Star rank was achieved on October 19, 1936, and the Life rank on February 10, 1937. In the summer of 1937 we went to Camp Quapaw just beyond Benton for the first time which markedly enhanced our interest and opportunity for advancement. But upon our return to Judsonia we were saddened to find that the Community Hall had burned, but had been sufficiently insured to allow it to be rebuilt. Both of us began to plan to attend Camp Quapaw again the following summer. I cannot overstate the impact, influence and encouragement we continually received from Rev. Masters and Bert Briggs and our respective families.

We attended Quapaw the following summer for what I believe was the full six weeks. Among other things I was designated as a junior leader and camp bugler. Although I was an excellent swimmer the required Life saving merit badge seemed to be my nemesis. On my own during the last week of camp I figured out why I was experiencing difficulty in keeping my head up when performing chin carries and managed to correct it quite successfully. I found I was trying to lay supine in the water; when I shifted to a sitting position to perform the head/chin carry my problem disappeared, to the great relief of instructor/senior life guard Sidney Poage who I sensed was about to give-up on me as well as myself. This completed the Junior Red Cross life-saving requirement and all "required" merit badges for the Eagle rank. Stover passed it the same summer, probably a week or two ahead of me. I recall that the week in which I passed brought in some heavy rain shower activity . One of the tests was to recover a 20# rock from the river bed of the Saline river and deposit it on the swimming raft anchored near the middle. I had done this repeatedly during the practice sessions with no difficulty, but at test time the river was so muddy that the rock was wrapped in a white towel, and I experienced no difficulty performing the task. As I recall Stover completed it a week or two before me. I was a happy lad indeed at the Court of Honor that week when the Life saving badge was awarded by Mr. Bowen. The rest of the scouts in the Gopher cabin celebrated with me. Stover had been awarded a watermelon for composing a new verse or two to "My Darlin' Clementine" which he shared with all of us in the cabin.

On 8/23/1937 a Court of Honor was convened in the front room of our home. Stover and I were awarded the coveted "Eagle" rank. Hubert Smith, from the Search troop, already a holder of the Eagle rank cam from Search to receive his bronze palm. It also was the farewell meeting with volunteer scoutmaster Ted Masters who had seen us through the ranks. He was an individual whom we came to admire and respect. Arkansas's state Scoutmaster, Executive J. V. Dabbs from Little Rock came up for the awards court of Honor, but had forgotten to bring the badges from his office! After a phone call, his son, Lowell, went to his office, and crawled thru a transom to obtain them and shipped them up on the next Trailways bus. So all ended well. Lowell became a cabin mate with us at Goshen the following summer.

While we were attending Camp Goshen, Judsonia's American Legion Community Auditorium, built only in 1934 under the CWA plan was noted to be on fire at 0700 on July 6th and burned to the ground. The building had received national recognition as one of the most beautiful American Legion Auditoriums in the state. It was located in the city park and had been the scene of many gatherings of state-wide interest, including the town's fifty-sixth July 4th celebration sponsored by the fire department the previous Saturday. The non-insured loss was estimated at $6,500. The city was stunned by the loss of a building thought to be practically indestructible by fire whose cause could not be determined.

A public library sponsored by the American Legion Auxiliary was housed in the building and was a total loss. Three hundred of the five hundred volumes destroyed had been donated by local citizens over a period of two years and was the first public library ever located in the town. A WPA sewing room had been housed in the building but almost all of its equipment had been removed recently.

Dr. W. R. Felts, mayor of Judsonia, whose efforts made the building possible, expressed hope that the structure could be rebuilt." ( Arkansas Gazette Wed. July 7, 1937. ) It was, rather promptly, only to again be destroyed by the tornados that devastated the city and surrounding territory on March 21, 1951.

This time it was more completely insured and again was rebuilt! At that point at least in part because of Dad's injuries, I think Ralph Van Meter was Mayor and primarily instrumental in overseeing the third reconstruction.

To complete this scout sequence it is noted that we were awarded bronze palms on July 22, 1938 and gold palms on Jan. 22, 1939, and the silver some time in between.

I firmly believe and have asserted numerous times that my scouting experiences in retrospect were the equivalent of at least a year of formal education. Stover and I worked at and pulled/pushed one another onward, determined to not be left behind. Being a year or two my senior caused Stover to be a source of great support and assistance to my success and I might not have made it without him. Thanks to him we also shared afternoon and weekend employment at the Kroger Store located across the alley from my home. I started delivering their weekly (Thursday) advertisements via bicycle for 40 cents per week. Stover was broken in as a stock clerk on "heavy run" days, a position into which I was also based when he preceded me into a meat counter wait on customers position, and eventually as we learned the stock and current prices into check-out clerks. (In those days preceding computers and bar graph technology we had to update and memorize the new prices each week. On a few occasions I further supplemented my modest income from Kroger's by purchasing "scatter shells" for my Remington 22 caliber rifle (purchased initially from my earnings for $5.85 from the Martindill Hardware store) on my 12th birthday, and finding a quiet spot to sit atop sacks of grain in an adjacent store building used to store it, until a mouse or rat appeared whereupon I became an effective accurate bounty hunter by shooting it. For this I was paid at the end of the day some 15 cents per carcass. The scatter pellets did no substantial damage to anything other than the rodent.

Meanwhile, Jan 3, 1935 passed unnoticed by me at the time (I was to reach my 12th birthday in April). Harry S. Truman was seated in the Senate for the first time, an event that was to have some impact on my future adventures in Washington.

My first trip east by rail (Missouri Pacific railroad from Judsonia to St. Louis, where a change to the Baltimore and Ohio RR was necessary to complete the segment to Washington) was in the summer of 1935 to visit Aunt Mona, Mr. North, and daughters Romona and Janis. The B & O had an observation car with platform on its National Limited which was a major attraction to me. However, the era was pre diesel and the steam engine emitted dark particle-ridden smoke which liberally engulfed occupants of the platform and also managed to seep thru the Pullman car screens and dust the otherwise immaculate white linens on the berths during the night. It considerably diminished the attractiveness of the observation platform. The trip required that evening and night and a second full day and night from Judsonia to Washington with an early morning arrival in the capital city. Washington was a big city to me (at age 12) and I was fascinated by the train backing into Union station and the immediate view of the Washington monument and the capital, Union station, street cars, the federal buildings and monuments, Arlington Cemetery, Mount Vernon, and the Glen Echo amusement park also were fascinating. Life was summery and relaxed as I recall it, with the men wearing seersucker suits (or white) and straw skimmer hats. Women wore hats and white gloves when they "went to town" . There was little concern for personal safety, and the Norths allowed me to escort the girls on street cars down to F street to the movies and return, afternoon or evening, unaccompanied by adults. Shirley Temple was near the zenith of her Hollywood popularity and I seem to recall "Baby Take a Bow", "The Little Colonel", "Little Miss Marker" and the one in which The Good Ship Lollypop was featured. Maybe they weren't all that summer. Mr. North treated us to Sunday afternoon drives, including a battleground tour of the Gettysburg cemetery, and the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis. Fresh Pennsylvania peaches were acquired from roadside orchard stands.

Clark Griffith Stadium was the center of major league baseball activity for the capital city and the Senators had won their only World Series a couple of years or so previously. I was a big fan of Bill Dickey, catcher for the Yankees under manager Joe McCarthy, as he had "been raised" around Kensett, played some ball with Jimmy Gill, and often left a couple of his bird-hunting dogs with Jimmy during the baseball season. There were eight major league teams in each of the National and American Leagues in those years, and my hero attention focused upon the Cardinals and Yankees respectively. Dizzy and Daffy Dean, Pepper Martin, Joe Medwick et al were also spotlighted.

The New York Yankees stayed at the Shoreham Hotel when in Washington, just across Calvert Street from the North's residence apartment. By scouting the hotel lobby a couple of mornings I was able to identify a few players, and relief pitcher Johnny Murphy struck up a couple of conversations with me and I was able to convey to him that I had a letter of introduction from Jimmy to Bill Dickey. He advised me to seek to obtain a box seat adjacent to the Yankee dugout and he would attempt to assure that Bill was able to at least say "hello".

Mr. North arranged for tickets and, as best I recall, about the end of the 2nd inning Bill paused briefly at the rail and hastily took the letter into the dugout. I think it was against League rules for the players to converse or otherwise contact the fans. Anyway, a couple of innings later he again paused long enough to tell me to come down under the stands to the Yankee locker room after the game and that he would meet me there. Naturally, I did so and he was prompt in making an appearance and escorting me into the room where the Yankees had showered and were in various stages of dressing. The first one Bill led me to, clad only in undershirt and shorts, was his roommate Lou Gehrig. Lou was genial, comfortable to shake hands with, and promptly accepted the baseball Bill had brought and autographed it in the "star's spot" on the cover (I recognized the spot because Jimmy had one at home where Babe Ruth had signed it at the same spot). We then traveled back and forth thru the locker room until I had secured autographs from a majority of the players. Lefty Gomez was one, as well as Tony Lazzari, Red Ruffing, et al. I still have the ball in a display cabinet at home. -- I don't recall who won the game, and the Yankees did NOT win the American League pennant that year, but it was the "high spot" of my summer. Babe Ruth had retired the preceding year from the Yanks and gone to the Boston Braves.

"Iron Man Lou" Gehrig's consecutive game streak ended four years later at 2,130 on Tuesday May 2, 1939 (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis). The record lasted until September 6, 1995 when it was exceeded by Cal Ripkin of the Baltimore Orioles. Gehrig's highest salary (1938 after a holdout) was $39,000. Gehrig and Dickey were roommates when the Yankees were on the road. Until Babe Ruth retired, Gehrig usually followed him in the lineup (batting fourth). Gehrig seemed fated to get second billing. He took himself out of the lineup on Tuesday, May 2, 1939. His farewell remarks were given before a full house at Yankee stadium on July 4, 1939 when he stated I'm the luckiest man on the face of the earth". He died on June 2, 1941 at age 37.

Career statistics: batting .340; 493 home runs; 1,991 RBI's. He married Eleanor Twitchell on Sept. 29, 1933 on the day of a game; his wife died in 1984. He replaced Wally Pipp at first base on June 2, 1925, and remained there almost 14 years. The Iron Horse of baseball. A "quiet hero". Baseball Hall of Fame. I continue to enjoy and thrill to the movie "The Pride of the Yankees" which focused on Gehrig's career and stared Gary Cooper. Bill Dickey's career continued as a player into the early 1940's, and he became Yankee manager for a year or two before final retirement. He, too, is in the Baseball Hall of Fame at Cooperstown, N.Y.

That same summer the North's and I dove over to Annapolis one Sunday and met with Ralph Mann, Jr. a plebe midshipman from Judsonia. He was an outstanding athlete, especially in baseball at the academy and presented two balls to me with which he had hit home runs in intercollegiate play which I proudly retained until they became casualties of the 1952 tornado.

Dad was also mayor when Judson Avenue was first paved, expanded to include curbs, and when a city water and sewer system were installed. He also bought a parcel of land from a Mr. Sanford to the west of the Baptist Church that he allowed the town to use for the acquisition of dirt from which a levee was built to prevent downtown from flooding in the spring, usually from backwater. Most of the town's periodic flooding problems were not completely solved, however, until the Greer's ferry dam on Little Red River was built in the early 1960's --- it was dedicated by President John F. Kennedy in a ceremony at Heber Spings!

In 1938-39 Stover became a freshman at Harding College in Searcy, and also spent 1939-40 and summer school of '40 at Harding. In 1940-41 he taught at Judsonia High School, mostly the 7th and 8th grades plus one or two high school classes (and received $60 per month for 9 months as salary). The following year (1941-'42) he did the same but at a raise o $65.00 / mo.

School year 1942-'43 starting with summer school in '42 he spent at the Univ. of Arkansas, Fayetteville, from which he graduated in June 1943.
From June 1943 to June 46 he served in the United States Air Force, as a navigator with assigned duties in the European theatre.

1939

The summer of 1939 was memorable. Mr. North, as Deputy Third Assistant Postmaster General drew an assignment of representing the department in Panama when the 3 cent stamp commemorating the 25th anniversary of the opening of the Panama Canal was to be issued. He and Mona loved to travel and decided to take Romona and Janis along, and they also invited my parents to allow me to accompany them. I recall dad expressing some hesitancy not because of the cost, he explained, but because of the possible imposition my presence could pose for the North's. Mr. North finally prevailed, and preparations for the experience gradually unfolded. I recall that Mr. Robert Fellers, Superintendent of Stamps, and staffers Roy Sheridan, Harry Stein were also accompanying us. I was thrilled in part because as I hadn't been outside the USA previously. I made my now familiar journey by train from Judsonia to St. Louis to Washington to join them. The B & 0 train always backed the last several blocks into Union Station and during this maneuver the Washington monument would come into view and the sight was thrilling to me.

After a few days in Washington all of us took the Pennsylvania RR to New York city where we spent a couple of days at Flushing Meadows where the 1939 World's Fair was in full swing. I recall less of the detail of that Fair than of the 1933 world's Fair in Chicago where more time had been spent. We finally boarded the U. S.S. Talamanca of the U. S Fruit Line in New York harbor and sailed off into the evening past the Statue of Liberty, another ever thrilling sight for a country boy. On board the ship was an abundance of attractive food with bananas prepared and served in more ways than I thought to be possible, a perpetual buffet of ripe bananas, games of horse racing for small wager gambling, other games, and a nice swimming pool. A morning news bulletin was under the door each a. m.

I'm not certain but I believe two full days and nights were required before we sailed into the harbor past the Moor Castle at Havana, Cuba. We were afforded an all day tour of Havana by local Postal officials, past the Grand Hotel with numerous areas of mismatched light pink paint necessitated it was explained by cannon holes inflicted during a fairly recent revolution. We also toured a cigar factory wherein hand rolled Habanas were featured. The site of the sinking of the battleship Maine which ignited the Spanish American war was still a major attraction in the harbor, At the waterfront that evening prior to again debarking we were afforded a visual tour of the huge bar "Sloppy Joe's" outside which were numerous young urchins sleeping in the gutter which I had never witnessed previously. A large number of neon displays resulted in that section of the city being more attractive at night than during the day. I don't recall any shopping. We sailed that evening on high tide into the Caribbean for Puerto Limon, Costa Rico. The on ship experience was a lesser novelty to the North's than to me for a year or so previously they had enjoyed a similar adventure to/from New York and Puerto Rica.

2 or 3 days later we docked in Puerto Limon and were treated to a view of scores of laborers each carrying a large stalk of very large green, bananas on board and into the hold of the Talamanca for transport back to New York. It was a very colorful and impressive sight. Since two or three days would be required to complete all the loading and unloading we were treated to a trip by rail to the capital at San Jose. So by mid-morning we were en route on the narrow gauge railroad through the tropical countryside. The train passed through dense coffee plantings where one could reach out the window and pull hands-full of green coffee beans. Looking down the mountain side and into the river we could identify dozens of huge crocodiles sunning on sand bars and the river bank, and a fair number of tropical birds were also admired. We were hosted again by Postal officials in San Jose while staying in a splendid and fashionable hotel in the center of town. It was on the veranda of the hotel that I initiated one of my first valuable tourist lessons. Traversing the jungle on the trip from Port Limon had sharpened my appetite to secure a machete as a primary major souvenir of the country. A native stand on the veranda commanded my scrutiny and I carefully selected a large machete with a polished bone handle, steel blade, and an attractive hand-designed leather sheath. I don't recall its cost but the figure of $10.95 is suggested (And that to a chap earning his savings at fifteen cents an hour was an appreciable sum.) I was delighted with my purchase. The following day we reversed our path by rail down the mountains to Port Limon and the sea. The workers had completed their loading of the ship, and we sailed on the evening high tide for Cristobal, Canal Zone. However, the Captain quickly admonished all passengers that a hurricane was brewing two or three hundred miles to the NNE in the Caribbean and that the sea could become rough shortly... He was prophetic and by dinner time, significant pitch and roll was being endured ... enough so that some elected to skip the meal and find an excuse to remain in the breeze on deck where nausea seemed to be diminished. I was also more comfortable in a supine posture, but the cabin was also uncomfortably warmer.

This was my first marginal taste of sea sickness.

The Talamanca pitched and rolled all night, but we docked uneventfully the next morning in Cristobal/Gatun. After debarking and experiencing a brief tour of the Cristobal locks as our introduction to the Canal, we boarded a train for the trip across the isthmus to Balboa/Panama City/ where we checked into an old wooden Colonial style hotel. Its closets had an automatic light in each closet designed to prevent mildew of clothing and shoes stored therein. Some mosquito netting also was provided. The service was excellent; the weather hot and humid; there usually was a cloudburst between 2 and 4 p.m daily and we learned to arrange to be indoors at that time if possible. Old Panama City and its stone ruins were fascinating and I recall intently watching an army of large ants hauling leaves and other objects thru the grass and shrubbery. They had worn a highly visible trail about four inches wide and several hundred feet in length. One exhibit just outside the ruins featured a sloth which I had never previously encountered. The central Miraflores lock thru (near) the Galliard Cut also representing a major engineering achievement had been demonstrated with pride.

The first day sale ceremony was held on board the USS Charleston anchored in Balboa harbor The admiral was congenial and an attentive host and escorted me personally to the mess where he commandeered a large cherry ice cream cone (the cream frozen on board) for my entertainment. And, we had lunch in the mess. On the same day the Canal Zone Government issued a full set of multi-demonitional stamps of which I also secured first day cancellations. About a year later Mr. North informed me that the Admiral had been lost at sea during a severe storm.

Undoubtedly, I've forgotten many of the pleasurable features of the Canal Zone stay. As my initial overseas trip it was delightful and opened horizons for me I had never even imagined