Reflections of My Life by JL Byars – page 3

I later worked at a service station on the Jacksboro Highway (#199), from sun up to sun down for 50 cents a day plus room and board.  We sold gas for 10 cents a gallon and oil 15 cents for 2 quarts.  While I was  working there, my half brother, Jessie, who was an engineer for Southern Pacific Railroad in Ennis, got me a job working as an electrician for the railroad.  I was only 20 years old at that time.  I was on a crew moving the signals farther apart as the trains were getting faster and faster.  I really thought (or knew) that I was “in the money”  making $4.50 a day!  After the crew got the signals all moved  (which we had a contract to do) we were laid off until another contract was let.  It was not long before we were called back to continue the same kind of work as before.

Sometimes in the fall when I was not on one of the railroad contracts, I would go to west Texas to help my brothers-in-law gather their cotton and feed.  That is where I met my wife-to-be, Doris Grant, in the fall of 1938.

I went back to Springtown when the crops were finished, but returned the next Fall and was still in Scurry County in 1940 when all men 18 years of age or older had to register for service in the military (including me) and were given numbers.  As your number came up, you had to report for one year of service.  The popular song of the time was, “I’ll be Back in a Year, Little Darlin.”