The Life of Me: An Autobiography

by Clarence Edgar Johnson

When I got hold of an extra dime now and then, which was not needed for something else, I would go see a movie. But my slow reading caused me to miss part of the story during the old silent movie days. So I began dreaming of the time when we would be able to go to a movie and listen to the stars talk and sing. I worked the whole thing out and told my parents and some of my friends just how it would be done and how the mechanism would be set up. Some of them listened, but some of them walked away, slowly wagging their heads as if to say, "Poor Clarence, he finally flipped his flopper. He has gone plum crazy."

Three years later they came out with a stupid phonograph and tried to keep the talking on the record correlated with the picture on the screen. It was four years after I invented the talking picture that they finally put the sound on the movie film where I had put it in the first place.

I was out front on automobile generators too. In the early 1920's generators were dealing us plenty of trouble. Their commutators were the biggest headaches. By 1924 I had invented a direct-current generator without a commutator but with two collector rings instead. I even applied for a patent on my invention. But I ran out of money and had to give it up. Then 39 years later, in 1963, most all American-built cars came out with my generator on them. They are now called alternators. Of course my generator was not exactly like the alternator. We didn't have diodes in 1924. My generator didn't need diodes.

Along with my experimenting, I was reading mechanics magazines and in one of them I saw the International Correspondence School advertisement and enrolled in an electrical engineering course. I learned a lot from it but I was not financially able to buy all the things I needed to do the experiments which would have helped me learn and understand much more. Furthermore, there was not another kid in town with whom I could work and study, nor who was interested in learning about electricity with me. So, electrical engineering lost much of its charm and glamour. However, during my high school days, my classmates and teachers nicknamed me "Edison." I kept the stage lights in repair for all events. And when an office light needed attention, they sent for me. They never required me to buy a ticket to any school activity. I kept the lights working all over the building. I carried a key to the building and came and went as I pleased, day and night.

Along with my other activities, I have studied and practiced a little bit of character reading. Since my teens I have had this thing about being somewhat able to read a person's character on sight—at least I liked to try. When I was 18 I was visiting a kid in another town and he showed me a picture of his high school class, 32 kids. I looked at the picture, then I pointed to one girl and told my friend that she was the top student in his class in English. My friend was surprised but he admitted that I was correct. He became even more surprised when I picked the best math student, the most mischievous boy, the one who liked to play good clean practical jokes, the one who was the most active in the art of deceit designed to really hurt others, the best football player, best all-round athlete, and several others. After I had finished, the boy told me I got about 20 of them just right, ten partially right, and two absolutely wrong. Oh well, you can't win them all.

I have been in business off and on many years in my life and I can't remember having lost a penny on a cold check or a bad debt. I have a way of trusting people that I judge to be okay and it seems that they want to prove that I have not misjudged them.

This ability to judge rightly has helped me and others many times. One day a stranger was driving through Hamlin on his way to Bronte where he was to go to work on a ranch. He was out of money. I bought him five gallons of gas and a quart of oil. Three days later I received the money from him by mail.

Why did I trust the stranger? I don't know. He looked okay. He acted okay. He didn't ask for credit nor any other favor. Instead, he asked if he might camp out behind our service station for three or four days. My boss told him it was all right. Then when he asked to borrow a pencil and a piece of paper, I learned he was planning to write his employer a letter and ask him to send a couple of dollars for gas and oil so he could finish his trip. I bought him the gas and oil and told him to get going and get on the job. Then he offered to leave his saddle as security. I told him I didn't need security, "Just send me the money when you get it." And he did.

I've always been that way about my money. I would rather see my money used for home missions than for foreign missions. I like to see results. In the case of foreign missions, I never know how my money is being handled nor what it does for people. To be sure, this man repaid me, but if he had not, I would still prefer home missionary work. That may not be the right attitude, but it's the way I feel.

This new-fangled city living didn't take all the country out of us boys right away. We often went hiking along the creek that runs through the south end of Hamlin. One day we slipped out of our clothes and were swimming in the Orient Lake when a group of women and little kids came to fish in the lake. Boy, I thought we were in trouble for sure this time. But Joel came to the rescue. He always was a smooth talker, and this time it paid off for all of us. He yelled out to them that we were swimming without our swim suits, and if they would go back around the bend, we would be out in about three minutes and then they could come on and fish. They did and all was well.