More College Studies

MORE COLLEGE STUDIES
Going on with my story of returning to college, I now learned that the University required extended study in a foreign language for graduation. I had forgotten most of the German that I had studied at Linfield College years before, so decided to study Spanish. I really enjoyed that course, though I have never used what I learned of the language. I found that I had a knack for learning another language. Several years later I applied some of the techniques of learning Spanish to learning Greek and Hebrew.
Living in that crowded gym "dormitory" was hectic. The only good thing I can remember about it was watching part of a football game from our windows. It was snowing out, that afternoon, a regular blizzard, and I was glad to see parts of the game from a warm lookout. At times the snow was coming down so heavily we couldn't see the players! After about two weeks there, another chap and I found a room in the basement of a nearby private home,and lived there until I could rent an apartment.
My classes were interesting, and the teachers excellent. I found the studies fairly easy, though much reading was required, both from text books and in the University library. I had learned how to extract the main thoughts in reading, and took copious notes both in class lectures, and in my reading.
Soon after school began, the deer hunting season opened. I had done a little searching around in the area north of Missoula, and had a place located where I could hunt. I bought a box of shells, and began to spend my spare time on Saturdays and Sundays hunting. I went out alone, taking a simple lunch with me. I knew absolutely nothing about deer hunting, but was thrilled to be out in the woods. I saw lots of tracks, but never a deer.
Then one Saturday my roommate (I can't recall his name) went with me. He borrowed a single shot 20 gauge shotgun and some slug shells. We had a good morning, following the tracks of a big buck in the new snow. Finally, about noon, we sat down in a sunny clearing to eat the lunches we had brought with us. Here and there in the clearing there were clumps of low bushes. We leaned the guns against a little tree a few feet away, brushed the snow off a log, and began to eat.
After maybe twenty minutes of slow conversation and eating, we were startled out of our wits by the eruption of a huge buck deer out of the low bushes right in front of us! He had been lying there the whole time. Apparently his nerves finally gave out, and he thought he must escape. He had been lying within thirty feet of us! Of course we both jumped up, and scrambled to reach our guns, but by the time we had done that he was out of sight. We didn't get a shot, or see another deer that day. We did learn something--deer can hide in almost no cover, and be very hard to see. That was a typical hunting day for me--lots of exercise and fresh air, but no venison! Though I hunted several times that fall, I never had a chance at a deer.
The university had a huge enrollment that fall, many of the men being veterans returning to get an education. The women students, in general, were much younger, not having served in the military. I went to a couple of "mixer" parties on the campus, but didn't get acquainted with many students. I was older, a senior, and didn't seem to fit in too well with the younger crowd. Finally, in early November, the school announced that they had an apartment ready for Jane and me. I couldn't leave school to make the move until Thanksgiving. Driving to Glasgow, I had a narrow escape from having a very serious accident. Long after dark, I was driving between Fort Benton and Big Sandy. The road was very icy in spots, though there wasn't much traffic. Going down a long grade, I came up behind a big semi outfit, and decided that since the road ahead was clear, I could pass. I pulled out, and just when accelerating and moving back to my lane in front of the truck, hit a patch of ice. The little Ford skidded clear around, a 360-degree spin, right in front of that big rig! At one point I was facing directly toward him. Very fortunately for me, we turned on around, and went on down the road safely. I was so frightened by that I decided to stay over night in Havre, and drive on to Glasgow in the morning, Thanksgiving Day. After a good Thanksgiving visit with my parents, we had our household goods shipped to Missoula, and Jane, our little son David and I drove back together in the little Ford. As we did so often in the next few years, we stopped over night at Jean and Wayne's, and had a little visit with them. The weather was decent, so we didn't get too cold while driving.
Our apartment was one of several in a long barracks building, moved from old Fort Missoula to the golf course owned by the University. An extensive village of these buildings was laid out, with named streets, and even some street lights. I can't remember our house number. We had a pot-bellied stove for heating the place, and a wood-burning kitchen range for cooking. I bought an axe, and a load of slab lumber from a nearby mill. I split and chopped a lot of wood that winter. I still have that Montgomery Ward axe, though I have had to replace the handle many times. We also burned some coal, to keep a fire going overnight in the heater, during the coldest weather.
My studies seemed very easy, and I was able to earn straight "A's" that first year. My courses were in advanced economics and sociology, designed for seniors or graduate students. We made friends with our neighbors up and down the street, and found our living there quite comfortable. Jane did have some trouble with laundry, though. We took the clothes to a laundry facility there in the village, and brought them back wet to hang outdoors to dry. David was going through a lot of diapers, and we had two or three lines full every week. In the cold, hanging out those wet diapers was a chilly business! By the time one had a diaper pinned to the line it would be frozen hard, stiff as a thin board. Of course in the dry climate they dried quickly, and then could be folded. Nothing smells better than clean clothes dried out of doors, but it was hard on the hands! Disposable diapers hadn't been invented, though we couldn't have afforded to buy them if they had been available.
During Christmas vacation, a neighboy and friend, Abe Cole, an Air Force veteran who had spent much of the war flying over the "Hump" (the Himalayas between India and China), found work for both of us. We went to work for a small private lumber operator who had bought a big stand of trees in the national forest about twenty miles out of Missoula. That was an interesting experience. We left early each morning, and rode out to the cutting camp with the boss. There we spent the first couple of hours heating water and trying to get their big Caterpillar tractor started. The weather was very nippy, and the machine was hard to start. When that was accomplished, we piled on the "cat" and rode up into the hills where the logs which had been cut the day before were ready to bring down.
Abe and I had the task of pulling the steel cable off the winch, moving up the steep slopes through snow sometimes up to our waists, to reach logs on the slopes above. There we passed the cable around a log, secured it, and then the cat operator pulled the log back down the slope. We had to step lively to keep out of the way! Then it was slip and slide down the hill, grab that cable again, and take it back up the hill for another log. Two men were employed as tree cutters, and were busy cutting more trees as we took out the logs from the previous day's cutting. It was hard work, but we both enjoyed it. Our sack lunches, eaten in the little cabin occupied by the cutters, tasted mighty good!
In the afternoon, when we had brought down enough logs for loading, we spent the time sawing up the logs into sixteen to twenty foot lengths, and moving them with peavies down to the loading ramp. An old man who had worked in the same area when it was first cut over, about 1900, trimmed the limbs from the logs. He could make a cut with his double-bitted axe almost as smooth as one could with a saw. That old fellow had known logging with horses, and showed us some of the grooves cut on the slopes where teams had pulled huge logs down the hill at a gallop.
Abe and I used a big cross cut saw to cut the logs into lengths. Chain saws were unknown then, or at least not known with that outfit. Late in the afternoon we rode back to Missoula and home for a night's rest. Altogether we worked twelve or fifteen days at that job, before classes resumed. The earnings were helpful, too.
Jane quickly mastered cooking on the big iron range. She was particularly good at making cinnamon rolls, big juicy ones. Somehow every time she produced a big pan of those rolls, many of our friends would just happen to drop in at the right moment!
We had an interesting time with David that first winter. Of course he was crawling all over the place, and always getting into things he shouldn't. One of his favorite tricks was to eat coal, and to chew on the heads of burned matches tossed in the coal bucket! We often took him out on the slopes of Mount Sentinel, just a couple of blocks from our apartment, to coast. He loved being out of doors. We had to take him to a clinic for the usual baby shots, which he didn't appreciate at all. After a couple of trips there he had memorized the route and the location of the clinic office, and would begin to cry long before we arrived at the doctor's office, anticipating another shot or other unpleasant happening.
We made many good friends, both neighbors and students and their wives. By coincidence, one of the girls I had known in Havre years before had married a student who was in my classes, and we visited back and forth with them. Sometimes we would have dessert and coffee after an hour of visiting or playing games. Once Jane made an excellent pie--a lemon meringue, if I remember right--which she served after a big meal shared with these friends, the Athearns. We think that they may have felt that we fed them a bit heavily. The next time we were at their place, Helen served us huge pieces of pecan pie, so rich it was almost impossible to eat it all! We often laughed about that later. Jim went on to earn a doctorate in history, and taught for years at the University of Florida.
Several of the young wives of students in the housing project were pregnant. Somehow we gained the reputation of being able to help them bring the birth of their babies to pass! We simply fed them some good homemade chili and a lot of Coca Cola. They would go home, and then to the hospital!
Sometime in the spring of the year we were allowed to move to a larger apartment, one with three bedrooms, only a few doors from where we had lived before. That apartment was on Carbon Street. Our back door opened out on the former golf course, and provided a much better place for David to play. We made a little sand box and brought in some sand for him. The little sons of a nearby neighbor often played there with him.
Somehow the complexities of economics came easily to me. Before mid-term and final exams I sometimes spent time with groups of the other students, reviewing my abundant notes, and helping them understand the theories. I enjoyed that teaching experience. Along in the spring term Dr. Ely, the head of the economics department, told me I was having too easy a time, and gave me extra assignments, mostly short papers, to do if I wanted to earn "A's." Also I learned that I would be eligible to graduate with honors (cum laude) if I would do a thesis on some subject. I had just begun to read extensively in the whole field of Communist literature, to try to understand their thinking--not that I was wanting to become involved in that system. I didn't want to stop that reading program, so declined the honors thesis. That was another choice which might have made my life different if I had gone the other route!
In the spring or early summer of 1947, the Farmers Union of Montana held a big convention on the campus. I attended some of their sessions, because I was interested in the overall labor union movement. At one of the meetings I bumped into Marion Hellstern, one of the sons of the farmer for whom I had worked back in the '30's. Naturally I invited him out to the apartment, where we had a good supper and a pleasant visit. He was a delegate from Hinsdale, and told me many things about the work of the Farmers Union, and passed on community news from Hinsdale. I thought nothing of that visit until a few days later when Dr. Ely called me in to his office. There he asked me very seriously what in the world I was doing, visiting with one of the most radical communists in Montana! I told him we simply were old friends, and that we had worked many hours together in hay and beet fields. He then told me that Marion and his mother were apparently well-known locally as communists! I had never discussed that philosophy with Marion, so was surprised.
In my Spanish class that summer we were beginning to apply what we had learned. We read Spanish novels, short stories, and newspapers. Most of the class hour we used only Spanish in our conversation. I didn't do so well in that course, which completed my minor in Spanish. My grade was only a "B." I think that was the only grade lower than an "A" that I received at Montana State University.
I was scheduled to be graduated at the end of the summer quarter, in 1947. Just before graduation I received orders as a reserve officer to report to the Air Force Base at Ogden, Utah, for two weeks of training! That made it necessary for me to miss the graduation exercises. I wasn't really seriously disappointed to miss the to-do of graduation, and quickly received approval for my absence. I received my diploma later.
The tour of active duty was a farce, as they had no planned training for me at Ogden AFB. I spent most of my time there wandering around, shooting skeet and pool, and generally killing time. Oh, I worked a little in the big civilian personnel office, but didn't learn much. I was happy to return to Missoula, again by train. Enroute I was sitting in the club car one morning, reading. I became aware that the two women seated near me were speaking in Spanish! I thought I had an opportunity to try my Spanish! I carefully introduced myself, in that language, and learned that they were from Cuba, a mother and her daughter. As we travelled along, I pointed out to them the huge smokestack at Anaconda, Montana, and told them in my halting Spanish that it was the tallest in the whole world ("mas alta del mundo.") I think they laughed at me the whole time, as I found I really couldn't speak Spanish well at all. I frequently had to ask them to repeat things they said. It was an embarrassing situation all around!
Early that summer, I took the Graduate Record exams, to qualify for entrance into graduate study. I planned to go on to earn a master's in personnel administration. I achieved a high score, and almost at once had offers of graduate assistantships--one from Cornell University, in upstate New York, and the other from Stanford, in California. I thought long and hard about the Cornell offer, and would have loved to go there. However, our funds were running low, and we couldn't see how we could afford to move all that distance. As I remember, the thought of borrowing money for the purpose never entered my mind.Then, as now, I hated to go into debt.
Then Dr. Ely and some others at the University said they wanted me to stay right there, as a graduate assistant in economics. They would work out a special master's program in personnel administration for me. I would assist Dr. Ely in teaching economics, and could earn $700 and my tuition for the first year. That sounded good to me, so we simply stayed on.
Also during that summer I had worked my way further into the exciting field of shooting. I purchased bullet casting tools and materials, and began to make my own bullets for reloading shells for the 30'06 rifle. I ordered a fine walnut stock blank, and carved out a new stock for the rifle. That project turned out very well, and the rifle was now a fine-looking weapon. I know now that I spent far too much time and money, indulging in my new hobby. Jane surely demonstrated great patience, putting up with my melting lead on the kitchen range, casting bullets, etc.
Through the National Rifle Association I also purchased two more surplus military rifles, both 30'06's, though I really had no need for them. The first one was an Enfield, made in England during World War I, brand new, never fired. I reworked the military stock, and had a second good shooting rifle. Then I ordered a Springfield rifle. That one was also new and unfired, and cost me only $5, plus shipping! I used the Enfield a little, but traded off the Springfield without ever having fired it. Often in the years since I have wished that I had held on to both rifles.
September came, and I started on my new course of study. Things went quite well. I took all the courses offered at the University in personnel administration, and earned some additional credits in self-designed courses of reading. I reported my reading and conclusions in papers presented to the Economics staff.
My main task as graduate assistant was to conduct classes for two beginning economics "sections," two days per week. I met with the "sections," each of about 30 students, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, an hour each time, to discuss the subject matter of the most recent lecture, or some important point from the textbooks. Preparation and lesson planning was not difficult, and I enjoyed the free-flowing discussions we had on economic theory. On a couple of occasions Dr. Ely assigned me to prepare the lecture for the entire class of about 500 students. I wasn't a very good lecturer, I am sure, but the students didn't totally reject my ideas. Economics was then a required course for virtually every student at the University.
As part of my studies in personnel administration, I learned to give and interpret a variety of tests, general intelligence, aptitude, etc.--even ink blots! I found willing subjects among my economics students; one girl, in particular, was extremely intelligent. Her intelligence test scores (I tested her twice) literally ran off the upper end of the scale! I did have one serious problem. Among my students, I had a couple of real dummies--football players. When the fall quarter mid-term test was graded (I did lots of grading!) they had both failed badly. I had tried to tutor them, but they didn't want to learn. As a result, I flunked them both, and they were forced to drop out of football.
Boy, did I find myself in hot water! I had personal conferences with the football coach, other players, friends of the two, and others. Dr. Ely upheld my decision on the matter. With some additional tutoring, the fellows got their grades up to "C's" and were eligible to return to football, though I doubt that they ever forgave me! Other than that unpleasantness, I enjoyed teaching, or trying to teach, and got along fine with my courses.
I chose to do my master's thesis on a fairly complex subject--the influence of union activities in adjacent unionized cities on the wage scales in Missoula, which was almost entirely non-unionized. I did my research through the mail, and in the library, on wage scales for union jobs of many kinds in Spokane, Washington, and in Butte and Great Falls, Montana. Those cities were all highly unionized. I found and gathered much interesting data, and learned a lot about the history of attempts to unionize the railroad and timber workers in Missoula. I concluded that the workers in the various blue collar industries in Missoula had actually benefited greatly from the efforts of the unions in the adjoining cities, without forming a union.
Toward the end of the winter quarter, in the spring of 1948, we had spent nearly all of our savings. I felt it was necessary to leave school, and go to work again. My decision was based in part on the several job offers which kept coming in. I had taken a federal "entrance" exam for entrance level positions in professional fields, during the winter months (1947-1948). Again, I had achieved a good score, and my name was apparently offered to many different agencies around the United States. One inquiry, which I considered seriously, was to become a Boy Scout Executive, with the National Boy Scout organization. It sounded like interesting work, but would have required another term of expensive schooling back east, which we felt we couldn't afford. I remember another offer from some government agency in Nebraska, inviting me to become a caseworker.
A third offer came from the Bureau of Reclamation in Billings, in the Yellowstone District personnel office. I could take an entrance level position in personnel administration, with good opportunities for advancement, they said. I decided to take that one, and we moved to Billings at the end of the winter quarter, in late March of 1948. I'm sorry to say that I never did complete that master's program in personnel administration, and all my collected data on the Missoula wage situation went for nothing. But I did learn something about wage scales, and used that knowledge later, as I worked in the Bureau office, setting up wage scales for our blue-color employees. My school days were over for good--or so I thought. Theoretically I was now equipped to settle down to a career. It didn't work out that way, but that is a different matter, suitable for some later chapter.