The Man Called Brown Condor Read Online Free PDF Page A

agricultural chemistry resulted in his election as a fellow in the Royal Society of Arts in London, an honor only a handful of Americans had earned at the time.
    Watching the scenery slide past his open window, John saw an automobile turn off a rutted farm road onto the clay-gravel highway running parallel to the railroad tracks. It was a cut-down Model T. The auto had no top and the windscreen was folded down flat. The goggled driver, bent low over the steering wheel, tore off down the road to race the highballing locomotive. He was giving it all he had, kicking up a swirling trail of dust and scattering chickens along the way. Ever so slowly the train pulled away.
    Won’t be long before automobiles be outrunning this train. Robinson leaned out the window and waved.
    Johnny’s daddy had told him that now that the war was over, the automobile was the coming thing. John believed him. And though he did not mention it, he believed something else was coming too. Airplanes! Yes! He had seen more than a few flying down the coast the last two or three years. At Tuskegee, John paid his entrance fee of two hundred dollars plus eighteen dollars for the first month’s fee for room and board due the first of every month during the school year.
    At the time, these fees represented about thirty percent of the yearly average income (twelve hundred dollars) for a steadily employed, skilled male worker.
    John’s dormitory roommate was Joseph Flowers. In an interview in 1974, Mr. Flowers stated that John was a top student. “We had fun at the occasional social activities at the college.” When asked if John partied at school, Mr. Flowers said, “John was a dancer, liked the girls, but I never saw him drink or smoke.” He also said there was a very short Christmas break at Tuskegee and that most students remained on campus. “We didn’t have the money to pay for travel home. We hardly had money to give each other presents. I think I spent a dollar and ninety-five cents on a book to give Johnny. When either of us got a package from home, cookies and things, we shared them. Money was tight but Tuskegee was a wonderful place. Everyone was friendly, and there was never any trouble. I think everyone loved it.”
    John chose to study a new technology: automotive mechanical science. After the Great War, automobiles were all the rage. Only the wealthy were able to afford the expensive, powerful, handmade brands, but Henry Ford, with his revolutionary assembly line and Model T, made the automobile available to the average working middle class. In a relatively short time, the automobile industry had become the largest in the United States. By 1921 there were well over seven million automobiles registered in the United States with the largest concentration in the big cities.
    John traveled to his college by steam engine and, for the last several miles, by a mule-drawn wagon. By the time he graduated, three years later, he and his classmates had studied mechanical theory, internal combustion engines, automotive electrics, mechanical drawing, and they had assembled a real automobile, rebuilding the engine, chassis, transmission, drive-train, suspension, and electrics. In addition to their chosen trade, all students studied mathematics, English literature, composition, and history.
    An average student in English, Robinson had a natural mechanical ability that distinguished him from most of the other students. Although he finished near the top of his class in mechanical science, he was so quiet and serious at school that years later some of his classmates had a hard time remembering John C. Robinson until they saw his picture in the newspapers. It can be said that young ladies didn’t have as hard a time remembering John. Most took note of the tall, quiet student from Gulfport. His shy but self-confident manner and winning smile would not only serve him well in business, but would also charm the ladies, young and