My mother told me, one of the first words I said after "Dada" and "Mama", was "ahpane". I have, among the Gazzaway and Jordan family pictures, in a box my father made in 1923 to hold such mementos, a picture of an airplane that I drew in kindergarten. These things are evidence, to me, I had decided at a very early age, what most people don't decide until they are in college; what I wanted to be; an aviator.

In 1927, when I was two years old, Charles A. Lindberg had flown the Atlantic Ocean, from New York to Paris, alone in a Ryan Monoplane named "The Spirit of St. Louis". I must have heard about that amazing accomplishment very early in life, because, for as long as I can remember he was my hero, and the first book I can remember reading from the school library, was the book "We", written by him about that flight.

There was no public kindergarten in 1930, so Daddy and Mother sent me to a private one. It was in a log cabin, on an island in the middle of a lake, which had a long wooden bridge back to the shore. I don't know if the kindergarten school belonged to Dr. Barnett, but the lake and the cabin did. I recall playing with boys and girls I would grow up with, learning numbers, drawing and coloring pictures, and having to take a nap each day. I can remember what my teacher looked like, but I cannot remember her name.

I remember my 1st grade teacher very well. She was Miss Mozelle Wimberley, and she took my cap pistol away from me the first day I attended public school. She gave it back to me when I left in the 11th grade. I thought she was mean when she wouldn't let me shoot caps in the hall. I later learned to love her as a person and teacher. I, at least, finally got my cap pistol back, most teachers would have thrown it away before they kept it ten full years.

I didn't care much for school. I couldn't look at the airplanes when they flew over during classes. Geography, math, and history were okay, but I never did like English or grammar or spelling and I am sure evidence of that is apparent to anyone reading this attempt at story telling.

Deportment was not one of the departments I excelled in either. We were on a demerit system, and our deportment was graded by a numerical value, with 70 being a passing grade. Any student with less than a passing grade received some form of extra studies or some form of punishment. Demerits were given for such things as chewing gum in class, whispering, passing notes, throwing spit balls, throwing erasers, shooting paper clips with rubber bands, talking back to the teacher, or getting caught smoking in the rest room. The demerits assessed, ranged from 5 for chewing gum to 50 for talking back to the teacher or getting caught smoking. The total demerits you were assessed in a six week period were subtracted from 100 to determine your grade. If you made 50 or less on your report card, you were either suspended for 3 days or got a whipping. I usually took the whippings.

Mr. McClendon was our history teacher, when I was in the 8th grade, and he took his turn each day overseeing the study hall for one study period. He was as bald headed as I am now, maybe even a little more so. Anyway, I was sitting near the back of the room and as usual, was bored stiff. I rarely studied my lessons at school, and almost never had time at home after school. I don't know why I did it, but I took a paper clip, put it on a rubber band and let it fly toward the front of the room. Mr. McClendon was sitting at his desk, facing the class, grading papers, with the top of his baldhead in the way of that paper clip when I let it fly. He grabbed the top of his head, never said a word, got up and came walking down the isle. I was about to "bust a gut to laugh," but I didn't dare. I grabbed a book and pretended to be reading. He stopped at my desk and said, "Okay, Gazzaway that will be 50 demerits for shooting a paper clip." My reply was "Why do you think I shot a paper clip?" His answer was, "Do you always read bottom side up?" It hurt to sit down for a week.

When I was in the 10th grade, Miss McKinley was my Spanish teacher. She was a rather large woman, some would be frank and say she was fat, but she was a very good teacher and a very nice person. She had passed out our 6-week report cards on Friday, and since it was the last 6-week period of the year, some found out they had failed for the year and would have to repeat the course the next year. Among those failing by 1 point was Chuck Smith (not his real name), son of the town mayor.

The following Monday morning, when class gathered for the last time that year, Chuck walked up to Miss McKinley's desk and asked her why she wouldn't give him one more grade point which, would make his grade 70 for the year. I didn't hear her reply, but Chuck pulled a pistol, which we all thought was a cap pistol, out of his pocket and said, "If you don't give me a passing grade, I'm going to shoot you." Miss McKinley said something no one could understand and Chuck pointed the gun at her and pulled the trigger. The shot echoed all through the building, Miss McKinley's chair fell over backward with her in it, Chuck ran out the door, and kids scattered everywhere.

Chuck made a dash for the cottonseed bin at the Munger Gin Company, next to the schoolyard, and hid in it. Someone called the city Marshall. He came to the gin and tried to get Chuck to come out, but he refused and told the Marshall that he would shoot him if he stuck his head in the door. Then they called Mr. Smith to try to talk Chuck out of the cottonseed bin. He didn't threaten to shoot his daddy, and came out.

As it turned out, Chuck was shooting blanks. He not only fired at Miss McKinley, he shot a blank toward Miss Virgie Bedford, the school superintendent, as he passed her in the hall; she fainted. Chuck was expelled from the Thornton School and had to finish school at Kosse, 8 miles south of Thornton.

I never was very interested in sports, but tried out for the football team, played in one game as an end, got "gang tackled", and spent the rest of the season on the bench with a bad ankle. I was a freshman that year, but Andy Nobles, a friend who lived next door, was a senior and got to play almost all the time. I remember him intercepting a pass, in a game with Cooledge, and when he ran across the goal line his mother was the only one cheering; he had run the wrong way.

The summers were hot and the winters cold in the 1930's. We did not have gas or electricity at home, but we had electricity at school for lights only. We opened the windows in the summer for cooling, and built fires in the fireplace to keep warm in the winter. The big problem with a fireplace, without any other kind of heat, was getting roasted on the side toward the fire and frozen on the side away from the fire.

It wasn't safe to leave the fire burning in the fireplace, when we went to bed at night, so we would cover the embers with ashes and kill out the flames. The coals would stay alive under the ashes and when the ashes were raked away and dry wood placed on the live coals the next morning, a nice fire could be started. However, with cracks in the floor you could throw a cat through, the wind blowing hard out of the north, and freezing outside, it would be freezing inside the house until the fire could really get going.

One morning when it was near zero degrees outside and in, Wayne Stone, who lived next door, on the other side from the Nobles, heard his father say, "You sure could get your tongue stuck to a wagon wheel tire this morning, as cold as it is." That brought on a discussion about how the moisture on your tongue would freeze to a piece of super cold iron and about the only way you could get it loose was to heat up the iron or peel the skin off your tongue. Sure enough, as soon as his father left the room, Wayne had to see for himself. The window weights in a box house were hanging in plain sight behind the curtains, and Wayne moved the curtain out of the way, and pulled the window weight out to where he could stick his tongue to it. His father was right. Wayne found it out the hard way. They cut the rope loose from the window and took Wayne, and the weight, to the kitchen and poured boiling water over the weight until his tongue turned loose.

My interest in airplanes continued all the time I was in school and every time a barnstormer would land anywhere near Thornton I was among the first to arrive at the scene. Close behind me, at the cow pasture where they usually landed, would be Bobby Lynn Shelton and Wayne Stone. We never had the money to buy a ride, so we would usually talk the pilot into letting us sell tickets, go for more gasoline in 5 gallon cans, and hold the wing tip for him to turn around at the end of the field when he was ready to take off. We usually got a short hop around town at the end of the day if it had been a profitable day for the barnstormer. My ambition to be an aviator, and especially a barnstormer, would become more intense every time an airplane came to town.

In 1939, Bobby, Wayne, and I started hitchhiking to Mexia on Saturday every week, and spending the day at the airport. Dave Curry was the operator of the airport and owned an airplane. We would do odd jobs around the airport, such as cutting grass, cleaning the office and hanger, and if we were lucky, wash and polish an airplane for someone. The pay was in flying time, 10 minutes of dual instruction for a day's work. I never felt under

paid.

After getting 2 hours and 10 minutes dual time, (pay for 13 days work), Dave told me I was ready to solo. I could take off, make a turn to the left, and land. I had even done a loop or two. I didn't need a license because I was going to fly an airplane that was not certified and Mexia was not on an airway nor in a control zone. If I had needed a license, I could not have gotten one because I was only 14 years old, and you had to be 16 to get a license. The CAA regulations for those circumstances were very much like the FAA regulations for ultra light aircraft today.

I carry a picture of the Spartan C-3 biplane, in my billfold, showing Dave Curry turning the propeller, me in the cockpit, Bobby and Wayne standing near the tail, and Eb Farris looking on. I was getting a "prop" for my first solo flight.

After the Wright Challenger J65 engine started and Bobby and Wayne held the wing tip for me to turn down the runway, I opened the throttle and took off. Now I had never made a right turn and Dave had told me that if I ever had engine trouble or the engine quit on takeoff, to go straight ahead, but when the engine began to miss real badly and make a very strange sound, I didn't like the look of the trees in front of me, and there was a nice open field about 20 degrees to the right; I made my very first right turn and landed. My first solo flight had lasted about two and a half minutes. Dave screwed the spark plug back in, that had come out, and I flew the airplane back to the airport, where they cut my shirt tail off; a symbolic act of trimming your wings.

We made arrangements for Dave to pick me up at the cotton yard in Thornton the next morning and go to Kosse with him to hop passengers all day. He arrived on time and he let me fly the airplane to Kosse and land in a pasture on the edge of town. On the way down to Kosse, he had me make several turns over the railroad track and even had me do a stall or two.

I thought I would be selling tickets all day and going for gas, but much to my surprise, after Dave had flown a couple of men that wanted a stunt ride, he had me fly the next passenger over town and back. I flew several passengers that day and began to build flying time. By day's end, I had more flying time in that one day than I had gotten in the last 13 weeks. It was hard to believe; I was a barnstormer.