Revised 1/27

Prologue. Two Great Adventures: Great Trip West. Virgin Islands.
Prologue. My most educational experiences came from two "out-of-the-box" adventures. After my sophomore year at Princeton in defiance of my father's wishes, I took a 39 Ford Coupe and drove 13,000 miles through the Western United States. I developed the persona of being AOL from the Navy. Probably the greatest trip of my life. After my first year in law school, I went to work for my Grandfather's marine construction business in St. Thomas, American Virgin Islands. Magnificent cultural experience and the best rum. Different worlds! Crime and drugs were not issues. Very different cultures than Greenville, but people were always courteous and friendly regardless of background or status.

I). The Great Trip West.

A). Motivation. Spring of my Sophomore year, my good friend and Ivy Club mate, Adlai Harden suggested I get a job with him in Yellowstone Park. He had worked there the summer before. My Dad insisted that I work construction at home to pay part of my Princeton tuition. My Mother supported me. I had a 1939 Ford Coupe. It had a "vapor lock". When it overheated you had to put water on the carburetor or push the car to start it. Mother pushed me out of the driveway. I had $300 in my pocket and off to Yellowstone. I guess the motivation was adventure. Three months and 13,000 miles later, I arrived back in Greenville with my broken down 39 Ford Coupe and $25 in my pocket.

B). Yellowstone. After paying the fines for two traffic traps in Illinois, I arrived with $100 in Yellowstone. I got a job working at the Yellowstone Lake Lodge as a busboy in the dining room. (The Lodge today looks much the same). I spent two weeks. I shared a room with a drunken cook. Not what I had expected. A couple high points: We would get in our cars at night and go to the dump, turn on the car lights, and watch the bears eating the garbage. The tourists would hand the bears food out of the windows of their cars.

C). Dillon, Montana. I decided to leave Yellowstone and head to Anaconda, Montana and try to get a job working in the copper mine. As I started north, I picked up a hitchhiker. He said the real jobs were in Dillon, Montana where they were putting in a large storm sewage system in downtown. So we went to Dillon. We got there at about 11 o'clock at night. He went to the bar. I went to the jobsite where they were working around the clock, 3 – 8 hour shifts. They hired me on the spot. I went to work an hour later. My job was digging the hard ground at the bottom of the trenches with a shovel and pick. In Ohio working construction I made $64 a week. This job, union, $195 dollars a week .. (They paid me the $195 cash, then I had to hand $20 to the union representative standing next to my foreman.). I made extra money cleaning cars on Saturday at the local Ford dealership. I slept in my car for the first week. I then went to the local university administrative office and told them I was applying for fall enrollment. They gave me a free room. My coworkers were bums and alcoholics, mostly from California. In those days these guys would jump on a boxcar, get off at the next station, get a job for a couple weeks, and then go drinking again. In Dillon, after they drank their paycheck, the sheriff would escort them to the railroad and back on another boxcar.. Being on the 12 a.m. to 8 a.m. morning shift I would go to breakfast at 11 at night at the local bar. During the first week or so I had established the persona of being AOL. (I had a few Navy like shirts). One incident was a real game changer. There was an Indian who worked beside me. He had tight pointed cowboy boots. It really hurt him when he shoveled. So I told him I would do the shoveling for him. He hung out in the bar and became my "sponsor". Everybody treated me very well.

D) Lake Flathead Montana. My cousins, Mike and Jean Louise Thieme were visiting Mike's parents on the eastern shore of Lake Flathead. Mike's father had been head of US forestry construction projects for Montana, Wyoming, and northern Idaho. I visited them my second weekend in Dillon, one other time, and then when I left Dillon, I spent four days with Mike's parents. Most beautiful country. Cold north because of climate change caused by Lake Flathead, (After the Great Lakes it's the second largest body of freshwater in United States). Hiking, fishing, and visiting the Indian Reservation. Mike's father and mother took me to a Powwow at the local reservation.

We were the only non-Indians there, invited because of Mr. Thieme's special status. Gambling, dancing, games; what a day!

E). Westward Ho. (The following is just a narrative of the rest of the trip). I left Lake Flathead, drove down the beautiful Columbia River Gorge, past Portland and out to the coast. At the beach I ran and jumped in the water, nearly froze to death and everybody laughed at me because no one went in the water. Now for the rest of the trip.

1). There were beautiful state parks on cliffs overlooking the Pacific, south of Portland. I camped out in the parks for four or five days. Other campers gave me food and talked to me over campfires. My AOL Navy persona worked magic. People were so kind. Beautiful scenery.

2). San Francisco. (Two stories). Arriving in San Francisco, I went immediately to Chinatown. I went in a restaurant where no one spoke English. Finally, a Chinese fellow came over and I him asked in English if he could be of help. He ordered my lunch. He then asked me where I was from. I said a little town called Greenville, Ohio. He replied “ Oh, I know it well. I spent 20 years in Middletown, Ohio 40 miles away”. Leaving San Francisco I picked up two preppy looking hitchhikers. I had them convinced that I was AOL from the Navy. They said to stop in our fraternity at the University of California Santa Barbara.There lots of parties to go to. They were curious about this character. The second day, one of the fellows came home from work from a men’s clothing store. He had a copy of something like “Men’s Fashion Magazine”. He said, “ You’re a phony!”. He showed me a picture of me walking off the rugby field at Princeton with a cool sports coat over my uniform and my date Susie French.

3). California, the rest of the trip. From Santa Barbara I drove down the beautiful road along the coast all the way to Los Angeles. I then went to Camp Pendleton and picked up my high school classmate Buck Lease who was in Marine boot camp. We went to Hollywood and met two other older Greenville guys who were trying out for the movies (no talent) but we were able to sneak their two pretty dates, great time in LA. From there I went into Mexico. Across the border I went to sleep in my car in the woods by the highway. Some Mexicans came around and I had to pull my gun and scoot back across the border. I headed north through central California to beautiful area Bakersfield, etc. Before I got to Reno, Nevada I picked up a hitchhiker. He said that if you go into one of the casinos and buy $25 worth of chips they will give you a free dinner pass. After you eat your dinner, cash in your chips and get your $25 back and leave. I had a great dinner and slept that night out in the desert.
From Reno I headed east on US 40. In Utah I picked up an Indian hitchhiker in a little town square. He said once a month or so he would go into town and drink too much and get in trouble. The judge would have him spend the day cleaning the park and send him back to the reservation. I dropped him off out in the middle of nowhere and he started walking towards the mountains.

Next, going through Colorado, I picked up a hitchhiker on US 40 heading east. He was a Vietnam veteran and mentally unstable. My car had that vapor lock. We were going over the very steep Eisenhower pass. We had to stop a couple times to get water from a stream to fill up the water bags and pour water on the carburetor. He started to go nuts. I gave him the spare water bag and asked him to go to the creek and I took off.

I then went to Colorado Springs where I had a delightful week with Dad and Mother and the girls. Dad said you must go home now. Again, I disagreed. Mother backed me.

He gave me a few bucks and I drove from Colorado across the Dakota’s to the west end of Lake Superior. (My hood came off the Ford going down one of those rolling hills in the Dakota’s. I put it in the trunk. Whenever it would rain, I would pull over to the side of the road and put a canvas over the engine: this was for the whole remainder of the trip) I drove hundreds of miles along Lake Superior. The Canadian National Highway was gravel with a rough washboard surface. The Ford handled it. I stopped at a couple Indian villages. I finally got to Whitefish Falls, Canada. I had hoped to be able to hike over the mountain to Granddad’s cabin on Long Lake. An Indian girl in the village offered to be my guide. I thought about it and immediately left for Ohio. Last few days being nearly out of money, I lived on uncooked oatmeal and dried fruit. Back to Greenville with $25 in my pocket! Took a good shower. Two days later I was back to Princeton.

Prolouge: Virgin Islands Adventure

After Granddad sold the Miami Sea Aquarium, he formed a company called Bones Schultz. Bones and Schultz were two former employees of Grant Dredging, a subsidiary of the American Aggregates. Granddad owned the company. I think he intended that I would inherit the company. (He always was like a father to me and concerned that I never got an opportunity to work at the American Aggregates Company. Uncle Edward had shut me out). He sold me, at great discount, a fair amount of the stock.

The Story: The first summer, I worked in the Miami and Miami Beach area doing marine construction. We built piers, docks etc.. Granddad then hired a new manager and moved the operation to St. Thomas in the American Virgin Islands. We had a large construction barge, cranes, support equipment, etc. The contract was to build the docks for the ferry connecting St. John's and St. Thomas. After my first year in law school, I headed to St. Thomas. It was 2 1/2 magical months. The construction team consisted of eight men, all but two who had fought in Europe, other two had fought the Japanese. They were all tough guys. But as I got to know them, they were truly wonderful fellows. At night they worked as bouncers for one of the local bars. The work was terrific. I operated the large crane. I learned to do some underwater welding etc. However, the social life was the best. At Columbia Law School, Mario Bryan, a black from St. Thomas and a Harvard grad was a good friend (The current governor is a Bryan, probably a nephew) His older sister had graduated from Columbia Law School and was in the prosecuting attorney's office in St. Thomas. She also sang at the nightclub where my fellow workers were the bouncers. Another friend at Columbia was Judy Paiewonsky. Her father owned a large store on the main street in St. Thomas. Her uncle was the appointed governor of the American Virgin Islands. St. Thomas was still very primitive. Charlotte Amalie, the capital was a small town, maybe 4000 people. The main street tourist stores and bars were down by the waterfront. Incredibly, I knew all the right people. One of the great summers ever. Worked hard all day. Partied at night and sometimes worked with the bouncers at the bar. Returned many years later. The big tourist crowd radically changed St. Thomas. St. John's with the Rockefeller Hotel in the huge National Park still remained quite unspoiled. (After the summer, I told Granddad that I thought the man managing the company was cheating him. Granddad reviewed the numbers. I was right. He shut down the company. He had a deal in Miami to trade the company's equipment to a Brazilian for an island in the Amazon River that had large holdings of timber. He asked if I wanted to go to Brazil and look into the operation. I had just become engaged to Carol, end of that chapter)