The Life of Me: An Autobiography

by Clarence Edgar Johnson

All in all it was an easy trip. One stretch of road in Oklahoma was through sandy post oak country. Some of the trees were fairly large, otherwise the land was like Texas shinnery. The county road didn't go through the worst of the sand but detoured many miles out of the way to go around it. In some places the sand was higher than our car top. One man who owned some of the sandiest land had a road through his pasture so people could cut through and save many miles. He had built wooden runways over the sand hills so cars could travel easily. He charged a toll of one dollar for each car. We paid the toll and saved a good many miles.

And then, of course we came to the Red River that forms the boundary between Oklahoma and Texas. Now, in that part of the country there is just one way to get from Oklahoma to Texas and that is to cross the river. And I don't know of anyone who would choose to stay in Oklahoma if he had a chance to go to Texas. And that included us. So we crossed the river.

I remember, there was a long, long bridge made of wood. It never occurred to me at the time just why it was made of wood instead of concrete, this perhaps because I had never seen a concrete bridge, and didn't know at that time they would have such things in my lifetime. Anyway, there was this nice bridge across the big muddy river. And about 200 yards down stream from the bridge, there was a road where people could cross the river in the mud and shallow water if they wanted to.

Now the next thing I knew, we were down there in that muddy road while all the other cars were zipping across on the bridge. I wondered why we didn't ride across on the bridge. We didn't even ride across the river—well, yes, the driver rode—that was Papa, but the rest of us didn't ride. Papa was smart. He was not only smart, he was the only one who could drive the car. The rest of us didn't walk, either, we ran and pushed. Part of the time we were running and trying to keep up. The rest of the time we were pushing, trying to keep the car from stopping and sinking into the quicksand.

I think the bridge we didn't cross on was a toll bridge. My memory doesn't tell me it was a toll bridge, but by way of reasoning I can only conclude that it was. Otherwise, why would we Johnsons have been down there pushing in the mud when other cars were crossing on the bridge? And why did that man at the bridge show Papa how to get down to that muddy road? Why wouldn't he let us cross on the bridge like the other cars were doing? Yes, it all adds up, that must have been a toll bridge.

But we didn't pay the toll. And we had very little trouble crossing on the low road. Matter of fact, we didn't even stop, that is, Papa didn't, except for us to catch up and load back into the car. We saved our money and lost very little time.

When we got into the Texas panhandle, we headed south toward Lamesa. We stayed awhile with Susie and Dode and then went on to the rented farm at Abbie.

It was the end of the year now, and time to re-rent the Abbie place for another year or give it up. We gave it up and moved back to the farm at Lamesa. We moved west the first time by railroad. We went this time in two wagons. It was January, 1919 and the weather was cold.

If I had known then what I know now, I think I might have asked my parents how this wagon trip compared with another cold January 21 years ago when the Johnsons moved back to Texas from Oklahoma in wagons. At least this time we were not driving a herd of cattle, only one old milk cow. And the weather wasn't all that cold.

I guess the coldest night was the one we spent in an old rundown schoolhouse, after chasing the skunks and roadrunners out. It was somewhere in the bad lands near Gail. The next morning it was almost too cold to travel. After going a few miles we stopped and got around behind Gail Mountain out of the cold wind, and built a fire to warm by.