STORIES

Early in my childhood, time pieces were a fascination to me.  On, my 9-on-the-9th birthday, I received a set of watch and clock screwdrivers.  I still have them and have used them all my life.  They are a little worn, and the box they came in shows 64 years of wear.

 

Shortly after I received them, I got the blue chicken pox and had to stay home from school.  Normal chicken pox has red or pink poxes and mine were blue. I have never heard of anyone having them since then, and when I put it on my medical history nobody believes me.    Anyway, I was sick enough to stay in bed, but not sick enough not to do something.

 

There was an old wind up alarm clock on the dresser.  My Mom suggested that since the clock didn't work that I use my new screwdrivers and take the clock apart to fix it.  She told me that clocks are oiled with walnut oil and she had some in the kitchen  Mom spread an old sheet on the bed beside me. She told me to take the clock apart front to rear and clockwise and put the parts in order as I took the clock apart; then to reverse the order when I had cleaned and oiled each part.

 

That was my first experience at fixing anything.  I reduced that clock to one piece each, cleaned, oiled and reassembled it. By golly, I was even surprised it really did work when I finished.  It took me all day laying on one side of the bed and the clock all torn apart on the other side, but I was out of my Mom's hair and occupied.

Maybe this is why I have 17 clocks around my desk and why I have saved the silver pocket watch my Dad [H. Ray] received in 1913 for selling the most "Saturday Evening Post" when he was 13 years old.

 

While Dad was in Paris in WW 1, he purchased a gold pocket watch which I still have and treasure.  I have two special wrist watches which  some day one of my kids or grandkids will say my Dad or my Grandpa wore this gold watch on his wrist for over 50 years.  And this silver watch he purchased in the PX during basic training at Fort Riley, Kansas. He wore it in the military and after he came home he  wore it after work every day and put the gold dress watch on the dresser.

 

At this tender age I had already worked at my job for over 2 years.  It was a simple job. But it was steady employment for a kid of 7 years old.  You see I walked an old lady's dog every afternoon after school for 50 cents a week.  But it was enough to buy my first bicycle from my cub master. 

 

The bike was in a lot of pieces in a bushel basket in the back of his garage.  I took my 50 cents a week that I had saved and paid him $2.50 which included the basket. I had to buy tires and tubes and a couple of other items.  The total cost of that bicycle added up to less than $10.00 and it took almost 6 months of walking that dog to pay for it.  That was the second project I worked on by myself,  I didn't get to use those new screwdrivers,  but I figured if I could take apart a clock and put it back together, that I should not have much problem with a bike, although some one else took the bike apart and couldn't put it back together.

 

I guess all the encouragement to be independent that I got from my Mom and Dad [H. Ray] paid me well at an early age.  That independence has lasted me all my life.

John

Storytelling adds substance to names and dates chiseled in granite and keeps memories alive.