K.C. Royals Baseball- Cessna Aircraft- Rejoice In The Rain- Friends Disaster- Working at Danville CO-Op- Beginning of Legos

Attending a K.C. Royals game in the early 80's

    K.C. ROYALS BASEBALL---When Patrick & Jason were young we would have John Bert, Mary's brother who lived in Independence, Mo. get us  Royals tickets & we would go to Kansas City to see a Baseball game. We'd go up at least a day ahead of time and spend the night with John & his family.  I had bedtime stories about kittens that went to  K.C. to try out for the Royals Baseball team that I told as a bedtime story for many years. For  a few years in the 80’s the Royals had a great team, they won the World Series in ‘85’.   Willie Wilson, Frank White & George Brett were among the top players. My favorite was Willy Wilson followed closely by Frank White. George Brett was a big favorite with fans because he was a homerun hitter.  But it seems he struck out a lot too, so when he came to bat it was either Boom or Bust.  When Willy or Frank  came to bat you were sure something was going to happen.  It might be a single or double, sometimes a triple, but you were pretty sure they were going to get on base & might start something.  With Willie there was a good chance he might steal a base.  We went to a lot of games where the Royals lost, but, there was always something special that happened. The water fountains were always special.   One year when Bo Jackson was playing outfield,  a ball went deep into the outfield almost to the wall, I think Bo was a little ticked because he had struck out 2-3 times,  Bo picked up the ball & threw it.  I thought, Ok it’s going to the 3rd baseman, but the ball went by the 3rd baseman, alright it's going to the shortstop between 3rd & home plate, the throw went by the shortstop to the catcher who tagged the runner out who tried to go  home from 2nd base!  Bo had to have thrown the ball almost 300'.

      One of my favorite stories is of Reggie Jackson, nicknamed 'Mr. October’.  He always seemed at his best at the last of the season when teams were trying to make it to the World Series.  It was near the end of his career & he was playing for the Angles in California.   The Angels were playing in K.C. & John Bert had gotten us tickets.  Reggie was to bat 2-3 times & had struck out.  The Royals fans were starting to boo him when he came to bat. Something I couldn't understand. I was  impressed to have the opportunity to see someone as famous as him play.  It was in the 8th or ninth inning & the Royals were ahead, 1 point.  There were 1-2 runners on base & Reggie came to bat, he hit the first pitch out of the ballpark for a homerun which put the Angels ahead, as he trotted around the bases there wasn't so much of a peep from the Royals fans.   I wanted to stand up and clap & cheer after Reggie had hit the homerun & was jogging around the bases but I didn't.  I couldn't believe the disrespect being shown to one of the best players of that time.  The Royals had one last bat but didn’t get any runs so Reggie’s homerun had won the game.   Later I told Mary I wondered if Reggie had baited the pitcher, that he’d deliberately struck out those first at bats when it didn't matter much, which got the pitcher to thinking, he's just an old worn out player & the pitcher didn't consider him a threat  but when it was really needed, he iced the game. It was true he wasn't at the peak he was once physically, but he was playing with a smarts & savvy that young players who were playing on the strength of their youth didn't use or posses.       

A much later Royals Game
Paul, Jon, Patrick, Jason. Hannah & Anodos

   For many years we didn’t go to a Royals Baseball game.  After  Anodos was a couple yrs. old Patrick organized a trip to a Royals, “Christmas in July” game where we all got Santa stocking hats with “Royals” on them.  The hilarious part of this game was a Pigeon that landed on the field about mid-game that seemed to bring bad luck for the Royals.  We started to be afraid the Royals were going to loose but the pigeon finally flew away & they won it on a homerun in the last at bat.  Runners on base, 2 outs & a full count on the batter.  Patrick made a delightful picture book & DVD of the trip.
   We didn't go to to many Chief's football games.  Never did like cold weather football games.  As the boys got older and became Bronco fans.  We'd have John Bert get tickets if the Chiefs were playing the Broncos early in the season.  I guess I remember one Thanksgiving Day game, but that was getting a little to chilly for me.

     
WORKING AT CESSNA AIRCRAFT—I started working for Cessna  after we moved from Mayfield to Argonia.  I started at the old Prospect plant on the south side of the K-42 highway coming into Wichita from Argonia.  In the 30's, 40’s & 50’s there was a Railroad yard for the Kansas Pacific Railroad & the area was kinda separated from Wichita, in the 30's & earlier & the area was called Prospect.  As Wichita grew & when Cessna started the name Prospect was given to that facility.
    When I was growing up & would work for other farmers dad always said,  “If you don’t make a man money he can’t afford to pay you.”  So I grew up learning to work hard.  That carried over into working at Cessna.  Being a farmer when you had a breakdown you learned to fix it yourself.  If I had problems at Cessna I figured out a solution, it was easier & quicker than going to someone else or passing the problem off.     All of my supervisors commented on my dedication to the job, when telling them what dad had said they really liked it & would quote it to others who were always trying to get by doing as little as possible.  My philosophy also brought me lots to work.   A problem would develop & they would bring it to me to fix.  Sending tools to Pawnee for repairs would take a couple weeks and by then an assembly line might be shut down because they didn't have the parts needed & everybody was screaming for parts.   I could fix it myself in 5-10 minutes. Some repairs should have been checked by tool inspection but that always took time,  parts were seldom if ever rejected afterwards by inspection so no bigigie. So I'd fix the tool finish the job & if they passed Parts Inspection  the Supts. were happy.  I finally told them.  ‘’Hey guys, your putting a reputation on me I’m not sure I can live up too.’’

      One particular incident involved being a hand router operator.  We’d route out this one part but when it was formed a slot would widen & it wouldn’t pass inspection.  They finally brought a tooling expert over from Pawnee & brought him to me.  He wanted to know what I thought would fix the problem.  I explained we usually used an 1/8 in. router bit, but had a 5/32.  I ask, can you make a flip lever we could route by, then flip it & use the 5/32 to route a tear drop shaped cutout that when it was formed it would all be the same.  He said that would cost  about $200, a new tool would cost  $2-3,000 so it was worth a try.  He made it, brought it to me, & it worked.  It only took switching  two routers on an air hose.  Two of us would use both, Don Comstock & myself.  We had two lazy whiners, Red & Shorty they used the 1/8'' on both.  Of course theirs was always scrap.  Don & my parts would pass inspection, we tried to convince Red & Shorty if they just set up another router, each of us had at least 3 but they wouldn't.  So Don and I alway tried to make  sure we always did that particular job.  I  did a lot of my own tool repair & some for a few other guys.    
       When I was transferred to Pawnee, my reputation followed me.  Getting things repaired still took a week so my supervisors still liked for me to fix things & get them done that day, but I had to always watch for Union, Tool Repair & Maintenance people walking down the isles, if they saw me fixing tools they would report me to the Union.  I only got caught twice.  Fortunately both times  replacing a tooling pin that had broke off & I was grinding off the new pin on the bottom side of the tool because it was too long They went to my supervisor & belly ached because I was repairing tools.  He came & was upset, although he had brought me tools to fix on the sly.  I explained what I had done & then he was mad at the people who had complained so then he griped to his Supervisor & Tool Repair about how slow Tool Repair was & that he was OK with me making simple repairs.  The time span I worked at Cessna was 30 years but because of layoffs & temporary shutdowns my Seniority only registered 19 years.
     Most people had a big retirement party that had cake and punch in the Big Cafeteria.  Usually a lot of people showed up, not because they knew the person but just to get out of working an hour.  When I retired I skipped the Retirement Party & took $200 & a really nice model of a Cessna Jet.  I had Mary fix a couple batches of Brownies & I gave them to friends, mostly people who were also hard workers.  The plane I picked, the Mustang, I dubbed the Volkswagen of Cessna Jets.  I got to visit the designing & tooling department of it.  It was a small 
4-passenger jet & the pilots control was a joystick instead of the usual steering wheel looking control.  They explained they had gone to Best Buy, bought all the video game joysticks, messed around with them & then designed the control for their plane.  I always thought that an amusing story & told it many times.  It was a small nice looking jet with lots of Zip, so I took a fancy to it over the big business Jets.

REJOICE IN THE RAIN--I did something at Cessna that I did back on the farm & people would see me & shake their heads at me like they thought I was crazy.  On the farm when we had a rain after a big dry spell I would go out & stand in the rain, turn my face to the sky so the rain would hit my face, maybe stretch out my arms too and enjoy the cool rain and the smell.  I didn't care if my clothes got wet, that felt good too.  At milking time I’d take all the milkers off & go out and soak up the rain.    When I smelled the rain at Cessna I would  slip out the back door for a couple minutes, turn my face up and take in the rain.  People would see me and just shake their heads.  Others would ask, "What in the world are you doing."   I would say, "Enjoying the rain."  But they didn't understand. It would take an old farmer to understand.

FRIENDS DIASTER SERVICE— The first Friends Disaster project I went on was when Cessna had a 30 or 60 day shutdown in the mid-90’s.  I had always wanted to go but could never get enough vacation time.  I was worried about only being able to draw unemployment but Mary encouraged me to go and take Patrick.  So Patrick and I went down to Kemah, Texas & worked on rebuilding a church. I remember spending a lot of time on the roof. Our friend “Cooter” Edwards and Don Davis were others from Kansas that went.  We stayed with Bud Lawrence’s sister & her husband, Ester & Charles Stutzman.  Tom Hoke, from that part of Texas had a shrimp fry for all the Kansans & Oklahomans just before we left.  Tom spilled some on the floor so I thought it would be funny to get down on the floor & pick up the shrimp & eat it.  Patrick joined me & we did, Tom Hoke made some comment about ‘’spilled fish bait’’, but I noticed he ate plenty of shrimp.   I made a joke about having to pay extra plane fair flying home for being overweight after eating all the shrimp.  Our family went out to do some work at Barclay College for one project.  'Cooter’ Edwards who worked a lot of Friend Disaster Service projects invited us to come to help in S.E. Kansas, around Columbus to rebuild a house destroyed by fire.    We only got there for the weekend so all that was left was finishing sheetrock, Mary, I, Patrick, Jason & Jonathan was on that one.  I went down to Cherokee, Oklahoma to help on remodeling the Friends Church.

      
 WORKING AT THE CO-OP--- I got laid at Cessna in 1982 after about 5 years at Cessna. It looked like a long layoff so I went to work for the Danville CO-OP.  Actually first I worked for a construction crew building a pit & outside leg for the west elevator.  A CO-OP employee told me to apply for a job as they were short a man.  I did & it was agreed I would go to work when the construction job was finished.  I worked there for 8 years.  I went back  to Cessna in 1990.  I was in charge of the west elevator & annex which together had a storage capacity of  782,050  bushels.  With wheat at $4.50 a bushel that was 3 1/2 million dollars worth of grain I was responsible for each year, almost a scary thought.  Mostly wheat, a little Milo in milo harvest was stored.  Right after harvest wheat was turned and blended to average out test weight and moisture content. Often aireation fans were run to bring down moisture. After that hot spot readings were taken through late summer, fall, winter & spring.  If a hot spot showed up it  meant bugs were at work eating and damaging the wheat and it would have to be turned and treated to kill the bugs.       

    I had worked Harvest at the Argonia elevator, a branch of Danville, for several years in the 60's.  Since we milked cows we raised  little wheat and harvest was not a  busy time for us.  Leon Blubaugh, Danville's manager hired me but I worked for Harlan Strait the Argonia Manager.   I worked for Uncle Loren when he started managing the Argonia CO-OP. I would run the Argonia Elevator for about 3 months each summer & Uncle Loren would run it the rest of the year by himself.

      Back to Danville, besides the elevator I loaded fertilizer for farmers;  liquid, granular & Anhydrous Ammonia.  Driving nurse trucks occasionally that took liquid & granular fertilizer to CO-OP Big Wheels that put on fertilizer  for farmers for a fee. 

       Richard Bishop, who ran the east elevator, & myself  cleaned & treated seed wheat for farmers at wheat planting time.  Seed treatment was to guard against soil born insects and disease.  Naturally it was a chemical.  First the wheat was cleaned to get rid of poor grain  & weed seeds, and then seed treatment was applied.  The Vitavax wasn't to bad but the one called Terra Coat, which was cheaper so a few farmers would use it to save money, it was nasty, Richard & I would get what we thought was a summer flu;  diarrhea, fever, and  other things, but one year we didn't use any Terra Coat &  we didn't get sick so we decided it was the one chemical. One year cleaning & treating wheat I had something in my right nostril, thinking I might have seed treatment on an index finger I used you my little finger, without looking & wiped my nose, which immediately felt like it was on fire, I looked at my finger and it had Terra Coat on it.  To this day  I have  a scab inside my right nostril.

      Another job that went along with harvest was loading boxcars and semis. With boxcars there was a set weight, there were scales at the top of the elevator so you set the number of 'dumps' nearest to that amount, without going over, simple operation.  With Semi's it was a whole different 'ballgame'.  They were allowed weight according wheel  axels.  We filled them through an outside downspout, that had a crows nest so you could watch the wheat load.  I used my old D.I. whistle to start and stop the trucks as they loaded, usually in 3 piles, front, middle, back, but you had to guess at the weight in each pile.  Truckers could load a little heavy if they had a chance to burn off fuel before encountering a Highway Patrol with portable scales.  They might not encounter a Highway Patrol at all. 

      We had two trucking business that hauled most of our grain; L.B White from Wellington that had 6-8 trucks driven by L.B.'s son & son-in-laws.  Doll's from Conway Springs had 3 trucks driven by a father, Marvin, & two sons.  Marvin had an ego and didn't hesitate to tell you he’d been driving trucks 25 years and was the only one that knew how to load it.  We tried mixing  wheat to average  59 pounds a bushel.  At 59-60#  we got the top price.  We usually had a little 58 &  didn't always have enough time to mix at harvest time so weight varied. I usually got L.B.’s trucks & the Doll brother’s right. Sometimes they'd have to take off  3-400 lbs., they might come back for 500 #'s if the wheat had been light, but not often.   Marvin always added a little on the front, sometimes I think I got it right but he wouldn't admit it. So it became a real challenge.  I decided I was going to get  Marvin’s right or bust a gut trying.  One time I put on the front pile, looked at it, put on a little more, looked again and gave it another squirt.  After it was loaded Marvin climbed up on the trailer, looked at it a long time…… & announced,  ‘’It’s  to heavy’’.  My physical reaction, the look on my face or  drop of my shoulders  must have shown my disappointment.   Marvin said the Highway Patrol was at the end of Main Street with scales.  So we dumped off 200-300 pounds. They knew real close how many pound per second went through the bottom slide when it was open. The Hypo’s didn't do that very often but they did once in a great while. 

      

       DADDY’S BIBLE HANDBOOK---  One winter at the CO-OP I was working nights running all the wheat in the west elevator  & the Annex through a cleaner to get a better quality of wheat.  All that was needed was to change bins & take a sample every 30 minutes or so & run weight & moisture tests.  I took my Bible & made notes of special Bible Verses in the Old & New Testament under several categories. Then at home typed them into a booklet form, 16  pages. I made 5 sets  & stapled them together.    When I first made it I gave  copies to the boys &  kept one for myself, they all got lost but  the one.

       AMERICAN LEGION----While at the CO-OP Richard Bishop convinced me to join the American Legion in Harper, Ks.  They really needed someone to help with the Bingo on a Saturday Night Bingo each month.  Mary got a free card when I went and actually won some money one night, $65 if I remember right. I was also in the American Legion Color Guard that carried the flags for the Harper County Fair Parade for several years,  I also helped in the Legion Honor Guard at the funeral of former servicemen.  I just kinda quit going to the Legion when I returned to work at Cessna in 1990.

  

 THE BEGINNING OF LEGO'S----The boys started getting Lego’s from Uncle John & Aunt Jane and Mom and Dad when Patrick & Jason were quite young.  It continued after Jonathan & Paul joined the family.  The boys got them for Birthdays and Christmas.  Each boy got the most while in grade school.  They got a few in High School & during College Age & beyond.  They  began to buy them for Dad, maybe when they began to think they were to old to get them, then after a certain time it became nostalgic to get Legos as a gift.  I will admit,  I enjoy Legos.  We are still getting them.  When they were on the walls of the basement at 522 S. Main, Argonia I am sure I counted over 200 sets.  The Boys liked the Castle Sets.  I liked a variety so anything other than Castle became “Dad’s Lego’s”.  Actually my favorite was the ‘Old West’. [Calvary, Cowboys, Native American Indians]