The Chuck Pierson

Nearly a year from my last posting - A clinker

cepierson67@yahoo.com (Chuck Pierson) — Mon, 31 May 2010 15:31:00 GMT

    I have been busy in the last year. Got released from a job I had for 8 1/2 years. Got to go to Italy for my daughter's wedding. Got a new job and do my music and some gardening. Not much on the song writing though....need to get back to that. I also had some crap come down on my computer and had to reload everything twice. All of this information is of no use or interest to anyone but me. Just thought I would do a bit of an update.

     I know that there have been changes in the family over the last year or so also. Haven't heard much about it. I was hoping that someone would pick up the ball and organize another family reunion for this year. Do ya think that we saw enough of each other last year? I don't think so, the reunion was only about 3 to 4 hours in length and not even one fist fight broke out.

    My second son Kyle is planning to return to Texas in August ... or so he says. Going to move to Austin... has had enough of the Big Apple. Looking forward to seeing him a little more often. Kyle picked up in Houston many moons ago with a one-way bus ticket to New York and stopped by every prison between Houston and New York, picking up all the parolees and releases to accompany him to New York. Not a trip he said he would ever do again. It was a two or two and one-half day ride... he didn't have any cash and a black lady on the bus took pity on him and shared a sandwich with him.

    He did know a couple of people that were in New York that would let he stay with them. That lasted a couple of weeks with each friend. He hadn't found any work and was mostly sponging of them. They finally had enough and invited him out. One of them would allow him to store his duffle bag in their apartment. He spent about 5 weeks sleeping in Central Park. I found out about this after he was there about a year. I guess you have to weigh your odds on surviving this adventure with the potential rewards.....his taking Broadway by storm. Fifteen years later and few cloud bursts later he's coming back. This is not in a defeated mode but one of changed priorities. Some would call it greed, others of us would say it is wanting a regular income, some modicum of benefits and security for our future...Normal is the word I would use. He got married and divorced, a couple of major surgeries and some bit parts on Jerry Springer and Sex in the City ... which Dad video taped and have on DVD now. He honed is skills in writing, directing, filming and editing and producing videos of several flavors. Not unlike many Pierson males, still isn't sure of what he wants to be when he grows up....not that growing up is mandatory.   I personally would like to be a cowboy still. Don't do anything about getting there tho'.

    Lots of you Pierson descendants have stories to tell as well... of your parents and grandparents,siblings etc. I can set you up on this blog as an author as well if you have an interest. Yes, I will take submissions via e-mail, snail-mail and post to the family tree I am continually adding info to, in the appropriate individuals' notes section.

    I am closing this entry with an invite to stay in touch. And give some thought to another reunion.

More and More Ramblings from an old fool

cepierson67@yahoo.com (Chuck Pierson) — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 13:49:00 GMT

As has been the case for the history of this entire blog, it is based on my recollections of my past and no blame can be assessed to any other in this regard. I truly do love my family with all its good and bad and ugly members--bad being maybe too harsh a label. I also love the family I married into, the Gilmore/Harry bunch.

Pierson reunion in June 2009

The Gilmore reunion in 2005

     It seems that the world is getting smaller and our families are growing larger. I don't put a lot stock in the term "in-laws", you're either in the family or not....there is no middle ground there for me. My children are a part of both sets of kinfolk and I think it is only fair that both parents be included in both families too.

     I don't do these postings to hurt peoples feelings or put out a lot of untruths, I do it as a historian and philosopher of a sort. I think I mostly poke fun at myself more than others and try to relate the oral history that was handed to me to pass along to the next generations. This mode of presentation can reach a lot more family members than talking one to one to pass on the stories. I always enjoyed my parents, aunts and uncles and grandparents telling stories of their youth and later in life. The older generation, which I am now a member of, will not be around forever and if you've an idea that you want to carry the oral history ball on into the future, look up or contact some of the "old timers" that are around now and pick their brain for stories.

     I am very lucky to have known relatives that were born before the Civil War and before the 20th Century began to get a jump on the rest of you. There are still many stories worthy of being passed down to the succeeding generations. If you can get them recorded with just audio or both audio and video, you can capture them for nearly all time. I made some audio recordings of my grandmothers in about 1973 or 1974, my parents in 1980's, my wife's grandmother in the 1980's and her dad in the 2000's. These have been digitized and filed on CD's or DVD's for others to review somewhere down the road, when memories start to fade. I can go into a dark room and put in the CD of Hallie Pierson and turn off the lights and listen to the conversation I had with her in the early 1970's and feel like I'm back in her living room the day we had the conversation. A remarkable thing this digital technology...it still doesn't compare with the actual "being there" and talking face to face.

     Give it a try if you get a chance, you will learn wonderful things about our family...

Ah Roma - - Diamond in the Rough

cepierson67@yahoo.com (Chuck Pierson) — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 14:07:00 GMT

     We left the Castle about noon on Sunday the 5th of July (named for Julius Cesar if you didn't know....or if you did know) and headed back to Rome. We found the "Interstate" easily enough and headed south. After a couple of hours, we decided to stop to get a snack and a map of Rome to help find the bed and board villa where we were going to be staying. Again, easy enough.
     Mary called Simone (the lady that owns the villa) and got some instructions that said take the GRA (loop around Rome) to the west and get off at Exit #1.   Then take that road to Aurelia Antica (old Aurelia) where it splits off of Aurelia then to her villa. The only problem was that there were lots of splits off Aurelia. Over the next 3 1/2 hours we took lots of splits and ended up in parts of Rome that would never be on the tours of Rome as well as parts that would be on the tour we took on Thursday. We even ended back on the GRA at Exit 30 and had to continue on to Exit 1 again. This was the last of the being lost. When we got to the first split off Aurelia, I parked the car in the middle of the split and carefully, Mary and I looked for the street sign for the split and compare it with the map. Mary found a small street that connected the two (only about 100 feet long). It was mostly hidden be a tree. I backed up a little and headed off to the right. It was now about 7:00 pm. In about a half a mile we found her street and turned right on it and her driveway was the 2nd on the right. I pulled up to the gate and got out and rang her bell. She answered and opened the gate, for which I was thankful. She was not a very happy camper with us (me) for being so late, it had caused her to miss a lunch date. She was gracious when we came in, got us checked in.
   The next morning we got up and had breakfast in the glassed in breakfast room

with a couple from Romania and their two children. They lived in Dublin, Ireland. She runs a small shop and he is a cab driver. Their son loves traveling and their daughter 6 or 7 years old was a terror. Simone has 3 dogs, 2 Doberman and one black and white mutt and the little girl pestered them unmercifully.
On Thursday morning, or maybe Wednesday night Mary was talking to Simone and found out that The Romanian couple and their kids were evicted from the villa. Seems that on one night, they ran the room air-conditioner full blast with the windows wide open and the condensation from the evaporation unit in the bedroom flooded the floor in the breakfast area. The mother was always shouting at the daughter playing (and teasing) with the dogs from the bedroom window. Simone gave them their money back for the rest of their stay and told them they had to go.
On Monday morning, we told Simone we wanted to turn our car in and not risk the confusion and frustration of driving in Rome and she told us that there wouldn't be any place to park anywhere we wanted to go and the bus system would get us exactly where we wanted to go. She call the car rental place and found a place we could turn in the car a couple of kilometers from her villa on Aurelia and told us to follow her on her scooter. We did and turned the car in. She had given us a couple of single trip bus tickets and told us which bus to take to St. Peter's Square (La Piazza di San Pietro). (Normally we would be taking the 98 or the 881 bus from her villa) We got on the bus and headed for our first days adventure.

I told the driver where we wanted to get off and he nodded. At the closest stop to St. Peter's, he held out his right hand for us to get off his bus. We were within a couple of blocks from the back of St. Peter's and were looking into the 30 or 40 ft high wall surrounding most of Vatican City. As we crossed one street a girl speaking very good English asked if we wanted to take a tour. We said yes and she took us to a small restaurente by a rail road track across the street and introduced us to another fellow. We signed up for the Colesium ,Forum, Circus Maximus tour for that day. We also wanted to book the tour of the Sistine chapel and Vatican museum and Basicilla for Tues with Robin and Lynn. We gave him a down payment and he told us to meet him there at 9:00am Tuesday morning.
We had to go to a Tobacco shop to purchase bus tickets (2 - three day passes) to get to the Colesium and look for the guide with the Blue Tour folder named Roberto. It would be and probably is very easy to fleece touristis like us, but it was all on the up and up. We got on the bus as directed and headed for the Colesium. When we arrived it was fairly easy to find Roberto.

Roberto was Italiano and also funny in a Pierson sort of way. His explanations of the design of the Colesium with the male and female available seating and facilities were pretty amusing. He also use the people on the tour as examples of the characters in his presentation with particular emphasis on the Vestal Virgins and the "non-virgins". He has to have given his "shpiel" hundreds of time to find out what works best and not. He was very fluid in his presentation and gestures and who to pick on in the group. As his presentation went along, throughout the tour it was apparent that his knowlege was in depth, he answered all the questions put to him with ease and in the depth that the tour group wanted to know.
    After he finished, he turned us over to Jeff, an American living in Rome and also one of the tour guides. He was a tall lanky guy that had big strides. --not that that would bother me after hiking a half a mile up to the top of the Colesium and down again. I now had the task ot hiking 2 mile to the top of the pallatine hill to see the Colesium and Forum and Constantine's gate. Mary noticed that when she got to the top of the hill, where the emperors palace ruins were, that she had lost me. She looked over the rail and found me sitting on the guardrail panting like a hunting dog that chased a deer through the Mississippi woods for 6 hours. I took about 12 minutes to slightly recover and made it up to her position to find them gone to even higher points. The only good thoughts in my mind now were about the little Italians that would have to carry my Lard back down for the ME to determine the cause of death. No such luck, I survived.

The Arch of
Constantine

The Forum

A Trip to Italy - - Star Saphire

cepierson67@yahoo.com (Chuck Pierson) — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 13:26:00 GMT

We left Houston on July 1 and Arrived in Rome (Roma) on July 2nd. Got our car and headed for Chianti. It was an event less drive with some very lovely scenery. Many more hills and small mountains than are presently around Houston. We did fine except I couldn't remember what the castle name was where we were supposed to meet our daughter and future son-in-law and the other guests. I found on the map a Castillina de Chianti and we head there. Found it just fine with only a couple of missed turns and back tracking. My wife called our daughter and found out we were about 25 Km from where we were supposed to be at Giacole de Chianti and the Castelo Metelo de Chianti. On a 5,000 mile trip, a 25 km miss of the target is still almost a bullseye... We were supposed to be at
Metelo (which is in the center of the word Chianti) but ended up at Castillino which is north of Siena and west of Radda. Looks a lot further on the map than it actually is, the map is a blowup (Mural) of the Chianti area of Italy.

Robin and Lynn asked us to stay put and they would come get us and lead us back to the castle. We waited in the parking lot outside of town and they arrived in about 20 or 25 minutes. We followed them back and got to start enjoying the Castle.

We don't have a lot of 13th or 14th century castles in Houston. If we do, they are most likely called Indian burial mounds, since there were no Europeans in Texas at that time. The tower on the left was our stairwell to our bedroom. You can see the slits going up the tower. They were for the crossbow users that defended the castle. They were about 8 inches wide and 24 or so inches tall and the bottom ledge of the opening (inside) was sloped downward. You can see that it would be hard to see if anyone was at any of these windows from the outside. One defended could go up and down the stairs and utilize all three windows as needed, or three defenders could handle the windows that are showing and also the ones on the left side of the tower out of view.

They certainly knew how to decorate the walls and ceilings and doors and windows in their homes...

Not just stained doors and semi gloss trim. . . . Nor basic ceiling white paint either.

This is the kind of scenery that would be nice to have every morning out of my bedroom window in Houston.....I fear this is not to be, but one can dream.

Even the Bar-b-que pits are stone and have a middle age look about them.

Their version of the standard backyard pool is also not likely to be too prevalent in the Houston area as you can see below.

From the evening of July 2 through the morning of July 5, we had to suffer through this kind of environment. We did the best we could under the circumstances.

After the brunch on the morning of the 5th, we drove back to Rome (Roma). The drive back was not without another bout with being lost....Yes, I was driving this time also.....and I did stop to ask directions several times and was at the mercy of some Italianos that had my kind of sense of humor....I think...........

More Ramblings - Amber

cepierson67@yahoo.com (Chuck Pierson) — Sat, 23 May 2009 14:41:00 GMT

I have been thinking about our recent Pierson Family Reunion (May 16, 2009) and got to wondering how I was so positive about the family in 1850 information, but couldn't get the information correct on current family members. I took a bunch of family data sheets to the reunion, but didn't ask people to complete them or even have a sign-in sheet for those who attended. As I have more and more senior moments, I dasn't try to remember everyone that came. It has been a little difficult to extract current info from relatives also. I send out e-mails and get nothing back but excess stomach acid.

    This picture is not of everyone that attended because a couple of people had to leave to go to work. Jeremy took the picture but for some strange reason is not in it; or, it's one I took while he was setting up his camera to take the picture.   I was really glad that so many people attended. I hope that this is not the last time this event takes place. I am willing to be the clearing house for ideas for the next reunion. Any ideas would be very welcomed. Maybe we could even have a computer linked communication video for those who cannot attend.....eg live web cast with feed back......there are at least 3 computer whizzes that are in Houston that can set this up.

     Most of the attendees at this reunion were descendants of Daniel Richard Pierson with the other group represented with descendants of William Thomas Pierson. I gave out PDF books of the Pierson Genealogy to anyone that wanted one. I had charts of both ancestors of Wesley Harden Pierson and Hallie Pierson as well as their descendants, with photos.....of course I screwed up the descendants identification nicely, but I hope to have all the problems cleared up and new charts ready for the next one. I was just looking at the picture again....looks like everyone is looking at Pat....do you think he let go with a windy-popper? I doubt that was the reason lots of folks were looking at him.....they have smiles on their faces and none are holding their noses. He does have sort of a "guilty as charged" look on his face, doesn't he? Maybe that's just me.......

     Until the next time, I will continue to do research on the family to see, as Granny once told me, which tree some of these characters were hanging from..........Lots of love to all and prayers for all.... See y'all next time.

One big happy family

cepierson67@yahoo.com (Chuck Pierson) — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 12:12:00 GMT

I have arranged to have the parish hall at my church to use with our Pierson Family Reunion #1 (and only to the best of my knowledge). Everyone that has contacted me has asked what they can do to help out. We cannot have alcohol on the premises... historically not good for the Pierson clan anyway. We can eat, drink and be merry on our own good spirits. I got to know my cousins pretty well when I lived up in Kansas. Since the family has kinda sorta spread to all points of the compass, it has become more difficult. Doing a quick head count, I figure that we will have between 30 and 45 in attendance. Probably have a dozen or so kids under 12. I will probably have a couple of guitars and amps available, Jeremy, plays guitar, keyboard and sings, Jonathan plays guitar, Chuck plays bass, Fawn and Jeremy drums....we should be able to do a couple of songs.

If you have any ideas for what the younger ones could do as games or entertainment, let me know...otherwise it will be 10 minutes and they will be bored s.....less. They may all bring video games. I don't know. We shall have to feed ourselves...of course, no family reunion can take place without eats. I will need volunteers to bring drink, ice, plates, eating ware, napkins/paper towels, and food. Meat and cheese tray, vegetable tray, fruit tray, sandwiches, chips. Different folks are coming from different areas.....not all of us live in spring branch in Houston.......oops...sorry, I'm only one of two or three that live in Spring Branch.... We may have folks coming from Clear Lake area, Katy area, La Porte, Dallas area, Austin....Kansas may not be too likely... haven't heard back from them as of yet.

I am going to post a chart of the Descendants of Wes and Hallie Pierson at the reunion....It would be helpful if I had the names, dates of birth, marriage and divorce, and death as appropriate of each descendant. I have a lot of info but not all.....It would also be helpful to have pictures of each of your immediate family members. It's ok if it's in a very wide white pin striped suit and you're facing to the right or left....will be a bit more appropriate historically.

Time will pass very quickly so let me know how each of you want to proceed with bringing stuff as well as people...

thanks

chuck

cepierson67@yahoo.com

"good way to let me know"

Back on the Farm of Old Days -- Zircon

cepierson67@yahoo.com (Chuck Pierson) — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 12:06:00 GMT

I discussed before my grandfather's gardens around the house that totaled about an acre. He also rented 40 acres from Mrs. Weir (of the family that Founded Weir City, Kansas). There was a 10 -15 acre hay field (with assorted sink holes) and several smaller 1-2 acre fields. We would use my grandpa's tractor,

a 1935 John Deere, to do a lot of work with. It was not the easiest thing to get started. It had a wheel you can see at the bottom of the driver's left leg in the picture to the left, over a foot in diameter. You had to spin the wheel to turn over the engine to get it started. Not easy at any time, but especially hard in cool mornings where moisture would condense on it. It would have been a lot easier if my grandfather had used starting fluid (Ether) but it cost $$ and that was out of the question.....I'm not sure if it were even available back in the early to mid 60's. The implements that we used were left over from the two horse or mule team days, back in the 20's and 30's for most farmers. Although tractors were available, they were too expensive for most farmers. To cut the hay, we used a pull type sickle mower. The cutting unit it pointing upward in the picture to the right and held by a small metal bar. When you wanted to mow, you would let the arm down and it would actually glide along on the ground and clip the hay about 2" above the ground. My grandfather kept some extra cutters for the mower in the garage at the house, when one would break because it hit a rock or piece of metal, he would take the rivets out of it and sharpen a new cutter and re-attach it with new rivets. He would spend half a day sharpening the entire cutter assembly before the first time he used it each year. After the first summer with him, Roger and I got to do the sharpening for the next year.

After the hay was cut, it was allowed to dry over night and the next day we would put it in rows with a sulky rake being pulled behind the tractor. You would put the metal tines down to glide along the ground and roll the hay up in them and then about every 40 or 50 feet, you would use the handle releases to lift the tines up and dump the hay in a roll about 1-2 feet in diameter. You then had to quickly put the tines back down to start gathering more hay. Then dump it about 40-50 feet away. After the field had been raked and had all the rows striping the field, you would travel up the row, picking up the hay in each row and dumping it again. This would put the hay into piles, which we would go back later to pitch up on the back of the flat bed truck my grandpa had and then haul it over by one of the ponds where he had a small fenced in area, and build a hay stack. It only cost about a penny a bail to have someone come in and custom bale the field, but my grandfather wouldn't spend that money either. I may still be able to build a haystack that would shed water when it rains. Don't want to do it again though.

I don't think that his tightness was a matter of stubbornness as much as it was, he was poor. He an my grandmother probably only got $40 or $50 a month from social security and with the taxes and utilities on the house in town and what groceries they had to purchase, flour, sugar, salt, pepper, corn meal, and a few other staples and well as gas for the truck and tractor and some oil, etc, things were pretty tight most of the time. Because of the acre or larger gardens and his always having chickens, guinea fowl (not for eating, but a burglar alarm for coons of coyotes that might want to eat the chickens), pigs and cows, there was always plenty to eat. We provided our own entertainment, largely with exploring the surrounding areas of strip pit dumps and woods and fields. The large areas of the vegetable gardens were prepared with the tractor as well. There was a 2 bottom plow that we used first, this turned over about a foot of dirt about 18 inches wide (altogether).

The next thing we would do would be to run the spring toothed harrow over the plowed ground, this was to break up the clumps of sod. This sort of leveled out the plowed ground but still left a lot of big clumps of soil to be dealt with before planting could take place. At this point we would have to use the disc unit to cut up the soil and especially the large chunks. After the disc was pulled around the plowed ground several times, solid was pretty close to planting condition. Sometimes on some of the harder ground, we would have to weigh the disc down with rocks or cinder blocks when we could find them to break up to sod easier. After the planting was done in the field (not the garden) with the two row planter, which you had to sit on and raise and lower the planting head at the start and end of each row to be planted. You would think that just sitting around and raising and lowering the heads would be a piece of cake job for you, a strapping teenager; it actually was hard work with all the jostling and no suspension on the equipment and the dust being raised up by the tractor as it made its way through the field. A bandanna worn like a holdup bandit was pretty much the uniform of the day, along with a straw hat. We planted mostly sorghum used to feed the cattle.

After the plants came up we would have to go back periodically with the cultivator to clean the weeds out of the rows of crop. This was another instrument to ride behind the tractor on, and get all the dust and heat and jostling your innards about. You can see there is no suspension on the metal seat. This way of farming was the "easy" way for my grandfather. He used to do it while being pulled by his two horse team back in the 30's. It had to be even harder, because you had to control the team of horses as well a control the machine you were riding at the same time. This was when the "Gee and Haw" came in as voice commands for the teams on whether to go left or right. That let the farmer work his hands on the equipment and not the reins of the horses. I guess we really had it easier than my grandfather, we didn't realize it then, we thought he was just into torturing his grandsons. I'm actually thankful he taught us a much harder way that was currently available. We got a feel for late 19th century and early 20th century farm equipment and technology.

The Epicenter is Moving -- Beryl

cepierson67@yahoo.com (Chuck Pierson) — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 10:53:00 GMT

I, recently was asked to help a cousin on a small project (Susan Poznich).

I went over to her house to help out and we ended up talking about the family and how we seldom get together except for funerals. This is true, I'm sorry to say. We also discussed the fact that Interstate 45 seems to only go north. Relatives in Kansas/Oklahoma don't like driving south to Houston to see us. We always have to go up there to see them. It's no more out of the way for them as it is for us.

Anyway, while we were talking, I brought up that I had sent her mom, my cousin Betty,

an e-mail about trying to get some pictures of her siblings, parents, kids, cousins, etc. so I could add them to my family tree program. I have always like putting pictures with all the facts and figures that are in genealogy reports. She said that her mom (Betty) had given her a box of pictures, so me being the greedy person I am, asked if I could borrow the box and scan the pictures and return them to her. She heartily agreed. I spent about 8 hours scanning the photos and saving them to my hard drive for later use. When I finished with the scanning, I burned a DVD with all the family pictures I had scanned over the years (as well as the photos directly from digital cameras) and saved. I gave her 2 copies, one for herself and another for her sister Fawn that also lives in Houston.

The following Sunday, Susan came to church where I am the choir director and then over to our house to visit some more. We talked a lot about relatives and where they are now and discovered that there are a lot more in the Houston area than we had previously known. We agreed that it may be that family reunion(s) could be held here in the future instead of everyone having to drive 600 plus miles back to Kansas for a reunion...I say "A" reunion and not "THE" reunion because we haven't had one before. Funerals and a rare wedding is about all we Piersons get together for. Susan has agreed to help out in getting one going here in Houston. I don't know that fist fights may break out in the first reunion, but I'm willing to risk it. There is almost as much politics going on in families as there is in Washington, but with out the traditional "my friend across the aisle" comments. We tend to go straight for the jugular....

Back to the story, if it is one..... there were also a lot of pictures of my dad

that I had never seen before, as well as many other relatives. I had to explain who a lot of the pictures were of to Susan. She wasn't too clear on her mom's cousins, let alone farther out relatives. After I put the pictures on a DVD for her, I decided I ought to go back and redo the saved pictures with text on each picture to identify who was in it.....not only for Susan, but also for our kids, grandkids, great-grandkids, etc. I'm still going through the thousands of pictures I have and labelling them for posterity....or maybe just to waste my time....that will be for future generations to decide on and not me. I was lucky in that I was very curious when I was a kid and ask my grandmothers and grandfathers who was who and to tell some stories about when they grew up....a lot of these have been posted on the web here or are in the family tree I am continually working on to add new data.

Anyone that knows me and my cousin Dan, can more easily understand our strangeness from observing my dad and his in this picture. Being bizzare is genetic with the Piersons.

I must go now to get my grandkids (Kayla and Cameron) breakfast now, there will be more later...........

Two, Three or Four Wheels? How Can I get around?

cepierson67@yahoo.com (Chuck Pierson) — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 13:58:00 GMT

I posted a couple of days ago and almost immediately thereafter I got an e-mail from my niece Heather, my older brother Butch's daughter. She lives in Maine and appears to be doing quite well for herself.....we stay a little in contact, which is fairly good for Piersons as that goes. I got to thinking about what kind of vehicles, besides cars, we opt for transportation. The fact is that we have had several other vehicles that we used to get around. Our grandparents got around with horse and buggy or wagon to start with. In the 20th century we did other things, with other vehicles.

I remember my dad ( Bill ) telling that when he got out of service in late 1945 or early 1946 he bought an Indian Motorcycle. He said that it would fly.

He told me that when he got out of the Navy at the age of 20, he weighed about 115 lbs. At 5'10" that's pretty bony. He said he was hauling down a country road on the bike and came to a stop sign ( that his father would have already stopped at a quarter of a mile back and gone right through).

He stopped and when he was ready to start up again, a cross wind caught him and the bike and he lost his balance and fell over. The bike weighed about twice what he did and he couldn't stand it back up to restart it. He had to wait about half an hour before someone else drove down the road to help him get it back up and running. This wasn't the only non-four wheeler that my dad was involved with. He had wanted to be a fighter or bomber pilot in WWII but got in to the war too late. He was a side-turret gunner on a B-26 in the Pacific theater. He definitely had the pilot bug though. He and his niece's husband (Johnny Poznich) went into partnership on a Taylorcraft airplane. This was when we lived in Cherryvale, Kansas in 1950 and 1961. It was what they called a tail dragger.

(as you can see from the photo). Johnny had a pilot's license and my dad wanted one so they bought the plane and would go up periodically and fly around, practice landings and takeoffs, etc. Don't know what kind of aerobatics they were into at that time, I do remember hearing the term Hammerhead Stall a time or two. I (at the age of 10) even got to fly the plane one time. Johnny was piloting and said, "Go ahead and take the stick and be the pilot." I took the stick but could not move it in any direction, my feet did not touch the pedals on the floor, I could not see out of the front or side windows, but got to hold the stick for about 30 seconds and tell everyone I flew a plane when I was 10. Dad and Johnny were even envisioning a pair of planes so they bought a frame of another Taylorcraft and put it into our garage. Butch and I spend hours and weeks, ripping off the fabric and sanding the rust off the frame. It was for naught, though, as my dad lost his job with Sherman-Williams paint company in Coffeyville, Kansas and we were not well off at all until he got back on in Orange, Texas at Spencer Chemical, where he quit working to take a job at Sherman-Williams and move back to Kansas.

While we were in Cherryvale, my older brother Butch had a friend, Glenn Driscol that had a Cushman Eagle Motor Scooter.

I thought it fastest thing around. Butch and Glenn would get a putter, a seven iron and two golf balls and head to the local golf course to play. It was a par three 9 hole course so the two clubs they took (along with their level of play) were sufficient for the game at hand. They never said what they scored, only that they had fun. One time I was spending a week with my dad's mom (Granny) and Butch and Glen decided to come over and spend the night. It was 60 miles from Cherryvale to Weir so it took them a couple of hours to get there, I think the top speed was only about 35 mph. They looked a little wind blown when they got in, had lunch, drove around town a while (took less time to see the town that the trip to the town) and then Glenn decided that they would just go back the same afternoon. After that summer Butch and I both had the motor scooter bug.

We nagged Dad, when we got back to Texas to get us a scooter. About a year later when we were more financially recovered, he bought us an Allstate Scooter. The scooter looked somewhat like the one here except that it was red. You had to stomp the crank to get the engine started. It had a centrifugal clutch on the motor that would engage the chain drive only after the motor reached 300 or more rpm. The top speed the thing would reach was only about 20 mph, which sucked for the experienced and expert Butch, but was thrilling to Chuck "Green". We lived in a new house, in a new subdivision. There were only about 20 houses there when we moved in. There were probably a dozen in various stages of construction. Down the street were the newest starts in construction. The houses were being built on the right side of the street and on the left side were big mounds (at least 30 ft in diameter and 12 ft high. Butch and I went down there to ride "The Hills." We were both dressed in gym shorts, no shirt and tennis shoes...standard uniform for playing outside in August in Orange, TX. He said I could take the first ride...I don't know why I wasn't suspicious, but I wasn't. The first hill was about 100 feet in front of me. I gunned it and headed for the hill. As also is the case in Orange, TX in August is to get some drenching rains on occasion.....we had had a couple of inches of rain a day or two before. I went up the hill at full throttle. At the crest of the hill, looking down on the other side, I saw the ruts.......about 6" wide and 6" deep. The rut started at the top of the hill and about 3 feet below the crest, the rut took or at a 45 degree angle to the left, which the scooter followed like it had eyes. I, on the other hand, continued down the center of the hill, sans the scooter. If you have never seen a 12 year old crawl over dirt and rocks and gravel at 20 miles per hour to keep his soft white underbelly from dragging the terrain, you haven't seen a miracle. After about 30 or 40 feet of crawling 20 miles per hour, my hands and knees were pretty torn up. There was barely any dust on my belly, and no scratches. Can't say the scooter made out so well.

It looked more like the picture on the left, but not quite so bad. When it turned over on its side, the oil must have gotten up in the piston and either shattered it or broke the crank shaft. We had to push it home. Butch was bound and determined to get it going again. He started to tear it apart, with no idea of what was what. The stuff he took off he piled up against the back wall of the garage. When dad came home, he asked what happened. We told him the story. He looked at the disassembled scooter and told Butch he took apart everything except what had the problem, the engine. Dad took the head off the engine and you could see the broken piston. He said he would see if he could find another and see if we could get it going again.......We did in a month or so. The reassembly of the non-broken parts took the longest to get back together, the clutch, chain, throttle cable, foot brake........live and learn.

When I got out of the Army in 1970, we moved in next door to my in-laws, John, Helen and Mike Gilmore. John had bought Mike a Suzuki 350 motor cycle. He would let me ride it every now and then.. One day I decided to take it to Weir and visit with my Mom and brothers. The way to get to Weir was to take the 69 Bypass around Pittsburg, to 69 South and go west on 103 Highway to weir. A trip of about 11 or 12 miles. I made it over to Weir just fine and took my little brothers for a ride (Stan and Andy) and then headed back to P'burg. While on the bypass, I was doing about 65 and a hardshelled insect hit me right between the "running lights" (eyes) and almost knocked me off the bike. I really thought someone had shot me. I pulled over and stopped and checked my forehead to see if there was a hole with blood pouring out of it......nothing but a bump that had started to rise. I was safe for the time being.....Now I understood why they recommend a helmet with a shield in the front.....I obviously wasn't wearing it, left it with my bro - in - law.....ALWAYS used one in the future when riding.

Some time around January of 1972 my older brother Butch decided he needed a motorcycle. He wasn't going to get one of those kid's scooters like Mike's 350 cc suzuki. He needed a 900 cc "Snortin Norton" motor cycle....It would probably do 135 mph or more...twice the speed I would drive in a car. He went to test drive it when the outside temp was about 30 degrees. He had a big thick mustache at that time, but not the full beard. He drove it out of the store and was gone about 20 minutes or so. When he got back his mustache was totally white from the ICE that was packed on it from his breath.

He went to brush it off and part of it broke off, hair and all. He was not a happy camper. His "stache" looked a little weird for a couple of weeks, until it grew back out. Seemed to have the I'll have one better than you frame of mind.

If you can't remember, my dad's brothers were Dan, John and Bud. I talked about Dan and Bud in my last post. John gets some time here. He also liked motorcycles.

I remember before my grandmother moved to Tennessee with Bud in 1975, John came by to visit one day. He was on his BMW motor cycle.

It seemed like it was big enough to be a car on two wheels. It didn't seem exactly right for someone that old to be a biker. I never saw him on a bike before, I guess it was just a little unusual.

His son Jack also liked bikes.

I don't have a picture of any of his, but I think his wife said he had 47 in his garage about 10 years ago.
He has travelled all over the US on his bikes with some friends that also have bikes. I guess it has
to be in you blood to make the most of it....I just didn't have the particular knack to handle the obstacles
I ran into when I was biking. I'm sure that no matter what kind of picture of a bike I would post here, Jack would have one in his garage....Maybe not now, I don't think his wife Mary was exceptionally happy with what he had then.

Oh, well.......I guess this is pretty much like any family with wheels of one sort or another.

Family--Past, Present and What Kind of Future?

cepierson67@yahoo.com (Chuck Pierson) — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 15:41:00 GMT

I have recently been corresponding with some cousins about their immediate family, of which I have only very sketchy information on. I looked up my cousin David Pierson in the Yahoo White Pages and found he and his mother in the southeast United States. I gave him a call, left a message for him to call me if he was my cousin. About an hour later he returned my call. We visited a while and he said he would try to get some information to me in the next week or so. He has since done that. Thanks David. I also found two of his sisters on Facebook and have communicated with them, also to request info. Haven't gotten anything back yet, but I am hopeful.

Their father Wesley H Pierson was my father's older brother.

I only knew him as "Bud". Here he is in a picture with my father Bill Pierson in about 1932. Bud being about 12 and my dad about 6. You can see it is a formal picture because they both have on the striped overalls. The everyday working suit was the blue overalls. You will also notice that Bud had graduated from the "Bowl" haircut that my dad was still enjoying. Uncle Bud seemed to always be smiling and laughing, at least that is how I remember him. My dad only had a few stories to relate about Bud and I will pass them along now.
       Bud could take a lot of electricity (as a shock). Dad told me that he could take the thumb and little finger of each hand, moisten them in his mouth and put them across the spark plugs of a Model A while it was running and kill the engine dead. I don't know if you have ever felt the shock from a bare spark plug wire or not, I have... [When I was about 10, I was mowing the front yard. With this push type lawn mower, you had to remove the spark plug wire from the plug, as the kill mechanism had broken off ( just a piece of metal that shorted the plug end to the engine block). Dad was on the front porch and told me to come in for lunch and then finish the mowing. I reached down to pull the wire off the plug and it "grabbed my hand and wouldn't let go". Although the lawn mower was not self propelled. it drug me all over the front yard before it finally died and released me.....probably not more that 15 or 20 seconds, but a lifetime to me. I don't think I ever saw my dad laugh so hard. After that, he showed me how to kill the lawnmower with a screwdriver blade to short the motor out.]

     Bud was also a carpenter. Before the advent of the grounded and double insulated plugs and tools, the tools had two prong plugs and in new construction most of the rooms had a two wire socket in the ceiling for light on dark days or if you worked at night. Bud carried an adapter with him that would screw into a light bulb socket and allow you to plug in a saw or other electrical tool. To check the socket for power Bud would wet his index finger and stick it into the socket touching both the hot side and ground side... He would then say "Yep, this one's hot" and continue his work.   It's a shame that the old ones in the family are gone now because it makes it very difficult to verify what is true and what is not.

    There's another story that involves Bud and Snakey (Bud's sister's husband--Bill Ristau). Supposedly, they operated a still in Snakey's barn. They got wind of the "Revenuers" coming to arrest them and confiscate the still. Bud got scarce and left Snakey to dismantle the still and store the parts where they wouldn't' t be found. Apparently it was successful, neither of them had any consequences I could find. I do know that Snakey had a appetite for liquor the rest of his life, as did his wife,

my Aunt Bessie.

    There was another story my dad told about Bud being a Baptist preacher. One summer he piled all his family, himself, his wife Bonnie, Kids - Buddy, Jerrie Ann, David, Jeanean and Gwen in a pickup with a camper on the back and went to Central America to mission people down there. I also heard that was where he got some of the recipes for the restaurants he open up.."LOS CHARROS"
I remember the one he opened in Pittsburg, Kansas. My wife and I would frequent it regularly and Bud would often bring me "extras" besides what we had ordered....stuff he wanted me to sample and grade as to whether or not I thought it would a good addition to the menu.....I was never disappointed. He also had hired his sister to work in the kitchen...I don't know for how long.

   My dad's oldest brother Dan was 19 years older than mydad so they didn't hang around each other much. Dan was always an avid hunter and this started in his youth. He very much disliked crows for what they did to crops and gardens and was always on the look out for a good shot at them when hunting. Once he spotted some across a corn field he was hunting in. He was using his dad's shotgun (that already had one notch on it for Wes's failed attempt to blow his head off). I was a double barrel, hammer action shotgun. Dan had both hammers cocked and was walking very slowly down a row of corn to close in on the crows, as he was watching the crows and not his footing, he stumbled and discharged both barrels of the gun. Obviously he scared off the crows. He looked down at his shoe and there was a nice hole in the toe section of the boot. He wasn't bleeding or in great pain but decided to go home and have a look. When he unlaced his high topped shoes and removed them there was some bleeding and pain (that the tightly bound shoe had prevented) that ensued. Also, there were two toes missing on his right foot. He got treated and put the second notch on the gun. Later in life, if you had seen his foot, it was quite interesting. The human body is remarkable. His big toe grew to fill in the space where the 2nd and 3rd toes had once been. That foot did give him trouble when the weather changed.

      More later.

New Kid on the Block - Emerald

cepierson67@yahoo.com (Chuck Pierson) — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 14:39:44 GMT

     Again, my son Jonathan has triggered memories from my past with his latest blog "Getting Robbed." Although I wasn't robbed, I did have an interesting evening and proved how stupid I really am. It was Halloween night in 1966. The town was Cherokee, Kansas and I had only been in the area for about 4 or 5 months. My parents had separated again in the summer between my junior and senior years of high school.

      There were about 20 of us sitting on the stone wall that surrounded the one of the bus barns of the school district (USD 247). It used to be the sight of the Cherokee Grade school or High school....I don' t remember...or maybe never knew. Anyway, some guy drove up in his car and stopped. He started shouting some obscenities at one of the guys there and I interrupted him with, " Hey, why don't you go away and leave us alone?   We're not doing anything but just sitting here."   He got back into his car and drove off, waving with only one finger as he left. We went back to laughing and talking about what "tricks" we could pull on the local people of Cherokee on this night of Trick or Treat.

      About 10 minutes later, the guy showed back up and stopped back in the street next to us and got out. He laid the barrel of a rifle across the top of his car aimed at me, right between the running lights. Everyone else sitting on the fence, dove over it and lay flat on the ground. For some reason, I figured this was his warped impression of Trick or Treat.   He said something like, "Now I'm going to blow your ass away." I said back, " If you look back to the west, down the street, you can see the police car with the officer in it looking this direction. Now don't you think that you ought to put that gun away and go away?" (Told you I was going to prove how stupid I was.) Again he got back into his car with an encore of expletives and another one fingered wave and drove off. After he was out of sight, the others started raising their heads and getting back on the fence. Someone asked, "Don't you know who that was?" "No," I responded. I can't remember what his name was. but I do remember the description of what he was. They said "He just got out of prison a couple of weeks ago. He was in for manslaughter." I remember asking, " Didn't you think that may have been something I should have known when he first left?"   They said, "We didn't know he would be coming back." "Thanks, guys....guess there are some tests you have to put the new guy through to be accepted. This is a bit too much."

Didn't hear anymore or or out of that guy......don't know if he went back to prison or left town or what. I am probably still just as stupid today as I was then. After that incident, the crowd kinda broke up into groups to 2 or 3 guys to individually get into mischief on their own.

      The small group the I was with was Sam Massey, Roger, Andy Bethel and myself. We headed north for the bus barn area and the fence and found a house with the old out-house behind it. We started to tip it over and heard a round being chambered in a shotgun accompanied by a voice saying, "You'd better get the Hell outta here." We didn't wait, we hauled butt.   I'm sure the guy fired way above our heads, just to scare us and not hurt us. He made his point, about 3 yard over from where we lit out was a clothes line wire about 5 feet above the ground. I must have been the only one to not see it as it caught me right around the eyebrows and flipped me. I hit the ground on my stomach. I got up and ran again. I was sure I would have a mark on my head over this one....now was not the time to check it though. We decided to ride around a little and keep out of trouble.

   We were (Sam, Roger, Andy and myself) riding with Andy and had to stop for a train going through town. It was stopped a crossing. Sam and Roger and I thought it would be a good idea to hop on it and ride it to Pittsburg and meet Andy at 20th and the By-pass (about 10 - 12 miles). We got out of the car and got on the train, climbed up to the top of the car and waited for it to start up. There was a member of the crew that must have seen us, because we could see him coming down the track toward us. We got back off the car and hid in the bushes on the other side of the train. He stopped where we had gotten on and shined his flashlight around. After a minute or two, he headed back up toward the engine.

      We got back on and in a few minutes the train started up. What the train held was coal. The dust on the coal was blowing everywhere. We climbed down between the cars and sat on the open ends of the cars and waited to progress to Pittsburg. We knew that the train would have to make a big turn to the east (right) to go to Pittsburg. The speed increased to line speed and we waited for the thing to slow down and start the curve to P'burg. It didn't happen. It just kept on going north and picking up more speed. By now it was going too fast to safely jump off so we just hunkered down and rode it out. It did start to slow down and make a gradual turn to the right so we looked for a place to jump off. A bit after midway in the right turn, the train started to pick up speed again. We decided to look for a place to jump off of now. The moon was in and out of the clouds and didn't afford too much light to "shop" for a jumping off site. We decided to just jump off and take our chances. I jumped, then Sam and then Roger. I went off a crossing and into a stream, Sam went into some bushes and Roger went into an old rusty fence, that luckily broke when he hit it.

       We all survived the jump in one condition or another. We could see the lights of Fort Scott to the east of us and headed toward them. After about an hour of walking we came across a gas station still open. We went into the bathroom to get a little cleaned up, we were covered with coal dust, clothes and bodies. There was no soap so we did the best we could with just water and paper towels. Only about 30 to 50% effective, we still looked like we came out of the Grapes of Wrath when we exited the station. We walked over to US Highway 69, the main road between Fort Scott and Pittsburg and headed south. The towns are 25 miles apart so we knew we had a long time of walking ahead of us. It was about mid-night by then... and the thought of how dumb we had been was sinking in. During the walk there were few vehicles passing us in the southbound direction.   We heard a semi coming from behind. We figured if the guy had a sleeper cab, he may stop and pick us up. We turned around and put out the thumbs. This clown came off the road with two wheels and actually tried to run us over, we had to dive out of the way to keep from being hit. That was even more scary than the gun pointed between the eyes and the jump off the train.

      About two hours and two or three unsuccessful thumbing events, a car finally pulled over and stopped. We ran for the car and the guy said he was on the way back to the college in Pittsburg from Kansas City. We thanked him profusely and said we would gladly pay for the ride except we were totally broke and very stupid. He laughed and said he could only vouch for the second part.   We got to Pittsburg about 20 minutes later and got dropped off about Washington and Broadway....about 2 blocks from Sam's garage apartment at his grandmother's house. We got a bite to eat and called Andy Bethel back in Cherokee and asked him to come pick us up at Sam's and take us back to Cherokee to get our cars and go home and clean up and get some sleep....He really laughed until he cried when he saw our condition. He asked if next year we would try to catch a train to Columbus (going South). We just glared at him.

What Goes Around, Comes Around......

cepierson67@yahoo.com (Chuck Pierson) — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 14:05:00 GMT

I was reading my son, John's blog the other day ( www.kavern.net ) on the problem starting one car with out a verbal curse. I got to thinking about the cars I could remember in my life and thought I would relate some of it to you.

     I don't know what the type of car was that we had when I was three or maybe 4. I can remember that the back door opened from the front and not the back though. The reason that sticks out in my mind is that we were driving down a country road and Butch pulled on the door lever and the wind caught the door and swung it open and threw him out on the road. We were probably not going over 25 or 30 because the roads were a little like wash boards and you could literally "hop" yourself off the side of the road if you were going fast enough. By the time Dad had the car stopped, Butch was along side, screaming and crying, "Don't leave me!! Don't leave me!!" He had a few scratches and was dusty and dirty but none the worse for wear. I don' t think we had that car for much longer. Another time, my dad stopped at Coker's store for a bottle of wine. He was drinking and driving and I was in the backseat. I decided it wasn't nice for him to drink all that "strawberry pop" by himself and started crying, "I want some pop! I want some pop!" Dad handed the bottle to mom and said, "Go ahead and give him some." Mom held the bottle over the front seat to me in the back. I took a big gulp and then started crying that it was awful. More proof to be careful what you ask for, because you may get it.

    We, later had a 1956 Ford station wagon in 1960. I think it was the only new car we ever bought.

I remember one day when we were going to Weir from Cherryvale. It was undoubtedly to visit Ma and Papa. Mom had the pedal to the metal. We were going 110mph by the speedometer when a Kansas Highway Patrol car passed us going the other way. You could look out the back and see his brake light come on and then a second or so later go off and he continued on. Guess he wasn't up to the chase......Mom did slow down after that. No so with my dad going back to Cherryvale. When we were approaching Parson (halfway between Weir and Cherryvale) the Parson's Police pulled him over and gave him a ticket for going 75 in a 40mph speed zone.....believe it cost him $75 for that one.

We were a 2 car family then. The other car we had was a 1951 Nash Rambler with a continental tire kit on the back. (Where the spare was attached to the trunk lid and had a cover on it. It was 2 tone green...I think the only color scheme I ever saw on it. We lived about a mile out of town then. I was 10 and asked my dad if he would teach me how to drive. He said ok. We went out and I got in the driver's side and my dad in the front seat in the passengers side. He gave me the keys and then showed me how to work the clutch and the gear shift. It was a three gear on the column gear shift. You would pull the gearshift back to you and up for reverse. Pull back and down for Low. Up to neutral and then push forward and up for 2nd gear and through neutral and down for third gear. After a few minutes of demonstrating to him that I understood the coordination of the clutch and gearshift, he let me start the car (in neutral). He then said ok, put it in reverse....I'm sure I ground off some of the tips of the gears as I forgot to push in the clutch, which he directed me to do. I got it in to reverse. Then he said, "Give it a little gas and slowly let out the clutch" to back out of the driveway. I immediately dumped the clutch and caused him to spill his coffee. He had a choice deleted expletive and told me to restart the engine and S-L-O-W-L-Y let out the clutch and give it a little more gas. I gunned the engine and very slowly let out the clutch, probably burnt 5% of the clutch plate off I went so slowly, but the car started moving. I was thrilled. I was actually in control of a car. He said, " Back up a little more, ...a little more... I could see the road behind me through the rear view mirror. Where we started was about 75-100 feet from the back door of the house to the road. I had traversed about 70 feet ok....then, plunk! the passengers rear tire fell off the driveway into the ditch (and killed the engine).....no curbs or gutters in the country. Dad said, "That's OK, start it up again and put it into Low and ease it forward". I put in the clutch and started the engine and put it into first gear without grinding off any more gears....fast learner right?....I gave it some gas and s-l-o-w-l-y let out the clutch again. I eased it out of the ditch and back into the drive way. Dad said, as he was looking backward, " Good, ease it up a little more......a little more......a little more.......a little more". When we were back where we started he said, "Turn off the engine, give me the keys and get out, you're not ready to drive yet." Of course I didn't relay the story to Butch as it happened (he was already able to drive), I just told him, "Dad let me drive the car today". Isn't that the way it always happens?
My first, rather Butch and my first car was a

two tone light green/dark green 1954 Chevy. 6 cylinder automatic 4 door sedan. I was 17 and Butch was 18. He was out of school and I was a senior in HS. He used the car to go back and forth to work, which, most of the time was with our cousin, Johnny Poznich on his farm. It was part time work a couple or 3 days a week, driving tractors or bulldozer or working on barns, fences or whatever Johnny needed to do. He went on a date one night with a girl from McCune (about 15 or 20 miles west of where we lived). He hadn't thought about transmission fluid checking, or it was late and no one was open to get any, so he drove home 20 miles with no ATF in the engine. This converted the three speed with reverse transmission into the following, "P" park was park, "R" reverse was park, "N" neutral was neutral, "D2" drive 2 was neutral, "D" drive was drive and "L" low was neutral. Basically a 1 forward speed transmission with several options for park and neutral, but none for reverse. When we went to Pittsburg, we couldn't park on Broadway because it was 45 degree angle parking. We had to go to a side street and park just before Broadway or just before an alley so we could just take off forward. I took the car to my Jr-Sr prom and showed up early so I could drive around the circle entrance of the country club and park just before going back out on the road. I misjudged the amount of space at the end of the drive and allowed enough space for a VW Beetle to park, of which it did. When we left the prom, we had to push the car backwards until it bumped the car behind us to allow enough space for us to pull out....you would have thought we would have saved the money to get the car fixed....but no.
My next car was a 1951 Buick Super 4 door with a straight 8 engine and real hydraulic shock absorbers, you had to put hydraulic fluid in them on occasion. I ran so smooth and quietly, I couldn't believe it. I bought it for $150 cash with the help of my Uncle Turk, who actually found it for me. I was going to college in Chanute, Kansas and had some money left over from my summer job in Orange, Texas. Strangely enough, it was also green.

It was quite luxurious to me. I found a 6 x9 oval speaker out of an old radio that stopped working and mounted it in the rear deck by the back window. It used the trunk as a resonating chamber and really pumped the AM radio sound up....especially the bass. I was very proud of it. All the gears also worked...quite a change from the last automatic transmission. It got me all around southeast Kansas and down to Orange, Texas to work the next summer after my freshman year at college. One day when I was going to work, I went over a raised railroad track a little fast and sort of left the ground, when the car came down, I heard a crunch and then it just coasted to a stop. I walked to a phone and called my dad and he came over with a chain and we towed it back to his house......the rear end was out. He called a few junk yards but could not locate another rear end. I left it with him to dispose of when I came back to Kansas to start my sophomore year in college, in Pittsburg.
              I bought a 1961 Ford Galaxy from my mother for $500. and used it until I went into the Army. When I came back to Kansas to get married, I went to my mom's house and asked her for the car. She said she had to sell it because she didn't have enough money to put new tags on it. You also had to pay personal property tax on cars in Kansas in order to buy your tags. I said, OK, well then I'll take the money you sold it for along with the money I sent you from the first 5 months I was in the army (about $50/mo for 5 months). She said she didn't have that either. Oh, well...........

I got married Aug 11, 1969 and went to Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana to the Joint Services School. Accounting, Personnel Management, Finance and a couple of other clerical schools. We took Mary's 1961 Ford Fairlane as our vehicle. Thank God I married a Rich Irish Girl.   The only real problems we had with the car while at Fort Benning, Georgia was a

brake job and a little kid broke out the front windshield throwing rocks at his cousin Herman while I was driving home from the Army post one evening. It even had the giddy up to pull a 5 x 8 U-Haul trailer from Fort Benning, Georgia to Orange, Texas to visit with my dad and step mother before going back to Pittsburg, Kansas to resume my college.
I don't remember exactly how we got the next car, a

1966 Chevy Caprice 2 door with a 283 V-8 engine. It was solid white. It ran pretty good for about 3 years and the tranny went out it while we were coasting down hill into Fort Scott Kansas to trade it in for another car...

A 1972 Ford Torino station wagon.. We now had 3 kid and all the accompanying stuff that you have to travel with at that point. I got us around wonderfully until 1978 when I hit a parked semi with a dump bed trailer, that was totally

covered with mud and it was dark and foggy. It was a light blue car as opposed to the Squire version pictured to the left here. My oldest son Chuck was not wearing a seat belt, nor was I and he hit the windshield and I kinda bent up the steering wheel and broke off the "add-on" air conditioner with my right leg. Well, you are all probably bored to death with my car stories, but blame it on John for making me think of the cars in my life that have their own stories. Safe driving to all, I pray.

A New Year and more memories - Gravel

cepierson67@yahoo.com (Chuck Pierson) — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 15:06:00 GMT

Here it is 2009 already...just seems like a couple of weeks ago that 2008 was approaching. I don't think I've ever been a party animal on New Year's Eve. In the last decade, I think I've gone to bed at 8:00 PM or so every year. I do remember that Kyle called some time in the last 10 years at midnight (Houston time) and woke me up.....actually his mother answered the phone and had to wake me up to let Kyle wish me a Happy New Year! I'm sure I sounded like I was gargling with marbles and was probably totally incoherent. I managed to stay up til 11:00 PM this year to see the ball drop in NYC. I've never been impressed with that ball dropping. I suppose it is relevant to the people in NYC though.

I used to play in bands in my youth on New Year's Eve every year. I usually played bass or keyboard except for Auld Lang Syne, then I grabbed the sax. We didn't play too many places on New Year's Eve with a young crowd....We would play for the Knights of Columbus, or a Country Club or other civic group of the older crowd. I played in a band with 2 of my brothers,

Roger and Ken in 1967 and 1968. The name of the group was The Vernal Deceased (young dead)....for some reason a lot of people started calling us the "VD's".
We were a 3 piece group. Ken was on Drums, Roger on Guitar and I went back and forth from Bass to Keyboard to Sax. We had trouble booking jobs with a three piece group.....so, we would tell the club owners we were a 4 piece group (guitar, bass, drums and sax).....When we showed up for the job and there were only three of us, we would tell the owner that the sax player had a National Guard meeting that weekend and couldn't be there to play....we never got thrown out for not having a four piece group. Mostly we played around Cherryvale, Chanute and Parsons, Kansas. Roger and Ken lived in Cherryvale with Mom and I lived in Chanute at college.

I think it was in 1968 that we booked a bar outside of Parsons for New Year's Eve. The owner didn't want to spend any money on advertising for the night, so he booked us for the door.....$1.00 / head to get in. Usually the clubs would run an add in the paper a week or two before Christmas, giving their phone number and address to make reservations and advertise the band, and festivities. He did nothing and almost accomplished it. We made a total of $9.00 that night. After about a hour of playing the nine people left to try to find somewhere else to go with a little more festive atmosphere....not that we were not totally charming and exciting. We offered to give them their money back, but they told us to keep it.

This picture was taken in the Cherryvale HS Gym in 1968. Our Uniform was black turtleneck shirts, black pants and boots. We were fairly nicely groomed people for the time. Roger on his Firebird guitar, one of Ken's tom-toms is visible to right of Roger. The bass guitar in the left-hand side of the picture is in my roommates hand from college, the volume turned totally off....he couldn't play at all, he just danced around faking it all evening. I'm playing the bass parts on my Vox organ. This was another time where we booked a 4 piece group and actually show up with 4 pieces (only 3 of which played). My roommate Don had a blast and attracted a couple of groupie high school girls to visit with him during the breaks we took. We usually took a 10 minute break every hour. I was the lead singer in the group but Roger and Ken also sang to help fill up the slight sound 3 piece group.

In 1969 Roger and Ken started growing their hair and I lost mine when I went into the Military. Got a personal invitation from Richard Nixon to give him a couple of years of my time. Some little conflict going on....Vietnam I think it was called. My Army experience is a story for another time..... so for now,

A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL and try to have a most prosperous 2009.

Christmas Through the Years -- Agate

cepierson67@yahoo.com (Chuck Pierson) — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 15:30:00 GMT

   It is the season for Christmas and again the immediate family, except for one, will be gathering to share the giving and receiving. I was thinking back through the years to my earliest memories of Christmas and the Christmas season in general. In 1959, we were living on East Main Street in Cherryvale, Kansas, in a large 2 story house...a necessity with Mom, Dad and 6 boys. When you came in the front door of the house, immediately in front of you were the stairs going to the 2nd floor, boys bedrooms. To the left was the living room, when you went in there and turned right and walked about 30 feet the door to Mom and Dad's bedroom was there.   One day Butch and I were playing catch with a tennis ball and I was placed in front of Mom and Dad's bedroom doorway. I missed a ball and it went under Mom and Dad's bed. There was always a bedspread on the bed that went all the way to the floor, completely around 3 sides of the bed. I raised up the bedspread at the end of the bed where the ball went and was absolutely shocked to see it TOTALLY full of Christmas presents. I was still a tremendous believer in St. Nick and his annual visit to our house and this was a blow to that belief to say the least. Butch and I didn't rifle through the gifts for fear of being discovered in our discovery. We got the ball out and never let on that we found anything. My normal gleeful surprise on Christmas morning was dampened a bit by our pre-Christmas discovery. Butch said that he had known for years that the presents came from Mom and Dad.

      The next year we lived about a mile south of town on a 5 acre place where we let a couple of people put there horses, which we were not allowed to ride. Right after the 1st of December, I would start my detective routine of watching under Mom and Dad's bed to see how quickly the presents would start materializing. To my amazement, NOTHING appeared as of the 20th of December. I was beginning to feel panic set in. "NO CHRISTMAS THIS YEAR", was my thought. With no good results after a week of looking under their bed and in their closet and the rest of the ground floor and basement, I decided to go to the second floor to search. Again I found no results. Rarely were we allowed to go up to the third floor which was more of an attic with only one room for storage. It had a hook and eye closure which was fastened. I undid the hook and opened the door........JACKPOT. I closed the door back and re-hooked it and breathed a HUGE sigh of relief that there would again be a Christmas this year.

     In 1963 we were back in Orange at 1301 North Bay. This year we "made" our Christmas tree. It was a well branched "Charlie Brown" tree that Mom told us we were going to decorate...I thought that this would be a sorry excuse for a tree, having had the normal Christmas trees my whole life. We first took cotton bats and wrapped the trunk, then all the branches and sub-branches. After this was done we hung silver or blue balls over the entire tree, you know the highly reflective ones. Then we had purchased a flood light with a wheel that turned with colored plastic panels that rotated in front of the bulb and shined on the tree.....first red, then blue, then green, then yellow, then repeated. I had to admit that it looked pretty good, it was just not the ordinary tree. This year, with there being 7 children, Butch 16, Chuck 14, Roger 12, Ken 10, Stan 7, Andy 5 and Becky 3.....The oldest 2 got drafted as elves into Santa's assembly unit. We put together wagons, bikes, car tracks, RR tracks, and a pool table. After we put the pool table together, Butch and I stayed up until about 3AM playing before going to bed. We also got a weight set and as you can see lifting the weights did not work very well with me.


      In 1965, Mom and Dad separated and Mom and the kids moved to Independence Missouri. Without getting into the politics of which side who was on, suffice it to say that I didn't think Christmas would be much this year. I had been given a guitar and amplifier by a neighbor in Orange before we left and was practicing on it 3 hrs a day, seven days a week and generally making my fingers bleed with some regularity. We did the same type of Christmas tree this year as we did in 63, with the branches stripped of leaves and wrapped with cotton and the balls hanging around. It just didn't seem like Christmas tho to me. I have no recollection of what I may have gotten or given anyone. The little ones got their normal toys and junk but I don't know of anything other than probably clothes that the older kids got, Butch, Roger and I.   The next few Christmases don't bring back any recollections.

      The year Mary and I were married and we came back to Kansas from Fort Benning, Georgia for Christmas was especially memorable for me. We had a budget for gifts; $1 for kids and $5 for adults. We started looking around in November for gifts for specific individuals. We found a camera with 5 rolls of film for $1 for Mary's little brother Mike. A set of kitchen cannisters for my mom for $4.89. Flash lights, games, toys, clothes, really quite remakable bargains that really fit each person we bought for. I'm sure I got some wonderful items that year, but the thing I remember the most was the time Mary and I spent together looking for things for others. That was the real joy of Christmas that year.

      After our Army tour, we moved back to Pittsburg and were there until 1976 when we moved to Houston. Every year about 2 weeks before Christmas we celebrated the Harry Christmas Party. This was with my mother-in-law's family. Each person would get a Christmas item for his or her gender and just write TO: Man FROM: Chuck on the gift tag. We would draw numbers on the order that gifts would be drawn from under the tree. The first person drawing a gift would hold the gift. The next person could either pick a gift from under the tree, or take the gift from the people who had drawn before them, they in turn would have to take a gift from under the tree. I don't know who came up with this arrangement, it made some interesting events....especially when someone thought they got an absolutely wonderful gift and the next person also thought it was absolutely wonderful too and took it.   It was always a very nice get together. The week before Christmas, we would attend the Gilmore Christmas party. It had to be held in some of the larger homes in the family because of the number of Gilmore's attending with the numbers in the increase each year. I don't remember an exchange of gifts, but there was always plenty of food, drink and lively conversation....at least 2 or 3 arguments ("discussions") going on at the same time and with at least one having all parties in the "discussion" being on the same side, but with different views on the same side.

     Christmas is for me the time for giving and reflection on what I have done for others in the last year and what I may be able to do in the following year. It is always wonderful to perform a random act of kindness with no thought of any remuneration or even thanks. Just do something because you see it needs done. I heard of a family this year that doesn't exchange gifts at Christmas any more. One lady in the family lost a child to cancer and the family of 10 participating members each gives $100. They put the $1,000 in an card and go to M.D. Anderson and just walk down the hall until someone in the group says, "This room" . They knock on the door and when the family inside opens the door, they give them the envelop and wish them a Merry Christmas and depart. They don't sign the note or anything....No pomp or bluster.....just helping families going through what they went through.

      God Bless you all and have a wonderful Christmas Season.

You can't run and play - Basalt

cepierson67@yahoo.com (Chuck Pierson) — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 21:50:00 GMT

In general, I was always very healthy. I did seem to be susceptible to catching a Strep germ now and then. I had one confirmed bout with Rheumatic Fever and 2 non-confirmed bouts. They occurred in the summer between grades1/2, 2/3 and 3/4. We would nearly always got up to stay with our mom's parents, Ma and Papa. The summer between the 3rd and 4th grades, I only got to stay two weeks, when everyone was there, then I had to go back to Texas with mom and dad and Ken and Stan. Butch and Roger got to stay the whole summer.

The two weeks I was there I stayed with Granny (my dad's mom, Hallie Myrtle Large Pierson). I wasn't allowed to run and play, just sit around, with an occasional walk around....to the toilet. The two holer that was 50 to 60 feet behind the house. The Dr. thought that too much activity would affect my heart and joints too much. After the initial high fever and sore joints and such for a week or two, mostly I just felt bored. They would not let me have any fun for another 6 weeks. This may have been the start of my getting involved with some of the family stories. I just had to sit around with old timers and chew the fat. This wasn't too bad, because the stories were pretty interesting.

Hallie Myrtle Large Pierson about 1963

    One time Granny told me about her dad being a teamster. He was a farmer, but between the planting season and the harvest, he would hire out himself, his team of horses and his big wagon to move people to make extra money. When he finish moving one family, sometimes someone else in that town wanted to move, so he would strike a deal with them, and move them. Sometimes after the second move he would have quite a distance to come home, sometimes the distance wouldn't be too far. Granny used to say that they lived about 10 miles outside of town and they would take all day Saturday to go to town for shopping and to return. They would eat breakfast, start the journey, usually picnic just short of town or in the park the town had, do their shopping in a couple of hours and then head home. She said that the only walked the horses, 2 to 3 miles an hour. They would get home in the evening just in time to fix dinner, do a couple of chores, eat and go to bed. She used to laugh at the cowboy shows, when they would gallop after each other for 15 or 20 minutes. She said those horses wouldn't last 10 minutes at a gallop. They would have collapsed and been laying in the dust. She was born in 1889 and lived long enough to see from the horse and buggy days to men walking on the moon. Quite a leap in technology in one lifetime.

      I was watching granny tear strips of denim from discarded blue jeans and stitch them together and wrap them up in a ball. After that, she would start crocheting them into a long string.....about 6 feet long. She then folded it in half and sewed the two halves together. Then she continued crocheted around the long, doubled over piece. It kept growing in the oval shape. When it was about 3 feet wide and 5 feet long she would stop and sew the last "tail" of fabric down. The completed unit was then placed down on the floor and weighted down with books and other heavy objects to flatten it out. The next day it was un-weighted and turned over and re-weighted for another day. After the second day, all the weights were removed and it was a nice looking 3 x 5 run. She would then either replace one of the worn out ones in her house or give it to a relative to use at the front or back door or in front of a couch or chair or in the kitchen in front of the stove.....or to use wherever needed or wanted.

   That summer I asked Granny to teach me how to do it. She did and I made my first rug that year. That was pretty good for a 9 or 10 year old. I still remember how to do it, although I think that it has mostly fallen out of fashion, and it's not as easy to go "pea pickin'" at the city dump to recover the old denim jeans that were discarded. The only real out of pocket expenses Granny had in her quilts, rugs and other projects was the thread she had to buy to stitch the strips or squares together. I'm not sure, but I think my mom still has a couple of denim quilts that either she or Granny made for us. They were terrific to use outside, if they got dirty, they went into the washer just like our jeans and hung out on the line as well.

    "Pea Pickin'" was a term that Granny used to describe our weekly trips to the city dump to recover (recycle in today's terms) items for reuse. We would find old school books, pots and pans, dishes, silverware, clothing and other items that could be re used after cleaning or used in other applications.   She would always take home pots and pans that were 2 quarts or larger, not to cook with but to plant flowers in. I personally was on the scout for nails and small pieces of wood to build something with or crayons and pencils for drawing with.

Granny lived about 200 yards north of a fence line that went directly east to the city dump. Made it very easy to follow in both directions. It even made it easy for Butch and I, but more frequently Roger and I to go pea pickin by ourselves. We would bring back wheels off wagons and tricycles and 2 x 4's and attempt to make push cars -- or pull cars with a piece of rope to haul each other around in. We obviously didn't make Indy 500 vehicles with our extremely limited knowledge and skills but it kept us busy for hours and days on end.

   I haven't mentioned I-pods, video games, television, board games, or many toys. We mostly got into our environment to find things to keep us busy and entertained. I think we did it pretty successfully as a whole. We would even play school with the old school books we found, practicing the math problems and taking chapter test in other subjects. One day I would be the teacher, the next Roger....His assignments would tend to run toward the bizzare....like read the rest of the book today and do a 500 page report for class tomorrow. Oh well, I drift away again........................

Granny Frazee --- Iron Pyrite

cepierson67@yahoo.com (Chuck Pierson) — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 17:04:00 GMT

   You have a little knowledge of my Great Grand Mother, Nancy Ann Dugger Pierson Frazee. She was married 2 times, both times while pregnant. My grandmother, Hallie Myrtle Large Pierson said that was the only way she could get a man. She also said she was a shrill nagging woman. No one understood why Paul Frazee stayed married to her for so long. Her first husband, Daniel Parker Pierson lit out after only a few months with her. (If that long)

   Anyway, to get back on track, I only have a few vague memories of her, mostly bed ridden at my Granny's house (Hallie). It was a three room house. A kitchen, a living room with a coal burning stove in the center, and a bedroom with one double bed and a twin bed where Granny Frazee resided.

       Nancy Ann is on the far right in the below photo. The Duggers abt. 1878

    Story 1. This story came from either my father (Bill Pierson) or Granny (Hallie). Seems that Granny Frazee was a teacher in a one room school outside of Old Pleasant View, Kansas. You cannot find any evidence today of where Old or New Pleasantville were, except for cemetaries. The story seems to go that one day while teaching class, 4 or 5 men road up to the school house and 2 of them came in and told Nancy Ann to give them all the lunches the children brought that day. She obliged and then one of the men told her, " Don't let anyone go outside for atleast an hour. We are leaving one man behind with a rifle and he will shoot anyone that goes outside." The story continues that she made all the children wait for an hour and then dismissed school for the day. She said the one of the two men that came into the school house and took the lunches and gave her the instructions was Jesse James. She said she didn't know who the other man was.

   Story 2. Not something I would like to be remembered for. My dad told me that he and Granny Frazee used to go walking around the farm, to check animals, pick flowers, pick wild fruit or just to walk around. He said that one time she stopped walking, took hold of her skirt and lifted it out to the front and rear and spread her legs out. After a little bit she continued walking and he noticed there was a significant circle of moisture in the path where she was standing. He said he didn't think anything about it until later, when the thought women couldn't pee while standing up. Apparently they can if they spread things out enough and have no underclothes on. Like I said, not something I would want to be remembered for.

    Other trivial data. I forget who told me, but the Duggers used to live above a bar, in Pleasant View.   Nancey's father William Harden Dugger was a surveyor (Surveyed Hosey Hill Cemetary), Post master in Pleasant View, a Blacksmith and Later in life a Justice of the Piece in Cherokee County, KS. I know the last piece to be true because he performed the marriage ceremony for Harvey Stark and Bell Boone when they were married. Have his signature on the license.

   Nancy Ann's mother's name was Nancy Ann Cable, whose great grandfather was Casper Cable. Casper was originally Kaspar Goebel. A Hessian mercenary soldier hired by the British to fight in the Revolutionary War. Casper Cable (Kaspar Goebel in German) a Hessian Grenadier, Captured at Trenton, New Jersey, December 26, 1776. Recaptured by the British, he deserted at John's Island, South Carolina, June 4, 1779. He fought in the Revolutionary Army of Nathaniel Greene at Cowpens, South Carolina. He fought for both sides during the revolution and was captured by both sides. Probably not the greatest soldier of the war.

The Tree Houses

cepierson67@yahoo.com (Chuck Pierson) — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 22:19:00 GMT

   Once upon a time about 1955 we were staying with Ma and Papa (Beulah and Shorty Stark) and got to climbing up into all the trees we could on their place (about 40 acres, but we stuck mostly with the yard and pens around the barn. When I said "we" I should have included everyone around there about 1955. My cousins, Allen Rightmeyer, Judy McCullough, my brothers Butch and Roger and Ken (a baby -2 at the time). We were always outside playing one thing or another.

One time we decided that Butch and Judy would get married. Allen was the preacher (Later he did become a preacher), Butch the groom, Judy the Bride, I was the ring bearer and Roger the flower boy....not enough girls in the family yet. Allen went to one end of the house in the driveway and we started the procession at the other end of the house in the drive. (Prob 40-50ft.) As we processed, Roger had picked some flowering weeds most likely with fairly long stems and was trailing them over his shoulder. We probably forgot to close the gate good and one of the goats got out and was following Roger and eating the flowers in his bouquet. The ring I bore for the ceremony was the metal ring off a one-pound coffee can. A little big for the bride's finger (also too big for a bracelet). It was the only thing that I could find that was round and metal. I don't actually recall the actual ceremony but there was a kiss at the end, followed by Butch Spitting it back off. Not too fond of girls yet. I believe that there is a picture of the ceremony floating around in the family some where. If you know of the location of the picture let me know, so I can contact whomever has it and try to get a digital scan of it for the family history.

I was diverted from the original story of the tree houses. Since we were climbing trees almost all the time, My dad and Judy's and Allen's Dads got together and purchased some 2x4's and other boards and found one of the big oak or black walnut trees in the front yard and started constructing a tree house for us to play in. It was more like a platform than a house, but we thought it was a wondrous sight. They made it about 8 feet square with a small railing around the outside perimeter. They also nailed 2x4's' up the side of the tree as a ladder for access. It caused as many fights as it did fun. There were always pairs keeping others out. Butch and Allen would keep Judy and Chuck out. Butch and Judy would keep Chuck out. Chuck couldn't keep anyone out and Roger couldn't get up the ladder, the 2x4's were too far apart for him to make it up.

Two years later, Ma and Papa sold the farm and moved into town. About 1960, I was 11

and Butch was 12 1/2 and we found a Catalpa tree down by the barn and a bunch of lumber, 1x4, 2/4, 2x6, 2x12. We also found Papa's nail can and proceeded to build our own platform tree house. No, it wasn't level or square. We hadn't had any geometry to make square or level any board in the whole thing. We loved it, though. We did make a door on it so we could keep Roger and Ken out. We would close the door and sit on it so no one else could get in it. No, I never sat on it to keep Butch out(more than once)because he would go back up to the house and do something else until I got tired of playing in it. Then he would beat me up. Roger couldn't keep him out because Butch was strong enough to lift Roger

up while he was sitting on the door. (See Blowin off a little ?Steam? A ruby red gem if there ever was one)

About 1963 we were getting too big for 3 people to get into the tree house so we looked for another site for our next construction project. We found 4 small trees about 5" in diameter. The trees were more or less in a square layout about 6 feet apart. We decided to tear down the old tree house and build a new one at the new site. About half of the lumber we destroyed trying to take it loose from the original tree house. We were not sure of how many nails it took to secure the wood pieces to each other so some of the boards were 25% steel. We started about 8 feet above the ground. We got the platform finished and got up in it and found it way too small for the three of us. At that point we decided we would build another level about 5 feet above the first. There was a big stack of lumber by the hog pen just laying there. We gathered it up and built the second level. There was still lumber left in the stack so we decided to make a level for each of us. We probably built the only 3 story tree house in Weir, Kansas. The next day, Papa came out to feed the hogs and saw the stack of lumber missing, he was not a happy camper. "Where's the wood for my hog shed?" "Did you kids take my lumber?" We said yes we took it and showed him our project. "It took me 6 months to gather up all that wood. You three need to replace the wood.

He explained how we would replace it. There was the city dump where people would pitch some wood from remodeling projects. there were also many "cave holes" along the country roads where people would put trash. (The cave holes were caused by sub-surface mining too close to the surface, where after time the ground would settle) Where a fence line was involved, the gap below the fence where the hole developed was large enough for cattle to get out so trash, old fencing and fence posts, barrels, bed springs, appliances and other thing as well as wood was dropped off. My brother Butch

knew how to drive (he was 15) a standard transmission and the enforcement of the driver's license laws were not looked on quite as closely as today, so we were tasked each morning to drive the roads and bring back lumber to replace the stack we had used up. He knew we would have to replace the wood and not tear down the new tree house, as we would probably destroy most of the wood. We spent most of that month running the roads each morning gathering up the would that was cast out by others. We were also tasked to recover all the "shiny" barbwire that was cast out, also the hog wire we found. We also brought back to sets of bedsprings and put those into two levels of the tree house. It was terrific to take a quilt made from old blue jeans down to the tree house and cover the springs and grab a few zzzzz's in the gentle breeze that nearly always blowing through the tree house.

     I went out to the site of the tree house the last time I went to see my Mom, she now owns my grandparent's house. There was only about 2 boards still attached and dangling from one of the 4 trees. One set of bed springs was about half there, the part above ground was rusty and rapidly deteriorating badly. The other set was totally gone. There is no evidence left that there was ever a tree house there if you didn't know it.

     To repeat again, I welcome any and all comments and if you would like to contribute a story for this blog, let me know and I can set you up as an author to post your own. Thanks, Chuck.

Participating in the Food Chain

cepierson67@yahoo.com (Chuck Pierson) — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 14:27:00 GMT

    My grandparents always grew most of their own food and preserved it to have enough to get through the fall, winter, and spring until the next crop could give them fresh crops to eat. I always thought my grandmother, Ma, (Beulah Burch Stark) did all the cooking and canning since I always saw her cooking the meals. My grandfather, Papa, (Clarence Stark) was always out planting, weeding fertilizing, picking and tending the crops. He always had a HUGE garden.

     The strawberry patch was to the north of the house taking up an area of about 50 x 60 feet. After the strawberries quit producing, he would cover the entire area with about 3-4 inches of straw to protect it during the winter. The regular vegetable garden was east of the strawberry patch and east of the back of the house. It was about 60 feet deep and about 100 feet wide. This is where the lettuce, carrots, peas, green beans, radishes, tomatoes and grape vines were. This area stopped on the south by the path to the outhouse. On the other side of the outhouse path were the squash, melons, cabbage and cucumbers. There were probably other things that I am leaving out, but needless to say there were lots of food stuffs "on the hoof" to be harvested later.

    Across the street from the house and to the south were 5 " miner's lots" that were 50 x 150 feet long, this is where the big row crops were planted. The potatoes, the corn, sweet potatoes and other items. All together there was more than a acre of garden. There were also 2 crab apple trees, a peach tree and a black walnut tree for providing food from. In the early summer there were blackberries growing wild everywhere you looked and these were picked and canned for use later in the year.

     One time while we were visiting in the spring Roger and I (ages about 5 and 7) found the garden east of the back of the house. We saw these little rows of greenery and wondered what they were. Roger pulled up one piece of greenery and there was a carrot attached at the bottom about 1 1/2 inches long. I pulled up the first on my row and there was a little red ball like a small marble on the end....a radish. We both sat down with one leg on each side of the row and pulled up our individual treats, hit them on a leg to knock of the dirt and into the mouth it went., with the greenery thrown over the right shoulder to the back. After 4 or 5 pulls, we would scoot up the row a little and do more pulling, hitting and eating and tossing greenery, as we each had moved up the row about 3 or 4 feet, Papa came out of the house, "Whoa, Stop it right now" "Get outa there" I'm sure he saw us from inside the house because he came out with the razor strap. Each of us got a whop with the strap as a reminder to stay out of the garden. This we remembered.

     Regarding the grape vines, Papa dug a trench about a foot wide and about 18 inches deep and about 60 feet long. The then took a lot of iron and nails and bed springs and old barb wire pieces and other rusty steel and lined the bottom of the trench. Before he place the metal in the trench, he made a fire in the driveway and put all the wire and nails and other metal in the fire. I asked him why and he said to burn off all the zinc galvanizing on the metal that would prevent it from rusting. He said that grapes were heavy iron feeders and (he didn't tell me he couldn't afford to buy iron additives for fertilizer) it would fertilize the grape plants as it broke down under the soil. I enjoyed the burning of the metal because I always liked camp fires, there's just something about watching fires that attracts young eyes.   I helped him put the metal in the trench the next day after everything had cooled off. He then, with only a slight bit of help from me or my brothers filled the trench back in with dirt. Then he planted the rooted grape vine plants in the trench about every six feet. About every 12 feet he set in a fence post. He ran 3 wires the entire length of the trench and attached them to each post. I thought this was a little strange because the plants were only about 6 inches high and the bottom wire was about a foot and a half above ground. The second wire about 3 feet above ground and the 3rd wire about 5 ft. above ground. About 3 years after the vines were planted, I couldn't believe the numbers of grape clusters that were on the vines.   The homemade grape jelly, jam and juice were terrific year round.

     The garden across the street and south of the house was another story. When Roger was about 10 and I was 12 and Butch was 13 1/2. We got to fully experience this garden. Papa had a set of hoes for us to use in killing the weeds in the rows of the potatoes and the corn and other row crops. Since Butch was the oldest and largest of the three, he got the privilege of using the machinery to do the weeding. There was a manual tiller, with three or four hooked tines in the back to dig out the weeds as you pushed the thing down the row. The front was an old steel wheel. It came back to two handles to hold on and between the wheel and handles was attached either the tiller or a small plow blade.

The action was something like this, you pushed the tiller forward, then you stepped forward, pushed the tiller, then stepped forward. then pushed, then stepped........for several hours until you went through the seemingly endless rows of potatoes and corn and other things. In the planting of potatoes, you have to first dig up each row and break up the clods. Then you have to quarter the seed potatoes, leaving at least 2 eyes on each piece, lay them down on the row about 2 feet apart. Then you get the tiller with the plow blade and proceed down each side of the row turning the soil up on the top of the seed potatoes. After a week or two when the plants start coming up, you have to go through the same process with the plow blade attached turning up more soil on the potato plants. This process continues in periodic progression until the mounds are about a foot high. In Houston these would be called raised beds. If you planted them underground, the potatoes would rot because of too much moisture.    The plants on top the ground are deceptive, because the potatoes underground are not growing nearly as fast as the greenery above ground. Periodically, we would be sent out to dig up one (and only one) plant and bring in what ever potatoes were on it. These were the "new" potatoes that went well with peas (also "new") right off the vine and onions (also "new"). The plants still had a couple of months before maturity, but also had edible small units that were special treats.

   Maybe this is what gave me some aptitude for the small bit of gardening I do now in the back yard. Mostly flowers and shrubs.



Papa surely worked my butt off in the garden but I also learned plenty about growing your own food and the preparation and care to get it from ground to mouth (without the razor strap.....) Thanks Papa. Also, Papa did about 90% plus of the canning of everything, the 1 gallon jugs of home made tomato juice. the quarts and pints of canned green beans, peas, corn, the quarts of pickles, dill, sweet and bread and butter, the jams and jellies, the peach preserves and canned peaches, canned okra, canned carrots, sour kraut, canned tomatoes, grape juice. I can remember him standing over the stove for hours slowly cooking the tomatoes and running the pulp and juice through a large strainer, again and again until he had extracted all the juice and only had pulp left. Then he would cold pack the tomato juice in a large pot with boiling water barely over the tops of the gallon jugs for about 30 minutes and then removing the jugs and sitting on the table on towels. Then one by one you could hear pop!, pop! pop! as the tops sealed to the jugs and you were sure they would hold up in the cupboard until needed.

Thankfully -- A Diamond

cepierson67@yahoo.com (Chuck Pierson) — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 13:56:00 GMT

On this 27th day of November in the year of our Lord 2008, I have so much to be thankful for.

First, there is my wife of 39 years, Mary Gilmore. She has been the rock I have clung to in all the storms I have been through in my adult hood. She is my strength and the air that I breathe.

    Next are my children.   Though not always the epitome of perfection, all and all, they have been terrific to watch grow up.
     Chuck Jr. has the loving and caring his mother passed to him. Although he doesn't show his feelings too much on the outside, you can see by his actions that he really does care about his new family as well as his old.
     Nathaniel Daniel (Kyle) has the creativity and spontaneity from his mom that let's him be in front of people and let himself out for all to see. He can see through the facade of things to what actually is.
     Jeremy (Jay) has the intelligence given by his mom to think through things and arrive at an opinion that nothing in the world could make him waver from. His smile can light up the world.
     Jonathan (John) was blessed with both as sense of practicality and an abundance of love for his family. His new son William John has rekindled an even stronger fire of love in his heart.
     Our daughter Robin was blessed with the inner and outer beauty of her mother and her mother's drive to make thing turn out as she sees they need to turn out. A most persistent but loving young lady.

I am most unworthy but very blessed to have been given this family.

Another day in the life --Turquoise

cepierson67@yahoo.com (Chuck Pierson) — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 14:10:00 GMT

My dad didn't reveal a huge amount about his childhood or early adulthood to me, just a little peek every now and then. I'll try to get several revelations down in this posting.

In 1952 I had a sister born, Mary Elizabeth Pierson, Feb 22, 1952. She died of an enlarged heart 3 days later. I was just 3 years old, but still remember her funeral....at least a few parts. I know we went into a room where there was a little basket with a mesh cloth over it. I stood on my tiptoes and peeked in. It looked like a little doll in a doll basket. I seem to remember a rattle or small toy in the basket with her. After the graveside service, we all piled back into the car (this is what my dad related to me). Ned Naylor (a family friend and the funeral director) came over to the car. My dad told him, "I don't know how I'm ever going to pay you for this." Ned said, "Don't worry about it, just take care of your family." They shook hands and my dad looked down in his hand and there was a folded $10 bill. Dad said they both just stood there and cried for about 10 minutes before they left. There are still good people like Ned Naylor running around loose in this world, they just don't get noticed too much. They almost daily commit random acts of kindness.

My dad also said when he was little they had a dog that would follow him every where.

He said that when he was about 10 his folks rented him out to a neighboring farmer for
$10.00 a month plus room and board. He moved in with the farmer and worked for him 6 days a week for the summer and his folks got $30.00 and him back. He said his primary jobs were to weed the garden by the house and take water out to the farmer and the other hands several times a day as well as to take them lunch. He would take a bucket of water and dipper out in the morning about 9 o'clock. He would take another bucket of water out about 11:00 and then go back to the house and get the basket of food for lunch and bring it back. He would repeat the water carrying about 2:00 and 4:00 pm. He said it was kinda lonely to be gone from the family for 3 months, but he felt he had to do something to help out, the times were hard.....this would have been about 1936...mid depression and dust bowl days. The picture on the left was taken about 1936 or 1937.

My dad was the youngest of 5 children The oldest was Dan, then John, then his sister Bessie, then his brother Wes (Bud).

His brother Dan, the oldest child was an avid hunter. He also had a strong dislike for crows that would eat parts of the crops that were grown. The biggest problem with hunting the crows was that they would see you coming with a shotgun and fly off before you could get within range. Dan was going to sneak up on them by resting the barrel of the gun on the toe of his work shoes and leisurely walk through the cornfield and "fake out" the crows so he could get a good shot. The shotgun was a double barrel 12 gauge, hammer action. To save time when he got within range he cocked both barrels so all he would have to do is swing the gun up and pull the trigger to bag the Heckle and Jeckle of his time. The only problem was that when he started to swing the barrel up, his finger was on the trigger and the gun went off. He looked down and saw a hole in his work shoe but didn't feel any pain and there didn't seem to be any bleeding. He went back to the house and sat down. When he unlace his shoe and took it off, the bleeding started, when he took off his sock, he could see that he shot off his 2nd and 3rd toes. He did get patched up. The human body does try to compensate one part of the body that may be defective with another that is made stronger. What happened with Dan is that his big toe widened to fill in the gap where the other two toes were removed. I never noticed him favor one foot over the other when he walked or anything.

Another story he told was of his brother Bud (Wes) and his sister's (Bessie's) husband Bill Ristau (nicknamed "snaky"...don't know why.) Seems that Bud and Snaky operated a still out in Bill's garage. One day they got word that the Federal Revenuers were going to raid the place. Bud took off and left Snaky to face the music alone. Somehow, Bill got the still dismantled enough and enough pieces moved to other areas of the barn that the Revenuer couldn't arrest him. I never heard if Bill ever reinstalled it after that. Bud did pick up the bible after that and became a Baptist preacher and missionary. He would take his family down to southern Mexico every year and spend the winter there missioning to people. The rest of the year he was carpenter in Kansas City, MO.

My dad also told me that Bud could take some electrical shocks. Back in the olden days of being a carpenter, generally the power tools had a two wire plug and if you needed a receptacle during the rough-in stage of building, they usually had light bulb sockets in each room. Bud carried an adapter that screwed into the light socket like a light bulb, but had a two hole outlet built in. To see if he had power, he would wet his index finger and stick it into the light socket, touching the hot lead in the center and also to the side of the socket......Yep, this one has power, and then he would hook up. My dad also said he saw Bud place his thumbs and little fingers on the spark plugs of a running Model A ford while it was running and Kill it dead. I've gotten across spark plug wires before and although there's not a lot of current, there is over 10,000 volts of power, enough to let you see purple stars for a bit.