A Day in the City

by George Garriott

A good many years ago the best form of transportation from Louisville to Indianapolis and points in between was the interurban. Fast, quiet, clean and economical, it made routine, scheduled, daily trips between the two cities. One day, Dad said he wanted to take Courtney and me to Indianapolis to visit the city. I was seven or eight years old, my brother was three or four years older. The day finally arrived and we boarded the car at Scottsburg, headed north to the big city. The first thing I noticed was that it didn’t have a steering wheel. I said to Pop, "How does he keep this thing on the track without a steering wheel?" He said, "Don’t worry, the wheels are made so they can’t get off the track." I thought everything that moved needed a steering wheel of some kind.

The first place we visited was his cousin, Milton Price, and his cosmetic plant. They made all kinds of "niceties" for women; rouge, powder, perfume, finger nail polish, etc. under the band name Boncilla. As we toured the plant with him, I thought this would sure be a nice place work, it smelled so good. I can imagine the employees, who were mostly women, really enjoyed working there.

Then we went to the state capitol building. Dad wanted to show us the desk his father used when he was a member of the House of Representatives. Back then, desks had ink-wells. You would write about six scratchy words, then stick your pen in the ink-well for more ink. I happen to have the one that my grandfather used.

But pens have come a long way since then. When we were in college, Leola bought a pen because it could write under water. I don’t know how many times she did this but I often wondered what a piece of wet, soggy paper would look like if someone wrote on it. Think her pen was made by the Waterman Pen Company. How does the song go "you gotta believe in something, or you’ll fall for anything?" I had a pen, too but it was a dry land pen, it wouldn’t write under water. I do remember the name they had on it: G. A. GARRICOTT, where they got the "C" I’ll never know. No offense Leola, just kidding.

It was time to take a ride on the street car. Being the youngest, they let me drop the coins in for our fares. But I put them in the wrong place and jammed the mechanism and it wouldn’t work. He had to stop the street car, get the coins out, before he could accept any more fares. Courtney and Pop tried to help by suggesting which size wrench to use and what way to turn it, to remove the nuts. He just looked at me, "of all the street cars in Indianapolis, why did the little rascal have to get on mine?" These may not have been the exact words he had in mind. Two or three other street cars pulled up behind us, people stared from the sidewalks. They all wondered what the reason was for the delay. I knew. After about thirty minutes, things were back to normal and amid cheers of approval, we were on our way. Incidentally, I might say, I’ve put my money in the wrong place ever since.

We had one more visit to make - Price Brothers Real Estate - two more cousins, Lyman and Lawrence Price (Horace’s father). Their office was a few doors east of the Circle, in the People’s Bank Building. We walked to the back of the building and into a small room. While standing there, all of a sudden, it started moving upward. Don’t think I had ever been so scared, as I didn’t know we were on an elevator. Nobody told me anything! Their office was on the seventh floor, but the time we were half way there, I figured it out. Well, what would you have done, seven years old and had never seen an elevator? I bet you wouldn’t have stood on one foot singing "Mary Had a Little Lamb" either. Yet today, I often think of that first ride, when I get on an elevator. After we left their office, Pop looked at the sun and said, "Well, it’s 2:45, time to go to the interurban station." He verified the time by checking his watch.

What a day! I didn’t go to sleep very quickly that night. Just imagine - an interurban, a street car and an elevator all in one day and vivid memories of each. Life just couldn’t get much better than that. Then I thought how smart my dad must be - to go to all those places and not have to ask anyone how to get there. And he seemed to know a lot about wheels and stuff. Well, he always said he went through college, "in one door and out the other." After about two hours of this kind of mind rambling, the eyelids began to get heavier and heavier. I didn’t "come to" until late the next morning.

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