Walking to Get Buttermilk

My dad worked for the railroad, but was laid off every winter when there was less work. Mother would work cleaning at the doctor’s office on Saturdays to pay our medical bills, but he never paid her in cash, so we never had much money. When we needed some butter, Mother would have Harold, Glade, or I walk about a half mile up to Cherry Hill Dairy, which was on Center street and 4th West. We would take one of these glass gallon bottles, which had a little hole for a handle, and you had to put your finger through it to carry it. Mom would have us go get a gallon of buttermilk, Sometimes when we’d get home there would be little chunks of butter in it, and Mother would sift out all the chunks. Then we’d use it for butter on the bread. It was good butter. Gosh though, carrying that bottle was hard on the fingers, so one time I got a leather shoelace, and tied it on that handle so you could hold it on your hand. That was a lot easier to carry!

One day when was about 9 years old, I went up, and I was about to go in to pay the man so he’d turn on the spicket to fill my bottle. Anyway, when I went in, I couldn’t find the nickel Mom had given me to pay with. I looked and looked and looked, and realized I must have lost it on the way somehow. I sat down on the sidewalk and started crying. The guy came out and asked “what’s a matter?” While weeping, I replied “I can’t get any milk; I lost the nickel . . .” He said “well, come on in and we’ll see what we can do.” So we went in, and still feeling like I’d messed up the whole world, I reminded him “I don’t have a nickel!” He said “Well, we’ll forget it this time”. Then he looked me square in the eye, and said “Now when you go home, don’t tell your old man you lost the nickel, or he’ll kick your ass!” It took me a long time, probably years, to realize what he meant when he said that. We never called our father old man, and it never got into my head that the “old man” he was talking about was my father. But I did know what “kicking your ass” meant, so I never did say anything about it to anyone, and my butt turned out just fine.

I See a Bare!

One time Mother (Arlene) and I took the family down to Bigno to see her parents. After a few days of visiting, and after Arlene’s folks stuffed our car with eggs and meat, we headed back home. While we were making our way through the Levan Desert, Tafta, our only girl, piped up and exclaimed “Mother, I’ve got to use the bathroom!” Well I quickly took control of the situation and said “No, we’ll wait till we get to Nephi”. I pronounced Nephi “Neh-fee-eye”, and after I spoke the other kids chimed in saying “ok, we’ll wait ‘till we get to Neh-fee-eye . . . ”

After a couple minutes she piped up and again declared “Mamma, I got to use the bathroom”, and I said “we’ll just go a little further”. Again she spoke up, but this time, rather than ask Mama she spoke directly to me, the driver, saying “Daddy, I’ve got to use the bathroom, or I’ll wet my pants!” So I surrendered and we stopped so she could use the bathroom. We were driving our ’34 Ford, which had suicide doors—the kind where the rear door open backwards, so when we opened the front and back doors, it made a shield to protect Tafta’s modesty. In fact, Tafta, the little thing she was, was so modest that she made each person in the car turn away their head. About when she got out of the car, and pulled her little panties down, Wesley broke the silence by exclaiming “Momma! Momma, I see a bear!” Of course that bear was spelled B-A-R-E. Tafta thought she saw a bear, and was so scared that she jumped back into the car (I think she might of jumped on top of the car), and started telling everyone about the bear she saw. We were all laughing, and to this day, when anyone says “I see a bare”, everyone but Tafta laughs.

Men Ought to Have Manners

Now my wife, who I like to call Mother, was the most beautiful and wonderful woman. She taught all her children well manners! Let me tell you about how she taught manners.

One day after we’d been married for a while, we went downtown We drove up, and after I parked, I got out of the car, and started walking down the street. After a few moments, I realized I was walking alone—I didn’t have a wife! I looked back in the car, and there she was patiently sitting. I went back and opened the door, and with a pleasant tone she said “thank you”. Confused, I asked “why didn’t you get out? She said “You’re supposed to open the door for me.” Well I immediately fixed my mistake, opened the door, and have done it ever since! Never did I ever let her sit in that car without opening the door. It took one lesson.

Another time, just a few years ago, mother and I were going down to Carl’s junior. She had a cane then. There were some boys walking ahead of us into the restaurant. I thing they were college boys, because there were dressed nice and sharp, with clean hair-cuts. They went in and slammed the door in our face. Just as we got to the door, there came a young high school boy who was dirty, had shaggy hair, and wore big baggy Levis. He opened the door for mother. His friend was a few steps back and he called to him “hurry it up and get this door, or these people are going in!” Those two boys opened the door like gentlemen for Mother and I. As we went in, Mother thanked them as she usually does. I said to that young man that opened the door “When you go home, you tell your mother thank you for making you a gentleman”. Now I don’t know where that boy came from, or what he did in life, but I do know he was taught right. He didn’t look like any kind of civilized human being would be, but he was the politest young man that we’ve encountered in a long time. I don’t think that meant anything to him, it was just the way he was brought up. It was just a matter of fact. I think mother has taught her boys the same thing. I think all of her sons open the door and treat their wives like they ought to. I give all that credit to Arlene. In fact, one time I remember Mother cussed one of our boys out, ‘cause they was rude to their girlfriend or something. Anyway, she was a wonder mother and taught her boys and our daughter Tafta well.

How I Lost my Marbles:

When I was a kid everybody played marbles, especially in elementary school. I played, my brothers played, Anna Jean, my cousin who lived across the road—she played too. I got real good at marbles, and it was the one thing I could beat Glade at; he was good at most everything else, but I could beat him and Harold at marbles.
We would all go over to the dirt at Franklin Elementary to play, and we used to have two or three games that we liked to play. The first one was called “Ring”. Someone would take a stick and draw a ring anywhere from four to six feet around. Now it was supposed to be round, but sometimes it wasn’t quite as round as you it’d be, but that was ok—we just wanted to play. Then you would put each a marble inside the ring and take turns shooting with your “taw” which was your favorite marble. My taw was usually a flintie, which was made of stone. I like them because they were heavier and wouldn’t easily break or chip. You’d shoot and if you was good, you could shoot and knock a marble out of the ring, and anything that went out of the ring was yours for keeps. If you did hit one out, then you got another shot. My flintie would usually stop after it hit another marble, and because it stopped so well, I’d usually get another shot right amongst all the other marbles. I won quite a few marbles that way.

Another game was called “Holes”. What you would do is dig three shallow holes, that were more like divots, each the size of a tea cup, about three feet apart. To start, you’d go back about four feet from the first hole. You could either shoot your marble into the first hole or you could lag it in. Lagging is when you roll your marble like you’re bowling. You took turns depending on how many were playing, and usually we had about 4-6 people. The closest one to the hole got to be first. You would shoot into the first hole, and when your marble made it in the hole, you’d shoot into the second hole. If you got into the hole, and somebody lagged in behind you, they got to shoot and if they could shoot your marble out of the hole, they got to keep it. That was quite a fun game. When you got to the last hole there would be two or three marbles in the hole, and if they couldn’t knock it out then different people took turns to try and knock out the different marbles, and you’d get to keep the ones you knocked out.
Another thing we played was “drop the marble in a cigar box”. Now for those that don’t know what a cigar box used to look like, it was a little wooden box that held twenty cigars. They were about eight inches long, ten inches wide, and two inches thick and had a lids. We’d go to the grocery store to see if they had an empty cigar box, and they usually saved them ‘cause us kids would gather them up. You would take and cut a hole with a pocket knife or whatever about the size of a quarter and then you’d play “Drop the Marble”. You’d hold the marble on your chin or nose, whichever was designated—it was much harder on your nose because your nose is much higher than your chin—then you’d drop it and if it didn’t go in the hole, you got that marble but if it went in the hole, then you had to give them five marbles.

I loved marbles so much that I didn’t miss a week of Primary for a whole year, so that I could claim the reward of little sack of marbles. Mrs. Pay, a nice, big, tall, raw, blonde lady went to the Woolworth’s in Provo and bought a cloth sack with 14 marbles in it. It was the most precious sack of marbles I ever had.
All the kids got pretty good at playing marbles, but I was really good, and I usually had more marbles than anyone else. In fact, one time I had a ten-pound cloth sugar sack full of marbles. I don’ t know whatever happened to it; it probably got thrown away or given away when we got older. People nowadays claim that I lost all my marbles. I still don’t know whether they meant those marbles that I played with or marbles that I had up in my head .

How to Get Rid of a Wart

One of the first things I think about when I was a child, before I even went to school, was that I had a wart on the bottom of my foot. Some call them plantar warts, and some call them some seed warts. They’re probably 3/8 to a 1/4 inch big, and protrude quite bad! This’n bothered me quite a bit! It hurt so bad that my dad cut a hole in my shoe so it wouldn’t rub so much.

And so about the time I had this wart, my mother’s mother come over from Spanish Fork. She was a short, plump lady, who owned a bakery over in Spanish Fork. She was just as sweet and pleasant as you could be. When she saw me walking funny, she said “What’s wrong?” I told her “Well, I’ve got this sore on my foot”. She stooped over at it and, then said “Well you’ve got a seed wart on your foot. You’ve got to get it off!” She questioned my mother “Have you had him go to the doctor?” My mother said “No, we‘ve not gone to the doctor, we can’t afford it.” With that, she ordered my mother to go get a dirty dish rag. Mother responded “Well what in the . . .” My grandmother interrupted her―“Mildred, go get me a dirty wash rag. Bring it to me here”. This rag had been well used, was full of gunk, and dripping with stinky water. She further instructed “Go get a bucket”. Mother went and got the bucket. She took and squoze a little bit out of the rag. With it still wet, she wrapped it around my foot, and then my grandma said, “Now, I need a rag to wrap around this to keep it from falling off”. They didn’t use tape or anything―sometimes they’d use string or tear the cloth and make a knot in it. She put all that on my foot! Then she said to my mother “You leave that on for 2 or 3 days, and I’ll come back and look at it.”
While my grandma was gone, my foot sure got dirty! We’d go out and play, and get in the house, and with the rags on there my foot was too big to put a shoe or anything on it. After a couple days she came back and when she got to our house, she called me over, and looked at the wart. She took the rag off it, and then she looked at the dish rag and said “Oh, it’s working alright”. Then she said “now go get me another one, and I want it dirty! I don‘t want a clean dishrag, I want a dirty one.” And so Mother went in, and again she brought back a pail, and squoze a little water out of the rag. And she put that on with the same ritual; she put that old, dirty, wet dish rag on, and then she put another cloth around it, and she said ”I’ll be back in another 2 or 3 days”.

“Gosh” I thought, she must be rich to be able to pay to go o’er to Spanish Fork and back. She rode the train that went from Spanish Fork to Orem, and then she’d walk a half mile from the train station to our home. She sure treated me nice. Anyway, she came back in two or three days, and looked at it. She told mother “now you look at it”. I remember mother saying: “Oh the skin’s all white, but the wart is gone.” And she said “Of course it’s gone.” She told mother to “Go get a mirror so Bobby (I was called Bobby) can see his foot.” Well I’d never seen it, I’d never looked at it, and I didn’t know what it was before. They finally got a mirror―not one of these you hold in your hand, it was a square mirror, and remember them holding it. ‘Took my foot and moved it around, and they said “There, can you see that?” “Now I can!” I said. “Gee, it’s white!” She said “Now that’s gone forever. It’ll never come back”. And it never has come back.

Movie Theater

Well, Mother, ‘sweet thing she was, worked at Dr. Taylor’s office on Saturdays. She didn’t make very much money doing it, but she paid off all the family’s medical bills from baby deliveries, sicknesses, and broken bones. When mother would go to clean, my older brother Harold, myself, and my younger brother Glade would help her. When we’d get done cleaning the doctor’s office, she’d give us 25 cents to go to the movies. There was the Strand Theater and the Paramount Theater, but we always went to the Strand cause it was cheaper. It was located between 3rd and 4th West on Center Street by the road. The tickets were 10 cents apiece, and kids 6 or under got in free. Glade was about 8 years old, and small, so we’d get him in for free. That would leave us 5 cents to get a treat, and we would always buy a Baby Ruth Candy Bar. Laws . . . they was about as long and wide as your arm back then! That candy bar was the biggest they had, and it filled the

three of us up. The Strand Theater used to show serials, that is, they’d show a cartoon or a serial, one week after the other, and they’d go on for 4 or 5 weeks. My favorite movies were The Lone Ranger, the Green Hornet, and Buck Rogers of the 21st Century. I remember Buck Rogers had power packs on his back that flew him through the air, and they had fancy cars that you never thought of back then—they even had telephones that you could talk across the country with! That sure was something to see back then . . .

Robert B. Johnson Life Stories

Welcome to Robert B. Johnson's blog! My dad and I decided that Grandpa needed his life stories written, and we knew he didn't want to write them. We interviewed over 30 candidates over the phone. I selected 8, and together Grandpa and I interviewed them in person. Grandpa picked the person who he wanted to tell his stories to. He selected a BYU student named Adam Rife. We're so thankful that Adam met with Grandpa and did such a wonderful job! We cannot thank him enough! I also want to thank my dad for forking out the cash to pay Adam's weekly salary. Enjoy these stories! I know I've had a blast reading the stories and listening to the tapes!