Page 61 - Firehouse Pond

THOMAS SUMS IT UP WITHOUT FANFARE

My best qualities? Trying to get along with people if I can, trying to help
people to the point of causing problems. I like to help people. I've helped my

son out, letting him and his girlfriend live in my basement. I let my daughter
and her family live in my basement. They lived down there, but we shared
cooking upstairs and shared the bathrooms upstairs. My daughter worked at
the University of Iowa too. I didn't charge rent, so we did lots of bartering.

I've always learned to survive on what I had. I was good at making do with
what I had. I was somewhat creative e.g. contracting fields of cotton and

doing the paper route. I became a good talker out of necessity. I was not
afraid to do what I needed to do, like when I needed to like crawl under a
house. I feel good that I often helped people out, not just for money, although

the money came in handy.

I brought turnips to the rehabilitation center on Scott Boulevard to serve the

older people there. The cooks didn't know how to cook the turnips, so I
peeled them and taught them how to use a white sauce on them after cooking
them. I am not afraid of work period--- I don't care what it is. Cotton picking
is a hard job, but asparagus is just as hard because of the stooping and

bending. Bakery work was hard; I weighed one hundred and thirty pounds
and carried one hundred-pound bags of flour.

My worst qualities? At the snap of a finger, I'd fight. Tell me there's a fight,
and I'd get into it. I wasn't always the aggressor. I also liked to stop a fight.
Life was kinda boring without a fight to be in or stop, in Missouri. I tried to
mend my ways up here in Iowa. Down there, my four boy cousins and three

girl cousins (tough for being girls) and I were a sight walking the streets. In
Iowa, I felt I needed to change. I'm proud that I've never been in jail or
arrested, and I've had just one moving violation.

My hobbies are fireworks, macramé rugs, lawn ornaments, barbecuing, and
short-wave radio-my handle was 'King of Hearts'. I wasn't good at cutting

straight lines, so that's why I chose to do the lawn ornaments because they
have lots of crooked lines.