The Life of Me: An Autobiography

by Clarence Edgar Johnson

During the summer of 1944, by correspondence, we made a deal with Uncle Jim to buy the Royston farm from him. So we began thinking about when we should be getting back to Texas. Benny Carriker was living on the farm at that time and when I let him know that we were buying the farm, he wrote that he wanted to move to town by the first of September and we could move onto the place at that time. So we loaded up and moved back to Texas in the latter part of August. But we didn't hurry right straight back to Royston.

We reasoned that we might never be in that part of the country again and I wanted to see a part of Death Valley. I had read quite a bit about it and it fascinated me. So we drove about three hundred miles out of our way that trip just to see the valley. But when we came near it, we learned that the touring season in Death Valley was in winter time. In August it was really a valley of death and almost void of people, especially tourists—and more especially, during the war. Okay, so I goofed again.

At least we were not bothered with traffic. And since we were about the only ones using the road, and since there were some long downhill slopes, and since Dennis had his bicycle in our trailer, he wanted to ride it down at least one of those long slopes. So we got his bicycle out and he got on it and he must have coasted for miles, I don't know how far. We saw one highway sign that read, "Next seven miles downhill."

Then coming up out of Panamint Valley our car had a vaporlock in the gas line. I could blow hard into the gas tank and blow gas into the carburetor. Then the motor would start but by the time it got the car and trailer going up the hill, the carburetor would be empty again.

Now, we had quite a few tools in the car and I always carried some emergency repair parts. A good supply of survival items was a "must" with me. I was sure I would need them some day. And this looked like a good place to use some of them. We drilled a hole in the gas tank cap, cut a valve stem out of an old inner tube and fitted it into the hole. Then Dennis sat in the back seat with a tire pump, pumping air through a long hose into the stem in the gas cap. He pumped and I drove. We came right on up out of the valley without any more trouble. After we reached the top, he quit pumping and we had no more vapor lock. This goes to show why I never throw anything away. Even today I still carry a good supply of old tire tubes, valve stems, lengths of rubber hose, and plenty of hay wire.

We stopped for gas at Stovepipe Wells and the man there seemed to think we would make it okay. The temperature was only 113 degrees. I've seen it hotter than that in Phoenix and they thought nothing of it.

We arrived at Royston only to find that Benny Carriker had changed his mind. He wanted to stay on the farm until the first of the year, and of course we couldn't move in. So, now what? It would be four months before we could get possession of the farm. So we moved in with Mama and Papa in Hamlin and I looked for a job. I thought just about anything would do for four months. I signed on at the Gyp Mill and went to work making wall boards. I worked just one day at the mill, the hardest work I had done in years.

When the alarm clock sounded the next morning, it was raining all over the place. It took me about five seconds to decide what to do. Of course I had been thinking quite a bit about it before. The rain merely pushed me over the line of decision.

The road was not paved from Hamlin to the mill. It would be a mess every time it rained. What's more, the work there was four times as hard as building boxes in California. So I shut off the alarm and rolled over to go back to sleep. Ima asked me what I was going to do. I told her I was going to get some sleep and then go to California. And as usual she thought I was crazy.

Well, I sort of agreed with Ima, but not altogether. This job would just barely pay for rent and groceries. Out west we could live on half my salary and save the other half. So, Burbank, we're coming again. But this time I had an additional problem.