CHAPTER 6

Banning Days
In 1956 I opined that my kids would never have a real college fund unless I broadened my horizons. I did (moonlight) do outside work but had little time for that. I also did not want to stay in one job until I retired and further, wanted to leave the Los Angeles basin. So I sought another income venue and saw an ad for a City Engineer in Banning, California. I sent in a penny postcard; 3 cents maybe (I forget). Within weeks I met with Barney Owen, Banning’s first City Manager. He introduced me to Mayor Peterson and I got the job. My resignation from the City of L.A. became effective one day short of having been there five years. A day later and I would have been eligible for the pension and had further rights. I eschewed that and withdrew my pension funds, about $2,500. In April 1956, I became the first full time City Engineer of Banning, California. My principal competitor for the position was a young, not registered man, Jim Carney who became my assistant. He collaborated, on city business, with the previous consulting city engineer, Mr. Don Davis. Within weeks Carney resigned.

The events of those days enlightened me and I generated a steep learning curve. I reported to the City Manager, Barney Owens. When Betty and I stepped out of the car and he greeted us, Betty’s first act was to hand him one-year-old baby Vicki. Barney and his wife Ruth became our first local social contacts. Betty and I rented a house on George Street across the street from Mr. George Winky and his wife, Valerie. George played the mandolin and I learned to strum a ukulele. Our house had a front porch and we could sit and watch the sunset and headlights of car traversing the road to and from Idyllwild. That winter, Michael built his first snowman in the vacant lot east and next door. The neighbor Mr. Ray, east of that had a dog with which our dog, Barrymore, fought when possible. Mr. Ray managed the local Mc Mahan’s furniture store. We lived on George Street a year.

Complications at City Hall developed the first month. Barney Owens was a purist referent to the City Manager form of government. Within 10 days after I went to work there was a City Council election. Barney’s majority became a slim 3 to 2. He did not appreciate the efforts of the City Council to micro-manage his domain. I became a member of the City Planning Commission and ex-officio Director of the Department of Building and Safety. Later I took charge of the Banning City Airport and the City Municipal Waste Disposal (burning dump) facility. Other duty consisted of checking building and subdivision engineering calculations and drawings, and all the city’s surveying.

My first meeting of the Planning Commission had an agenda item that had been delayed purposely until I could vote. The vote had split 2 to 2 and I became the swing vote. I pleaded ignorance and soon proved it as after considerable pressure, I cast a vote. So I started my career there with close to 50 percent of the interested parties angry with me. I successfully retreated from Member to ex-officio member of the Planning Commission.

In 1956 Banning boasted a population of 10,000. It started to increase as freeway construction ended. Housing stayed short. In 1957 we looked at a 3 bedroom one-bath house on Roosevelt Road while it was under construction. It had a one-car garage. I told the builder that if he would take the second trust deed on the house in Pico Rivera as down payment, I would pay his (fair) asking price of about $12,000. He said he would look into it and we shook hands. Fifteen minutes later the Banning Chief of Police shook my hand and congratulated me, saying, “ I just heard you bought George Eide’s house”. Handshakes were very powerful in those days. We signed the final papers two weeks after we moved in. We owned a barbecue table and benches which became our kitchen / dining room set. Uncle Harry Nosanov had given them to us when we lived in Pico-Rivera. Our beds had no headboards. Susie and Vicki slept in one room. Michael had his room and Betty and I had our own bedroom.

A Mrs. Hill, who had been City Clerk for 20 years, took Betty to lunch soon after we arrived. She told Betty, “I want you to know that my husband sub-divided that tract where you live. My son Jack (Charles S. Hill) watered those trees. And we named the street Roosevelt for Theodore, not that other one.”

Betty became Banning’s Society Reporter for the Riverside County Press Enterprise. She joined the Junior Women’s Club. Our social life included Sheila Lauck, John and Marilyn Link, Jim and Bobbie Denier, Jack and Claire Hill, Kenneth and Dorothy Husby, and some of their mutual friends. This included Darryl and Naomi Crookston. We partied at Jack and Claire’s and others. I drank more than my share of hard liquor. I hunted with Darryl.

As Betty became a young matron she bloomed in mind and body. As the City grew its problems matriculated. In 1957 so did mine. Nancy Ann came into this world and became our third daughter. The City Manager, who carried his resignation letter in his coat pocket, pulled it out and laid it on the City Council. Two members of the City Council offered me the job, which I refused. The very next day the consulting City Attorney, Ken Husby, invited me to lunch. I liked him and Betty and I liked his wife, Dorothy. Ken and Dorothy both graduated from Stanford. Until she died, we had a standing nickel bet on each Stanford, USC football game. Kenny used to say that I sold my projects to the City Council by the pound (referring to my “dog and pony shows”.

I went to lunch with Kenny and there were two members of the City Council there who told me in no uncertain terms that I would be appointed Banning’s City Manager-Engineer. I did not think to ask for a raise. My salary stayed at $ 640. per month and every city department head reported to me which included the Chief of Police, Finance Director, Street Department, and Electric Department.

A reporter, Bob Levinson, became a regular visitor to our house. I could be useful too, of course. I first met him when he was standing next to his predecessor, Dick Hoffman. Dick worked for the Riverside County Press Enterprise. He had a great sense of humor and wrote “Willy Boy” a book, which later became a movie. We had fun together after City Council and Planning Commission meetings. Dick wore a U C L A baseball hat one day so I took it from his head and stomped on it. He just stood there laughing and I asked him why. He said “Its his hat” and introduced me to Bob. Bob became a powerful ally, as did Ed Mauel, when they agreed with me, which was most of the time. Bob drew all the cartoons in this book. Ed worked as a reporter for the San Bernardino Sun Telegram and later the night editor. When I became City Manager he published a nice article about my war record and me.

Bob and I played ping-pong and debated issues. Late in the evening, when I gave up he would talk with Betty. I sometimes came out in my pajamas and fell asleep on the couch and they would keep on chatting. Bob drew many cartoons about our family and me and published some of them in his newspaper column Betty was called to win a “hard to give away Pickett’s Market’s grocery prize” because Bob knew she “always” answered the phone “Pick Picketts”. It seemed no one else did. He told Jack Kellner, the disk jockey about it. When Jack called her she answered “Hello”.
In Bob’s opinion my wrong answer was to say “Yes” when pressured to add City Manager to my “Titles”. So he drew a cartoon about that. It took several months to get rid of that title and still remain City Engineer and Surveyor, Airport and Dump Manager, Planning Commissioner, and Chief Building Official.

Bob thought that 4 kids was a lot and expressed that thought with a cartoon. Those that follow convey a few of his shrewd observations. Betty the consummate mother, Vicki who liked nuts, Michael the chess master, and Susie, the quiet one, bemused Bob. Of course, Nancy who joined our clan in 1957 was a crib potato.




















Betty calls her mother
















Susie gets a balloon Vicki gets a sister

One more game? Mike gets new books
Michael became the Riverside County High School Chess Champion. He had started playing at age 6 and I helped him beat me. After age 8 he needed no help. One of the favorite sayings at our house was “One more game”. Michael also loved to play other games. We, as a family, played Parcheesi, Life, Careers, Monopoly, Hearts, Rummy, and others. He graduated as co-Class Victorian from Banning High School.

Michael, at age eight, wanted a piano so we bought one and he took lessons for years, as did Susie. Vicki took dancing lessons until age 4 when on stage at a park recital she was so cute that when she made a boo-boo the audience laughed for her and she did not understand, took umbrage and stalked off. Vicki crawled into Bob’s lap at any given opportunity. She loved nuts and craved attention.

The politics of the town totally fascinated me. The election within two weeks of my arrival changed the City Council and mayor. The new mayor, John Raatz a tall native of Germany, spoke with a heavy German accent. He had been in the German submarine corps in World War 1. He and I had several public and private encounters, which although politically significant still amuse me. We eventually became friends.

The first time we crossed horns I had offended a prominent citizen by insisting on a code compliance related to the height of a retaining wall. The citizen, 2 councilmen and the City Attorney marched into my office and demanded satisfaction. The citizen, an airline pilot brought in data from every City where he landed to try to prove his case. I got the satisfaction of proving my case. I had been at City Hall but 3 months and won the battle but prolonged the war.

One day, John saw me standing behind a transit, while surveying on the centerline of San Gorgonio Avenue. He asked me if I was looking into a bedroom window. I indignantly replied and he apologized; John explained that a constituent had called him in the middle of the night about a drainage problem and he became frustrated with having to track me down after lying awake half the night.

One day I spoke to a citizen, by phone, and demanded that an illegal sign be removed within 24 hours, upon penalty of the law. I explained the penalties and just as John walked in the citizen said, “You can’t talk to me that way, my councilman is John Raatz”.
I responded, “ He is standing right here. You can talk to him.”
John threw his hands in the air and cried, “Mike, you vill giff me an ulcer”. The
sign came down that afternoon.

I liked engineering and did not care if the animal pound gassed cats. I did not want to administer the police department, and the Finance Director, “Pete” Peterson, a Banning old timer, had always wanted to be City Manager. I did not; and, the job came with no pay raise. Within 3 months after my appointment as City Manager/Engineer I successfully extricated myself from the position of City Manager using a combination of tactics, which involved my new Chief of Police, the local publisher, Max Wyhnik and his newspaper, the Banning Record. I complained to Max about his interview of the Chief of Police, Harry Moore, against my wishes.
Max told me, “Mike, you have to kiss the dirtiest asses in town to be City Manager.
I replied, “Max, that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. I do not qualify for this job.”
The next day his newspaper, the Banning Record ran a story that the City Council sought a new City Manager. They got the message and found one.

Bob Livengood became the new City Manager and I satisfied his requirements.

The position of City Engineer had perquisites. On a trip sponsored by Southern California Gas Company John, others, and I visited their facilities from Banning
to Arizona. We stayed overnight at a motel at the Colorado River and were treated to lodgings, meals, libations and cigars. During the evening a poker game broke out and I played. The stakes were a dollar and for my circumstances quite high. But, I enjoyed networking and playing against the Palm Springs City Attorney. At eleven o’clock I had lost about $30 and John stood over my shoulder clucking about my children’s milk money. At midnight I broke even, stood up and bid my adieus. John stood there, put his arm around me and said, “Mike, you did a goot thing”. I smiled, hugged him back, and we became friendly from then on.

The City of Banning owned 40 acres next to Banning Airport and needed an economic stimulus. I needed more staff and proposed that I hire a man and we create an Industrial Subdivision on the 40 acres. It happened and Deutsch Industries bought the 40 acres. They had aerospace parts manufacturing enterprises. They also bought 3,000 acres of land adjoining Banning and then announced that they were going to develop the industrial area. The realtor involved was Mr. James (Jimmy) Thompson. When in the early stages of the deals we met with Alex Deutsch, one of the owners of Deutsch Co. Alex asked me what there is to do in Banning and Jimmy put in with, “He has 4 kids”.
Alex responded with “ That took an hour, what else do you people do”. We laughed and continued at one of many lunches and meetings.


















Board of Directors San Gorgonio Mountain Pass Yacht & Polo Club

Banning had a total of 165 religious cultural, social, and benevolent organizations. One that never materialized is the San Gorgonio Pass yacht and Polo Club. We had the horses but were a tad far from the water. This did not inhibit Bob

Levinson. In a cartoon he has Jack Hill of the PYPC discussing it with me. As you may surmise, I am the man with the pipe.


In 1959, as things settled down at City Hall, I decided that my family and I were in a dead end situation and I sought and quickly found other employment. I resigned my position and went to work as a Senior Civil Engineer at Forest Lawn Cemetery Corporations in Glendale, California. (When John Raatz first heard I was at Forest Lawn he broke into tears.)

After six months they realized they had made a mistake in hiring me. By then we had begun to relocate and were in escrow on a house in Monrovia.

I went to work at AeroJet General. The CEO advised me that I would be sent to Minot, North Dakota and build a nuclear electricity generating plant there.
I said, “ No, I have kids at home and a wife and I am not going”.
He gave me another assignment. I quickly realized I had made a mistake. It occurred to me that if they could be in business so could anyone. Within six weeks we moved back to Banning into our old house and I opened Pioneer Engineering Company, Engineers and Surveyors. (AeroJet General went out of business before I did.)

My first office space, in 1959, was on South San Gorgonio Avenue and I shared it with Jimmy Higbee, a grading contractor, at his invitation. His partner, Ben Allen had been born in Banning and Jimmy migrated there at age 3. My first “rod man” Betty stood in the middle of Ramsey Street, while traffic whizzed by within inches of her. The kids watched from the car. She still says the buses scared her the most. I rapidly promoted her to office manager (bookkeeping and typing). Betty, an accomplished artist, could draw but rebelled at drafting. I had to hire staff as needed.

The Deutsch Company became my first client. Others were realtors and homeowners. I had to sub contract the first big surveying jobs until I could afford to buy equipment and hire people. Then, I made a living doing surveys, subdivisions, many structural designs, mostly small wood and concrete block buildings. I initially did work from Los Angeles to the New Mexico border, but most of it was in Riverside and San Bernardino Counties. A year later, my accountant while going over the books said that if I had asked his advice on going into business at all, he would have said, “Don’t try it.”

I bought a brand new Friden STW 10 square root calculator, then a Berger transit (“solid bronze-won’t rust bust or corrode”). A U S C grad, Dick Horn, who called on me at my office, helped me to acquire a franchise to sell ARMCO Metal Buildings. They were a high quality but non-competitive product. I hired Jack Farmer to sell on commission. He sold one building, after one year, to the local

cemetery. My relationship with ARMCO cooled after Dick Horn suffered a near fatal car accident and I became unhappy with two major issues that arose. I had a chance to sell numerous buildings for a local prison and all the pipe for an 18-mile pipeline. Armco did not cooperate on either opportunity. I cancelled my franchise, but as a result of that endeavor I studied for and obtained my first California State Contractors License in 1960.

In 1960 I had a cup of coffee in a donut shop with Sid Pearson. Sid informed me that he was leaving town and would sell me a small duplex on West Ramsey Street, for nothing down if I would give him a third mortgage. I bought it. The west half became my new office and I rented the other side. My first tenant was Mr. McClure, an 80-year-old realtor. My second tenant became George Dart, a surveyor who had been separated from his wife. My third was an architect,
George Daic.

The phone company, California Water and Telephone Co. AKA “drip and tinkle” hooked up a line from the office to the house and I could transfer incoming calls when I went out. I merely turned a switch on the wall. During the years in business there I bought into a surveying company in Yucca Valley, California, and later formed a Survey-Design-Build company in a rented office in Yucaipa, California.

My most interesting employees included Jeff Jeffus, a surveyor and Leland (Lee) Moyer, an engineering aide. Betty became my bookkeeper and was succeeded by 4 other ladies during the coming years.

I hired Bob Horton who turned out to be an alcoholic but talented designer draftsman. Bob kept a bottle of vodka in his desk. He had been a fighter pilot and was frustrated with having one less kill than Joe Foss, who had become a 5-time ace with 25 confirmed kills. I utilized Bob’s prowess with alcohol when I contracted with a client, Glenn Howell, with a similar propensity. Glenn Howell, as in Bell and Howell, a famous company in its day, could not read plans but we had a weekly client meeting. After a couple of meetings I deemed it best for them to meet at a local bar and he and Glenn got drunk once a week, on the clock as it were. On the scheduled construction day we scratched the building outline on the ground at his property and began a design and construct endeavor. The terms of payment were time and expense. Because Glenn never approved a drawing he could only understand what he saw as we built it and when he wanted a change we ripped out and rebuilt. The job came in at 3 times the original estimate, but he loved every inch of it, and paid ever cent, and on time. He bought, built and owned the Banning Bowl, Banning’s only bowling alley. But he lost that and his beautiful new house within a few years.

Betty bought me my first set of golf clubs. Horton and I went to Calimesa Golf Course, the home of Hale Irwin. I tried to cure Bob of drinking by drinking him under the table out there. Bob and I drank six bottles of beer and a pint bottle of vodka. The empties fell through the bottom of his golf bag on the 3rd hole. We teed off on the 4th but drove to the 5th . After eight holes we couldn’t walk further so I drove him home. Next day we both went to work.

Lee Moyer, an excellent office and field technician, had flown in B-52s in the Strategic Air Command. He became unhappy with his compensation and left my employ once to go into business as a “competitor”. In spite of the fact that I farmed some work to him, Lee returned in 2 months. He had a miserable car driving record with over 30 tickets and had wrecked at least one car. One day when he did not show up for work I called the sheriff’s office. Yep, they had him in an Indio jail for felony speeding (excess of 90 miles per hour). They gave him one phone call and he called his wife. No one called me. Some years later (1972) he passed me on the freeway between Banning and Palm Springs. When I tried to catch and wave to him he sped up. I backed off as my speedometer approached 110 miles per hour. When I got to Palm Springs I look him up and called his office. He had burned up his engine and gone to a repair shop.

Jeff Jeffus had a reputation as a charming ladies man. We often traveled together and it seemed that wherever we stopped, he knew a lady there. Once we set up for one day of surveying in Blythe, California. Jeff found several other clients and stayed the week, working. One of the clients, a lady, did not remit payment. So I sued. My attorney, Alvin Fisher advised me Jeff had “taken it out in trade”. Later I also found out that he used my equipment and surveyor’s tag for an unauthorized extra work weekend job. When confronted with this information he declined my offer to “settle it in the alley” and left my employ. I hired Ed Stell, a Party Chief, from the Union of Operating Engineers, Local 12D. The union had tried to sell me on their merits. Ed was the best surveyor I had met. He also tried every trick in the book to organize my shop but quickly realized my position. I could not compete against the desert-based surveyors. Ed stayed several months but when his daughter became sick had to rejoin the ranks to protect his health and pension benefits. My shop, nor I, had any.

Las Vegas began to boom. I connected with a Bill Sugarman there who had a contract with the Showboat Hotel. I drove there, we hit it off and he bragged about drinking me under the table. He said if he could, I might as well just go home. We went bar hopping. The second place we went we had a front row table and Dave Appollon led a group of musicians on the stage. I told Bill a joke I heard when I saw Appollon and his Harmonicats at Chicago ’s State and Lake Theater 30 years previously. He called Dave down from the stage and had me repeat it. With a tear in his eye, Dave Appolon played his violin standing next to me for the rest of that performance. At the next spot on the “strip” I started to get drunk and staggered toward the rest room and realized I might not be able to walk that far. I leaned on a slot machine. It felt comforting and I did not to look cheap so I fed it a silver dollar. It spit out 250 silver dollars and I had to crawl on the floor to pick them up. A couple of people helped me and made sure I got it all. That sobered me somewhat. I stayed at Sugarman’s condo that night. He could not eat the nice breakfast he made so I ate his and mine. He declared me the champ, called Murray Peterson, introduced me, and sent me to Round -Up Realty to meet him. Murray has his chauffeur driven limo take us about town and showed me 140 condo units he had under construction. He gave me a consulting assignment. I went home and began it. The following week I called his office. The conversation went like this.
Me, “Murray Peterson, please.”
Mr. Wise Guy, “You can’t talk to him.”
Me, “Why not? ”
Mr. W.G. “He’s dead” then “Murray burned to death when he turned on the ignition and his boat blew up.”
My trip to Las Vegas cost me a lost weekend and only about $ 5.00 thanks to my bout with the slot machine.

I hired a couple of other good men. One of them, Gil Herrera a dark skinned Indian, had worked for the oldest living surveyor in the area, J. F. “Toots” Davidson. I once had the need and occasion to view some of his 1905 field notes. Gil, a good family man lived in Mias Canyon, several miles due north of Banning, where he and his wife were also employed as caretakers. We stayed friends for years. Other surveyors who worked for me included “Swede” Wing, who let me ride his Harley Davidson motorcycle around Banning.

In 1961 I bought into High Desert Engineering Company in Yucca Valley owned by some engineers in San Diego, Craig, Edwards, Welsch and Bartels. The key man in Yucca Valley, Kenny Weston was a surveyor, as yet not licensed. His dad worked on the crew, as did George Dart. Kenny’s dad was 1/2 Navajo Indian and Kenny was 1/4 Navajo. Kenny and his dad worked hard all week and in their own words, “ran and played all weekend”. Kenny at 6 feet was taller than his dad by a foot. One day I witnessed them fighting and rolling on a bar room floor with dad screaming, “I’ll kill you, you son of a bitch”. The old man whipped him, too. Next Monday they were back at work, happy and smiling.

George Dart had been an oilfield worker at age 14 and a party chief at age 21. He could knock a man across a bar room floor. The following happened when he was in my employ. He and a cowboy he fought in Show Low, Arizona, wrecked Bill Jennings Bar on Deuce of Clubs Avenue and tore the only telephone off the hook. While doing a survey of a complete township in the Painted Desert, George and the crew drove from Navajo, Arizona to Sanders, New Mexico to get the chain saw blades sharpened. After dinner, which customarily included at least a few beers George stepped into the path of a speeding car, which dragged him 300 feet. It broke his right leg and many other bones.

The insurance aspect of George’s incident became part of my education. I had bought a set of business books by mail order, 16 in all, from Hamilton Institutes School of Business. They came with a tutorial and test pamphlets. I studied the first two and boned up on corporations and insurance. When my crew got to Arizona, I thought, A Things are fine, what should I worry about now?” So I called Jack Hill on a Saturday and he advised me that my California Workers Compensation Insurance did not extend to coverage in Arizona. He said he would write on Monday and get it done. I responded with a request to get a binder by telephone at once. On Monday he informed me orally that I had a binder. On Tuesday a car hit George and on Wednesday the Arizona people advised Jack Hill that I had no coverage because they had not received funds to bind the coverage. Jack informed me to that effect and also that because he had informed me orally that I had a binder and George Dart’s hospitalization and Workers Compensation would be fully paid by Jack’s insurer.

Six months later after tremendous inconvenience and great expense George came back to work. Then, in one weekend he “knocked up” his girl friend and his estranged wife. Within a few weeks, his girl friend’s husband sneaked up on him in a bar in Morongo Valley, knocked him to the floor, pounced on him and gouged out both of his eyes. The doctors saved one eye but George lost the other eye. He returned to work as a chainman but had drunk so much beer he suffered from blood in his urine. This too, passed.

One day in 1961, Richard Starling, a young Negro, walked into my office and flashed his high school diploma. Our son, Michael working in our drafting room, had suggested that he do so. Richard, an excellent math student, sought work. After some convincing conversation he went to college and returned in 1963 when I hired him as a surveyor. This created a few problems for a neighbor who had applied for the job and also doubled as a bigot. Richard had a strong body and mind to match. He broke the first two eight pound hammers he used so I bought him a 12 pounder. He manifested a stubborn streak equal to mine and would not proceed on an assignment until convinced of the efficacy of the work plan. He knew when he was right. He always called me Mr. Nosanov and wanted to be called Richard, not Dick or Rich.

One day on a tough, critical phase of a mountain survey, George Dart tried to ascend to a point up a steep hill and fell, breaking the wooden handle on the hand axe fastened to his belt. Richard turned to me and said “Mr. Nosanov, I can make it up there and with the transit. I can set it up and wiggle it on line of the back sights”. He did.

Richard had one handicap, which he cheerfully overcame. As light waned during at the end of the day, his hand signals were not always clearly visible so I asked him to wear white gloves. Some of those surveys were in the desert in the summer. We ate breakfast before dawn to be on the job site at sun-up. One day in Paradise, California, 20 miles east of Desert Hot Springs, the temperature reached 100o F, in the shade at 11 A.M. We often worked from dawn til noon and returned after 4 to finish. By noon the heat waves obscured the image on the instrument’s telescope to where we could not “give line” or read the “level rod”. Occasionally I would rent a motel room for the crew to use the swimming pool and cool down. One night at 5 P.M. it got so hot that we had to wear gloves before we could touch the truck.

One day in 1963, Richard and I alone had 2 surveys to do in Yucaipa, California. As Richard pounded in a stake the bushes in front of us parted and a lady spoke excitedly, “ President Kennedy has just been shot”. She looked down and saw Richard and continued “By a white man”. We finished and went to the next job and as I set up the transit and Richard reconned the site were confronted by the client who acted emotionally distraught and became an obstruction to my work. I deduced he did not want a black man on his property. We left and that night I visited him, told him I did not want his business and returned his retainer fee.

One morning a client and attorney from Covina, who made a major Banning land purchase, stood in my office and made a disparaging remark about Negroes. I responded that with his attitude we could not do business in that my key employees included a Negro, and a Mexican-Indian. He gasped, sat down and apologized. He added, “I was way off base. I am, in fact, part Negro.” We got along fine after that.

Right after I went out of business, Richard was quickly employed by the local telephone company. He came to visit me and during our chat said “Mr. Nosanov, we did more work here in one morning that they do in a week.” In 1974 while I explored a business opportunity in the Bahamas, Richard Starling agreed to become part of the staff that I would take there.

I had other business forays. Lee Moyer and I, together with a Bob Smith, started a Survey, Design, and Construct Company on California Street, in Yucaipa. I ran it as a pure profit center and for 3 months it showed no profit. I invested a minimal amount of money in it, a few hundred dollars, and Lee and Bob put in sweat for future equity. The landlady was in no hurry for rent. Within four months business began to boom, but Lee and Bob had a serious disagreement. When I heard that one of them was looking for the other with a gun, I shut it down, instantly.

George Daic (pronounced “dice”), an architect rented the other half of my building on Ramsey Street. I found it difficult to like him. We ran in similar social circles in Banning. This included a bridge group and Elks’ dances.

About the same time my ophthalmologist informed me that I had chronic wide-angle glaucoma and started me on a prescription that required drops in my eyes 4 times a day. Each application relieved the eye pressure but impaired my vision thus creating a cycle of good sight and bad sight. It irritated my psyche me to the point where my patience became very thin. One night I walked onto the floor of the Elks Lodge. I was an Officer in the Chair of the Lecturing Knight. I heard brother Jim, mispronounce my last name as he greeted me.
I asked him in an irritated tone of voice “What did you say?”
Jim unfolded his 6' 3" frame from his chair and approached me. As he did, I side stepped, grabbed him by his shirt front and using his momentum threw him over my left hip into a pile of chairs, as some the buttons from the front of his shirt clattered to the floor.
His response was “Oh, oh, my wife just bought me this shirt, she will be mad”. The Exalted Ruler’s response was “Mike, you are full of energy tonight”.
Jim took no umbrage at what he acknowledged to be an honest misunderstanding but his wife reported later that the incident did him a world of good and she replaced the buttons, happily.

One night at the Banning Bowl, Bob Shecter, a tall, husky auto mechanic from neighboring Beaumont thought Betty far too cute to keep his hands from. I peeled him off, and flipped him down an alley, for starters. Then I started toward him in a boxing stance as he got up. Steve Nagy, the Manager grabbed me and said “ Mike, we do not allow fighting here”. Bob apologized and we all continued bowling.

One day as a guest of George and his wife I got cranky about their hospitality. I later discussed it with my closest confidant, Jack Hill who advised me to forget it and brought up a few things about George with which he, Jack was unhappy. I decided to not speak to George again and although we attended the same soirees, did not. I “igged him”. One night at an Elk’s dance my friend Bob B., bon vivant and philanderer, advised me that he considered taking his new love, Mary K. a living doll school teacher, to South America. After I explained he would wind up cheating on her, too, he agreed to stay married and home. I had been dancing with Betty other cuties and I asked Mary K. for a dance. While she had my attention George Daic grabbed my arm. Without thinking, as I turned I punched him and knocked him down. Embarrassed at myself, I dragged him into a conference room and he sobbed, “You never even say hello and now you hit me.”
He was right, and for the next year I said “Hello” when I saw him and did not hit him again. In six months, he and his family moved to Hawaii. I probably owe him a ton of apologies but did not become aware until my eye drop prescription changed.

Betty was hard nosed about parties; she and I would summarily leave if vulgarity raised it f---ing head. We walked out of several parties when the jokes or language got rough. Her philosophy is that a woman should be a lady in the parlor.

Bob B, his family and ours remained friends. We went fishing and partied together, then did some business. One day in the 1970's Bob let me know that he had divorced and decided to “switch, (sexual orientation) rather than fight.” I have not seen him since.