Almost eighty, Nick talks with the picturesque flair of an Indiana country boy. He is a jack of all trades. He is a good carpenter, plumber, welder, electrician, gardener and fence maker. When I praised him for his skill he answered , "My ma didn't raise no dummies."
Nick liked you to visit with him while he was fixing or building something for you. He charged by the hour even while he drove his pick-up truck down town to buy job supplies. And if you were there to listen and talk with him, the job took a little longer to complete. He worked very fast when he was alone.
Nick was tan on his hands and face but otherwise he was blue eyed and very white skinned. His black hair did not turn white. It is got thin in front and he wore a detective shaped hat like Dick Tracy. He had deep smile creases on his face and wore heavy copper wire wrapped around his wrists to keep him from getting rheumatism.
Married several times, Nick raised at least two children. His last wife was about fifteen years younger than him. They were enthusiastic, energetic people who got out and did things together. They walked around the mile circling our country block and sometimes held hands. They drove to the desert to spend quiet week-ends together, but they were not quiet when they talked. They spoke out with strong voices and had strong red-neck opinions. They lived in a modest country home, and he always drove an expensive late model pick-up truck even when they went out to eat in a good restaurant. He liked good whiskey but never drank too much. His wife bought him a black wig to cover his forehead, but he never wore it much. Nick was getting older but he was still very strong and did heavy work. He was gruff and tough and was about as opposite of a sissy as you can find. He wore overalls for work, and when dressed up, he wore western garb like a rich Texas cattleman but without the cowboy hat.
Nick talked like one of the "good ol' boys" from down South. He was probably not a member of the Ku Klux Clan, but he believed in some of the same kind of stuff they do, and he read right winged literature. His seventeen year old daughter married a black man, so Nick disowned her.
I asked him how he happened to come to California. He told me he was asked to leave his home in Indiana. In his early teens he worked hard in the coal mines. In his late teens Nick traveled free. He rode on train box-cars and said he enjoyed talking to other bums as they were called in those days.
Born in 1812, Nick, at age twenty was earning fifty dollars every Friday night. He was running boot leg whiskey about ninety miles in his Ford roadster to Indianapolis. He said he did not know and did not want to know the people who paid him. He knew he was breaking government laws, but fifty dollars was a lot of money in those days. He drove a new car and was happy with his pretty girlfriend. On Friday nights he left his car parked at a predetermined place. After dark he returned to his car. There was a ten gallon and a five gallon barrel behind the seat. His destination was a certain roadside cafe in Indianapolis where he entered and hung up his coat with the car key in the coat pocket. He sat at a food counter and ordered coffee. He did not look to see who took the key. Later he felt someone slip the fifty dollars in his jacket pocket before they left. When he returned to his car the whiskey barrels were gone, and he drove home having been very well paid.
One day he was stopped on the road by two men who were relatives of the county sheriff. Nick said the men intended to take his boot legging job away from him or to kill him. Nick reached behind his seat for his gun but one man had already emptied out the pistol shells and was holding the bullets in his hand. Somehow, he must have been in the car behind Nick when he drove it that last time. The men ordered Nick to drive to the bus depot, catch a bus and leave the county.
At the bus station Nick opened his knife and wrapped his jacked around his hand preparing for a knife fight with the two men who would arrive soon to make sure he left town. When Nick had a few minutes to ponder he closed the knife and bought a bus ticket to the city train station. He left his car keys at the bus terminal so his mom could come and get the car. He took a train to California where his brother got him a job washing dishes.
A few months later he joined the Army to avoid getting married to a pregnant woman and was sent to Schofield Barracks in Honolulu. He joined the boxing team and fought for the Army. After running five miles every day in the morning, he returned to the gym to jump rope and punch bags. In the afternoons he sparred with other fighters. He was five feet ten and weighed one hundred seventy two pounds. Some people say men of that size are the strongest and toughest. I feel sure Nick was tough but after a short career, he was matched against a man with much more experience who was twenty nine. At age twenty one Nick quit boxing, but he never stopped being a fighter. He was a soldier at Schofield Barracks on December 7, 1941 when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. During the war he fought to save America.