Hollywood

by Ed Nelson

  I would be flying from Dayton to Los Angeles on TWA. The studio had sent coach class tickets. I wondered if I could upgrade them to first class. There was so much more leg room in the front seats. The Constellation was a nice aircraft, but rather cramped in the back.

  At lunch time I walked down to the AAA travel agency and explained my problem. They told me if I brought the tickets in, and the additional eighty dollars to upgrade I could do it if the space was available.

  My exams were like yesterday, one step above boring. There wasn’t one question that I had any doubt as to the answer. Still I went back over every question at least once to make certain I had read it correctly.

  When I got home, Mum had something to show me. She had read the cover of a magazine in the grocery checkout line. One article caught her eye so she bought it which was highly unusual. On the cover were two pictures, Paul Grant and me.

  Dateline: Hollywood January 20, 1959

  The Good Boy meets the Bad Boy

  In a Movie Magazine exclusive we have inside information on the new John Wayne movie The Cowboys. Working together will be the teenage heart throb bad boy Paul Grant and teenage Eagle Scout Rick Jackson.

  Speculation is running high on the set on how Grant and Jackson will relate. Will Grant corrupt the All American Boy or will Jackson redeem the brat?

  Paul Grant who is famous for his drinking and womanizing has recently been suspected of using drugs. His famous temper tantrums and poor work habits have made him high maintenance on the set. Add this together with a huge ego, along with the habit of bringing his own hangers on, onto the set, and you have a problem for any director. If his show The Outlaw Kid was not number one in its time slot he would have been let go some time ago. However the young ladies seem to love the bad boy.

  When Grant was asked about Jackson his only comment was, “Who? Who cares?”

  Contrasting is Rick Jackson, sports star, life saver and bane of the bad guys. Jackson a straight A student is the youth golf champion of the State of Ohio, and the National Champion Youth Brahma Bull rider. He is an honorary member of the Texas Rangers for breaking up a gang of rustlers, he killed two murderous bank robbers in a botched bank robbery, and he’s pulled people out of burning car wrecks. The world famous picture of a young man carrying a young girl out of a burning building is Jackson at his finest.

  The only blot on Jackson’s record is that he was involved in a fight in Tijuana and had to bail Elvis Presley and Tab Hunter out of jail.

  While not having the strong entertainment credentials that Paul Grant has, he appeared in It Never Happened with John Wayne and also several episodes of Spin and Marty on the Mickey Mouse Club. To a point he can even sing, having reached the top ten playlist with Rock and Roll Cowboy supported by the Beach Boys.

  Strong credentials but how will it come out when the good meets the bad, Ugly?

  I didn’t quite know how to react to the article.

  I finally ended up saying, “It will be interesting.”

  “Yes it will,” replied Mum. “We called them Good Time Charlie’s when I was young. Always up for fun, but they would run at the first sign of work or trouble.”

  “My best bet will be to go there and do my job and ignore the rest.”

  “Easier said than done boyo, you will have to be careful. He will try to drag you down to his level or do you in.”

  “You don’t think he would try to hurt me?”

  “He wouldn’t survive the experience. He would try to humiliate you. That would be his style.”

  “I wouldn’t try to kill him!”

  “No, but I would!” Mum replied.

  I really wonder about her.

  “I really don’t see the big deal about me being in this movie, I haven’t even been sent more than the outline script. So far I’ve been told any dialog I have is so short and infrequent that there is no need for me to do any advance memorization. That sure doesn’t sound like the good meets the bad.”

  “How many magazines would that sell?” asked Mum.

  “Point taken,” I replied.

  At dinner I asked about paying for an upgrade to first class. It was okay with my parents.

  Dad joked, “You are one of those movie stars that Howard Hughes brags about flying on his airlines.”

  I laughed at that, “I’m looking forward to flying on a Constellation. I love the look of that triple tail.”

  Mum came out with, “That will be your second flight. When we came from England the second time in 1947 it was on a Pan Am Constellation.”

  “Oh, I didn’t remember that.”

  “You were only three, why would you remember?”

  We continued to talk about my trip. It seems that Dick Wyman and his wife Janice had things pretty well planned out for me as far as housekeeping. There would be a woman come in to clean and do my laundry. It was up to me to cook or eat out every day but Sunday dinner. I would be eating with the Wyman’s to bring them up to date on my week.

  I would ride to the studio with Mr. Wyman every day. Dad told me he had asked the studio about getting me a California hardship driver’s license, so I could go places on the weekend. They were going to look into it.

  “If I get a license I will need a car.”

  “If you do let me know and I will arrange for you to be able to withdraw the funds. Dick Wyman has already said he will help you find a car.”

  “What sort can I buy?”

  “I would think in California you would want a convertible.”

  Mum added, “It has to be new, I don’t want to have to worry about a used car breaking down.”

  “Would a Ford or Chevrolet be okay?”

  “Exactly, either a Bel Air convertible or one of those new Thunderbirds,” replied Dad.

  “Those could get pricy, especially the Thunderbird.”

  “Rick, stop and think about how much money you have made, will be making, and what you have done for your family. Now do something nice for yourself.”

  This was from Mum but Dad was nodding his head yes.

  Denny asked, “Can I buy the car I want when I’m Rick’s age?”

  “Yep,” said Dad, “Just earn the money.”

  You could see wheels start turning in Denny’s head.

  That night I read more of the book by the Scottish author. He explained that because waterways gave people and countries further reach it exposed them to more diversity of trade opportunities. More customers and different products brought more wealth into those nations that were near water like Italy, later England and Japan. This positively affected their policies worldwide.

  Countries that weren’t near open water, like Russia would be at a disadvantage and would dictate their policies in a negative manor. They would try to expand to water. This would lead them into wars that they normally would have not picked.

  Russia took the Ukraine to get to the Black Sea but this was still far inland. This made them look at Afghanistan several times, which ended up costing them dearly.

  I could see where being close to the shipping lanes could positively affect the wealth of a country and its people. The United States connected by railroads and now the interstate highways had both Pacific and Atlantic exposure year around. No other country in the Americas or the world for that fact has used this advantage so well. We were taking full advantage of the Atlantic. I wondered about the Pacific in future years.

  Chapter 16

  Wednesday morning Dad and I got an early start to drive down to Morgan County, Ohio. It would take us almost five hours to get there. We left home at 6:30 hoping to get there before lunch. Mum had packed us a lunch to save time.

  We took Route 33 to Columbus then went out Broad Street which is Route 40. We saw the new interstate highway between Kirkersville and Graitot, but it wasn’t open yet so we stayed with 40 to Zanesville and went south on Route 60 to McConnelsville. From there nameless back roads to a point out in the middle of a National Forest.

  At about twelve thirty
we stopped at a small crossroads. Dad looked around,

  “Here is where I grew up and our ancestors came from.”

  There was nothing there just trees.

  During the ride down Dad had told me the story of San Toy.

  The Federal Government had bought the entire area in 1935 and created a National Forest. They had the WPA come in and tear down every building in the area. The town of San Toy was gone by then.

  At the end of World War I the government ended subsidies to keep marginal coal mines open. Peabody Coal had one of those mines at San Toy. Since it was no longer profitable they ordered the Mine Superintendent to shut off the pumps and let the mine flood. This way they could take the tax write off.

  The Superintendent at the time was a John Campsey. He was my grandfather Rosses uncle. This would make him my great-great uncle. He personally went to the pump house and turned them off. He had armed guards with him because they were afraid of a riot among the workers. There was no riot. Everyone was packing and leaving.

  San Toy has two sections, the main living area for the two hundred employees and their families. Company owned houses, the company store, and a company owned church building along with the jail were in the main area.

  In what they called Over the Hill, which was on the other side of a nearby hill were several bars and brothels. They had multiple bars and brothels, so that various ethnic groups wouldn’t have to mingle. This wasn’t a black white issue, more like English and Welsh or any other European mixture that could be named.

  The day the pumps were turned off this all came to an end. Within hours no one was in that town or lived there since. The buildings are long gone. You can see the remains of some foundations. The town property still belongs to Peabody Coal so the federal government didn’t come in to remove any evidence of occupation.

  This crushed my dreams of a western ghost town as seen in the movies. This sounded more like a vacant field with bricks in it. The only building that still stands is the jail. It is only four walls and an inside division with four cells. The cells have bars on the windows but the inside cell doors are gone. The walls are cast concrete so they will stand for many years as mute evidence of this abandoned village.

  What we are looking for is a box that is supposedly buried twenty five feet northwest of the corner of the San Toy jail house. In his letter Ross had said it was about four feet down.

  We had brought shovels, picks, an axe, and a bow saw. It had been many years since the box was buried. There might be a tree on that spot now. If there was we had to hope there wouldn’t be a deep root system or we would never get it out without dynamite, which would probably destroy the box.

  We shouldered the gear and walked back into the woods about half a mile. As Dad had remembered the town of San Toy lay before us. Or at least where it had been. Standing on a small hilltop we looked down on an area of about fifty acres which had fewer trees than the rest of the area. You could see the pattern formed by the roads, both of them.

  The town had been so small that there were only the two intersecting roads. Apparently the roads had never been paved but formed using tailings from the mine. Nothing would grow on them so the roads remained free of growth.

  This would not always be as leaves and debris were covering sections, and weeds had sprouted where surrounding trees didn’t shade them out. The trees were not as thick in the former town as the rest of the area. My guess is within another fifty years you would never know anything was here.

  At the intersection of the former roads was the only building with portions standing, the old jail. The roof was long gone leaving the four walls. Dad pointed out what he remembered as a kid. The old mine face in the side of a hill.

  The adit had railroad ties closing it off. He told me that further in there was a cement plug. If they got past all that they would die from drowning or methane gas. Not a place to go.

  We walked over to the jail and to survey the situation. Dad started laughing.

  “Which way is North?”

  It was so dark and gloomy from trees overhead that the sun would be no help. There was moss on all sides of everything I could see, including the jail walls.

  “Be prepared,” I responded as I pulled out my compass.

  It was about the size of a dime. It was one of many World War II surplus items. It was intended for a flyers survival kit. I had carried it in my pocket along with change for the last three years. This was the first time I really needed it, but like a gun when you needed it, you needed it right now, right there, ready to use.

  We were lucky; there were no trees close to the area we had to dig. Within fifteen minutes we had dug a trench five feet deep twenty five feet from the northwest corner. We were digging away from each other.

  Dads shovel clanged off something. It was a metal box. It looked like the boxes they used on stage coaches for valuables. It wasn’t that big but it sure was sturdy.

  It was closed with a hasp but there was no lock so Dad was able to lift the lid. The box itself would make a nice souvenir of the trip. Inside was an oilskin wrapped package. After unwrapping several layers there was an envelope. The envelope had a stamp which I recognized.

  It was a twenty five cents stamp from the Columbian exposition. It was worth some money, maybe fifty or sixty dollars, but certainly not a treasure within itself. The stamp was used, the edges torn so the condition was poor at best. It might even be considered a thin if removed.

  The address on the letter was that of the old family farm, the post mark was almost illegible. It looked like CA so it might have been sent from California.

  When we returned home a magnifying glass might help. Inside was a very short letter. It was dated 1894, the stamp was issued in 1893 to celebrate the four hundredth anniversary of discovering the Americas so that matched.

  The letter which was more of a note than letter was addressed to William Campsey Jackson my great grandfather.

  It read, “As I promised your father John Timms here is the location of the deed. It is buried behind the tomb of the last governor.”

  That was it. No signature, no indication of who or what last governor was being discussed.

  We talked about it on the way home. If the letter came from California then they were talking about a California governor, but the last one? Since they still have a governor it wasn’t that simple. Was it the last governor after the letter was written? Dad was the one who thought of it.

  “There was a last governor of California, the last Spanish governor!”

  Now we had to find out who he was and where he was buried. It seemed almost too easy. Since I was flying out to California on Sunday it would give me a weekend project out there.

  But what was the deed for? If it was a land deed it couldn’t have just sat there all this time. Some entity, county or state would’ve taken it for taxes. So odds were there was no value in this.

  That didn’t matter to Dad, it was a puzzle left by his father. The only thing he had inherited so he wanted it solved. The fact that it was probably worthless wasn’t the point.

  I felt like I owed it to my Dad to do whatever I could on this matter. I pledged to search out the last Spanish governor of California and try to find this deed. It looks like I was going to be a grave robber!

  When we returned home after nine o’clock that night the whole family examined the letter under a magnifying glass. Well everyone but Mary who was sound asleep.

  No one could make out more than Cal on the post mark. The only thing we knew for certain was that it came from California sometime after 1893 and was addressed to my great grandfather to keep a promise to my great-great grandfather.

  The deed it referred to was buried behind a tombstone. Why would it be hidden like that? Who was it hidden from? A mystery for certain, the real question, is it a treasure hunt?

  That night I read about money. It was enough to drive you crazy. Coins made out of a rare metal would be easier to carry around than ten hogs. I understood that.
Coins made with a design on them to show who had minted them made sense. The design was proof, if you will, of the purity of the metal. Of course you still had to worry about your fellow man clipping or milling the edges of the coins.

  Then there was the government that decided to debase its own coinage by reducing the amount of rare metal in the coins. I could understand a citizen being responsible to know their coins. The same way they were responsible to know if the hogs they were using in trade were healthy, or if the hogs weight had been inflated by watering them well before the weighing, that all made sense.

  It was when paper was introduced that it became confusing. The old Scot tried to explain it to me. I must’ve read that section twenty times. I finally put it down because I realized I would never get to sleep reading this.

  Chapter 17

  Thursday I had my Latin test then I had to pick up trash, this time around the tennis courts. I didn’t find any change around the courts, but that made sense. There wasn’t a refreshment stand near the courts. I did find some really grungy tennis balls stuck in the bottom of the fence, but they went right into the trash.

  I also learned that several students with poor grades had torn their papers up rather than taking them home. On several of the papers I could read the names. They were names I recognized, but none of them were friends.

  I decided to let well enough alone and pitched the scraps with the rest of the trash. Their grades would catch up with them in the end. It just made me feel stronger about what I was doing.

  Later in the afternoon Dad and I ran several errands. We stopped at the AAA travel agency and made arrangements to upgrade my ticket to first class. We then stopped by the bank where Dad bought five hundred dollars’ worth of traveler’s checks for me.

  We then went over to Montgomery Wards and bought a large suitcase for my clothes. The ones we owned were good for a week’s travel. I needed considerably more. Dad decided that the leather case made by Hartmann was the best.