SAMPLE
CHAPTERS
110 YEARS
POSITIVELY
ON MY OWN
The 28 chapters that constitute 110 Years Positively on My Own reproduce the best of the centenarian’s extensive remarks, chronologically organized. Each chapter is divided into segments that display self-contained recollections.
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In lieu of submitting two or three sample chapters, one brief Jones observation per chapter was selected for combined consideration. The 28 chosen selections have been edited down to about 250 words each, yet should entertainingly exhibit the humor and drama that surrounded the eleven total decades covered. Also in evidence: literary craftsmanship that has solidly preserved the quaint personality of Walter Casey Jones, as he reveals specific events from his long life.
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The collection of excerpts accurately represent the quality maintained throughout all 160,000 words. Jones’ transcribed remarks reflect a gamut of emotions. He spins events from his amazing life with vivacity and freshness. His acute memory provides fascinating anecdotes, some replete with recalled dialogue, and most with engaging conclusions.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
28 CHAPTERS
… They decided they was gonna scare me into runnin’. It took a few seconds for ‘em to get right next to me.
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Now I’d never personally done them boys any wrong. I didn’t even know who they were. And you see, I was too big a coward to run. So, I decided to make my stand. I looked around and noticed a rotten tree that had fell down there, off to my right. Then I screamed. That got my dog Cross to begin a-barkin’. I rushed over to the dead tree and snatched off a good-sized limb. Before those guys knew what was a-happenin’, I begin to wave the club back and forth at the oldest boy, hollerin’ for him to get back.
Meanwhile, the other two tried to grab a hold of me from behind. Cross started growlin’ and snarlin’ and he chewed on one leg, then another. Those kids got to their feet, and all three of ‘em ran off as fast as they could with Cross chasin’ ‘em. I called him back, and when I was pattin’ his head, thankin’ him, he licked my face.
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…When we butchered our hogs, we’d spread out sheets on pine boughs and lay our hot meat down to cool. We’d leave Cross out there to guard it, while we went in to eat dinner. All that fresh-killed hog meat just layin’ there, with no people around to stop him. He never touched it. He’d guard it, like it was a pile of gold.
CHAPTER 1
FORMATIVE YEARS
1872 - 1884
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… I ran behind one of the horse stalls, and stood there, shakin’. He come into the barn, and my heart sank when I saw him grab the plow line, double it up, and start screamin’ for me to get over there.
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He went outside the stable and called for me again. I took a deep breath, and went to him. Before I could even open up my mouth, he started smackin’ me with that plow line. I tried to be brave about it. That seemed to make him wale on me all the more. I covered up my face as best I could with my arms, but still, he kept at it. I must have been screamin’ pretty loud, because before I knew it, most of my brothers and sisters were all there, standin’ around, yellin’ for Dad to stop. Then Mother come out.
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She was standin’ there, beggin’ for him to quit, before he killed me. By now, I was crumpled up in the dirt, tryin’ to protect myself from that doubled-up plow line. It kept comin’ down on me, harder and harder. One time my legs, another time, my side. He was beatin’ me, the way I’d seen mother beat the dust out of the rugs. I remember thinkin’ then, how crazy it was for mother to be tryin’ to get him to let up, when, if it hadn’t been for her, I wouldn’t have been gettin’ that beatin’ in the first place.
CHAPTER 2
ADOLESCENCE & ABUSE
1884 - 1892
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… I never went back to see my family in Georgia. So, in 1894 I finally got up the gumption to pay ‘em a visit. I was away seven years. I went back home for a short time. Of course, I was 22 years-old and all grown up.
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I had common sense. I could get along anywhere with anybody, and I’d proved it by bein’ on my own so long with no help from any family.
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I had been correspondin’ with Mother. It took me the first year or so, before I mastered letter writin’. My first letters were pretty simple. I writ to mother every month, and I got better and better with the practice. But every time they got a letter, I was in some other town. They probably thought I was a no-good bum who couldn’t hold onto a job. But she always wrote me back, keepin’ me posted.
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After so many years of no personal contact, my dad was friendly to me. Then, he began pesterin’ me to come back home and stay, but I didn’t want to and that caused a minor ruckus. He was gettin’ wore out. He said he needed help, bad. But I was happy with how I was livin’ my life. In fact, I got downright itchy to get movin’ after only a couple of days there. Like I said before, I’ve always had the wanderlust.
CHAPTER 3
HOBO ASSIMILATION
1892 - 1900
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… On the train, I hailed him. I says, “I got to cash in at Winfield. Trade me a five-dollar bill for some change?”
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He was real polite. He says, “Yes sir, I believe I can.” He pulled it out and he had it folded two ways. He wanted me to put the money in his hand, first.
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I counted out five dollar’s worth of change out loud, and put the change in his hand as I counted, but it was really only four-eighty-five. He gave me the bill, and I stood there holdin’ it in my hand. Now, I had a one-dollar bill nearby, also folded two ways. He counted it again. I knew it was short, you see.
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Finally, I says, “Let me count that.” Now, this was the moment for the shortchangin’ to take place. I stuck the bill between my teeth so’s I could re-count the change. But instead of the folded five, I switched to the folded one, and ditched the five. I counted it all out. “Yeah, you’re sure right, Reverend, I’m fifteen cents short. Sorry about that. Well, I guess I’ll have to give you your money back, then.” I handed him the bill and held my breath, watchin’ to see if he’d open it up or just stick it in his pocket. He stuck it in his pocket and went off. He didn’t see me switch the bills. I was too clever for that.
CHAPTER 4
SKILLS EXPANSION
1900 - 1908
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… Then, I run into a fella named “New Bedford Shorty.” He was a little scrawny guy from New Bedford Massachusetts. He was older than I was, and he was a drinker. He was out on the street there, in Berlin Junction, makin’ coat racks out of wire. Coat hangers. And you could pull out one piece and it pushed the chest of your coat out. It was a dandy rig. Now I stood there for a long time just watchin’ him make ‘em. He was handy and quick. I introduced myself, and I says, “What do you get for those?”
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“Two bits.”
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I says, “Like me to sell some of ‘em for you?”
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“Do you think you can?”
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I says, “I know damn well I can.” He fixed me up with half a dozen. I come back in a little while, and I’d got rid of all of ‘em. He was impressed with my sellin’, enough to offer me a fifty-fifty partnership. Later, we worked that whole town with those hangers.
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Shorty was a great drinker. Sometimes we’d get in there, and we wouldn’t leave a town ‘til we was dead broke. If he only would have laid off the booze, he could have built up a fortune.
CHAPTER 5
FIRST TRIP WESTWARD
1908 - 1909
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… It was a real excitin’ time of my life. In all them years, I’d never got serious with a girl. I’d spend days out on my runs always thinkin’ of her. That had never happened to me before. I just never let myself get too involved with women. With Annie, all that changed. Each time I’d get into Mobile I’d find her, and we’d be together and… it was just somethin’ different for someone like me. The saddest times was when I’d have to get back on the train to do my firin’. She’d come down to the station and see me off. A big hug, a few tears. My heart pounded to beat hell.
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It became a serious relationship. It weren’t too long before we was actually engaged. I ended up in Chadron, two thousand miles from Mobile. So, most of ours was correspondence from then on, and it wasn’t makin’ either of us too happy, bein’ apart like that.
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I made the 2000-mile trip fully expectin’ to tie the knot with her. Anyhow, we had a ruckus soon after I got in town, and busted up over it. I don’t remember what was said. It might have had somethin’ to do with the twenty-year difference in our ages, I don’t know for sure.
CHAPTER 6
HARD LABOR, EASY LOVE
1909 – 1913
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…When I started my services business, I outfitted myself with all the proper tools. I found out that I could drop in to just about any barbershop on Saturday and get a chair. I could pick up a few extra dollars from my barberin’ skills.
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I used hand clippers. A fella would come in with six months’ growth, and I’d cut off the main part of it with those and then finish up with shears.
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I was in a little town down in Mississippi, and I’d barbered for a fella that Saturday. I worked the town house-to-house on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. On Thursday, a little kid come lookin’ for me. His dad, the barber, sent him. He was real sick and had to go home to recuperate. He wanted to turn the shop over to me. He figured on being back on Saturday.
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Thursday and Friday went real smooth. But he didn’t get back on Saturday. Tryin’ to do two men’s work got the best of me. I turned some of those kids out with awful haircuts. Well, before the day was over, a bunch of mad parents come in, and there was quite a ruckus. They said I weren’t fit to be cuttin’ hair and so forth. I didn’t argue much. I just packed up my stuff and headed on down to the next town. What else could I do?
CHAPTER 7
SERVICING THE FOLKS
1913 - 1917
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… I just got in and went down the road, just as fast as you could step on the gas and turn the wheel. And right off, I run into the damn ditch.
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I did this and that and the other tryin’ to get it freed. Finally, I walked down the road to a farmer. He pulled me out with his Ford for a dollar. Then, I took off. It wobbled all over, but I got it back to town.
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After I parked her, a fella come over. He says, “That Ford sways pretty bad. I hit a curb with my Ford once, made her act just like that, a bent radius rod.” I says, “What in the hell is a radius rod?” He told me.
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I went over to the front axle and looked underneath. And damn! It was bent all to hell. I went down to the blacksmith shop. I took it off and went in to hammer it out straight on the anvil.
That was the first time I ever got my hands on the undersides of an automobile. But I was a mechanic. I says, “Dammit! I can certainly tell when it’s straight or not. That’s what it’s supposed to be.” I finished hammerin’ it, then put that back on the Ford. It drove like a baby buggy.
… After Fuller’s presentation there was excitement all around the crews. I guess you could say he just boosted us all up. He was good at that. The next day I made ten calls and ten sales. The eleventh call I missed. The twelfth one, I made a sale. And I remember scratchin’ my head and thinkin’, “That’s a pretty good record for the day. I’m gonna knock off and not spoil it.” Think on that! That’s eleven out of twelve. I never had a percentage that high in house-to-house work before or since.
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I went to my roomin’ house and spent the rest of the day studyin’ my notes, tryin’ to improve myself even more.
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Sometimes people can be damn afraid of themselves, of what they’re liable to do under the spell of a salesman that knows his business.
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But like Fuller was pointin’ out, if you’ve got somethin’ that’s really good, the best there is practically, and if you’ve prepared yourself, you’ve got all the best know-how, and if you know how to make an approach, you’ll succeed. And there’s one other part that is more important than all the rest. Stickin’ with somethin’. Most failures in anything come as a result of not havin’ the grit enough to stick it out.
CHAPTER 9
TWISTED WIRE BRUSHES
1920 - 1922
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… It was August 22, 1922. I was livin’ in Pendleton Oregon, then. I met her at the train at 12:20 that afternoon. Anyhow, she looked like a pretty nice gal. We went up to the park, and we just sat and talked for a couple hours. We talked about stuff we’d corresponded about. We talked about our lives and so forth. I reminded her about my proposal. I says, “I still want to marry you, if you’ll have me. Meetin’ you in person only makes me more sure of the idea.” She thought about it awhile, and then agreed. We decided to get married, then, right then, that day.
After we’d made up our minds on the matter, we went lookin’ for a preacher, but damn if all the preachers weren’t out of town. We must have went to pretty near every church in Pendleton. We couldn’t find a preacher who could perform the ceremony. Finally, some hope. His housekeeper told us Reverend Secor, the Methodist minister, was up at the picture show watchin’ Charlie Chaplin.
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It was so dark in there; I couldn’t tell a preacher from anybody else. I looked ‘em all over, sitting in the shadows, but it weren’t no use. Finally, I went up to the projector booth. I explained my predicament to the fella. Damn if he didn’t offer to break the film if I’d slip him a dollar. He figured then he’d have to stop showin’ it, and turn up the house lights. And while he was splicin’ it, he said I could make an announcement to find out where the preacher was.
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After he broke the film, I went down in front and I says, “Is Reverend Secor in the audience?” And nobody says nothin’ except things about gettin’ the damn Charlie Chaplin film back on. Everybody was makin’ such a damn commotion; they weren’t payin’ much attention to me at all. So, I raised my voice up like a carnival man gettin’ ready to ballyhoo. I says, “I’m lookin’ for the preacher, is the Methodist preacher here?”
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A skinny fella taps my arm. He says, “I hear you’re lookin’ for the preacher. That’s me. I’m John Secor.”
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I told him what we needed and he come out of the show. Ella was still out front, pacin’ around and wonderin’ what I was a doin’. I introduced her to him, and at 8:30 that night we got married in the church parsonage.
CHAPTER 10
MID-LIFE CRISIS
1922 - 1923
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... I don’t remember us havin’ many serious arguments. Well, I guess we did have one big spat there in Portland. It was just after I quit Paulson’s. She was still recuperatin’ from havin’ lost the second baby. I think that contributed to her disposition. She was goin’ through a sad spell. She started rememberin’ all her regrets from the past. She even cried a lot, and over the years, Ella was not one to do much boohooin’. She got to thinkin’ she’d done the wrong thing when she left the woman that raised her, which she stayed there for years and took care of. She left her to take up with me. She just had a lot of damn guilt over that. Couldn’t ever really get free from it completely.
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And then, losin’ those two babies had somethin’ to do with it. She wanted a baby so damn bad, and it looked like she was just gonna be plumb out of luck.
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I told her I was done with workin’ in the mill. I was gonna go back to punchin’ donkey. I says, “If you want to come with me, we’ll get a room some place by the camp. If not, then I guess you can stay here by yourself and I’ll come up and see you on Sundays.”
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Oh boy! Did that make her mad. She told me she was gonna leave.
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That got me mad. I went over to her and I says, “I’m the one that’s gotta do the work and I’ll do the damn kind of work I want to. If you want to leave, you better think hard on it.”
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She started screamin’ and cryin’ and she was makin’ no sense at all. So, I pushed her in the chair, and I says, “You want to leave? That’s your decision, Ella. But damn! You think that over for ten minutes. And if you want to go after ten minutes, you can go. But if you do leave, I’ll get in that car and head off down the road. If you ever see me agin’, it will be by accident.”
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In less than five minutes, she decided not to go. I give her my handkerchief and she wiped her eyes and blowed her nose, and then we hugged for about an hour or longer. And that’s about the only serious trouble I can remember us ever havin’ in all the years we was married.
CHAPTER 11
ENTREPRENEURIAL SPIRIT
1923 – 1926
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… It turned out to be a damn crooked outfit. They come out and put up a frame sayin’ they was waitin’ for the parts to come in, before they could finish. But they never finished my sign. And I wouldn’t make payments. I says, “You’ll get your money, when I get my sign.”
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I got sued. The damn crooks! When I signed that damn note, he says, “The only thing we want it for, is in case we get short for the materials, we can borrow some money agin’ it.”
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I believed him. But instead of that, he goes down practically the same day and sold it, you see; sold it to some big finance outfit. This crook that bought it, came after me, right after I didn’t make the payment.
I says, “The sign ain’t up. When the sign is up and workin’, accordin’ to the agreement, then I’ll pay.”
He says, “This note is due whether the sign ever gets finished.” I remember bein’ so damn mad I told the judge, “I’ll walk out of town barefoot before I’ll ever pay it! They never finished the sign.” This was gonna take down my whole business, after I’d worked so hard to build it into a successful enterprise. I figured before I even went, that I’d lose in court. The bastards had that note. Our perfect little world quickly crumbled.
CHAPTER 12
TANGLED MISFORTUNES
1926 - 1931
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… Recruiting men for my crew wasn’t easy. It’s always hard to find good men who can hit the ball and stick with it. My first salesman was just a kid, a child. His mother was the secretary there. He was only twelve-years old and was hangin’ around. When he found out I was a new manager he pestered me to give him a job.
I says, “You’re just a kid. What do you know about magazines?” Boy did that get him started. He scooped up a copy of McCall’s and grabbed me by the arm. I guess he picked it up hangin’ around the office there, and catchin’ bits of what was goin’ on. But he had it down perfect. He could give a synopsis of what was in the magazine, and he really explained it from A to Z. When he got done, just for the spiel, I gave him a dime.
I asked his mother if she wanted him on my crew.
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She says, “He might as well, I can’t keep him in school. He thinks he knows more than the teachers.”
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His name was Butch. And he stuck with me all the time I had a crew. He was always the best salesman of any of ‘em. The older ones used to get jealous. But damn! He had a good gimmick, bein’ a brilliant, likeable kid. I don't know whatever happened to Butch, but when I had him, he was unbelievable.
CHAPTER 13
MAGAZINE TRAJECTORY
1931 - 1932
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… About the longest sellin’ trip I can remember in ’33, was a trip in August. I went clear back to Montana. I slept in the car every night. And it gets damn cold in Montana at night, even in the summer. I spent forty days and I worked as hard as I’d ever worked. One house after another, one town after another, tryin’ to make my livin’.
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I finally come back to Seattle with 41 dollars and with a bad knock in the engine. It was better than nothin’. But with that old Dodge on its last legs, things was lookin’ mighty poor. All them years, even after cars was around, I never needed or even wanted one. Now I was tryin’ to figure out how I could make it, without one.
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Naturally Ella was in a tizzy. She’d gone out and done some house cleanin’ at two bits an hour to feed herself and the boy, while I was on that Montana trip. I reminded her, I’d been livin’ on peanut butter and soft bread all that time, myself. And I promised I’d never go that far again. How the hell could I, with a car about to blow up? It was a real bad time, and I was 61 years-old and for the first time in my whole life I was beginnin’ to wonder how in the hell I was gonna make a goddamn bare livin’.
CHAPTER 14
AUTONOMOUS OPERATOR
1932 - 1933
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… In 1933, folks had to do it all on their own. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t make it. And of course, durin’ the 1930s, as times got worse, more people was forced to have to figure out a way to get by. You especially run into that sort of stuff bein’ out on the road, bein’ around other people who don’t even have homes. People with lots of kids, and no money, and no job.
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I felt a lot luckier than most of them fellas. I wasn’t stuck with a trade, where, if they ain’t hirin’, you can’t work. I’d made my trade bein’ an independent magazine broker. I knew how to sell. I figured as long as I could put one foot in front of the other, and as long as I could get to the next town down the line, I’d always be able to earn enough to keep afloat. We always had somethin’ to eat. And we bought our gas with money that I earned. I was able to do that, even durin’ those very tough times.
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I met a fella that was workin’ out near that camp, where they was slaughterin’ stuff. He give me the leg off of some lamb. It still had the fur and hoof attached, but it was a good-sized leg. We didn’t get meat that often. We lived mostly on oatmeal, rice, beans, potatoes and bread. I was so happy to get that leg but the wife bawled me out. “It’s ugly,” she said.
CHAPTER 15
ON THE ROAD AGAIN
1933 - 1934
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CHAPTER 16
STUCK IN DALLAS
1934
… About a month or so after we’d settled there, one of the shacks caught fire. It caused a hell of a commotion. The lady’s little girl got burned real bad. She was layin’ there in the mud and a lot of people was rushin’ all around.
They had to extinguish the fire all by hand. And they was havin’ to pack the water in pans and pails and buckets.
It was the strangest type of shelter I ever come across in this country. I’m sure it was probably against the fire codes, but what the hell were they gonna do? I mean, all them folks with no other place to get out of the weather.
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I believe the little girl died the next day from her burns. A lot of ‘em from the camp attended the funeral at a nearby church. Ella went to it, and when she got back to the trailer, she cried her eyes out, real worried. The little girl was seven, same age as our boy. She says, “We got to get out of this place before somethin’ bad happens to us, too.”
I think we was looked on by the others as bein’ pretty well off. We had a good-runnin’ car, and a nice trailer with a cook stove, and a real bed. But all around us was these shacks, with the inside cardboard and the outside cardboard, and the folks in ‘em mostly sleepin’ on the floor.
… Then one evenin’, we got paid a call by, you might call ‘em a kind of committee. They wanted us out. One fella says, “The parks are here for people that’s passin’ through, tourists. It ain’t meant for permanent livin’.”
Another fella says, “If you’re gonna live in our town, you gotta rent a place like the rest of us.” I figured they were mad because livin’ in the park there, we were gettin’ by a lot cheaper than the rest of ‘em.
I stood my ground. I says, “This is a free country. This is a public park. And we got every right to stay wherever we want. If you don’t like it, that’s your problem. We’re stayin’ put!” Oh, that caused ‘em to get very riled up.
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Then, they sent out some folks from the county. They looked us over and tried to throw us out of there, for “unsanitary conditions.” But I fought ‘em.
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Some of ‘em started puttin’ pressure on the boy. He’d come home from school, cryin’ his eyes out and sayin’ the other kids was pickin’ on him, callin’ him names. “Poor white trash,” and “squatters,” stuff like that. Ella too, was gettin’ some cold shoulders there in church.
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I’ll grant you that it was not the most comfortable life, livin’ out of that trailer there at the park. But by then, we’d been livin’ in it for a year. We was used to it.
CHAPTER 17
ESTABLISHING ROOTS
1934 - 1940
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… A week later, we was settled in the Humane Society caretaker’s house, and I started runnin’ the pound.
They had mostly women directors, particularly the president. She had just replaced the lady that had got me the job. And she didn’t know straight up from straight yonder. Right off, she had a big list of items that she wanted took care of. She told me how to do this, how to do that and so forth. I listened politely, but, right away, I knew she didn’t know what the hell she was a-talkin’ about. I knew my ideas was better.
She hands me a wide cap with a badge on it. She says, “You always wear this for good identification.”
I says, “No, no. I always keep the badge behind the lapel, out of sight.” She was just shakin’ her head.
I says, “Missus, when you go up to somebody on a cruelty case, you’re investigatin’. And if they see that star on the cap, they’re nice as pie. But if they don’t know who you are, they’ll show their colors right now. You learn what kind of people you’re dealin’ with.”
She finally turned me loose and she says, “Mr. Jones, you got to learn that there’s many rules that got to be followed for all this to work.”
CHAPTER 18
ANIMALS RULE
1940 - 1944
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… About that time the elections was comin’ up. I figured I’d get myself elected to the county government and then they’d lay off me. But when I checked into it, there weren’t no positions open that I could go for. Then, I found out the job of constable was still open. Nobody runnin’. So, I signed up as a candidate.
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I launched my campaign. I was in my late-seventies, just as eligible as anybody else to run. I was a property owner, a tax payer. I had no criminal record. To get on the ballot, I signed the papers and paid the fee.
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All of my campaignin’ was did during my house-to-house work. Before I left their porch, I’d give ‘em a flyer about me runnin’ for constable.
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When election day arrived, I won. So, I was now constable of Pierce County, duly elected. I carried a badge and had full police powers.
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A lot of the time was spent out servin’ papers for commission. I remember on one of ‘em, I had to drive about four miles. I got either sixty or sixty-five cents out of it. When I made an arrest, I got two dollars. Mostly traffic stuff. When I was out drivin’ around durin’ my house-to-house calls, if some fella run a stop sign in front of me, I pinched him.
CHAPTER 19
FRESH START & GROWTH
1944 – 1952
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…The biggest year I had with cards was when a church wanted to raise enough money to build an addition. I worked ‘em a good wholesale price. I even offered to train the folks on the best ways of makin’ sales pitches. They moved thousands of boxes of cards before they was done, enough to completely pay for the addition.
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When they first started, they’d send the kids out tryin’ to sell ‘em. “You don’t want to buy some Christmas cards today, do you, Missus?”
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I’d tell ‘em “No! You’ve got to be positive. Go up to the house, introduce yourself to the lady. Tell her where you live, that you’re her neighbor. ‘We’re addin’ onto the church. We’re usin’ greetin’ cards to raise the money. I’ve got some lovely cards. Have a look.’ Pass her the box. If she won’t take it, open it. Say, ‘Missus, take a look at these wonderful cards. The lady down the road just bought some, and she said they’re awful nice cards.’ And if you can get ‘em to look, if you get ‘em in their hands, you can get the business.”
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After the church project got done, some of those kids sold cards on their own to make money. Some people don’t like a kid comin’ around to their door sellin’ greeting cards, but it’s damn good trainin’ for the kid.
CHAPTER 20
MERCANTILE PROSPERITY
1952 – 1959
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… Ella wasn’t in favor of me gettin’ involved with this. God no! She even started cryin’ about the time I give him my deposit for my sample kit, which he said they’d mail me in about a week. She says, “Now you’ve done it for sure. You won’t last a week. You’ll drop dead. Remember what the doctor said.”
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I says, “Dammit woman! Think about it! Business people’s got to have advertisin’, calendars, specialties and so forth. They can’t stay in business without it. There’s lots of young guys out there ahead of me, but none of ‘em get it all. There’s always some left for the next fella. When I get my kit, I’ll park near where there’s a bunch of business houses. Don’t worry. I’ll take it real easy. I’ll loaf in here awhile, there awhile, and I bet when Saturday comes, I’ll have money to buy groceries.”
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I was about to begin my new career in specialty advertisin’. About a week later my kit arrived, plus lots of catalogues from suppliers. As soon as I got my hands on it, I was out the door. The wife yells, “Where do you think you’re goin’?”
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I says, “To get back to makin’ a damn livin’.” And within two hours on that first day, I made my first sale.
CHAPTER 21
AD-MAN PURSUITS
1960 – 1962
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… The main role Ella played in my life, she was mainly a wife and mother. She took care of the house, fixed the grub, did the laundry and so forth. And after the boy was born, she spent a lot of time takin’ care of him. She tended to him clear up to the day she died. She was a good woman, but a worrywart.
When I remember Ella now, what stands out in my mind, Hell! She was always tryin’ to stop me from doin’ a lot of things. It sometimes drove me crazy, but I loved her, so I just humored her as best I could. When I was out makin’ my calls for writin’ advertisin’, if I’d be late gettin’ home, she’d call up the police to see if I had a wreck. She did that a lot. Ella was a regular worrywart. I believe she inherited that trait, because she was raised by a woman just like that, always worried about everything.
I tried for fifty-two years to break her of those exaggerated concerns.
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I used to talk to her ‘til I was blue in the face, tryin’ to reason with her about her negative attitude. She would oppose different plans I’d hatch. No matter what they were, she was agin’ ‘em, especially if it had anything to do with me workin', She didn’t want me to work. I was an old man, she says, “Take it easy.”
CHAPTER 22
REMINISCENCE
1962 - 1974
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... For a while, I thought about maybe gettin’ a camp trailer and pullin’ it. I did that before, way back in 1934, with my old Dodge. I went to a couple places where they sold ‘em and I saw this brand-new motor home. I’d never really been inside a motor home before. It was tiny, but it was a complete home. It had a bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, and storage space. Of course, being a motor vehicle, it also had an engine, steering wheel and so forth. You could live in it, and go anywhere you wanted and still always be home. That got me to thinkin’.
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I couldn’t get that motor home out of my head. I thought a lot about it, and finally decided to see if I could find one, a used one, that I could afford.
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Then, on the 20th of December, 1974 I found a 1968 22-foot Class A Islander in a newspaper ad for $6900. It had everything, even a generator. I got ‘em to knock off four hundred bucks. I made up my mind that I would be moving into it, and then drivin’ it across the country. I decided I was gonna see as much of the USA as I could. The fact that I was pushin’ 103 didn’t bother me at all. Good gosh! I knew how to drive as good as anyone. What difference should it make if I was over a hundred?
CHAPTER 23
CENTENARIAN STATUS
1974 - 1975
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… On the way back to Tacoma, I come to a long grade, a nice hill, weren’t too steep. And the rig was still new to me, so I just thought I’d see what she would do. I did 70 miles an hour up that hill. That got Pat’s heart jumpin’ up to his throat. He says, “Are you tryin’ to kill us?”
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I says, “It’s a straight road, she’s doin’ okay.”
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Hell! He was up on his feet screamin’ half a dozen times when I hit curves too fast to suit him.
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The next day, I was ready to head out again, and Pat come back with his papa and mama. He said I was a wild rabbit and was gonna kill us both. They said they didn’t want to lose their boy, just to give me a travel mate. It finally come down to, he was gonna do all the drivin’ from now on, on the whole trip, or he wouldn’t go any farther.
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I considered a moment, before I says, “’It’s my motor home, I’m gonna do part of the drivin’.”
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I had figured all the way back, when he kept screamin’ at my drivin’, that it just weren’t gonna work out, travelin’ with a kid like that. But I couldn’t think of a polite way to tell ‘em. So, he made it easy for me. When I wouldn’t agree for him to do all the drivin’, he took his bicycle off and quit me right then and there. I was glad. I’ve been alone ever since.
CHAPTER 24
ON THE ROAD, YET AGAIN
1975
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… When I found out about that fellow Charlie Smith, who was 135, I decided it might be interestin’ to meet up with him, talk to him. To see what a guy 33 years older than me, a real old guy, was like. He lived in Bartow Florida. In 1976, I decided to drive down there and look him up. This was in about March, a month or so before my 104th birthday. I made a special trip to meet up with him.
My first impression was, if he really looked 135, or not. But Hell! What is 135 supposed to look like? I wondered, “Do I look 103?” He looked all right. He had some wrinkles. No teeth. But he weren’t completely clear in the head, I don’t believe. I talked with him awhile. He talked pretty good. But no matter what I’d ask him, he kept changin’ the subject to what he wanted to talk about.
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He mostly talked about his cowboy days. He said he was called Trigger Bill and he’d been a bounty hunter and went after outlaws. “Trigger Bill,” he kept sayin’, they once called him. I probably stayed with him for a couple hours.
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I just wanted to meet the man who was 135, or maybe he was 136 by the time I visited him, somethin’ like that. He was supposed to be the oldest man still livin’. I wanted to see him with my own eyes, and I did. That’s about all there is to it.
CHAPTER 25
PILING ON THE MILES
1975 - 1976
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… I broke my hip. I fell down and busted my damn hip. And that made me pretty damn disgusted.
Somebody come along that knew me, seen me layin’ there, and stopped. They called the ambulance. It cost me a hundred dollars to get hauled eight miles to the hospital.
I had a good doctor. He pulled ‘em apart and put a stainless-steel pipe down through there to hold it together. I was about 106 at the time, but it finally healed up okay.
It took three or four months before I could actually do much. I stayed with my son and his wife for 70 days. I was stuck in a wheelchair all that time. Stuck in a chair, that just weren’t me.
I remember thinkin’ how much easier it had been just drivin’ around the country with my souvenirs. I know it’s a contradiction, because earlier I described many hardships associated with that life, mechanical problems, minor accidents, cops. That’s true, but all life has things you gotta put up with. Good God! That’s part of what it is to live a life. I’d just found a way in my life, to not only live regular; but, to always be seein’ somethin’ new, and that’s what made me the most happy. I decided, as soon as I got healed up enough, I’d get goin’ again, on another trip.
CHAPTER 26
OVERCOMING OBSTACLES
1976 - 1980
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… I’m supposed to be the oldest licensed driver who still actually operates a motor vehicle by himself, in this country, anyway. I’ve never heard about anybody else over the age of 108 that drives himself around the country in a motor home. The tragedy is this: most people tell the elderly they’re too old to do anything constructive. Even at 65, this nonsense slaps them in the face, and then those poor folks, a lot of ‘em anyway, just sit down and rot away. That’s what the majority of ‘em do, simply because they believe such crap as “too old.” Who’s supposed to be the judge for what makes a fella “too old?”
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Age is a matter of attitude more than it is chronological months and years. If your brain is still functioning similar to a young brain, that’s the main thing. A body wears down some, but a brain doesn’t have to. That’s somethin’ people have control of, if they want it. The Good Book says, “As a man thinketh, so is he.” If he thinks evil, he’s evil. If he thinks about being a gentleman, and lives that, he’s okay and he’ll live longer and enjoy life better than the evil person does.
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I’m aimin’ to live just as long as I can. I’ve been on borrowed time for many, many years. As long as I can breathe and keep a-goin’, I’m gonna keep a-goin’.
CHAPTER 27
CENTENARIAN WANDERLUST
1980
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... I’m sure they must find it a little peculiar, that a fella almost 110 years-old still wants to drive himself around the country in a motor home, dry camping every night in super market parking lots. Well, if I listened to the doctor back in ’59, I’d have quit drivin’, and been dead, years ago.
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You know, the biggest issue that confronts us extreme elderly folks, is dyin’, leavin’ this world. Should a person be told the bad news if the doctors detect an incurable, fatal condition? That would be soberin’, all right, when they look you in the eye and say, “You are going to be dead soon. We are certain.” But people have different dispositions. A lot of people would get excited over somethin’ that another man would just take for an ordinary occurrence, and not pay attention to it. And yet, every intelligent person must know when they are alive that there will be a day, somewhere down at the end of the road, when life must end. Death is as natural as birth. All of that is very true, but my point is, why think about it?
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A doctor is nothin’ more-or-less than a human mechanic. No auto mechanic can look over an automobile engine, even if they hear it runnin’, and always tell you with certainty what’s wrong with it or when it’s gonna quit for good.
CHAPTER 28
FINAL SUMMATION
1980 – 1981
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