Hey It’s Me
An Autobiography By Richard Webb
August 5th 1979
A lot of great things happened in the 20th
century. Oh in the first decade of the 20th century Marconi was
fooling around with a large radio. In the second decade of the 20th
century, such people as Charles Limburg were fooling around with airplanes and
he finally took a little trip that got him some notoriety when he landed in
Paris. Milo Farnsworth was fooling around with television and he finally got
this little thing perfected. While all of these earth shattering event were
going on there was another thing that took place in East Midvale, Utah. On the
8th of October, 1925 a son was born to Florence Wilding Emery and
George Francis Webb. Being the 5th child of this family, he was
always referred to from then on as his mother’s “baby”. This pleased a lot of
the grandchildren on occasion when they would be called “baby” and then their
grandmother would say “Well here’s my baby” and I might have been 25 or 30 or
some such age.
We lived in East Midvale for a year and then my family moved
to Sandy and I was raised in Sandy. All my growing up years were done in Sandy.
I was there, and it was reported, that I just took my first step while the
family was making the move while I was a year old. I don’t remember that but I
always figured it was on pretty good authority that at least I took my first
step when I was a year old. We lived on a little 5 acre plot there in Sandy. So
I had the benefit of having a lot of yard and barn yard to play in, run around,
and wasn’t confined like some more youngsters are today in a sub division where
you have to keep pretty close track and say “Hey, don’t get on the street.
Don’t play in the street.” Perhaps my mother’s worry was if you wondered too far
away and played on the canal bank and tumble in, it was a different worry. My
first recollections, as I was growing up, I don’t remember how old I was, but I
remember my older brothers particularly who were not always at home, they were
away. One of the earlier recollections I have is that they were participating
in the CCC project with the Federal Government and they spent some time in the
CCC camps in the southern part of the state.
I remember on one occasion, one of my brothers came home and was telling
about some of the “city slickers” that were in the CCC and the particular group
that he was with, a lot of the fellows were from Brooklyn. He said they had
considerable fun, showing some southern Utah cattle to some of these Easterners
and telling them that they were the deer. The first time they had ever seen, I
suppose, four legged creatures in the wild and they did, they believed that
these cattle were some of the deer that were on the mountain. Maybe this is one
of the reasons so many cattle get shot during the deer hunt is because these
kinds of stories have been related to unknowing hunters, then they go out and
shoot the wrong thing.
One of the recollections I have is one of my brothers went
to school in Oregon and he was gone for several years of course, but I remember
getting letters from him. I don’t remember the exact date but I can remember on
that my birthday I would get letters from him and each year in that envelope
was a 25 cent piece. And that went on for years, that annual letter, and I can
remember the one year that the letter came, and there was no 25 cent piece in
there. Oh, I was pretty close to teenage by this time. And I’ve never told my
brother this yet, he is going to hear this tape and so he’ll get to found out
that I really had some disappointment that year that I opened that letter. I
appreciated the letter of course, but for some reason that quarter, he didn’t
put in a quarter, and I was just a little bit disappointed that there was no
quarter.
Well being the youngest in the family I suppose I was like
all other younger children, the favorite of the parents, you know, being
spoiled. I really don’t think this because my parents, I think, loved all of
their children equally well. But I can remember going to school in Sandy,
attending the Sandy Elementary School and participating in the activities there
in the grade school, then later on in the Junior High School in Sandy. I
remember the first fight I ever got in. I don’t know if it was the first fight
or not, but it is the first fight I can remember. There was another fellow in
the neighborhood; he was a little bit bigger than I was. I don’t even know why
we were fighting now, except I do remember this; he blacked my eye, but I sent
him home crying. So, I always felt it was worth a black eye to send somebody
packing down the trail. He was bigger than I was, so I thought that was pretty
good. That reminds me of another story about a nephew of mine. On one occasion
his grandfather asked him “Who was the smartest kid in class”. He said “Hebert
is the smartest, but I’m the toughest.” So maybe being tough is good, and maybe
it isn’t so good. I don’t know about this, but that is just one of those things
that happened.
Well, as I was in the junior high, one of the activities we
participated in, of course was the Boy Scout Movement. We, as a family,
received some publicity in scouting. All of my older brothers had achieved the
rank of Eagle, as had my father before them achieved the rank of Eagle. So one
of the aims and goals, I think my father had more than I did, was that I earn
the rank of Eagle in Scouting. Consequently I did earn the rank of Eagle and we
did make the headlines in the local paper. You have to realize this was back in
1939 or 40, long in there some place. Here was a family now who had five Eagle
Scouts in the family; a father and four sons. And this was quite an achievement
at the time, in fact it would still be quite an achievement, but we were rather
proud of this fact that we had all achieved the rank of Eagle Scout. Incidentally
I enjoyed thoroughly the scouting program. I can remember spending several
summers, three different summers, at camp Steiner, which is still one of the
Scout camps in the “UN” mountains. In fact I can remember one particular time
at scout camp. We thought we had a pretty good softball team, you know how boys
are at that age, so we issued the challenge to any and everybody at Camp
Steiner, we’d take them on in a baseball game if they were silly enough to want
to come and play us. We were expert enough to win most of the games we played,
so we were of course egotistical and thought this was pretty good. On one
occasion we were playing a game at the ball diamond at Camp Steiner, and you
have to realize that Camp Steiner, being in the mountains you didn’t have
twenty-seven acres of flat ground on which to build a ball diamond, and the
ball diamond was built on one small meadow. In order to build the ball diamond
they had to move several large boulders. We were playing on this one occasion,
I happened to be pitching, pitching to this fellow and he got lucky and he got
a foul ball and the ball went up. The fellow who was catching, one of my good
friends, ran over to catch the ball and just as he got to where the ball was,
he fell in a hole where a boulder had been removed. He disappeared from sight,
it was this deep of a hole. And a few seconds later he comes staggering out,
holding up the ball to indicate he had caught the ball. Of course I thought was
pretty good, here was my catcher and he was a really good catcher, and so we
had a really good time.
Another time when I was in Scouting, we were at the Tracy
Wigwam, and at that time the Tracy Wigwam there was a ball diamond where the
lake is now. The camp staff thought they were pretty good at this ball business,
and we thought we were pretty good, I’m sure we thought we had a pretty good
team. So we challenged the camp staff to a ball game, and the nature of that
ball field was if you hit on in the left field, a little pop fly would land up
in a tree and would turn out to be somewhat of a cheap double hit or at least
an extra base hit. Once again I was pitching and I remember one of the camp
staff, who was one of the adults, the first time at bat he hit one. He not only
hit it into the tree of course he gave it a good go and it went up into the
side hill. Before it rolled back down to level ground again he’d already
circuited the bases for a home run. That was a little deflating to us, at this
time the camp staff was ahead of us. Finally during the course of the ball game
we had approached them and finally had scored some runs and we were ahead. We
came to bat for the last time and they got us out and they happened to have the
last inning. We were still leading and they got a man on base, and who should
be coming to bat but this same one of the camp staff who hit that tremendous
hit the time before. Well I was bound and determined that he wasn’t going to
hit. Through a little, probably through more good luck than good management, I
was able to strike him out in three straight pitches. He really wasn’t a good
sport because he displayed his displeasure through certain actions that he was
struck out. Of course he intended to get another hit and they could win the
ball game. Anyway, we won the ball game.
These were some of the growing up years. Along about this
time in one of the Sunday school classes I was attending, I remember a Sunday
school teacher asking the question: “What is the one personality characteristic
that you would think of that would fit to your parents.” Of course this
starting me thinking “well now, what one personality qualification would my
mother have and what one personality qualification would my father have.” And I
pondered this question for two or three weeks. Most of the other kids in the
class had an answer the first day, but I didn’t give an answer that first day
because I pondered this. Finally after thinking of this, now I’ve thought of
this many, many times since, so I think it was a fair assessment, at least a
partial assessment, of the personality of my mother and my father. One thing
that impressed me greatly with my mother, in my growing up year, was her
ability to get along with people, to make friends with people, and to associate
with people and be very friendly with them. A quality and characteristic of my
father that I thought was tremendous was his, I suppose you would say tenacity,
in staying to the line of truth and righteousness: uncompromising with any idea
or thought that did not follow the principle and tenants of the gospel. These I
think are two characteristics of my parents, I ‘m sure my brothers and sister
will agree with this, that these are two of the characteristics of my parents
that would help describe their activities.
When I was in junior high school I participated in an
athletic program that was sponsored by the Deseret News. The Deseret News
Junior decathlon events were a lot more prominent in that day than they are
now. They still sponsor these, but it was one of the major activities in our
junior high in the spring time of the year. I can remember participating in
this decathlon event. In fact I can remember qualifying in the school event and
in the district events and participating in the Tri-State meet, which at that
time, these meets were held at South High School. I was rather proud of these
accomplishments and the first year I participated I took fifth place in the
overall standing in the Tri-State meet. In the second year I took tenth place
in the meet and then in the third year that I participated I took fifth place
in this Tri-State decathlon meet. It kind of builds my ego to think that I was
successful in that kind of thing.
Well as we grew up in the area, of course we did those
things which all young people did. We participated in the activities of the
community and the activities of the ward. We participated in Sunday school
classes and mutual classes and scout troop. Then of course one of our
highlights was when we finally registered in high school and we participated in
the activities of the high school. Some of my friends were athletically
inclined and they participated in athletics: football, basketball and track. I
was a little bit inclined along these lines and I participated in high school
in the basketball and track program. In fact our senior year I was a member of
the State Championship Mile Relay Team and I still have the gold medal that was
awarded for medaling with the high school relay team. I always kid with my wife
about this that it sure is funny that I could run so fast yet she could run a little
faster because she could run fast enough to catch me. So, she doesn’t
appreciate that when I say that but it’s true anyways.
Another one of my recollections of high school, one Sunday
coming out of the Sunday school meeting, we heard the, I supposed tremendous
news, I was thinking it was a traumatic news announcement, that the Japanese
Navy had made an attack at Pearl Harbor. This was how I heard of the attack at
Pearl Harbor, as I came out of the ward house there in Sandy. Somebody who
lived there in the neighborhood who hadn’t gone to church had been listening to
the radio and had received the notification of the attack. We were able to make
a lot of jokes about this. To us who were then fairly close to the age who
would be serving in the Armed Forces, I was a junior in high school at the
time. You know it is easy for a sixteen year old kid to say “Well that’s great.
Those crazy Japanese, we’ll take care of them in a short order.” Filled with
patriotism and all sorts of things. In
the weeks following this announcement in December I remember that several of
the fellow in the high school, withdrew from school and joined the Armed
Forces. More of those were seniors but there were some that were in the junior
class who stretched the point of their age to the extent that they didn’t tell
the full truth to the recruiters and they put a year or two on their age so
they would be accepted into the Navy or the Army. They were off, the first of
my friends were off to the wars, as a heroic thing, you know. I’ve always
maintained, anytime there was a threat of war, if we took everybody that was
forty-five years of age and older and assigned them to the infantry, we would
never have a war. Hopefully we would have been smart enough to figure out
another way to do it. This is one of the paradoxes of our country, of any
country. The statesman who are older make the decisions and the cream of the
country, so to speak, physically speaking, mentally speaking, are swept up into
the armies and sent out to be shot at and killed. I remember a lot of times
getting notices, reading notices in the newspaper, of friends of mine who had
met their demise in the activities of war.
Well I participated in high school, as I had said in the
track team and I had participated on the basketball team for two years. Up
until the time I was a senior in high school I hadn’t traveled very much. The
only reason I traveled as far as I had was because I was a member of the
basketball team and took some trips with the basketball team. Up until the time
I was graduating from high school, I was 17, as far east as I had ever been was
Camp Steiner in the “UN” mountains. As far north I had been was in Logan and as
far south as I had been was Springville and as far west as I had been was
Grantsville. I’m sure that most of your children today have traveled
extensively, a lot farther than this, but this was the extent of my travels up
until the time I had graduated from high school. Well I graduated from high
school and immediately went to work for Kennecott Copper Corporation, and that
in those days was Utah Copper. I had two brothers that were working up there
and it seemed like a good place to go earn a little quick money. I didn’t mind
it, I was going to go to school for a while before I reached that magic age of
18 when Uncle Sam would require my services in the Armed Services. So I went to
work at Kennecott, and I worked there 3 weeks, and in the mean time I decided
to go to school at the University and I registered at the University for summer
school. So I quite Kennecott and went to school in the summer session, so I was
in school that summer session and that following fall session and that winter
quarter I registered again in the winter quarter. In the meantime I had turned
18 and I got one of those famous letters that we all got from Uncle Sam. It started out saying “Greetings, you have
been selected by your fellow citizens”, we used to joke about that a little
bit, we were selected all right. Those of you who went through that know (21:55)
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