From roots-in@roots-l.rootsweb.com Fri Mar 10 08:01:58 2006 Received: from mail.rootsweb.com (mail.rootsweb.com [192.168.65.34]) by admin.rootsweb.com (8.12.8/8.12.8) with ESMTP id k2AF1wjb008547; Fri, 10 Mar 2006 08:01:58 -0700 Received: from roots-l.rootsweb.com (roots-l.rootsweb.com [66.43.16.22]) by mail.rootsweb.com (8.13.4/8.13.4) with ESMTP id k2AF1rQf010629 for ; Fri, 10 Mar 2006 08:01:53 -0700 Received: from roots-l.rootsweb.com (roots-l [127.0.0.1]) by roots-l.rootsweb.com (8.12.10/8.12.10) with ESMTP id k2ACVcFI017641 for ; Fri, 10 Mar 2006 07:31:38 -0500 Received: (from roots-in@localhost) by roots-l.rootsweb.com (8.12.10/8.12.8/Submit) id k2ACVckE017640 for roots-approved@rootsweb.com; Fri, 10 Mar 2006 07:31:38 -0500 Received: from lists5.rootsweb.com (lists5.rootsweb.com [66.43.27.41]) by roots-l.rootsweb.com (8.12.10/8.12.10) with SMTP id k2A2DGFI016193 for ; Thu, 9 Mar 2006 21:13:16 -0500 Received: (from slist@localhost) by lists5.rootsweb.com (8.12.8/8.12.8) id k2A4hIUR003707 for roots-in@roots-l.rootsweb.com; Thu, 9 Mar 2006 21:43:18 -0700 X-Envelope-From: paul_odlesr@yahoo.com Thu Mar 9 21:43:17 2006 Received: from mail.rootsweb.com (mail.rootsweb.com [192.168.65.34]) by admin.rootsweb.com (8.12.8/8.12.8) with ESMTP id k2A4hHjb003696 for ; Thu, 9 Mar 2006 21:43:17 -0700 Received: from web60918.mail.yahoo.com (web60918.mail.yahoo.com [209.73.178.246]) by mail.rootsweb.com (8.13.4/8.13.4) with SMTP id k2A4hF08005302 for ; Thu, 9 Mar 2006 21:43:16 -0700 Received: (qmail 66155 invoked by uid 60001); 10 Mar 2006 04:43:13 -0000 DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=s1024; d=yahoo.com; h=Message-ID:Received:Date:From:Subject:To:MIME-Version:Content-Type:Content-Transfer-Encoding; b=XnILFIVlxE+tVHExDK7iaap0U/W652T2/W/dDJrfmHPfL6Kf61CXyITzIO/ZAhqFDZ3WK3RWuP7sb4yfACjznTUIpnIrWv290Thy+SN+oe/AGxE6uw/REj8SVEIfrQ50LPm8dUbsJOddBZu2Nt3WuvHEm3WkA+vQZIXtEFKkop8= ; Message-ID: <20060310044312.66153.qmail@web60918.mail.yahoo.com> Received: from [66.141.90.216] by web60918.mail.yahoo.com via HTTP; Thu, 09 Mar 2006 20:43:12 PST Date: Thu, 9 Mar 2006 20:43:12 -0800 (PST) From: Paul Odle To: Roots Webb MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 X-Scanned-By: MIMEDefang 2.52 on 192.168.65.34 X-Scanned-By: MIMEDefang 2.52 on 192.168.65.34 X-MIME-Autoconverted: from 8bit to quoted-printable by lists5.rootsweb.com id k2A4hIUR003707 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by roots-l.rootsweb.com id k2A2DGFI016193 Sender: roots-in@roots-l.rootsweb.com Subject: [ROOTS-L] We Moved To Clovis, New Mexico in 1942 We Moved To Clovis, New Mexico WORLD WAR 11 was in full swing, when we moved to Clovis, New Mexico. There was an Army training base in that city. There were no house¡¯s to rent. In those days there were very few apartment house. My folks found a two-room apartment in what was once a dance hall. All building supplies, like most meat, gasoline, sugar, butter, and about anything you could name went to the service men and women of our great land, to the War effort. The people, who owned the dance hall, divided it into apartments and help your self laundry. The walls were made from cardboard boxes. This place was a real firetrap. My dad could not find any Fence wire or fence posts to purchase. He finally went to the city dump; where he found some old fashion bed springs. He fenced the yard with metal bedsprings. Then he brought mother¡¯s 100 Rhode Island Red chickens from the ranch to town. That same year my Uncle Mutt and Aunt Dorothy Mitchell and their three children LLOYD, BOBBY, and SHIRLEY moved to Clovis. They had a mobile home to call home. The U.S.ARMY SOLDIERS marched up and down our street every day. It was fun to watch them marching. That year there were millions of hopping toads everywhere. My brother BUDDY, our Friend DONALD McDONALD and the Mitchell cousin kept running to the neighborhood grocery store to ask for empty cigar boxes. We were putting the hopping toads in the cigar boxes. Lunchtime came & our mothers called us in for lunch. My brother Bud and I each had six boxes of hopping toads. We put the boxes under our beds. After lunch we always had to take a nap. And when we woke up; we had forgotten our collection of hopping toads. My mother said she could not figure out how all those toads got into the house. 1942 was the year OLEO came on the scene to replace BUTTER. The military got all of the real butter. Oleo later called margarine was white one-pound packages that came with a little packet of orange coloring that you squeezed into the margarine. It was suppose to make the Oleo look like real butter. The first Oleo taste a lot like Mrs. Tuckers Shortening. A lot of folks would not buy it. Now most people call it butter, although they known it is margarine. In 1942 Oleo tasted pretty badly compared to real butter. In the year 2002, I would say most folks prefer margarine rather than butter. I am sure times must have been hard for my parents in 1942. My father out of work. Mother was working part time in the laundry room in the building were we lived. She baked bread every day and sold it for ten cents per loaf. My dad¡¯s oldest brother Art Odle worked on the railroad and he was transferred to Clovis, New Mexico. He had an apartment in the same building. He made a deal with my folks, that he would buy the groceries, if my mother would cook them for all of us plus him. Uncle Art refused to try Oleo. So he bought butter when he could find it in the stores. Mother saved the butter for Uncle Art and we made due with Oleo. My dad heard about work at Lockheed Air Craft in Los Angeles, California. So having no traveling money he hopped on a freight train headed for LA. And he got that job building P-38 bombers for use in our war against, Japan, Italy and Germany. I do not remember much about going to school in Clovis, NM. I remember walking to school terrified. Across the street from where we walked to school, there lived five big snarling, barking red chow dogs in a fenced yard. The fence was wood and these vicious dogs were trying to chew there way out of that fence. The Chow Dogs wanted to have us kids for lunch. Needless to say we tried to walk very quietly down that block in hopes of not waking up those chow dogs. It wasn¡¯t long before father had earned enough money to bring us on the Sante Fe Railroad passenger train. What an exciting time. For you see we had never ridden in a passenger train. The train was packed with Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines. These guys gave us candy, pop, and held us on their laps and told us stories. What a fun trip. Before we left Clovis, NM, mother had gone down town to the Maytag Appliance store to talk to them about selling her prize possession, her May Tag Electric wringer type washing machine. She was afraid she could not find one to buy in Los Angeles. The May Tag people told mother she would be able to purchase a Maytag washer, when we arrived in LA. So reluctantly mom sold her prize possession. That turns out to be a big mistake. Mother found an off breed brand washing machine, that she never liked. I was looking forward to living in California. I had no earthly idea of what it would be like living there. When we boarded that train, it was Good Bye New Mexico and poverty, hello to California, and the sound of money ringing in your pockets. Paul L.Odle, Sr. Lawton/Fort Sill Veterans Center P.O. Box 849 Lawton, Oklahoma 73502 1-580-354-3287 1-580-512-4767 Paul_OdleSr@yahoo.com --------------------------------- Yahoo! Mail Bring photos to life! New PhotoMail makes sharing a breeze.