I
was born Arlin Alvin Cosner in Elkins, West Virginia in 1921. I had
two older sisters Willeta and Wanda and an older brother Grandville.
Our names immediately were shortened to Billie, Babbie, Dick and Pete;
go figure? One thing I do know is that I’ve had a lot of jobs and
owned a lot of great cars in my lifetime. Remembering back, I’ve
owned some thirty great cars. Some were new, some I bought cheap and
fixed up to sell in order to make a little money. I’ve owned
everything from a ’29 Ford Model A Coupe when I was a teen, to a ’36
Dodge convertible, and a ’46 Ford Sport Convertible “Woody” before and
after WWII.
My first job in my life was when
I was seven years old. I led miniature horses down into the coal mine
shafts and got twenty-five cents a day, three days a week for the
entire summer. When I was ten years old, my dad saved up and bought
all of us kids musical instruments and we were made to practice every
spare moment, or when we weren’t doing chores on the farm, or working
on other folks’ farms. My sisters, Billie and Babbie learned to play
the violin and piano; my brother, Dick, learned the guitar and I got
the mandolin. By the time I was fourteen, my brother and I were good
enough put together a band. We played the local bars on weekends and
our best-paid spot was the local “house of ill-repute”! In the middle
of the Depression, and much to the relief of our dad, Dick and I were
able to bring home more money in one night than our dad was able to
make all week as a supervisor at Firestone Tire & Rubber Company. Our
mom and dad always enjoyed going out to see us play at the other bars,
but poor Mom could never figure out why Dad was always too busy or too
tired to take her to see us play at that one particular
establishment! I don’t think she ever figured it out and we never
told her!
In 1938 my mom, brother,
grandmother, step-grandfather, and I lived in California for a year. I
attended classes at Compton Junior College. That’s when I knew that
when I grew up, I wanted to live forever in California! It was the
best place on earth.
When I was seventeen we returned
to Ohio and my brother and I worked weeknights after school hauling
eight-ton loads of coal from the mines to the local arsenal. Then we
would get up in the morning, work on the farm, go to school,
and haul coal all over again. It
was a tough job for any age. The weather was 20 below zero; so cold
that the rubber tires on the 1937 dump truck froze to the ground! I
worked playing the mandolin on the weekends and hauled coal at night
until I graduated high school. On one particularly cold night in
1941, I swore that if it was as cold the next night I was going to
join the Army and go to California. It was 25 below zero that night
and the next morning I joined the Army.
My first base in the Army Air
Corp was Suffrage Field, Michigan; even colder than Ohio. For the
next four years I was stationed in cold, rainy England, even colder
Scotland, and finally, onto the frigid Atlas Mountains in North Africa
to help support General Patton’s battle in the desert below. When the
Allies invaded Italy, I found Sicily and the Aegean Sea coast to be
the warm place I longed for all those years. I spent many enjoyable
hours on a confiscated Nazi motorcycle sightseeing along the beautiful
Sicilian countryside.
I was discharged in May of 1945
in Marysville, California. I went back to Ohio and married Rosalene,
the girl I knew and loved since we were six years old. That same
month we traveled back out to California for our honeymoon. We never
returned to Ohio again and we never regretted it. We’re celebrating
our 58th wedding anniversary this May, 2003. I do, however,
regret not holding on to all those cars I once owned through the
years. What a collection I would have!
As
told to Joan Cosner all of her life.
