Show r ut CP OMER HOMER CROY SERVICE THE ME STORY THUS FAR amos croy dd and ahli W wife settled on an a borreo far farm in mis court where homer was born homer x the lie first croy to finish high school oil college in new york he worked on lne wrote a novel tree free a woma comans womans n S magazine magai lanced married and bad st a ton son and after the death of his father and oil mo mother lr homer and his family went to france where nomer homer jr died tudo daniy bly A relative got into serious trouble and nomer homer the farm he be atmo 1 ready had bad a mortgage on his home he be wrote a dealer training ra inloe turn mm tor for an oil company and PA paid id the mortgages mort faces his ply family honeymoon headed tor for success turned sour when censored by variety CHAPTER now that I 1 am getting along in my story I 1 am appalled by the number of events ive left out and I 1 see how futile it is to try to tell an honest story of ones own life it cant be done for instance there is the matter of how many t things to put in it if I 1 tried to put in an all william harlowe briggs of harper s brothers would call me to that sixth sith floor room with its long table and holy atmosphere and in no time at all would have me down on my knees sobbing there is the matter of selection but aut how can one tell what is significant for instance I 1 published for a year a magazine for writers called the magazine maker I 1 sold it at a profit but have wished many times I 1 let it go how I 1 would love to have it now when the so called magazines for writers are so nearly trash another story I 1 would like to tell is of my experiences in the first world war I 1 was with the YMCA assigned as liaison man with the signal corps and how for a time P I 1 wrote the radio version of show boat with lanny ross as the star and I 1 would like to tell of my days with chic sale and how he wrote the specialist and of how earl derr biggers created the character ol of charlie chan the chinese detective doggone it I 1 will stop and tell that earl had visited honolulu but the idea for charlie had not come to him one day long after his return to new york he went to the newspaper reading room of the new york public library and happened to see a copy of the honolulu star bulletin As he was reading it lie he saw mention of a chinese detective connected with the police department part ment then and there charlie chan was born later when earl returned to honolulu he found that a local chinese on the police force was receiving great acclaim for being the chinese detective earl had based his stories on the two were photographed together but earl tell him that the original charlie chan was a newspaper clipping oh besl I 1 do want to put in that I 1 was elected secretary of the authors league of america to serve with elmer H davis who was president yes the elmer who went to washington but such are the vagaries of ones mind it was not until several days after my election that I 1 recalled the first reception where I 1 seized my hat and escaped out a side way during these years I 1 have come to some conclusions about the art of writing the is that it cannot be taught and that anyone who takes a dollar from you on the promise ot of making a better writer of you deserves deserve sar ar and feathers at dawn and that if you have to encourage anyone to be a w writer riter you had far better tell him the field is not for him A real writer is born and the world does not hold so much discouragement coura gement that it can get him down and it seems to me the best qualities qualifies to be found in writing are sincerity and truth and quickly I 1 want to add a third simplicity all iny y life I 1 have been striving for simplicity simplic ty but I 1 have far from attained it t sometimes when I 1 have had cad the courage to turn back through some of my writings I 1 could hardly find what I 1 had been driving at t for the most in Os t part I 1 do not read my stuff over after its printed it would woul be just too discouraging I 1 write it as best I 1 can and as I 1 leel feel it when it is flowing and like a cow when she has weaned her calf let the thing shift for itself well here are some of the beliefs I 1 now have in my personal credo although goodness knows 1 I may ay heave them out of the window inside w of a year the fatalities among cherished beliefs are astonishing astonish 1 I 1 believe that most people do the best they can considering their limi lations and their prejudices and the ton toll their mental limitations have levied upon them I 1 believe that kindness is just about the finest thing in the world AM d it seems to me that kindness has its roots in understanding I 1 believe alieve that most people would rattier rather i be kind t than han cruel but that their air animal inheritance is j just be low uw the surface and is the cause of inch of the intolerable ferocity that numan human beings so often exhibit toward each other I 1 believe there is no secret of happiness aP and that complete happi ness ess Is an impossible goal but that one can get a great deal of tion lon as one goes along by not expect ing f wo too much wen and by squeezing dry u the little pleasures pleasure s I 1 i b believe el in the innate dignity of um an beings and I 1 hold this to be one ne ot of their unest lanest qualities I 1 believe no one is free from worry and that the person who is happiest and who accomplishes most is the one who spends his time and vitality doing instead of chafing I 1 believe that most people hunger for approval as the roots of a flower do for water I 1 believe that praise is just about the most powerful stimulus in all the world and unfortunately about the least employed I 1 believe that every person is part devil and part pretty fine and that we must accept these phases as they come in all the world is there a pleasure so completely satisfying as going back to the very land you were born on and walking across it and just looking at it but I 1 must tell you its not all pleasure for every joy has a few stickers on the theory of the rose no doubt you labor over a corn comer erport post and when you have it finished youre proud of it there it stands straight and tall and firm then you come back in no time at all and it looks like the start of a am 1 5 I 1 t 4 N 4 and I 1 walk over the farm scarecrow or a watergap water gap youve taken pride in has been swept awa away y and theres only a bundle of loose wires and hencoop I 1 seem always to be going home alone for alas the old farm mean much to the other members of my family my wife has seen it only once carol has never seen it some day it will be hers I 1 suppose I 1 wonder what will happen this is a sample of my homecoming I 1 get off the train and there is standing on the platform where my father used to wait he heaves my suitcases into his chrysler no buggy now and we start uptown to the square I 1 glance up at the gilt hands on the clock and my mind shoots back to the days when I 1 used to drive by in the hack back and stare up at them as it if they were the hanging gardens of babylon the clock suddenly bangs out the hour and there is a throbbing in my throat why is it that an old clock can make a baby of you cars are parked around the square but what I 1 think of is the battle that once raged there yes the battle of the hitch racks when pa had said if they tore down the hitch racks hed trade in wilcox the farmers had won then but there had been other and later battles and the merchants had finally triumphed after a time pa was back trading again as if no blood had ever been shed it just about shakes your faith in war we pass the north side of the square where moses Nus baums store was today there is no jewish family in town but at the state teachers college which has come s since ince those early days are three jewish refugee students my eye darts to the courthouse steps and I 1 think of the heartbreaks heart breaks seen the days during the depression when farms were sold by the sheriff and men and wives and children saw them go to the insurance companies that shakes your faith too we pass the methodist church where I 1 hid in the areaway but the years have helped me in at least one particular I 1 am no longer afraid of my fellow man I 1 like him we pass the blue moon cafe in it are farmers eating and I 1 think of the time we used to eat our cheese and crackers in the back of a grocery store yes times change also I 1 think of the time in new york when I 1 stole the girls tip but these farmers when finished win will p plunk lunk down a tip and think nothing of it yes times change I 1 pass the house where my father lay like a shadow in the pillows and asked me to pare his finger nails I 1 think of the featherbed says you catch cold on the train did you and I 1 say 1 I dont think so I 1 guess I 1 got some of that train smoke that diesel smokes smoke is bad says here alone phebe lived until eight tour four was upon her one day she went out to hang her featherbed on the clothesline for an airing the bench she was standing on tipped and threw her on the ground bones were broken and in st francis hospital she lay waiting for them to mend but before they could do so pneumonia came and my second mother was no more the water tower jumps up ahead of me and my mind goes back to the time that dave and I 1 clumped by it twice a day and to the time I 1 sold its story to jesse L lasky oh boyt boyl I 1 was a businessman that day we pass the white schoolhouse and I 1 think of my greatest triumph wh when en I 1 won the prize in spelling pilgrims progress certainly the dreariest drea riest book ever written I 1 think of what happened next year when a new teacher came among us and offered a prize for the one who turned in the best showing for nine months of spelling I 1 won the prize that year too the same damned book it just about soured me on trying to do my best studying was hard work in those days we moved our lips and whispered the words of the book to ourselves in such an intense effort of concentration that when we were going full tilt the schoolroom sounded like a hive of bees one day a girl much older than 1 I who was going to the seminary in town came out to our house to stay over saturday and sunday she brought her books along so she could study adrid a nd be ready for her schoolwork monday morning after a while she sat down in a chair by the window and got her book ready to my astonishment ish ment I 1 saw she moving her lips she was just sitting there holding the book and looking at it now and then she turned a page I 1 stared and stared at the mysterious ways of higher education our car goes down a swale and I 1 see the exact spot at least I 1 think it is the exact spot where I 1 had the only fist fight of my life where I 1 actually struck a person I 1 wonder if harlen kennedy remembers it I 1 look down the draw and think ol of the white weasel that I 1 trapped just about there the one the one horse farmer told the world about the car pulls into the dri and the door to the house opens and nellie logan Sp ides wife comes out and their son lloyd logan and his wife opal and their children robert and kenneth and nellies grandchildren they are the ones who run the croy farm I 1 am home my feet are on the very soil after chatting a while and I 1 walk out over the farm just as pa and I 1 used to do theres the very place jim vert used to come with his de horning homing chute and his long thin bladed humpbacked hump backed saw I 1 can so potent is memory again almost see the blood spurting out on jims hands there is no longer anybody like mr shannon the neighborhood man of all jobs the farms have grown larger no one would dream now of trying to make a living off forty acres when we need a man to work by the day we go to town and pick him up there usually hes a pretty poor worker we miss mr shannon and theres where the tree stood with the turtledove nest in its arms the turtledove I 1 killed with a stone and saw the dirt on its d ead dead eyes and later saw the starving young ones fall out and be no more when men my friends tell gory hunting stories I 1 have my own ideas running in m my head and heres the spot where the drummer for the nursery company offered pa five dollars a day just to drive him around and introduce him to his neighbors and the spot where pa refused it was the first time I 1 ever realized pa was doomed always to be poor As I 1 walk I 1 realize more and more that the farm and I 1 are inseparable that whatever is deep in me came from its roots there is a similar pattern between us the farm has been up and it has been down and god knows I 1 havel have I 1 the black aberdeen angus are doing fine and so are the Hamp shires I 1 turn to 1 I see you have some shires lloyd thought hed try out some well I 1 say with the manner of an expert delivering the findings of a lifetime dont be too sold on them tricky going home is a time of adventures and no two times are the adventures ever ev er the same as no two days in our lives are ever the same once I 1 arrived the day before a very exciting time at least its exciting to us the national corn husking contest contes which originated in our county and which until the war was held ev er ery y year the national corn husking contest was originated by henry A wallace whim when he was secretary of agriculture but we started the Women sl it was vas a gay occa sion with cars from everywhere and newsreel cameras dashing here and there for shots at least it was considered a gay occasion by the tha grinning visitors who piled out of ol 01 the cars and watched the farra farr a worn wom en buckle their pegs TO BE CONTINUED |