The Life Story of a Simple Man

By George Howell

This is a story about the life of a very simple man, not a famous one, who did live a very eventful life of eighty-five years of his present age of eighty-nine, soon to be ninety on October 2. It covers preadult years, followed by coverage of three careers, namely US Navy (twenty years), US Postal Service (twenty years), a three-year hiatus, then back to do a third career in banking. The main highlights of those careers were described in this book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 7, 2017
• ISBN: 9781543463200

George Howell

I had always thought of my life as being fully-lived and sort of adventurous, for 85 years so decided to share those events and adventures with anyone interested in that type of story. I thought of it as EXCITING! ALL true events, I started the writing at age 88(2016).

Book preview

The Life Story of a

SIMPLE MAN

George Howell

Copyright © 2017 by George Howell.

Library of Congress Control Number:      2017916886

ISBN:                      Hardcover                      978-1-5434-6321-7

                                Softcover                         978-1-5434-6322-4

                                eBook                              978-1-5434-6320-0

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 11/06/2017

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CONTENTS

Preface

Chapter 1     Preschool Years

Chapter 2     Elementary School Years

Review Chapter   Recalling Events Not Covered in the Previous Chapters

Chapter 3     Junior High School Years

Chapter 4     Senior High Years

Chapter 5     A Two-Part Chapter

Part I:    Entering the Navy and Boot Camp Time

Part II:   Recalling Events of My Last Years of HS

Chapter 6     First Navy Assignment after Boot Camp, A Short Duty Stint in Washington DC

Chapter 7     Preparation For and Duty in French Morocco

Chapter 8     A Two-Part Chapter

Part I:    Back to Washington to Serve Out the First Hitch in the Navy"

Part II:   Hitchhiking Adventure

Chapter 9     Short Stint as a Civilian

Chapter 10   A Two-Part but Short Chapter

Part I:    Reenlistment in the Navy at the Start of Korean War Beautiful Hawaii

Chapter 11   Japan, Here I Come Yokosuka and Yokohama

Chapter 12   A Two-Part Chapter

Part I:    Back to Washington for a Third Tour There

Part II:   Back to the Far East/With a Stop in San Francisco

Chapter 13   Southwest Pacific Adventures

Chapter 14   Return to Japan from Taiwan

Chapter 15   Still in Japan—A Major Change in My Personal Life"

Chapter 16   Back in the good old USA or Life in the Big Apple

Chapter 17   Goodbye to the Big Apple, California Here We Come

Chapter 18   The End of My Navy Career and on Into Civilian Life Hereon

Chapter 19   Continuing Postal Supervisory Work

Chapter 20   More PO Supervisor Activity

Chapter 21   First Stages of Full Retirement

Chapter 22   Onward to a New Job at a Bank

Chapter 23   Bank Move to New Location

Chapter 24   The Final Frontier, Retirement

A Closing Chapter (Unnumbered) to My Life Story

Preface

Almost always an autobiography (or life story) is written by a famous person, possibly an actress or actor, sports figures, or any well-known personality. The theme of this life story is one about the simple life of a simple man. And although it might not have all the glitter attached to the life of those who are, or were, well-known, it still may drsaw some interest from readers who themselves, like the author here, may have had, or do have a desire, to write about their life adventures. For many years, I had those same thoughts or aspirations. It is just now, at the age of eighty-eight (going on eighty-nine), that I decided it would be fun to put the events of my life in writing. These writings will contain bits of humor (I hope) being used to prevent it from being entirely boring. Also, there will be events that may raise the eyebrows of some people and may even shock any of my relatives that read it.

There are several phases in my life, beginning at my entrance into this world and then to the various phases of age. Please note that if you, reader, are willing to accept some humor in my story, continue on. But if not, you might as well stop reading at this point. It is my hope that the humor part does not get overused or boring.

A bit of caution to my readers:

As I was writing my story, I wondered if I might cause some readers to disagree with certain passages in the story. So this is why I am offering this bit of caution to anyone who may be rather squeamish when you get to any passage involving animals. You may want to skip past them quickly so as not to be offended or even shocked. This applies particularly to any passages dealing harshly with animals, whether they be domestic or wild. I want to emphasize that when I was young, just a child, I did not know any better in some cases. Also, in those days, things were much different in many ways. I was born during the Depression and my family was very poor, barely eking out a living. My father (Papa) worked very hard to put food on the table and may have been very harsh in some ways when it came to animals, as you will find out if you continue to read those particular passages. People had to do what was necessary to get by, either to protect their family or to keep them out of harms’ way.

This I want to emphasize: My entire family cared very much for animals. All through my life, there was always the presence of animals, dogs, cats, etc., except during most of my military life. So this is to disprove any thought of my not caring for the animals I talk about in my story.

I hope this does not prevent you from reading my life story and all the other very memorable, at least to me, events that enticed me to write about my eighty–eighty-five years of life thus far.

Thank you for being interested enough to read the story.

George H. Howell

Chapter 1

Preschool Years

For my first writing, I would like to introduce my family before going on to write what will be a very short chapter since my preschool events are not real clear in my mind except for a few incidents.

My Family

This will include their names, relationship, and any nicknames that they may have acquired over the years. My siblings and I are in order of our ages.

Father (Papa), Larkin LC Callie Howell

Mother (Mama), Grace Estelle Lents

Bessie Ethelen

Frank Elson

Dean Mason

Larkin Leon (Bubbles)

Beulah Grace (sis)

Dorothy Virginia

Kathryn Francis

Betty Jo

Margie Inez (Marge)

Cora Bell (Corky in later in life)

George Hamilton (Georgie Porgie) (author)

As of this writing, all my siblings are deceased except my youngest sister, but they are all players in this story. I would also like to name the person who I dedicate this story to, my wife, to whom I was married to for fifty-three years until she succumbed to cancer in 2014. She was a very wonderful and much loved human being. Our marriage produced two fine sons, Cal Eugene and David Leslie, both happily married at this time.

Besides all these players, I have grandchildren, many nieces and nephews with some even having passed on already. Many of them resided in the Midwest and other areas. Also scattered hither and thither are cousins by the dozens, shall we say, many of whom I have never met. Many of the aforementioned will probably be mentioned somewhere in my story. Happy reading!

On a Sunday morning, October 2, 1927, at about 8:30 a.m., my mother gave birth to me at home. In those days, a majority of people were born at home with a doctor making a house call, a rarity in this day and age. I was present but don’t really remember (ha, ha), and I guess I got a good whack on my rear by the doctor to make sure I was alive. Someone else assisting him probably counted fingers and toes to make sure I was fully armed, shall we say? Also, someone would further check my body and could declare, It’s a boy! At that point, I became the eleventh child and, of course, the youngest of the family. Prior to my entering the world, my mother and dad had parented three other boys and seven girls. Perhaps when they saw me, they may have exclaimed, No more. That’s it.

My oldest sister already had a daughter who was two to three years old at the time of my birth. Later in my adult years, I would tell people that when I was born, I was already an uncle, so perhaps that niece would have looked in my cradle and would have said, Hi, Uncle George!

My first recollection of anything was when I was about four years old. At that age, I was maybe too young to know arson is against the law (still is). My crime consisted of gathering up as many cats and dogs I could find and place them in a chicken coop in our backyard. I thought I would be fun to hear the poor animals bark and meow as they scuffled with one another. I wanted to increase the excitement, and since the coop there was sitting on some dry grass, you can guess what. I found a match (must have gotten it from the kitchen which was just a few steps away). I proceeded to light the grass near the coop. The grass, if I recall, was very dry, so it was great fuel. After lighting it, things became wild within the coop. Lucky for me, one or two of my sisters rescued the animals and put out the grass fire. No animals were hurt or killed in that fiasco. My sisters ran into the house to squeal on me to Mama. In the meantime, I had ran into my parents’ bedroom and crawled under their bed. It was a good hiding place, or so I thought. But my mother was not to be fooled and dragged me from under the bed (or maybe she just yelled for me to come out from under the bed). For my punishment, she used what she always referred to as a little keen switch (a small limb from a tree). She would whack me on my bare legs—it was summer time then—a few times. I think the punishment was not for what I did as much as it was for lying to her. I had told her that some old hobo had come up from the railroad tracks, which were very close to our home. That after jumping off a freight train, the hobo had come in our backyard and set the fire. Those were hard times then since it was the Depression years. Hobos would ride the freight trains from town to town and occasionally jump off and go to homes close by to ask for food in exchange for doing some small tasks. My mother was always willing to provide what food she could scrape up.

Chapter 2

Elementary School Years

After that experience as a four-year-old arsonist, many other events came about while our family lived in the same house where I was born. I began first grade at Franklin School when I was still six but soon turned seven. Most of my memories of my first year of school are very vague except of the memory of my two youngest sisters and I having to trudge about ten city blocks to go to school. One incident that I do remember is being bitten by a rabid dog when my sisters and I were on our way home from school. I loved dogs, but that particular dog had rabies. Whether I had done something to cause him to bite me, I do not know. It did happen, and my dad was soon coming home from work, so we waited for Mama to inform him of the incident. If memory does not fail me, the animal was still in the area of our home. Also, if I remember correctly, my papa used a poker from the kitchen or pot-bellied stove in the living room to put the dog down. Sounds terrible now, but in those days, that was usually the rule when dealing with rabid animals.

As soon as that part of the event was settled, I was taken to a doctor for rabies shots. Whether it was that day or next, it doesn’t matter. It had to be done as soon as possible. I was given rabies shot in my lower back area once a day for fourteen days. Rabies shots, at least in those days, were very painful. Once the series of rabies shots was completed, I was free from catching rabies (no foaming at the mouth anymore). But needless to say, after that, I was very mindful about approaching doggies that appeared in any way to be unfriendly.

My young life was full of various types of injuries. One that comes to mind with ease is my experience with a broken right wrist not once, not twice, but three times! The reader might ask, Won’t you ever learn? I did but here is broken wrist explanation.

I was in the second grade and was in the school playground for afternoon recess or was waiting for a ride home from school after it let out. At any rate, I was using the slide, which all schools had. On the way down, I leaned to my left to look at the ground, which was maybe 6 to 7 feet down. As I leaned over, I fell off the slide head first. As I fell, I placed my hands out to help break the fall. As I did that, my right arm landed first to break the fall and the wrist cracked. One of my school playmates ran in to tell the second grade teacher (Ms. Letha Hackett) what had happened. Without hesitation, she gathered me up in her arms and headed for town to the doctor’s office on foot. It was probably close to three-quarter of a mile, but she did the job. My right arm was put in a cast and sling, and I was sent on my way by some means that I do not remember.

My 2nd breaking of the wrist occurred after we moved from that first home (for me) to another home. I believe the street name was South Chestnut. A couple of my sisters and their friends were playing a game called either senders or cinders. I really can’t remember the rules of the game. Anyway, it did involve running a little bit. The grass was still wet, probably from a summer rain shower. I slipped and fell on—guess which arm—yes, my right arm. The arm was fairly fresh out of the cast and sling, so the next step was to the doctor’s office. New cast, new sling.

Just when my family and I thought I had learned a lesson, it turned out I didn’t. I was still feeling active even with my arm on a sling. I felt it would be fine to ride a larger tricycle. After a few rides on it, I tried moving a little faster and ended up falling off the vehicle and falling hard to the ground. Of course, needless to say, I fell on my broken arm. The next day, my arm was hurting, so my family took me back to the doctor. He was shocked that I was back but proceeded to treat me. He took me out of the sling and cast and placed my arm on a specially shaped chair arm. He then held my forearm down with my wrist hanging on the end of the chair arm. He grabbed my wrist and bent it downward. You could hear the cracking sound of my wrist being broken for the third time. The doctor finished up with my new cast and sling. He told me that if the wrist got broken once more, he would have use nails or wire to hold things in place until healing was complete.

After second grade and the broken wrist were all but forgotten, our family moved once again. That time it was to another school district, so I had a different school to get used to. The name of the school was Brian, or Benton, Elementary. Our home was on West Maple Street, just across the street from the school. It was very convenient and that meant there was hardly any excuse for being late to school. Also, it was convenient for after school and weekend playground activity. We lived in this home during my third grade then moved to another home on my fourth grade, but it was still same school.

My life in that home during my third and fourth grades was fairly uneventful with the exception of maybe two or three events that I can recall although vaguely. There was a small creek that ran through a ravine only; it was two or three blocks from our home. The creek had a bridge over it at the bottom of the hill. I and at least one or two of my nieces would play in the creek quite often. One day after we became tired of the watery playground, we started up the hill, heading for my home. On the way back home, we spotted several balloons lying along the dirt road. Thinking we had hit it lucky to find several balloons still in an inflatable condition, we proceeded to gather them up and inflated one or two by mouth, tying them at the ends to keep them inflated. The rest we carried back home with us to show my older sisters and Mama what we had found in the way of new toys.

They all became very shocked and angry at what they saw and made us clean up our mouths for picking items up off the dirt road. We assured them that we did not put the balloons directly to our mouths. That was not satisfactory, so they explained to us naive children just why they were so upset with us. It seems that the road where we found the items was sort of a parking area for lovers. My family used as much tact as they could muster to explain to us that the balloons were actually used by the parking lovers for something other than toys. Need I say more? Later in life, we would find out why they were so upset. Lesson learned and remembered!

One other incident that I recall was during the fourth grade. I was very small in stature (and maybe mind, hahaha) and one or two male schoolmates liked to pick on the smaller kids, which included me. This one boy, Richard Wiser, chose me as his victim many times. One day after school, I thought I could avoid him by going to the boys’ restroom and wait until the school and school grounds became clear of kids, since most of them were on their way home already. Well, as I was relieving myself at one of the urinals in the boys’ room, Richard came in a stood beside me, badmouthing and threatening to beat me up. As I finished my job, I could stand no more of his threats, so with clenched fist, I punched him on the side of his head. He wore glasses, so they were knocked off by my vicious punch, and they fell on the floor, maybe into the urinal. That I don’t remember. Before he could recover from the shock of puny me punching him, I hightailed it out of the bathroom and ran for home. I will backtrack a moment and mention that our family had moved again but was still in the same school district. That time, the home we lived in was just past where Richard lived. But from that time on, he did not bother me, but we were no longer classified as friends, just schoolmates. Whether it was because of my punch or his older brother advising him to lay off me, but there was no more bullying from him. However, I had to walk to and from school very close to his home, and I was always worried he might bother me again, but it didn’t happen. Our home at that time was, I believe, on S. Washington Street. One thing I do remember is that we were very poor and had to move often. My parents never did own a home. How sad.

That is the last memory of my time in the third and fourth grade I can still visualize any incident with any clarity. After that school, our family was to move once again back to the district and school that I attended in the first and second grades. The fifth and sixth grade at the same school is addressed in the first segment of chapter 2, the eleven to seventeen phase of my life.

By the time I reached ten years old, my fourth grade in another district was finished and we had moved back to the district where I was in the first and second grades. That time, it was for my fifth and sixth grades. We lived in a different house from before; the street we lived on was, I believe, South Clay Street. It was close to the Nevada Hospital, a fairly new establishment at that time. While there I was an eleven-year-old in the fifth grade. Things are still a bit hazy as to how long we lived in that house. I vaguely remember that we had a fenced-in yard, a chain link yard, I think.

It was about a nine-to-ten-block walk to school, come rain or come shine. At that point I need to mention that in those days and years, I was a typical young person, contracting various types of illnesses—measles, mumps, colds, etc.—and also getting scratches and bruises from various acts of fun. Also, it was easy to get a crush on someone. I remember one girl, Lois Thompson, was the object of my affection. Only thing was I was such a shy person and too young, of course, to really call it any kind of relationship. In truth, I had a lot of crushes at that age. My affection for the opposite sex was to continue the rest of my life. Why not? Have fun!

While living in this house, we kids enjoyed the fact that we lived directly across the road from a place we referred to as the pasture or field, since no homes had been built there yet.

One amusing thing comes to my mind, and it was a little risqué for that matter. One of my sisters was living with us. One night a boyfriend of hers was visiting. But he did not come in the house. Instead, he and my sister were sitting on the front porch and began smooching. I wanted to be the smart aleck and give them a scare, so I went out the back door and quietly sneaked around to the front porch area, hoping to surprise them. Well, to my surprise, while peeking over the floor of the porch to see what they were so excited about, huffing and puffing, one of my other sisters turned on the porch light. The lovers had been embracing on the porch floor and jumped up