Childhood & Youth

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The early years as most of us have vague memories is just that in my mind. I remember a few days in Bay City, Texas when your Grams and Granddad Roy and us kids lived together in a large house outside of town near the gasoline refinery where your Granddad Roy Machen worked in the capacity of superintendent. The plant was Hammond Oil Company and produced gasoline, oil and later paraffin. It was an old plant with water towers that seemed as tall as the sky itself and an odor of high octane gas as the precious fuel was produced and pumped into giant storage tanks for later transport to trucks. This young boy born miles away from this Gulf of Mexico, South Texas town in Matagaoda County has been named Russell Wansfell Machen. The first name had no significance but the middle which was a thorn all of my life was from a novel. "The Wanderer of the Wasteland" by Zane Grey, a famous writer of those times. Grams had taken a liking to the name and attached it to her beloved son. Pat, my sister and your aunt, I only remember as being gone most of the time to school or fighting with me over something as siblings will naturally do but later in years to turn into a closeness unknown to you children. We did have some good times down at the creek away from the house and once in awhile out in the field watching or trying to touch the old Brahma bull which wandered along with his herd outside the fence surrounding the house.

I remember being taken to Grandma and Granddad Sullivan's in Nicoma Park, Oklahoma just east of Oklahoma City and being left as the rest of the family went somewhere unknown to me. Back to Bay City, I presume, to collect some of Grams and Aunt Pat's things and to move away from my father to live in Oklahoma. I did not of course, understand the situation for many years and as you boys have been through the same ordeal and have known that same confusion, I do not need to detail those feelings. It was the winter of 1940/41 and it was cold. The winter continued in Nicoma Park, Oklahoma and summer came and went. September was here and it was time to start school. The first grade and the beginning of memories and activities of a boy who in the wink of an eye would grow up to be your father and in time a dad and friend to both of you. I started school, met friends I thought would last forever, not realizing that years would take all things from you not just your youth but memories of people, places and other things. Grandma Sullivan was a church goer and attended the First Baptist Church of Nicoma Park each Sunday morning and night and on Wednesday for prayer meetings. She was a short(even in my youth)heavy set woman with long silky hair that she combed and brushed each night and morning, which she wore in a large bun at the back of her chubby face and head. Granddad Sullivan was a tall well built man that could be so kind and then with the change of the wind which happens often in Oklahoma, be a tower of wrath that I think even God himself would have feared to tangle with. He was a very strong man as skilled in wood craft as Grandma was in the raising of her five children, now with families of their own and her ability to set the most wonderful table of goodies throughout the week and a feast on Sunday and Holidays. She would sit and sew and Granddad would sit and chew and spit in his big spittoon as the wad of Beechnut Chewing Tobacco became juice in his jaws. I sat on the floor and played or studied the great new things that were flooding my virgin brain from school, church and the world itself. At that time the world was free of care or concern and playtime was most important to this youngster. Christmases were the thing, all things were happy for the most part.

When the next year came I found your Grams, Aunt Pat and I moving and living in Corpus Christi, Texas on the Coast of the Gulf of Mexico. This was in 1942 and World War Two had begun not long before. The U.S. Naval Station was active with fighter planes in the air "Dog Fighting" as they soon would be in combat in the Pacific War with Japan. The second grade was a year of learning and adventure. It was beset with knowledge of the world and its rules and hazards. I remember gathering scrap metal and paper for the war, rationing of foods such as sugar, coffee and meat. The small banners with little gold stars on them that decorated the windows of people with sons in the service. Even in the safety of our Country we practiced black out procedures with mock air raids in case the enemy got through our defenses and violated our beautiful Country. It was a year of my first bicycle, a very small thing about the size of a tricycle only with two wheels. I learned what undertow is at the beach as I was almost drowned while swimming and the tragedy of slicing my foot open on a carelessly discarded milk bottle(then made of glass)that nearly cost me my right big toe. The year went as fast as it came before I realized what had happened, we were again living with Grandma and Granddad in Nicoma Park. As in the previous Septembers and for many more to come I started school again as regular after the Labor Day Monday. This year, 1943 until 1946 I was to stay along with Grams and Aunt Pat at Grandma and Granddads. As with each young boy in the early days of his life, my days were filled with dreams and wishes. The days passed and turned into years and soon it was a school year beginning the sixth grade at Cleveland Grade School in Oklahoma City. I fondly remember designing the Safety Flag for our school that was flown when there were no accidents on the way to, from or during school of the preceding school day. My very first sweetheart, a little girl named Carolyn Gee of whom I still have a picture of and cherish in my heart. I have not seen her since that year and have no idea whatever happened to her. Our family consisting of your Grams, Aunt Pat and myself was on the constant move to larger and nicer abodes. As Grams would make a little more money she always saw that Aunt Pat and I had a few more things that we needed or wanted. In 1947 it was another year of moving into another district in Oklahoma City. A new group of friends, as we had no vehicle and across town was only achieved by way of bus or trolley car(a long train like a thing on rails that was moved by power from a pole in the air that slid along a very high voltage wire). It was totally out of range to ride these conveniences as they were quite expensive for our status. This is what I meant earlier when I said that friends would come and go like the years. It was impossible to stay in touch as we had not a phone,nor funds to get together so old friends were lost and new friends gained. I started at Harding Junior High School and went only that year without much fanfare or future promises. I was in an area of kids that had money and status and a clannish situation commanded everything that transpired at the school. You were either in or out of the social life and I was definitely out. Not knowing why and not ever challenging why, we all moved to another district. During this time your Aunt Pat started dating a marine by the name of Charles Howard Glasgow. This was to be your cousin, Gilbert Charles Glasgow's father a few years later. Aunt Pat and Charlie were married and moved to their own place leaving only your Grams and me to live our lives.

Entering the eighth grade at Webster Junior High in Oklahoma City was just another step forward in a kind of gypsy life that would seem to become second(or maybe it was actually first)nature in my years to come as even after all these years of life I still have a "Move On" itch every once in awhile for a reason that is unknown to me and that which I fight with all my power but always seems to win out. I spent the eighth and ninth grades at Webster with new found adventures and knowledge only to start school at Central Senior High School in Oklahoma City, not knowing at that time that it too was to be short lived and a move forthcoming to Pampa, Texas. I had several odd jobs doing things from mowing yards, working as a soda jerk in a drugstore fountain to helping out on a cattle ranch in the Panhandle of Texas, during the years prior to moving to Pampa and having a knowledge of what I wanted and where I wanted to be. I had by now known the pleasure of my first real full sized bicycle, a 22 caliber semiautomatic rifle, a drivers license(at fourteen years old in the State of Texas, while working for the ranch),the company of young ladies and friends that I felt I wanted to know forever and not give up. As in the nomadic jesters that I had known all my childhood and was in fact going fast forward into a rebellious state of mind that would take me to the far corners of the world as we know it and into dark places and areas that most of us never think of as real or possible. To be in situations and do things that we never ever thought of in our dreams. A rebellion of life itself and all things in it. Disappointment would be common knowledge and unhappiness a way of life.

Yes,as a young man of sixteen entering a strange tenth grade with new peers and in a place I wanted not to be, I put forth an effort to displace myself. This was a time to take matters into my own hands and return to what was safe and known to be happy. I decided to run away and go back to Oklahoma, back to my Grandma and Granddad(of whom I cared not to live with but preferred over the unknown). The day was hot and it was in my first few days in Pampa that I wrote your Grams a note of "Goodbye" and struck out, out of town on foot hoping to obtain a ride to Oklahoma. Now you must be told that your Grams loved me very much, had never so much as given me a real whipping and had been to all who knew her the most beautiful woman, both inside and out. Any boy(or girl)could not have asked for a more wonderful mother. She gave in all and every way, everything within her in everything that she did. She was a true Saint of the Earth and had no way of knowing of my unhappiness. She had provided me with a dog when we could not afford one and did without so many times so that I may have. She ate not so that I may have ice cream and a movie on Saturdays. This was not of her lack of anything but of my growing pains. This was life and its highs and lows and these things cannot be taught or learned. I struck out on my mission only to be short lived as are a lot of youthful, spontaneous reactions. The street to the outskirts of town was short as the town was very small and after a few short minutes I was on the road with my thumb sticking out, as I had seem many times in my earlier years of the war and in movies. I remember a farmer in a pickup truck stopping and I hopped in thinking I was truly on my way back to happiness. He drove only a short way asking me where I was headed and why. He talked to me as a concerned friend and with his advice, I turned my intentions around and returned to Pampa and the section of a large house that was to be home for a few months.

Your Grams was going with a very nice man by the name of Leland "Dick" Hollingsworth, who later became my Dad and was the only Granddad that Gil and Chris ever knew as far as my side of the family. Vic, you would have also loved him very much and I am so sad you never had the pleasure of knowing that wonderful and beautiful man. That feeling was to come later after a kind of dislike and a coming about on my part to be told in a later Chapter. He was most kind to your Grams and did all he could to be a Dad to me, Aunt Pat and Charlie. School was going fine and I was doing great on the buddies situation but was still because of the lack of money, car and the like, not popular with the girls or maybe it was my complex of feeling inferior due to my social status bracket. Christmas came upon us with Dick coming out from Oklahoma City where he was living for the Holidays and a good time was had by all. I was not aware of the closeness that was coming between your Grams and my soon to be Dad. As winter turns into summer so was Grams' thoughts of moving back to Oklahoma City once again and the intentions of a marriage. This was to become a great surprise to me and another step of rebellion as I had,had my mother all my life and had not shared her on any permanent basis with anyone nor had I ever had anyone to be authoritative over me other than my Grandparents Sullivan in Nicoma Park and Grams.

As fate would have it we did move back to Oklahoma City and your Grams and Dick were married in August of 1951. Your Grams had in fact dedicated unselfishly all her youth and life to this point to the raising of us kids without any regard to or for her own happiness, giving us her all and attention. When the marriage took place in Van Buren, Arkansas I stayed with Grandma and Granddad and upon their return we were to have a home in Oklahoma City where your Granddad Dick was working as a receiving clerk for Russell Products, a place that produced mayonnaise and the like. This was our first taste of a homelike atmosphere and a vehicle and a television which was a thing I had only dreamed of or watched at friends houses but this balloon of happiness for your Grams was soon to burst as in the early part of September 1951, your Granddad Dick attempted in vain to advise Aunt Pat and Charlie wisely about something that I have no recollection of except that the advice was not taken, as I am sure it was meant and they along with myself rebelled and took off to South Texas where we(Aunt Pat, Charlie and I)moved to escape the "Nosy, Butting-In, Non Appreciative Step-Father" who had come into our lives uninvited and screwed up our lives.

Now bear in mind this was the attitude then but was to change as time passed. As being in a state of rebellion and against all things that were intelligent, I, instead of continuing school and starting the eleventh grade, went to work in different places doing whatever I could to help out with the living expenses. Grams begged me to return to Oklahoma City and to try to work things out and finish school as well as to give Dick a chance to prove himself. I agreed to return with the understanding that when I was seventeen years old Grams would sign her release for me to join the service, which at that time the "Police Action" in Korea was going full swing. I returned to the abode of Grams and Granddad Dick and found myself as unforgiving as I had been previously and not giving Dick a chance no matter what he did or said. I truly hated that man for taking my mother away from me on March 11,1952 after turning seventeen on the 20th of February, I went into the U.S. Navy. As this Spirit grew from childhood to adulthood this story of this Spirit becoming a Chosen One in later years continues in the next section of:

"Birth of a Spirit".