Elvin C. Bell - Beyond Cantua Creek: A Fascinating Series of Articles That Include National and International Events That Escaped Media A

Beyond Cantua Creek

A Fascinating Series of Articles That Include National and International Events That Escaped Media Attention

ELVIN C. BELL

iUniverse, Inc.

New York Bloomington

Copyright 2010 by Elvin C. Bell

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ISBN: 978-1-4502-3299-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4502-3301-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4502-3300-2 (ebook)

Printed in the United States of America

iUniverse rev. date: 06/09/2010

Contents

Dedication

This book is dedicated to some inspirational teachers who demanded high standards and kept pushing me to live up to their expectations.

I trust, even at this late date, they can feel the warmth in my heart that I have for each of them.

The teachers in Fresno County, California who transformed me and many others are:

Mr. Perry Close, Cantua Creek Elementary School, Mr. Harvey Loy, Kerman High School, Mrs. Gladys E. Harris and Mr. Dave Hartman, Central High School, Professors Bernard Shepard, Karl Buckman and Marn Cha, California State University, Fresno.

Also, my deep appreciation is extended to Phillip V. Sanchez, my mentor and life-long friend who God gave me the pleasure of knowing.

From your grateful student, Elvin

Ive never been poor; only broke. Being poor is a frame of mind. Being broke is only a temporary situation.

Mike Todd

American movie producer (1907-1958)

- - - - - - - -

Some of these short stories describe what life was like sharecropping in the boot hill of southeast Missouri, and living in cotton camps while working the fields around Cantua Creek on the Westside of Fresno County, California.

Ill leave it up to the readers of these stories to decide if they agree or disagree with Mr. Todd.

Other books by Elvin C. Bell:

PUSH YOUR BUTTON

DONT GET MAD, GET EVEN

TROUBLE IN DOS BAYOU

I picked up the phone on the second ring. I knew it was Fred and I wondered what kind of trick or manipulation he would try this time. One had to be alert with a brain on fast-forward around Fred. It was not a question of him lying. Fred never lied. He never had to. The tricks that always worked on me were the ones that stirred my curiosity or created a new, exciting task he wanted me to handle. And so far, I had managed a couple hundred, each different from the other.

I also learned early on that his maneuvers to manipulate were his methods of testing ones perseverance, the depth of gray matter, the size of the heart, the firmness of opinions, the strength of a backbone and the merit of ones heritage.

But I also found that Fred always appreciated someone who was ready to rumble with the good ol boys; the movers and the shakers.

And there was one other asset Fred appreciated above all others: The ability to exercise rigid flexibility.

Fred, I said, Ive got to leave early in the morning. Im flying out of Dulles International at seven. Thanksgiving is a couple days away and youve given me a long list of things you want done at the shopping center before Christmas. Why do you need me there?

I listened for a few minutes.

Fred J. Russell, Deputy Director of the Federal Office of Emergency Preparedness in President Richard M. Nixons Administration, had just used a different approach. This time it was a direct, straight forward way of getting what he wanted.

He was a dynamic, high energy, business oriented client who had access to almost unlimited personal funds, and the resources to exercise any option he wanted.

His words on the phone suddenly revealed the old Fred, the master of all the tricks, and I forced myself not to laugh.

As his voice started to languish, he added, Well, you introduced me to her, so youve got to be here. His melancholy tone was meant to tug at my emotions.

Yes, I did introduce them in 1968 when Fred raised more than $6 million for Nixons presidential campaign. And since Nixons inauguration, every time I went to Washingtonlike now the three of us, Rosemary, Fred and I had at least one meal together, usually at the Golden Ox Restaurant behind the Mayflower Hotel.

Fred was the only person I knew who addressed Rosemary Woods, a strong-willed, determined, Catholic and life-long Democrat from Ohio, as Rose. No other person except her boss of 22 years, Richard Nixon, called her Rose. To everyone else, it was Rosemary, including Pat Nixon, whose Salem Menthol chain smoking habit, away from the media, drove Rosemary crazy. Rosemary, also away from the media, preferred slender cigarillos wrapped in tobacco rather than paper, especially with a Manhattan before dinner, and French port afterward.

I listened again.

Oh, by the way, he said in an attempt to make it sound like an after thought, as soon as you and Rose get here well celebrate my newest purchase.

Fred was always buying something. He owned oil wells throughout Texas and Oklahoma, large senior residential subdivisions in Florida and Arizona, steel factories in Pennsylvania and Germany, Weiser Lock factories in California, Canada, Mexico and France, various water, gas and electrical utilities in about 15 states, shopping centers in Fresno, Ft Worth, Miami, Scottsdale, Tallahassee, Chicago and San Francisco, hunting lodges in Montana, Alaska and Maine, and personal residences in Palm Springs, Beverly Hills, Mexico City, Paris and New York.

What did you buy this time? I asked.

I just bought the most spacious condominium with the greatest cityscape view they have at the Watergate.

After a pause, he got to the real purpose of the call, and the words exploded like a bomb in my ears.

You need to be here to suffer with Rose when I explain how pissed-off I am at this lousy job I let the two of you, and Nixon, talk me into. So, yes, get over here now. I need you and Im waiting. Well go see Cactus Flower after dinner. Its Goldie Hawns new movie. Rose is dying to see it. Your bourbon and branch needs a hand around it. Im in the corner booth.

The phone went dead.

Oh, damn it, I thought, hes already at the Golden Ox waiting! And my drink is waiting for me.

I knew he would play some little trick on me. So this time it was to celebrate the purchase of his new condo at the Watergate. I could only assume that the next call would be to celebrate his purchase of the entire Watergate property! Or the White House! Or the Treasury Building!

And now hes pissed off at me, Rosemary and the President for what he calls his lousy job.

He knew perfectly well that I tried to talk him out of that damn job. I told him he was crazy if he took it. I will remind him that he and I were having breakfast in Fresno at the Water Tree Restaurant across the street from Manchester Shopping Center when he told me that President Nixon had offered him the job.

I remember Freds words: It pays about $50,000 a year. Now, Elvin, youll have to agree thats not bad.

And I remember my words: Fred, you spill more than that on a good weekend in Palm Springs after a golf game with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby.