"If only." Two words, when combined are among the most tragic in the English language. If only I had graduated from high school. If only I had stayed in better shape. If only the Lakers didn't lose to the Mavericks. If only............. This is the last part of the Autobiography of Charles Cash Rampton, Jr. And yet, it is largely unfinished. It ends before he graduated from high school. It ends before he went on his mission to Eastern Canada. It ends before he married Grandma. It ends before any of his employment history. It ends before................. I think you get the picture. At the end of his typed history he hand wrote a list of other things he had intended to write about, but never got around to (or, if he did, I cannot find them.) Wouldn't we all like to know about his family parties or the time he got kicked out of Primany (all items on his list.)
That, now, is all water under the bridge, having run its course into the sands of eternity. Maybe in the hereafter he can finish writing what he started. I, for one, will be one of the first in line to get a copy.
Last thought.........Let us all shun "if only" like the plague. Start your own personal history. Start it now or as soon as you can. It's a great Sunday activity. Update it frequently. Who knows, you might need it to get past the angels that guard the gate to Eternal Life. I'm working on mine!!
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In the summer of 1943 I got a job at the cafeteria on Fort Douglas. Dad was a
manager all the Walker Bank branch at Fort Douglas. I can't remember but it must have been him that got me the job along with several of my friends. We washed dishes and cleaned up at the end of the day. We were left alone to do the final cleanup and to mop up of the floor. When the shift was over we always fixed ourselves a large ice cream sundae, a very large one. No one ever said anything to us about it so we did this on most afternoons. That was a good job
and helped the war effort. The next summer I worked at Fort Douglas again in the warehouse. This was the summer of 1944. The man I worked with had a 1937 Ford with a dual exhaust muffler system. He would let me drive it on the base since I was not 16 and could not drive on the city streets. I really liked the sound all the duel exhaust system with the fiberglass-packed mufflers. I think I drove around in low gear to hear the muffler roar. One part of the job that I didn't get anymore was" free" Sundays.
I worked in the summer of 1945 with the United States Geological Survey. We worked around the Huntington, Utah area. My job was to chop the brush and tree limbs down so that the transit operator could see. I got blisters on my hands that finally turned into calluses. I learned how to use an axe and sharpen and take care of it and how to live in the outdoors. We lived away from home for two or three weeks at a time in the field and some remote areas. I learned how to use a transit and chain to survey. We walked over some ground that hadn't been walked on by any other human being. Once you got the use of a transit you got more money. At one time we were camping in the canyon near Huntington, Utah. There was a nice stream in the bottom of the canyon. It was a good place for us to camp and put up our tents. In the canyon there were a lot of coal mines. We had heard that some of the coal mine operators were cheating the federal
government. We were sent there to determine the exact location of the mine entrances and to estimate the amount of coal taken from the mines. In the daytime there was also in the canyon a crew of workers who were improving the road which carried the trucks to from the mines. One of the survey crew boys brought a 22 rifle with him on this trip. Since I was an "expert" with a 22 rifle, I got to shoot it a lot. At first we shot at tree limbs, than then at rocks, then at small animals and then we got bored. As we were hiking around the camp we came to a very large rock by the side of the road. It was obvious that the bulldozer had been trying to move it. As we looked under the rock, we saw a strange looking box. When we pulled it out from under the rock, we discovered it was a box filled with dynamite sticks. We couldn't pass it up so we
took some sticks of dynamite back to camp. We broke some sticks of dynamite in two and set them by some other large locks. We then shot at them with the 22 rifle. They exploded with a large bang when we hit them. When we had used the sticks we took, we went back for more. Then we started setting up full sticks of dynamite and shooting at them from a greater distance. This didn't do seem to disturb anyone in the canyon except our boss. He made us take the box back with the remaining sticks in it and put it back under the rock. We did it with some
grumbling. The next day we went to work in the canyon. When we came back to camp that night, the cook told us that a big caterpillar tractor had tried to move a large rock near our camp and the rock exploded with so such force that it pushed the bulldozer off the road. No one knew how that could have happened. We were glad to leave that area soon thereafter. Evidently the cat operator moved the rock and it crushed the box of dynamite which contained some caps and the whole box or whatever was left of it exploded. We always felt that we did the cat driver a favor by using some of the dynamite before he set off. That was my last and only experience with a 22 rifle and dynamite.
In the summer of 1946 I again worked for the United States Geological Survey. This year we spent more time near the Dugway Proving Grounds in Utah. We lived in some abandoned Army barracks. This was heaven when compared to camping out. Also it kept most of the snakes away from our sleeping bags. At night in the distance we could see the flickering lights of the Dugway Camp. After receiving special approval from the base commander, we got to go there several times to see movie and get treats. Who would ever have thought that a trip to Dugway would prove to be so exciting. We were surveying the desert around that section of the state. It was very barren and dry country. The section posts or markers were made by placing metal posts in the ground and putting rocks around the marker to make it more visible. As we would come upon the section markers, we always approached with care because this was a favorite place for rattlesnakes to rest. We always wore high-top boots and took a shovel as we approached the pile of rocks. We would throw small rocks to arouse the snakes if there were any in the pile near the marker. After we had located where the snakes were, we would move in with the shovel and cut off their heads. It was nothing to kill 8 to 10 snakes a day. Some of the crew collected the rattles and took them home. It was a treasure to find a big one. When we got back to camp that night, the first thing we did was to check our sleeping bags to see if
there were any snakes in them. One of our crew who wore very thick glasses forgot to check is sleeping bag one night and put his foot in his sleeping bag to feel a snake wiggling around in the bottom. It was a very frightening experience for him. He was lucky it was not a rattler. Some evenings we would get the government truck which was like a pickup truck and go hunting jackrabbits. You could see their eyes in the lights of the truck and you could try to shoot them. We got very good with the use of the 22 rifle. I once made a lucky shot in camp by shooting at jackrabbits on the move at more than 70 yards. I was known after that as a sharp shooter. When we went to pick up the rabbit to use for stew he was filled with ticks and no good for eating.
I had met Lois before leaving for this summer job and looked forward to the few letters she wrote. After two summers with the United States Geological Survey, I felt l was a seasoned surveyor, camper, hunter, and outdoorsman. Even my stomach got toughened up as we ate half- spoiled food when we were not able to get any fresh food. We just cut the mildew off and swallowed it. You could always tell the food was bad or when it was getting toward the end of the week as the cook would always put a lot of spices in it. Our boss did not like making
extra trips to town. It was a long drive most of the time over rough roads. We discovered an old ghost town on the edge of the desert with no people in it just before it was time to come home. I have often wondered what happened there. These two summers were great experiences, but I don't think I would do it again, all except for meeting Lois, the love of my life.
During the summers of 1947 and 48, I worked for the Utah State Road Commission on the construction of Interstate 80 between the state line and Echo Junction near Coalville, Utah. The mainline of the Union Pacific Railroad ran next to the road construction. The first summer I worked in a shack right next to the railroad tracks. The other summer I worked in an office in Coalville. I traveled each day to Coalville up Parley's Canyon and back. This was before the lower part of I 80 in Parley's Canyon was complete. It was a challenging drive each day. I felt that each evening I was returning to Shangri-la and that beautiful valley as I emerged from the canyon. I worked for an engineer named Valandingham. The contractors dropped off many gifts for him. He said he did not know who sent him the gifts and he would have to turn the gifts over to his office at the state capitol. One of my jobs was to figure cuts and fills over right-of-ways using a hand cranked calculator. This determined how much the dirt hauling contractors got paid. Also, if a change was made, the amount of dirt hauled determined the cost of the change. One time we had a large earth slide which caused large amounts of earth to be moved. I had to estimate how much this would cost to fix. I did it in record time with a hand calculator. My boss was very pleased, as I had to go into the field and get the measurements besides making the calculations. The location of the shack in which I worked was very close to location in the canyon where early day settlers stopped Johnson's army from coming into the Salt Lake Valley. There was one major concrete bridge constructed on the right-of-way in this section. It was completed first. As the dirt was moved there were several areas with springs that needed to be drained and filled. All of this was fun for me. It is fun for me to drive over this section of highway now and know that I had something to do with its construction. As a side note, there are several train tunnels in that section of highway. When the Union Pacific Railroad bought new larger turbine engines they would barely fit through the tunnels. As they went through the turbines would flameout and stop. There was not enough air in the tunnels to feed the turbine engines and they would stop. The Railroad had to make modifications to allow them to use these new turbine engines on this route. While surveying the highway location we would stop for a break on the top of a hill overlooking the old highway and watch the cars go by with passengers in all states dress or undress.
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| Items Grandpa intened to write about, but did not get around to |
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| Charles and Lois at the wedding reciption in Aug 1951 at the Institute Building at the University of Utah |
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| Back Row: Grandma Ethel, Grandpa Joe Bush, Grandma Blanche, Grandpa Russ, Henry Cameron, Grandpa, Grandma, Aunt Janet, Marion Morse?, Aunt Diane, Aunt Carol, Aunt Beverly. Front row: Aunt Maureen, Aunt Gwenie |
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