1964 was a far different world than the one we all live in today. Ronnie couldn't know that of course, he was fresh out of high school and like most young men at the time, there was not a single clue in his mind of what he would do with his life.
His world had been school, and work, it was the only world he knew. As far as anything like a social life, there just was not any time and even going to something sports practice was impossible.
Growing up on the farm didn't help one bit, the family was dirt poor compared to most of the other kids he knew. Those kids all had parents that had good union jobs in the local paper mill, they were all rich.
All his family had was acres and acres of land, hills covered with trees, fields that needed harvesting. A few times each year there would be some money coming in, those times meant a trip to town in the boat. Most of the time when they sold some hay or some meat, they delivered that with the wagon, then led back a Cow or some Rabbits, once it was several Goats.
Ronnie grew up chopping wood and milking Cows, using the school bus as his delivery system for the fresh foamy milk to some of his neighbors.
Each year he walked the 9 miles over to Jenny and Harry Bodine's place, Harry was crippled with arthritis so Ronnie fell some trees and split it for them. 10 cords of firewood was a lot of axe swinging. But Ronnie just went at a steady pace, stopping only to eat and sleep and after a few days he had theirs done.
He just slept each night over there the entire time until it was all done.
There were Chickens, too, he carefully gathered the eggs and washed them gently, wrapping them in the cloth he cut from left over grain sacks.
Rain or shine, he walked the mile and a half to meet the bus, carrying the big milk containers, or his five gallon pail filled with eggs.
Then it was the 20 mile ride to town for school. His stop was as far as the bus could go, there was a big turnaround down by the river, and an abandoned train trestle he crossed to to get to the other side.
Sometimes the wind came in off the ocean and over the low hills so strongly he had to crawl across the rickety trestle.
Farming meant work, every single day, even on Sundays. Going to school was the only relief, as soon as he got home it was change clothes and back to doing something.
Ronnie had saved his money from the time he was big enough to do anything at all, putting it carefully in the big gallon jar he kept hidden in the barn underneath the boards.
He had $900.00, far more than his parents even had. That was all that was left after he bought the 1955 Desoto from old man Wilcox that lived on the farm that joined theirs. He bought that the year they put in the road, it was more like a path than a road but then the huge trucks had arrived and dumped gravel on it, so now they could actually drive all the way to town even when it rained.
It had taken quite a bit of talking but old man Wilcox had finally grudgingly agreed to the $56.00 he had offered for the old car. All four tires were flat and one fender was pretty badly caved in, plus the engine didn't run. When Ronnie agreed to also repair the roof on Mr. Wilcox's chicken house, the deal was done.
Ronnie hauled it home with the Farmall tractor after unstacking a few dozen bales of hay off the top of it.
"What the hell did ya buy that thing for?" His Dad had said, looking at the crack in the windshield and the missing wiper blade on the passenger side. He gave out another snort when he walked around and saw the right front fender jammed against the wheel.
"I can fix it up." Ronnie had protested, noting his Dad's disapproving look.
"Shoulda bought a Chevy, them things use too much gas." His Dad said, then wandered off to do some work.
It took six months and lots of effort, but one day Ronnie started the car. It belched huge clouds of smoke for nearly an hour, then settled down into a steady throb once he got fresh fuel and oil to it.
The crack in the windshield was gone, he had found one car just like it in a wrecking yard and had raided parts every time he got a chance. The used fender he put on was green, the car was red and white.
Gunther Morgan owned the yard, and was happy to have a strapping young man show up to move heavy stuff around in exchange for parts.
Ronnie learned a lot about how cars were put together from Mr. Morgan.
Now running and driving, he sanded it down and painted it all bright red, the same color as the barn roof since his Dad had the five gallon bucket of paint. It wasn't very shiny but it looked all right. That took several days since he had to use a brush, it was really hard to not have the paint show streaks, but by being careful, he managed fairly well.
Now with $900.00 in cash and a car that ran well, plus his high school diploma in hand, he was off to his Grandmother's house in California. There was a Junior college there he could attend for free.
He could stay there for free too, that way the family didn't have to pay someone to keep an eye on her.
Grandma had a tendency to wander off, more than once a policeman brought her home when she decided to go "home" to her house in Oklahoma.
On foot.
Ronnie didn't mind looking after her, she was nice to him, always telling him stories. Even better, she got used to him coming home regular as clockwork and she would be sitting there waiting for him, looking out the window.
She never forgot the stories, either. He would sit and listen as she told how her folks had loaded up the truck with everything they owned and left their farm. It was impossible to live there any more, the dirt and dust was everywhere.
They had to stuff rags under the door to try and keep it out, that helped but it never did stop coming. It would end up in their food, their clothes. Everyone's faces were always dirty.
When her Dad was digging a well trying to find more water and all the water he found was mixed with smelly black stuff, the Cows couldn't drink that.
There was more of that smelly stuff in the remains of the creek, too. The Cows could drink that but barely, then some of them began to die off. So they just abandoned the farm, loaded yo and moved to California.
Ronnie didn't mind hearing the stories over and over, His Grandma had a deep accent and it was interesting to listen.
The other good thing was Grandma never forgot how to cook, lord could she cook! There was always food around, she got her military pension from Grandpa having been in the war. He had died fairly young, barely 55. He had sat down one day and went to sleep, just like that. Ronnie always thought that part of that was the terrible burns he had gotten in Pearl Harbor. He had been there that day when the Japanese arrived.
Ronnie coming to live with her filled a hole in his Grandmother's life, now she had a man around to feed and do laundry for, so she even quit wandering off.
He quickly discovered that $900 was not much money even in those days. It cost nearly $4.00 just to fill his gas tank and his Dad was right, the old Desoto used a lot of it.
He needed to find work to help. One day he was out in the driveway trying to fix a fan belt that kept squealing, he looked up and the man next door was mowing his lawn. The guy was very heavy set and he was sweating, he would push for a minute or two then have to stop.
Ronnie closed the hood and went over and asked the man if he could help him. The man looked at him and smiled, he appeared to be quite happy to let Ronnie take over.
That only took about 30 minutes, he pushed the old reel type mower back to the man's garage after using the hose to wash it off.
The man thanked him and handed him two dollars.
Ronnie had a brainstorm!
Looking up and down the street, everybody had a lawn. More than half of them needed mowing, too.
He asked the man if he could borrow his mower, promising to keep his lawn mowed regularly in exchange for using it.
The guy said sure, go ahead. He was still sweating and probably would have done just about anything to get out of that chore.
Ronnie went inside the house and got a notebook, carefully prepared a stack of neat handwritten advertisers. Then the next day he went up and down the street, handing out the ads to every single house.
Most of them turned him down but six of them didn't. One man had a fancy red mower that had an engine on it, Ronnie eyed that, wanting one so bad he could taste it.
He was one of them that agreed, telling Ronnie that when he did his lawn he could use the power mower.
He was careful to try and do a very good job, in their garage he found some clippers and even trimmed the ungainly hedges and bushes.
By the end of the next month Ronnie was one busy boy, getting up at 4 in the morning to get it all done before he had to leave for school. So busy he knew he now needed one of those power machines, because he had picked up several accounts on the next street over. With a power machine he could mow much faster.
He found one in a second hand store for $15, it was green and started on the very first pull. It was extremely noisy and smoked a lot but it ran pretty good.
The next morning he got up at 4 in the morning and went to work, at the first house the lights came on instantly and he got yelled at.
Ronnie hadn't thought about that part. He went back to his house and got the push mower, unhappy.
It took him more than two weeks to modify the mower, but when he got done the only sounds it made was a soft whirring noise. It did plug up a bit more often, plus he had to stop once in a while to let it cool off and it was down on power because of the big muffler he put on it but if the grass was still fairly short it worked just fine.
After six months he had 44 accounts, Ronnie was making some real money. The grass never stopped growing in California, not like it did back home.
One Sunday afternoon he pushed his mower down the sidewalk to the big house several streets over, that lawn was huge! The house was huge, too, it looked odd sitting there up on a small rise, surrounded by much simpler homes.
A woman had called and asked Ronnie's grandmother to have him come over and bid the work.
Ronnie had looked at the place and told her it would cost $4 per week, expecting the woman who answered the door to say no but she readily agreed. Most of the normal places he charged $1 to $2 each week but this place was big!
The lady looked about the same age as his Mom, except her hair was almost jet black and she had a great big chest.
She did make Ronnie a little bit uncomfortable, looking him up and down with a smile.
So he turned the corner and pushed his mower up the drive. There was a man outside, he was working on a fancy car that Ronnie had never seen before, some low slung sports car.
"I am here to cut the grass." He told him.
"Oh, for Mrs. Bartholemew? She is out back, check with her." The man said.
"What kind of car is that?" He asked the man.
"Honda roadster, 1966 model. Cute little car but one cylinder won't fire."
Ronnie looked in at the engine, it had four carbs, tiny little things. He spotted the piece of gasket sticking out the side of one of them instantly.
"It might be leaking air right there." He told the man.
"Well, I'll be damned! I bet that's it, thanks!" He said.
