| Show 14 0 all OM E R C 1 ROY S ERV I 1 CE THE STORY THUS FAR amos croy and his wife settled on a farm arm in missouri where homer was born homer was the first farst croy to finish high school and nd college in new york he be worked en a wor homans womans nans magazine wrote a novel tree fret lanced married and had a son and ancl daughter after the death of his father and mother homer and his family went to france where homer jr died suddenly de rilY A relative got into serious trouble and homer mortgaged the farm he already had a mortgage on his bis home he wrote a dealer training film tor for an oil company and paid the mortgages ills play family honeymoon headed tor for success luc cess turned sour when censored by variety CHAPTER now that I 1 am getting along in story I 1 am appalled by the clr imber of events ive left out and I 1 we e 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 ot of how many things to put in it if I 1 tried to put in all william harlowe briggs of harper brothers would call me to that sixth 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 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 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 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 geaw mention of a chinese detec afi f connected st 1 connected with the police de ament then and there charlie chan was born later when earl returned to honolulu he found that a 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 ob yest 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 r a side way 1 1 pa firing ing these years I 1 have come to swie conclusions about the art of writing the is that it cannot be taught and that anyone who takes a dollar from you yoli on the promise of making a better writer of you deserves tar and feathers at dawn and that if you have to encourage anyone to be a writer you had tar 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 avem ta 0 me the best ties to be found in writing are sincerity and truth and quickly I 1 lantto add a third simplicity all my life I 1 have been striving tor for simplicity but I 1 have far from attained it sometimes when I 1 have had the courage to turn back through some of my writings I 1 could hardly find what I 1 had been driving at for the most part I 1 do not read my stuff over after its printed it would be just too discouraging I 1 write it as best I 1 can and as I 1 feel it when it is flowing and like a cow when she has weaned her calf let the thing shift for itself when a man gets to my age he has a problem he have in his youth and that is the problem of death or rather the problem ot of the death of his friends some are really not friends in the sense that I 1 have come to cherish them but persons I 1 have met or whose careers I 1 have followed every so often as I 1 pick up a paper I 1 am shocked to read of the passing of someone I 1 have known or known of I 1 think of this in terms of a tree as winter comes upon it I 1 see my friends letting loose and fluttering to the ground and each time I 1 am saddened saddened not only for my friends but also because I 1 know that some day ill detach myself too how can one adjust oneself to the going of friends of course there is no real adjustment only acceptance I 1 have come to resolve it this way I 1 feel sorry but also I 1 try not to let it grieve roe me too much this may seem a cold way to read of the death of a friend but I 1 dont consider it so for this is all one can do I 1 try to make up for friends passing by finding new friends as a tree brings out new leaves and too one cannot come to my time of life without formulating a kind of personal credo it is a changing credo for I 1 change and my outlook on life changes and I 1 make discoveries too about this personal credo some of the beliefs I 1 once held very dear I 1 discovered to be merely prejudices and not worthy of a system of philosophy A bit of a shock there well here are some of the beliefs I 1 now have in my personal credo although goodness knows 1 I may heave them out of the window inside a year the fatalities among cherished beliefs are astonishing I 1 believe that most people do the best they can considering their limitations and their prejudices and the toll their mental limitations have levied upon them I 1 believe that kindness is just about the finest thing in the world and it seems to me that kindness has its roots in understanding I 1 believe that most people would rather be kind than cruel but that their animal inheritance is just below the surface and is the cause of much of the intolerable ferocity that human beings so often exhibit toward each other I 1 believe there is no secret of happiness and that complete happiness is an impossible goal but that one can get a great deal of satisfaction as one goes along by not expecting too much and by squeezing dry all the little pleasures I 1 believe in the innate dignity of human beings and I 1 hold this to be one of their finest 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 bom 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 corner 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 scarecrow or a watergap water gap youve taken pride in has been swept away and theres only a bundle of loose wires and hencoop I 1 seem always to be going home alone for alas the old farm AN and I 1 walk over the farm mean much to the other members of my family my wife has seen it only once carol has never see 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 oh 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 and stare up at them as it if they were the ranging 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 yo you u 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 it 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 it if no blood had ever been shed it just about I 1 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 S tate state teachers college which has come since 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 gro aery 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 will plunk down a tip and think nothing of it yes times change I 1 pass the house where mcfather my father lay like a shadow in the pillows and asked me to pare his fingernails 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 ba bad d says here alone phebe lived until eighty 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 boy I 1 was a businessman that day we pass the white school schoolhouse ho use and I 1 think of my greatest triumph when I 1 won the prize in spelling iff pilgrims progress certainly the dreariest drea riest book ever written I 1 think 0 of I 1 what happened next year when a new teacher came among us and offered a prize for the one who turned in the best showing 0 tor for nine months of spelling I 1 won the prize that year too th the e 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 I 1 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 and 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 r remembers em embers it I 1 look down the draw and think of the white weasel that I 1 trapped just about there the one the one horse F farmer armer told the world about the car pulls into the dri and I 1 the door to the house opens and nellie logan Sp ides wile 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 awhile and I 1 walk out over the farm arm just as pa and I 1 used to do theres the very place jim vert used to come with his de horning chute and his long thin bladed humpbacked hump backed saw I 1 can so potent is memory again almost see the blood spurting out or jims hands there is 0 10 o longer anybody like mr shannon the neighborhood man ot 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 anc 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 dead eyes and later saw the starving young ones tall fall out and be no more when my friends tell gory hunting stories I 1 have my own ideas running in 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 nel ghiors 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 the black aberdeen angus are doing I 1 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 G going home is a time of adventures and no two times are the adventures ever 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 which originated in our county and which until the war was held every year the national corn husk ing contest was originated by henry A wallace when he was secretary of agriculture but we started the it was a gay occasion s on with c cars a rs from everywhere and newsreel cameras dashing here and there for shots at least it was considered a gay occasion by the grinning visitors who piled out of the cars and watched the farm women buckle on their pegs TO BE CONTINUED NN ak |
