A chapter from “An Artist’s Story,” the life story Lee wrote in his eighties. In his words, as he wrote them.

I marvel at the toys our grandchildren have now days. When I was little we always had a sandbox in the back yard. It was in close proximity to our back door, under a tall apple tree for shade. It was a quiet place and I could get lost in my fantasies playing with my metal dump trucks. I had a large assortment of cars and trucks they mostly were the cast metal kind with narrow wheels. Many of them had a broken part but they held up in the weather rain or shine.

Most of my inside toys were soldiers. Whenever I went downtown Flint with my mother she would let me buy a new set of lead soldiers. They would keep a big supply of them at the 10 cents store. They were the one’s that were wired to a card, remember?

I had a wind up train with the old- fashioned two- rail track. It didn’t run for long and then you had to turn the knob that stick out from the side. My dad was in charge of a dept. at Buick that had all ladies in it. He would put on a Christmas party and when I was small I usually got to go. My present was always a new shinny black engine and I had quite a collection of them. I spent many happy hours with my train however it was my responsibility to see that I put them all away by supper- time.

One of the rules at our house was we were required to be at the table so that we could all eat together.

I don’t remember that anyone said grace before the meal but we were all together as a family at most meals. There were lots of conversation at the table but quite often I was told to “take a back seat” and I knew exactly what that meant.

I grew out of the sandbox and my toys became bigger. I had a good two- wheel scooter that I could use up and down the sidewalk but I was not allowed to ride it past the house to the west. The Cull’s had a bump shop and gas station on the corner of Franklin and our street and it was off limits for me. There were always a lot of cars parked in the street and around that gas station.

I remember my Dad was the only opposition to Mr. Cull’s gas station, this sort of made lots of tension in the neighborhood because most people on our block didn’t care one way or another if there was a business there or not. My dad tried to persuade Mr. Cull to build his business on Dort highway where there was plenty of room for expansion. Mr. Cull won out and stayed there on the corner, he was able to get a building variance form the city. You could do most anything in Flint then if you had enough money to pay for it. This has proven true for most residential areas in our wonderful? City.

Oh-oh I got side tracked. When I was younger, about 11, my brother Bud hand carved me a small ship for Christmas. He loved to build models when he was 16. We had a good workbench in the basement of our home. My Dad always had a good supply of wood that we could build anything we wanted providing we put the tools up after their use. I most often was accused when some tool came up missing.

I saw his boat model on the workbench once; Bud had forgotten to hide it. He had not completed it yet and I could hardly wait the 6 weeks until Christmas to find it under the tree. I played with this ship for many years; I can see it now in my minds eye. A special gift from my brother.

When I was about 16 I wanted to have a real sailboat that I could sail on Saginaw Bay. We had an old wooden rowboat that had not been in the water for years and I some how converted it, with a too tall mast. I found an old rudder and with a cloth sail my mother put together, we were all set.

The only problem I was too anxious to launch the boat. It was a windy day and a friend of mine who was just as anxious as I was helped me drag our over weight ship to the sea. We pushed it out of the dredge-cut and into open water where the waves were rolling pretty good. The next thing to do was put up this sail, which we managed to do, even as the wind picked up.

The sail filled out with a bang and we were off yelling with glee, as we smashed through one wave after another. We must have gone about a mile at this top speed, when it was time to head back toward the safety of the dredge- cut. I yelled to,“come about” and pulled the rudder hard to “starboard” but this was the wrong thing to do because we capsized in 8 feet of turbulent water. The boat stayed afloat even though it was full of water so we swam around and took the old mast loose. We tied everything to the swamped boat and let the anchor out and with each of us at opposite ends of the mast we started swimming for home. Of course we had no life jackets and my mother knew this. She had been watching this fiasco from the cottage with her binoculars.

She started out the dredge-cut in a round bottom boat with a pair of oars, rowing into the wind and at the same time trying to see if we had made it back to the cut. To her relief, we got there at the same time as she did. She said that she was pretty disgusted with us and she had a mind to let us get our own supper. We did apologize for giving her such a fright.

A good sailboat had been a secret desire of mine for a long time. I still have a hard time getting over my envy of some of the beautiful sailboats I have seen. It was just after our experience with the old make shift wooden boat that my brother Bud decided to make a very small 2 man sailboat. He saw the plans in the Popular Science Magazine of a small sailboat called the “Sea Saucer“; it was 8 feet long, 4 feet wide with a 3-foot centerboard. The deck was covered with a painted canvas and it had a small cockpit only 8 inches deep. My mother made a blue and white sail for the 12-foot cedar mast and boom. What fun it was to sail this little beauty. I could go anywhere even in a dead calm. I often sailed this little boat quite far from our cottage but I always tried to stay within sight of our place. I knew mother would be worried if she couldn’t see my blue and white sail.

This was to be my last boat until I was much older. I did learn to sail in most any kind of weather in this little “Sea Saucer“. I also learned to wear a good life jacket, which came in handy in later years.

I am sure that I had many other toys through the years the same as those that other children had as we were growing up.

Some times we were able to play for hours with nothing more than a hoop and wheel or a wooden sword and a garbage can cover. We had to use our imagination then, even more than our children of today.

When I was growing up there were several large elm trees that stood on a high bank along the railroad tracks just 2 blocks south of us. Some of the older kids had climbed these high elms to put up a rope swing that you could put your foot in a loop and swing out over the railroad tracks. You could do this only if the older guys were not around. There was defiantly a pecking order among the kids who lived around our neighborhood. This was also the case if you were playing ball on the empty lot at the end of our block. If the big guys were playing and you didn’t own a ball or bat or gloves you had better stay on the sidelines. You instantly knew when you were allowed to play in this field, that was when the older guys left.

We often played cowboys on the empty fields south of the Longway Blvd. There were no houses there yet however the side walks had been poured for many years.

Just after the first World War there was a cement landing field that went east and west, paralleling Longway Blvd., It was used for planes to land and take off while testing the big 12 cylinder Liberty engines being built at Buick. Later St. Joseph hospital was built just west of these fields.

I remember the airstrip very well because I left home to go see the planes land while my Grandfather Gog - Gie was not watching me too close. He caught up with me before I had a chance to cross the railroad tracks and since I was only 4 the swats he gave me were sort of mild, but I do remember them.

When we were in our early teens there was another place we liked to play and that was along Kearsley Creek that ran beside of the high bank just behind the Mott Estate. This was a wild place with big trees that kids had built high platforms on with rope swings so we could play “Tarzan“. We did walk along these paths on the way to Junior High School but we often felt that this turf was somewhat off limits. The water that came down this creek often had a bad odor because the big consumers power plant that made gas from coal, located on E. Court, dumped their drains into this creek. This was the main reason that few people let their children play or wade in the creek that went through Kearsley Park. That is also why Kearsley Park is a “nothing” today.

In the early years Kearsley Park was well built and the landscaping was outstanding. Four-foot wide path of crushed limestone ran throughout the park.

Kearlsey swimming pool was a very active place where many children could have a good time on hot summer afternoons. I remember being a Life Guard there for one summer. There would often be as many as 80 children in the pool at one time during a hot summer afternoon.

On the northeast corner of this park there was an opening for a large 5-foot drain tile. This tile ran northeast passing under the intersection of Davison Rd. and Franklin. It was always a great dare to see how far one could go up this tile. There was seldom any depth to the water expect during a heavy rainstorm. One year after a big storm the high water caused the death of some children. It was then decided by the Flint park system to weld a barrier in place so no one could attempt such a daring feat. I have to admit that I only went up this drain for a few feet when I was 15 or so. It was sort of dark and spooky.