The Life of Me: An Autobiography

by Clarence Edgar Johnson

CHAPTER 19

TOUR PIKE'S PEAK, MOVED TO ARKANSAS, WENT TO COLLEGE

As you know, Frank was the oldest in our family, and when I was growing up, he was away from home a lot. I had long since become accustomed to his being away from home. He even went to college awhile, I believe it was Denton State. But he didn't go very long. I didn't know whether he quit because of a lack of finances or because of a lack of interest and drive. I was the only other one of us who ever left home to work or run around— except Joel. He went as far as Stamford and worked there for years in a drygoods store. And later, of course, he had his portable skating rink and he took it from here to there. Then he settled down with it in Brownwood.

My working away from home never amounted to much. However, I wouldn't take a pretty penny for the educational benefits I gained from my traveling around. It increased my desire for more learning, and it gave me confidence in my ability to do more things. It made me more mobile and took away my fear of strange places.

In fact, I thought so much of my education gained through travel that I wanted us to travel a lot with our children. But we were poor and couldn't travel first class, which would have pleased some members of my family. As for me, I would have been glad to travel second class or third class rather than not travel at all. As is evident, I have roughed it much of my life. Later, when I wanted to travel with our kids, I would have gotten a lot of pleasure from roughing it again, going places and seeing things, camping out, and visiting the wild. Some of our traveling proved to be a big failure because some of the family didn't especially care to put up with some of the roughing they had to go through with at times.

For instance, we drove up Pike's Peak once in our Dodge Command car. There was nothing wrong with the car. It was built capable of traveling across the Sahara Desert trouble-free. It was Army surplus, four-wheel drive and as solid as they come. Many cars get too hot climbing the Peak, but this one didn't, although it was in the heat of summer. It had an army canvas top and curtains to match. But since it was beautiful weather, we had the curtains packed away under the back seat. And although it was summertime at the foot of the mountain, it was not summer on top.

The weather on Pike's Peak can change from sunshine to snow and from snow to sleet quicker than perhaps anywhere else in these United States. And the sky can pour out the abundance of her elements faster than is sometimes enjoyable to those upon whom she so recently spread her sunshine. And that is just what she did to us that day. Her elements were in the form of rain, snow, and large sleet. The sleet was sort of a cross between pure white sleet and large, soft hail.

Now, the road up Pike's Peak is, for the most part, void of suitable parking places, even for emergencies. And all this sleet and ice falling suddenly out of the sky did create an emergency. However, before we arrived at an emergency parking place, Ima was very unhappily sitting in a puddle of snow and sleet and ice that had fallen into the front seat and had worked its way down to the back side of her lap.

When we found a little place to pull over and stop, we put up the curtains. But Ima's unhappiness remained with her much longer than I had hoped it would. The truth is, she carried a large portion of it, as well as a little bit of dampness, all the way back down the mountain to Colorado Springs. And there, we found the same type of slush curb to curb four inches deep.

I never quite forgave the weather for that little stunt it pulled on us. It was a long time before I could get the family to go with me again anywhere outside our home county.

Time not only "waits for no man," it seems to go faster and faster. We were getting older and our kids were growing up. Dennis finished high school in Hamlin in June of 1949. In the fall of that same year he began to hear advertisements on radio about cheap farm land in Arkansas, and he sent for a catalog of listings. When it arrived, I had to admit there were some interesting bargains offered in it. The more Dennis read the catalog and listened to the radio, the more he was convinced that out there somewhere in this big country of ours, there was something we had been missing. Then one day he said to me, "Daddy, let's go look at some of these places. All we are doing here is working ourselves to death and getting nowhere."

We talked it over and I agreed that, if it suited the rest of the family, we would go look. Dennis and I went first, not to buy, but only to shop around. We went to Ft. Smith, Arkansas, and looked all the way from 60 miles north of there to 60 miles south of there. We liked what we saw and the prices were right. Then we returned home, and Ima and I went to Arkansas, this time not just looking; we were buying. After looking a few days, we found and bought a small farm three miles south of Mansfield.

We moved onto the place in the early spring of 1950. Anita stayed with the Tarlington Willingham family to finish out her Sophomore year in Hamlin High School. She joined us that summer and spent her Junior year in Mansfield High School. Then she did some special work during the next summer and, in the fall of 1951, instead of entering Mansfield High as a Senior, she entered the University of Arkansas as a Freshman.

Three years later Dennis also entered the University as a Freshman. Then three years after that, Dennis and Anita both came to me and told me it was my time next. They promised to see me through. They would handle the finances; it would be up to me to make my grades.

One of my dreams when I was 20 years old, was to finish high school, go to college, and become a school teacher. It was 31 years later that my three children decided it was time for me to realize that dream. At first I argued against the idea, half- heartedly, but was pleased when they insisted. And I must admit that I have thoroughly enjoyed the good life which they have afforded me, beginning with those first days of college in 1957. By that time Dennis was a college Senior, Anita was teaching in college, and Larry was a high school Freshman.

Oh yes, I even enjoyed the struggle during those early college days, even when it became doubtful that I would make passing grades in one or two subjects. The challenges encountered there and afterward have renewed within me the will to work for something better, and a desire to better understand why I work at all.

Early in my college days I realized that I must make some changes in my way of thinking toward others, and my attitude toward some of my ideals, which I had cultivated since early childhood. I saw a need for conformity in certain cases, rather than uncompromising individualism, so long as it didn't interfere with my integrity. Such a change didn't come easily; I am still trying, but old habits from the past keep causing me to backslide at times.

However, I think my greatest change is one that can not be seen by others—an inner feeling of well-being that tells me, "Don't worry about your past mistakes. You can not go back and correct them. And you will make other mistakes tomorrow. Mistakes are a part of the natural order of human living. Have a good day today and be content with whatever tomorrow may bring."

I spent three regular school years and three summers in college, and enjoyed every minute of it. I was on the honor roll half the time. I also did a little teaching in General Shop in Junior High Training School. One day when the Professor had to be away, I even took it upon myself to break one of his rules and allow the boys to make knives. I told him about it when he returned, and I told him why I did it. He agreed that it was a good idea.

Then I served one semester as student teacher in a college machine shop course, ranked highest in my class in economics, first in woodshop class, second in machine shop, and made "C" in United States History without having to study it. After all, I remembered most of it from having lived through so much of it. I cheated on two exams, just a little, not even enough for my conscience to bother me, caught two professors cheating on my exams—cheating in my favor, to help me make passing grades.

During my first two semesters, it seemed that I got very little help from my teachers. There I was, an old man sitting in class with a group of 20-year-old boys and girls. It seemed that the teachers had the idea that I would drop out as soon as the going got tough, so why should they waste time on me?

Then when they saw I was there to stay, they seemed to want to help me get on through. From then on, things got easier. Finally I graduated and went out to face the same world that I had been facing for 55 years, only this time I had the diploma which caused adults to look up to me and kids to look down on me.

My first year of teaching was in a 21-teacher school in Farmington, Arkansas. Enough interesting things took place there that year to fill a good size book.

In September of 1961 I began teaching 6th grade in an Indian School on the Navaho Indian Reservation near Winslow, Arizona. I taught there at Leupp just six weeks. Then I resigned my position and moved to San Angelo, Texas, because of Ima's health. There I spent my first year teaching Wood Shop at Lee Junior High School. And I taught nine years in Special Education.

At age 65 San Angelo Schools retired me. I could have gone on and taught in some other town, but who wants to teach when he can retire and loaf? Not me. So, I retired and loafed. Ima and I bought a travel trailer and did more than our share of traveling the next two-and-a-half years. In fact, we traveled so much that the nation began to run short of gasoline. It doubled in price and we thought we ought to slow down and let some others do some traveling also. Now, all I have to do is sit around and write and let you know what I have been doing these past 72 years.

Since I have retired, I have a lot of time to loaf and sit and think. At first it hurt my conscience to loaf; I had to force myself to sit down, and I still find it difficult to think. But I am having a wonderful time since I have learned to look at life from a different angle.

When I was young my parents took me to Sunday School and Church.
They taught me that it was good to keep the Sabbath, respect the
preacher, honor my father and my mother, and be kind to others.
I knew I was good because I did all those things.

But, as I became older, I began to feel that something was wrong. Life was passing me by. Church had lost its charm. When the preacher preached hellfire and brimstone to sinners, I felt left out. I knew he wasn't preaching to me because I was good, and had been all my life. I put my dollar in the collection plate only to feel that I had been cheated—not getting my money's worth, always listening to sermons preached to bad people.

But now I'm happy again. I have changed my entire life style— what I do, what I think, and what I say. Now I make it a point to insult someone, cheat someone, lie to someone, be mean to someone at least once each week. Now the preacher is back on speaking terms with me. He preaches directly to me every Sunday. I give my dollar to the church and come away with the feeling that I have gotten more than my money's worth. It's a good feeling.