Exist & Survive - You Do What You Have To Do

Grace, James, and Frank Lambert head west, west to dreams of new beginnings, happier times.

Grace desperately needing to find somewhere to live, takes some advice and heads to Northern California.  She was told that the agriculture needs were high and she could get a job easily there.

The boys, compared to most ranchers, were pretty well off, however life was still hard on the ranch filled with lots of physical and mental challenges. These challenges served only to be a preparation for what was to come with life in California.  The boys, in a strange land, with no money, food, or house have found their lives turned upside down.  Survival and existence is the name of the game.

California was being inundated
with unemployed workers looking
for a  job in the dream land.

Grace, faces the grim reality - life in California is a vicious cycle that one is unable to leave.  The number of people pouring into California, based on a hope and dream, were more then the state could handle.  Grace saw Mexican immigrants willingly head back to Mexico, where life was better off.

The family learn that the sell of the ranch has fallen through.  Dad, Frank Morrison, will not be able to join the family in California as early as they thought.  He stays behind to care for the ranch in hopes of selling it soon.

As Grace gets a bit more accustom to California, she learns that small family farms don't last here.  The competition with large-scale agriculture businesses causes family farms to fail.  Another 'dream' crushed in the wake of the Great Depression.  She had to succumb to the conclusion that their only hope for their imminent survival was to work as crop picker, following the harvests from the north to the southern part of California.

This is a sample of what some
families had to live in during
the Great Depression

In order to be as mobile as possible the Houser family lived in a tent, most likely with other poor white migrant families in the same situation.  These tent 'cities' became known as ditch cities.  To help ensure their survival, all three had to help harvest the crops.  Yes, that included young Frank.

Frank, being between the ages of 9-11, works side by side with his mother, Grace, and brother, James.  He's surrounded by other women, men, and children picking hops in the north and working their way down the state and ending with the picking of cotton.  Frank was use to hard work, however even on the ranch he could still sneak away and play, here he was expected to work from sun up to sun down.  He was too young, way too young to live the life of child labor.

Migrant Mother: Dorothea Lange's
famous photograph from the Great
Depression features Florence
Owens Thompson, 32, a
mother-of-three who had just
sold the family's tent to buy food

Around 1937, life began to change for the 3 Houser's in California.  James Buster found a 'real' job working as a janitor at Smith Jones Smiths and College in Southern California (I couldn't understand the college name).  It was during this time that they were able to find a real place to live, settle down, and have James attend college for free (as long as he worked as a janitor there). His college dream took several years to come true, but it's finally time.

Life was finally turning around, getting a bit easier, more stable, secure, and calm.

A New Trajectory - A New Life

James (also known as Buster) excited, relived, concerned, but most importantly excited, takes his hand, grasps the tassel and moves it to the left side of his hat.  He smiles at the thought that his Flathead County High School days are over, done, caput.   As he takes his seat back with his class mates, the thoughts hidden behind his stoic expression are ones that he can't put aside.  This impending summer won't be like the others:

It's 1928, the year that the economic bubble begins to release its pressure valves. The bubble starts showing microscopic tears, tears small enough to only affect the working class, like Frank Morrison Houser and his ranch.

Frank Morrison, Frank's dad, angrily grabs the handful of bonds he keeps hidden away, bonds 'secured' by the U.S.Government.  He shakes them in the air and bellows desperately, "These, these bonds aren't even worth the wall paper in the hallway.  Not even the  paper they were printed on!" He stomps out of the house determined to find a way to sell the ranch and get out while the gettin's 'good'.

Frank Morrison and Grace saw the beginning of what will be known as the Great Depression heading towards America.  Together they decide to sell the beloved Houser ranch, get what they could out of it before they won't be able to get anything.  Hopes were high, the confidence in the housing market high as well.  There has to be someone who too wants a piece of the wild west, just as they did years ago.

Grace and Frank Morrison look to the future; what's best for their family, children, and finances.  They put their ambitions and dreams, again, on the 'west'.  The west is the future, west to California. Aah California, life was booming, agriculture was steady, unemployment was low, college registration was steady (at least this is what they thought). This was where they wanted to finish raising their boys, and where hopefully James would be able to attend college.  They decide that Grace and the boys will head to California to find a place to live.   While Frank Morrison stays to care for the cattle, sheep, land and house until the sell is final.  

That summer changed everything for the Houser family.  This is one of those life altering events (one of several that we will have the chance to read and write about).  Never again will the Houser family be the same, be able to enjoy the company of one another like they had.  This will mark an end to an era, but also a new beginning...

Flaming Bubble Baths!

I guess I better tell you up front that this post could be considered by some to be inappropriate, especially for young boys.  If you so choose to keep on reading (which I hope you do), please note that I am no longer responsible for any outrageous laughter, followed by 'eww gross', or even possibly some laugh till you cry moments.  PS - If any one attempts to try this trick I am not held accountable if you get injured in places you don't want to be injured (however if it works, let me know!).

Grace, Frank's mom, finishes her chores for the day. She looks out the window as she wipes her hands on her apron.  She sees her two boys, James, a teenager, and Frank, a small boy, playing with each other as they walk toward the house.  As they get closer she could hear the brothers teasing and talking to each other.   Her lips gently curve upwards, her eyes glisten with a light from inside her soul, the smile spreads throughout her body, warming her heart.

Her boys, James Morrison and Frank, open the door, step inside the modest ranch house, their mother awaiting their arrival.  She looks at the boys, covered with dirt, sweat, and fun, and orders them to take a bath.

The boys went to the bathroom (one of the lucky few with an indoor bathroom) and filled the tub with hot water, heated by the wood burning stove.  As the water level reached the mother approved height, James, being the eldest, quietly and swiftly sneaks into the kitchen and tucks a surprise in his pocket for them to play with while in the tub.

Grace hollors at the boys to quickly get in the tub before the water gets cold.  The boys gather themselves in the bathroom, shut the door, as James pulls out and holds up the 'surprise'.

James and Frank excitedly quickly disrobe, hop into the tub, splashing water as high as they could (what boy wouldn't?).  The brothers continue splashing each other getting water all over the bathroom. They don't notice the water splaying all over the walls, pooling in puddles on the floor, or dripping down the sink. All they know is that if you have to take a bath, then make it as fun as possible!

Soon the splashing becomes a bore.  Maybe it was due to the water level getting too low from giant splashes or it could be that James was starting to feel the urge deep in his gut.  Buster (James) decided that is was time to up the ante and bring out the fun!

Buster lets one rip, yes you know what I'm talking about!  He was creating a bubble bath - the only means they had was to use their own bubble making tushes!

Buster feels another one coming on.  He holds it in as he reaches over the tub, grabs the boxed surprise.  He pulls it open, grabs a match, and strikes it against the side of the box, lighting it aflame.  Now he's ready to loosen his cheeks and let it rip.  Buster holds the match ready as the methane and hydrogen infused bubble reaches the top of the water.  As the bubble bursts, there's a  brief second when the orange flame burns a bluish hue.

Frank, curious, excited, and mesmerized by this yellow flame turning blue from a gaseous bubble decides he needs to give it a try.  With every bit of concentration he could muster, he focuses on creating a bubbling sensation in his gut. His face squints together in a fierce mix of determination and intense pushing.  Buster, familier with this lemon eating look of on Frank's face, grabs the matches.

Soon the bubbles start.  One slowly comes to the surface ready to pop.  Then with a flash the yellow flame turns blue.  Just as soon as that one surfaced, several more start surfacing, popping, turning blue!

Grace, busy in the kitchen, hears her boys giggle with pure innocent delight.  She smiles to herself.  Nothing makes a mom's soul happier then the sound of her children giggling and enjoying simple pleasures, like bath time.

James (Buster) could tell Frank was getting low on 'ammunition'.  He turns his focus internally until he can feel the bubbling sensation growing in his gut.  He lights another match in preperation.  Again! The flame turns blue as the bubbles break at the surface.

This flaming bubble making would go on and on until the water got cold, they ran out of ammo, or it got too late.  Grace never really knowingly knew about the flaming bubble baths.  However gross this may be, this is what boys do and what a science lesson to boot!

This story was inspired by John Houser, Frank's son.  I asked John about one of his favorite stories that his father, Frank, told him.  This is the one story that John has the best time re-telling.

I Wanna Be Just Like Dad - Behind the Barn!

One late summer or perhaps late fall, the timing isn't so important as is the story I'm about to tell:

This is a picture of the most
common milk separator sold
during the 1920's.  Frank
Lambert may have used one
just like this.

Frank Houser finished his childhood chores.  It was the one consisent chore that he was able to do since he was the youngest. Frank would heft and carefully, without spilling any, poor the fresh batch of milk over the edge of the seperator's top bin. He would then start turning the crank over and over seperating the milk into two buckets; one side filled with cream, the other side with skim milk.  He would do this over and over until finally he finished the 240 gallons of milk produced each day from the 35 or so cows on the ranch.

Frank wanting to be 'grown-up' and like his father (now, what small boy didn't want to be like their dad?) decided to participate in one of his dad's passions:

Frank looks around the ranch.  Aha, there it is, some old newspaper.  He sneaks a section of it from the house.  He takes the newspaper in hand, goes out back, and gathers a smal handfull of dried weeds.  He walks briskly, looking around to make sure no one saw where he was going, or what he was about to do, behind the barn.  Frank lays and flattens the newspaper down.  He takes a small handful of the dried weeds and carefully arranges them in the middle of the newspaper.  He carefully, but quickly starts rolling the dried weeds up inside the newspaper - creating a small rolled up newspaper cylinder.

Frank holds the roll of newspaper out for inspection, making sure it was rolled tight enough. He then peers at each end, making sure they were just perfectly flat on each end.  Aahh, it passes his visible test, now he's ready.

He places one end in his mouth, and then quickly strikes a match.  Once the spark of flame takes off at the end of the match, he takes that orange flame at the end of the match and places it to the opposite end of the newspaper roll.  He starts to suck the air in through the newspaper roll, just as he's seen his dad do hundreds of times before.  He sucks harder through the newspaper roll, as the other end starts starts instantly glowing flaming ochre-red.  Then the flame crackles to life, the 'cigarette' lights up, just like his dad - all grown up.

Suddenly his father, Frank Morrison, comes around the barn, just in time to see his young boy with a flaming, smoking, homemade cigarette in his mouth.  Frank Lambert quickly tries to put his cigarette out as his father angrly gets closer and closer.The 'cigarette' is just about out by the time his father reaches Frank, however, not all the way.  His father hastily takes the 'cigarette' from Frank and snuffs it out all the way as Frank tries to get away unscathed from his father's anger.

Frank Lambert received a paddling that day, right there behind the barn, in the place where he tried to be 'grown -up'.  His father's anger was justly so.  How dare Frank risk lighting a flame when the barn could so easily become engulfed in flame.  A barn filled with straw and hay, the ranch's 'bread and butter'.

That day taught Frank a lesson we are all thankful for today.  For the rest of Frank's life, even before he felt it was morally wrong, he never had the desire to smoke - again.