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    Sure, I Can Do That: a Twentieth Century American Memoir
    Sure, I Can Do That: a Twentieth Century American Memoir
    Sure, I Can Do That: a Twentieth Century American Memoir
    Ebook107 pages1 hour

    Sure, I Can Do That: a Twentieth Century American Memoir

    By R. Wayne Morgan

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    About this ebook

    My father grew up in the poverty of Dust Bowl Kansas during the Great Depression. Sure, I Can Do That is a collection of stories that he told about his life on the farm and his adventures riding the rails as a teenage hobo. Historical footnotes provide context and perspective to these amazing stories of perseverance. These are true stories of an American life, told with humor and honesty. They paint a colorful portrait of a difficult time in our history and one man’s refusal to be limited by his circumstances.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherR. Wayne Morgan
    Release dateApr 20, 2012
    ISBN9780984504824
    Sure, I Can Do That: a Twentieth Century American Memoir
    Author

    R. Wayne Morgan

    R. Wayne Morgan received a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology and Master’s Degree in Education from Stanford University. He also earned a Master’s in Counseling from California State University. An educator for thirty-four years, he taught both secondary and college level courses in Health Education, Biology, Psychology and Counseling. The Author retired to Northern California where his interests include reading, writing, photography and pickleball. He also enjoys annoying his tolerant family with bad jokes and puns.

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      Book preview

      Sure, I Can Do That - R. Wayne Morgan

      Sure, I Can Do That

      A Twentieth Century American Memoir

      R. Wayne Morgan

      Copyright © 2012 by R. Wayne Morgan

      Published by R Wayne Morgan at Smashwords

      ISBN: 978-0-9845048-2-4

      The following are stories that my father, Francis Wayne Morgan, told about his life. I am confident that the stories are true, although I cannot substantiate the details of every incident.

      In a few cases, I have changed the names of individuals to protect their personal privacy.

      * * * * *

      Preface

      After I’d looked all through the Carlsbad Caverns with the other tourists, I walked back out into the late afternoon sun. I started lookin’ around for a ride—to see if anyone had room in their car. I only had a couple dollars left in my pocket and wanted to get back to the main highway to start home to Kansas.

      I found this one guy that had a new 1936 Chevrolet coup. He was all by himself, so I asked him if I could get a ride down to El Paso or wherever he was goin’. He said, Yeah, so I got in.

      We got to talkin’ on the way down and he said, I’m going to California and I’d like to have a guy be able to drive tonight because I have to be in San Bernardino by noon tomorrow. This was about five o’clock in Carlsbad, New Mexico.

      Sure, I can drive, I said.

      I was seventeen years old, had no drivers license, and I had never driven on a road before! The only time I ever drove was a farmer’s car once while we was fixin’ fences. But I said, Sure, I can do that. (laugh)

      So we went down to El Paso and he took me into a restaurant and fed me. We started out, and when we got into Arizona he said, Man, I’m gettin’ sleepy. Can you take over?

      I said, Sure, and climbed into the driver’s seat.

      Just after I took over, we started into some mountains there in Arizona. I was goin’ around these curves and he was bonked off. He just went right to sleep. (laugh) He didn’t know I had no driving experience. It would have scared him whiter that a sheet. (laugh)

      Anyway, I was zoomin’ round these curves, grippin’ the steering wheel with all I had. I finally found out you had to take them pretty slow—about twenty-five miles an hour—because in them days it was all tight curves. But bein’ that he said he was in a hurry, I’d juice it up between curves, then hit the breaks to slow down to go around the next one. And that was my first experience with drivin’. (laugh)

      Then we hit a flat section. Course it was night, so I could only see to the end of the headlights. I didn’t know the country, but it looked like it was going to be all flat and nice so I juiced her up to about eighty miles an hour. (laugh) I was whizzin’ down this highway when all at once I seen three cows standin’ in the middle of the damn road, right in front of me. I knew I couldn’t stop. I was too close.

      The only choice I had was to whirl around and take the car off the road. I swerved onto the shoulder—dust flyin’ and wheels chatterin’. After I got passed the cows, I gradually pulled back on the road and everything was fine. (laugh) The guy hadn’t even stirred.

      I didn’t know there could be cows out on that road at night, ya know. I hadn’t even thought of that. So when I seen these three standin’ there takin’ up the whole damn road, it really got my wits to goin’. What am I gonna do about this? (laugh) I can’t hit them damn cows, that would be a hell of a wreck. So I went around them even though I wasn’t sure what was on the side there. It just so happened that the shoulder was a gentle slope of sand and gravel.

      In them days, the roads didn’t have culverts or bridges over the rain gullies. The road just went up and down through the washes. As soon as it started to get light in the morning, I was doin’ about eighty and going over these dips. I had a good time then. It was fun because you could just feel yourself raise up ever’ time you come up out of them dips.

      Just before we got into Phoenix, the guy woke up. He had been sleepin’ all night just like a log. He missed a lot that night that he should have been awake to see. (laugh)

      So he took over then and we got to San Bernardino just at twelve o’clock exactly. I couldn’t believe it.

      ________________

      When my dad told stories of his youth during the Great Depression, I could tell by his voice tone and facial expressions that he was not making them up. He was reaching back into a storehouse of remarkably detailed and vivid memories that had stayed with him for a lifetime. As he recounted the highlights of his first trip to California, he was back in that Chevy coup, flying though the Arizona desert in the dark of night.

      I didn’t want my dad’s incredible adventure stories to die with him, so when he was in his seventies, I gave him a tape recorder for Christmas.

      * * * * *

      Introduction

      START --- Hello. This is the life and times of Francis Wayne Morgan, born October 16, 1918 in Liberal Kansas. ---- I was the third child of Harvey O. Morgan and Mildred --- Morgan Harnden. (Dad’s voice was artificially slow and measured.)

      My Grandfather Morgan lived at a little town called ---- Whitewater --- on a farm that they ---- STOP START ---- on a farm that they had homesteaded --- back in the early days after the Civil War. ---- My Grandfather and one of his brothers homesteaded two quarter sections of land next to each other and --- STOP

      START --- Grandfather married a girl that lived close there. --- They had also homesteaded. --- She was from Pennsylvania I think and her folks had ---- came to the United States from Switzerland and were of German ---- extraction. They built a sod house out on the prairie there. Grandma said the Indians still lived there when they moved in. They would stand in the yard on their horses until she would give them something to eat, then they would leave. STOP

      START --- My mother’s folks moved to Liberal in a covered wagon when my mother was eleven years old. They had lived in Massoura a short time before that and Iowa before that. Her folks were English and Scotch and Irish descent. And that’s where my father and mother got together—at Liberal, Kansas. STOP

      START --- My first memories were on a farm not too far from my Grandfather Morgan’s homestead. My dad had bought a place there with a nice bottom farm ---- had a nice crick running down one side. Land was level and very fertile. ---- You could grow good crops there.

      My first memory was probably of my father shaving off his mustache using a mirror he hung on a tree in the yard. -------- Or maybe it was of my sister spilling a pot of beans into the lap of a worker that was helping dad harvest. I must have been three or four years old. ---- STOP

      ________________

      That was as far as he got. Dad liked the idea of recording his stories, but he became hopelessly stymied as he tried to tell them in chronological order. Every time he talked about one memory, it triggered an earlier one—and he thought he had to start the recording over. By the time I visited him again a few weeks later, he had given up.

      After dad shared his frustration with the process of recording, the solution seemed obvious. I told him to abandon the idea of telling his stories in chronological order—I would edit them in sequence later. To help him relax, I suggested that he simply talk to me and forget about the tape recorder. The result was a series of free-flowing conversations that I will never forget.

      This was almost twenty years ago. I recently ran into the tapes as I was cleaning out a closet. I have rearranged the stories chronologically, but otherwise have transcribed them exactly as my father told them. His recorded words form the main text. My occasional questions to him are in bold print. I have also added commentary and historical context, which are in italics.

      * * * * *

      1. Hard Times

      You just start wherever you want.

      Mom and dad had been living in the same one room house as my uncles and mother said that was just impossible. (laugh) Mother didn’t want no part of the Louis and Albert situation. When they first got married (1914), she had moved in with the three brothers. That made them all happy because she did all the work, but she ended that pretty quick. Mom and dad moved to town. Leola, Frieda and I were born in Liberal while dad worked in a creamery.

      When dad got his money from his brothers for his share of the homestead, he put a down payment on a farm back near where his folks lived in East

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