After we had a stack of pancakes at Slim Jim's and said our good-byes, we were on the road going toward Y City. We arrived at Y City about 8 o'clock that morning and had stopped at the same filling station where I had spent the night on my way down.
The man asked if I had found my uncle and I told him that I missed him because he had died about three weeks before. I told him I had spent two months working for a farmer in Bismark. He asked me where I lived and I told him near Garfield. He told me that he had a customer that hauled lumber and that he was asleep in his truck. He had a load of lumber for Springfield, Mo., and when he woke up he would get me a ride close to my home.
When the truck driver woke up, he said he would be glad to haul me to Garfield. When we got started, I told him I lived a mile west of Garfield and he could let me off at the Hill Top Inn. When he let me off late that afternoon, I was within two blocks of home. I had come all the way back with only two rides.
Mother was glad to see me because she now had help milking the cows. My father was glad to see me because he didn't have to help with the milking. I think the cows were even glad to see me because my dad didn't have the patience to milk a cow and, with his hollering at them, they were nervous.
Even my brother David was glad to see me because now he had someone who could catch his left-handed fast ball. The Garfield town team had taken most of our good players. They talked Hurley Mahurin into playing first base for them. They had talked Clifton Sprinkles into playing shortstop for them and David, at 14, was their best pitcher. The young team I had played on had folded up.
Brother David threw them a curve when he told them that he wouldn't pitch unless I caught for him. The old catcher didn't like it but I got the job. Now there were four of us playing on the town team.
In the fall of that year, I made the basketball team at Garfield as a sophomore. There were three sophomores on the team: Clifton Sprinkles, J.P. Wilhite and myself. We didn't get to play much because they had six seniors playing on the team. In our junior and senior years, we three were starters and got to play all of the games.
In January of the next year, or 1937, we moved to Ganns Ridge. Brother Felix used Harve Eubanks' truck to move us. The only thing was, we had to drive the cows about seven miles to the new place.
The place we moved to belonged to some people named Baylor. They ran a restaurant on West Walnut Street in Rogers. They lived on Third Street, next door to a lady whose name was Vera Keys; she was well-known.
(To be continued.)
•••
Editor's note: Joe Pitts (1920-2008) was a native of Pea Ridge and regular columnist for the newspaper. He began writing a column for The Times in 2000 initially entitled "Things Happen" by Joe "Pea Patch" Pitts. He started research for the book Nicholas Pitts YK2 in about 1980. The book was published in 2000. This column was first published Nov. 5, 2005, in the Pea Ridge TIMES.
Editorial on 06/03/2020