I am 17 years old, just out of high school and no job and no training for one except for farm work. My good friend Rod who graduated a year ahead of me said come to Wichita and work with me at the Broadview hotel as a bellhop. I moved to Wichita and started work in June as a bellhop. The hotel furnished our uniforms but didn’t pay us, so the money we made from tips was our wages. Rod and I rented a room together in a rooming house four blocks from the hotel. This job was sure strange to what I had ever done before, but I did enjoy being close to several movie theaters. I didn’t have a car but there were city buses that I used but I walked most of the time. Rod had a car and we went to Latham most week ends. We also lived close to the YMCA and we would walk to it and box or play basketball.
There was a baseball stadium close that had a semipro tournament each year, and next to center field area was a railroad yard that had boxcars parked in it, so we would set on top of the rail car and watch the game. In December, Rod said he was going to start college and he would need to move in with his mom so he could afford college. I decided to move back home and I had saved a little money and had a checking account at the Fourth National in Wichita so back to the farm I went.
