The U.S. Government’s War on Communism

The 1950’s were a fearful time in American history. Communism was running rampant through the world and leaders of the United States feared that Communism would find its way to American soil. Fearful of the spread of Communism, the U.S. government set out to find any Communist groups or anyone associated with the Communist Party. In so doing, the government found many citizens who were associated in some form with the Communist Party. Joseph McCarthy became the hero of the anti-communist movement in 1950 when he proclaimed: “I have in my hand fifty-seven cases of individuals who appear to be either card carrying members or certainly loyal to the Communist Party.”[1] Senator McCarthy would go on to accuse many more citizens of being part of the Communist Party.

The attack on Communism in America was warranted because of the fear that it was producing. Although some innocent people were held in jail, lost their jobs, or were blacklisted, there were many people with real ties to the Communist Party. With people like William Z. Foster, Alger Hiss, and the Rosenbergs, the United States government was warranted in its attack on the Communist Party and in driving fear into the hearts of American citizens to root out the problem at the very core of society. The actions of the U.S. government were not a “witch-hunt”, but a continuation of the Truman Doctrine to contain the spread of Communism.

Fear of a Country

During the early 50’s the United States government felt a legitimate fear of Communism. American officials were aware of the spread of Communism in Europe and Asia and these officials wanted to contain the spread of this ideology. This was not their only concern though. There were concerns and fears that the Soviet Union wanted to use Communism to destroy the American government and the American way of life.

In March of 1947 President Truman gave a speech which laid out his idea of the containment of Communism. That same year J. Edgar Hoover testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee about the intentions he felt the Communist party had saying: “[I]t stands for the destruction of our American form of government; it stands for the destruction of American democracy; it stands for the destruction of free enterprise; and it stands for the creation of a ‘Soviet of the United States’ and ultimate world revolution.”[2] Hoover’s idea was that the Communist party would take over the United States government if left to its own devices. Hoover’s sentiments revealed a true fear of the spread of Communism and what it might mean if the United States allowed a group like this to establish a presence within its borders.

J. Edgar Hoover also testified of the Communist tactics as explained in “Their chief textbook” The History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Hoover explained that for the Communists to be successful in their revolution they would need:

1. The will and sympathy of the people.

2. Military aid and assistance.

3. Plenty of guns and ammunition.

4. A program for extermination of the police as they are the most important enemy and are termed “trained Fascists.”

5. Seizure of all communications, buses, railroads, radio stations, and other forms of communications and transportations.[3]

Giving this type of information made the threat of the Communist Party much more real in its endeavor. This was not just a list that someone had pulled off the top of his head; this was written in the Communist handbook.

In 1947 the United States government implemented the Federal Loyalty-Security Program to contain the spread of Communism which could be seen as a continuation of the Truman Doctrine. The U.S. government started the Federal Loyalty-Security Program which tested federal employees on their loyalty and disqualified anyone with ties “to the Communist Party or had a ‘sympathetic association’ with it.”[4] Schrecker states that “what constituted a ‘sympathetic association’ with such an organization was left deliberately vague.”[5] Leaving the term “sympathetic association” vague gave anyone searching for those associations the opportunity to keep members of the Communist Party out of the State Department. The loyalty oath would serve as a stop gap to keep any Communist sympathizer from getting into the government and destroying democracy from the inside.

The government was telling Americans what to fear but not who to fear. American citizens knew that a Communist takeover would not be in their best interest. In August of 1948 James F. O’Neil said in his anti-Communist document that Communists were everywhere and in every facet of our lives. They were progressives, liberals, and union leaders.[6] With this kind of thinking, a Communist could be anybody. Your dry cleaner, your gas station attendant, even your neighbor could be a Communist. Citizens became watchful for any suspicious activity from those around them.

Senator Joseph McCarthy gave a speech in 1950 in Wheeling West Virginia, to the Women’s Republican Club. In this speech McCarthy said that citizens didn’t need to worry about Communists outside their borders but rather “enemies from within.”[7] The Senator made accusations that there were Communist Party members working within the walls of the White House. McCarthy then proclaimed that he had a list of people who he believed to be members of the Communist Party. As Historian Ellen Schrecker concludes it is the idea that he had a list of officials who were running the American government.[8] The very idea of Communists working in the government was frightening for most. How could someone connected with such a horrible organization infiltrate the very government that was trying to contain it? Many questions were brought up about the list that Senator McCarthy possessed, but none more important than who was on it.

A Perceived Threat

With fear running rampant, some citizens were falsely accused of having ties to the Communist Party or organizations that were loosely tied to Communism. Some individuals lost their jobs, some were blacklisted and a few were jailed for their ties with the Communist Party. Although not a serious threat, these citizens did have ties, granted some were very minor. This group of individuals was considered a supposed threat to the government, one that could cause problems. The idea of a “witch-hunt” came from accusing individuals with weak ties to the Communist Party.

In November of 1947 a list was made public of organizations that were sympathetic to the Communist Party. On that list were ninety-three organizations that were thought to be connected to the Communist Party. As historian Ellen Schrecker indicates, “The list was out of date from the beginning. Many of the organizations on it were already defunct.”[9] Groups like the Communist Party, U.S.A., and Communist Political Association were organizations that needed to be watched. Organizations like the Connecticut State Youth Conference, Detroit Youth Assembly, or the American Peace Mobilization were where this list went too far in targeting Communist groups. These factions were a supposed threat and not a real threat to democracy or the American government. Claiming these groups (State Youth Conference, Detroit Youth Assembly, and the American Peace Mobilization) were connected with the Soviet Union is what made people think that there could be a “witch-hunt” going on.

Ellen Schrecker states that it was clear that those who used the Fifth Amendment would not go to jail, but they would lose their jobs.[10] In 1952 Lillian Hellman wrote a letter to the HUAC explaining her situation. She was a playwright who was subpoenaed to testify in front of the HUAC. Lillian writes, “I am not willing, now or in the future, to bring bad trouble to people who, in my past association with them, were completely innocent of any talk or any action that was disloyal or subversive.”[11] Lillian did not want to plead the “Fifth” because it would surely mean losing her employment, but she did not want to testify about other entertainers actions either. She was willing to answer any questions that were about her, but by answering any questions she would have to answer all questions. This letter asked the HUAC if they could leave the questioning to her and nothing else. By doing this she would be able to answer the questions and not plead the “Fifth”, thereby insuring that she would not be a, as Schrecker calls them, “Fifth Amendment Communist”[12].

Many of these “Fifth Amendment Communists” lost their jobs because their employers did not want to be associated with the stigma, and they feared that it would lead to them testifying in front of the HUAC. Lillian Hellman ended her letter with, “I am prepared to waive the privilege against self-incrimination and to tell you everything you wish to know about my views or actions if your committee will agree to refrain from asking me to name other people. If the committee is unwilling to give me this assurance, I will be forced to plead the privilege of the Fifth Amendment at the hearing.”[13] She was willing to testify on her own actions. She did not want to lose her job or be blacklisted by pleading the Fifth Amendment.

John Henry Faulk was another person accused of having Communist ties. Faulk was blacklisted for his supposed ties, but as Schrecker explains Faulk was blacklisted for taking a stand against the blacklisting because it could ruin someone’s career[14]. Faulk’s trial brought up some questions regarding how AWARE Inc. (an anti-Communist organization) gained its information and how it classified that info. Mark Goodson, a producer, testified that if a performer was not cleared by AWARE then that performer would be virtually unemployable.[15] Goodson went on to testify, “All I can say is there were no differentiations made between Communists, Communist sympathizers, those who had lunch with communist sympathizers, those who knew somebody who had lunch with Communist sympathizers, and so forth”[16]. AWARE Inc. was not differentiating between members of the Communist Party and people who might have had lunch with someone who was a member of the Communist Party. Goodson claimed that the blacklist “included general controversy of any kind and in certain cases it even – I’m ashamed to say – included the elimination of people from shows because they had the same name as members of the Communist Party.”[17] Goodson had admitted to eliminating performers because their names were the same as names of supposed Communists.

Blacklisting performers, compiling a list of supposed Communist organizations, and making performers testify about the action of other performers caused unemployment for many musicians, broadcast personalities, actors, and actresses. The actions of groups like AWARE Inc. were good in nature but attacked a group of performers that were a supposed threat and not one that actually had major ties to the Communist Party. This debacle created a conflict throughout Hollywood and spurred along the idea of a “witch-hunt”.

A Real Threat

Hoover’s testimony before the un-American Activities Committee had brought to light what the Communist Party was trying to do. Senator McCarthy’s speech in Wheeling West Virginia had instilled fear that the Communist were trying to infiltrate the U.S. government. Although the actions of AWARE Inc. and similar groups were largely fear tactics, there was a perceived threat of Communism in the entertainment industry.

In 1947 William Z. Foster published his book The New Europe. Schrecker explains that Foster was a leader of the American Communist Party and was becoming hostile to the American government.[18] Foster’s book, although Communist propaganda, argued that American capitalism was destroying society. Foster wrote, “There is a growing understanding among the peoples all over Europe of these elementary facts: (a) that the private profit interests of the big capitalists conflict basically with the interests of the nation; (b) that the big capitalists are the source of the major economic and political evils that modern society is a prey to… and (c) that to abolish these evils the power of the monopolist capitalist must be broken and the people take full command of society’s industrial and governmental machine.” [19]

William Foster disliked capitalism and wrote that it was ruining America’s society. Foster also stated that the Iron Curtain (a physical boundary dividing Communist Europe from non-Communist Europe) was American propaganda against communism. Foster said that “the only ‘iron curtain’ in reality has been created by the Anglo-American press and diplomatic circles.”[20] Foster’s idea was that the American government and media was inventing the Iron Curtain. He also thought that the Truman Doctrine was a way for the U.S. to fund “European reactionary minorities” in revolution to destroy Communism[21]. By using this rhetoric and propaganda William Z. Foster became a real threat to the American way of thinking.

Klaus Fuchs said in his confession to William Skardon, “I had already joined the Communist Party because I felt I had to be in some organization.”[22] Fuchs was approached by a professor to do some work on a project and Fuchs accepted without knowing what the work would be. Klaus Fuchs thought that “the Western Allies deliberately allowed Russia and Germany to fight each other to the death.”[23] Because of this idea, Fuchs was not opposed to giving information to the Russians about his scientific work on the plutonium bomb. Fuchs had become a real threat to the Americans because he was supplying the Russians with the information to create their own atom bomb. He was not deliberately a serious threat to begin with but became a serious threat as he worked with the Russians supplying them with more and more information.

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg paid the “heaviest price,”[24] according to Ellen Schrecker because the Rosenbergs were the only Communists executed during the Red Scare. Schrecker explains that Ethel was not a spy, and the FBI knew it, but it brought up a case against her in hopes that her husband Julius would confess to obtaining secrets to give to the Russians[25]. According to the FBI files, officials were hoping that the thought of the electric chair would make Julius Rosenberg confess. A memo from A.H. Belmont to D.M. Ladd states, “Mr. McInerney advised that there is insufficient evidence to issue process against her [Ethel Rosenberg] at this time. He was of the opinion that it might be possible to utilize her as a lever against her husband [Julius Rosenberg].”[26]

According to telegrams sent from the KGB that were intercepted by the FBI, Julius Rosenberg was recruiting his friends to collect intelligence and military secrets that he was giving to the Soviets. Judge Irving Kaufman said in his sentencing, “I consider your crime worse than murder.”[27] Judge Kaufman went on to say that because of Mr. Rosenberg’s actions the Russians had received information about the atom bomb years earlier than anyone had anticipated and that this “had, in his opinion, caused the Communism aggression in Korea.”[28] The Rosenbergs continued to insist that they were innocent, but on June 19, 1953 they were put to death.

Ellen Schrecker emphatically states, “Significantly, all these people [Klaus Fuchs, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg] were Communist.”[29] These three were a major reason that the U.S. government was fighting the war on Communism in the United States. Schrecker says, “It is hard to have a witch-hunt without witches.”[30] The Rosenbergs and Klaus Fuchs are a few of the” witches” that the government was finding. The “witches” were not playing around, they were giving secrets to the Soviets, and that moved Communism down the path of destruction for the United States.

Conclusion

In the past 50 years many Americans have characterized McCarthyism as a “witch-hunt” similar to the Salem Witch Trials. American citizens see Senator McCarthy as the villain pulling Communists out of his hat to further his career, but that is not so. There were real fears behind the red scare, including revolution, covert operations, and nuclear bombs. As J. Edgar Hoover expressed, there was a real threat from the Communist Party and the ideology it adhered to. There were some members of society that were persecuted for associating with organizations or people who were questionable. At the same time, there were individuals who were doing the very things that Hoover talked about. The Communist Party was real and trying to survive in America. Some Communists were trying to start a revolution, and ultimately it cost two people their lives. The U.S. Government had a right to be afraid of what the Communist Party stood for and what the Soviets were doing to create change in the world. The attack on Communism was warranted in preserving the American way of life and continuing the policy set forth by President Truman in containing Communism.

Bibliography

Schrecker, Ellen. ""I have in My Hand...": Senator Joseph McCarthy Charges That There Are Communist in the State Department." In The Age of McCarthyism: A Brief History with Documents, by Ellen Schrecker, 237-241. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2002.

Schrecker, Ellen. "Atomic Espionage and the Rosenberg Case." In The Age of McCarthyism: A Brief History with Documents, by Ellen Schrecker, 155-170. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2002.

Schrecker, Ellen. "From the Communist Party's Perspective: William Z. Foster Looks at the World in 1947." In The Age of McCarthyism: A Brief History with Documents, by Ellen Schrecker, 119-121. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2002.

Schrecker, Ellen. "Guilt by Designation: The Attorney General's List." In The Age of McCarthyism: A Brief History with Documents, by Ellen Schrecker, 190-196. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2002.

—. The Age of McCarthyism: A Brief Histroy with Documents. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2002.

Schrecker, Ellen. "The American Communist Party." In The Age of McCarthyism: A Brief History with Documents, by Ellen Schrecker, 5-11. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2002.

Schrecker, Ellen. "The Blacklist in Operation: Testimony from the John Henry Faulk Trial." In The Age of McCarthyism: A Brief History with Documents, by Ellen Schrecker, 250-257. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2002.

Schrecker, Ellen. "The Dilemma of an Unfriendly Witness: Lillian Hellman Takes the Fifth Amendment." In The Age of McCarthyism: A Brief History with Documents, by Ellen Schrecker, 226-228. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2002.

Schrecker, Ellen. "The Truman Administration Deals with the Communist Menace: The 1947 Loyalty-Security Program." In The Age of McCarthyism: A Brief History with Documents, by Ellen Schrecker, 171-176. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2002.

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[1] Quoted in Ellen Schrecker, The age of McCarthyism: A Brief History with Documents (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2002), 240.

[2] Quoted in Schrecker, The Age of McCarthyism, 127.

[3] Quoted in Schrecker, The Age of McCarthyism, 128.

[4] Ellen Schrecker, “The Truman Administration Deals with the Communist Menace” in Ellen Schrecker, The Age of McCarthyism: A Brief History with Documents (Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2002), 171.

[5] Schrecker, The Age of McCarthyism, 171.

[6] In Schrecker, The Age of McCarthyism, 123.

[7] Quoted in Schrecker, The Age of McCarthyism, 238.

[8] Ellen Schrecker, “’I Have in My Hand…’” in Ellen Schrecker, The Age of McCarthyism: A Brief History with Documents (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2002), 237.

[9] Ellen Schrecker, “Guilt by Designation” in Schrecker, The Age of McCarthyism, 190.

[10] Ellen Schrecker, “The Dilemma of an Unfriendly Witness: Lillian Hellman Takes the Fifth Amendment” in Ellen Schrecker, The Age of McCarthyism: A Brief History with Documents (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2002), 226.

[11] Quoted in Schrecker, The Age of McCarthyism, 227.

[12] Schrecker, The Age of McCarthyism, 226.

[13] Quoted in Schrecker, The Age of McCarthyism, 228.

[14]Ellen Schrecker, “The Blacklist in Operation: Testimony from the John Henry Faulk Trial” in Ellen Schrecker, The Age of McCarthyism: A Brief History with Documents (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2002), 250.

[15] In Schrecker, The Age of McCarthyism, 253.

[16] Quoted in Schrecker, The Age of McCarthyism, 254.

[17] Quoted in Schrecker, The Age of McCarthyism, 254.

[18] Ellen Schrecker, “From the Communist Party’s Perspective: William Z. Foster Looks at the World in 1947” in Ellen Schrecker, The Age of McCarthyism: A Brief History with Documents (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2002), 119.

[19] Quoted in Schrecker, The Age of McCarthyism, 120.

[20] Quoted in Schrecker, The Age of McCarthyism, 120.

[21] In Schrecker, The Age of McCarthyism, 121.

[22] Quoted in Schrecker, The Age of McCarthyism, 157.

[23] Quoted in Schrecker, The Age of McCarthyism, 158.

[24] Ellen Schrecker, “Atomic Espionage and the Rosenberg Case” in Ellen Schrecker, The Age of McCarthyism: A Brief History with Documents (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2002), 155.

[25] Schrecker, The Age of McCarthyism, 156.

[26] Quoted in Schrecker, The Age of McCarthyism, 164.

[27] Quoted in Schrecker, The Age of McCarthyism, 167.

[28] Quoted in Schrecker, The Age of McCarthyism, 167.

[29] Schrecker, The Age of McCarthyism, 155.

[30] Ellen Schrecker, “The American Communist Party” in Ellen Schrecker, The Age of McCarthyism: A Brief History with Documents (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2002), 5.

Things move slower in a small town. I know that everyone says that but it is true. You may be sitting in traffic in a big city, or waiting for public transportation somewhere. You may be bored just sitting around your city apartment thinking about how nothing ever happens there. Trust me on this though, things move slower in small towns. It is a culture thing that makes everything in a small town move at a creep. Even now after being away from Wendell for seven years I still feel it in me some days. The city is moving 100 miles per hour compared to life in a small town. People on cell phones, business getting done on the fly, people just wanting to get to the store seems faster in the city then it does in a small town. Tractors driving down main street, people riding horses and cattle getting out of pastures are just a few of the things that make it slower. It isn't just that though, it is the pace of life. It isn't like people in a small town aren't in a hurry, it is just a different hurry then you may be use to. I liked to drive fast, but not to get anywhere. Week days in the summers were spent at Thousand Springs just hanging out with friends. Winters we would all head to Pomerell to snowboard. We would take our time and just hang out. These times were some of the funnest times for me.

One day Kendi, Jeremy and I headed down to Miracle Hot Springs or the ol' "soak-n-poke" as we use to call it. It was during school and we just needed to get away for the afternoon. We got a private room and just hung out and talked. We spent a lot of time in the Hagerman Valley just hanging out.

The stories that you hear on TV are not always true, they are close but not true. We do not go cow tipping, however we would tell people from out of town that we did and we would show them where to do it. One night we left a kid from California out in the desert when we told him that he had to get a little closer to the cow to tip it over. We spent a lot of time in the desert drinking and screwing around. One night we drove out to the desert where Donny was spending the night. We took some paint ball guns with us and went out to scare him. We found him drunk down in a sand dune. We pulled up and jumped out like we were going to shoot him and he started freaking out. He ended up dumping his whole bottle of Malibu Rum in the sand, he was so drunk that he started grabbing the wet sand and shoveling it in his mouth so it didn't go to waste.

Hanging out at Maverick was another thing that we did on a Friday or Saturday night. You would catch everyone in town coming through to get gas. You could just hang out there until you found something cool to do. One night a few of us were hanging out at Maverick and a few chicks rolled up, one of which I thought was cute. They walked in and grabbed some snacks on their way to Twin to see what was happening. When they walked out I asked the one if she wanted to make out. As a joke she turned and kneed me in the junk. She really meant it has a joke but she caught me square and dropped me right there in the middle of town. I was in pain for the next hour, luckily Maverick had free ice which I used that night.

I also I got into some trouble hanging out at Maverick. The police station was on the backside of Maverick in a single wide trailer. The police would always be coming over to get a drink or a doughnut. It was hilarious though because Maverick was always getting robbed. Everyone in town thought that it was so hilarious when Maverick would get robbed when the cop shop was right there. Anyway one night I went down to get some chocolate for my mom. I had been out after curfew a few times before this and had always been advised to take a note from my parents with me. So this time I made sure that my mom gave me one. As I was getting ready to leave Officer Goff walked in and I immediately knew I was in trouble. Officer Goff was always so ticked off at me for some reason. As I went to walk out he grabbed me and asked what I was doing out so late. I told him that I had been sent by my mom and that I had a note. He took the note and then proceeded to tell me that it didn't have a date on it. I told him he could call my parents and ask. He got in my face about how I was always getting into trouble and he didn't need to call my parents. He kept me there for an hour threatening to take me to jail. When I got home my mom drove me back down there and waited in the car to see if I would get in trouble but he didn't show back up.

A lot of my stories revolve around my 1980 Datsun pickup that I inherited from my grandfather. My earliest memories of this pickup have my grandfather and I heading out to the farm to irrigate. We would spend a lot of time out at the farm with grandpa getting the water from the ditch to the field and me watching in amazement. You see I had tried it a few times and could never get the water to flow out of the ditch, up a black tube and into the field. Grandpa could just place the pipe in the ditch and with a flick of his wrist, palm over the hole, the water would come right out. He would always get a kick out of me trying and trying until I finally just put the pipe in my mouth and sucked the water out. More then one time I had water coming out my nose and I would come up sputtering and coughing.

Another memory is the time that grandpa had to head to Jerome and I had to stay with grandma. I wanted to go with grandpa so I went out and jumped in the bed of the truck and waited for grandpa to leave. After a little bit he came out and got in the truck and headed out. We were on the freeway before he realized that I was in the back and had to pull over to get me up front. He was not very happy with me and cussed me all the way to Jerome and back.

As far back as I can remember grandpa told me that truck was going to be mine. I would get in the driver seat and pretend that I was driving. My feet wouldn't even reach the rusted out floor boards and the steering wheel seemed like a huge wagon wheel it was so big. I loved that truck and even more I loved the idea that I was so favored by my grandfather that he was going to give me his truck.

Now, you're not reading this to hear my lame memories but to get sucked in by all my crazy antics so I will proceed. The first thing I did when I got the truck was rear end a lady on Blue Lakes Blvd in Twin Falls. I was trying to change lanes and wasn't watching in front of me and I slammed into the back of her. I was only doing 25 or 30 mph but it was a huge accident on my side. I smashed my face on the steering wheel and punched my teeth through my lip. I got out of the truck and told the lady I hit I was so sorry. She told me that I needed to clean up because my face was a mess. I went into JB'S and cleaned up and when I came out the women told me that she had called the police. She looked over her damage and then shut her trunk since that is all the damage she had sustained. My Datsun on the other hand was completely totalled. The entire front end was smashed and later we would find out that I had bent the frame. I had called my dad and when he got there he was so pissed. I remember the ambulance worker asking me if I wanted to ride with them to the hospital and I told them yes because my dad was going to kill me. I didn't go with them, instead we pushed the truck into the parking lot in front of Hastings. I was trying to get everything cleaned up while my dad was upset with me and when I shut the door to the truck to leave I noticed that I had locked the keys in the truck. It took us another 45 minutes, using a hanger, to get the keys out. My face was so swollen and I had wrecked my grandpas truck on the busiest intersection in Twin Falls. For days afterward I had people stare at me for a long time and then finally ask what had happened in that accident. They had driven by and seen me out there with my fat lip bleeding everywhere.

Over the next 9 months my dad, Marc and I would work on the truck. I learned a bunch from rebuilding the front end on that truck but the one thing that I got from it was that my dad could find anything to improvise when fixing this thing. We would joke that the front end was held together with duct tape and a hinge. Now the duct tape wasn't true but the hinge was in there. We couldn't find a washer that fit so my dad used a hinge instead. He did that a few places like where the frame was bent so badly that we couldn't reach the hole with the screw we just got a longer screw and used a bunch of washers. These times were not the funnest times but they were invaluable in hind sight.

After getting the truck back together I decided that I had spent too much time watching Knight Rider and Dukes of Hazzard to not put into effective what I had learned. I immediately set out to recreate almost every scene that I could remember. I would jump that truck over anything that I could find, I would fishtail even on a paved road, and best of all I would go as fast as that truck would go almost all the time. One night a couple kids and I decided to play cat and mouse. I had chased their car for awhile and now it was my turn to see if I could ditch them. Marc was with me and we headed to the country to see if we could lose them. I made a few spin moves and headed full boar down the road towards the highway. As Marc and I looked across the field we could see a diesel truck coming down the highway that intersected with the country road that we were on. We looked at each other and I hit the gas. This was going to be how I ditched these guys and I knew if I could out run the diesel I would lose them. Faster and faster we sped towards the highway and at the last minute I thought we may not make it, but we sped through the intersection and down the road on the other side. I can't tell you how close we came for two reasons. One, even if I did know you would think that I was exaggerating. Two I was eyes forward and balls to the wall trying to make it through that intersection without getting tagged by that truck. It wasn't until later that night when we caught back up with the other car at Maverick and everyone kept telling me how close we came to a huge accident that night. They all thought that I was crazy and from that time on people would ask me to drive whenever we were going to do something crazy because they knew that we could at least get away.

This incident just fueled me to drive faster and crazier then the last time. One night I was driving from one friends house to another and a cop got behind me. Growing up in Wendell you learned that the cops thought they had more authority then they did. No one respected them and you could usually find them at Miller Brothers having a coffee break or sitting in their single wide trailer office behind Maverick. Needless to say I had no respect for these guys so when this guy got behind me I thought for sure he was going to pull me over for the fun of it. I decided to ditch this guy in the country and I took off. His lights came on immediately and it was on. I drove down the frontage road and instead of making the corner I sped through a potato cellar and hit the road on the other side. The cop went to the corner and then hit the gas to catch up with me. I had the distinct thought that he could out run me at anytime so I was going to have to so something creative to get away. We came up on the field that my grandfather had farmed. I knew that field had a canal that ran along the one side and if I could run along it the cop wouldn't be able to follow so close. I took the chance and cut a hard left and onto the dirt road. The truck fishtailed a bit but I got it under control and sped down the road. About halfway into the field I saw the cop car turn around and shut off his lights. I made it to the other side and and took off on the pavement to another potato cellar where I hid for about 30 minutes just to make sure he wasn't going to find me. In case you don't know about potato cellars, when there aren't potatoes in them they are completely empty in the middle and along the sides there are huge metal tubes that they use to ventilate when the potatoes are in there. I used a lot of potato cellars to get away because you could pull in behind a few tubes standing upright and shut off your lights and no one would be able to see you. It was a great way to get away from anyone.

I don't remember making a conscious decision that I was going to start wreaking havoc, it just sort of happened. Marc and I had been skating in Twin and so naturally we kept doing it when we moved to Wendell. We use to go down to the elementary school and skate around the sidewalks and try new tricks. One day we ran into a kid doing the same thing who lived right across the street, his name was Donny. Donny isn't like any kid you know, he was different and we use to have a blast with him.

Donny use to mow this guys yard and we would go over and wait for him to finish so we could go skate. One afternoon I had pulled up in my Datsun pickup and honked the horn. Donny came busting tail from around the side of the house and was close lined by a tree branch. He did a full back flip and landed on his stomach and he just got up laughing. Another time we stole a parking block from a doctors office in town. We were carrying it over to the middle school so we could rail slide it off the stairs. Well Donny was getting tired and he dropped it right on his foot. I thought that it wasn't a big deal but then blood started coming out of his shoe. Donny said that it was nothing and that he was going to skate that rail since he had put so much work into stealing it. He made a couple of passes and then said that he had to go home. Donny didn't skate for 6 weeks after that since he had busted up his foot pretty bad.

Marc, Donny and I use to skate all over town and would frequently get stopped by the cops for trespassing and being out after curfew. We never went without a fight and that is where we started getting into trouble. One day we were skating at the elementary school and a cop stopped by and told us to get out of there. We walked over to Donny's house and hung out until the cop left and then we went right back. The three of us skated over there for awhile and we started to get thirsty so we tried a couple of the doors to the school and found that there was one door that was unlocked. We went in and got a drink and used the facilities and then went back out to skate. Not long after that the same cop came back and saw that we were out there skating again and he pulled his car right onto the grass and came out yelling at us to come over there. We scattered, running in all directions around the school. At one point Marc and Donny decided to hide in the school and made it back to that door, I was not so lucky. I ended up giving all of my information to the cop while Marc and Donny watched from inside the school.

One night we were skating at the bank and a cop came by and told us to leave so we booked it down to the other bank in town to skate down there. We had been there for about an hour when some drunk from Stockman's Bar came down and told us that he could skate. He was dressed in cowboy boots, wranglers, and a tank top. One of us let him use our board thinking that this guy was going to eat it since he was so drunk. To our amazement he got up on the board and skated down the sidewalk and back. When he came back he did a handstand on the board and road for just a minute before he ate it head first into the pavement. We all got a good laugh and the guy stumbled up the road out of sight.