In my early years at Foley (Perry, Florida) I did a lot of duck hunting with Bill Pyle, Leroy Clemmons, and Royce Thompson. We always tried to get in a hunt on Saturday mornings, and sometimes went out very early to get a sunrise shoot before work on a weekday. This hunt took place on the 8th of December 1962. I remember the date because it was so cold that it caused the mill to be down for two days repairing broken pipes.
I think it was Tuesday morning and the four of us and Brit went in two cars to a salt marsh pond on the road to Piney Point. You got there by driving the paved road from Keaton Beach to Steinhatchee and turning toward the coast on a two-rut sand road. The pond was about six or seven miles off the paved road. Royce, Brit, and I were in one car and Bill and Leroy were in Leroy’s 1954 Volkswagen Bug. We arrived at the pond well before dawn, probably about 5 o’clock, and walked from the cars to the pond to set up our stands.
We had a good, but very cold shoot. It was so cold that ice would form on Brit’s flanks as he came out of the water when he made retrieves. He had a fair amount of business that morning as we got about ten mallards and pintails between the four of us. We were back at the cars by 6:30, drinking coffee and joking about the shots we had made, and the ones we had missed. We had then to drive about thirty miles home, clean our ducks, and try to make it to work by 8 o’clock.
Royce and I collected our guns and ducks, loaded them and Brit into our car and left ahead of Bill and Leroy. We drove home uneventfully and cleaned our ducks. I think I made it in to work within five minutes of 8:00. Royce was scheduled for the 4 – 12 shift, so he didn’t have to worry about making it to work on time.
I arrived to find that the mill was down and that in my departments many major pipes (actually valves) had frozen and broken. There had been some kind of problem that caused one of the departments to go down, and the night shift had turned off the water pumps and closed the valves to save water. That had been a disastrous mistake because it was so cold, about six degrees (F), and very windy. When the original problem had been corrected and they tried to start up, the still water in the pipes had already frozen. The valves, made of cast iron or cast steel, were the weak points and many of them broke.
I went immediately to work helping our mechanics get the replacement valves, thaw the lines enough to drain them, and then change out the broken valves. All the other departments had similar problems, and the Storeroom ran out of spare valves, and we had to truck more in from Jacksonville. As I said earlier, it took nearly two days to get everything thawed, all the valves and pipes repaired, and to start the mill up again. I was so busy that I didn’t even think of Bill or Leroy until I saw Leroy around three in the afternoon. He told me quite a tale.
He and Bill had started home some five minutes after Royce and I had left them. They had gotten about halfway back up the sand road toward the highway when they ran out of gas.
At this point I must stop to explain the gas tank arrangement on the old VW Bugs. The Bug did not have a fuel gauge. It had a “reserve tank”. You simply drove until your car ran out of gas, and then switched on to your “reserve tank”. That “tank” held a gallon and a half, and that would take the car about 40 miles. My VW had the same system, but I tried not to get too low because the car would lose power when it ran out of gas, and I didn’t want to be passing another car when that happened.
As you will remember the Bug’s engine was in the rear. The gas tank was in the trunk in the front of the car. There really wasn’t a “reserve tank”.
The system worked this way. See the diagram below. The normal gasoline feed was from the side of the tank, through line #1, then through the 3-way valve (#3) and on to the engine. When the “reserve tank” was needed the driver simply turned the foot lever (#4) changing the 3-way valve thus allowing gasoline to flow out the bottom of the gas tank through line (#2) to the engine.
Leroy and Bill’s problem was that the foot lever (#4) in Leroy’s VW was broken. Leroy knew it, but he thought he had enough gasoline in the tank to make the trip.
When they ran out of gas their first reaction was near panic. They had not asked for time off from work, so they simply had to get back. They knew that they were on a seldom-traveled road, and they figured no one was likely to come by to help. Being good engineers, they considered their problem taking into account that they had 1-½ gallons of gas, if they could just get it to the engine. It occurred to one of them that gasoline was lighter than water and would not mix with it. If they poured water into the tank the gas would float up, and the engine would feed from its normal source on the side of the tank. They had no water to pour in, but they did have some coffee left in the thermos. They poured it in, cranked the VW, and headed for home.
They made it back to the paved road and were almost to US Highway 19 when they ran out again. They knew there was plenty of gas left. They just needed more water. The ditches were dry, and there were no ponds nearby. Bill got an idea and looked at Leroy who read his thoughts. I will let you guess what they did. To my knowledge it’s the only time anybody ran a car on that stuff, but it got them home.
They drove to Bill’s house and got his car, dropped Leroy’s car at his house and went on to work. I don’t know what they did with their ducks. After work Leroy went home and removed the gas tank from his car. The “water” in the gasoline tank was frozen solid, so he drained off the gas, then left the tank upside down on two sawhorses to drain when the weather warmed up.