By Ernie Crook, December 28, 1995
Foreward
As I write this summary of my life I am sitting at my drafting table where I spent many hours in the forties, fifties and sixties designing boats to be built in Crook’s Boat Building plant in Castro Valley.
I now am eighty-three years old and Maxine will be eighty this week. Life has been good to us and there is very little I would change.
My Life and Times
Some of my earliest recollections are on a twelve acre chicken ranch in Cotati, California where I was born in 1913.
My mother and father moved from Lockport, New York with my brother, Dave, then seven and my brother, Charles then three years old.
My grandfather bought the ranch and gave it to my parents to operate. My grandfather was a traveling engineer for steam power plants. My sister, Ethel was born in 1915 and my sister, Edna in 1917.
Petaluma and Cotati were known as the “chicken capitals” of the world at that time and my Dad made his living on a chicken ranch. We kids were poor but happy since we had nothing to compare it with.
The ranch was pretty much self contained. We had a cow, horse, fruit trees, vegetable garden, chickens, pigs and a gasoline engine to pump water to our tank house but no electricity. Our transportation was a wagon with seats to go to church. We removed the seats to haul eggs to the poultry producers depot and bring feed back to the ranch.
The horse was used for plowing and all ranch work. My Dad did the plowing and let me use the house and clod masher to level the dirt out. On one occasion all seven of us rode in the wagon to Dillins Beach at Tomales Bay on a Sunday school picnic.
Radio was quite new in those days. My brother Dave built a set with tubes and a speaker when he was only sixteen. Charlie and I built crystal sets out of paper tubes, wire, a crystal and ear phones. We would go to sleep with the ear phones and wake up with very sore ears! Dave, Charles and I all wired up bed lights in our screened porch. We scrounged for discarded hot shot batteries under the general store for power.
We had an apple orchard and my way of making money was apple cider. People would bring me one gallon wooden barrels. I would harness the horse to a stone boat and fill the boat with apples. I would hose them down and press the juice out with a cider press. Many years later I was told that the revenuers came to our ranch and accused my father of being a bootlegger. Since I was only selling sweet cider nothing ever came of it. This is how I paid for my first bicycle. Another way we made money was making egg crates at the poultry receiving depot. My brother assembled the crates but I was only ten years old so was only able to nail the cleats on the ends.
There was a wild kid in town named Bill McGowen and his father had one of the first model T Fords. It was a four seater with no top. He took my two brothers and me for a ride and on a country road. We came to a bridge that was a few inches higher than the road. We hit the raised portion of the bridge at about twenty five miles per hour and blew all four tires! We took out the tubes, filled the tires with hay and drove home.
We walked two miles to school along what is now Highway 101. I can remember when Highway 101 was paved from Petaluma to Santa Rosa. Later we would watch the race cars going to the wooden track at Cotati. We would see Barney Oldfield and all the big wheel race car drivers of that era. From our tank house at our ranch we could see into a portion of the race track a good mile away.
In 1923 my folks could see that chicken ranches were a thing of the past and that chicken factories were the new way. They traded the ranch for a home at 1019 Paru Street in Alameda, California. I was ten years old at that time. The home was just three blocks from the water. The south shore was very different in those days. The water came right in and broke against the sea walls and made sandy beaches for swimming. Later, after I grew up, the Bay was filled in a mile out.
I made a pact with a buddy named Wes Haslam that we would swim every day if only to run down to the water, dive in, and then run home. We made it to about December and then gave up.
The house in Alameda was one of only four in the block. The rest of the block was a playing field, basketball courts, slides and swings. While playing in the park if my mother wanted our attention all she had to do was ring the old cow bell we brought from the ranch. The cow bell now hangs in my den.
One day while I swimming a derelict canoe drifted in. I found some driftwood to use as a paddle and immediately became hooked on boating. My sisters were also swimming that day so we all got a ride. This canoe was a double ender with stringers bent around hoops, then covered with canvas and tarred. The construction looked very simple so I decided to build one to my own specifications. In the years 1925 – 1926 I built two canoes, one of which was equipped with a sail. Most of the lumber required to build these canoes was obtained from waste rippings obtained from a box factory located approximately where the Oakland Yacht Club is now. The canvas was acquired from the Alaska Packer Fleet then berthed at the foot of Grand Street in Alameda.
In 1927 I built a 12 foot planked sail boat. That same year I came down with Diphtheria and was in Highland Hospital under quarantine for five weeks. That was a bad year for the Crook family as both my sisters came down with Scarlet Fever and were quarantined for several weeks at home.
During these years my money was earned by selling papers at the Morton commuter station from six a.m. to 8:30 a.m. Alameda had rapid transit in those days. The red trains circled Alameda, picked up commuters, transported them to ferries that took them to San Francisco. All in about forty minutes!
While walking to Morton Station to sell papers I passed a home where the owner was building a twenty five foot power boat. By making a pest of myself he finally agreed to sell me a three and one half horse power marine engine. As soon as I got the money I had the engine in our basement and was drawing plans for a sixteen foot planked power boat. In 1929 the boat was finished but still in the back yard. My mother took in a nine year old boarder who’s father was the captain of a steam schooner that ran up and down the coast. My mother asked the captain to look at the boat to check its sea worthiness. He pronounced it, “a little crude, but sea worthy”!
The year was 1927. I quit my job selling papers and went to work on a bakery truck. Then I got a job at Calcutts’ Hardware Store in Alameda where I worked until I finished school. Since I now had a boat, a clerk named Charles Thau talked me into joining the Aeolian Yacht Club as a junior member. Five dollars to join and one dollar a month. I have been a member for sixty six years.
In December of 1930 I took the life preservers, horn and all the gear and put them in my locker at the club. Wes Haslam and I then ran the boat about a quarter of a mile to to a deserted beach and painted the sides and the bottom. Now with the boat back in the water we decided to take the fourteen mile trip around Alameda back to the club instead of the quarter of a mile shorter distance.
In the open bay of Alameda we saw a seventy foot custom boat and decided to go astern of her. The boat stopped and ordered us aboard. They put two men on our boat and took us below on the government boat. We thought we were in for a lecture for not having life preservers, horn and the number painted on it. Two weeks later we received a bill from the government for two hundred and ten dollars. In todays world that would be seventeen hundred and fifty dollars! My boss at the hardware store found out about my problem. Judge Teppen of Alameda came into the hardware store and and my boss told him about my situation. Mr Calcutt, my boss, asked the judge what he could do. The judge wrote a letter to the government stating that I had all the equipment and was only returning my boat to its mooring. He did not say we were taking the longer 14 mile route! Soon after I received a letter stating that owing to the conditions under which “your boat was boarded, your fine will be remitted”.
We kids took that boat across the bay to Paradise Cove in Marin County and slept on the beach a few times. Our longest trip was with my brother Charles when we went eighty miles up the Delta to Courtland on the Sacramento River. It included San Leandro Bay, San Francisco Bay, San Pablo Bay, The Carquinez Straits, Suisun Bay, Honker Bay and Steamboat Slough.
At one point near the now discounted Sacramento Shoreline Ferry slip we tried to get a tow from a beet barge. As we neared the barge to get a line aboard a wave nearly swamped us and the engine cut out. We were able to maneuver the boat over to the ferry slip and tie it up. We were then able to bail out the water, remove the engine, dry it out and replace it in the boat and continue our trip.
Back in 1928 my grandfather came to live with us in Alameda. He died in 1929 and willed a 1924 studebaker along with some money to my father and mother. My father and mother decided to take the car along with my brother Charles, two sisters and me on a two month trip to New York and return. The car was loaded down with camping gear and luggage since we camped out ninety percent of the time. The rest of the time we stayed in auto courts.
My brother Charles and my Dad did most of the driving. I was then sixteen and had just received my drivers license. They did not approve of my driving!
We took the southern route east and came home the northern route. The roads outside the cities were mostly gravel. We stopped at all the major cities and attractions such as the New York board walk, Washington D.C., Niagara Falls and so forth. Coming out of the Grand Canyon on the Cameron exit we had to get out of the car and walk across a stream so the boulders would not hang up under the car. Through North Dakota and Montana we actually left the dirt road to find smoother going. Prairie chickens and grouse were often dusting themselves in the ruts. We wore out three tires on that trip but had a wonderful adventure.
In 1930 I sold the sixteen foot motor boat and my brother Charles and I entered into a joint venture to build a twenty six foot auxiliary sail boat. Charles was now working full time and had more money to put into materials but I had more time to work on it. We launched the boat in 1931 and called it, “Typhoon”. It had a galley, head, slept six and had a thirty six horse power engine.
Back in 1927 after my first year at Alameda High School my mother found me looking at the Montgomery Ward catalog in the violin section. After six months of violin sessions the teacher told my mother it was no use. It was suggested that if I took piano lessons for a while maybe I would develop an ear for music. The family was very happy about that suggestion. I took piano for six months until the teacher declared that I was too “mechanical”. My mother and the piano teachers were good friends and she suggested that I look into the Lick Willmerding School of Mechanical Arts and the Willmerding school of Industrial Arts in San Francisco. These two schools operated under one umbrella and were endowed by the University of California with no tuition. I took the examination and to my surprise was accepted.
I found the school to be a good balance for me with four hours of classes in the morning and four hours of shop in the afternoon. Upon graduation I was sent to Hills Brothers coffee in San Francisco. They interviewed me for a job as an apprentice and asked me how much money I wanted. This was in 1932 in the depth of the depression. I told them what ever it took to show my worth I went to work for fourteen dollars a week but within two weeks they gave me a raise. In 1937 I became a journeyman machinist at today’s dollar of %17.50 per hour! At that time Hills Brothers built a great deal of their own machinery. It enabled me to learn to design and the building and operation of a finished project. During my apprenticeship I also went to four years of night school. Maxine took bookkeeping at the same time.
I took the red trains in Alameda to the ferry and then on to San Francisco for sixteen years. During the Longshoremen’s strike of 1932 I was given a pass and had to walk among armed guards on the Embarcadero. Men with machine guns were stationed on the top of pier buildings.
Back to the Typhoon. On one cruise up the coast to Drakes Bay with my brother and two friends we hiked on shore and down a cliff to the beach. On the beach we found a fish that appeared to be thirty five feet long as we stepped it off. I wrote to the University of California and told them where to find it. They sent a team up but wrote back that they were unable to find it. When we got home we were afraid to tell our friends about it for fear of ridicule. Years later a picture of a very rare deep sea fish came out that was up to forty feet long and was called an oar fish. Now we can talk about it!\
A friend of mine and I while in school, sailed the Typhoon up the coast to Tomales Bay about sixty miles. I had crewed on a forty foot sloop the year before so knew the way over the bar. We would shine a light on the beach at night and see many kinds of wild game.
The greatest happening of my life occurred in 1934 while sailing the Typhoon. The Typhoon was a centerboard boat so we could sail very close to the beach. Two friends and I had made dates to pick up three girls at Union Beach in Alameda and go sailing. We arrived at the beach but there were four girls. We all said to the extra girl, “Come on along”. As it turned out I liked the fourth girl better than my date. We married three years later. Maxine was seventeen and I was twenty at the time of our meeting. We have now been married fifty eight years. The extra girl, “Maxine” became my wife, the mother of my daughter, Carolyn, my son, Eugene, my bookkeeper, my partner in business and my better half.
In 1936 my brother Charles and I decided to sell the Typhoon. Charles wanted to go to Twain Harte and start a contracting business and I wanted to build a thirty foot auxiliary sail boat and then get married in 1937.
We named the new boat, Monsoon and after a three week honeymoon, sailed it for three years. During the 1929/1930 Worlds Fair at Treasure Island we were able to get a birth with unlimited access to the fair. In the previous three years we had watched the island being built from sand dredged from the Bay. The Bay Bridge was being built at the time and one crazy thing we did was to moor the Typhoon along the base and climb up inside the tower before the cables were installed. It was a great view from the first deck. Needless to say we kids climbed up but not Maxine!
As newlyweds we rented a small bungalow in Alameda for twenty six dollars a month. After about a year we bought a home at 1332 Garfield in Alameda for four thousand, nine hundred dollars. We later sold it for nine thousand, five hundred. We moved in 1938 and our daughter was born on July 29, 1940. Our son Eugene was born on July 24, 1943.
With babies at home and no longer able to go on cruises we decided to sell the monsoon and build a twenty four foot racing sloop. The patio in our backyard was sixteen by thirty feet, just right to build a boat on!
On December 7, 1941 as I was preparing to launch the boat at Silvas boat yard in Alameda, word came over the radio that Pearl Harbor was being attacked by the Japanese. I later won the season championship of the Yacht Racing association of San Francisco with that boat.
Pearl Harbor changed our every day life. There were now blackouts at night, sand buckets to put out fires and night air raid patrols. I was a block warden. My draft board told me to get into the war effort or get into the Army! I was now a journeyman machinist and against the recommendations of Hills Brothers Coffee Company I quit and took a job at the Naval Air Station in Alameda.
I was given the most unwanted job in the machine shop. The job was operating a grinding machine that put the finish on landing gear pistons, after being chrome plated. In about six months they moved that particular machine and about a dozen other types of grinding machines to another part of the shop and put me in charge with an increase in pay.
The coast guard during the war years encouraged those of us who owned boats to keep our boats in commision and even gave us gas stamps. The reason was to enable us to help with the evacuation of civilians from San Francisco in case the city was bombed. There was a submarine net across the bay from San Francisco to Sausalito. It was tricky to stay away from the net on outgoing tide while sailing.
The biggest setback and blow to my ego was when I could see that the war was winding down and I went back to Hills Brothers and applied for a job. To my surprise they did not immediately hire me back. I had gotten along so well at Hills Brothers that I thought I was in line for a promising career. A year after I had gone into business the Superintendent in charge of hiring for hills came to my shop and asked if I was happy in what I was doing. I told him I was very happy.
In 1946 the war was over so I quit the navy job and went to work for a machine shop with lots of overtime pay in anticipation of going into the small boat building business.
I was now thirty-four years old. I bought an acre of land in Castro Valley and built a shop fifty feet by eighty feet with living quarters on the front. I hired a friend that was out of work to help me and then went back into business in 1947.
One of the first orders was six carnival boats to be used at fairs and carnivals for children to ride in. We started building row boats, paddle boards, outboard runabouts, and then inboard ski boats and finally cruisers to 24 feet, both inboard and outboard. Along with Berkeley Pump Company we developed the first successful jet ski boats using Berkeley jet system.
In developing boats from scratch a great deal of mechanical parts were required such as engine mounts and engine conversions that you could not readily buy. We developed a machine shop and would make patterns, have them cast in aluminum, steel or bronze and machine them in our machine shop. As keepsakes I still have about two hundred and fifty patterns.
In 1948 we had a setback in our business. The school purchased our property and we had to buy another acre of land up the street and move our building. At that time we added an eleven foot wing on each side of the building.
The business proved to be profitable and during the years 1947 to 1970 we had a payroll of up to sixteen employees. We formed the Eden Small Boat Club and along with our ski boat and members who purchased our boats and boat kits we made many trips to Clearlake and to the surrounding lakes and reservoirs in California. These were the family trips as our children were growing up.
In 1949 I put the foundation sub-flooring and plumbed the start of our new home on the lot in front of our boat building business. I sublet the rest of the construction. We moved from the shop to our new home in 1951.
In 1952 we were without a family boat so I decided to build a thirty six foot auxiliary ketch. We named the boat SeaHaven and launched it in 1954. During the thirty three years that we owned that boat we spent many happy years at Steam Boat Slough on the Sacramento River. Gene Crook was ten years old at that time and claims he had no childhood. He did, however, have a hand in every phase of construction.
While vacationing on Steamboat Slough our son and daughter were always allowed to bring a friend along. Since we brought along a ski boat they were very popular. Ski boats were rare in those days and I can recall as many as twenty kids lined up ready for their turn to ski.
During the many years our family spent on the river I became known as the “Mayor” and was called upon for life saving duty. The first incident was when we were all sitting on the beach and I noticed a young girl about fifteen years old dog paddling in the river current trying to keep her head above water. By the time I got to her she collapsed into my arms and was so embarrassed. The next event was when a father rowed up to our boat with a ten year old boy who had a bee sting and had only twenty minutes before going into shock. Knowing I had a car on the river he asked me to take him into Walnut Grove eight miles away to a doctor. The doctor arrived only partially dressed. The third event was the most fun of all. The event took place about one thirty in the morning. Maxine and I sleep in the forward bunks in the Sea Haven and have a hatch over the bunks. I had gone to sleep. Maxine could not go to sleep because of a commotion on the boat tied upstream from our boat. The boat belonged to an airline pilot and he often brought stewardesses up to his boat for the weekend. A short time later Maxine shook me awake and said someone is in the water. I said, go back to sleep but I did look out the hatch and sure enough there was a young lady dog paddling to keep her head above water. I yelled to Gene, then thirteen years old, to get the dingy and I dove in and swam up behind her putting my arms around her to hold her up. About a hundred yards down stream Gene arrived with the dingy and towed us back to our boat and tied up the dingy. We rolled her into the dingy. She looked at Gene and said, “Oh my God, I don’t have a thing on!” Gene rowed her back to her boat and I kept telling Maxine to turn off the spot light. When I climbed back aboard I was completely naked since my shorts had peeled off when I dove in! The lady turned out to be a french stewardess and she and the pilot rowed over the next day and thanked me for saving her life.
In 1954 Maxine and I invested in a building on Castro Valley Boulevard. The building has four commercial rentals. It has been very profitable and we still own it.
Ever since moving to Castro Valley we have been members of the Baptist Church and in 1953 I joined the Rotary Club as a charter member. In 1967 I became president and have enjoyed the association with business and professional members for forty three years. I am also active in the Aeolian and Oakland Yacht Clubs.
After saving for many years for a family trip it seemed to be the right time since I was just recovering with a five week bout with Parrot Fever. In 1959 Maxine, Gene, Carol and I boarded a DC3 at the Oakland Airport for a cruise on a ninety foot schooner in the Bahama Islands. It was the first time any of our family had flown in an aircraft. Flying in those days was still quite primitive so our relatives and friends were there to see us off. We did not exactly feel safe when the plane taxied out to the take off strip only to return to the terminal where an airport employee handed up some papers on a stick fastened with a clothes pin. However the trip was uneventful and we landed in Florida with a stop in New Orleans.
In Florida we boarded an old Army sea plane with metal seats. After the rough landing at Bimini Island we waited three hours for the weather to clear. It was still rough when we boarded a bum boat to get to the schooner. The bum boar would bump against the schooner and we could hear ribs cracking. We had to wait until both boats were on the same wave height and jumped aboard. We actually threw the luggage aboard.
Our first stop was great Izack Light in the Bahama Islands. It was only a two acre rock with a light house on it. The lighthouse keeper supplied us with lobster and fish.
Gene and I had previously taken snorkeling lessons and so had all the gear. We immediately took to the water. Gene and I were so fascinated with the perfectly clear water, the coral, the fish, the ferns and sea life that we practically forced Maxine and Carol to put on a mask and look. They did and at our next stop they bought all their diving gear! We have all been diving since. For eleven days we circled the islands stopping every day at a new island and ending up at Nassau. From Nassau we sailed back across the gulf stream to Florida. The trip was a great success and opened up many new horizons for Carol and Gene.
In 1960 Gene left for CAL Poly University at San Luis Obispo. In 1961 Carolyn graduated from UC Berkeley and got married to Bradford Simmons. Brad was in the Air Force in the S.A.C. division.
In 1965 Maxine decided she wanted a new bathroom. I have always called our house, Maxine’s house because she designed the house and I had an architect draw up the plans. I like the house and don’t ever want to move. Maxine still rules over painting, curtains, furniture and keepsakes. This latest remodeling was the third time we had built onto the house. Maxine wanted to extend the house six feet by sixteen feet in order to extend the present bathroom. We agreed but only I could build out another sixteen by twenty foot extension with the only entrance on the patio.
I had an architect draw up the plans for the bathroom extension and for my den. A contractor finished the bathroom and built the outer shell of my room. He also finished a three by four foot fireplace with a brick hearth and brick all the way to the beamed ceiling.
It was a struggle to get my way in finishing the inside. My wife and neighbor wanted fancy wall paper, lace curtains and rugs. As it turned out it has a fish netting for curtains, longitudinal paneling on the walls and carpeting on the floor. I designed my own bamboo coffee table, chairs and “napping” lounge and had them built. There are shelves on one side with mementos from every big trip we have taken. There are shells from the Caribbean, a drinking mug from Germany, a coffee grinder form Key West, a shell from a turtle from Puerto Rico, a salt shaker from Italy, hundreds of swizzle sticks from our travels, ship lanterns from Greece, Aztec calendar from Mexico, Turkish revolver from Turkey, a pelican from Jamaica, a native boat from Australia, a native La Poz’s drum, a glass pipe from Holland and many more. I also have a complete set of photo albums up to date and from the year 1918. My friends like this room and we entertain there a lot.
In 1966 Gene graduated from CAL Poly as an engineer and decided to go into the boat business with me. He had worked in the business all his life and so it looked like a good move.
Gene seemed perfectly capable of running the boat business so Maxine and I decided to take off for three months and let him have full control. We boarded a Swedish freighter in San Pedro bound for the Caribbean along with ten other passengers, all of them delightful people and about our age. While going down the coast the captain found out I was interested in boating and told the first mate to let me on the bridge at any time. I even took it off automatic pilot and steered it myself but I could not steer as even a course as the automatic pilot. It was a fascinating trip through the Panama Canal to the island of Curacao just thirty five miles off the coast of Venezuela.
After a week of skin diving, sailing, and sight seeing we flew to Puerto Rico where Carol and Brad were stationed at the time. Their son was just a little over one years old at the time. From our base at Brad and Carols we flew to San Juan and other points of interest in Puerto Rico. Carol and Brad got a baby sitter and we all flew to St. Croix where we hired a small boat with a skipper and sailed to Bucks Island, a world renown skin diving preserve. It was, of course, fantastic. I particularly remember the six to eight foot staghorn coral.
We stayed a week as St. Croix and Carol and Brad flew home and Maxine and I flew to St. Martin in the West Indies. At St. Martin we boarded a one hundred and ninety foot schooner for an eleven day cruise down the windward and leeward islands. The islands we visited were St. Martin, St. Barts, St. Kits, Martinique, St. Vincent, Isle de Saints, Antigua, St. John, Saba and St. Lucia.
There were thirty five passengers aboard all about our age and we had a ball. We sailed at night from about one am to ten in the morning and then wnet skin diving, visited islands during the day and partied at night. From St. Martin we flew to Florida where I purchased a used oldsmobile and drive it down to Key West to make sure it was o.k. From Key West we drove home through the southern states, stopping to do some business in Texas and then home.
All went well while we were away but we could see changes occurring in the boat building business. Beginning in 1960 Fiberglas entered into boat construction and was gaining ground. We were already selling Fiberglas boats from other manufacturers in our showroom at the boat plant. There is much less labor involved in building Fiberglas boats and they can be mass produced with less expensive labor.
After much thought we decided to phase out the boat building and build a new sales and service building. In 1967 we purchased an acre of land on San Miguel Avenue closer to the boulevard and had a contractor build an eleven thousand square foot sales and services building. We moved into the new building in 1970 and ceased operation of the boat building plant. At the new location we had a complete Marina hardware department, twenty five boats on display, a ski display, mercury engine display and a coffee lounge.
Over the years we carried many brands of boats among those were Cheeta, Trailerboat, Larson, Thunderbird, Glasspar, Sportline and many others. We were also top dealer for mercury motors for many years.
Maxine now had an office with help as we now had up to sixteen employees. Maxine has been my bookkeeper since the day we formed the boat building business and now had the added responsibility of being comptroller and office manager.
We incorporated the business in 1970. Gene Crook became president and I became Vice-President. Maxine and I also started, some each year, turning over the business to Gene Crook. Maxine and I kept the real estate.
During the years that our family was growing up we most always took our vacation on the SeaHaven. Our children could always bring a friend. We still vacation on the river but now in the SeaHaven II. Gene and his wife, Lynn and Carol and her husband, Brad also spend a week. The grandchildren drop in and out.
Years before we started winning free trips for sales awards, we traveled to Mexico four times, Hawaiin islands twice, Puerto Rico twice, England, Germany, and Italy. In 1970 we started winning all paid top dealer awards. They were two week trips to Jamaica, Greek Islands, Rhine River, Switzerland, France, Canary Islands and Morocco.
Ever since I was a child I think I made my own rules. They were, “don’t ask, don’t tell”, and “don’t lie if you get caught”. I survived the ages from seven to twenty one and I am thankful for it. Some of the things I’ve done I am not particularly proud of, some I am. At the age of six hitching a snail to a pair of scissors to see how much it could pull. Sailing a ten foot canoe halfway to Hunters Point and back without a life preserver; blowing up bottles with carbide; making gunpowder from chemicals purchased at the drug store. Making an arc light out of carbons from batteries and on hundred ten volt electricity; cruising the bay in a fifteen foot motor boat, and building a cave with a tunnel and smoking coffee in it!
My mother had a small black board where she listed the chores for we kids for the day. Being a middle child I don’t recall the list being too long. When I was finished with the chores I was off to my own pursuits.
I think I have another motto, “Life is not worth living on this earth after you are dead, so make the most of it.”
Maxine and I still live on the same property for now almost fifty years. After remodeling and building onto our home many times we have no intention of ever moving. The income from our commercial rentals gives us good income. In 1986 and 1987 we could see major changes in the bat retail business along with declining profits. Product liability was also becoming a problem. In late 1987 we auctioned off all the stock and equipment and leased the building and property.
Gene Crook is now Vice-President of Likit Windows and Manufacturing and I am retired.
Prologue
I have many things to be thankful for. First my parents and our strict religious upbringing (although I probably rebelled at the time). My wife, Maxine, who has been my partner and how we have enjoyed our life together, and our good health. My son, Gene and daughter, Carolyn, my daughter-in-law, Lynn and my son-in-law, Brad and all my grandchildren. Not one of them has ever given me any reason not to be proud of them and this I am also very thankful.
Note from Brian
I was 25 years old when my grandfather wrote this, half a lifetime ago. I couldn’t be prouder of where i have come from, the lessons learned, the path wandered. He was such an inspiration to me and I owe so much of my success to him and my dad. Cheers Papa Ernie!