(With Father’s Day just passing, it got me thinking about this story concerning my Dad.)
My dad was born in 1901 in Elliot, Texas, a little town in Central Texas. His name was Archie Zack Griffin. He was one of eight children and a great storyteller. I have wished so many times I had recorded some of the stories. He had tales about goats in a cemetery at night, about one of his horses that ate loco weed and went crazy when he saw a gate, one about being a teenager and dancing in a living room until the floor caved in...and on and on! They were all so funny! What a great man.
Dad was a heavy smoker during the 1920s, 30s, and 40s. Most men back then were smokers…especially during the First and Second World Wars. I thought that was something every male did when they grew up. I could hardly wait…Although I never did any smoking.
Most men had a “smoker” or a humidor, a small cabinet with the interior lined in copper, which I thought was pretty cool looking. The tobacco industry offered a choice of different brands, such as Lucky Strike (it had a big ol’ red target on the front cover), Chesterfields, and Camels (a cool camel stood on the front cover). Phillip Morris was another brand (it had a song they sang over the radio and a little bellman dressed all in red with a red hat on, calling “Call for Phillip Morrr-isss”).
The average smoker, or at least my dad, would start the day with two packs of cigarettes. Each pack had 20 cigarettes. Each cigarette was three inches long, and there were no filters at the time. So, the men (and some daring women) were constantly trying to get a piece of shredded tobacco out of their mouths. In the movies, Hollywood stars would take their fresh cigarettes and, before lighting them, would tap them several times on the end of the table so they didn’t get a lot of the tobacco in their mouth.
The Hollywood women who played the parts of tough women would smoke their cigarettes in fancy holders; some of them were 10 inches long. I thought that was cool.
Dad bought his cigarettes by carton, a box of 12 packs. He kept 10 or 12 cartons in his humidor. He would decide which brand to take to work the next day and put them in his lunch pail before going to bed that night. Then, when his supply got low, Dad said, “Momma, put cigarettes on your grocery list.”
Wellsir, my dad was a twenty-five-year smoker when I had my paper route at age 9 to 12. He always helped me on Sunday mornings. We would go to the Pampa Daily News back door at 6:00 a.m., pick up my 116 papers, and load them into the back seat of our ’41 Pontiac Chieftain Sedan, where I sat. Together, we would roll each paper using a rubber band. In the 1940s and 1950s, we experienced numerous winters with heavy snowfall. One morning, it was below zero, and the wind was rocking the car! So, there we sat, rolling the papers, and Dad lit up a cigarette. Outside, it was so cold he didn’t open a window; before long, I was turning green!
“Dad, why don’t you stop smoking those things? They’re going to kill you.” He looked at me, looked at the cigarette, opened the window, and threw it out. And that was his last smoke. He never smoked again. He gave all his cigarettes to his oilfield workers. He was 42 years old and lived to be 98. Oh…and I have the “smoker” to this day in memory of him.
A brief story about his experience in WWI: Dad was a Military Police Officer. He was 6’4” and did not have an ounce of fat. His unit was stationed in San Antonio at Fort Sam Houston, and a massive rainstorm caused a flood throughout the city. Zack and the entire unit were tasked with going out to help the townsfolk. Unfortunately, the river was up, and the zoo got flooded. The servicemen kept seeing some heads bobbing up and down in the deep water, so they commenced trying to save these poor drowning souls. When Dad finally caught one of them, it turned out to be a seal from the zoo! Those seals didn’t take kindly to being manhandled! “What did you do?” I asked, my eyes wide open and my ears tuned to his every word. “Well, Gary, I let that sucker go on his way!” was his answer, a smile spreading across his face. I thought my dad was pretty cool! It was challenging to buy a new auto during WWII because steel was in significant demand for building ships, tanks, airplanes, and other war machinery. To purchase an automobile, you had to be approved by the Federal Government. This approval involved a job that contributed to the U.S. war efforts, such as a farmer providing food for shipment to soldiers or a rancher supplying meat. Since my dad was punching holes in the ground to find oil, which gave the war effort gasoline and lubricants, he qualified. He was a driller for Magnolia Oil (the flying red horse logo). Everybody called him Zack or Slim — a very gentle, laid-back, and fun-loving person.
Wellsir, Dad was able to order…yes, order…a brand new 1941 Pontiac with one of the most unique hood ornaments ever; it was an Indian Chief head that would light up when the lights were on! He ordered it from Coffey’s Buick-Pontiac Dealership. It was a two-tone chocolate brown body with tan fenders. Boy howdy, did they make him a special deal! Mr. Coffey’s dealership was located on Francis Street. Unfortunately, he didn’t have any new autos to place on his showroom floor, so he told my dad, “If you allow us to use your car each weekend, we will clean, service, and polish it before placing it in the showroom windows. In addition, we will provide you with another auto to use during the weekend.” What a deal!
My dad drove Pontiacs or Buicks until he died. A 1979 Buick LeSabre was parked in the garage of our home in Pampa with only 56,000 miles on it. Zack, Jr, my 84-year-old brother, took care of it. (In 2019, he died, and the house and auto were sold.)
Every kid growing up has those memories tucked away in that one-third of their frontal lobe, which “they” say we use in our lifetime. However, in talking with many people over the years, I have concluded that most do not retain the majority of things that happened to them from ages 3 to 18! I’m sure some reasons cause this phenomenon, but my better judgment tells me to leave this topic for another time! One thing I will say about our memories is that we “tuck them away” in our stored area of the brain, long forgotten, and then suddenly something will happen that triggers it, and voilà, it’s there as if it happened yesterday. I mean, you can picture every little detail, like what you were wearing…exactly where you were standing…who you were with…what the weather was like…and especially, what your reaction was when it happened.
This experience brings me to the “recollection” or what I call a “flashback” that suddenly appeared in my little pea-brain. I was talking to my friend, Buddy, on the phone and mentioned that some of my customers had 42 roofs replaced due to a big hailstorm (I’m in the insurance business). Anyway, BAM…there it is…the memory. So, I felt compelled to tell Buddy about my one-time experience of helping my dad repair our roof.
Wellsir, at age 12, I was skinny with big hands and feet. Dad asked me to help him repair our wood-shingled roof on a hot summer Saturday morning. It was a common practice to check your roof for broken or missing shingles every couple of years. One person had to be on the top to patch it by driving a new shingle over the hole or where a replacement was needed. It also helped to have another person in the attic because he could find the holes much faster due to the sun rays coming into the attic. Back then, almost every home had a wood shingle roof.
Your roof didn’t have plywood nailed to the rafters. You had 1x4 planks with 4” spacers, and the shingles were nailed to them. There was no tar paper used back then, either, kinda like the slats that used to be under your mattress. This system allowed your roof to breathe! The nice thing about wood shingles was that they shrank when dry and expanded when wet. In the summer, it allowed hot air to escape from your attic, and when it rained, the spaces between the shingles expanded, preventing water from entering your attic. The downside to this roof was that the dirt in the air could enter through spaces when the shingles were dry.
I grew up in the 1940s and 1950s when terrible dust and sandstorms hit the Panhandle of Texas. If you’ve ever been in a fog, you know what a dirt storm is like…you could hardly see your hand in front of you! It never occurred to me that this “powdered dirt” was sifting into everyone’s attic!
Since I was much lighter than Dad, it was logical for me to be the one in the attic, and I didn’t mind…I figured that with my ability to climb things and being light on my feet, this was going to be a “piece of cake” … I’ll show them just how agile and mobile I am! Dad made sure I wore old clothes and tennis shoes for a better grip on the 2x6 studs I was going to walk on. Of course, I’m talking about the upright edge of the wood.
These studs were two feet apart, and I had to be careful to stay on the upright edges…So up I go through the little door to the attic. I have a flashlight and a long screwdriver, which serve as a light to see where I was stepping, and the screwdriver for poking up through the shingles where sunlight is visible.
I thought this would be fun, but after ten minutes in an attic with a temperature of around 120 degrees, sweat was pouring off my face and into my eyes…I’m trying to use my t-shirt to wipe off the sweat while watching where I’m stepping. I’m using the flashlight in one hand, and a screwdriver in the other, and I can’t touch the roof because of all the nails holding down the shingles. It looked like a bed of nails! The kind you see these guys lie on, and you think…what sort of idiot would do that…Anyway..., to top it all off, this powered dirt is one inch deep, covering everything…I do mean everything! It would be helpful to remember that insulation wasn’t used in homes back in the 1940s. But thinking about this situation…I bet the dirt acted as insulation!
Anyway, every time my foot was placed on a stud, the powered dirt would fall off, creating more and more dirt particles in the confined airspace I happened to be sharing. After about 30 minutes, it looked like I had stepped out of a shower, and someone dumped a load of dirt on me!
That’s when it happened; yep, CRASH! My foot slipped off a stud and went crashing through the bathroom ceiling, and I landed face down on the floor with a dirt storm going on all around me…That misstep resulted in the loss of about a 2x4-foot section of the ceiling. Thank goodness the door to the bathroom was closed, keeping the storm confined. In two seconds, I had redecorated our bathroom! Of course, everything was one color — brown! -
Figuring I was in a heap of trouble, guiltily, I looked up and said, “I’m so sorry!” But Dad just looked at me, shaking his head, and replied, “Let’s finish the roof, and then we’ll worry about the bathroom….” So, after a big cold drink, I’m up, and we complete the job without any further incidents.
Dad repaired the hole in the ceiling that afternoon, and Mom and I cleaned up all the dirt.
Dad and Mom thanked me for “helping out,” but I can never remember that day in the attic mentioned again in our household…Strange!
At age 18, it was off to college, but in the summer, Dad got me a job working in the oil fields. The oil fields were quite an experience, and it was a good-paying job that helped cover car expenses.
…And there you have it…some thoughts about my life with a great man…my dad, in a fine little community named Pampa, Texas. I hope this jogs some memories for you as well.
Ah h h h h, yes, those were the days…
