Award winning columnist Max Gilroy was born in Lansing, Michigan in 1919. When he was a child, his family moved to Oregon where he grew up near Portland. At age 15 he dropped out of school and worked in a variety of jobs all over the west. In 1939 he enlisted in the army and served six years. Max was at Schofield Barracks on Oahu that fateful December 7, 1941 and subsequently served in the Central Pacific, Guadalcanal, Northern Solomons, Luzon and the Southern Philippines. He was awarded the American Service Medal with Clasp, the Asiatic Service Medal, the Purple Heart, Good Conduct Medal and the Philippine Liberation Medal with one bronze star. After his discharge from the military, he attended Reed College in Portland, Oregon, St. John's in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Humboldt State College in Eureka, California and Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon, where he graduated with a BS in English. He married Virginia McCarl in 1946. She died in 1972. They had three children, Scott, Wendy and Duncan. Max moved to Humboldt County in 1962 and taught school in Fortuna, California. A list of his occupations and accomplishments is mind-boggling. In addition to becoming a columnist in the Arcata Union in 1981, Gilroy wrote a dozen musical comedies, was a regular on KHSU's ShareTime, appeared on KEET-TV and was active with the Retired Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP), the Unitarian Fellowship and the Chamber Readers. Max and his long-time friend, Peg Billings, have been active in North Coast affairs for a number of years. The depth and breadth of Max's interests can be appreciated in reading The Best Of The Old Dropout.

These columns are in alphabetical order, rather than chronological.
 

A Fool And His Money
I got out of the army in September of 1945. 1 was single, sound of wind and limb, and had $22,000 in the bank. That was about like $100,000 today. (The source of the. $22,000 we won't go into here.)

A Good Summer
We drifted into Humboldt County 18 or 20 years ago. I signed on as an eighth grade teacher in Fortuna. We rented a little furnished house in King Salmon. Our three kids were around 10, 12 and 14 years of age. Our big black dog, Princess, was in her dotage.

A Hole, B Hole, C Hole
It isn't what you know, it's who you know. Because I happen to be a chess player, I got a job
building rocket launchers at Vandenberg Air Base, near Lompoc, which is some 50 miles north of Santa Barbara.

A Lost Husband's Return
I was riding from Santa Fe to New York City in a Greyhound bus. I was running away from my wife. I left her there in Santa Fe with our old car, our small son, and his baby sister.

Blonde In A Canoe
Then came an incredible proposition. Susan, a stunning ash blonde who worked in the office, said that she'd go with me. Said she wanted to get away from night life, to rest and sleep and get a nice tan.

Bundle From Heaven
Our first-born was still a baby when I got a summer job as a forest ranger in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest in the State of Washington.

Chamber Pots And Bedbugs
My father, Leo, was a streetcar motorman in Lansing, Michigan, in 1919, the year I was born. He was at work on the cold snowy day in January when my mother, Mabel, knew that she'd better get to the hospital. Problem was, she didn't have the nickel for streetcar fare.

Cornmeal Mush
The other morning I decided to cook some corn meal mush. Back in the 30s I ate enough mush to last a lifetime. And then some.

Death Of A Salesman
Robert McCarl was 12 years old when he left Scotland for the United States. He didn't make the trip alone. There was quite a family. Father, mother and nine kids. They traveled steerage.

East Ankeny Street (Scott's Note: Really about the Halsey Street House)
Virginia was standing in front of me in the chow line at Reed College, in Portland, Oregon. I didn't know then that we were destined to be married to each other for 26 years.

Fun Trip
Some 25 years ago we were living in Chula Vista, just north of the Mexican border. Our three kids were just the right age to take camping.

Honeymoon
I went to college in the winter of '45-'46. 1 married the first woman who spoke to me. Her name was Virginia. She was a senior. I was a freshman, and lucky to be that, what with being a high school dropout. They were kind to us GIs.

Landlord
Lompoc is a small town north of Santa Barbara. I worked as a carpenter, building rocket launchers at Vandenberg Air Base.

Le Chef de Cuisine, Sil Vous Plait
Our outfit was camped near the sea. We slept in eight-man pyramidal tents. I was running the biggest dice game in the battalion. Sometimes the game would run all night. I was often short of sleep. That's why I became a cook. You could sleep in on your days off. Better still, all I had to do was give 20 bucks to an off-duty cook. He'd pull my shift for me. That gave me five straight days without duty.

Living The High Life
In 1938 1 built, and lived in, a treehouse, 105 feet off the ground, in a great old douglas fir tree, in the hills west of Portland, Ore. The treehouse excited a certain amount of interest. It could be glimpsed only from rare vantage points on a narrow twisting drive that wound through the steep wooded hills.

Mabel
We lived in a little house in the Oregon woods. It was a wonderful place to live. A minute's walk took you into the cool fragrant woodland, a place of fir trees and dogwood and cedar and fern and chipmunks and birds.

Movie Date
The Great Depression of the 1930s affected most Americans. Jobs were scarce or nonexistent. Money was a hard won thing. A job, any job, never mind the pay, was eagerly sought and struggled for, and held onto like life itself.

My Brother The Genius
Razz was three years older than I. There was a sister between us, but she wasn't too interesting.

My Father's Life
Leo grew up on a northern Michigan farm. He was an only child. He never went past the seventh grade. His mother died of asthma when he was 17. Leo's father, Paul, gave up the farm and father and son moved into Lansing where they both found work in the factories. Leo spent most of his working life in mills and factories.

Paper Route
I bought a paper route for ten dollars. I had to pay it off over the months as I collected from the subscribers. The route only paid the paper boy eight or nine dollars a month, but that was all right. I knew that when the time came I could sell the route for at least the same price.

Pearl Harbor
I was there. I was a soldier in Hawaii when the Japanese struck, Dec. 7, 1941. Three thousand men died in the first hour. I didn't die. I was wounded, but not at Pearl Harbor. I got my purple heart in the Solomon Islands, on Guadalcanal, more than a year later.

Polka Dot War
A recruiting sergeant, one wet December day on Mission Street in San Francisco in the year 1939, talked a certain young drifter into joining the army. Beautiful Hawaii. Perpetual spring. Palm trees. Waikiki.

Runaway Man
Place: Santa Fe, New Mexico.Time: Midwinter of 1950. 1 was doing great. My creditors from Oregon hadn't yet caught up with me. I had learned how to be a restaurant cook. I was attending a small college called Saint Michael's. I got the GI Bill. $110 a month, plus books and tuition. I was paid $30 a week as a fry cook.

Something About A Soldier
I rode the freights from Portland to San Francisco in November of 1939. Foul weather. No money. Cold. Wet. Hungry. A recruiting sergeant accosted me on Mission Street. One look at my grimy woebegone figure and he knew he had grist for the mill. I was 20 years old.

South Of The Border
We decided to move to Mexico, where the cost of living was so much less. I could cross the border each week to pick up my unemployment compensation. Not quite Kosher, of course, but a man with a family does what he can. As frosting on the cake, it was even hoped that the kids might pick up a little Spanish.

Speaking Of Horses
I think that I may claim a certain distinction: Not only have I earned my living at one time on horseback, I consider myself a true connoisseur of horseflesh, by which I mean that I have eaten a number of horses.

Street Cars
When I was fourteen, the family moved out of the woods and into a rough sawmill district in Portland. My father was off-bearer behind a planer in the Jones Mill. My brother worked in a nearby box factory. I became a delinquent.

Teddy Bear
I didn't have a bedroom. There was only one bedroom in our little house, out there in the Oregon woods. It was unfinished inside. You could see the tarpaper between the studs.

The Outhouse
I have lived with outhouses off and on through many of my adult years. Also I have built quite a few. I can vouch for their many virtues.

Uncle Albert
My father, Leo, was 17 years old, a barefoot boy on a Michigan farm, when his mother died of asthma. Leo's father, Paul, gave up the farm, and father and son moved to Grand Rapids and went to work in a furniture factory.