Lee Tilman interview, 1996: transcript

r 66 T55 An Oral History Interview with Lee Ti I man 1996 ^ 3 ? 77 £>773 P h o t o g r a p h s following poae 1. Lee Tilman with his brothers and their mother, Mary, in 1965 2 2. Lee Tilman with his mother, Mary, in 1930 13 3. John F. Tilman, ca. 1920s 13 4. James Tilman at Flint, Idaho, ca. 1923 17 5. Lee Tilman and his brother, Jack, at Louse Creek, Idaho, 1924 19 6. Lee Tilman and his brother, Jack, ca. 1925-27 44 7. Tonopah-Belmont mining operation near Hamilton, Nevada, ca. 1925-27 44 8. Alabam at Hoover Dam, ca. 1932-33 68 9. Anderson Brothers Mess Hall, Boulder City, Nevada, ca. 1933-34 74 10. Boulder Canyon Project employment office in Las Vegas, ca. 1932-33 75 11. Searchlight, Nevada, 1928 and 1936 90 12. Cottonwood Aerial Ferry on the Colorado River, ca. 1931 93 13. Murl Emery's air boat on the Colorado River, 1935 95 14. Boulder Club, Las Vegas, 1942 and 1945 102 15. Meadows nightclub, Las Vegas, May 29, 1935 104 16. Nevada Club, Las Vegas, ca. 1930s 104 17. Lee Tilman at the Las Vegas Airport, ca.1933 117 18. Civilian Conservation Corps enrollees at the Lost City, Nevada, 1934 117 19. Destruction of St. Thomas, Nevada, 1937-38 120 20. Nig, the Hoover Dam mascot, ca. 1939-40 133 21. Queho and his finders,1940 140 22. The Hunting Party, ca. 1946 145 23. Excavation work at Hoover Dam, ca. 1932 163 24. Overhead skip at Hoover Dam, 1933 176 25. Lee and Noma Tilman shortly before their June 28,1934 wedding 178 26. Lee Tilman and his Watkins Products franchise, ca. 1935-36 179 27. Bureau of Reclamation employees in Boulder City with Roy Shipp and Lee Tilman, ca. 1938-41 183 ii 28. Canyon wall outlet works at Hoover Dam, 1936 190 29. Pouring the underbed for a terrazzo floor at Hoover Dam, 1937 191 30. Hunger Cure Cafe, Boulder City, Nevada, ca. 1932 196 31. Machine gun nest at Hoover Dam, ca. 1942-43 204 32. Convoy at Hoover Dam, December 18, 1941 205 33. Lee Tilman in the service, 1945 214 34. Lee Tilman on the day of his retirement, February 28,1969 226 35. Retirement article from the Boulder City News [no id, no date] 226 36. Letter of recognition, 1955 229 37. Roy Rogers at Hoover Dam, May 18, 1946 235 38. Articles from the Las Vegas Vegas Evening Review-journal, February 12 and 14, 1938 236 39. Lee and Noma Tilman on their 60th wedding anniversary with their children, June 28,1994 242 * * * * iii A c k n o w l e d g m e n t s I'd like to thank Lee and Noma Tilman for patiently spending so much time with me so that I could complete this oral history interview. With their help, our knowledge of Nevada's history is greatly enriched. The staffs of the Boulder City Library, the Special Collections Department of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas library, and the Nevada State Museum and Historical Society at Lorenzi Park in Las Vegas were helpful in compiling the annotations. I would particularly like to thank Leslie Peterson of the National Park Service in Boulder City for use of her transcribing equipment. The excellent laser prints were made by Chris Dittman at Desert Data in Boulder City, Nevada. * * * * iv Boulder City Library Oral History Project Interview with Lee Tilman conducted by Dennis McBride February 6, 11, 13, 17, 22, March 26 and May 28, 1996 This is Dennis McBride and Lee Tilman. We're at Lee's house at 308 Nevada Highway in Boulder City. Today is Tuesday, February 6, 1996. I'm going to be spending a lot of time with Mr. Tilman, I think. He's got a lot of interesting stories to tell, and he goes way back into early Nevada. What I want to start with is some personal background: where you were born, when you were born, and some about your family—brothers and sisters and so on. Oh, yes. I was born in Gooding, Idaho in 1913. April 14. I had three brothers who are all dead now. What were their names? There was Jack, Carl, and Jim.l I'm the eldest and I kind of wonder why I'm still here and they're not here. I almost feel there's something that I didn't get done, that still has to be done. I hope this [interview] has something to do with it. [laughs] Tell me about your mom and your dad. My mom was a typical farm girl, born in Nebraska and migrated with her parents out to Idaho. My earliest memories [of her] are in Gooding, Idaho. That was where I was born, and I actually still remember the birth of at least one of my brothers. We lived in what I like to describe as a tarpaper shack located out in the sagebrush, quite a long ways to the nearest farm. At least, in my eyes at that time it seemed like it was a long ways. My father was a typical, I'd say, wandering farm worker that had been raised in Missouri. Mountain Grove, Missouri. I think he was born, if I'm not mistaken, in Indiana. But I remember quite a few stories about his early life. He was really not educated very well. He really didn't have any skills other than farm work. He did work around the mills in Idaho where they produced lumber from the logs. And I remember quite clearly about those days. Tell some stories about those days. Did you ever see him at work? Did he hire out? I was very young. My father and mother separated when I was 8 years old. So all the memories I'm giving you are from the time I was 8 years old and back. It wouldn't be very commonplace for a 7- or 8-year-old boy to go down on the job, as we would say. You're probably interested in the kind of work he did, in the mill work, and I can just tell you probably from later experience that it was very hard work. I remember definitely he worked on stacking the green lumber. The logs generally came in from the mill pond into the mill and they floated in the water. They were very wet and they were green when they were dumped into the mill pond. And then the logs hit a conveyer [that had] what they called L e e T i t m a n w i t h h i s b r o t h e r s a n d t h e i r m o t h e r 1-r: Carl Tilman, Jim Tilman, Mary Tilman, Jack Tilman, and Lee Tilman at Carl's house in Boise, Idaho, 1965. dogs^ on it that moved the log up into the mill. Then the sawyer had control of it with machinery to put the log into position on the saw. And the saw would slice large slices off of the log which was very rough. And then those slices rolled over onto a another conveyor and [were] taken out into the yard, what they called the yard, and that's where the lumber was cured. [My dad's] job was to take those heavy slabs of green lumber off of the conveyor and then he and a partner would stack the lumber. And they would stack it in such a way that the air could get through it and season it. I say this because of later experiences, but I know what he was doing. And he wasn't a big man. He was a man that weighed probably at the most not over 150, 60 pounds at the very most. And he was about 5' 9". 1 remember he used to say words to the effect that that big Swede that he worked with weighed something like 230 pounds. And he was on one end of these slabs and my dad was on the other end of these slabs of green lumber and, as I say, it was very hard work, [laughs] It was very difficult for 'im. A little more intimate relationship with im. He imagined himself—I say that now from Monday-morning quarterbacking—I'm sure he imagined himself as quite a trapper. And I remember him taking my mother and, at that time, let's see, I think there were two brothers—this was before my brother Jim was born, so there was my mother and two kids younger than I—out into an area where he decided he was gonna make a living trapping. I had a much more intimate relationship with him under those circumstances. He wasn't very successful at trapping, [laughs] What was he trying to trap ? Coyotes. Badgers. Skunk. I remember one time he caught a porcupine in one of his traps. He brought it home and my mother prepared it and cooked it in the oven. It was delicious. Tasted very much like pork and it was quite greasy. But she cooked potatoes and what vegetables she had, I can't remember exactly, and put it all in the oven and it was a real treat. Meat was kind of hard to come by. There wasn't that much wildlife. Ordinarily, someone trapping would kill a deer. I can't remember of [my dad] ever killing a deer or bringing any meat in other than that porcupine. He did bring in a live coyote or two, pups, that he probably found the den, dug the den out. I remember him bringing home a pup, coyote pup, and it was a sort of a gift, I guess, to me. I remember having the pup for about a year, I think, until it grew up. One of the interesting things that happened while I owned the pup was that [after Dad] was unsuccessful as a trapper and I still had the pup, we moved back into a little town in Idaho called Emmett. I was at the point now where I was going to school. And this coyote, we had to keep it on a chain, because after we moved into town we couldn't [let it loose]. Fact is, I guess we kept it on a chain even before we moved into town. But I remember distinctly having it on a chain out, oh, probably 50 feet or 100 feet from the house that we lived in. I think we had a horse also. And I remember that we put some straw down for the coyote as a kind of a bed. And I'll never forget how crafty a coyote [is]. It definitely came home to me that they are really a crafty animal. And this was just a pup. He would lay there on that straw. The neighbors had chickens that would come around. And a time or two he'd lunge to get a chicken, but he'd hit the end of the chain, [laughs] I give him credit for going back and laying there and analyzing the situation. He took and scattered this straw out within range of the end of his chain. And the next time the chickens came over there and started pecking around, they saw that straw there and they went over scratching in the straw. |slaps his hands] He was out there! And he nailed im a chicken. 'Course, then the neighbors raised the dickens about it, said we'd have to get rid of the coyote. 1 think 1 finally turned him loose with permission of my parents. Did you have a name for him ? You know, I probably did but I can't remember what I called 'im. I had a question about a couple of things you said earlier. When your dad was working in logging and the logs went up the conveyor and into the mill, and the sawyer cut them— he cut them long ways or short ways ? Long ways. And you said they went out into the yard to cure. Is that what you meant when you said your dad was stacking 'em up for the air? Um, hm. Do you remember any more detail about the tarpaper shack you said you lived in out in the sagebrush? One room, outdoor toilet? As I remember it was one room plus a very small area for a bedroom. That's as I remember it. You almost have to go back to the political situation in the world at that time. People who were having a hard time making it, as we would say, were relegated pretty much to that kind of living. Almost every community had what they called a poor house. And this was even worse than a poor house. In other words, a poor house—ordinarily, the community would get together and build a house, generally isolated from the rest of the community. 1 mean, this was very typical out here in the West before we had such things as social security and food stamps and all of these things. Why, you were completely dependent upon the charity of the community, is what it amounted to. But in this case, I can honestly say that this wasn't in a community organized well enough to have a poor house. So it was probably the result of some former occupant of this area that had built that [shack]. 1 know my dad didn't have anything to do with building it. But it was vacant and he was in need of a place to stay, and he had a wife and, oh, I guess only one child, and then one of my brothers was born there. I remember that. You remember he was born in the shack? Yes. The doctor ... . My dad went into the town of Gooding, which was probably within walking distance, maybe 2 or 3 miles. The doctor came out when the baby was born. I remember the whole thing because [the house] was small. As I remember it was cold and I was practically in the same room when my brother was born. Do you remember the actual birth? Yeah. I remember, you know, the conversation that took place between the doctor and my mother. There was a certain amount of pain connected with it. I remember that, and the doctor encouraging her, helping her with the birth. And then the little brother squalling. I remember that. Was there just your dad and the doctor there, or was your dad away? 6 My dad was there, too. He got the doctor and that was the end of his responsibility. Did he say, "Go sit in the corner and don't move." ? No, I don t remember anything like that. I probably did go sit in the corner and not move. 1 was scared. She was in pain and I didn't fully comprehend all the possibilities that could take place. But everything went perfectly normal. It probably lasted a couple, 3 hours as I remember it. Then I had a new brother. One of the other experiences there at that tarpaper shack 1 remember is going with my father, probably toddling along because I couldn't have been over 3 years old at that time. In later years I've been in sagebrush that was probably 6 feet high, but that looks like a forest to a little kid, you know. And 1 remember [Dad| going just practically in the yard—this sagebrush was growin' up all around this place—he would cut that sagebrush and pull it loose by the roots—I remember watching him—and piled it up in a great big pile. And then he'd put a rope around it, then took the whole thing and put it on his back and carried it back to the house. I was impressed by that huge pile of brush. 'Course, it wasn't probably awfully heavy, but it was real voluminous. I always remember that as one of the experiences at the tarpaper shack. What did he do with the sagebrush that he took back the house? Oh, it was used for fuel. There was enough of it, big enough branches, to burn? Oh, sagebrush, you know, gets .... I've seen sagebrush 6 inches in diameter at the base. And it's very, very good fuel. Does it burn long? No, no it doesn't burn long, but it certainly burns very hot. And the heavy part of it burns a reasonably long time. And that was all green sagebrush. But even green, why, it burned quite well. And it would last longer being green than it would when it was dry. 1 had experience in later years in burning sagebrush. I didn't know you could bum green wood. You can burn almost any kind of green wood. What you do is you always keep a pile of the green stuff on top of what's burning, and [the fire] dries it out before the green stuff drops down, you see. You can burn perfectly green wood that way. Then the shack had a wood stove in it? Yes. Where did you get your water? That 1 can't remember. I'm just supposing now. There was probably an irrigation ditch or something like that that farmers used. This was right near the Snake River. Gooding, I think, I don't know how close it is. Anyway, it's near irrigation canals, and I wouldn't be surprised but what they carried the water from a canal. But I don't remember. I can't remember any wells, which was quite common in those days, nor any pumps at that particular place. You would have had a bath in a tub, then. Oh, yes. The whole family, about once a week, would take a bath in the same tub. At least, all the kids. But that was very common practice throughout the West. One bath a week, and it was in a wash tub. When you were that small and living in that shack, 1 guess before your brothers were old enough for you to play with, what did you do to entertain yourself, to play as little kids do? I learned at a very early age, because of necessity, to entertain myself with the animal life that would be around, even if it was a mouse, or a pack rat, or rabbits. I took an interest in things like that. I guess I've always had quite an imagination—which you can probably telll I learned to live in a kind of a world of my own. Did you used to catch these little animals? Yes. I didn t catch em so much as my dad [did]. Maybe that's why he imagined himself to be trapper. I early learned to devise traps and things like that, and a lot of it might have come from him. Along those lines, I remember when he was trapping. One day he came in to camp—he'd been out on his trap line. He said, Come with me. We'll go get some quail for dinner." What had happened was that on his way back .... That place we lived [in then] had two or three rooms in it. It was a deserted homestead of some kind. It was located out of Emmett, Idaho up on what was called the Big Butte. And this place was called the Glasscock Place. It was like a deserted dry farm. Dry farm? What's a dn/ farm? A dry farm is a farm that raises a crop without any irrigation. Just xaith rain fall? Rain fall and a special technique of planting in the fall. And it sprouts when the rain comes in the fall. It'll sprout and maybe come up like this [measures about two inches], then the snow comes, covers it up. There are crops like wheat, for instance, that [the snow] doesn't damage. And then come spring, they have a real good start. And in an area that's successful for dry farming, if they get just a reasonable amount of early rains in the spring, then it'll make a crop. Most dry farms will make a crop about every third year. So you have to depend on that, plan that. Something that would interest you is that in the event that it doesn't make a crop .... In other words, to make the crop means that it would grow up fully and head—I'm talking about wheat or barley or oats, something along those lines—head means that it ripens, and you can take the heads off of the plants and put 'em in your hands and go like that [rubs his hands together] and you'll have a hand full of wheat, for instance. Blow the chaff out like that. And we used to eat it that way. But that's making a crop. Now, about 2 years out of 3 it wouldn't make a crop, so how did the dry farmer utilize what he had? He 9 "ould cut it. It might maybe only have a half a head, they'd say. In other words, e ernels were only half-developed. That made the finest kind of hay or odder. Normally, those days, they had dairy stock, and they would feed this daUy St0Ck' and then milk the cows-which was a family enlerpnse, I d say. And if the farmer had 4 or 5 kids-they generally milked the cows twice a day. They'd go out in the morning, all of em go out and milk the cows and then in the evening they 'd bring em in and milk em again. And all of that milk was run through a separator that separated the milk from what they were after—the butter fat. And it was cream, as we'd call it. And this cream was sold generally to a local creamery where they made butter and whatever. Many -I dry farm survived because of the creamery. let me make sure I understand. When you say-given it only makes a crop about every third year, that's when it all actually comes to a full head. But the other two years it may m>/t ome to a full head, but it will still grow enough that they can make hay? Yeah. Sometimes it doesn't even make any head at all, but it still grows up and makes hay. Why would it not come to a head every year? Because of the weather? Lack of water as a rule. And sometimes there's a lot of things, you know: wind, hail storms. You've heard of all kinds of crops being ruined. It's a tricky business, especially on a dry farm. Go on with the story about going out to get some quail for your dinner. I sure got off of that subject, didn't I! You could write a book [about dry farming] if you did a little research. It's a life all of its own. Anyway, my dad said, "Come one, let's go get some quail for dinner." So I followed im. There was a little .... I'll call it a stream because in the spring of the \ ear when the snow was melting, why, there would be water running down this tream. But for the most part it was dry. There wasn't any water running down here. But coming up he had noticed this covey of quail down in there, and he had noticed they had went in under ... . There was a few, not really trees, but hrubs that grew up, oh, maybe 15 feet high. I don't remember whether they were willows or what kind of shrubs they were. They were probably willows But the water washing down in the spring of the year would wash underneath the base of these willows and it left a regular little cave underneath the willows. Well, he had noticed these quail go into a place like that. So he had me get over on one end so the quail wouldn't try to come out on that end, and he went over on the other end and blocked it off. Then he had the quail trapped in there. Then after he had em trapped in there, why, he would let em come out one at a time on the end that / was on—'course, he was over there [with me] by then. And he bagged about a half a dozen of those quail that way. And I'll always remember that. They were delicious. 1 don t know whether you've ever eaten quail or not. They were really delicious and we enjoyed em. Is that how you got most of what you had to eat in the way of meat or fowl, was what your dad trapped? Yeah. We didn't have very much meat, which is kind of unusual. I'd have to take you back to the dry farm again because this was in a dry farming area. When you separated the cream from the milk there was all this milk left without any cream in it. The practice was to feed this milk to pigs. And if you'd had a good crop and had a granary full of grain, you'd mix a little grain in with it and put it in troughs, and as much feed as you had, why, you raised that many pigs. And, of course, practically all of those dry farms [had pigs]. I had an uncle who lived, at the time I'm talking about, within less than 3 miles of where this Glasscock Place |was] which was headquarters for |our] trapping enterprise, you might say. They would give us all of the skimmed milk, it was called, that we wanted. And I used to walk over there—it was a couple of miles—even as a little kid. And we had pails that were called lard pails [because] they put lard in em. You know what lard is. It was in these 10-pound lard pails, and I would take two of those—they had a lid for em—and go over, and my aunt, who lived on this dry farm, and she had a bunch of kids, like everybody else—but she would always, if they had skimmed milk, why, she would give me skimmed milk. And I would take it back. I can remember doing that. Also, from that point, it was about 3 or 4 miles to the school house, and my real early schooling, one year of it, 1 had to walk from that Glasscock Place to the school house. 1 would carry a lunch with me—it was far enough that you couldn't think about coming home for lunch. And a lot of the kids that were more affluent guess you could say, code their pontes to school. Bu, I had to wal hrough the htlls to ge, there. Instead of going around [on] the road which would have been twtce as far, I would just cut through, almost walk a bee line to the school house from the Classcock Place. Something that would be of interest Lard was somethmg that was real cheap. You could buy lard for about, I'd say 5< a pound ,n those days. Lard has a lot of nourishment in it, even though nowadays ,t would be full of cholesterol and kill us all. In those days we didn't know about cholesterol. But I have to tell ya that my lunch for most of the time would consi .1 ol .1 slice of bread with lard smeared on it, salt and pepper on it, and another slice ol bread on top of it. That would be my lunch. It doesn't sound very appetizing, but I'm telling you it was really good. Id like to give yo« a little more history about what happened to the dry farmer who went through the regular routine of raising pigs. The feed was called slop, that's what they ted the pigs. It was slop. And what it was, generally, was they d keep all ot the skimmed milk, they'd take anything from the table at the house |that was left over from meals], and if they had some grain, they'd put some grain in it, and they would fatten the pigs on this slop. I have to tell you an interesting little story about my uncle who was working on this dry farm. 1 le didn't own the dry farm, he was just about as poor as we were, but he was in a little better position. He was from Texas. No education. Could hardly read and write, but he was a hard worker and he had been what they called a bronc buster, which is a guy that breaks horses. This is all he knew, really, till he married my aunt, who was a sister to my mother. She kind of kept him on the straight and narrow, and they finally wound up out here on this dry farm. He was just like my dad, just wandering through the country working here and there for peanuts or less. But my Uncle John, I always remember him. Cettin back to the pigs. I don't know why this happened, but real early in the morning—most farmers get out real early in the morning, and I guess he'd had that drilled into him. I remember him coming out early in the morning and I was already up, I don't know why. The rest of the kids, as I remember, were all still asleep. But I d wandered out there and he came out and here was these two pails of slop. Five-gallon cans with a piece of baling wire for a bale on em, and he Picked em up and he started down to the pig pen. They generally kept the animals, oh, 50, 75 yards away from the house because of the smell and what have you. He started down towards the pig pen and there was a gate he had to open. He put the pails down like that [motions]. Went over and had to unlatch the gate. He let the gate swing open. There was a horse trough and a little trickle of water ran that kept this trough full for the horses and animals to drink out of. It probably held a hundred gallons of water. And he looked over there and there was an old bull standing there early in the morning, and he'd probably had a drink [of water] or something, and he was just standing there about half asleep. Uncle John looked around, didn't see anybody, and he went over—and he was by this time a man of about 30 years old. And he ran over and he jumped right up on top of that old bull. The old bull come awake [laughs] and Uncle John kicked im in the ribs and said,"Whoopeel" Hit im on both sides with this cowboy hat he had on. I he old bull come unglued and started bucking with im. Uncle John rode im over to the gate, which was about 50 feet, he threw his leg over and come down on his feet. The bull went bucking on down the country. Uncle John went over and picked up his two buckets of slop and went on down [to the pigs], [laughs] It was amusing to me because he was a real disciplinarian with us kids. 1 le liberally applied the whip if we did things we were not supposed to. I was a cousin, but 1 at times lived with my Uncle John and my Aunt Pearl, so I was treated just like his kids were treated. If we got into trouble, why, he'd give us all a good whippin'. But he was very, very strict: "Don't you fellers be ridin' those calves down there cause you'll run the fat off of em. Besides, I don't want you ridin' the calves." That's when he was gonna go someplace and leave my cousins and myself there alone, see. And he says, "1 don't want you fellers ropin' those pigs, either." These were things you liked to do? Oh, yeah, we loved to do it! Soon as Uncle John was gone, why, we'd get the rope out, you know. He set an example, really. That's one reason he looked around and didn't want us to see what he was doin'. He was a kid at heart, really. That's why I thought [when I saw him ride the bull], "Why, you old son-of-a-gun! You won't let us do that, but here you're havin' a great time doin' it." Do you remember your mother very well? Oh, yes, very well. What was her name? Mary. KM had ofrehhwneUp wmhen youy ouh avewith growing up? Excellent. Did she read to you, do things with you? Not really, but somehow or .molher-l don't know if she instilled the idea or no,-but became a reader real early in life. 1 can', remember her reading to me b'" U " My m°,her Was « "We on the musical side. She played a guitar and sang. She had a terrific personality. She was always liked, you know. I could va' She was " m :;lrl «•»« had no real skills, and my father left her with 4 rh,lilren, 4 boys, when I was 8 years old. You'd think I'd feel bitter about this, maybe have a dtiHhe o< him or something. I have no respect for any man that would walkofl and leave a woman with 4 kids. Well, that's what he did. Why? Hi' was that type ot a person that really didn't take responsibility. And it got to the point w here it u .is obviously too much responsibility for 'im. I don't think he deliberately thought this out. As I remember, he said, "Hey, I'm gonna go up to the next ton n and see it I can get a job." He was out of work. Then he went from that town to the next, and the thought of his family just sort of faded away. I didn t see nor hear from him for over 30 years after he walked out like that. He left nn mother totall\ unprepared to take care of these four kids. It probably was good in a way. I took on a sense of responsibility at a very early age, feeling totally responsible for my brothers and my mother, even though I was totally unprepared to do much about it. But when you said did I have a good relationship with her, I certainly did. And she used to discuss any kind of problems with me, even at that age. Do yon remember the day that your dxid left, the moment, the incident? T o p P h o t o L e e T i l m a n [ h a t ] a n d h i s m o t h e r , M a r y , 1 9 3 0 . [ p h o t o c o u r t e s y o f L e e T l l m o n ] B o t t o m . P h p t o J o h n F . T i l m a n , L e e ' s f a t h e r , c a . 1 9 2 0 s . [ p h o t o c o u r t e s y o f L e e T i l m a n ] No, because he didn t leave that way. He didn't say, "Hey, I'm leaving." He just said, I m gonna go up to [town to find work]." I understand he wound up up in Oregon or Washington, someplace. "I'll send for ya as soon as I get a job." No, there was nothing deliberately thought out, no big controversy or anything like that. Did he keep in touch ? Very little. He wasn't the kind of a person that kept in touch. He did the same thing when he left his home in Missouri. That's another story, but I'll give you just a brief idea about it. He got into a big argument or hassle with his father, which was my grandfather—he lived to be a hundred years old and I'm named after him. His name was Lee. They got into a big argument, almost a fight, I guess, so my dad just decided he was gonna leave. He didn't tell his dad he was gonna leave. 1 here was a little store not too far from where they lived in Missouri, Mountain Grove, Missouri, and [my grandfather] sent [my dad] down to the store to get a loaf of bread, and that was the last they ever saw of him for many years. He just disappeared. How old was your dad when he left his chid? 1 think about 20. An extension of that story is that my son, Rick, who is a college professor in here at UNLV,3 goes to a lot of conventions and what have you in his discipline. Not too many years ago he ran into a fellow from North Carolina, 1 believe he was, either North or South Carolina. And he was a professor at a university in one or the other [of the Carolinas], and his name was Tilman. And Rick saw his name on the register, so he got ahold of him and they come to find out that they were related! So the interesting thing about it was that [this professor] said, "I'll get in touch with ya." So 6 or 8 months went by and this professor didn't get in touch with him. But finally a letter came and he had been able to get in touch with his family, maybe his parents. And he said, "One of the interesting things that came out of my conversation with my [family] was the episode of your father leaving home in Missouri." He said, "The story goes [that] Lee, your great grandfather, sent your [grand[father down to the little store to get a loaf of bread. What we all wondered about is whatever happened to the loaf of bread?' [laughs] And that's the story that has come down from another branch of the family. So the two bran No. We didn stumbled onto bread. When your dad lies didn't know the other existed? t know anything about that and it was quite interesting. Rick just it, you know. And they wondered what happened to the loaf