Oral History Program John Platts Interviewed by Kay Fackrell 22 September 1976 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah John Platts Interviewed by Kay Fackrell 22 September 1976 Copyright © 2014 by Weber State University, Stewart Library ii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. Archival copies are placed in University Archives. The Stewart Library also houses the original recording so researchers can gain a sense of the interviewee's voice and intonations. Project Description The Weber State College/University Student Projects have been created by students working with several different professors on the Weber State campus. The topics are varied and based on the student's interest or task for a specific assignment. These oral history assignments were created to help Weber State students learn the value and importance of recording public history and to benefit the expansion of the Weber State oral history collections. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to the Stewart Library of Weber State University. No part of the manuscript may be published without the written permission of the University Librarian. Requests for permission to publish should be addressed to the Administration Office, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, Utah, 84408. The request should include identification of the specific item and identification of the user. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Platts, John, an oral history by Kay Fackrell, 22 September 1976, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with John Platts. The interview was conducted on September 22, 1976, by Kay Fackrell, in Lyman, Wyoming. Platts discusses his life in Southwestern Wyoming. Mrs. Platts also participates in the interview. KF: Mr. Platts where were you born? JP: I was born in Salt Lake City, May the 30th, 1891. We left Salt Lake City on April the 2nd, 1900, and we went to the Big Horn country, when they colonized the Big Horn. My dad was a butcher in Salt Lake City and he'd never seen a farm much. And we went up there. The early settlers up there when they put the water out, the ground went alkali. A lot of the people left there. We were on our way back to Salt Lake City and we stopped here in Lyman to visit an uncle of mine. My mother's sister, Mary Fields, Joe Fields wife. And my dad took up a place here. We figured on going on. My dad filed on the ranch that's still in the Platts family. Melvin’s on that place. I stayed there until I retired. I was in the sheep business, the purebred Columbia sheep business and I turned it over to him. Now he's one of the big breeders in the country. He took, in the last two years he's been tops in all three shows that he's went to, Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming. KF: You know you said you filed on this place. Does that mean your dad homesteaded this place? JP: Yes. It was an open 160 and it seems as though nobody seemed to be able to get it. Well he found out, or he thought he found out that a guy in Evanston, by the name of Kingston was supposed to have had a title to it. He went to Evanston and they give this man Kingston $150.00 to relinquish in his favor. And after he did that he found out that he 1 didn’t have anything on it. But we went on with the place and my dad died in September, 1907. I was the oldest boy and I took over on the ranch there. KF: How long had he had it before he died? JP: Seven years. KF: He had it seven years? And you were sixteen you said? JP: I was sixteen when I took over there. I'm 85 years old now. We've been retired now about twenty years. We live in Lyman here, north of the schoolhouse. KF: How many brothers and sisters did you have? JP: I had four brothers and one sister. KF: Did you have any older brothers? JP: No, I was the oldest one in the family. My brother next to me got killed in an accident here East of Evanston in a rock crusher. The next brother was eighteen. He was six foot two when he was eighteen. He went over and hayed over on Hamsfork and he come back here and went to Utah and went to a factory there as an oiler. He reached over to oil a bearing and there was two big cog wheels and the cornreach jumper caught him in that and pulled him in and cut him into. KF: When you came out here in 1900 and then it was about 1907 more or less when you took over the place, how many people were there in this area? JP: Well, there was about on top of this bench, not figuring off this bench where your great-granddad lived there was about twelve houses on this bench. It was mostly all sagebrush. Everybody was clearing brush. And we had 60 acres. My dad had 60 acres grub down here and we went from there. KF: Was there really a town here then? 2 JP: No. They had a... John A. Guild had this store that's over there. He come here and built this store that's here. My dad laid the foundation for the store that sits there now. The Lyman Merc. KF: How did you travel here? Were you on the railroad? JP: Well it was all... Yes. When my dad was sick, he had appendicitis. And I went for about a month to Mt. View and got a Doctor Mills. She was a lady doctor. I went over there every other day for a month and bring the doctor over to see my dad. And it penned out that he had appendicitis. And I took him to Carter and he took the train and went to Salt Lake. The second day he was there; his appendix broke when he was here and they operated. When they opened him, he was full of puss and he died. KF: But the major way of travel at that time for long distances... JP: It was all horse and buggy and sleighs. Horseback. KF: And the train from Carter? Well now I've talked to some of these other people and they said that most of the shopping that they did was down around Fort Bridger area. Is that same with you? JP: Fort Bridger was... Joe Guild was down there. They had a blacksmith shop. Bill Lane was the blacksmith. And they had a saloon there. Two brothers... Calftoe... Billy Calftoe run the saloon. He had a brother there that helped him. Tom Calftoe. I know all the old timers down there. Groshon. When he was down on the old fort. When he run a dairy down there. Willy Carter. I knew him and his brother. I sheared sheep for Willy Carter. I sheared sheep all over the country. A pretty good sheep shearer. The first sheep I ever sheared was out on the old horse ranch. I sheared all day long for seventeen head. We got seven cents apiece. 3 KF: Seven cents? JP: Seven cents and we struck out there. We struck for more and they fired the whole bunch. We went clean back up over to George... The sheep man. We went with the wagon clean across through Robertson and up there and went a shearing for, I can't recall his name. KF: Well when you first started about 1907 then and that area there, were there already a lot of sheep out here? JP: Yea, there was a lot of sheep all over the country here. I knew most all the sheepmen. I can't recall names. Mackey’s, Reece and Hatch. I sheared for Reece and Hatch. We used to run wild horses out here. There's a natural corral down here on Birch Bend. All there is is a pair of bars. We put a bunch of us went down there chasing horses and we put fourteen head in that corral one time. Don Eyre got the one horse, I remember. He called him Brushy. KF: There were a lot of wild horses then? They've been pushed back. JP: They were all over the country. You would go out there and fire a shot and that whole country over the Point of Cedar Mountain down to Grainger, the Grainger Flat, there would be a cloud of dust. The whole prairie. Thousands of them. And antelope was thick out there. My dad went hunting antelope out there with an uncle that come here from Beaver and Joe Fields and John Fields went out there hunting antelope and I heard my dad tell the story that when they circled he had to jump down a wash to keep from getting run over. They started a milling. He guessed they was three thousand head of antelope in that herd. Never seen anything like it in his whole life, KF: You don't see it anymore, either. Well I talked to somebody else, earlier and they talked about a controversy that we had between the sheepmen and the cattlemen. 4 JP: They had a deadline out here, somewhere along through here and a guy got killed. Somebody from Lonetree or the sheepmen, they crossed this deadline with the sheepherd. And they raided them one night, they come to the sheepherd. There were three men in the camp. This Garside got killed. The other two men fled in their underwear and they went out and got on these, found their horses and got under the blankets on the sheep camp horses. And that's all that saved their lives. They went right up this road over here by the sleigh with this Garside in it. And they killed him and they never did find out, I guess they didn't try too hard. They knew about who it was and all about it. That was the end of that. KF: Was there any law enforcement around here? JP: Well, no. It was a self-made law and they just drew that deadline and no sheep over here. Now a little while after that there was sheep all over Lonetree, and Henry's Fork. KF: There's both all over the place? JP: Yes. KF: Did anybody try to farm this land? JP: Farm it? Oh, yes, we raised the finest crops that were ever raised. Alfalfa, anything we could raise. We raised two crops of alfalfa and the prettiest grain that was ever raised. Oats was way over the regular poundage per bushel. I thrashed 1865 bushels of the prettiest grain you would ever lay your eyes on by hand down there. I guess that's about it. KF: Pretty rocky ground though wasn't it? Was it pretty rocky ground? JP: Well we had some rocky ground. That place down there is all under cultivation. All but a big draw that runs through it. And it's a lifesaver. That's the reason it drained the ground. 5 KF: You know, you talked about the twelve houses that were up on this bench and this being a sage brush flat. What did they make the houses out of? JP: Oh, they had some pretty good homes. They was log homes. Sawed or we had a log house that burned down. We had another one built of frame sod, filled with saw dust that burned down. We lost a little boy in that home. Burned to death. A boy just older than Lamont. And the ones that were here they was Diffandafer, South. I used to know all them guys. I played baseball in Mt. View for years and years. I stayed with that team, I was sixteen when I made the men's team. I played shortstop, third base and second base. Then I started a pitching. And I pitched from there on out. With no relief. KF: What team was this? JP: This was... We started out with the men's team. Then Ez Gardner... Ez was the pitcher. They had a catcher and then they picked a bunch of young guys. They called us the Grasshoppers. And we beat that team. KF: Did you represent a business or was this just a community thing? JP: No. Just played for the fun of it. Everybody. KF: Did most communities around here have a baseball team at that time? JP: Well, yes. Mt. View and us. We was dead after each other. KF: Oh, yea. Same as today, huh? JP: Charlie Hamilton, Jim Megeath, they used to have it on us... We used to play for beer. Shouldn't put this in here I guess. We had a game match for sixteen gallons of beer. Played at Mt. View. And your uncle, Earl Fackrell, I got beat over there one day. They knocked me all over the field. He come to me, he said, "that's the last time you'll ever beat Mt. View." I said, "yea!" Well right after that, we matched them for sixteen gallons of beer. 6 And before we got there they boosted it up another sixteen. We played for thirty- two gallons of beer. And we beat Mt. View sixteen to two. I'll never forget it. Jim Megeath, Ernie Megeath, Charlie Hamilton, there was an Indian that played and was a good one. Played barehanded. Shortstop. Never wore a glove. KF: Did the community follow these games? JP: Oh, did they! I'll say! Everybody. KF: Did they have the brawls afterwards and everything? JP: I never got in a fight at a game. I had fights after the game and I never did drink before a game. I had guys try to get ine to drink whiskey or beer or something but I never done it. Nothing. I was, the only thing that kept me living right was athletics. I kept away from tobacco and whiskey. After I married her, I quit. KF: Well listen. How about the schooling at this time in the early years? JP: Well we had these schoolhouses all around the country, you know. They had one down on the Jarman place, down here. I went to that school. In the first place I went down to Rasmussen’s. We had a schoolhouse in a chicken coop. They cleaned it up. We had a school there. We rode a horse, the three of us down there and back. Each day. KF: About how far was that, Mr. Platts, from you place? JP: Oh, it was about from our place it was about two mile and a half. We rode bareback on an old roan mare with a kinked neck. KF: Did you go to school in the winter time? JP: Yes. It was all winter time. Then they built this schoolhouse at Jarman. Where they had them all over the country then-- MP: Eight grades in one room. 7 JP: Then when they changed again, they built the house up here. The schoolhouse. The big house. I come up here to school. And, I don't know, it wasn't very popular for a guy to go to school then. He didn't know where he was going. I didn't. I was there and didn't know where I was going after. So I had a run in with the school teacher and I just walked out and I never went to school no more. I got stuck when I got to fractions. In the eighth grade when you get to fractions, I couldn't get them through my head. And that was it. I sure done myself some damage. KF: No, you’re right, it wasn't very popular to finish school then. JP: No future for high school or anything. There was one or two guys went to high school from here 0 Clem Eyre, Floyd Eyre, very few of them. And high school was a big education in them days. KF: Well, about what year was this that they built this school here in Lyman? JP: Well, I must have been about... I don't know it will take a little figuring. I was in the eighth grade up here that would be four years... KF: That would put you by today's standards, it would put you at about 13 years old. JP: Yea. KF: Well, I know you mentioned earlier that you played a little basketball. JP: Yes. Yea, I played. But we never lost a game. We played Evanston, Kemmerer, Morgan. We had quite a ringtail with Morgan. At the time they had two referees. Do they have them now? KF: Yea. They have two refs. JP: Well they had one for a while and they got two and we had a doctor up here. A redhead and they brought a little redhead with them. And that was a battle between the two guys. 8 KF: You had an official from each town? JP: Yea, they'd... One would call a foul and the other would say a double foul. That's the way it went. KF: Well who did you play for then? JP: Just a town team. We had a big hall up here, an amusement hall. We used to be in that dance hall and everything. I was floor manager up there for a long time. At the dance hall. MP: I said it was after you were married when you played basketball. JP: Yes, oh yes. I went to school here. In this school here, they had what they call an eleventh grade, I guess, or a tenth and eleventh grade, and I went to school here after I was married. I got two, three kids and more just to get to play basketball. But I got quite a lot out of it. Old Kelly was the Ag. teacher. This here feller was superintendent on that picture there and these guys all went to school, you see. Bill Hamblin... Well I hadn't better tell it. KF: You needn’t be afraid to be telling anything. Well when did you get married? JP: 1913. MP: November the 12th, 1913. JP: 11, 12 and 13. We said that to somebody and they said, "What the devil did you get married three times in three days?" KF: Were you married here in Lyman? JP: We were married in the Salt Lake Temple. KF: Went down in Salt Lake? On the train? JP: Yea. That's all we got to go, to get a train ride. I went to Beaver when I was six years old from Salt Lake. I went down with a friend of my mothers. They didn't think I would go. They went to the train with me and they thought I would back out. But I didn't. I went down 9 there. I stayed there till October. And came back with a lady from Beaver. Grandma Talton. I was horse crazy. I was just after horses. I got down there so I could ride a horse every day. And that's what I done. Stayed down with my uncle Elic and aunt... Mother's sister anyway. Aunt Elly. KF: So you were married in 1913 and that brings us to about a point... What affect did World War I have on your lives? JP: I had too many dependents. I could have gone if I had wanted to. That's one reason I got some pretty good jobs. Amber Davidson was County Commissioner. Be put Ernie Hopkins and me with Custer Casto and Fred Whitiker. They were on the County. In order to give us employment, more men employment, they were going to work us half time. Each one of us half-time. We went down to work and we never lost a day. We went clean through with both outfits, KF: What were you doing for the County? JP: We were on the bulldozer. We didn't have a bulldozer then, but we had a tractor and a grader. Just fixing county roads. We went over into Evanston up on Hilliard Flat. That was part of our job, there then. KF: Would you leave here in the morning and go all the way over there and come back? JP: No. We'd stay over there when we'd go. KF: That's quite a trip in those days. JP: Yes. Up on that flat. I got all them Englishmen up there. KF: Well, listen. How many children did you have? JP: Seventeen. KF: Seventeen? 10 JP: Yup. That girl down there is the last one. This boy in the middle there, he went on a mission. He went to Old Mexico. He's got a wonderful job. He's with this... MP: He's the only one that went to college. JP: Graduated from UCLA. Got his master's degree there. I wanted him to go on and get his Doctorate, but he said no. He didn't want it. I can do things that doctors don't do. Got an awful good job down there on the Welfare Department. He was in the adoption department to start with, but he's got away from that. Now he's a teaching. KF: Well, how much... What affect did some of the bad winters have on your sheep ranching? JP: Well, I never had sheep too long. That is, in the early days. We just had the farm, there and milked a few cows. Then I went into the dairy business. I joined the Weber Central. Well in the first place we were with a dairy in Rock Springs. We cooled our milk in ten gallon cans and they come and got that. Then Weber Central come out here and got, there was about five or six of them met in Mt. View and they took us into the Weber Central. That was the finest thing that ever happened. I had a shed down there, a shed type barn. In order to make that come up to Grade A, it cost me $75.00. The first check that I got from Weber Central was double, more than double what I got for the milk that went to Rock Springs. Whole milk. KF: You had to bring the shed up to standards, then? JP: Yea. You had to pass a Grade A test. They just kept a getting a little tougher and tougher with us till we got up there and then when Melvin bought the place, he bought... That all went with it. He milked cows for a little while... Of course we had sheep too then. I had the sheep too then. He went with the sheep and he's done a wonderful job. He's got his picture in the Woolgrowers last year for being the top hand. 11 KF: How many cows did you milk? JP: We milked about nineteen cows. About the most we milked. A lot of the others milked more. We were just small fry. KF: Now this Weber Dairy, where was this out of? Salt Lake? JP: Ogden. They trucked the milk. Then they bought a layout in Hock Springs. The Weber Central did. They had an agent down there and they trucked milk both ways. From the Valley down here North of Rock Springs. They was a fine bunch of guys. Couldn't beat them. All LDS people. They was good fellers. They lived up to what they said they would. They was honest. If the whole bunch had a went for Weber Central, this bank over here wouldn't have held the money we would have got. We had a big dairy outfit here. A lot of them. But just a few of us went. About six or seven of us went. Then some more fell in later. KF: They picked up most of the Valley then? JP: Yes. They're still in here. KF: What else have you done during your life for business? JP: A lot of things I wouldn't want to put on this tape. KF: Did you make any money playing town team baseball? JP: No. KF: You didn't get caught in that Jim Thorpe deal? JP: No. I love baseball. I still do love it. Cincinnati was my team. I love baseball. That's my game. I like football too. I'm a learning a little bit. It's a little too deep for me, I've been sports minded all my life. I lived that way, so I could get the best out of what I had. That's what I figured. 12 KF: Well, with seventeen children, you must of had to keep pretty busy to keep an income rolling in? JP: Every one of them knew how to work. The girls milked the cows. The three girls milked the cows till the boys got bigger. When I was off working someplace else, sheep shearing or working for the county or something else to make a living. It was all right. She made their clothes. MP: Made everything over. JP: Made clothes over and all that. KF: Let them out and take them in, huh? Well when did the town of Lyman really start to grow? JP: Well I'll tell you, we had some good boosters here at one time. Real good ones. Mel Rollins, Lorraine Rollins, Gus Youngberg, Joe Slade, Paul Miner was the head of the school. I'd hate to leave anybody out but there... that's about the size of it. They was boosters. We had a Lion's Club here and they took ahold of everything that was any good. They was the means of the Lincoln Highway coming through town here. So many different things that they did like that you know. But I think they're taking ahold now. I see where they're starting a Lions Club here and like that. They need them. Organizations that can do. The Church has done a lot for the country, but they don't do that. I'll say another thing, I was going to join the Woodman of the World one time over there. Ace Rounds got after me. Do you ever know of Ace Rounds? KF: No I haven't. JP: Well, I was just a happy go lucky kid and I was kind of a leader of a bunch and he offered me if I'd come over there and join the Woodman that he'd give me free transportation. Well I come back to Mel Rollins. He was the Bishop. And I said what about this? We didn't 13 believe in secret organizations. You know, in a way. So I said what do you think about it, Mel? I told him the story. He said let me tell you something. He says we've got all they've got and a lot of things they haven't got in the church. That was enough for me. I didn't join. KF: Well, this is kind of interesting because Lyman ended up to be a LDS settlement and Mt. View went Presbyterian, Catholic? JP: Yes. Did they have Catholic? KF: Ft. Bridger has, I think. JP: Yes. Ft. Bridger had some Catholics. KF: How did it come about settling like that? JP: I don't know. (Mrs. JP: When that group come from Minersville. That were all IDS.) KF: Blackners, the Rollins's... JP: Yea. They were all LDS. You don't hinge onto the Will Stevens layout, do you? KF: Kind of, yea. JP: Well, he was a .great guy for the Mormons. When the Mormons come here, they went to Lucerne Valley. That was over to McKinnon. Over that way. Manila. And when they come back, they stayed there one winter, part of the winter. They come back and they all stayed with Will Stevens. And that man just opened his doors, everything he had, they never quit praising him. He was the means, and then they come here and filed, most of them went on the lower bench. KF: They were in the middle of a winter, then? When they stopped there? JP: Yea. They come here early In the spring and stayed there. MP: They got here in September and stayed here and Mt. View. KF: What year was this? About what time was this? 14 JP: We come in 1900 and that was earlier than that. About two years. KF: They were going to go settle in Manila and couldn't make it, so they were coming back? JP: Yea. KF: Oh, I see. MP: They didn't like it over there, after they got there. Then they came over here and homesteaded. KF: I also know a little bit, there's a place called Cumberland, that used to be a thriving little town? JP: Oh, yes. That was the life of this country. We used to freight everything over to Cumberland. That's how I got started over there. At one time I got baseball crazy after my dad died, and I tried to sell this ranch. I was going over there just to play baseball. They wanted me to come over there. They played every night. KF: Well, they probably had a pretty well organized league with the company and everything over there. JP: At one time they did. They had Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming in a three corner league up there. And I was the hero one of the games up there. Went up there to watch the game, to Kemmerer, they was a playing and they had a pitcher from down here. Anyway the pitcher that was pitching for Cumberland blew up. Mike Toleman was his name. He blew up the third inning. If anybody would make an error or wouldn't do what they ought to, he'd quit. He walked off the diamond and I was sitting over there watching the game. And they come over. Frosty was my nickname then. They come over and said, "Frosty will you come and pitch for us." I said, "Hell, I got no business playing you guys." "Well listen if 15 they ask you what you’re doing, come tell them you’re a rope runner." I went out there and pitched the game and we won it 3 to 1. KF: So you were really supposed to be living in the community if you played for that team? JP: That's right. KF: Did they do quite a bit of that? JP: Oh, yes. KF: Go out and draft people? JP: They tried to get me lots of times. We went to Evanston. My brother and me. Took the train. They drove their cars to Evanston. We went over there and played the U.P. team. And Doc, there was an old doctor over there that pitched. And I pitched part of the game for Cumberland. They beat the tar out of us. They had a UP team. They were good. I can remember one fellers name was star. KF: They probably shipped them in from all over then? JP: Well they were on the railroad, back and forth you know. We went to Greenriver and played that bunch down there and they beat us. Mike Mayor. Did you ever hear of that Mayor? He was the pitcher down there. He was the Mayor of Greenriver at one time. He was left handed. He was a good pitcher. They beat the tar out of us down there. KF: Did you ever get on a big road trip with the baseball team? And go for a week or so? JP: No. I've had guys tell me, they might have been bluffing, but I've had guys tell me if I'd been where they played baseball I'd a made a small living at playing. I was just that good. They thought I was anyway. I loved it. KF: Each little place that set up a team and... What other kind of activities... Did they do any winter sports or just the... 16 JP: Well, sleigh riding and dancing. There was a dance every night and in between times we had some good times. Had a good dance hall here. Had a good floor. Mt. View put in the floor in the Woodman Hall that took it away from us. They put a maple floor over there. I've seen them come in there, Don Bulluck and some others ride in that dance hall on their horses and shoot the lights out. KF: Had the guns right with them, huh? JP: Yes, sir. You see over there, them guys, they'd come in and dance with chaps and spurs on, you know. Dance all night long. I've danced over there from the time they started till the sun come up. KF: What affect did... I know this was an LDS community but I know Mt. View wasn't. What affect did prohibition have down around Mt. View? JP: They kept on going, Charlie Davis and some of them fellers. Jeff Davis. He was quite a saloon man. Was it Jeff? Yea. He was Ken Davis's dad. I knew ken right well. I was shearing sheep when he was wrangle... But I sheared sheep all over. I think at one time, and I think right now I could go over and name you more people that lived in Mt. View and all down that country that I got acquainted with them through race horses, through fighting, baseball, and things like that. They all knew me pretty good. KF: Well how did you go about getting shearing jobs? Did they contract you out? JP: Yes. We booked them. We had a guy that would book... Well the first place that was Hight and Hatch out in Point of the Mountain. Then we went up to Reece’s. Then we went up to, on the Muddy to George Myers. Then to Bigelow's. Down here on the bench. Then I went over to Altemont. Sheared over there. KF: Did it just take you three or four days at a place? 17 JP: Oh, yes. Had lots of time. At Altemont they had quite a run over there. We'd be there for... Oh they shear there for about a month. Come all over that country down there. They had a big pen there. Did you ever know Willey and Elmer Meeks? KF: No. I recognize the name though. JP: Well, they was quite the guys. KF: Did they put you up with room and board? For when you'd go into shear? JP: Well when we went over there we had to pay our board. Most places we went, we got our board. KF: What was your day like when you were shearing? JP: Huh? KF: What was your day like when you were shearing? JP: Oh. Early in the morning till late at night. KF: Not many breaks? JP: Not many breaks, no. MP: Stop for dinner. KF: Eat a big dinner too. MP: Yea. That's when they had dinner at noon. You know, not at night. KF: Well listen, Mr. Platts, what affect did World War II have on your life? We just kind of go through history here. JP: Well, I never had any war experience at all. KF: I see that you got some pictures up here though of... 18 JP: The one boy was, the top boy there, he was on that boxer when it caught fire. No that was Lamont. But Melvin was in Okinawa. Lovell, yes. Lovell, the top boy. Then Melvin he joined but he got as far as... He went over to that island in Los Angles. Where'd we go? MP: Catalina. JP: Catalina. He went over there. This Clint Eyre, Clint Walker talked him into going. I tried to talk him out of it. But I couldn't. He went. Then the next boy was in the navy for four years. He was a mean little bugger. KF: His kids are too. JP: They're great little kids. KF: Yea. They are. JP: If he don't lead them too far out of the way, the damn little buggers. They're smart. They're bright little kids. Nice kids. You know but Lamont is rough and tough and all that. He was in there. He come on leave when he'd been there two years. Oh, he hated it. Boy he was mad. He'd hit an officer. While he was over there and they stripped him of all that he had. Then he come home and I was on the ranch. He said "dad, if you'll get me out of that navy, I'll come on this ranch and work until my times up. Two years or more. Won't cost you a penny." I had a bad ankle. I've got it now. See that's a stiff ankle. It's got a silver screw through it. See that as much as I can move it. And see this tow sticks up, when he cut that it made this toe stick up. Well anyway I went to, what was his name, the one that operated on that? Reed Clegg. I went to him and told him the story. I was honest about it. I told him what I was doing. I said I need that operation. If I get it, It'll lay me up for a while. No, he says I can't do it on them terms. I'd like to operate on it, but can't do it. I come back and told him and he had to go back for two years more. 19 KF: Just couldn't do it huh? What was the matter with your ankle? JP: I sprained it playing basketball. I used to turn it over in baseball too. I've had that thing swell until I couldn't get my shoe on. We used to play on Saturday, most of the time. And I've had that thing till I could hardly get my shoe on. I put that in hot water and then cold water and I just about cook it. I pitched a baseball game with that thing that could hardly get to the ground. KF: I don't suppose there such a thing as athletic training in them days, was there? As far as a trainer taping it up or anything? JP: Did you see this... Your still recording this aren't you? KF: That's fine. JP: Well this piece in the paper where this doctor in West Cavina had got some kind of, it's a long harp like that he sticks in knees. And he puts them back on the playing field football players, puts them back on the field in a little while. Right in the season. KF: No. I didn't see that. That's interesting. We have to battle injuries all the time. Over here. JP: Well tell me a little about... KF: Well I'll turn it off. 20