Charles Guy interview, 1995: transcript

h Bb e«? An Oral History Interview with Charles Guy 1995 #3531'<>5° Photographs following page 1. Retreat formation at the Boulder City Twin CCC camps, ca. 1936 6 2. Boulder City Twin CCC camps, 1936 6 3. Lake Mead beach facilities, June 29,1937 8 4. Boulder City Twin CCC camps baseball game, ca. 1936 14 5. The Desei-t Drifters at KENO Radio, November 1940 22 6. KENO Radio program guide, November 1, 1940 22 7. Therese Thomas and Charles Guy at the Katherine Center, Reformation Lutheran Church, Las Vegas, April 21,1995 35 8. CCC enrollees excavating a Native American site near Overton, Nevada, ca. 1935-37 44 9. Minnie Davidson, Charles Guy, and Therese Courture, ca. 1938-39 57 10. Apache Hotel, Las Vegas, ca. 1932 77 11. map of Las Vegas [1905], showing Block 16 87 12. Block 16, Las Vegas, 1936 87 13. Charles, Lee, and Otho Guy, ca. 1948-51 97 14. Lester Guy, ca. 1940s 97 15. Charles Guy, 1940-41 403 16. Charles Guy's volunteer fire department badge 123 17. news article describing the Rancho Grande Creamery fire in Las Vegas on July 6,1942 129 18. Charles and Irene [Morse] [Deere] Guy, May 19,1995 134 19. photographs of railroad subjects pp. 157-161 ** * * ii Acknowledgments I'd like to thank Charles Guy for his patience through our long interview sessions, and for his hospitality in allowing me to visit his home and borrow photographs to include in this oral history. 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 and for access to the Service's library and archives; Teddy Fenton, who helped defray production expenses; and Minnie Brown, who graciously lent me several family photographs. The excellent photo reproductions were made by Ihla Crowley at Desert Data in Boulder City, Nevada. iii Boulder City Library Oral History Project Interview with Charles Guy conducted by Dennis McBride April 6, 14, and 21, 1995 and May 19, 1995 This is Dennis McBride interviewing Charles Guy in his home at 3132 West Teco Avenue in Las Vegas. Today is April 6, 1995. Mr. Guy, when were you born and where were you born? I was born in Brazil, Indiana on December 20,1919. Tell me about your family. Did you have a very large family? No. I had one sister and two brothers, all older than me. They're all gone now. I'm the only one left. 1 I know you want to know about the CCCs. But before the CCCs, in 1937,1 was with a traveling magazine crew, selling magazine subscriptions, and we traveled, the whole crew. That didn't last too long. Would you hit a city and then spread out? Yep. We stayed in hotels, and every morning we'd load into these two station wagons, and they'd take us out in the boonies, out in the country or wherever, and drop us off. And they'd come back again at four o'clock to get us. And you had to be there. If you didn't, they'd forget you. You spent the whole day trying to sell magazine subscriptions to people that didn't want 'em. Do you remember what kind of magazines? Any kind of magazine. Oh, we had at least a dozen or a dozen-and-a-half different magazines. Ladies' Home Journal, and this kind, Good Housekeeping, that kind of stuff. You'd try to sell a subscription. The bunch that we were with, they paid our hotel room, and they paid our eats. But you didn't make no money unless you sold subscriptions. All you got was your eats and a place to sleep, you know. I wasn t much of a salesman, so I didn't last too long. The boss's brother and I got into an argument down in Asheville, North Carolina. And push came to shove, and I got fired. They didn't pay your way home. And I ... I think about that time I think they owed me maybe five bucks. So I packed my little gri p2 and took off, started hitchhiking. Couldn't afford to buy a ticket. So 1 started hitch hiking. And I got to Chattanooga or somewhere down there. Anyway... . Coooldl cause it was November. I couldn't get a ride. So there was a freight train going by. It stopped, so I hopped myself into a boxcar. It was going north, that's the way I wanted to go, so I don't know where it was going. But anyway, the trainman come along and shut the door! I don't know whether I was asleep or what, but anyway, when I woke up and tried to open the door, I couldn't. It wouldn t open. He d put the latch on. And there I was. I didn't have anything to eat, didnt have no water. Colder than ... it was colder than the dickens. So, wasn t no sense a hollerin or bangin' on the door when the train was moving, you know. So we rotl The door was opened almost twenty-four hours later. The train stopped. So I heard somebody walkin' by on the outside. Then I banged on the door. And they opened the door and I got out. And I was in, I think it was Louisville, Kentucky. Starvin to death [laughs]. So I still had some money in my pocket. So right across the track there was a little restaurant like there is in all railroad yards, you know, there's a little restaurant handy. So I went over there and, boy, I was hungry. So I ordered me a steak dinner. At that time I think [it] cost about 85<t, something like that. But you know, I couldn't eat it. I took about half a dozen bites and I was full. And I thought, boy, I didn't want to waste it, so I wrapped it up and took it with me. Well, I was on my way home, of course, so I headed for the Ohio River. Had to get across the river to get back to Indiana. Only thing is, I only had a nickel, and they charged you a dime to cross the bridge, even to walk. Cost you a quarter if you drove a car. And that was a lot of money then. But anyway, I stood there, 'bout froze to death. Didn't have enough nerve to ask the guy to let me go across. But finally, I just got tired of waitin', built up my nerve, I finally told the guy, I said, "Look, I've only got a nickel, but I got to get across this bridge. I got to get back home." He said, "Go ahead." Didn't even take my nickel! [laughs] So I got across the bridge and I got a ride and got into Vincennes, Indiana. Well, like I say, I only had a nickel, didn't have nothing to eat on. So I went to the Salvation Army. And, 'course, I was in between the meal times. So I asked if I could have something to eat. "Yeah, only thing is you just have to wait'll lunch time." So I says, OK. I washed up a little bit, set down. And pretty soon there's a young fella, oh, a little older than I was, came up, sat down beside me. He says, "You waiting for lunch?" I says, "Yeah. I sure am." He says, "How come?" I told him what I'd been doin'. He said, "Well, OK. It won't be long, they'll have lunch." And he says, "Where you gonna stay tonight?" I says, "Right here, I hope." And he said, "Well, I'll tell you what. I've got a room here." Salvation Army rented rooms, but I didn't know that. But anyway. He says, "I've got a room here." So he says, This evening, I'll be back. And then after dinner you can stay with me tonight. "Oh, great! That's fine." So, that's what happened. And during the evening, we got to talkin', and he says, "You want a job?" I says, "Not really. I'm on my way home. What do you do? He says, "I clean houses. I'm workin' for a real rich lady over here. I'm sure that I can get you a job there." And I thought to myself, Well, a few days difference, you know. A few bucks. Then I can maybe ride the bus home. So I said, "OK, let's go." So he says, "Next mornin', why, you go with me and we'll talk to her." Sure enough, she give me a job. [laughs] And I stayed there for ten days, worked for ten days. 'Course, I could've stayed longer, but I didn't. I wanted to get home. It was the day before Thanksgiving. So I says, "Naw, tomorrow, I'm going home." So the next morning I got up, and I went over to the bus station, caught the bus, and I got home on Thanksgiving Day in time to have dinner! 'Course, they didn't know I was comin' at the time. But everybody, of course, was glad to see me, and all this stuff. This was Thanksgiving 1937. Somehow or other my dad, or one of us, some of us, anyway, had heard about the CCCs. Had no idea what it was. But, they knew you had to enlist for six months. So my dad says, "Well, you gotta have a job." Even in 1937 I'd worked for the railroad on the extra gang. No, I take it all back, I take it all back. I'm bass ackwards. This magazine deal was in 1936, and in 1937, I went to work for the railroad. And I knew I was gonna get laid off in October, which they did earlier. That's when we heard about the CCCs. So my dad says, "Well, why don't you look into it and see what it is. You might like it." "OK." So I went to, I think it was the post office—pretty sure it was the post office—to find out about it. They says, "Well you enlist for six months. And every six months you can re-enlist for up to two years. But you gotta re-enlist every six months." "OK. What am I gonna have to do after I get in there?" Well, its hard to tell. Wherever they send you, they have different things they do. You might be workin' on roads, you might be workin' planting trees, you could be doin' anything. It's according to where you are and what they got to do in that town." I said, "Well, that sounds pretty good." So I enlisted. I says, "Now, when do I gotta leave? I don't want to leave before Christmas." No, no. You won't leave till January 2." So I says, "OK." So I signed up. And on January 2,1 met at the post office again. And there was a bunch of us. They had two bus loads of em. 'Course, they had come from the little towns around, too. My little town of Brazil was the county seat,3 but there was still only nine to ten thousand people there. So we got on the bus and we [drove] all day. We ended up back in Louisville again, down in Fort Knox. So they unloaded us in Fort Knox, and it was just like the army. They started giving these shots for everything, you know. And we were there for three days. So at the end of the three days, we all got in there in this big room and they were assigning different kids to different places. Well, they called my name and they were going to send me back to Shakamak [State] Park. Shakamak Park is only about twenty-five miles from my home town. Well, you know, I thought, I'm gonna go see someplace. I said, "I don't wanna go there." "Well, that's where you're assigned." There was another kid by the name of Harlen Burger,4 from my hometown. Fie had one eye. Kids in grade school, coupla kids had jumped him and beat his eye out with a rock. Well, he'd never been away from home. They told him they were gonna send him to California. "Oh, my gosh! Noooo, no, hu-uh! I quit! I'm goin' home." They said, "Well, you're not goin' home for six months. That's where you're assigned, that's where you're gonna go." And oh, he just cried and cried and cried. Well then, in the three days we'd been there [Ft. Knox], I got kinda friendly with the lieutenant. In fact, I got too friendly with him 'cause I called him Louie, I didn't call him lieutenant, [laughs] Well, I went up to him and I said, Hey, Louie. Harlen has never been away from his mother. Why don't you send him to Shakamak Park and send me to California? I've never been there and I'd like to see it." And he said, "OK." So that's what he did. He just changed the names around. We left on a train on the fifth of January, left Louisville. Like a troop train. It had two big baggage cars made into cook houses, had these great big field stoves, you know. Was this a special CCC train? Well, it was made a troop train. These great big army stoves, you know. They had two of them in each car. 'Cause, they had to feed the whole train three times a day. Anyway, we started out. It took us five days to get from Louisville to Las Vegas. And we got here on January 10, 1938. Three o'clock in the morning. And, of course, it was like summer time to us. But there was GI trucks, canvas-covered over, out there to meet us. And they loaded us all on these trucks and we had all our baggage and headed for Boulder City. When we got out there it was four, four-thirty in the morning by the time we got there. And they had all the cooks up and everything else, and they fixed us a meal. 'Course, we all ate. There was two companies out there: 573 was the one I was in, and they also had one, 2536. Another one. Twin Camps. Yeah. And of course they started to assign us to the barracks and the rooms, you know. And you had to go to the supply sergeant and get your uniforms and your jackets and your blankets and all this stuff, and your shoes. Well, time we got done with that, my goodness, it was ten o'clock in the morning. We finally got to our rooms, found out where we were. And they was large rooms. They must have been, I'd say, 14 x 14, 16 x 16 [foot] rooms. They had four beds, one on each wall. Then you had a cabinet alongside, and a footlocker. Well, there we were. So it took us the rest of the day just to get settled in, you know. That evening, after dinner—course they ate at five o'clock, something like that—[they] got us all in there, gonna sign us to different work crews. At that time they were lengthening the runway at the airport in Boulder City. Because at that time, if somebody'd told you, you remember, there was only one airline that came into this area. That was TWA.5 And they landed in Boulder City- They didnt land in Las Vegas. So we were extending the north-south runway. Gravel. Did you have machinery to do this? Top Photograph Retreat formation at the Boulder City Twin CCC Camps, ca. 1936 [photo courtesy of Carl Stitak; negative In the possession of Dennis Mc Bride] Bottom Photograph View from the south of the Boulder City Twin CCC Camp buildings, 1936 | photo courtesy of Charts* Maafc negative In the possession of Dennis MoMde\ Noool Shovels and trucks. Rakes. And a roller. So we were extending the runway. And, 'course, like I say, it was the middle of January. And, man, that weather around here to us was just like summertime. So I was out there with no shirt on, gettin a suntan and all this stuff, and these other guys runnin' around there that d been there for a year had jackets, two jackets on, and I'm laughin' at 'em! They said, OK, stick around till next year, see what happens." I was on that airport job probably for three months, somethin' like that. Course, at that time they only had one beach down at the lake. Where the old highway that went down to the ferry between Vegas and Kingman.^ Well, the road went down [and] when they built the dam, backed [the water] up. All you saw was the road. And then they reassigned me to the beach. "OK." What they did, they had huge tool boxes, four feet wide, eight feet long, and four feet high. And they had a slant on the front with a big door. That's where they kept all the tools. Were they wooden boxes? Yeah. And they had skids under em, on the end. Because you had to move em every day. What we did when we went down there, we'd have breakfast, seven o'clock in the morning. Then all load into these trucks and go down to the beach. There were certain crews... . Course, this was after, in the spring time. But what they did, they had certain crews that wore their bathing suits. And in the morning, when they got down there, they'd take a rake and they'd walk out into that lake right up to their chin, as far as they could go without going under. And they'd have these kids about six feet apart, with rakes, and you start rakin'. Under water? Yeah! You'd rake the bottom of the lake. But you aren't under water. You're tip to your chin, and you started raking, and you raked your six feet of property. What were you raking up? Rocksl You raked and you raked and you raked till you got it clear back out on the beach, all these rocks. And that's how they kept the beach sandy. You raked all the rocks out. Then here come another crew with a dump truck, and half a dozen kids with shovels and they shoveled all these rocks, threw 'em in the truck. And when they got the truck loaded, they hauled it out in the desert and dump[ed] it. Come back and do it again. And every day you did the same thing. Course, the lake was coming up at that time, and sometimes, some mornings, you d go down there and that lake would be a half a mile from where it was the night before. That's a fast rise. Yeah. Because the dam wasn't lettin' nothin' out. So every evening we'd put all our tools in this box and hook a cat on it and drag that box back up the beach as far as.... We'd say, "Well, this'll be out of the reach of the water in the morning." And some mornings it was, some mornings it wasn't. Some mornings that water'd get that far up the box [measures about two feet with his hands]. That's how fast it come in. Like I said, that was the only beach on the lake at that time. They used to have a lot of people come down there, especially in the summer time. And all the company, all the tourists. They give me the job on the honey-dippin' crew. The what? [Laughs] The honey-dippin' crew. What's that? That is you clean the toilets! Well, as luck would have it, they made me the crew-pusher, I didn't have to do the work. I just said, "We'll do this one next." We had four on a dump truck, and four kids, and then [on] this dump truck was a big vat, round tank7 that was about six feet across. And it had handles on the side. And in each one of these toilets, they had, I think, eight of them, eight toilets. Four for women, four for men. But in each toilet they had three seats. Lake Mead boat docks, bathing beach, picnic ramadas, dressing rooms, and toilets, June 29, 1937 [ Bureau of Reclamation photo by Rupert Spearman] And the back end would open up. You had to open up, unhook it, and there was another tank about the size of this [measures about two feet with his hands]. And they stood about two feet high. That caught everything, you know. So you'd take that out, hand it to the guy in the truck, and they'd dump it in the big vat. And you give it back to them, and they set it down and poured creosote^ and water back in it, about four inches deep. Put it back in the hole, pull the door down. You did this for all eight of 'em. When you got all that done—they had a lid for this thing on the truck—and you'd have to haul it out across the desert and they had a big hole out there. Oh, I'd say, that hole must have been twelve feet square. And, of course, it was on an angle because they did it with a bulldozer. And you dumped this big vat into that [hole]. You dumped it and you had sacks of lime on the truck, hot lime, and you'd take this lime and scatter it all over the stuff you dumped in there, and it'd eat it up, you see. And then you went back to the outhouses, got buckets and brooms, and then you went in there and scrubbed em down. And when you got done, you were done for the day. It was great! We started at, oh, before eight o'clock in the morning, and by nine-thirty we was all done for the day. And you were free the rest of the day? We were free. We spent more time in the lake than the fish did! Then they decided they was gonna put in Vegas Wash.9 The tourist facilities down there? At that time it was a campground. And another beach. Well, the CCC boys planted all those trees down there at the campground. For months they had a crew that came into Vegas every day, had this dump truck, and they come into the stockyards. Used to be a stockyard down there at Charleston [Boulevard] and the railroad yard.l° They had this dump truck. The bed itself was only about, oh, twelve inches deep. But it had hinges on em and you could lay em down. The sides? The sides. Lay the sides down. And then they had holes for stakes, you know, in em. And they built a stake bed for it that was six feet high and the length of the truck on both sides and the front and the back. And they came into the stockyards every day and loaded that truck with horse manure, cow manure, mostly horse manure. And every afternoon they'd get back out to the lake, out to the ground where we was makin' it, and they dumped it. And at that time, I was a crew-pusher on that crew. And we had, I don't know, six or eight kids with wheelbarrows, and another dozen or so with shovels, and we had to make this pile. They was gettin' ready to plant all these trees, so they was building this pile of manure. Well, by the time they got there, it was time to go home. So we'd go, and the next morning, we'd get down there, the crew, we'd start filling up these wheelbarrows, and these guys'd wheel this manure over to the pile and dump it. That pile, when we got through, 'bout time we started planting the trees, I'd say that manure pile was, oh, 30 feet wide, 50 feet long, and at least 15, 18 feet high. It got so big, that to take it up to the top, you had to go completely around that pile before you got to the top [makes a spiral gesture], and you dumped it with your little wheelbarrow, and there was three or four guys up there with rakes and shovels, would push it out. Oh, my God, we did that for days and days. Well, we did it for weeks for that matter. Like I say, after they got enough of it then they put the kids in there. See, there was no roads over there from Boulder Beach. H The Lakeshore Road wasn't built yet? It wasn't even thought of. We were down right next to the lake, practically. So, we'd take a bulldozer and scrape the big boulders out of the way. We'd take these army trucks and drive over there [Las Vegas Wash]. And you go down these gullies, and if they were real sharp, bulldozers wasn't handy, "OK, you guys, get your shovels." And they'd get out and start shovelin'. You'd dig where you got a runway down to the bottom, do the same thing on the other side to get out. The kids just shoveled. We did that for... gosh, how far is it from Boulder Beach to Vegas Wash? About three miles. Three miles? Well, we did that. Except one time. We were goin' over there to Vegas Wash one day, and we got down in one of these gullies. And it was pretty steep to get out of, we was gonna have to shovel to get out. Well, all of a sudden, one of those kids hollered, "Get outta here! Here comes the water!" One of those flash floods comin' down from the hills. Wasn't rainin' out there, but it was soon after. But here we looked up and here was this wall of water must've been three feet deep, comin' down this wash at us. Well, we didn't wait to find out where it came from or where it was goin'. We got outta there. We scrambled up the sides and run over—it was right close to some small mountains where they had little indentations, like you'd see sandstone been wore out. Well, it started to hail, and here we go, we're tryin' to get out of it, of course, that stuff was startin' to hit, hurt, you know? So we run for the mountain, 50 yards, maybe, and we get into those little indentations, put our coats up over us, try to protect ourselves. Well, thank goodness it didn't last long, [laughs] So it gets all done, I says, "Hey, guys, let's go. Gotta get back in it." We went back to where the truck was, and the thing looked like the shape of a V. And there was a boulder, big as your car, right in the middle of that [truck]. Came right down the wash, hit it right between the cab and the bed, and just bent that thing like a V. We couldn't budge it, we couldn't move it, couldn't have drove it if we did. So here we go, and we started walking back to Boulder Beach. And we get back over there and tell the foreman what happened. "Well, get another truck and let's go take a look." There was nothin' we could do about it except get a bulldozer out there and get the boulder away from the truck. And then after they get the boulder away from the truck, they gotta get a bulldozer to get the truck out. And they can't drive it cause the frame's bent. So they get another dump truck over there and they raised the bed, they put a chain around the tailgate of that [new] truck, put it down under the front end of the wrecked truck, let the bed down, and it picks the truck up. Then they haul it back to Boulder City, [laughs] You've heard 'em talk about flash floods—they really happen. And I tell you, they'll scare your pants off of ya. But then at that Vegas Wash—'course, they were still workin' on it when I got out. For every one of those trees down there at the camp grounds, the kids dug a hole six feet around, six feet across, round hole, and it was three feet deep. And here they come with this manure pile and you hauled in there and hauled in there, three wheelbarrow loads of manure. Threw it down in there. Then they also took the big rocks out, take and rake it all out, [then] you get a little bit of sand, and throw that in there. Cover it up, mix it up a little bit. Then you build a mound in the middle and you took these trees and you set 'em down on that mound, spread out the roots, and then here you started fillin' the hole up again. And you filled it up, you left the hole one foot deep. Six feet across. And that's the way they all stayed, that's the way you watered them. And you watered them every day with a dump truck with a water tank on it. And that's all they did, you know. They got the idea from Boulder City, incidentally. Do you remember what kind of trees they were? [Laughs] Elms, I think, but I'm not sure. But I think they were these Chinese elm trees because they grow quick. But they got the idea of the water from Boulder City. When they built Boulder City they planted all those trees up and down the streets. And they had a tank truck that did nothing twenty-four hours a day except drive around the city of Boulder City and water those trees. Three eight-hour shifts. They had this spout came out of this truck, and you drove from one tree to the next one, turned the water on, let it get filled, then turn it off and ride right to the next. Because at that time ... they had, I'm not sure, but somewhere around 50 men, that's all they did was take care of the lawns and trees in Boulder City. The government had about a 50-man crew that's all they did, were gardeners to take care of the lawns around. 'Course, they had a lot of the buildings up there, the Park Service buildings and all that stuff.12 And that's where they got the idea down there at the lake. They had a tank truck down there watered all those trees. In, I think it was, April of '38.1 think it was April '38.1 decided I didn't want to be down here no more. They had what they called a spike camp, a side camp at Overton. 13 Tiwt was [Company] 573? Yeah. 2536, their side camp was at Pierce's Ferry. 14 So anyway, I wanted to go to Overton because up there you didn't have no bed check, no reveille, do what you durn pleased, long as you were there to go to work in the mornin' they didn't care where you were all night. NOTV, why is that ? Because generally they were pretty strict. You didn't have army officers down there. You see, in Boulder City and on your regular camps you had army reserve officers. And they was strictly by the book, you know. Well, down there fin Overton] all we had were foremen and assistant foremen. They were all civilians. Long as you were there to go to work and did your work, they didn't care what you did on your own time. So I said, "I want to go to Overton." "OK." So I went to Overton, and like I say you could do what you pleased, long as you were workin'. They didn't care whether you slept in your bed or slept out on the ground. Didn't matter. And Overton, of course, wasn't very big. Two or three hundred people. But they had a theater and they showed movies on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. They showed one movie on Thursday and Friday, and another movie on Saturday and Sunday. But the seats were benches. Wooden benches? Wooden benches, no backs. And you sat there—I think it cost us, what, fifteen cents, somethin' like that. But you always knew when you went to the movies that the film was gonna break at least a dozen times before the film was done. So we'd make little bets amongst ourselves, "When's it gonna break next?" But there wasn't nothin' else to do. They had a school down there at the west end of Overton at that time, and they had swings and this kind of stuff. No bars down there that I knew of, but they had a lot of farmers. There was one little Japanese guy down there that raised cantaloupe*5 and watermelon. And our camp was three miles away from Overton. Three miles which way from Overton? East. You know where the museum is now? It was that same road. But it was three miles out of town.!6 During the season, of course, 'bout once a week, we'd take the army truck and go into Overton and buy a whole sack full of cantaloupe for a quarter, and watermelon [laughs], and take 'em to camp. lt d last us for a week. 'Course on weekends, they didn't care where you went. They didn't? No. So they didn't have a pass system? Not at Overton. Like I say, there was no army officials there, so you would just be back on Monday mornin'. There was several camps around there. There was one at Logandale, and if I remember right, there was three of em up on Mt. Charleston.17 And we had the two in Boulder City, and had one down here where the Sunrise School is now on Eastern [Avenue], and just north of Ogden, I think it is.!8 Where you go around that curve, that school there? That used to be a CCC camp. And of course, we had ball teams and this kind of stuff. So as soon as it got warm enough to where we could, we would get our ball teams goin', and we'd go to these other camps and play 'em. Was it softball, baseball? Softball. What positbn did you play? I was the pitcher. And I played the outfield when I wasn't pitching. But we had a ball. Like I said, we had a good time down there [in Overton] because they didn't have no rules to speak of. They didn't even care whether you ate or whether you didn't. That camp mustn't have Itad as many kids. Boulder City Twin Camps baseball game [Carl Stitak at bat], ca. 1936 [photo courtesy of Carl Stitak; negative In the possession of Dennis McBride] 15 Oh, no, no, no. No. We only had, I'd say, about fifty. Small. Yeah. Where out here in Boulder City, now our camp, 573, had 210, something like that. And 2536 did, too. So we had about 450 kids out here in Boulder City. But in Overton, we played ball. They only brought supplies from here, from camp, from Boulder City. Truck drove out there to Overton, brought us our supplies, our eats and all that. Well, here this Saturday, this truck driver comes up there and he says, "Lieutenant so-and-so wants you to come back to Boulder City." "Why? I don't want to go back there." "Well," he says, "he wants you to come back there so you can pitch softball." I said, "Nuts to him. I'm gonna stay here. More fun here." Well, that went on three weeks in a row: "The lieutenant wants you to come back." And I kept saying, "No." So finally, on the third week, he says, "He's not askin' ya this time. He's orderin' it. You're gonna come back whether you like it or not." And I says, "Well, why?" "He wants you to pitch softball for the company team." I said, "I'm no pitcher." Yeah, that's all right. You gotta go anyway." Well, some kid by the name of Bennett, Charlie Bennett, had told him that I pitched softball. "So, by golly, you're gonna do it." I really wasn't that good at it, but it made a good deal for me. I found out after I got back. I got better as time went on because I played a lot more here [in Boulder City] than I did down there [in Overton]. So I got to where I was a pretty good pitcher. In 1938 we played here in Vegas right there behind the old post office,!9 where the old fairground was, race track. We played on Friday evenings, Friday nights. Well, on Fridays I didn't have to go to work. All day ? All day. I stayed in camp and I'd go up to the infirmary and they'd sit there and massage my arm, you know, and oh, man, I was being babied like nothing else. Which was fine with me. I didn't mind that. So if that's what it takes, that's what I'll do. So that's what happened. There must have been pretty stiff com