| Accession# |
VE1-2010 |
| Catalog date |
01/05/2010 |
| Collection |
OSHP Collections |
| Date of photo |
varies |
| Description |
Tom Ricketts, who graduated with the 37th Academy Class in 1952, told of his Patrol days in a 2002 interview, a small portion of which is included below:
Historian: What was it like at Harman Farms in your era?
Tom: Oh God, it was miserable.
H: Why?
T: Well, we started with probably 40 and the first day 10 quit. They posted the bus schedule - one that went by. They went by twice a day and if you wanted to quit and get on the bus, you knew when to go. They tried to make it as miserable for you as they could to see how much you could take. This (Major Don) Manley, oh, he was a miserable guyand he thought I was Jewish and he used to call me Mossadich. Something from Israel. He was kind of the enforcer, and (Corporal Ralph) Lanker was the instructor, and I think his son killed him.
H: Yeah, he did, the whole family.
T: And I remember it was very, very prejudiced and we didn't know it was prejudiced, didn't know what prejudice was but they didn't let...they discouraged any black guys from going and if you happened to get in a class where they let a black guy in everybody suffered until they quit.
H: No kidding?
T: But getting back to Manley, he tried everything in the world to get me to quit but I wouldn't quit, just because of it. He decided every day after lunch, we had a half an hour to do anything we wanted to do. He got a big bag of rocks and he put them outside the building and I got to pick the rocks up and take them down to the firing range and leave them. And then, after supper, I got to go down there and bring them back. That went on for about a week. I never thought much of him.
H: Sort of like Boot Camp.
T: Yes, oh yes. I had just got out of the Air Force and it was worse than anything that I went through in the Air Corps.
Another portion of the interview recalled some different memories:
H: Did you already know how to shoot and things like that? I mean, when they were doing pistol practice and all that you already knew how to do that?
T: Oh yes, well I was raised on a farm for one thing and it was kind of funny, you were supposed to have a coach, I don't know what they call it, a coach for about six weeks or so after you got out of the Academy and I think I graduated on the 15th of October and they had the Halloween Riot on the 31st of October (in 1952 at the Ohio State Penitentiary in Columbus).
H: Right.
T: So they sent all of the experienced patrolmen that they could here to Columbus for the riot and they left me and another new patrolman and we had to go out onto the street without a coach. So, after about a week or so, they thought better of it and they sent us up here and let the experienced men go back and run the post.
H: How long was the patrol at the Halloween Riot?
T: I was there two weeks and they must have been there, they were there a week before I got there and probably a couple, or three weeks afterwards.
H: What was it like in the riots?
T: I was scared to death. I really was and...we worked 12-hour shifts and we'd line up outside the gate and then to go in, we would march in and the other guys would go out and I remember I was in the Boiler House, sitting on a swivel rocker, holding a shot gun and kept swiveling around because they were prone to, uh, they had two or three tiers above and they would urinate in the buckets and throw it on you so it was really, really a fun deal. I was scared to death the whole time I was there, a farm boy that just came in and got mixed up in that. But, it was an experience.
|
| Year Range from |
1933 |
| Category |
8: Communication Artifact |
| Year range to |
2010 |
| Object ID |
VE1-2010-010 |
| Object Name |
print, photographic |
|
