John Palmer Memories of Home
I remember very little from my former years except that I thought they were pretty rough and so much hard work that I have tried to forget them. Mrs. Johnson came to our house when we were living in the NuAcres place and got Mary off to one side and told her about coming to see Mom and the dog was barking at her. It scared her so much she asked me to go get my mom and I said to her,"Oh, Mrs. Johnson, don't pay no attention to the dog, just kick him in the _____that's the way Dad does. I wasn't three years old yet.
John Walters, dad's old hired man stopped by the store a few years ago and it reminded me of when he worked for Dad, he was driving a land plane out in the old prune orchard. The plane went over a large bump and threw me off. It scared me because it ran over the top of me. I got up and told John that he did that on purpose and I am going to the house!! I gave him some verbal abuse.
John Walters was an excellent shot with a 410 revolver and brought in many pheasants that he shot while working in the fields.
John caught Clarence eating sheets of black leaf forty which was put out to draw flies and kill them. He turned Clarence up side down and ran the handle of a knife in his throat, causing him to vomit the stuff up and them gave him lots of milk. Clarence survived, although he was very sick.
When Hazel Hunter was working for the folks, Bob, Clarence and I decided to go up in the ditch that ran through our yard and go swmming. We were all in the ditch skinny dipping when we saw Hazel coming with the razor strap. I believe I saw her first and hollered . Clarence and I managed to get into the corn field next to the ditch, but Bob was a little late. We could hear Hazel chasing him up and down the corn rows and so Clarence and I saw to it that we stayed out of their way.
Hazel was a pretty good athlete. She was telling us she could kick as high as the door and was going to demonstrate it. Somehow she got her heel hooked on the top of the door and you can imagine what a spill she took.
Irene Qualman worked for us helping Mom with housework in the summer. One noonday we were playing with some bull snakes, and just at noon I walked into the house with one wrapped around my arm. When Irene walked into the room I asked her if she had ever seen one of these snakes before. She passed out cold, and boy, did I get it!! Couldn't understand why just a friendly, snake with its' tongue sticking out would give her such a fright. George got to be quite a jumper. One day I did something to George that he didn't like and he took in after me. He gave me a licking and I ran into the chicken yard and locked the gate. I turned around the there was George waiting for me. He had jumped the fence which was pretty tall. It seemed that I was always doing something I shouldn't, and George was chasing me around, so I reached down and picked up a rock. Turning around, I threw it at George, hitting him in the head and he went down like a ton of bricks. I thought I had done him in, so went and hid. When no one was looking, I went looking for George and he was gone. I don't remember the results of the skirmish.
The hired man and I were mowing hay up next to the canal on the east side of the ranch when a couple of gals that I went to high school with came up to the old swimming hole, jerked off their clothes and went skinny dipping. The hired man wanted to tie up the teams, sneak up and get their clothes, but I knew that if Dad caught us the hired man would get fired. I would get some kind of punishment also, so we didn't do it. The funny thing about this was that Mrs. Bell, here in Ontario where I now live, was one of those girls, and told me who the other one was. They lived close and I believe her name was Frietag before she got married.
One day Bob and I went to get a load of hay on the wagon. I pitched the hay up to Bob and he loaded the wagon. When we had a full load I asked Bob if he thought he could drive the team so and he said he could. I was going to walk and let him drive. When the team started home Bob found he could not control them, and they ran away. When they got to our driveway, the team turned in sharply, the wagon turned over, hit a tree and Bob sailed through the air and through the tree. Of course, it tore up the harness and other stuff, but Bob was lucky,as he sailed right between the trees and landed on a high bank which was our lawn.
When I was about nine years old, George was going to teach me to drive since he had a model T roadster. When we got started I got scared and pulled the throttle down. We took a really scary ride for a few minutes, going all over the road . We used to have a horse called Black Diamond. Dad had brought him in from the hills and broke him to ride. I got on him one day and started to ride out of the yard. Black Diamond lit in to bucking and I sailed through the air and landed on top of a barbed wire fence, then fell on some rocks on my head. Haven't been the same since. In defense of the horse, they found a nail that worked down and was sticking the horse. I Don't remember ever riding on horse since that time.
I was going with a girl by the name of Velma Bernard when we had a model A Ford. I was having a fight with Velma and driving too fast by her house, took a corner too fast and turned the car over. It landed beside a tree in front of her house and beside the Melba Baptist church. We all jumped out and Bert tipped the car back on its' wheels all by himself.
We
hurried home, but the damage cost about twenty five dollars to get
the roof straightened out and the paint matched. When I walked into
the house Dad knew something was wrong and he said, "You had a
wreck didn't you?" I said yes and he asked if anyone was hurt.
When I told him that no one was hurt he just told me to get to bed.
One day dad went to a sale and bought a goat that he thought was too
to cheap to pass up. He brought it home, but it wasn't long before
that goat was on the roof of the Model A Ford. His foot went right
through the roof. That goat didn't last long after that!
When I was in the eighth grade we got a lady teacher who tried to rule the school with an iron hand. Ws made life miserable for her, for which I am now sorry. She had me sitting on the front row of the school and one of the boys in the rear got to acting up. She put him up behind her and she was reading the Bible. He was acting up behind her and we were watching him instead of her-- she let me have it and with a little of my help, slid clear out of the seat onto the floor. After that we gave her a rough time and, like I say, I am sorry for doing that. So many things went on that it would take a book to write them all down. Dad was on the school board and if he had known about it, he would have whipped me in front of the whole school. Everyone treated her badly.
A man came to our house selling orchard trees and he was driving a Model T Ford. While he was talking to Dad we got into his car to play. While we were playing we got the thing out of gear and it rolled down the driveway and across the road into the neighbors' field. It did no damage that I know of, but Dad bought a bunch of trees.
The work was hard on the farm and Dad never did run out of something for us to do. In the winter when it was possible to do so we always had a lot cow manure to haul, and of course in the summer there were cows to milk and irrigation water to tend to and hay to put up. But once in awhile Dad would say that if we got certain chores done he would take us fishing. We would tie old cane poles along the side of the car and head for the snake river down below Glendale (now Melba) and we would go down a real steep hill, then up the river to a place Dad called Maiden Rapids. We would catch some catfish and a fish that was really boney but had a good flavor. Dad would always warn us to be careful when we were eating these fish to not swallow any bones because then we would not be able to get our shirts off. Dad was an above average farmer as well as a good manager. We never ever went without like some folks did. He worked us hard but he also worked hard too. Not like some of the farmers did who assigned work to the boys while they went to town and goofed off. Mabel said that when I got older and she was going with boys, that I was always pulling something or other in front of her boyfriends which really embarassed her. She said that many times she felt like doing something really bad to me, but being a good sister, she never did that that I can remember. One time Dad, Mom, Mabel and I went to Nampa shopping and I was with Mom and Mabel while dad went to the hardware store. He bought one of those porcelain potties that had a bail on it, and he came walking towards us with a big grin on his face--the potty in his arms. Mom turned to Mabel and said, "Ignore him, just walk right on by him. We don't want to associate with him". Dad got a big kick out of that. When we used to go to Nampa and visit Aunt Mildred who had a restaurant down near the depot, we would eat there. I remember she just made the best soup and served it with those little round crackers from a bowl on the table. She was always happy when we were there and her and Dad really enjoyed each other.
Dad went to the hills and got a load of Christmas trees and Bob and old man Cail were selling them. Cail took an order from the town prostitute and said he would see that it was delivered. Bob got the job. When he took the tree to the door and the girl opened the door, Bob saw her and dropped the tree, bolted down the stairs and out into the street, not waiting for pay. Some of the fellows he knew were there and caught the act. Cail thought that was hilarious but Bob had to live it down.
Morrison Knudson got a contract to build an airport on Wake Island and because they were paying four dollars an hour and furnishing board and room, it seemed like the thing to do. Regular pay at that time was one dollar per hour. Dad would not lot me go, but the ones that did got captured by the Japanese and most of them did not survive.
When Dad got the farm over in Nu Acres it had to be leveled before it could be irrigated. So Dad ran the Ford tractor with a little scraper and got the first forty into crop in the Black Canyon project. Bob and I picked spuds for Herb Nelson to get money for that Ford tractor and to buy the gas. Those were the days!
Bob and Dad built a machine shed on the Nu Acres place and in one, made a room to sleep. The FHA man came out to see Dad about giving him a loan. He saw how we lived and he said that we had a regular boar's nest didn't we? We went to Nampa each weekend to get cleaned up because we had to carry our water in cream cans to use, so it was used sparingly.
I remember at Melba when we went to help a neighbor thresh, and when noon came around Dad told the neighbor we had cattle to feed and we would eat at home. I soon found out why, as there were chickens as well as pigs that wandered around under the table.
It always seemed that if I had a date with a girl and got in a little late, that Dad would get me up a little earlier than usual. Do you suppose that he was trying to tell me something?
I look I Ella Watts out a few times and she would always keep me out extra late. So I talked Bert Montgomery into taking her out and later, they got married. His dad would let him sleep in the morning. George made it possible for me to take one year at Cascade College by taking in my car and getting me a job in the kitchen to pay my tuition. The college also got us some outside jobs to earn spending money.
Sometimes after dinner on Sunday a bunch of us guys would go exploring the area. We went up on Walter's Butte below Melba and crossed what was called Devil's Slide, which was above a cliff. It had loose gravel which we had to keep moving on or go over the cliff. Exciting, but what if Dad had found out? On this same butte is a place we called Eye of the Needle. We were up on the side of a cliff and in order to get to the eye, we had to jump about four or five feet. If we would have missed we would have fallen over 100 feet. No one missed. We thought we were macho boys.
In the winter we used to hook up old Nell, the horse, to an old sled. We would glide over the snow and go out to shoot jackrabbits which we sold to Mr. Todd to feed his silver foxes. This was really fun as well as profitable.
We organized jackrabbit drives where the whole community would come out with long clubs. We would get about ten feet apart and drive the rabbits toward the canal and when they got close to the canal they would try tp break back through the line. We would hit them with the clubs, they were so thick it was easy hitting. They could clean off a field of alfalfa hay in one day so it was a necessary project.
One time we went to Givens Hot Springs swimming. Jim Selby was in the bunch of all boys. Some didn't like to wear swim suits so they asked Mr. Given if they could swim naked and he said okay, but if I holler, you get into your suits as some women might show up. Sure enough, a group came, but they wore cowboy outfits and Jim thought they were more guys so he didn't put on his suit. He stayed in the hot water quite a vvhile.
Melba had a pretty good record for playing football. We only lost one game during my high school days and that was to Mt. Home in my sophomore year. They continued this record for several years after, getting the class a trophy for the State of Idaho.
One time while we were gone somewhere Clarence, and Bob gathered some eggs and sold them to the local grocer to get candy. Some of the eggs were nearly ready to hatch. The boys had to make restitution the grocer for that
One time on Halloween night a bunch of boys loaded up a bunch of toilets and set them up in the middle of town in a row. It was quite a sight but we didn't get in on those things.
In high school we had a professor called Scharbach who taught math and was pretty good at it. I was sitting in the back of the room next to the blackboard, and he left the room. So I proceeded to draw a picture of him on the board. He stepped back into the room but I didn't hear him so I wrote his name below the picture. I turned around and there he was ! He said I would have to shovel coal someday for that, and we all went back to work. He was a good teacher.
Mr. Paulson, our neighbor who was a Harvard graduate, lived by himself and raised hogs, was always very dirty, one day asked Dad to take him to Boise. Dad felt embarrassed to do so but did it, and when he went to pick up Mr. Paulson, he had cleaned up and was dressed in a suit with top hat. They ate steak at Kelly's restaurant which was the best there was at the time. I have a hunch Dad down-dressed that time to be in step with Paulson.
Mr. Paulson bought a Model T Ford and he had never driven anything but a team. He had built a little shed to put it in out of one by twelve's, and put a railroad tie in the front. When he got home he drove it in to the shed and when he hollered "whoa", it didn't stop. He went right on through the shed and a stack of sagebrush finally stopped him.
Mr. Paulson had a garden and Bob and Clarence decided they would go steal a watermelon from him. They walked through the corn, slipped down near the melons and were trying to pick one. He had seen them so he slipped up on them and offered to help them pick out a ripe one.
Tragedy finally got Mr. Paulson. Some boys stacked the melon vines for a friend of Paulson, a Mr. Barr, and he was unfortunate enough to go to his place that next morning. Mr. Barr had lost his mind and shot Mr. Paulson with a twelve gauge shotgun because he was so mad. Barr had a large family and we were in school with the kids--it was awful.
A man by the name of Ritchey who lived north of Melba was a pilot during world war one. He had an old by wing plane that he flew around our area. He was a barnstormer and put on shows, and that always excited us so I wanted to learn to fly. I did so when I was forty years old. Ritchey got killed at Jerome and they named Nampa airport after him.
About 1929 a fellow by the name of Lindbergh was to come to Boise and was to make a parachute jump, coming down with a red, white and blue chute. He got vveathered in in Wyoming, I think, and didn't make it, but we got to look at a Varney airline-plane. Varney later became United Airlines. The airport at that time was where Boise State College is now located and ran along the side of the Boise river. I guess if I were to reminisce long enough I could come up with a lot more things to write!!