FEBRUARY 25, 2015....(SNOWY) "ATTIC DAY"
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Yum, yum, my baked bean snack is regretfully
over---it was good! The NEHI grape soda in the
glass bottle is empty and I'm stifling the urge to
open a second one.
We were talking about farming and those hot
summer afternoons in the forties, plowing out
north of my old home town of Clovis.
This was all brought on as I slipped up to the attic
on this cold winter day, with nine inches of snow
outside on the ground, built a fire in the little stove,
and noticed my vintage 1949 straw hat and farm
water bag hanging there on the wall---memories
came flooding back..
A BRIEF HISTORY...
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Dad sold the Magic Steam Laundry, 417 West Grand
to the Stebbins family, who later moved it to a new
building on West Seventh. (The selling date was circa
August 15, 1945.)
He had been a farm boy in West Texas, dating back
into the teens and twenties...and now had accumulated
enough wheat land to venture into farming.
Our main piece of land was a section due east of
Ranchvale--- one mile.
Things were a bit primitive at first, with Dad using our
old '41 Chevrolet Master Deluxe and a trailer to haul
gasoline and supplies to the field. Then came a used
one ton pickup...and finally a new truck.
I well remember that day in Amarillo...out on the Clovis
highway...when Dad made an offer on a brand new
1947 GMC two-and-a-half ton truck...walked out, and
the guy chased him down.
We went home in style that day in a truck that would
become, in a sense, an old friend, before its days of use
were over.
Dad had a big heavy duty wooden bed built onto
the back of that 1947 GMC (dark green) and we painted
the bed barn red--two coats.
That truck could (barely) haul a big wide-front-wheel
orange CASE WHEATLAND TRACTOR, backed-in...
and transported to one of our farms
It also hauled up to 18,000 pounds of wheat at a time,
which I wouldn't have believed without the elevator
receipt in my hand. It sat low and sagged...in reality
it was too much weight.
(I drove it down the WATER RUNNING DRAW
on the Grady Highway, headed for the elevator
in town--- many times...and with great care since
I was only fifteen.)
Over the years we had an old used Oliver tractor,
a "Poppin' Johnnie" John Deere, and finally two
new powerful orange CASE WHEATLAND tractors.
For serious farming of up to four places (at one time)
one needed the power of big heavy tractors to pull
those 22 1/2 foot ONE-WAY disc plows in high gear.
Try plowing around a whole section of land, making a
22 1/2 foot swath, even on a CASE and in high...and
doing it all day---you will marvel at how little you
seemed to accomplish.
JAKE'S PLACE, NEAR BROADVIEW...
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We owned land and over time--rented some.
Back in the late thirties and into the forties, Dad and
Jake Snipes had their businesses down on West Grand,
OK Rubber Welders and Magic Steam Laundry, a
block-and-a-half apart.
They had been friends through the years and were in a
group of men who went deer hunting each year down
in the Magdalenas.
Not only that, but Jake and family lived a block from us
and Art and Bobby Joe were best friends and playmates,
as well as schoolmates from 1939 on.
Jake owned a couple of sections of cultivated and
pasture land about thirty miles north of Clovis and five
or six miles northeast of Broadview, not far from Rosedale.
He was still busy running his tire business and Dad
rented his farm for a year or two.
I remember that farm well....I liked it. After plowing a
piece of land over time, you developed a kinship with it,
that can't be explained. Yes, I still remember it!
Though it meant work for me, riding a dirty, hot tractor, I
always kind of enjoyed going up there. It was not far from
the edge of the Caprock, though you couldn't see that far.
We kept plows up there but had to haul our two CASE
tractors up on the back of our 1947 GMC truck. Dad had
dug out a place by a bank, where the truck wheels would
drop down and he could drive that tractor right off...(or
load it.)
Note these tractors were state-of-the-art, meaning open,
dirty, no cabs, stereos, heater for winter or air conditioning,
as maybe you'll find today.
Not only did we farm the parts of Jake's farm that were in
cultivation, but Dad also ran cattle on the pasture land.
One of the biggest wheat crops to ever be seen in Eastern
New Mexico occurred in 1948 across the whole area. It
was due to good rains that year.
Trucks full of wheat were stacked up twenty or more deep
at wheat elevators everywhere...a friend of mine slept in his
truck cab while awaiting a grain train's arrival to alleviate
the situation over at Melrose.
The wheat fields on Jake's Place were chest-high even on a
tall man. I am remembering and guessing---35 bushels per
acre, that year.
Art and Bobby Joe
Jake's Place
(an earlier year- 1946)
There was an old house out there and some run-down farm
buildings and corrals...and a good windmill!
I always loved to go inside old farm houses. Jake's Place
had one and I was in there a time or two. There was a
calendar on the kitchen wall that indicated JANUARY 1923.
There were only four rooms, no plumbing that I remember,
(maybe a sink?), some old pieces of furniture left, and the
wall paper was half-stripped or fallen. It spoke of times,
decades ago, when it was a real struggle for early
Americans to eke out a living.
Bobby Joe said later: "You should have grabbed that
calendar!"
Yes, I loved going to that farm...and there are two reasons,
my readers, which likely haven't occurred to you.
One is that I loved the general store at Broadview, run by
one of the Tate brothers. It was a nice store. Even had a
meat market. The walls were full of interesting stuff.
You could buy some twenty gauge shotgun shells there,
or .22 ammo. You could buy buns and mustard and
weenies and make hot dogs to your hungry-teen-age-
heart's desire! (More later on farm stores!)
Something else you've not thought of---our new 1947
GMC wheat truck HAD A RADIO.
After the roar of the tractor and the dirt, and heat of the
day...and headed back to a good supper fixed by
Mother at home, we'd open all the windows on the
truck, drink in the clean coolish evening air, and listen
to the Clovis Pioneers, playing at Bell Park, and on KICA
RADIO!
After a few miles and crossing THE FRIO DRAW, you
could see the friendly LIGHTS of BELL PARK, and almost
hear the cheering, and it was nice to know that something
fun was going on in the world---even if you couldn't be
a part of it!
Now, you see why I like my attic--- look at all the
memories the old straw hat and the water bag....
...brought back.
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Part Two,
BY MIL
03/25/15
