Derald Linn , Go West Young Men

Derald Linn, East High ’59

Derald Linn attended Hamilton and Roosevelt Intermediate Schools.  A member of the Class of 1959, he remained friends with many of our classmates. The story below is an excerpt from his memoir, “Lifetime of Memories,” which includes stories about several of our classmates.

Go West Young Men

…I got a job at David’s department store working in Men’s Clothing. David’s was a precursor to the large chain discount stores such as Sam’s and Costco, and sold just about everything from groceries to tires.

A tire promotion took place as I worked there. The person with the most new tire referrals, resulting in a sale, would win a three day, two night trip to Las Vegas. I was dating a girl in our department and asked if she would go with me if I won the promotion. She said, “Sure!” We both knew there was no way I could sell the most tires from the Men’s Department. Determined, I handed out referral slips like crazy. As totals were posted, by golly, I was near the top. Friends in other departments started handing out referral slips for me. In the end, I won.

Of course, the girl I asked to go with me didn’t go. We were both upstanding Christians and both knew the competition was pretty much just for fun. Since I had the certificates for two people and two nights in Las Vegas, plan “B” developed. My friends Benny Cluster and Gene Maberry (East ’60, at right) decided to make the trip. Benny and I worked in the same department at David’s, plus he was a boyhood friend from church. Gene was also a church friend who attended college at Stanford.

We loaded up my’56 Chevrolet and set off on our adventure. We only had two certificates, but we worked out a plan to sneak Gene into the room. We all had a great time in Vegas. Two of us would venture out together to do a little gambling but very little because we didn’t have much cash. The third person would catch up on some sleep. We rotated the sleeping schedule. There were a few free shows we were able to attend. We took strolls together visiting most of the casinos along the strip. We saw several movie stars enjoying the drinks and gambling.

Gene was down to his last quarter as we were walking out of one of the casinos. He took his quarter and dropped it into a slot machine, pulled the handle, and bells and whistles started going off.  Staff came rushing up to him. He had won a jackpot! I don’t remember how much it was, but it certainly came in handy for the rest of the trip. We had a great time in Las Vegas.

After Vegas, we headed out to California. Gene’s grandmother lived in Los Angeles and put us up for one or two nights. While there, we took a side trip to Tijuana, Mexico. The was our first trip into Mexico for Benny and myself. Gene had been there before. Wow, what a culture shock. We were glad when we finally crossed the border back into the USA.

While in Los Angeles, we enjoyed another first for Benny and me. We walked on the beaches and swam in the ocean. Also that day, we visited the famous Santa Monica Pier. In addition to riding the roller coaster, we marveled at the attractions as we walked along with the Pacific Ocean lapping at the piers twenty or so feet below us. A wonderful experience for three boys from Kansas. 

We left Gene’s grandmother’s house and headed up Highway 1, the highway to San Francisco. The highway hugs the coastline, offering spectacular views of the Pacific Ocean and the idyllic little towns nestled along the way. The scenery was astounding! Cliffs dropping off to the ocean, sheltering seals sunning themselves on the rocks below. Whales coming up for air, pleasure and fishing boats bobbing in the water and swimmers and surfers could be seen from various parts of the highway.

Gene was familiar with the area since he went to school there and was our guide to all things San Francisco.  We had many adventures there. Of course we rode the trolleys. We even splurged and ate abalone on Fisherman’s Wharf. Probably the neatest things we did was drive down Lombard Street. Not once, but several times. Lombard Street is only one block long but it is famous and claimed to be “the most crooked street in the world.”  It is not only crooked, but steep and narrow. It is, or was then, one-way; starting at the top, then eight, tight hairpin turns. Lombard Street attracts nearly two million visitors per year and some days up to 17,000 per day. On that day in the early 1960s, we were fifteen of those visitors. (Three of us in the car making at least five trips down Lombard Street).

We had no place to stay in San Francisco, and Gene suggested we camp out in a park across the Golden Gate Bridge. Benny and I slept in sleeping bags, while Gene decided to sleep in the car. He said there might be bears, but Benny and I made it through the night just fine. How we ate breakfast or how we decided our route home escapes me now, but somehow, with Gene as our guide, we were soon out of San Francisco and on the way home.

The trip home was long. We drove straight through from San Fran to Wichita. We took turns driving while two of us rested. It seemed to work out that one person slept in the back seat, while the other made sure the driver didn’t go to sleep. It was over eighteen hundred miles and took us more than twenty-four hours.

On the way home, we stopped at Lake Tahoe and viewed the Olympic Village where the Winter Olympics were held in 1960. Beautiful! Then we headed up toward Reno. We had been to Las Vegas but wanted to see Reno. I don’t remember stopping there, but we must have, either for a rest break, food or both. Then it was, to quote Willie Nelson, “On the Road Again.”  

It was a pretty uneventful trip except for a little incident in the middle of Utah I like to call “The Miracle in the Desert.”  Gene was driving; I was asleep in the back seat. Ben, riding shotgun, woke me up. Gene told me there was a funny noise coming from the engine. Yep, a knock of some sort. Just a way down the hill we could see a small settlement, a wide spot in the road really, with a few buildings. We pulled into the next service station there, where they said they couldn’t fix it, but a guy with an auto salvage yard down the street might be able to help. We pulled in and as we were looking over the junked cars, we noticed a long-haired, bearded man wearing what looked like a brown robe, cinched at the waist with what looked like a rope. We all agreed he looked like Jesus.

The owner of the place came out to see what we were up to; listened to the engine and said, “Push Rod.” In a few minutes he had the head off and the push rod pulled out and went looking for a match. He looked at the parts in his shop, with no luck. Then we went out to some wrecks with similar engines. Again, no luck. We had given up, and he said we could probably get to the next town and get it fixed at a dealership.

Downhearted, we were trudging back to the car where he could reinstall the head and get us on the road. Gene stumbled over something in the dirt. He bent over and picked it up and was examining it. It was a push rod and it looked like a match. He showed it to the mechanic and holding it up against our part, it was an exact match. The one Gene found though, was caked with mud and rusty. The mechanic washed it in a solvent of some kind, then rubbed it rust-free. It looked like new. He slapped it in the engine, re-installed the head and had us start it up. It ran smooth and quiet. We didn’t have much money, and only a Texaco gas card. He didn’t take credit cards. (Remember, it was the early sixties.) We checked our cash situation and discovered we had little. We did find ten or twelve silver dollars we were saving from our Las Vegas “winnings,” and the owner of the salvage yard said that would be fine.  He wished us luck as he sent us on our way.

Before we left though, we asked about the man we had seen in the yard on our arrival. We described him and told him how much he reminded us of Jesus. He grinned, then laughed out loud, and said he didn’t have anyone working for him, but he sure hoped it was Jesus, because his business sure could use a little nudge from the Almighty.

We looked over the salvage yard as we left, but the man we had seen earlier had disappeared. A tingle ran up our spines as we were convinced a miracle had occurred in the Utah desert. The car ran like new for the remainder of the time I owned it and until I traded in in for a new 1965 Mustang on our first wedding anniversary.