So we pulled into Tulare one morning. We went up and the rooms were not clean. So we went to breakfast and I started drinking. I got so drunk I could not hit the floor with my hat in thirty throws. All of the others had gone on up to bed. I kept drinking and kept drinking and kept drinking until I just passed out at the bar. I was not bothering anyone or disturbing anything. The first thing that I knew some rat had my wrist twisted up between my shoulder blades and was shoving and yanking me around.
If a guy had walked up to me and said, “Jake, I’ll take you and get you a drink.” Why, I would have followed him through hell or high water. But the way this guy was abusing me why, I yanked him around in front of me and busted him right in the chin. At that time nearly all railroad men wore those heavy wool checkered shirts. I had on one of those. He had my arm twisted up so tight that it tore my shirt sleeve off. He just sailed through that big plate glass window with my shirt sleeve. I jumped right out there on him and started kicking and stomping him around. His buddy came up and hit me with a sap.1 He hit me with it so hard it knocked my shoe off.
I backed up and he had a hog leg [pistol] in one hand and that sap in the other. Those two turned out to be police officers. That fellow on the sidewalk got up and was standing right over my shoe. He said, “Put your shoe on!”
I said, “I would be happy to. Take a couple of steps back.”
He said, “I told you to put your shoe on!”
I said, “I want to tell you something, buster. I don’t believe that two of you can whip my ass and there are too many people here watching this for you to shoot me. I’m not going to walk over there and let you work me over with that sap. Back off of that shoe and I’ll put it on. I just don’t go for your attitude. I won’t give you any trouble. I didn’t know who I was hitting. If you all would have walked up here and approached me any other way, I would have walked right to the jail with you.”
So he backed off and I put my shoe on. They loaded me in the car and put me in the jug. Right outside of Tulare they had the Tulare Industrial Road Gang which operated just like a chain gang. When the police arrested someone and shook him down they found out how much money he had and the judge would fine him a greater amount. Then they put him on this chain gang and he would work off his fine along the way. They built roads and canals, various things like that for public use. They paid each prisoner fifty cents a day credit on his fine.
Well, they took me in real quick and fined me about seventy-five dollars. I did not have it on me. I had about twenty-five, which meant I was going to spend a hundred days on the chain gang. Every day that they worked us on a state or county project the city received five dollars paid for each of our services. So they took me up to the chain gang.
I had hotel rooms at both ends of the rail line. I had one in Bakersfield, one in Fresno, and one in Los Angeles. I would be in one of those three places every day. Well, the people I had a room with up in Fresno found out what had happened by talking with the other railroad people. After about ten days, the guy who owned the hotel came down and bailed me out. Of course, the people who ran the railroad immediately fired me on Rule Z—use of intoxicants on or off the job.
PEEPNUTS’S DOG
After the railroad fired me I decided that I would go to Alaska. In 1947 there was big money to be made up there. I stopped by Seattle, Washington. Peepnuts’s mother and dad and sister lived right across the harbor on Bremerton Island. After I had written the families of the boys killed, most of the parents wrote back, “When you get back to the States we would love to visit with you if possible.”
I called and Peepnuts’s mother answered it and I told her that I was passing through and wanted to pay my respects to his parents for the great service that he had done for his country. I wanted to tell them that I had enjoyed knowing their son very much and that they could be proud of him. She asked, “Well, where are you at?”
I said, “I’m just here in Seattle.”
She said, “You are going to come out here and visit with us, James. We need to talk to you.”
I had to catch a ferry across the harbor. She was fixing dinner and as I approached the house there was a big collie out in the yard. It was real friendly. I walked on up and Peepnuts’s mother came to the door and invited me in. She and I had a long talk and began to reminisce. She said, “You know that dog out there, Jake?”
I said, “Yeah.”
She said, “That was Peepnuts’s dog. Peepnuts rode the school bus to school and back. Every morning at eight thirty that dog would go up to that gate there with Peepnuts. Every afternoon at three thirty he waited at that gate. How he figured the time out, I don’t know. That went on for years while he was going to school and after he joined the army. On June the sixth, that dog quit going to that gate.”
I said, “No kidding.”
She said, “That’s right. I told his dad, something bad has happened to Peepnuts because it has affected this dog so that he does not keep up this pattern that he has followed for years. About ten days after that, we were notified that he had been killed in action. That dog never went back to that gate again.”
BACK TO CALIFORNIA
After the visit, a feeling told me that there was something wrong down in Los Angeles. I had bought my dad a new Plymouth and he loved to drive. He would advertise in the Daily Oklahoman down there, “Car leaving for Los Angeles on such and such day.” This was quite common. He would get a whole load of people and they would pay him so much per head. He was commuting back and forth at his leisure. He decided that since three of his daughters lived out there, he wanted to live closer to them. He went to work in some little old club as a night security man. I had bought a house on the GI Bill of Rights out in Whittier and gave it to my dad. He also remarried while living in California.
So I called Dad. He said, “I did not know how to get a hold of you. I’ve been calling Bakersfield and they could not locate you. The VA is about to repossess this house because you are not occupying it.”
I said, “I’m not exactly following you, Dad.”
He said, “They said that if they don’t come to some satisfaction within another month then they are going to revoke your contract.”
I said, “I’ll be home in a couple of days.”
So I went back down to Los Angeles and visited this real estate office which was handling my case. I asked, “What’s wrong with you people?”
They said, “You bought a house on the GI Bill of Rights that you don’t occupy. You’ve offered it to your stepmother and dad.”
I said, “Well, that isn’t true. That is my home. That is my permanent residence. I don’t use it very often for the simple reason that I’m a railroad man. I am never in the same spot for two nights. That is a place where I can rest up when I’m back down in this area, which isn’t that frequent. It would benefit me to have my dad and stepmother occupy and safeguard it against burglary or stuff like that.”
I talked with him for quite a while and he said, “Well, since it has reached this stage, we’ll have to have a new credit rating.”
I was no longer employed but I said, “Well okay. Send one up there and get it. You’ve got my employee file.” I knew it would take them at least a week to wrap this all up. I knew by the end of one week I would have a good paying job. So I moved back into the house with my Dad.
I told one of my brothers-in-law about my situation and he said, “Say, Jake. Out there on one of those construction projects, a mason is looking for a helper. It wouldn’t pay you anything like what you need.” I needed about a hundred and seventy-five dollars income to have the proper credit rating.
I said “I’ll go out and talk to him in the morning.”
The next day I went out and got a hold of Dave, one of the owners of the partnership. I told him, “Dave, I need to go to work.”
He asked, “What can you do? Can you plaster?”
I said, “I’m not a plasterer, don’t know which side of a trowel that you’d use. My brother-in-
law said you were looking for a helper.”
He said, “Yep, I am.”
I said, “I like that job but there is one stipulation that I have to make. I am going to need a hundred and seventy-five dollars a week to establish credit. I know you don’t pay that kind of money but I will tell you what I will do. If you’ll give me a check, once a week for a hundred and seventy-five dollars, I’ll endorse it and hand it right back to you. I’ll work for nothing if I get the credit rating.”
He asked, “What’s the deal?” And I told him. He said, “Do you mean that they’re pulling that on you?”
I said, “I sure do. If you’ll just issue me a credit rating when they call, I’ll work for nothing.”
He said, “Well, I wouldn’t do that. I’ll issue you a credit rating on that order and I’ll pay you eight dollars a day. Now Jake, I want to talk to you here a little bit. We’re out here to build houses. If you come out here and have a fight with that hod carrier,2 you’ll be gone. I can’t have that out here.”
I said, “Don’t worry. He’ll show me everything involved with this job. In two or three weeks, I’ll be the hod carrier.”
Well that other guy was lazy. So while he was showing me around, I was watching and learning everything. In about three weeks they ran that other guy off and I became the head hod carrier for that whole mess.
MAX AND SHORTY
That was when California was in a construction boom. I worked on construction projects out there where they took bulldozers and carryalls to plow down a square mile of orange grove, just tear her up and haul it off. The companies had five house plans and they would just start selling those lots off. Those lots were side-by-side, but each house was different from the house adjacent to it. They hired enough craftsmen of every kind to keep up with that flood of construction.
While I was living in Whittier, I got a call from Max Majewski. He found my number in the phone book. Well, Majewski and I began to keep in touch. Max was real smart. He picked him up some licenses and went into the construction business. He became very wealthy. It got to where he was invited to those political dinners and fundraisers at five hundred dollars a ticket. Max had been married five times and several of the women had met unexplained deaths. One of them was shot, one of them died from an overdose, and two were killed in accidents.3 By the time he called me, he was living alone. He even asked me to come out and work for him but I was doing very well where I was at.
Eventually, he made so much money that he decided to leave this country and go to Greece. He sold his business and netted around ten million dollars. He then went down and applied for a passport. About halfway through the interview, the official told him, “We can not give you a passport or a visa at all.”
Max asked, “Why not?”
The other guy said, “Oh, you’re not an American citizen.”
Max said, “What do you mean that I’m not an American citizen? I grew up in this country. I went to all your colleges and schools. I’ve married half the women in southern California. I’ve paid the government millions of dollars in taxes. I fought all through World War II for you. Now what do you mean that I’m not an American citizen?”
He said, “Well, you aren’t. The records show that your daddy and mother were in this country without full visas.” Max’s dad was an engineer. He had an opportunity to go down and work in Mexico in those mines for a while. The official pointed out, “You were born in Mexico. Your mother came back and your father returned to Poland or wherever he was from.” Max’s father had a bad disease and that was why they deported him. He died over there. The official finished, “You have never taken any steps toward receiving citizenship, nor has your mother. You’re not a citizen. You’re a citizen of Mexico!”
Max hit the ceiling. “Well send me to Mexico then, anything to get out of this filthy mess!” He had fought that whole war, paid millions of dollars in taxes, married half the women in southern California, which should have counted toward something, and he was not even considered an American citizen.
Well, they shipped him down to Mexico. He was only down there a few years before the Mexicans beat him out of every penny he had. He married a young lady doctor. They came to the States and the customs agents picked him up for being an alien. Max and his wife eventually divorced.
One day in 1948, my phone rang while I was in Whittier. I answered, “McNiece speaking.”
A woman asked, “Do you know who this is?”
I said, “No, I don’t know who you are.”
She asked, “Did you ever know a Buzzy?”
I said, “I never knew a Buzzy. I had a friend in the service who carried a picture of a young lady with him. Her name was Buzzy. Of course, I never had the opportunity to meet her except he showed us a photo of her in her panties. She was very proud of us. Are you this Buzzy?”
She said, “Sure.”
I said, “Where in the world are you and why are you calling?” She said, “Well, Shorty and I are out here throwing some parties.”
I said, “That’s great. What bar are you all in?” She told me and I said, “I’ll be right down.” So I went down there.
They were so drunk they could not hit the floor with their hat in thirty throws and just as happy as could be. Shorty told me that he had gone to work for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad after he came back. He had been a fireman on a goat. He was involved in an accident which derailed the engine, tore it up, and many other things. As much as I knew about railroads and from his description, I believed that he had caused the accident when they were yanking the trains in the yards. He was drunk all the time. Anyway, he sued them and won about a sixty thousand dollar settlement out of it, which was big, big money back then.
We talked and laughed and reviewed. He asked, “Where is Majewski?” I told him. He told me, “I’m going to see Majewski tomorrow.” When Max came home from work his house was so full of flowers that he could hardly walk through it. Shorty and Buzzy stayed with him for a while. After that we never heard from Shorty again.
SETTLING DOWN
After three years in California, I had a chance to go to work in Lake Charles, Louisiana, with the City Service of Continental Refinery as an A operator. So I quit my construction job and went out there. When I arrived they did not have the refinery completed to where they needed operators so I came back to Ponca City just to fool around.
I had a blind date one Saturday night with Rosita Vitale. I enjoyed the evening very much and I told her that I was going to marry her.
She answered, “I’m a young widow woman out here. If you’re so hot to marry, why hasn’t it happened quicker?”
I told her, “I’ve just never met anybody that I wanted that bad.”
She said, “Jake, I’ve got a daughter that is thirteen years old. I have the responsibility of running a dress shop up town. I own my home. There is just too much at stake here. I really have enjoyed the evening with you. You are really interesting. But I could not do anything like that.” Then she asked, “What are you doing tomorrow?”
I said, “Nothing in particular.”
She asked, “Will you have lunch with me?”
I said, “You bet.”
The next day I had lunch with her and said, “Rosita, you’ve got to make up your mind, Baby, because I’m leaving town in the morning.”
She asked, “Where are you going?”
I said, “I’m going down to Texas to open up a beer joint and barbecue stand for my brother. I’ll be down there seven days.”
She asked, “Where are you going after that?”
I answered, “I haven’t any idea. I’m just freelancing here and there. But that is where I’ll be for the next seven days.”
She said, “Jake, you’re so interesting but I went out dancing with you just one time and an awful lot of people saw it. It seems like you know everybody in Ponca City or they know you. I have heard more bad things about you today than all the other men in Ponca City put together. You fascinate me in a way
but then I’m scared to death of you.”
I said, “Well, I’m leaving here tomorrow.”
She asked me to give her my phone number and address and I did. She called me every day. Finally she asked, “Are you still leaving there?”
I said, “Yeah, I’m leaving.”
She said, “Well, come on back home. We’ll get married. We’ll have to wait six weeks because I’m Catholic. On Catholic marriages you have to announce it six weeks in advance.”
So I came back and married Rosita on July 6, 1949. I decided to change my lifestyle. I told her, “I’m not a social drinker. If I take a drink, I’ll get drunk. It’s time I knocked it off.” I gave up drinking except for the times I got together with the other guys from Regimental Headquarters Company.
I then went to work for the Ponca City flour mill. They had about two thousand pounds of flour that had gotten bugs and worms in it and they needed to process that flour for export to foreign lands. All we had to do was dump it in a great big hopper exposed to extremely high heat which killed those bugs. I worked down there on a temporary basis for about a month and a half.
Afterwards my brother-in-law told me, “Jake, they need a coke knocker down at City Service.4 Would you go to work as a coke knocker?”
I said, “Yeah, I will.”
He said, “It is real tough, hard and dangerous work.”
I asked, “They’ve got other people doing that?”
He said, “Yeah, but it is really tough, Jake.”
I said, “Well, I’ll go down and check it out and see.”
He said, “Nobody in the plant wants it.”
So I went down and talked to the head man, Fred Walker. “I would be very interested in it. I am sure that I am physically capable of doing it.”
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