Basketball Games

I mentioned that Clarice and I would sometimes attend Gowrie basketball games, probably riding into town with my father when he went to work at the Johnson lumber company in the evenings. I may also have mentioned previously that both Clarice and I would occasionally help my father in some aspects of his work.

The Johnson lumber company not only sold lumber and other building materials but they were also active building contractors. In the latter aspect of their business they would either contract to do some project for a specified price or they would simply bill the purchaser for material and labor (all items of which contained a markup to give them their profit and working margin). When this would be done the purchaser would expect and would be provided an itemized statement of materials and labor. This statement was compiled from a daily ledger in which Axel Johnson (the partner who handled the record keeping and retail sales etc. part of the business — C.J. or as he was called John, the other partner supervised field and shop activities) had listed the items and labor furnished. Both Clarice and I could simply copy this information on to a statement to be given the purchaser — my father simply indicated the ledger entries to be included by us. While we were doing this he would perform the more sophisticated tasks of the bookkeeping job.

The office at the company was not well heated and on winter evenings there I often wished for a better source of heat than the small electric or gas heater (I forget which it was) provided.

As I believe I’ve also mentioned, across the road from us as we lived on the farm, lived Will and Annie Lines, along with old man Woodard (Annie’s father) and the orphaned Woodard boys (sons of Arthur, the deceased brother of Annie). After John got his driver’s license, sometime during his early high school days, he would occasionally be given permission by his uncle Will to take their Model A Ford to drive to one of the small towns adjoining Gowrie when Gowrie was playing a basketball game there. He would ask me to go along with him, perhaps one of his younger brothers would also go along.

I also remember on one occasion that John and I were invited to ride along with Darwin Liljegren (a class ahead of us in school) to one of these out-of-Gowrie games. Darwin drove his dad’s car and it developed mechanical trouble on the return trip — we finally ended up back on Gowrie around 11 p.m. or so. At that time the Liljegrens lived adjacent to my grandmother’s house. John and I were faced with the problem of getting from there out to our respective farm homes. Someone suggested that I try to rouse my uncle Carl to drive us home, but I wasn’t about to try any such maneuver.

Eventually John and I walked the 4-plus miles home. Actually the night was not too cold and it probably took us only a little over an hour or so. I don’t recollect now if I ever told my parents what had transpired that evening — everyone was sound asleep when John and I got home and I just went upstairs and crawled in bed alongside Vincent.