Ivan 1937 - 1950     page 7 Sharon was born in the little red and white striped house that I bought from Frank Lambson for $50.00. We hadn't lived there very long until she was born. It was the 27th of September, 1944. She would lie in the shade of the tree and stay relatively quiet. When Mom would move her she would cry like her heart would break. She would miss the movement of the leaves. It then became necessary to move to St. Johns right away to go to work for Hugh Richey. He was paying 50 cents per hour, which was the going rate at the time. Shortly after I heard that the going rate at Albuqerque was 75 cents an hour which was a third more. So I quit Hugh and went there. I found that I could work there for more. I had first contacted the draft board and told them my plan. And had gotten their approval. Well, it worked out all right except that Jake Barth found that Hugh couldn't replace me to build his stock tanks. So he got mad at me for quitting Hugh. And so he made arrangements to have me drafted. Well, I had to move back to St. Johns to get ready to go. And that's another story. After discharge we went to Albuquerque. To Santa Rosa, New Mexico to build a dam there. We worked on it till one day Al got stuck on it with a load of sand. (Now Al never got stuck anywhere with anything. We offered to push him, to pull him out of being stuck. But he got mad. And quit. Now this was on the inside slope of the dam, a "three to one" slope and he was "prittying" it up when he got stuck.) After he had left I parked my outfit and another outfit tied on to the front of his and pulled me out of stuck. We worked on it another 2 or 3 weeks and finished it. Then we moved back to Albuquerque. From there to Bloomfield, N.M. Floyd rented two cats and cans to F. M. Limbaugh to use on a job there. I was to run one outfit and to see that both outfits were greased, etc. We worked there a month or more. Then the guy on the "sheep's foot" kept after me to trade for a little while and let him have some experience on a cat and can. So I did finally. This was just before noon. When just at noon time we were both at upper end of the spread, I kicked in to another gear and was racing to the end when I became aware that my sheep's foot broke and came apart. Well, I stopped and there it was, all torn up. Well, he fired me on the spot. I called Floyd and told him what happened. As a result he came and picked up both his rigs and back we went to leveling land. We leveled land till June 1946. (Floyd got killed in a car wreck. I went to his funeral.) There was at that time a rig you could tie to the ripper in behind a cat, it was called a bore." It was about 5" in diameter and left an underground hole. It was used to drain soil that was part clay. It was about a foot long. I went to Los Alamos, N.M. in June 1946 to work in the most exclusive spot in New Mexico. It was the home of the atom bomb. (It was first fired off at the "Malpais" lava beds west of Carizozo, N.M. Then transferred some 200 miles north to Los Alamos.) Our equipment was used some 8 years later to pick up and bury, then take fresh new dirt and cover the area. (So it wouldn't contaminate the area.) I was cleared as a dozer operator. The first operator I contacted was Jim Voght. He was a quiet fellow, an unassuming guy. I immediately liked him. We were building another new road in to the south side. I was sent with another fellow to "pioneer" the upper hills of the road up ahead. His name was Bill Switzer, another life-long friend. We pioneered a lot of roadway together. When we got rid of pioneering we went pushing the "carryalls." I didn't do much of that because I didn't have a "bellypan." This was a rock guard fastened on underneath the cat to avoid damaging the "bellypan."