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    Musings: Of My Early Life
    Musings: Of My Early Life
    Musings: Of My Early Life
    Ebook124 pages1 hour

    Musings: Of My Early Life

    By Ralph Burdette Jordan

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    Ralph B. Jordan rose from relative obscurity working while in high school and college on Salt Lake City newspapers, to the top of his dual professions as a newsman with William Randolph Hearsts International News Service (INS), and as a publicist with Louis B. Mayers Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). During World War II he was INSs Chief Correspondent for the Pacific Theater, and then became Assistant Director of Publicity for MGM. Along the way he returned to Salt Lake City briefly as Managing Editor of the Deseret News, although his earlier newspaper experience was with the Salt Lake Tribune. He also was the first Athletic Director at the University of Utah.

    This small volume of his autobiographical essays were written over a period after the end of World War II, and are drawn from his early life in Salt Lake City. They are entertaining as well as informative of the life and times in Utah around World War I, when he was leaving his youthful teen years and entering adulthood.

    As his youngest son (and only surviving child), I feel honored to have this opportunity to edit Ralph Jordans musings.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisheriUniverse
    Release dateDec 15, 2011
    ISBN9781462068340
    Musings: Of My Early Life
    Author

    Ralph Burdette Jordan

    Dr. Jordan has received degrees from UCLA, Utah, Princeton and Oxford Universities. His career has combined both studying and practicing international administration, focusing on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) during the Cold War, and on the United Nations. His published works range from detailed discussions of administration in all its forms, to general studies of international relations, focusing on the Euro-Atlantic area. He has served as President of the International Studies Association and has been a member of many other scholarly associations, including the Royal Institute of International Affairs, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the American Society for Public Administration, the International Studies Association, and the Committee on Atlantic Studies. He has served in the administration or on the faculties (or both) of a variety of universities, including The George Washington University, Columbia University, Fourah Bay College of the University of Sierra Leone, Brigham Young University, Lancaster University (U.K.), the Air War College, and the U.S. Naval War College.

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      Book preview

      Musings - Ralph Burdette Jordan

      Musings

      of

      My Early Life

      by

      Ralph Burdette Jordan

      Edited by Robert Smith Jordan

      iUniverse, Inc.

      Bloomington

      Musings

      of My Early Life

      Copyright © 2011 by Ralph Burdette Jordan

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

      iUniverse books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

      iUniverse

      1663 Liberty Drive

      Bloomington, IN 47403

      www.iuniverse.com

      1-800-Authors (1-800-288-4677)

      Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

      Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

      Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

      ISBN: 978-1-4620-6832-6 (sc)

      ISBN: 978-1-4620-6833-3 (hc)

      ISBN: 978-1-4620-6834-0 (e)

      Printed in the United States of America

      iUniverse rev. date: 12/08/2011

      Contents

      I. Ducks

      II. Streetcar

      III. Impression

      IV. The Bully

      V. A Different Bully

      VI. Friendship

      VII. Romance

      VIII. Snakes

      IX. More Snakes

      X. Consequences

      X1. Early on the 4th of July

      XII. Later on the 4th of July

      XIII. The desert food

      XIV. Cougars

      XV. Cougars again.

      XVI. A false start

      XVII. The Count

      XVIII. The coach

      XIX. The Fight

      XX. Diamond Jack’s denouement

      XXI. Reporting the news

      XXII. The Big Fight

      XXIII. Thanksgiving game day

      XXIV. Boxing redoux

      XXV. The bathtub

      XXVI. Postscript

      XXVII. Post-Postscript

      XXVIII. A minor matter

      XXIX. Militarism run amok

      XXX. Fraud writ large

      XXXI. Loan

      XXXII. Death

      XXXIII. Innocence

      Dedication

      To the progeny of Ralph Burdette Jordan

      and to the Utahns of his time

      An Explanatory Word

      During the course of the past half-century, I have intermittently researched my familial origins, with the steadfast encouragement of my wife, who is a dedicated genealogist. I have also been fortunate in this endeavor by the fact that, as an academic, I have perforce kept thorough records of my own career and life.

      Out of all this has come a de facto Jordan trilogy the third of which is this volume of anecdotes written by my father when recovering from a stroke. He was only 50 years old at the time – much too young to begin looking back.

      His handwritten manuscript was discovered only earlier this year, apparently having been stored among the possessions of my late brother Ralph B. Jordan, Jr. These short-short stories disclose aspects of Ralph Sr.’s life and personality heretofore unknown, at least by me, the youngest and only surviving child.

      Robert Smith Jordan, PhD., D.Phil (Oxon.)

      Woodbridge, Virginia

      November 2011

      Acknowledgments

      First and foremost, thanks must be given to my wife, Jane Hatch Jordan, for her persistence in encouraging me to undertake this semi-autobiographical book of anecdotes written by my father, and which only recently came to light. Also to Kathleen Seely, who unwittingly was the guardian of the manuscript after the passing of her father, who most likely had received the manuscript from our mother Mary Wright Smith Jordan.

      The completion of this small memoir is primarily due to the material assistance as well as the general encouragement of Ralph B. Jock Jordan III and Kathleen Jordan Seely. Becky Clarke assisted in the early stages of transcribing the manuscript. Matthew Graff was a general purpose facilitator. The Woodbridge home of Dr. Wayne and Susan Hatch Rasmussen provided the setting for this composition, for which I am grateful.

      Part One

      Boyhood

      I. Ducks

      The superintendent of parks was irritated. So was my father. It was about ducks. For months, said the superintendent, we’ve been missing ducks. He meant the tame ducks on the lake at Liberty Park in the heart of Salt Lake City. I knew the answer. So did my dog, Brownie, a red water spaniel. I caught him, said the park officer, indicating me, sending this dog, indicating Brownie, after ducks.

      They had a pile of six. It was true. Brownie loved to swim. So did the ducks. I encouraged Brownie to race the ducks. They always lost. This benefitted a crowd of older boys, who lay in wait for me in the fields between the park and our home, three blocks away. I’d deliver the birds to them - I was 5 years of age at the time - and they’d tell me to be sure and come back the next day.

      But they never invited me to join them over a roast duck. Heeding their request, I displayed a gullibility, which I never grew out of. I am no sophisticate. Smart and clever people make me uncomfortable. My life has shown a remarkable lack of common sense. But it has been interesting, in spots, I think.

      II. Streetcar

      My father was a forgiving man. I proved it many times. One Sunday, in fact, I waved goodbye to him as he stood at the back gate, as I set off across the field toward the street that led to Sunday School, a block and a half away. My yellow curls swirled in the wind behind me, brushing the velvet collar of my black Lord Fauntleroy suit, as my big Windsor bow tie flopped into my trusting blue eyes. In my little fingers, I clutched two pennies, for the missionary fund.

      The pennies gave me an idea as a streetcar rattled past. The car stopped at the next corner to take on a crowd of passengers and I decided, for some obscure reason, that it would be nice to ride the remaining half block to church. I was last up the steps and the conductor hauled me to the platform as he gave two quick clangs on the signal chord.

      Who are you with, he frowned as the other new passengers filed into the car.

      Nobody, I said, offering my two pennies, which he refused. The fare was five cents. Where are you going? he asked. Sunday School, I said. Where’s that? Right there.

      I pointed to the other side of the street. He slammed the car to a stop with a wrench on the signal cord, helped me off, looked carefully both ways on the street for the spirited horses and the chugging one-lunged automobiles which plagued pedestrians of that era, and gave me a hearty assist with a heavy hand on the fat seat of my tight-fitting pants, toward a small white frame house of worship.

      My father, observing me board the streetcar, and duly concerned and astonished, had dashed to our back porch for his bicycle. By the time he had pushed the bicycle across the field to the street, I had debarked and disappeared. It was a hot July Sunday. The car made a few stops, lurching along speedily on its tight holiday schedule, kicking up a swirl of dust from the unpaved streets.

      Father on his bicycle pursued for nine miles, to the end of the line, occasionally pedaling into the dust but never quite getting within hailing distance. At the finish, perspiration trickling into his starched collar and white Sunday shirt, father pulled himself to the conductor’s platform and gasped: Where’s the little boy? What boy? said the conductor.

      The one, wheezed father, who got on at Ninth East and Ninth South streets. Oh, that little — ? he started to say heartily. You mean the tow-head? Yes. In the funny black suit? Yes. With the two pennies? Yes."

      I dunno, said the

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