Robert E. Irion, Sandy, Utah: an interview by Benjamin Bahlmann, September 20, 2002: Saving the legacy tape no. 537, 538, and 539

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Robert E. Irion eptember 20'h 2002 I should have been playing Legion ball, because I was sixteen years ld and should have been with the kids playing Legion ball. But I thought I was better than that and I could play with the big guys. They were from eighteen to twenty-one that played in the Ban Johnson leagues. I thought I could play in their league, so I tried out for the Ban Johnson team, and stayed about ten days and they cut me. So I was disappointed because I wanted to play baseball that summer with them, but I immediately got a pass on the railroad to go to Colorado - I was going to work in one of the resort areas out in Colorado. And I went out to Estes Park and tried to find a job. Ended up I was really ahead of the resort season so I ended up down in Denver washing dishes, and it really wasn't enough to make a living. Living in the YMCA and washing dishes, so finally got on the train and went back to Kansas, a little bit down in my spirits. And my dad said, "Well, if you'll stick around and help me with the freight and things this summer, I'll teach you to telegraph. Then maybe when you're out of school, in the summer, you can get a summer job." So my intentions were, in 1941 when I went to work, was to work through the summer, then I was going to go to Kansas University, where my sisters had both gone to college. BEN: Your sisters had gone to school - ROB: Gone to the University there. And to go back one step here, I'm sorry I'm giving you this in bits and pieces but, in 1940, in high school, the first game of the season in 1940, I blew my knee out. I tore the cartilage and ligaments out in my knee, and ended my football career right there. And it was very disappointing because I had been the 10