got turned around in one of those “round-abouts” that are so popular in England. I had to slow down, fairly abruptly, to try and figure out which exit I should take. As a result, the truck behind me plowed into the back of my car and put a dent in my trunk lid about the size of my hubcap. We both got out of our cars and sized up the damages. He had absolutely no damage to his truck and the only damage to my car was the unseemly dent in my trunk lid. Interestingly enough we both had the same auto insurance company being New York Life. He knew where the local auto adjuster’s office was, so I followed him to the insurance office. The adjuster looked at the damage to my car and told me to get three estimates for repair of my trunk lid, bring the estimates back to him, and he would then write me a check, on the spot, for the cost of repairs. The first body shop I went to the guy estimated $250. He was dumb enough to think that I was going to have my car repaired in his shop. When I pointed out that I had to be in New York within the next four days, and when he noticed that I had an Oklahoma license plate, it finally dawned on him that I wasn=t going to get my car repaired by him. He said “Oh, since you aren=t going to get your car repaired by me and you need another insurance estimate, take your car over to this other body shop and tell them Joe sent you, and they will give you an estimate comparable to what I gave you.” What had happened is that this estimate was way out of line. My car was only worth $200. For $250 I would have gladly let someone take a sledgehammer to my car and destroyed it for that amount of money. The next estimator, when I told him Joe sent me, immediately asked to see the prior estimate and immediately quoted the same amount. He then sent me to another guy, that was in on this scam, and I got another identical estimate to the previous two. I then drove back to the adjuster office picked up my check for $250 and was on my way $250 richer. Do you ever think I spent the money to take out that little dent in the trunk lid of my car? If you do, I have a bridge in Brooklyn that I would like to sell you. As a member of the Church, I would never do this again!

Welcome Received in Buffalo, New York

I finally reached the outskirts of Buffalo, New York, and I had to gas up my car. The service station attendant noticed my license plate and said, “Why would you ever move from a nice place like Oklahoma to a place like this?” Boy, did that get my attention. In fact when I started work, one of my fellow engineers almost said the same thing. I found out that the “Buffalonians” appeared to have an inferiority complex. They compared themselves to Rochester, New York, and found themselves wanting. Rochester was considered a very cultural city; whereas, Buffalo was very dirty and grimy.

Living and Working in Tonawanda, New York

My two roommates, I do not remember their names, were very amiable. The only rule we had was that we had a rotating schedule of preparing the evening meals and cleaning up afterward. We were on our own on weekends. When I told them I couldn=t cook worth beans, the older roommate told me he would help me, and we would plan out the meals a week in advance. This worked out perfectly. I ended up doing a passable job, as I recall. I don=t specifically remember any of the meals I fixed though, except one. I was told to go to the Safeway grocery store and buy a six-pound Maine lobster, which I did. I was then instructed to drop this lobster into this huge pot of boiling water, which I did and cook for just a few minutes. The meal was excellent! I suspect this was only the second time I had eaten lobster, and I loved it! There was enough lobster meat from this one lobster to feed all three of us. I have been hooked on lobster ever since, even though my favorite seafood is King Crab.

The work I was involved in was almost unbelievable from the point of being different. I was actually working on testing liquid nitrogen refrigeration on trailer truck compartments. Let me explain the importance of this work. If a driver of one of these units were to stop his truck, open the back of the refrigeration unit, and walk to the back of the refrigerator unit, he would die. The reason is very simple. The air we breathe is about 21% Oxygen and 78% Nitrogen. If you breath 100% Nitrogen for any length of time, you die. The way this refrigeration unit worked was to vent canisters of liquid nitrogen into the compartment. This provided a very efficient method of cooling. Much cheaper than regular compression refrigeration. My first suggestion was to vent bottles of both oxygen and nitrogen into the compartment. Their response was that this system would be too complicated and canisters of liquid oxygen are very explosive, and for that reason very hazardous.

The testing of these canisters of liquid nitrogen vented in a semi-trailer truck compartment was quite different. We were doing the testing in an old quonset hut, in the dead of winter. Liquid nitrogen would be vented into the sealed compartment for a predetermined length of time. The back doors would then be opened and sensors in the inside walls, floor, and ceiling, would monitor the flow pattern of the nitrogen gas exiting the trailer compartment. This was all well and good until another occupant of the quonset, a steward of the plumbing union, would get cold and then flip on the heating switch in our hut. The heater would come on during our testing and invalidate the test results. Since he reported to a different vice president of Linde Corporation, nothing could be done about his arrogant behavior. He would simply thumb his nose at us. My direct supervisor mentioned that if we could somehow make the heating in this old tin hut more uniform, then this shop steward would be less likely to disrupt our testing. The heating unit we had was located about 30 to 40 feet in the air attached to the inside top of the quonset hut. As we all know, hot air rises, so having a heater at the top of the building did a very poor job of heating the building at ground level. My boss discussed with me the spending $400 or $500 to place metal extender vents on the heating unit to force the heat down to the floor, when I came up with my brilliant idea. I essentially said, “For less than $100, we could purchase some canvas that could be sewn into a large tube about two feet in diameter and about 30 feet long. This tube could be attached to the exit of the heater which would force the warm air down to the floor so we would have a uniform mix of heat in the building.” This idea worked brilliantly! At that point, I became a legend in my own mind. The crusty, old shop steward would congratulate me every time he saw me on my idea and stopped interrupting our testing arbitrarily, because the heating worked so much better in our building. My second level boss took note of my “brilliant” idea, and at my exit interview with him to go into the military, said “We would really like to have you come back to work for us.” The thought of coming back to that job almost made me puke, but, of course, I was nice about it and expressed an interest at a later date.

Social Life

I was invited to a social gathering of people who affiliated with the local Methodist Church. I made the acquaintance of a guy who had received his law degree from the University of

Texas and was a member of the FBI. We hit it off immediately and became friends. Since he had lived in the area for some time, he felt it his obligation to “fix me up” with a blind date. So he picked me up with the two girls in-tow. We went to a dinner-dance club and sat down to order our dinner. Of course the waitress asked if we would like drinks before we ordered our meal. I obviously was not a Mormon (yet), so it was not against my religion to have an occasional alcoholic drink, even though I didn=t really care for the stuff, but just did it to be social. My friend jokingly mentioned that our dates should consider having a “zombie” drink, which was a very powerful alcoholic concoction. Now picture this, these girls were from Missouri and even though attractive, had just fell off the Turnip truck, so to speak. One of the gals said, “Oh, I want a zombie, I want a zombie.” My friend and I kind of made a frown, and let her have her way. When the waitress delivered our drinks, she immediately drank all of her “zombie” which was a very large drink. The zombie drink is well named. Quite often a person drinking it very quickly will think he is a zombie soon after drinking it. We both figured that this was not a good start to our outing. Before our meal was even served, the “zombie drinker” asked to be excused to go to the restroom and her friend immediately followed her. This young lady went to the bathroom and vomited up everything in her stomach. Strong alcohol ingested quickly by the unsuspecting can be very dangerous to your health. When she returned to our table, she said she was not feeling well and would need to be taken home immediately. So we left our uneaten meal and took these girls home. This is when things got interesting, so to speak. My friend was driving, the sick girl was sitting in the middle of the front seat, and I was in the passenger seat. We had driven only a few blocks when the little lady said, “Stop the car immediately, I have to vomit!” He stopped the car; I opened the passenger door, and pulled her across my lap with her head hanging out of the door. She heaved her cookies not only this once, but also several more times before we got to their apartment. When we drove up to their apartment, the little gal passed out, which means she lost consciousness. They lived on the second floor of the apartment complex. Carrying a person that is as limp as a dead fish is a very difficult thing to do. Both of us struggled to figure out a dignified way to carry her up the stairs. There was none. We essentially carried her up the stairs the same way you would a 100-pound sack of potatoes. But the worst was not over yet. When we put her on her bed, she started crying because she could not see! When people drink too much alcohol, and it is not expelled from their system soon enough, it can cause temporary blindness. The condition she was in was actually quite dangerous. Binge drinking can actually cause death if taken to extreme. Needless to say, we never bothered to call those gals back for a second date! They were just too much trouble.

I hope all of my grandchildren will avoid alcohol drink like the plague. It will do you no good and can only do harm.

Another time this acquaintance said he would fix me up with another blind date. He had to call and cancel because he was with a swat team to capture one of the ten most-wanted men in America somewhere in the Buffalo area. I don=t recall socializing with this guy again.

Enjoying the Wonderful Winter

Buffalo, New York, is an interesting place in the wintertime. Even though my job only lasted two months before I had to report for military duty, I experienced the worst part of the winter. It seems like it would sleet every night and I would have to scrape the ice off my car windshield. Since the main source of heating was by coal-burning stoves, the snow outside was covered with black soot. You could also smell the soot in the air. Really foul-smelling stuff.

I recall chuck-holes in the roadway that you could break a car axle in if you drive into the hole.

There were also a lot of foreign radio stations broadcasting. I think Polish was one of the languages. You were also not supposed to even acknowledge your neighbor. It was considered rude to pay any attention to your neighbor. Even a courteous “hello” was not acceptable.

US Army

Doing Artillery School in Lawton, Oklahoma

I began my active duty training in the U. S. Army at Ft. Sill, Oklahoma. Yes, the same place I went to Cameron Junior College. This junior college was in Lawton, Oklahoma, which was right next to Ft. Sill military base. This was essentially a ”boot camp” for artillery officers with the exception of not being hassled like at my ROTC boot camp at Ft. Hood, Texas. Regular hours were spent receiving military training and tactics pertaining to the Artillery Branch of the U. S. Army. I was very conscientious in my studies and did not go out much “with the boys” to the Officers= Club, like some of my classmates did. I was too busy doing my studying for the next day=s instruction. I was good friends with all concerned and extended many refusals to continued invitations to “do the town” with the boys. One particular time they all ganged up on me and were very insistent that I go out that night to the Officers= club with them. Under such group pressure, I finally relented and went out with them. What I didn=t know at the time was that I was being set-up. Once we got to the Officers= Club the whole group started chug-a-lugging beer. The one that drank his glass down the fastest got a big round of applause. They then enticed me to join in the revelry. So I chug-a-lugged with them and surprisingly, I won, to great fan-fair. Of course that called for another round of drinks for me to face off other challengers. I knew I would not have trouble drinking just a few beers in this manner. What I did not know was that they were having the bartender spike my beer with a shot of whiskey. After quickly drinking a few glasses of “a beer with a depth charge” I had a rather violent reaction. I realized instantly that they had played a prank on me. I rushed to the restroom and vomited up everything I had drunk. In other words, my system had rejected all of that alcohol. This was very fortunate for me, because over-drinking can be very dangerous to the health of the drinker. Particularly if you don=t vomit it all back up. I was a bit unsteady and had to be driven back and assisted to my room. I hope none of my grandchildren will ever partake of alcohol. I wasn=t a Mormon growing up and just did not know any better. Drinking alcohol can be very dangerous to a person, both physically and mentally.

Another story that comes to mind is an artillery firepower demonstration that we trainees received from a large viewing stand. The destructive power of “Corps Artillery in Effect” was demonstrated. This consisted of about 600 each 105mm Howitzers, 300 each 155mm Howitzers, and 100 each 8-inch guns all firing their guns at the same time so that all of these thousand rounds of ammunition all landed in the impact area in front of us. It was quite impressive. It was the largest explosion I had ever witnessed. The instructor felt impressed to say “Men, that firepower is so destructive that nothing could live through that awesome fire power!” After saying what he did, we noticed a very scared deer running about in the impact area. The whole stadium of 2nd Lieutenants, like myself, just roared with laughter at this sight.

Shipping Off to Bamberg, Germany

After about two months of intensive training, we graduated and were assigned to our duty posts. I was assigned to Bamberg, Germany. I flew to Europe out of Ft. Dix, New Jersey, on a military airplane transport. Interestingly enough, all of the seats on a military transport face backward. Upon arriving in Frankfort, Germany it was necessary for me to take a train to Bamberg. I managed to get on the right train and happened to pass by a men=s restroom that said “heiner” on the outside door. This word simply means “man” in German. After being on the train a few hours I realized I needed to go to the bathroom. The only problem was I could not find one on the train. I then turned to one of the local German passengers and said, “Vo ist der heiner?” which I thought meant, “where is the restroom?” What I was actually asking was “where is the man?” Here I was, on this train in Germany, with my military uniform on, and these Germans saying to themselves, “why is this dumb American asking, where is the man?” I had an interesting time “gritting my teeth” because I had to go to the restroom so bad, before I finally found a restroom on my own.

I have fond memories of Germany. Germany in the early 1960's was a very quaint place. There were no large American skyscrapers, but simply old buildings that had been repaired after World War II. My bachelor officer quarters, in Bamberg, Germany, consisted of a very small room at the top of a five-story building that was just huge. This building was located on a large military complex called a “Caserne” that was simply a former military complex, which had belonged to the German Army, prior to the great war, that had been taken over by the American Army. My room was at the very top of the building with an attic window. It was very small and very hot in the summertime. I had to walk down five flights of stairs and back up those same flights of stairs.

We quite often went on military training exercises. Grafenwohr, Germany, was the largest and most popular. Interestingly enough, this place was formerly the location of a Nazi concentration camp during World War II. Of course, the military exercise range was located outside the village. The first military exercise we went on, I recall reclining in our barracks and I expressed a desire to go to the “canteen” to get some refreshment. One of the other 2nd Lieutenant Officers, like myself, asked if I would pick up a candy bar for him. Another officer, a 1st Lieutenant, who thought he was really hot stuff since he had gotten his commission by graduating from West Point, called over to me and said, “here Lieutenant, take this money and get this for me.” I had not been on active duty very long to realize that there was very little difference between the rank of a 2nd Lieutenant and a 1st Lieutenant. Since this “jerk” had not asked me in a nice way to get something for him, I told him exactly where the “sun doesn=t shine.” I never bothered to remember the name of this person. I just remember that he had delusions of being “General Patton reincarnated.” He had his own pearl-handled pistol. I recall him perching himself on top of a towering rock, with his dark sun glasses on, and with his “swagger stick” and viewing the troops passing by. This came to the attention of the Battalion Commander and I heard he had a word with this Lieutenant to let him know that he was not “General Patton reincarnated” and to quit posturing with the troops.

Ending Up in Bad Kissingen, Germany

After spending only a few months in Bamberg, I got a transfer to Bad Kissingen, Germany. The details of why I got a transfer are certainly different. We had a battalion party in a rented hall in downtown Bamberg consisting of both enlisted men and officers. The ranking officers stayed an hour or so and then departed. I could see that a lot of people were getting drunk and I wanted to leave because I could tell that trouble was “just right around the corner.” Unfortunately, I had accepted a ride to the party from another 2nd Lieutenant, and I could not leave until he decided to drive me back home. Several times I said to him, “We better leave before something goofy happens.” He was having too much fun and didn=t want to leave. I finally convinced him that we should leave. At the base of the stairs, I noticed a huge fist pass by my nose. The fist belonged to the First Sergeant of Headquarters Battery. He had evidently been waiting outside for me to come out and had planned to take a “fake swing” at me with his fist to show his enlisted troops how tough he was. Of course he had no intention of hitting me. If he had done that, he would have been court-martialed out of the service.

I put the 1st Sergeant on report. The Battery Commander asked that I drop charges against this man. I refused and insisted that proper procedures be followed in this matter. The Battalion Commander interviewed me and asked me. “Lieutenant, what would you do in my case, end a first sergeant=s career or ship you off to another duty station?” This is how I got transferred to Bad Kissingen, Germany, which was lucky for me! I found out later that this was the beginning of problems between the senior sergeants and the lieutenants. After I left, many of the sergeants began treating the lieutenants rather badly (cussing and swearing at them) and nothing could be done about it! This was certainly a breakdown of military discipline.

I have fond memories of Bad Kissingen, Germany. This was a small town that catered to German vacationers. Some large German companies would send their employees, free of charge, to Bad Kissingen for rest and relaxation. The main attraction was a gambling casino that I visited only once and never gambled while I was there. There were beautiful flower gardens, many winding paths on which to take walks. In addition, there were permanent paths that meandered all throughout the wilderness areas. You could walk several kilometers and reach a secluded guesthouse in the middle of the wilderness. In fact, you could find park benches in the wilderness areas with walking path signs indicating how many kilometers it was to a particular destination. One of the more interesting attractions of Bad Kissingen was the nasty mineral water that the visitors would drink and were very fond of. The water had a very nasty acidic taste to it. Another attraction was a band playing each Sunday in the late mornings. These were typically “oomph” bands with lots of tuba sounds. The food in Bad Kissingen, in fact in all of Germany, was very good. The only exception was the food in the Officers= Club. But this food was generally pretty good.

Not far west from Bad Kissingen was a little town called Ashack. Some of the best food I have eaten was in this little town of Ashack. A rich German industrialist had grown up in this little town. After making his wealth, he had returned to the town of his youth and built a two-story guesthouse for the local people. He also hired one of the best chefs he could find from France. My favorite meal was Chateaubriand Bougateere. (Spelling?) - you tell me. Looks like we have to go to a French restaurant.

Returning by Troop Carrier to Ft. Dix, New Jersey

When I was discharged from the military, I requested a troop carrier ship transport as opposed to flying on a military transport. I did this just to get the experience. I drove my little black Volkswagen to Bremerhaven, Germany, checked in my car to travel by ship, and boarded a ship carrier to the States. This was a small ship that only carried passengers, and it was very crowded. The enlisted personnel had to sleep on cots that were stacked about six deep from floor to ceiling. I am sure these sleeping arrangements were generally unsatisfactory. If you were very fat, I don=t see how your chest could keep from hitting the cot that was above you. I didn=t have to worry about this. I had my own private room. I was generally on my own except when I was assigned Officer of the Day, which was only once or twice during our two-week cruise. My duties would include insuring everyone arose early in the day and that the facilities were mopped and cleaned.

The time of year for my voyage was during the month of April, so the ocean waters were relatively calm. The only problem was that after you are several hundred miles away from land, you encounter ocean swells. These consist of big blobs of water which heave up and down, causing this relatively small ship to heave up and down that tend to make people seasick. Fortunately I had Dramamine pills I could take since I was a military officer. The enlisted troops did not have access to these pills. As a result, some of them got very seasick. When a person gets really seasick, his face not only looks ashen, but can also have the different faint hues of the rainbow. Some of these soldiers got really sick. I kind of felt sorry for them, but there was nothing I could do, and I don=t believe anyone ever dies from being seasick, but then I don=t know much about this sort of thing.

I remember one meal when the ocean swells were bobbing the ship up and down pretty rigorously. We were seated at a table with a very thick mat covering the tabletop. The waiter would not only place our plate on the top of this mat, but also kind of screw the plate into the mat to help hold it in place while we were eating. One freak wave caused all of the food on the table to tumble off onto the floor. The waiters did not seem to be too surprised, even though I was. They simply served our meal over again.

General Dynamics

Just prior to my military release from active duty in April 1964, I sent out several resumes for a job in the field of engineering. I sent my resume to Union Carbide in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, which was an atomic energy commission location. They expressed interest in my employment until I told them that I had worked for their sister plant in Tonawanda, New York for several months prior to my military duty. They told me that I would have to go back to work in Tonawanda if I wanted to work for Union Carbide. The only other job offers I got was to work for a General Electric X-ray research facility in St. Paul, Minnesota and General Dynamics in San Diego, California. I got the job offer in San Diego by applying to General Atomics located at Scripps Ranch near La Jolla. They were not interested in me but forwarded my resume to General Dynamics. I asked my dad which job I should take. Since dad had been stationed in San Diego, for a short period of time in the Navy, following World War I, he was quite familiar with the area. He said, “Go west, young man, go west!” He knew what a great spot San Diego was. He also knew that he and mom could spend the winters with me in California instead of in Oklahoma, which they did for years before I got married.

My children have my dad to thank for my decision to take the job in San Diego. How would I have ever met Mary Ellen if I had taken the job in St. Paul, Minnesota?

Doing Work

The General Dynamics plant I worked at was located at the southeast corner of the intersection of Claremont Mesa Blvd. and Highway 163 (old Highway 395). It was called General Dynamics Astronautics. It looked like a massive hospital. The sidewalks were almost a foot thick and the concrete buildings were painted black and white. It was no accident that the building contractors built everything a little sturdier than was needed. It simply meant more profit on the construction job for them. Guess what the weather was like if you were seated on the inside of a wall painted black on the outside? The air conditioner didn=t work very well for you because of all the radiant heat passing through the wall. The story is told that this facility in the mid-1950's had so many people working for them that it looked like a 24-hour coffee break around the vending machine areas. The claim was that if everyone were to try to sit down at a desk at the same time, many people wouldn=t have a desk to sit at. The reason that so many people were working there was because General Dynamics had a “cost-plus” contract. What this meant was that the United States was desperate to launch a missile into earth orbit to catch up with the Russians and their Sputnik, which they had launched earlier. To catch up as soon as possible, the government paid General Dynamics a profit based upon the total number of people they had employed. Is it any surprise that General Dynamics would hire more people than they really needed to get the job done? This whole facility was torn down in the mid-1990's and the only thing I understand remains is the Atlas missile park with the Atlas missile mockup still standing. This was to the north across the street of the huge facility where I used to work. My work at General Dynamics was interesting, to begin with. I started out working with the guidance system of the Atlas/Centaur Rocket. My first assignment consisted of writing a technical manual for the software that controls this guidance system. This was really a great assignment, because this was the best way to learn about how the software worked and how it interfaced with the simulation hardware. I thoroughly enjoyed this assignment. I did a good job and received recognition for my efforts from my lead man. I probably still have a copy of that manual here at home. My second assignment consisted of working with the programmers, who wrote the code for the Librascope computer that was used. I was responsible for running the simulations of the new code modules. I have several poignant memories of these simulation runs. One is that a technician who worked there lived in Escondido, had an avocado grove, and would sell me his avocado=s twelve for a dollar. Mary and I love avocados! The other memory was that I could be a difficult person to work with. When I showed up in the lab to begin formal testing, I had a technician chief and his technicians to support me. If things weren=t working as I thought they should, I would holler and scream. One technician got so mad at me because of my tantrum that he threw his pencil clear across the room and then left the area. After several outburst like this, the technician chief called me into his office and said in a nice was “You know, Ken, you=ve been a real bear today working with my employees.” That was all he said. I didn=t realize it, but I had taken the behavior I had picked up in the Army and transposed it into civilian life. The military environment was one in which you were typically intimidated or you intimidated someone else. I decided I would change my attitude and not make things so difficult for the crew. I was good to my commitment, even though I never apologized to anyone for my previous actions. I eventually got involved in flowcharting software, which I hated. My lead engineer eventually assigned a junior engineer to help me. When this junior engineer screwed things up, my supervisor (who was a jerk, and I didn=t like anyway) decided to chew me out for the work of this junior engineer. I was never one to take criticism gracefully. I immediately pinned the blame upon my lead engineer (Tom Angelo) for not defining what my responsibilities were toward this junior engineer. My military service trained me well on how to shift blame. My supervisor realized that he did not have a case against me. Unfortunately, my lead man had the office right next to my supervisor and heard every word I said. Boy was he mad! This was part of the reason why my days were numbered at General Dynamics. My last assignment consisted of updating a report manual documenting the results of the last Atlas Centaur test flight. It got to the point where I was only making bunches of computer runs to update the test numbers in the report and publishing with a new test date. That got old after awhile! My layoff notice came before I hated this job too much.

Meeting Mary

Mary and I first met in 1966 at a singles club (Never on Friday) at Vacation Village on Mission Bay. She was very attractive and a good dancer. She also had a good conversational manner. I soon learned that I had competition. An old boy friend of hers, by the name of Victor Boutan, kept cutting in on me! I soon got fed up with this and started dancing with other women who I do not remember at all. Several months later I again met Mary at the same singles club, but at a different location-the Ilandia Hotel in Pacific Beach. This time there was no competition from other suitors. Mary and I got to spend more time together. As we left the club together, she could not get her car started. I ended up taking her home and dropping her off. Our romance was a little slow getting started. We were both dating others. Eventually Mary invited me over and fixed a meal for me. That did it! When they say that the way to a man=s heart is through his stomach, that worked for me! We dated for about nine months when I finally proposed marriage. Mary was really surprised and I was too. We had been on vacation with Bob and Anita Hansen where Bob had proposed to Anita. He then turned to me and asked me why I didn=t propose to Mary. If you consider that I did not grow up LDS, the concept of marriage was not a high priority item with me. Not that I opposed it, but that it wasn=t something I normally thought about. When Bob suggested the idea to me, I said to myself, “Oh yea, that=s a pretty good idea.” So I proposed when Mary and I returned to San Diego. A Mormon Bishop in the Pacific Beach Chapel off Foothill Blvd. married us.

We honeymooned in Las Vegas and Palm Springs. Caesars Palace had just opened in Las Vegas and we spent the night in a fabulous room. We had two double beds and a unique set of curtains on the windows that could shut out the light sufficiently to keep you from knowing if it was night or day outside. As I recall, the cost of the room was $13 a night. The interesting thing was that we had maids that came in often to replace used towels etc. We never actually saw them enter our room. It was almost magical how they could sneak into our room, when we left, and clean up the room a bit. It was a little too hot to suit me in Palm Springs. We cooled off by taking the tram to the top of San Jacinto. Mary and I just kind of hung around the swimming pool at the non-decsript place we stayed at. I remember being downtown in Palm Springs trying to find a store to walk into so we cool off a bit. We ended up in a pastry store and the pastries looked pretty good to us. I noticed some prune filled pastries that Mary teasingly told me I might consider buying. I responded, out loud, “prune-filled pastries uk!” A distinguished elderly gentleman standing next to was incredulous. With a look of unbelief that I was on his face he said, “but son, prune-filled pastries are good for you!” Other than taking the tram to the top of Joshua Tree National Park, I don=t remember anything else we did there on our honeymoon other than shopping.

After marriage, we lived in an apartment at 4181 Wilson Ave. in North Park Our apartment was located upstairs in the most westerly corner of the apartment complex. After just a few weeks Mary asked me if I would like to go to church with her. I said, “Sure, why not.” When we went to church, Mary took me to the Investigator’s class. The class has since been renamed to the Gospel Essentials class for obvious reasons. I had attended many different churches before marrying. I had reached the point to conclude that religion was more or less a farce because the preachers themselves really didn=t understand their own doctrine. For example, I had several trick questions that I would pose to preachers at revivals and other places. The two questions I would ask were “Why did Jesus need to be baptized” and “Why did Jesus have to or need to die on the cross.” I could never get a straight answer to these questions that made sense. So when I went to this Investigator’s class for the first time, I essentially disrupted the class by asking these two questions. Fortunately the man teaching the class was a good scriptorian and had taught this class for many years. He was able to answer these two questions to my satisfaction from the Book of Mormon. After class I met a counselor of the Bishopric. His name was John Clinger. A wonderful man after I got to know him. But when he abruptly asked me if I had considered joining the church, I was much offended and almost walked out of the church house. That night we had not only one, but two sets of stake missionaries drop by our house. Evidently the roll in the Investigator’s class was such that you wrote your name and address if you were new to the class. Al Naud and his wife were the first to arrive. A man by the name of Whitlock followed with his companion about twenty minutes later. Al had lived in Oklahoma and worked on an oil rig about the same time as my brother, Farris. We hit it right off together. He and his wife came over next week, and we still only chatted to get better acquainted. The following week he presented the first missionary discussion. In those days they used a flannel board on which they placed pictures. I only remember him putting the picture of an arch on the flannel board and mentioning that the corner stone of this arch was Jesus Christ, of which he showed a representative picture. For some reason I knew what he was telling me was true! I could not deny it. I didn=t know at the time why I thought I was hearing truth, but I knew I was. Al also felt the Spirit of the moment and immediately challenged me to baptism. I accepted the challenge without hesitation. Even though I received each of the six missionary discussions each week, I still had to wait several months before I could be baptized. That was just policy of the church at that time. Therefore I was baptized on 1 July, 1967. Interestingly enough, I was able to give David a name and a blessing just a few weeks after his birth on 3 July, 1968. I had been ordained an Elder the same day that I blessed David.

Mary had a parking space for her 1965 black Volkswagen bug in the rear of the complex. I parked my black 1962 Volkswagen bug on the street. Mary was very fastidious about her little black bug car. She kept it very clean so that it just sparkled! In fact she had washed her car earlier in the day before I took her to Sharps Hospital to have David. You never heard such a racket as the maternity ward at Sharps Hospital! When Mary found out her older sister, Janice, was moving to a new house in Escondido, we started looking for a house to buy. We were tempted to buy a house in the Lake Murray area of San Diego. When we found out that it was cheaper to live in Escondido, we bought our home there at 2473 Holly Ave. for $24,500. This was a VA loan at 6 3/4% interest. We would have had to pay almost $32,000 for a comparable house in the Lake Murray area of San Diego. We would later sell this house for about $170,500 in 1990. It was almost by accident that we sold the home. The father of the family renting our house died and the realtor was not doing a very good job finding replacement renters. It also occurred to us that since Mary was 55 years old at the time, a tax law existed that allowed a homeowner a one-time tax exclusion of profits on a home sale if the residents had lived in the home three of the past five years and a member of the house hold was 55 years of age or older. So we walked away with a profit of about $160,000.

Teledyne Ryan

After working at General Dynamics from 1964 to 1967 I got a layoff notice. I was told that I could stay with General Dynamics if I took a transfer to their Pomona Division in the Los Angeles area. I had applied for a job at Ryan Aeronautical, down by the San Diego Harbor, but had not received a response from them. As a result, I had accepted the job offer in Pomona, and we were expecting the movers to come in three days. This was even after we had paid a visit to Pomona and noticed that the quality of air was so bad that your eyes burned. When we mentioned this fact to the residence, they simply said “Oh, you=ll get used to it.” But we really didn=t what to get used to it! Can you imagine our eyeballs falling out after thirty years of this acid crud in the air that burns your eyes! When Mary gave her notice that she was going to have to quit her job because we were moving, her boss asked her why I hadn=t applied for a job at Ryan. She responded that I had applied several weeks ago and had not received a response from Ryan. He then pursued the matter with the personnel department and it was determined that the man in personnel handling my application had gone on vacation and not processed my application. They immediately got into his drawer, got out my application, processed it immediately, and offered me a job. Of course I accepted immediately because we wanted to stay in San Diego. Soon afterward Mary had to transfer to the Ryan plant on Kearny Mesa just south of the General Dynamics plant. I enjoyed my job at Ryan. It was interesting to learn about the old stories of how the original airplane makers used to make airplanes. One of the original manufacturing leaders explained how he got old man Ryan to sit in a chair, and he simply drew a silhouette around him on the wall where his shadow was. This was essentially the cross-section of the plane where the pilot sat. My job title was a Control Systems Engineer. We essentially simulated the control systems of the airplane on a computer that was an analog/digital SCI computer with less than 256 KB of working memory. The control language was a basic instruction set. The only instruction I can remember was a “no operation instruction” being NOP. Let me tell you why this is the only instruction I vividly recall.

My boss, Phil Wall, assigned me the responsibility of designing the guidance control parameters for a particular configuration pilotless airplane. The only problem was that I could only use the SCI computer during graveyard shift. Twelve midnight to eight o=clock in the morning. My brain and body has never worked very well at this time of night. I was on this schedule for three months during the hottest part of the summer. While working this awful shift, I decided I would patch in a change to the software to allow me to look at how another configuration airplane would work. After running this new computer simulation, I said to myself,”That=s interesting!” What was even more interesting was I forgot to remove the NOP instruction that allowed me to run this “new” simulation. This meant that for the next three months I designed my $500,000 pilotless airplane to fly with the wrong configuration. When I got to White Sands Missile Range to witness “my” bird being flight tested, it took of in a very steep climb and almost immediately came crashing down to the earth, completely destroying the airplane and leaving me with a very large lump in my throat. I though I was going to die! What did I do wrong to cause the destruction of a $500,000 airplane? I simply designed my pilotless aircraft to the wrong configuration aircraft!

I was a member of the official Ryan Quartet that performed at various big-wig functions. Mr Ryan and one of his associates explained how they designed the cross section of one of the first airplanes Ryan Aeronautical built. He set his buddy in a chair, against the wall, and then drew his outline on the wall with his buddy in the chair. That was the cross section of their first airplane! We took the name of “The Relatively Proficient Vocalist”. We were reported in the Ryan Newsletter as the “Remotely Proficient Vocalist”.

SCI Corporation

Teledyne Ryan was in danger of having a big layoff, and I got a phone call from a job recruiter asking me if I was interested in working in anti-submarine warfare. I considered this opportunity a lark. Since they offered me the job at a nice raise, and I was concerned that Teledyne Ryan would tank, I took the job. My boss was a very attractive lady, about ten years older than I, named Virginia Alfonte. We got along very well. She was very smart and a former employee of CSC Computer Corporation with lots of computer experience. The work I engaged in used all classified documents. Most of them classified SECRET. I was responsible for developing training materials to be used to train Navy officers in the use of new anti-submarine detection computer-related equipment. The way this system worked was sonar buoys were placed by the navy on the bottom of the ocean floor to detect the sound of Russian submarines. The new equipment that had been developed was used with the sound information to determine what kind of Russian submarine was in the area and where it was located. The reason this new equipment was needed was because the ocean area had become so noisy from ship traffic, whales, shrimp, etc. The old equipment did not handle the additional sound noise that had been building up in the oceans to separate out the signature of the noise the Russian submarines made. The main noise source was the sound of the Russian submarine propellers. There was a problem with the manufacture of the Russian propellers and the associated ball bearings that resulted in a very noisy Alpha class Russian submarine. Because the American submarines ran so quietly, we could not track our own submarines past 300 miles out into the ocean. In just a few years after I quit SCI, the Russians obtained the same Swiss equipment the Americans used to manufacture their submarine propellers and ball bearings. This undoubtedly resulted in a much more difficult task for the U.S. Navy to track the Russian submarines. It has been rumored that the Americans have had spy satellites that circle the earth to monitor Russian submarines based upon the heat signature of the submarines.

When we developed the training materials, we took them to Ford Island, at Pearl Harbor, the naval base on Oahu, part of the Hawaiian chain of islands located. At the naval base, they had a real-time strategic map that showed every Russian submarine that was deployed in every ocean in the world. In those days, the Russian submarines were so predictable. They would always leave from their submarine base at Petropavlovsk-Kamchatski and generally travel to an “imaginary window” in the Pacific Ocean. At this point, they would begin a patrol off the western seaboard of the United States at a distance from the coastline of anywhere from 500 to 1000 miles. They eventually ended up at a distance of 1000 miles because they perfected their atomic warhead submarine missiles to travel to any target on the west coast they might desire to destroy. Fortunately they never launched one of those missiles against us! I was told of a real surprise the U.S. Navy got from a Russian submarine one time. The submarine had left “Pedro-ville” and came along the Alaska Aleutian Island chain to arrive off the west coast. The United States did not have any sonar buoys in this part of the ocean to pick up the sounds of the submarine. This resulted in the U.S. Navy deploying “towed arrays” of sonar buoys towed behind a navy ship. The Russian navy would play a game with us and try to sneak one of their navy ships behind a “towed array” ship and clip the cable connecting the towed array with the ship.

I had a total of three different company-paid trips to Oahu. I am sure my family can sympathize with my sacrifice to make these trips. The food was absolutely wonderful. Of course, all of my food and lodging was completely paid for by my company. I could have eaten at a different restaurant every night and never have gotten tired of eating out. For a while, I would run a mile every morning or afternoon along the beach. Unfortunately, I finally pulled a hamstring and had to stop my running. I love Oahu in the springtime. I could sleep at night with just the covering of a light sheet and feel the ocean breeze lightly caress my face.

Within a year of having this job, they wanted me to relocate to Norfolk, Virginia for a six months period of time to do work at the naval base. I declined the offer to relocate and got a job back at General Dynamics in San Diego working on the cruise missile. That was a fascinating job. I supported flight test of the cruise missile out of Pt. Mugu, California. The only problem was I got tired of spending so much time away from my family on business trips, and I certainly got tired of restaurant food. The cruise missile had some very interesting technology. The missile was about as big around as a basketball and about 20 feet long, as I recall. The Williams Research jet engine had a thrust of 650 lbs. This engine was about 1 2 feet long and smaller than the diameter of a basketball. Can you imagine putting one of these engines on a motorcycle? You would have a real “crotch rocket” like no other if you were to ride this modified motorcycle.

Working for Richard Hartley

After a year or so of working back at General Dynamics, for the second time, Richard Hartley, Mary=s brother-in-law, hired me to work for him in his civil engineering firm in Valley Center. Richard was in danger of becoming a millionaire because he had a contract to design and develop a full square mile of land just northwest of the Dixon Lake just to the north of Escondido, California. Richard got the contract from a lady with the last name of Yapp. Her father, a billionaire industrialist from Indonesia, gave some “pocket change” money to his young daughter and told her,”Here, take this money, go buy a square mile of land, and develop it into a separate little community.” Richard was developing the whole community, to include schools, businesses, homes, etc. If he had completed the project and been paid for it, he would have ended up a very rich man. The only problem was that this little gal had a falling out with Richard and took him to court for fraudulent dealings of which he was completely innocent. Another problem was that she had an unlimited source of money to pursue this lawsuit with and Richard did not. He just wanted out of the contract with some dignity left intact. Needless to say, Richard didn=t end up doing very well on this contract, and the task was never completed. After cancellation of this contract, it became necessary for me to find another job. I worked for just a few months for another civil engineering firm in San Marcos. From there, I got a job at Northrop Electronics in Hawthorne, California.

Northrop Electronics

Northrop Electronics was the best job I ever had. Unfortunately, I had to live and work in Hawthorne, California while my family was still living in Escondido, California. This was a very unsatisfactory arrangement. For seven months, I lived in an apartment in El Segundo, just 5 or 6 houses north of the intersection of El Segundo Blvd. and Oxford Avenue. I was only able to see my family on weekends. I can remember how much I dreaded leaving my family late Sunday night and driving back to Los Angeles. I would sometime cry myself to sleep on Sunday night because I missed my family so much. I could see no way out of my difficult living arrangements. I absolutely refused to move my family to Los Angeles. Our quality of life would certainly decrease, and I would still have a one to two-hour commute each way. Housing was also much more expensive in Los Angeles. On a bus to another plant of Northrop, I was sitting next to Jim Barlow, whom I had met previously through work. Just out of the blue, he asked me about my family situation. I told him that I lived in Los Angeles during the week and commuted home for the weekend. He told me he had a private plane and flew each day from John Wayne airport. He also told me he knew of others that flew by private plane round trip from San Diego each day. All I had to do was check the flight entry logs in the Hawthorne Airport, and I could find the name and phone number of the pilots who flew each day from San Diego. This I did. The only pilot I found was one that flew out of Ramona each day. I called him up and asked him if he had room for me to fly with him. He told me that just a week earlier a woman had taken the only vacant seat he had on his airplane. I was very disappointed! Was my weekend commute ever going to end! It was just as well though, because within the year he had crashed his plane into the Ramona Mountains and everyone on board was killed. Thank goodness that woman got the empty seat before I did! Several weeks later, I again checked the pilot log at the airport and noticed a pilot flying out of Montgomery field in San Diego. I called him up and asked him if he had a seat available. He told me it was mine for the commute cost of $360 per month. That was just my share of his airplane maintenance cost. So I was able to fly with four or five different pilots during the seven years I worked in Hawthorne. I was never without airplane transportation once during these seven years. During times of inclement weather when the weather would not permit flying, we would drive. Boy was that a long day! Typically fog was the culprit so that we could not see the airport runway to either take off or land.

I thoroughly enjoyed the variety of work I was able to perform at Northrop. My first task was to write a Qualification Test Plan document for the Peacekeeper Guidance System. I did this along with a man by the name of Tom Lee, a real nice guy of Chinese extraction. I learned a lot about the guidance system by having to help write the complete test plan document. The next task was to develop individual test plans for the guidance system. After approval of the task by the contractor, being representatives of TRW that were appointed by the Air Force, I got to help develop the software programs to actually conduct the guidance system testing. When we actually began testing, we discovered that it took almost 100 hours to complete each test. The problem was that after completion of the testing, it took more time to process the data results from the computer than to conduct the actual test. The data had to have plots generated and limit tested to make sure the guidance system performed within limits. I suggested to my boss that I work with a programming team to have the guidance system test program interfaced with the “post-processing” program so that the test results were generated real-time along with the actual testing. The completion of this effort reduced our test-time from over 100 hours to a little over 30 hours. I received a recognition reward from Northrop for my work efforts, along with a $100 check, appreciation for my contribution to the program.

After flying back and forth from work for almost seven years, I had several close calls flying. Once we almost had a head-on collision with a private jet, and another time we had the electrical wiring in the engine compartment burn up which almost caused us to crash. In addition to the fact that it was taking me 30 minutes longer to return home from work, because of additional traffic traveling from San Diego to Escondido during rush hour, I asked my old boss, who relocated to Hill AFB, if he had a spot for me to transfer to. He had originally asked me to move with him to Ogden, Utah several years earlier, but I had refused the offer. He told me that a slot had just opened up for me and that he would be grateful for me to move up to Ogden and help him.

Job Transfer to Utah

The job transfer to Ogden, Utah was wonderful. I arrived in September of 1987 and lived in the Lakeside apartments near 60th and Washington Blvd. The reason for moving there was to be close to Bonneville High School so Jason would only have a short walk to school. Nina and Bill told me that Bonneville was the best high school. I figure that the grade level at this school was about one grade level below Orange Glen High school in Escondido. When I told Jason I expected nothing less than a B in any of his course work, he did that without even breaking a sweat. I don=t ever recall him doing much homework. But then Jason proved his metal when he graduated from BYU with a degree in accounting and began a very successful career. Back to my story line. Jason was a Junior in high school, and Mary and I decided to transfer family members to Ogden one at a time. The only reason I asked for Jason to transfer up here early instead of waiting for the summertime was I was so lonely without any of my family around me. I tried to make Jason feel good about the move by promising him that the first thing we would do when he arrived here in February 1988 would be to take up snow skiing. When Jason got to the airport to fly up here he told Mary, “Mom, I really don=t want to do this.” Mary responded, “Jason, I don=t want to either!” In retrospect, I think they are both glad they did. At least I had a grand time with Jason up here with me. We ate out a lot. I think he liked that and he made friends really fast at school.

My work was very interesting. I was responsible for helping design a database that would process all of the Peacekeeper test data to include actual flight test as well as qualification testing. My specific task was to determine how we would analyze the data once it got in the database. I had to learn Oracle programming to accomplish my task. Oracle is a wonderful too, but the capabilities were in their infancy in the early 1990's. It was a very difficult tool to use at that time and very time-consuming to debug. It was a real challenge and sometimes required the “patience of Job.”

I was given a chance to take an early retirement for Northrop Electronics. Northrop purchased an aerospace of equal size, named Grumman, which made the combined company too heavy in regard to senior-level people. As a result, those age 55 or older were offered an early out. I happened to be just 55 at the time and opted for this full retirement given to me 10 years early than expected. It is a good thing I took this retirement, which started January 1, 1995. If I had remained an employee for another two years, I would have found myself out of work and not eligible for retirement until age 65. My total earnings for my last work year in 1994 was $100,000.

Retirement

Retirement was probably one of the most trying periods of my life. After being busy for so many years, I found myself with absolutely nothing to do or look forward to. My brain started deteriorating. I would think of something I wanted to get downstairs, go down the stairs, and stop in the middle of the stairs because I had forgotten what I was going downstairs for. It made me angry. I would just sit down on the stairs until I could remember what I was going downstairs for. I also got into the habit of watching television all night and trying to sleep most of the day. What else did I have to look forward to? Mary really got upset with my behavior and laid down the law. No more watching television all night and sleeping all day. Go out and get a job and a real life! I asked Bishop Evertson to recommend me to the Stake President to be a temple worker. He did this and I enjoyed working in the Ogden temple for two years. But this still was not enough to keep me busy and keep me from being too bored. I finally started substituting in the public school and enjoyed that very much. As a result of my substitute teaching, I decided to try and get a teaching certificate from Weber State. I was admitted into the teacher certification program and completed my course work in one year. I only had one B grade during this schooling and all of my other grades were either A or A-.

Do I Really want to be a Teacher?

After completion of my school course work, the last thing to do was my student teaching. My coordinating teacher was noted to be one of the best in the state and had won numerous awards for being an outstanding teacher. For two weeks, I taught her three 8th grade science classes, and her two 9th grade Physics classes. It was very difficult and demanding to prepare the lesson plans and grade the homework for five classes. Plus with almost a total of 150 students, I couldn=t keep all of the student=s names straight. The Physics classes were okay, but the required Science classes were a real pain. To illustrate, Mrs. Barker had one science class where half of the students were making an F grade. The reason was that this was a required class for all students and half of this class did not give a fig for science. In fact they had no interest in what I was teaching. They considered my teaching interrupting their social hour with their seatmates. One time I got real exasperated and said “Okay, you that have no interest in what I am teaching today leave the class right now.” Half the class left! I decided at that point to not become a teacher. Interestingly enough, when substitute teaching, I had a little song and dance I would put on that enthralled many students. This doesn=t work if you are teaching the same students for two weeks straight, or longer. Some of these eight graders decided they would find my “hot buttons.” They found them real quick! I became too upset too often. When I was growing up, this could not have been a problem. If a kid misbehaved, you got out your paddle, paddled their behinds and you heard not a peep out of the rest of the class. Discipline in today=s public schools is difficult at best for many teachers, because a teacher is limited in the tools they can use for discipline. Worst-case condition is the kid is either thrown out of school or put into his own separate classroom, by himself! I completed all of my course work and dropped out of the teacher program.

Selling Life Insurance

Mary got on to me again for what I was going to do for a living. I was pondering the matter when we happened to go to one of those free dinner seminars that featured investment strategies. I was so impressed by the presentation that I went up to the seminar supervisor and said to him. “You know I really think I would enjoy doing what you do for a living, will you take me on and train me to do what you do for a living?” I then found out the presenters were associated with Beneficial Life Insurance. My boss was named Ron Flamm. Of course he was LDS, and one of the nicest guys you would every meet. He did everything he could to make me successful. My first year I could only sell Term Life insurance because I did not have a securities license, and I did not sell enough to stay employed with Beneficial. They required $14,000 of commission sales and I only earned $6,000. They unceremoniously dismissed me from there employ.

A friend of mine, by the name of Larry Matson, recruited me to go to work with him at Midland National Life. The main reason for doing this was because they have the best, most competitive Variable Universal Life (VUL) insurance policy on the market. Of course, this required me to get my securities license (Series 6 and Series 6-3), which I did. I found out it was a lot harder to sell a VUL policy than a term policy. Larry asked me to be his administrative assistant, for which he would pay me. In addition, he would teach me the business. I started working with him August 2000. I gave up my securities license and decided to help Larry with his business. I wasn’t much of a salesman. I am having fun, but not making much money.

Religion

I remember in my early teenage years religion had puzzled me. I had been born and raised in the First Christian Church and a faithful attendee with my parents. What puzzled me was that I couldn't understand why it was necessary to be baptized. Why it was necessary for Jesus Christ to atone for my sins. The pastor talked about these things with great confidence. So I assumed you had to be trained for the ministry for those things to make sense.

After going to a number of church summer camps, I had resolved to read the bible. I made the mistake of starting at Genesis. I shortly lost interest in reading the scriptures.

Being torn between the belief that the bible was most probably myth with an ounce of actual truth, I turned to philosophy at the age of 15. The “Story of Philosophy” by Will Durant was as far as I got, but it convinced me that there wasn't a personal God, that the doctrine of pantheism was probably the most correct, if any were. From my early teenage years to 28 years of age, I was an agnostic, for all practical purposes.

I was immediately attracted to, Mary, my wife when I met her. She was different. She cared about me. The other girls I knew really didn't. I'm sure her upbringing had something to do with her attitude and my being attracted to her. I remember the first time I attended the Mormon Church with my future wife, a missionary farewell was being held and a young man stood up to bear his farewell testimony. He was of Lamanite descent and was assigned to Central America where he was going to have the chance to preach the gospel to some distant relatives. Needless to say, I was impressed. A young man 19 years of age with the determination and purpose he had was something I had never seen. The fact that he felt so strongly about his religion to go at the expense of himself and his parents for two years, also didn't escape my attention. My next exposure to the church was a special presentation by Jack West. This is the man who presents the trial of the Book of Mormon according to a mock court of law. I was again impressed.

Shortly after marriage, the stake missionaries visited us. I said I was ready for baptism after the first two discussions. The baptism was performed July 1, 1967.

It is interesting how the Holy Ghost works. Even though the missionaries (Al Naud and his wife) couldn't answer my questions to my satisfaction, at one point in the presentation, it hit me. It was just as real an experience for me as when the Apostle Paul was knocked to the ground by the bright light. I didn't know why I knew, but I just knew that what these missionaries were telling me was true. I also knew that the Book of Mormon was true, and I hadn't even read it yet. For a person as skeptical and resistant to persuasion as I, this wasn't something I had counted on. As a result of my conversion, I have experienced great joy and happiness. Prerequisite to this joy and happiness is a sincere desire to serve the Lord and live his commandments. I've never had a church calling I didn't enjoy.

It is true my church service has stretched my available time for my wife, my children, and myself. But on the other hand, it has made me more acutely aware of my responsibility to my family, and I think I am beginning to spend more “quality time” with my family than ever before. The turning point in my life was when I was called to be the Elders Quorum president of the Escondido Third Ward. I began to grasp the significance of what the Lord was asking us to do when he said, “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” Particularly, when you consider that “thy neighbor” also is in reference to your “immediate family.”

APPENDICES

Appendix A - Personal History of Leonard Gage Jones by Kenneth Jones

My dad was born in Weaverton, Marshall County, Oklahoma, on April 12, 1897, to Charles Lee Jones and Louella Maxwell. At this period of time, Oklahoma was not a state but still Indian Territory. Weaverton was located west of Madill about 5 or 10 miles. This area is where “Peto” Jones lived. Peto (W. E.) was the nephew of dad through his brother, Dave. Dad was the seventh oldest of 12 children. His family moved to Madill when he was quite young.

Dad married my mother, Hettie Adeina Morgan on October 9, 1921 in Ardmore, Oklahoma. He died in Ardmore on April 27, 1978. He had children Joy Luticha, born on January 28, 1926), John Fariss, born March 5, 1928, and myself, born June 13, 1939).

On of the earliest childhood stories told of dad is when he and his father were on their way to Mud Creek, near Cornish, Oklahoma (near Lawton). They went with a horse and buggy from Madill to the Ardmore Hotel where they spent the night. The next day dad's father got sick, so he had to drive the horse and buggy for the two-day trip to Cornish. Dad's older brothers, Fred and Mack, were grazing over 1,000 head of cattle. It was in the wintertime, and they were living primarily off quail, which they had shot and frozen in a washtub. When they wanted to eat quail, they would get an ax and chop out the quail they wished to eat. His brothers claimed that you couldn't eat quail every day for 30 days. They got so tired of eating the quail before the 30 days was up that they would get sick from the smell of the quail cooking.

When dad was in his late teens, he was with some friends in a drug store and one of them said, “Hey, let's go join the Navy.” So they all went to the Navy recruiting office and signed up. He was inducted into the Navy on May 17, 1918 at Oklahoma City. He was 5'9" and weighed 138 pounds. He performed active duty August 4, 1918 to June 9, 1919. Dad was sent to the west coast area. He did his basic training in the San Francisco area and was assigned to the destroyer USS Oregon. Since World War I ended shortly after his enlistment, he requested early discharge, which was a common policy at that time. The Commodore on board ship approved the discharge. However, there was a slight mix-up in processing his discharge papers. The records clerk misplaced his personnel folder in the file. After a few anxious moments and several days, the misplaced folder was found, and his discharge papers were processed speedily. Dad was placed on inactive duty June 17, 1919, detached from the Navy recruiting station, and sent home to Madill, Oklahoma.

After discharge from the Navy, dad had a summer job working in the Guarantee State Bank in Madill. He was lured to work in the First National Bank in Ardmore, Oklahoma, by a salary increase.

Dad met mother (Hettie A. Morgan) on a blind date. He was raised a member of the Baptist church and converted to the First Christian church four years after their marriage. He served as a deacon for this church for 45 years, taught a Sunday School class, and worked with the Boy Scouts in the church. He was treasurer of the church for 15 years. Mom was disappointed that he was released from his work with the youth and asked to be treasurer. He was also a 32nd degree Mason in the Scottish Rite consistory at McAlister, Oklahoma. He worked for the First National Bank for over 45 years and retired as an assistant vice president. Even during the depression of 1929, he never missed a day of work. Even though the bank was closed, he and several other men still worked in the bank during this period of time.

Dad took up the hobby of flying airplanes with a man by the name of Bindorf and the owner of the plane by the name of Dorsey Esque. They called the airplane a “Ginny.” Dad got his boss at work to let him off work so he and Dorsey could participate in a flying contest to New York. They won the distance-flying contest to New York (based on average speed) and Esque won the stunt-flying contest for flying upside down. He had to stick a rag in the oil filler cap so the oil wouldn't come out. They supposedly won $1,700 total prize money. Prior to this, they had difficulty getting over the mountains in Pennsylvania and landed in a farmer=s field and spent the night with the Amish. Dad commented that they had beautiful quilts and rugs. Coming back home, they got caught in a fog in Kansas (1925), which caused them some concern, and they had more trouble when they tried to land in Oklahoma (near Perry). Their plane landed in a tree, and they had to leave the plane in the tree and walk away from it.

He also tells the story of him and his friend Bindorf landing in St. Louis on the way to the races in Chicago. A young teenage-boy walked up and asked if he could go the races with them. They wouldn't have minded taking him if they had the room, but the plane was only a two-seater. The name of this young man was Charles Lindbergh. Dad also knew some of the famous flyers like Wiley Post.

Dad was one of the most honest men I have ever known. I remember one summer (1958) working in the First National Bank. I asked dad if I could have some of the pencils that belonged to the bank. He said, “No, they are the property of the bank!”

He didn't believe in buying anything he couldn't pay cash for. Needless to say, he never hurt for money, though he was a man of modest means.

Delayed birth certificate for Leonard Jones State File No. D1150-013, April 12, 1897, drawn December 18, 1950.

Appendix B- Personal History of Hettie Adeina Jones by Kenneth Jones

My mother was born on Mill Street in Ardmore, Oklahoma, on August 2, 1898 to John Nathan Morgan and Alice Adelle Eidson. She married Leonard Gage Jones (BD April 12, 1897) in Ardmore, Oklahoma on October 9, 1921. She died March 27, 1980 in Ardmore, Oklahoma two years after her husband, Leonard Gage Jones. Her children were Joy Lutica, born January 28, 1926, John Fariss, born March 5, 1928, and myself, born June 13, 1939. We were all born in Ardmore. The house that mother was born in was across from Colvert's dairy on the south side of town off Washington Street. Mom was just a baby when they moved to their current address of 907 C Street, Northwest in Ardmore. Her father designed this house after one he had seen on a country estate in Tennessee. He came back home and told a carpenter what he wanted built and they built it. This house was one of the first in town to have an indoor bath. Grandfather had a huge cistern, which collected rainwater, and supplied water to the bathtub. The tub would then drain to the north side of the house and water the cornfield. This was also one of the first houses in town to have an indoor toilet.

Her father worked ten years for the Singer Sewing Machine Company until he quit his job as manager and went to work selling Woodman of the World insurance. Unlike most salesmen, he liked to take his family with him to the various conventions, which his company sent him to. Grandmother really wasn't too sociable a person and didn't care a whole lot to go on these trips but mom loved them. The first trip he took his family to was Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This convention lasted for three weeks. Two years later they went to Norfolk, Virginia, where there was a world's fair nearby. Another trip was to Chattanooga, Tennessee, and finally to St. Paul, Minneapolis, and he only took mom because grandmother was ill. The last trip was to Buffalo, New York, and they picked up Kirk (mom's brother) from the exclusive boys school he was attending in Illinois called Todd Seminary at Woodstock.

Mom=s dad provided her with a pony. There was a red barn on the lot west of the house where the preacher's house stands today. There was also an old windmill next to the house on the west side which I can remember seeing the stump of the shaft. Drilling of wells by homes further south lowered the water table and made the use of the windmill for pumping water impractical.

Between the ages of 9B10 years of age, mom contacted typhoid fever. She also had spinal meningitis from 12B13 years of age. A team of doctors gave word to her parents that she was going to die from the spinal meningitis. About this time, a Christian Science faith healer was contacted, and he gave her a blessing to get better. She finally recovered. However, several years were required to regain her health. During this period of time, she was tutored at home and took up painting. Her watercolor paintings exist to this day and are remarkable for their ability for one so young. Unfortunately, it wasn't until she was almost 58 years old that she again took up painting to any great extent. She had done china painting previously which exhibited her talent.

She also took piano lessons at the age of five and voice lessons in high school. Her talent in both was very ordinary according to her own account. Mom grew up in a very sheltered childhood. She did not have to cook much or keep house because the hired help did these things. Although mom was a good cook and enjoyed preparing good meals for her family, she did not like house cleaning or dish washing. I consider mom a very honorable person. She was a very moral person. Some would consider her a prude, but I admired her for it. She was very conscious of right and wrong, and I owe more gratitude than I can express to my mom and dad for being very strict in teaching me principles of honesty, thrift, and morality.

Mom finished high school and then attended a Christian college in Columbia, Missouri for two years. At the end of her second year, her dad died. He had very strongly encouraged mom to attend college and after he died, the motivation for her to attend was no longer there. Very shortly after this, she met dad and they were married.

Mother's lot was one of relative luxury and convenience. Remembering that Oklahoma had become a state when she was nine years old, this was still pretty much frontier land. However, they did have hired help and all the fineries of their dwelling for the early 1900's in Oklahoma.

Appendix C- Personal History of Charles Lee Jones by Kenneth Jones

Charles Lee Jones was born in Monitan Township, Cooper County, Missouri, on December 21, 1857 to David Allie Jones and Melvina Lee of Howard County. He moved to Gainesville, Texas, as a young man as shown in the 1880 Federal Census of Gainesville, Texas.

A story is told, by my Uncle Charles Jones, of Charles crossing the Red River in a raft to get to Gainesville. He was reputed to be one of the snappiest dressers and best shoe salesmen in Gainesville. Rumor has it that he surveyed Gainesville, but this is attributed, by tradition, to Lawrence Lee. He fit his first wife, Eliza Love, with a pair of shoes. She was a small part Chickasaw Indian who died shortly after their marriage of an undisclosed illness (tuberculosis?). No children were born of this union. Her father, Sobe (Henry Overton) Love, a prominent Indian citizen (a Judge in Love County), was the person who Love County was named after. Sobe one time said of Charles, “He is about the only son-in-law I can trust.” Charles Lee and Eliza were probably married in Gainesville. After Eliza died, Charles married Louella Maxwell on December 2, 1885 in Love’s Valley, Pickens County, Indian Territory (Oklahoma). Tradition has it that Grandmother Morgan and Grandmother Jones were both married in Love=s Valley by the same pastor, Reverent Tripp.

Charles played in a band when he lived in Gainesville, and he supposedly didn't want his children to play musical instruments as a result of his experience.

He was one of the respected ranchers in Madill. Well thought of as an honest man. One of the original stockholders in the Madill National Bank, he made a comfortable living for his family.

An interesting insight into his personality emerged when he went to the bank in Madill, Oklahoma. A story by Leonard Jones relates his father, Charles, had received about $10,000 from the sale of his cattle herd and when he was leaving the bank, he happened to overhear someone say of him, ”There goes a man with more money than sense.” That comment made him angry.

A local Oklahoma genealogy periodical (section F235) had an article written by Effie Butler Watson with this account of Charles Lee. “Charles Lee married Lou Ella Maxwell of Dexter, Texas, in 1885. Their closest neighbors were Indians. There were no fences in those days. Livestock had the open range and sometimes wandered far from home. When two Indians got into trouble, the Indian law was applied, but if it was an Indian and a white man in trouble, they were carried to Ft. Smith, Arkansas for trial. A white man moved into the community from Arkansas. One of the Indians had many hogs. Of course, they ran everywhere. Any time the Arkansawyer wanted one, he killed the Indian=s hog. The Indian went to him and told him not to kill any more of his hogs. The white man laughed in his face and told him he would kill one any time he wanted one. So the Indian killed him. A federal officer arrested the Indian and put him in jail in Ft. Smith. Charles Lee Jones rode horseback to Ft. Smith to testify for the Indian. There were no railroads to Ft. Smith at the time. Charles Lee Jones testified that the Indian had been his neighbor many years and that he was a good man and a good neighbor; that in his Indian reasoning, he did not know of any way to keep the white man from killing his hogs except to kill him.” The Indian won his case.

Appendix D- Personal History of Alice Adelle Eidson by Kenneth Jones

My grandmother, Alice Adelle Eidson (wife of John Nathan Morgan), was born to Sidney Eidson and Virginia Owens on June 23, 1868 in Montague County, Texas. She was the only daughter of this union (had brothers Lon, Emmett, and Bruce). Her dad would put her on the back of his horse, and they would go racing off to play at a dance in someone=s home. Her dad played the violin and Alice played the piano. Alice also played the organ for her church (Presbyterian), but she grew up as a Methodist. Her oldest brother, Bruce, was shot and killed by his father-in-law. The name of his wife or his father-in-law is not known. Grandmother liked to dance and could really dance a jig according to my mother. Her husband, John Nathan Morgan, was very doting and would always buy her gifts from his many travels when he was an insurance salesman. Her mother, Virginia Owens, died when grandmother was only 12 years old.

My mom and dad moved in with grandmother (Alice=s) home (907 C. Street North West, Ardmore, Oklahoma) after they married because John Nathan Morgan died prior to the marriage. This was the home I was born and raised in. Grandmother lived with us until she died in a rest home August 27, 1955, when I was 16 years old. Unfortunately, Grandmother=s husband died when she was 52 years old. He had amassed a considerable amount of property. Grandmother had little, if any, business sense and lost many of these properties because she would not or could not pay the taxes due on them. Some of this property, that was lost in this manner, eventually yielded a bonanza of oil and would have made us all filthy rich! I have always said that if I had grown up rich, I would not have amounted to anything! This is due to the fact that I have had to work very hard for everything I have ever achieved. I would have had very little incentive to become well educated and work so hard if my parents had become moneyed!

I only remember grandmother always being “very old.” When I was quite young, she would ask me to sit on the front porch swing with her. Of course, I never would. I was too busy wanting to play with all of my friends. She would get very upset to see water wasted. When she was a child in Lonesome Dove, Texas, water must have been a very precious commodity. As a little boy, I used to make a little pond of water on the ground about 30 feet away in a southwesterly direction from the back door of the house. I would then get my little frogs or snakes and play with them in my little pond. She would sneak up to the faucet and take the handle of the faucet off to try to prevent me from using any more water in this manner.

At night when it was time to go to bed, she would tell me stories of her childhood. She used to tell me of one of her uncles who rode with the Pony Express. He was in danger of being captured by Indians who were chasing him. He set the prairie on fire so he could escape. When she was quite young, her dad took her in a horse-drawn buggy to a nearby settlement. When they arrived, the Indian warriors of Geronimo had killed the inhabitants of the town. She saw him and his warriors leaving the scene of the massacre. She said it was easy to pick out Geronimo in the distance. He was on a white horse and his headdress went almost to the ground. She told me one time when she was a small child, a new neighbor moved in next door with a daughter about her same age. She asked this little girl what her name was. She was told, “My name is puddin-n-tame, if you ask me again, I will tell you the same!” My grandmother was aggravated when people said the word “for” and pronounced it “fur.” If she heard this expression she would respond “what fur, cat fur to make kitten britches.”

Appendix E- Personal History of John Nathan Morgan by Kenneth Jones

John Nathan Morgan was born to John Morgan and Cincinnati Slayton Green in Union City, Tennessee, in 1864. He eventually settled in Bowie, Texas, and became a Singer sewing machine salesman. A logical thing to do since his father had been a tailor for many years. Tradition has it that the same preacher who married Charles Lee Jones and Louella Maxwell married him and Alice A. Eidson. John would get into his “hack” (a small horse-drawn wagon) with two sewing machines, which would fit in the back and take to the countryside around Texas to sell his sewing machines. This was before he was married. He would spend the night at different country homes so he could show people how to sew with these machines before he could sell it to them. On one of his trips, he had sold his sewing machines and was returning home. Thieves demanding his money accosted him. Very casually he responded, “I=m just a poor sewing machine salesman who hasn=t done very well.” They believed his and walked away without searching him for the money which he had.

He and his wife left Bowie, Texas, and came to Ardmore, Oklahoma, just prior to 1900, where he became manager of the Singer sewing machine office. He had quite a few salesmen he kept on the road. After selling sewing machines, he sold life insurance for “Woodsmen of the World.” He went to a convention in 1905 to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, paid for by the lodge in Ardmore. Another time he was sent to Union City, Tennessee. After one trip back to his birthplace (Union City), he saw a house that he liked and decided he would have one like it built when he returned to Ardmore. He contacted a carpenter, made a rough drawing of the house on a piece of paper, and the carpenter built it to John Morgan’s specifications. I grew up in that house in Ardmore. The address is 907 C Street. N. W. The house is still standing to this day. Another time, John was sent to Virginia where he was paid $12 a day for expenses. My mother and grandmother, Alice, went with him on business trips even though it wasn=t fashionable at the time to take your family on business trips. My uncle Kirk had been enrolled in a private military academy for his schooling because he had been in so much trouble.

John was very religious and would convert people to Christ during his travels. John and his wife were Presbyterian. His brother converted him to the Christian Church. His father had been a Baptist and had built a church, which had been named after him (according to tradition). John was a doting father (at least to my mother). He never got along with his son, Kirk Morgan, my uncle. He would always bring his wife and daughter nice gifts from his travels. One time he bought his wife a rhinestone hair comb, she made him return it because she thought it was too expensive. He was very strong as a family man and liked to take his family with him on his travels.

He made good money, but he was an easy touch for people who wanted a loan. For example, he would take a mortgage out on a man=s mule and the man would tell him later the mule had died.

John died at a fairly young age of 56. It is suspected he died of either diabetes or a kidney ailment.

Appendix F - Personal History of David Jones by R. L. Jones in 1939

This biography was compiled by R. L. Jones of Marshall County, Missouri, and read before the Annual Reunion of the Jones-Hunt Memorial Association of Cooper County, Missouri, at its meeting in Sulphur, Oklahoma, on September 3rd, 1939. A copy of the original document is in the personal possession of Kenneth G. Jones.

A biography of David Jones (Born 1790, died 1862) compiled at this late date, must necessarily be made up from meager and slender threads of information gleaned from various sources, hence the writer of this sketch craves tolerance from inaccuracies which may later be found herein.

Many years ago, my father, Gilbert F. Jones, now deceased, said to me: “Your great-grandfather William Berry Hunt Sr., came into Cooper County, Missouri, in the year 1815, from Barren County, Kentucky and settled in Moniteau township near Pisgah and were the first settlers there. They drove through in a covered wagon and your great grandfather Jones, who was a blacksmith by trade, brought with him a complete set of blacksmith tools.” To impress these facts on my mind, I suppose he pointed his finger at me and added, “Now Dick, always remember what I have just told you” and it seems that I always have and I believe I am quoting him almost verbatim today.

In August 1936, while visiting with friends in Louisville, Kentucky, I yielded to an impulse to drive down into Barren County, Kentucky, nearly 100 miles distant, to view the lands, which our forefathers forsook 121 years before for the new and promising land of Missouri, all the while hoping that while there I might discover some connecting link which would enable me to project myself further back into the ancestral records of this Jones family. At Glasgow, Barren County, Kentucky, I met Curtis L. Jones, a young lawyer, who told me this story: “My great grandfather Jones, with four brothers (five in all, remember), in a very early day came out of North Carolina into Barren County, Kentucky, and located there. My great grandfather remained here until his death, while the other four brothers in a comparatively short time after arriving here, pulled up stakes and started out for a new home in the West. We think for Missouri, but we have had no further information about these four brothers.”

At that time I knew nothing of my great grandfather having four brothers, in fact thought he had only one brother, or at most two, consequently I gave little thought to the story of Curtis L. Jones so far as the connecting link between the families. On my return home, however, I told this story to Uncle David L. Jones, who is with us today, and he at once told me that three brothers of David Jones came into Cooper County with him in 1815, and off hand gave me the names of these three brothers as follows: James Jones, Abram Jones, and Jabus Jones.

From the above, it seems to me, very logical to conclude that David Jones, James Jones, Abram Jones, and Jabus Jones compose four of the five brothers who came into Barren County, Kentucky from North Carolina, in the early day as referred to by Curtis L. Jones. Moreover, since we have authentic written record that Nancy Jones, sister of David Jones, married William Berry Hunt Sr., in Barren County, Kentucky in 1811, it seems reasonable also to conclude that the time of migration of this Jones family was in 1811 or shortly before that date, since the record is that they stayed in Kentucky only a short time before they left for Missouri or the West in 1815. Efforts to obtain the name of the fifth brother, who remained permanently in Kentucky, had proved unsuccessful up to this time. We have, however, a record of a sixth brother, Lewis Jones, who settled in Independence, Missouri, in a very early day and who became prominent in Santa Fe trading.

As before stated, David Jones came into Cooper County, Missouri territory in 1815. This was only five years after the first white settler set foot in this county and when the whole of Missouri, outside of a small territory around St. Louis and immediately south of there, was a wilderness. There was not a single public road in the county at that time. We do not have definite information as to his immediate occupation in this new country but believe he began farming. He lived for many years on what is now known as the John Smith farm, one quarter of a mile east of Pisgah, and owned this farm as well as other lands in Johnson County at the time of his death. On this Pisgah farm, he built in 1834 the old Jones brick house. Just 100 years later, this house, which is still being used as a residence and is in good repair, was viewed and inspected by many of the descendants who attended the reunion of the Jones-Hunt Memorial Association at Pisgah in 1934. Sometime after his location on this farm, he built, date unknown, a store building in one corner of the yard where the old brick house stands and for many years conducted a mercantile business, the first in Pisgah. He was also the first postmaster at Pisgah. There was no trading point or store nearer Pisgah at that time than Boonville, some eighteen miles distant. California, Tipton, Bunceton, Prairie Home and other towns now nearby had not then come into existence, consequently, the Pisgah store drew trade from a wide territory, and David Jones apparently prospered. Later on, some of his customers who then lived in the vicinity of what is now California, Missouri, importuned him to open up a store in their neighborhood, which he agreed to do if they would put up a suitable building. This building was quickly provided, and David Jones promptly put in a stock of merchandise. This was the first store in California and was located on a lot in the rear of where the Wood=s Hotel building now stands. The merchandise for both stores was brought up the river from St. Louis to Sandy Hook and from there transported to the stores by wagons.

We are also told that various other business interests in and around Pisgah were fostered by David Jones, among them a gristmill, a cotton mill, and a carding mill. These latter enterprises doubtless served useful in their day and generation, but changing conditions had long since rendered them obsolete for this community; their use discontinued and the buildings torn down.

Politically David Jones was a democrat. Party lines, however, were not drawn hard and fast in the early days of Missouri. This is well set forth in a short four line verse, published in an early County history entitled “The First Election.” It runs:

Then none was for a party,

Then all were for the state,

Then the great men helped the poor,

And the poor man loved the great.

At the election held August 20, 1820, five years after he arrived in the county, David Jones appears on the ticket as one of 14 candidates for State Representative and he received 380 votes. It seems at that time the county elected three representatives and since David Jones was not among the three candidates receiving the highest number of votes he suffered defeat. He stood number four in a list of 14 candidates, a very credible showing even though he fell short of the goal. In 1828 he appears on the ticket again for state representative and was duly elected, receiving nine more votes than his closest competitor. In 1830, he was re-elected by a majority of 70 votes and again in 1832 and 1834. In 1836, David Jones was a candidate for State Senator and was elected for a term of four years. In 1840, he was again a candidate for State Senate on the Democratic ticket and opposed by Reuben A. Ewing on the Whig ticket. This was the presidential election year and William Henry Harrison, of “Tippecanoe and Tyler too” fame was the candidate for President on the Whig ticket, being opposed by Martin Van Buren, Democrat, the latter being overwhelmingly defeated. The historians record this campaign as one of unusual interest and enthusiasm, throughout the county, state, and nation, and Cooper County records a clean sweep for the Whigs, they elected their full ticket in the county, as well as State Senator in the district, Reuben A. Ewing, Whig, defeating David Jones, Democrat. In 1848 David Jones was again elected State Senator for four years, but apparently at the end of this term in 1853 he did not again seek further political favors. At least we find no record of such.

At a meeting held at Bell Air, Cooper County, on Saturday, June 30, 1855, to elect delegates to a pro-slavery convention to be held at Lexington, Missouri, July 12, 1855, David Jones was named as a delegate from Moniteau Township.

In the next three paragraphs, I digress somewhat from our subject to include a bit of Cooper County history, as concerns the founding of the Whitley School Fund, which I think interesting and important, and justify its inclusion herein since David Jones was executor of the Whitley estate, and therefore had some part in the founding of this fund.

In 1835, Paul Whitley, a Cooper County benefactor, died near where is now the town of Prairie Home, and left his estate in trust to Cooper County, the income from which, after the death of his wife, was to be devoted to the better education of the future boys and girls of that county. David Jones was named executor in the will. Mrs. Whitley, several years after the death of her husband, moved to Texas. In 1855, she decided to return to her old home in Missouri. Enroute home, accompanied by her young nephew and her slaves, a negro woman and her three small children, and a young negro man. Mrs. Whitley died of cholera on a steamboat near Vicksburg, Mississippi, and in accordance with the rigid quarantine regulations of the time, was buried immediately on the banks of the river near where she died. The negress was carrying $2000 in gold in a belt buckle around her waist, the money of course belonging to her mistress now dead. She, accompanied by the young negro man, her children and the young nephew of her late mistress, proceeded on her way to Cooper County, Missouri, and promptly after arriving there handed over to David Jones, as executor, the belt containing the $2000. In gold, setting a standard of honesty worthy of emulation by all mankind, regardless of color or previous condition of servitude.

The negro man, familiarly known as “Uncle Alec” in his later years, was only three years old when his master Paul Whitley died but he remained faithfully with Mrs. Whitley until her death. He aided in burying her body on the riverbank and barely missed being left behind by the steamboat because he insisted upon remaining long enough to build a rail fence around her grave. Uncle Alec spent the latter years of life around Jamestown, Mo., and is still remembered by many there now.

The irony of fate was that just a few months later, in August 1855, these faithful slaves were all sold at a public auction at Pisgah; the sale taking place under the large elm trees close by the well- known Jones Spring on land owned by David Jones. These elm trees are still standing, silent witnesses of an activity that once flourished but now long obsolete. Judge Thomas A. Harris, now deceased, member of the Cooper County court for several terms near the turn of the century, was present at this sale and frequently mentioned the incident, during his lifetime, to his daughter Mrs. Lula B. Hunt, now living at Pisgah. The young negro man, Alec, was sold to Anderson Crum for $950. The woman and her three children brought $2300, Cole Bruce being the purchaser. Both purchasers paid the full amount in gold. The money derived from the sale of these slaves, together with the $2000 in gold carried by the negro woman in her belt, plus the proceeds from the sale to John Hall of 80 acres of estate land, southeast of Prairie Home, constituting the major portion of the beginning of the Whitley School Fund which has helped Cooper County boys and girls to better educate themselves.

Thus far our sketch tells only of the business and political life of David Jones and were we to stop here, we would fall far short of justice to our subject, as his most enduring work was in fostering the organization of the Pisgah Baptist Church on June 19, 1819. He and his wife, Tabitha Jones, were charter members, and he was elected the first clerk. Today, 120 years later, this old church still stands and is carrying on. Through all the intervening years, it has been as a “city set upon a hill,” pointing men and women to a simple faith in the lonely Nazarene. Without doubt, no other institution in that community has exerted as profound and potent influence for the betterment of the lives of men and women as this church and its contact has been over a wide section. I think it worthy of note to point

out that Uncle David L. Jones, who is in his 83rd year is with us today and has served this church in the capacity of deacon for 50 consecutive years. He is a grandson of David Jones. The early minutes of this church, in the handwriting of David Jones, is in possession of one of the deacons of this church today. David Jones was also one of the organizers in October 1823 of the Concord Baptist Association, which embraces Cooper County and several other Central Missouri Counties. This association still exists today and each year the minutes of this association carries forward the name of David Jones as having been a Moderator for many years.

While David Jones appears successful in most lines of endeavor, we think it should be recorded herein that as a prophet he failed utterly. Tradition tells us that in the early 1850's he attended a celebration in Boonville at which time the renowned Thomas Hart Benton, United States Senator, was the speaker. In the course of his remarks, Senator Benton predicted that it was a matter of only a few years before a railroad would be projected westward from Omaha to the Pacific Coast, thus connecting west with east by iron rails. David Jones termed this prediction as “Foolish, utterly foolish” and quite freely gave as his opinion that a man that was crazy enough to make such a suggestion should be kicked out of the United States Senate.

David Jones died May 8, 1862, and was buried in the Jones-Hunt cemetery just in front and across the road, about 200 yards distant, from the old brick house built by him in 1834. Five days later, his wife, Tabitha Jones died and was buried beside him. She was born April 26, 1791, and her maiden name was Tabitha Nanny, but beyond this I am unable to find any further regarding her. David Jones lived in Cooper County for 47 years, 1815 to 1862. Even this brief sketch, I feel, must convince us that these 47 years were full years B successfully farming, active in business, prominent in the affairs of county, and state, and steadfast in his support of church and kindred associations. Two Cooper County histories, written many years after his death, briefly sketch his life and both close with these words: “He died in 1862, loved and respected by all who knew him.”

R. L. Jones

September 3, 1939

ADDENDUM

In 1940, Mrs. Lula B. Hunt of Pisgah, found among old papers of William B. Hunt a brief, but pertinent biography of Hunt and Jones families. This biography is in the handwriting of Mrs. Mary Reavis, well and favorably remembered by many of us as “Aunt Polly,” and in this she gives us for the first time names of the parents of David Jones, viz: Jabus and Nancy (Beck) Jones. The portion of this biography pertaining to the Jones family is as follows: Jabus Jones married Nancy Beck. Nine children were born to them as follows: Samuel, Abram, James, Jabus, David, Lewis, Hannah, Sallie, and Nancy. Hannah married Charles Vanderver; Sallie married George Chapman; Nancy married William Hunt; Samuel married Milly Spears; Abram married Mary Enyert (Ingart); James married Nancy Vanderver; David married Tabitha Nanny (Nanna?); Jabus married Nancy Horton; Lewis married Mrs. Elizabeth McKeiny (Mereiny?), a widow with three children.

Abram, David, James and Jabus settled in Cooper County, Missouri, in an early day near Pisgah. James died soon after, leaving a wife and eight children. He was buried on his farm. Jabus moved to some other county in Missouri. Abraham and David lived to a good old age on the same farms they settled and they were buried on these farms. They were both members of the Pisgah Baptist Church. Sallie and her husband, George Chapman, lived first in Old Franklin, Howard County, Missouri; thence, to Washington County, Missouri, where he died. Sallie died at her daughter=s, Mrs. Caleb Jones, near Boonville and is buried in the Boonville cemetery. Lewis went to Independence, Jackson County, Missouri, in an early day and followed trading to Santa Fe. He made several trips across the plains and had some narrow escapes from the Indians.

R. L. Jones 9/1/1940

Appendix G -Personal History of Jabez Jones by Kenneth Jones

As far back as can be traced on the Jones line is to Jabez Jones. The name “Jabez” comes from the Old Testament of the Bible and it means in Hebrew “I bare him in sorrow” (1 Chron 4:9). It also says in the previous verse that he was more honorable than his brethren. Nothing is known of his place of birth or death, but a family tree compiled at a 1939 Jones Reunion in Sulfur, Oklahoma, Illinois by my Uncle Curtis Jones, indicated Jabez was born about 1740, in Buncombe Company. North Carolina, and died about 1810. Jabez and/or his son Jabez are listed on the Lincoln County, Kentucky Tax Records from 1796 to 1804. I can find no evidence of Jabez’s existence after 1806. Uncle Curtis’s family tree indicates Jabez lived 1740 to 1810 and that the majority of the family moved to Barren County, Kentucky, in 1811. I find no evidence of them in Barren County.

The only records I can find of Jabez are in Lincoln County, Kentucky. The first record is from the Lincoln County Court House (Book C, page 323, year 1797). He contracted an indenture for the purchase of 300 acres of land (bordering the Green River), in Lincoln Company, for 100 pounds on January 5, 1797. Interestingly enough, his son, Samuel, purchased 300 acres of land on the same day (page 322) for 200 pounds. I can only speculate that Samuel bought his land first, and that the seller to both parties, being Robert Herald, provided incentive to Jabez by selling his property to him at half price. At any rate there is no evidence that the family prospered in this area.

The tax records of 1806 in Lincoln County, Kentucky, Book #3, (D83396 2638 pt 265) indicated Jabez owned two horses, no cattle, and no slaves. He was probably too poor to own a slave or a cow. I was told that it was very likely the courthouse burned down in Buncombe County at some point in time (Civil War?), which would have destroyed any records of his existence in that part of the country.

Appendix H - Patriarchal Blessing of Kenneth Gage Jones

Palomar Stake Patriarch Francis Hugh Wilcox gave my patriarchal blessing to me

at his residence in Fallbrook, California on April 27, 1969. It is as follows:

Brother Kenneth Gage Jones by the authority given me as Patriarch for this Stake of Zion, I humbly lay my hands upon your head and seek direction of the Holy Spirit as I confer upon you a patriarchal blessing. Keep in mind my dear brother Jones, the Lord has had His watch-care over you all the days of your life, and has guided you into the paths that led you to His restored church. Because of your acceptance of the gospel, you shall be blessed above measure in all your callings. Be grateful for your membership in this great church for it is the only means whereby you may prepare yourself to become a candidate for exaltation in the celestial kingdom. The eyes of the Lord are upon you and He expects much from your diligent efforts in serving those who are divinely called to lead and direct you into the paths of everlasting life.

You have come for this blessing with a righteous desire to seek wisdom and guidance in your life, and the powers of heaven will be opened unto you that you may catch the vision of your responsibilities as you move with the stream of time. Being of the Royal House of Joseph through the loins of Ephraim who presides in Zion today gives you the opportunity to fulfill your life’s mission as a true servant of the living God, and you shall wax strong in your faith and become a dedicated servant unto the Lord and those with whom you serve and associate. You have been blessed with a loving companion as your wife, and since you have been to the temple of our Lord and had your marriage sealed for time and all eternity, you shall rejoice in your posterity, which shall be numerous and become a righteous generation. You will become the father of many choice spirits sent from the presence of our Heavenly Father to bless your home. You will rejoice in having power in the holy priesthood, which has been conferred upon you through your faithfulness, and if you will exercise this power in righteousness, and magnify your callings you shall accomplish a marvelous work among the children of men. You will have the power of faith to heal the sick and the afflicted, and shall over-rule the evil influences of those who seek to destroy the souls of mankind.

I bless you with strength and energy that you may have the faith to meet your responsibilities from day to day and remain a true servant of the Lord in putting your house in order, and become as a watchman upon the tower of Zion. You shall be as a shepherd unto those who are weak in their faith in seeking the true way of life. You shall be made a steward over many things, and shall hold positions of leadership and responsibility, and shall govern your household with love and compassion. Your habitation will be one of peace and prosperity and your name shall live long in the earth, and you shall be successful in your chosen vocation. Go to the Lord in humble prayer when you are in need of wisdom, and He will prepare the way for you to accomplish a marvelous work, even miracles beyond your normal performance of duty. I bless you with an open mind and an understanding heart that you will be diligent in your efforts to seek knowledge from the scriptures contained in the four standard works of the church, and it shall be given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom and to discern between the powers of God and man. Be honest with the Lord in the payment of your tithes and offerings my dear brother Jones, and you will be blessed above measure and shall rejoice in a long and useful life. It shall be your responsibility as a noble son of worthy parents to carry on your name in honor and respect. Your desires to search out your genealogy will increase from day to day. The spirit of Elijah will rest mightily upon your heart to burn with desire to accomplish this vicarious work in behalf of your kindred dead. Your ancestors rejoiced the day you accepted the gospel of Jesus Christ and are now anxiously waiting and hoping that you will remain faithful in your callings and visit the temple often to perform this important work in their behalf. I bless you with the power of perception that you may acquire a good education and reach your full potential in mortality, that you rejoice in many marvelous things from time to time.

I bless you with a happy life, one that will be filled with great joy as you carry this light and truth to your parents, the Lord will touch their hearts, open their minds and quicken their understanding to the truthfulness of this gospel. And as a true missionary, you shall explain the revealed truth to them in the light of their understanding and become a united family rejoicing in the happiness through your faithful works.

I seal upon your head the blessings of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that you may stand firm in your convictions and bear witness to the divine mission of Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, and you shall testify that Joseph Smith was truly a Prophet of God, and was instrumental in restoring the gospel in these latter days. You shall rejoice in honoring and sustaining as our present day leader and Prophet President David O. McKay. I bless you with courage that you may abide the day of the coming of our Lord and shall rejoice with the faithful as you witness this glorious manifestation. Your name shall be numbered among those of the first resurrection, and in the Lord=s kingdom shall join your life=s companion and all your loved ones who have earned the reward of immortality and eternal life, and if you will endure to the end, it shall be your privilege to become a king and a priest unto the most High God to rule and reign in the House of Israel forever, where you may possess thrones, powers, principalities, and dominions, with no end to your increase, which shall be predicated upon your faithfulness and obedience to God=s commandments, all of which I seal upon your head by virtue of the Holy Melchizedek Priesthood vested in me in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Appendix I - Church Positions Held

I have held many different positions of responsibility in the church. I am thankful for the rich spiritual experiences that I have received as a result of trying to fulfill these callings righteously. My favorite church callings have been those where I have had the opportunity to work with the most people in the gospel. Everything I have learned in the gospel has always influenced and helped me for the next calling I received. A complete list of my callings following my baptism 3 July 1967 is as follows:

Dates Position

Sept 1967-Sept 1968 YMMIA-Age Group Counselor (2nd counselor), San Diego, 4th Ward. I was a Deacon at the time of call.

Sept 1968-April 1970 Palomar Stake Clerk under Stake President Wallace Gray, Escondido 3rd Ward (Escondido, California)

I had been in the church for a little over a year

June 1970-Nov 1970 Deacons Quorum Advisor

Nov 1970-Dec 1971 Sunday School Superintendent

Dec 1971-Feb 1972 MIA Superintendent

Feb 1972-Oct 1972 Ward Executive Secretary to Bishop Wesley Lewis

Dec 1972 Oral Evaluator for Dick Reeves, Elders Quorum President

Oct 1973 2nd Counselor Elders Quorum, Presidency

Dec 1973 1st Counselor Elders Quorum Presidency, Lou Rothey, President

Jan 1974 1st Counselor Elders Quorum Presidency, George Nielson, President

July 1974-Dec 1976 Elders Quorum President

Dec 1976 Stake Missionary

Feb 6, 1977 Set Apart as a Ward Seventy

June 1977 Assistant Ward Mission Leader, Renn Urry, Mission Leader

Oct 1980 Scout Coordinator Escondido 3rd Ward

Dec 1980 Released as Assistant Ward Mission Leader, working in Los Angeles

Oct 1983 70's Quorum Secretary

Nov 1984 Scout Troop Committee Chairman

Nov 1986 Ward Membership Clerk

Dec 1986-Nov 1987 2nd Counselor in Bishopric to Bishop Alan Clinger

Feb 1988 High Priest instructor in Washington Terrace 3rd Ward, Ogden

April 1988 1st Assistant High Priest Group, Gene Hodson, group leader

Jan 1989-Jan 1996 1st Counselor Bishopric to Bishop Lyle Evertsen

Dec 1992-Jul 1994 Stake Missionary serving concurrently in Bishopric

July 1994-May 1995 Part-time Medieval Genealogy Missionary, Salt Lake City, UT

Joseph Smith Memorial Building, every other Friday

June 1995-Jun 1997 Ogden Temple Ordinance Worker, Set Apart by President Hawkes

Feb 1988- Dec 2003 Ward Family History Consultant

Aug 1996-Jul 1998 High Priest Group Leader

May 1998- Jun 2000 Ward Mission Leader

June 2000-August 2001 1st Counselor Stake Mission Presidency, President Brad Roghaar

February 2002 to present Volunteer at Ogden Regional Family History Center

Nov 2003 - Uintah 3rd Ward Clerk

January 11, 2009 Set Apart as World Wide Family History Support Missionary

Appendix J - Family Genealogy

This family history also consists of a CD ROM containing the following:

1. The name of the file containing my autobiography is jones,kenneth.doc contained in the folder “Kenneth Jones Biography.”

2. The genealogy data file entitled leeanf.paf consists of over 8200 names and 2874 marriages primarily compiled by my distant cousin, James H. L. Lawler. The “anf” part of the paf file name I appended to “lee” is placed to represent the “Ancestral File” information contained at the Family History Center. He sent me a copy of his master disk, which reflects the contents of my data file. I have added all of my direct ancestry to his file to make a master list of all of the genealogy. I included the remote lines relating to James H. L. Lawler. My wife, Mary Ellen Leishman, does not have any of her ancestors included in this data file. No pictures are attached to this paf file via multimedia. I have not added the names of my aunts and uncles to include their immediate families, even though I have this information in paper form. James spent over 40,000 hours researching the Lee line of Virginia that we are related to, as well as his own lines. He is a graduate of Brigham Young University and fell away from the church. I found out about James through the Ancestral File submission he made in the early 1990's. This submission extended my Lee line back to 1100 A. D. His major source for the Lee line came from a book entitled “The Lee=s of Virginia” by Edmunds. Unfortunately he attached few notes to this genealogy. He claims the Edmunds book he had access to in the national archives of Washington D. C. had more information than the copy contained in the Salt Lake City Genealogy Library, because it was an earlier version. I was not able to independently verify the link going back to the parents of Richard Lee (July 31, 1753) with wife Elizabeth Scott (born 1764).

3. The other data file to be used with PAF 5.2 is named JonesH3.paf because it corresponds to my direct line, as far back as I can go back, to include my wife, Mary Ellen=s genealogy. In other words, this file corresponds to my direct line relatives and Mary=s direct line relatives, including their spouses and children only. This paf file consists of 1123 individuals. A five-generation group sheet, starting with Kenneth Gage Jones, encompasses the whole of my pedigree with the exception of Jabez Jones and the ancestry of Melvina Lee, my father=s grandmother on his father=s side (Melvina Lee), which originally extended the Lee line back to 1100 A. D. (the linkage of Richard Lee with Elizabeth Scott back to 100A. D. is questionable, and thus has been removed.) Mary=s ancestry extends back to 1500 A.D. because that is as far back as the ancestral file will let you download without doing separate downloads along each individual family line. This line can be extended further backward by making further downloads from the Ancestral File at the Family History Library.

The way to start this program is to install the PAF 5.2 software from the web site to your computer. After loading this PAF software, double click the PAF 5.0 icon. Go to the File menu and select OPEN. Load my CD Rom to the computer and open the CD Rom drive. Open the PAF5 folder, the sub-folder data, and then select the file ascend.paf contained in the data folder. Once the paf 5.2 software is running, click “Search” on the menu bar at the top of the page, then click “Individual List”, select the “RIN” option by clicking the circle next to RIN, and then input the RIN number of 8157 corresponding to my name. You can navigate from my name, if you wish, by pointing and clicking the arrows pointing backward or forward.

Appendix K - Photographs

I have attached photographs to the JonesH3.PAF data file. All of these photographs are contained in the sub-folder of PAF5 named pics. Just highlight the individual you want to bring up, after you click the PAF5 Icon on the desktop, go to the EDIT function, and click on multimedia. At the bottom of the page is “Scrapbook” or “Slideshow.” Click either one of these functions and view the pictures I have attached to each individual.

Personal Vignettes

1. Family History Work - My patriarchal blessing says as follows:

“The spirit of Elijah will rest mightily upon your heart to burn with desire to accomplish this vicarious work in behalf of your kindred dead. Your ancestors rejoiced the day you accepted the gospel of Jesus Christ and are now anxiously waiting and hoping that you will remain faithful in your callings and visit the temple often to perform this important work in their behalf.”

With a blessing like this, how could you not be interested in family history work for your ancestors?

Soon after I receiving my patriarchal blessing, I asked myself, where do I start in tracing my genealogy? I immediately thought of a family reunion that was held at Lake Murray, Oklahoma. My uncle Curtis displayed a family tree that he completed in September1940. I am one of the smallest leafs on the tree. I immediately called my mother and ask her to give the birth, death, and marriage dates and spouses of my aunts and uncles for both sides of my family. I also asked her if she would get me a copy of Uncles Curtis’s Family Tree that I remembered from the Lake Murray family reunion in about 1950. She sent me all that I asked for. For some reason I decided to start with Jabez Jones, my ggg grandfather. The family tree said he grew up in Buncombe, North Carolina and that he moved to Barren County, Kentucky in 1811. I was not able to find him in either of these locations. A cousin, by the name of Helen Reavis Shrout, did finally locate him in the Barren County. Genealogy research was difficult in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. There were no indexes available for the census records at the family history center in San Diego, California (which was just south of Balboa Park). A researcher would have to look at literally thousands of names, sometimes, because the census records were not indexed. I finally got discouraged and asked a genealogy worker at the center why I was not having any luck! She gave one idea to me that in the late 1700’s a good way to absolve your debt was to burn down the courthouse where financial records were kept! I still don’t know if this factual or not. At any rate, I went back to the book shelf, arbitrarily pulled a book of Kentucky genealogy out of the bookcase, opened it up, and then to my gaze I notice marriage records for the sons and daughters of Jabez Jones in Lincoln County, Kentucky! The Lord opened the way for me to proceed with the work! I recall doing sealings with my wife, Mary Ellen, in the Los Angeles Temple for some of these ancestors. I was impressed that one of these couples was interested in the gospel. To this day, I do not recall which couple it was. Brother Emil Hanson, Director of the Ogden Regional Family History Center once told me “Ken, doing temple work for names you are not familiar with can be a spiritual experience, but doing temple work for your own kindred dead can be a sacred experience.” I believe this with all of my heart.

2. Proof that we can get nearer to God, using the Book of Mormon, than through any other book

Please read the following presentation and I will explain:

My “Home Run” of Book of Mormon Scriptures

Alma 5:14 And now behold, I ask of you, my brethren of the church, have ye spiritually been born of God? Have ye received his image in your countenances? Have ye experienced this mighty change in your hearts? (italics/bold added)

“Spiritually born of God” and a “mighty change of heart” signifies being Born Again, which is a process, after a possible one-time initial event. {Cal Stephens (CES) idea}

Before I was baptized at age 28, I had a bad habit of swearing. After baptism, I lost all desire to swear. This could represent the initial being “Born Again” and the mighty change of heart. This might be analogous to hitting a baseball, running to 1st base and heading for 2nd . The “baptism/receipt of the Holy Ghost” and “hitting the ball” were the initiating events for me.

2 Nephi 32:3 Angels speak by the power of the Holy Ghost; wherefore, they speak the words of Christ. Wherefore, I said unto you, feast upon the words of Christ; for behold, the words of Christ will tell you all things what you should do. (italics/bold added)

All of us can relate to a sumptuous family Thanksgiving dinner (extra special) that we feasted upon. To this day, we can recall how good that food tasted. The turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy and pumpkin pie with whipped cream! Again, we are talking about another God-like change. The Grace of God is more abundant within us. We know what we should do, through Jesus Christ as our guide. This could be analogous to reaching 2nd base and heading for 3rd.

2 Nephi 4:15 And upon these I write the things of my soul, …. For my soul delighteth in the scriptures, and my heart pondereth them, and writeth them for the learning and profit of my children. (italics/bold added)

My soul delighteth signifies another spiritual experience. This is how God works His way into our lives. Our faith and goodness is increasing. Our heart pondering could signify that we are finding application of the scriptures within our lives. Writing to our children and grandchildren, of spiritual things, is something we can do even when they are grown! We have reached 3rd base and are heading for home plate.

Alma 32:28 Now, we will compare the word unto a seed. Now, if ye give place, that a seed may be planted in your heart, behold, if it be a true seed, or a good seed, if ye do not cast it out by your unbelief, that ye will resist the Spirit of the Lord, behold, it will begin to swell within your breast; and when you feel these swelling motions, ye will begin to say within yourselves- It must needs be that this is a good seed, or that the word is good, for it beginneth to enlarge my understanding, yea, it beginneth to be delicious to me. (italics/bold added)

This is the only scripture in the standard works that has the word “delicious”.

We had to feast upon the words of Christ before we can spiritually taste the word of God so that it will become delicious to us in that we allow God to direct our lives.

Enlarging our understanding is an important step to further increase our faith and our devotion to Heavenly Father. With God as our strength and inspiration, we have arrived at home plate. However, this is not the end of our journey. We must continue to live the commandments and treasure up the scriptures in our hearts regularly. Our faith and our determination to serve the Lord is either increasing or decreasing, starting each morning we awake. We must do our best to resist Satan, live righteously, pray, and treasure up the scriptures on a daily basis.

In the Introduction to the Book of Mormon, the Prophet Joseph Smith said “—a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book.” I believe that just these four scriptures are proof of this statement. In Omni 11, Abinadom says “—and I know of no revelation save that which has been written, neither prophecy; wherefore, that which is sufficient is written. And I make an end.” Yet 50-100 years later the prophet Alma writes the two verses included above. Were Nephi’s words available to Alma? Most probably. If here were familiar with Nephi’s words, look how he has complemented them with his own as shown above! Nephi was a great prophet, I am impressed that Alma was his equal.

3. Spiritual Experience with My Son David When He Was About age 10

I arrived early at church one Sunday when Mary finally came, with our two youngest, and said, “Ken, I couldn’t get David to come to church with us today!” I was enraged. I dashed out the door of the church, gunned the car to get home quickly, hurriedly opened the front door, and rushed toward David’s room. Just as I was about to crash through David’s bedroom door, the Spirit said to me STOP. I heard no audible voice, but I was amazed at the intensity of the prompting to not rush through David’s bedroom door and confront him. I paused a minute outside of his door, slowly opened the door and then slowly walked into his room. I sat down in the chair next to his desk, waited a few seconds, and then said in a very calm, easy going fashion, “David, how are you doing.” I don’t recall what he said, but we talked together about 5 minutes and then he said, “Well Dad, I guess you want me to go to church with you, don’t you.” I responded to him, “Yea, that would be nice, David.” Years later it occurred to me that it would have been a terrible tragedy if I had followed me first instincts and rushed into his room and confronted him. His future church attendance could very possibly have been a point of contention with me personally from then on. How thankful I am that there is a Higher Power and Influence that can guide us and help keep us from doing more stupid things then we already do!

4. Spiritual Experience Driving a Rental Car in 1990

My brother, Fariss, died in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1990. I flew to his funeral in Tulsa, Oklahoma and then took a rental car to Ardmore, Oklahoma to visit with some old school chums. It was a cold, wintry, day with some snow on the highway. I didn’t let this slow me down much, as I was passing everyone on the highway. I noticed just ahead of me a truck pulling a small camper. Very unexpectedly I received a prompting that indicated very strongly “DO NOT PASS THAT TRUCK” I immediately slowed down so I would not pass him, but it brought me within about 20 feet of his camper. At that moment, the truck driver decided to test the brakes on his rig. To my amazement the small camper came swinging into my lane (the fast lane) of traffic, almost tipping his small truck over in the process. As the driver tried to correct this unforeseen circumstance, the camper came swinging just as badly in the other direction almost tipping his truck over again! By this time, both of us had about come to a stop. I very gingerly passed him, and then sped on my way!

If I had not paid attention to this prompting to not pass the truck ahead of me, the camper would have undoubtedly pushed me off the road which would have resulted in me having a very serious accident that could have killed me, because of the rate of speed I was traveling.

5. Mining the Scriptures

When Mary and I moved from San Diego to Escondido in 1968, we became friends with Elmer Anderson and his wife. He was like a surrogate father to me and was about the same age as my own father. My wife and I invited them to go to the Los Angeles Temple on a Saturday and then started taking them with us about every 3 months or so. Elmer had been set apart as a Bishop by Elder James E. Talmage many years before. Elmer was also a very good scriptorian. Since I had been a member of the church for less than 3 years, Elmer encouraged me to ask him any question about the gospel I could think of why I was driving us back and forth to Los Angeles. After a few session with him on our ventures to Los Angeles, he finally suggested to me “Ken, you know the scriptures are like a gold mine, particularly the Book of Mormon. Years ago, a gold miner would get his pick and shovel, dig a deep hole, and try to find a vein of gold below the surface of the I can mine the scriptures for you, but it would get greater joy and satisfaction by learning to mine the scriptures for yourself.

6. Parents loving their children

After my 1958 spring term at Cameron Junior College in Lawton, Oklahoma, I had summer employment working for the US Forest Service in the northern neck of Idaho near Priest Lake. In order to get there, I had to ride a bus for three days from Ardmore, Oklahoma to Spokane, Washington to meet up with my forest service employers. I recall an incident during this bus ride that has remained in my memory for many years. Somewhere in Nevada, the bus stopped so we could eat in a little restaurant in the middle of nowhere. Going into the restaurant, I noticed an attractive young woman talking at a table with a number of soldiers in army uniform. One of the soldiers that stood from the crowd was this big, grisly, tough-looking 1st Sergeant. The complete table was he-hawing, drinking and carrying on. I paid no attention to them and sat down and ordered a meal. I was one of the first to board the bus. I noticed the young lady talking with one of the soldiers as she got back on the bus. I also notice that a little girl, about the age of three, was trying to keep up girl that I would assume was her mother. The little girl appeared to unkempt and not very well attended to. The mother had apparently completely forgotten about her daughter and got on the bus with her friend. The little girl was too small to climb up the steps of the bus. She made no noise, but struggled to crawl up these stairs. Coming up behind her was this 1st Sergeant, previously mention, who scooped this little girl up in his arms, held her gently, when his eyes lit up and kissed this poor forlorn little girl on the cheek before hand her off to her mother. This story doesn’t sound like much, but almost 50 years later, after incident this happened, I still have tears form in my eyes when I think of the loving tenderness that this tough old soldier had for this neglected little girl, whose mother did not appear to care if her little daughter was dead or alive.

7. The love of Parents for their Missionary

There is a book entitled “The Train to Potevka” by Mike Ramsdell. I hear Mike give a book review of his book in 2006. He was a CIA agent in Moscow and wrote a book about his experiences in Russia where he almost lost his life. The introduction to the book says the story is fictional, but in actuality he told us that most everything in the book is true. It is a great read! He related the story of a plane trip to Australia from the United States. A group of LDS missionaries were the plane with he. During this night flight, he noticed that one of the missionaries, a really big fellow, was not sleeping, but appeared to be struggling emotionally with some issues. Mike said he assumed that the missionary had probably lied to his Bishop and Stake President about some worthiness issue. When the young man got up from his seat and went to the back of the plane, Mike followed him and said “I noticed that you have been very emotional, for sometime now, while your companions have all gone to sleep. Is there anything you would like to talk to me about.” The young man was surprised and said, “Oh this isn’t what you think it is. I come from a very active LDS family with many brothers and sister. But when my parents took me to the airport and dropped me off. My mother kissed me for the first time that I can remember, and my Dad told me for the first time that I can remember, that he loved me.” My tears are tears of joy!” Does anyone believe that we can we can tell our children that we love them too much, or that we need to wait until they depart for a mission before their parents kiss them?

8. Humbly Trying to Overcome Irritation in My Life (28 December 2007)

I find myself becoming more irritable than I used to. Particularly when driving in traffic! If I get behind someone who is very timid at trying to make a left-hand turn from a side street, without a stop light to control traffic, I get very agitated after waiting about 3 minutes or so, on a very crowded cross-traffic street.  This person will typically wait until both right and left lanes of traffic are clear before they will make a left hand turn, in spite of the fact that there is an extra lane in which they can merge when they make their left hand turn!  Are you getting steamed with me already!

Take a deep breath with me! I just today resolved that I will pray earnestly for peace of mind and heart, when faced with situations, such as this, that cause me irritation.  The interesting thing is, I can usually predict beforehand those circumstances that will typically cause me stress!  The secret is for me to “pray earnestly” with “full purpose of heart” that I will not get upset at all.  I found out today that this really works for me! Hopefully you have something like this that works for you!

The remaining trick for me is to get in the habit of praying for peace of mind, when faced with challenges like this in the future, and not forgetting to pray!

Let us reason together, is there any logical reason for me to get upset over something I cannot control? In getting upset, Am I affecting the person in front of me simply trying to drive their automobile? Obviously not. Am I affecting myself? Very much so, to my own suffering. It is a known fact that additional stress in one’s life can affect their longevity and well being. So why do we insist on doing damage to ourselves?

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download