Shortly after my stepfather had found the gun someone decided it would be best if I went to Davenport, Iowa and lived with my mother's youngest brother Ray and his family.  I am sure they were thinking the "change in environment" would be "beneficial to me."  That wasn't quite the way I was looking at it.
     I knew my stepfather wanted to get rid of me and I don't think he cared where I went, back to the reform school would have suited him fine.  I think my uncle Howard, Ed and my mother had gotten together and decided to send me to my uncle Ray's, who I hadn't seen since I was eight years old.  Knowing Ed though he probably wanted to call the sheriff and have me taken back to the training school but my mother must have held out against him.
     It was no secret my stepfather didn't want me around.  He had married my mother knowing about me.  He had married her while I was in the juvenile home and it didn't look like I would ever be coming home.  Their apartment and life style was for two people and there was no room for me.  They had done very few things where I was included.
     Then there were those arguments I had seen between them, I had always thought were over me.  For some reason I had always felt during those arguments, though I couldn't hear them, Ed wanted me out of their lives and my mother felt she was stuck with me.  Not a very nice thing to feel, or even to think about.
     My uncle Ray rented a house on Locust Street in Davenport, just inside of the gate to the fair- grounds.  He had a wife, Joy and three small kids, a girl and two boys.
     What happened in the few days that I was there with my uncle's family was essentially I became their baby-sitter.  It being December and shortly before Christmas, I would take the kids downtown at night to see all of the Christmas decorations in the store windows.  One time I took them to a movie, of course my uncle paid for that.
     I didn't have any friends of my own age.  I had no guidance, direction or interests in life.  Everyone was doing their own thing and I was more or less left to fend for my self.  Though I didn't know it then I needed someone to help me and there was no one there.
     I went to taking long walks by my self.  At first it was just up and down Locust and then it was back through the fairgrounds.  Usually I took my walks during the day.
     On one of my walks through the fairgrounds I passed several buildings, like warehouses.  I stopped and looked through a window in one of the overhead garage doors.  I seen the building was full of new Fords.  Seeing the cars and how isolated they were I decided to come back that evening and take one for a ride.
     That evening it had been dark when I arrived at the building where the cars were being kept.  After braking a window out of the garage door with the leather punch of my knife I crawled through the window.  Going to the first car by the door I seen that the keys were in the ignition.  Then I returned to the garage door and opened it.  Returning to the car I started it and drove it out of the building not bothering to close the door behind me.
     This car belonged to a new care dealer, unknown to me my uncle Ray worked for that same dealer in the parts department.  My uncle's last name was different than mine.  So later when it was found out who took the car the dealer never made the connection between my uncle and me.  My uncle later told me that it had worried him that they might make the connection.  Something I couldn't understand, why he would be worried if they did make the connection.
     The tank was full of gas and I wound up driving it all of the way back to Nevada, Iowa, parking it in front of the house where my mother and stepfather's apartment was.
     Going into the house I found my mother and stepfather in bed.  I woke my mother up and asked her for ten dollars, telling her I had a ride to California where I could get a job.  She gave me the money and I went back out to the car.  I had driven it all of the way from Davenport without a license plate so I took the front plate off of my mother's landlady's car, hoping they would think they had lost it.
     I had waited several minutes before getting back in the car, waiting to see if my mother would come out.  I don't know why I waited for sure but it was like I was waiting for her to come out and tell me not to go.  Later I was to learn she had come to the door to their apartment and looked out into the driveway in back of the house for me but she hadn't seen me for I was out in front of the house
     Leaving Nevada, I headed west on old U.S. Highway 30 until I got to Omaha, then turned south into Kansas and Oklahoma.  In Oklahoma I turned west, going through Amarillo, Texas, Albuquerque, New Mexico, Flagstaff, Arizona and onto San Diego, California, purposely avoiding Yuma.
     I would pick up hitch-hikers along the way and they would pay for gas.  Even though I never told them, I am sure they knew the car was stolen.  I was only sixteen years old driving a new car and was a long ways from home.
     At one point in Arizona I ran low on gas, not having a hitch-hiker with me, I sold the spare tire and wheel.  Something that made me feel worse than having taken the car.  The gas station I had sold the tire and wheel to for a tank of gas never questioned me about the car, a car bearing a Iowa license plate.  He too must have suspected I had stolen the car.
     Getting to San Diego I drove the car out to the naval base in sight of the mockup training ship that was know as, "The ship that never sails."  There I had ran out of gas.  This had been very close to where the sailor had let me out before.  So I had known a little bit about the area.  Without money, I couldn't get more gas so I had left the car there and walked towards the downtown area of San Diego.
     By now it was only a few days before Christmas.  It was a beautiful day.  Even though I didn't know anyone in San Diego nor where to go, I loved everything I saw, the trees, the buildings, everything.  In some way, this time I was happy and felt good, even though I was alone.
     I no longer felt homesick for to me I had found there was no home for me to feel homesick about.  By now I had accepted the fact I wasn't wanted and I would have to do the best I could for myself.
     After it had gotten dark I was still walking not knowing where to go.  I hadn't yet started looking for a place to sleep.  I didn't know San Diego had a curfew for juveniles so I was walking out in the open not worried about much of anything when a police car pulled up along side of me.
     They had asked me who I was, where I lived and why I was out after curfew.  I couldn't give them any good answers so they had taken me to a detention center for juveniles.
     My biggest worry was, they might connect me to the car I had stolen and had left at the navel base.  San Diego is a big place but to me my area of San Diego was very small and that car shared my area with me.  That car was too close to me.  It seemed to me all they had to do was to put two and two together.  The car showed up at the same time I did.
     At first I wouldn't tell them who I was or where I was from.  Thinking they would call the sheriff back home and since I had ran away from home he would send me back to the training school.
     A couple days after they had picked me up they had told me if I told them who I was and where I was from they would call my mother and send me back on a bus.  Which meant to me they wouldn't call the sheriff.
     My big worry had been, they would connect me with the car and I would be sent back to the training school, or worse, for taking the car so far to the penitentiary.  Where I had heard some nightmarish stories as to what adult prisoners did to young boys.
     I told them who I was and where I was from, hoping they wouldn't check any further.  They had called my mother to confirm what I had told them and to have her send money for a bus ticket.  In a matter of twenty-four hours I was put on a bus and sent home.
     Afraid the sheriff would be waiting for me at the bus station when I got home I got off of the bus at the west edge of town and walked home.  There wasn't anything said to me when I had gotten home by my mother or stepfather.  Of course I didn't know it then but some other arrangements were being made to get rid of me.
     I was home for three weeks.  Staying pretty much inside of the house all of the time.  Afraid to go out for fear the sheriff would see me and send me back to the training school.
     It had been a very confusing time for me.  I knew my stepfather wanted to get rid of me and he didn't care how.  I wanted to leave but I didn't know where to go.  There didn't seem to be any place I could go that would want me, except the reform school.
     In some way, without my knowledge, a compromise was made between my uncle Howard and my parents.  I would be sent to a private boys' school in Minnesota.  I don't know who was paying for all of this but it must have been my uncle.  He would have been the only one who had that kind of money.  Knowing my stepfather and uncle they probably wanted to send me back to the training school.  But knowing my mother she probably held out against them.  Though feeling she didn't really want me (after all, I was causing a lot of problems for her) she didn't want sending me back to the reform school on her conscious.
     It was decided I would take a bus to the boys' school.  All of the arrangements had been made at the boys' school and my ticket had been purchased.  All of this of course had been done without my knowledge, I hadn't been included in any of the discussions nor even asked what I wanted.
     I hadn't been to happy about going to the boys' school for to me it sounded as though they were sending me to a reform school, only in a different state.  (Today, I think it would have been the best thing for me for by now I had pretty well felt no one wanted me and I might not have ran away from the boys’ school.)
     As it had turned out, the bus wouldn't be leaving until about ten o'clock the morning after I was told.  My parents would be at work by then so I would have to meet the bus on my own.
     Though I didn't want to go, I would have met the bus and went to the boys' school as I had been told.  But what I would have done once I had gotten to the boys' school, I don't know, for I never had a chance to find out.
     By nine o'clock on the morning of my departure my bags were packed and I was about ready to leave for the bus station when there was a  knock on the outside door.  I went and answered the knock not really concerned about anything.  I opened the door and seen two men were standing there.  They were in business suits, I took them to be salesmen or something like that.  To me they were just a couple of men who came to the door.  I wasn't surprised or frighten of them.
     They were business like, when they had asked, "Are you Larry Peterson?"
     They didn't look like the police or from the sheriff's office.  Their question had startled me some, a twinge of fear had shot through me, but still, I hadn't done anything wrong.  All that was on my mind was, I was going to catch a bus in a few minutes and go to a boys' school.
     I told them I was Larry Peterson.  Then both of the men opened up what appeared to be billfolds, showing me some sort of identification.  Holding up their identifications for me to see, I could see a photograph on each of them.  I couldn't read what was printed on them, only three large letters, "FBI."  They told me they were from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and they were there to arrest me for stealing a car and taking it to California.
     It had been about three weeks since I had returned from California and I had completely forgotten about the car.  In front of me stood two big men, either of them could have handled me easily.  The only way out was past them.
     This wasn't the town marshal, sheriff or even the state police, this was the "FBI."  In my mind, I wasn't looking at going back to the training school for boys but to a federal prison, to be alone with a lot of grown men.  To say the least, my heart was in my mouth.  I was scared.  I felt I was in very serious trouble and there was no one there to turn to.
     A sixteen year old boy's mind can visualize a lot of terrible things in store for him, especially mine, based on the proceeding events in my life.  I knew without limit what people could do to me.  To say  I was scared would be sort of an understatement.
     They told me to turn around so they could put the handcuffs on me.  In a daze I had complied with their command and then I was led to their car.  From there to the sheriff's office.
     When I had left the car in San Diego, I had left the license plate on it and that was registered to the address where I lived.  So by checking with the sheriff as to who lived there they were to put it all together and come up with the solution of the "Big crime."  Which probably made the sheriff more than happy.
     No one ever asked me if I had taken the car.  If they had I probably would have told them I had taken it, I was pretty shaken up at the time.  Then I wasn't very smart about things like that.  I had always been told to tell the truth which I usually did.  What was a lawyer?  I never knew there were such things.
     After a short visit with the sheriff, I suppose to tell him they had caught me (That must have made his day.) and they were taking me to Des Moines, they had put me back in the car and drove to some federal building in Des Moines and locked me in a cell.  Since I was only sixteen they had put me in a cell by myself.  There were no other juveniles there so I had no one else to talk with.
     A day or two later the federal marshal, or whoever he was, got pretty upset when he found me in my cell with my pocket knife.  No one had searched me or asked if I had anything in my pockets.  Seems like no matter where I went I got into some kind of trouble.  I didn't know I wasn't suppose to have a knife.
     A lawyer (I guess he was a lawyer) came and seen me a few days later.  He asked me how I would like to go and live in Denver, Colorado.  All I knew about Denver, Colorado was that Colorado was out west somewhere.  After I had told him I would like to, he told me the judge might be willing to send me there on probation to live with my mother.  I had no idea what probation was but I was willing to do anything to get out of the trouble I felt I was in.
     A little bit later I was taken to a room where there was a long table with chairs around it.  The lawyer sat at one end of the table, I sat to his left and my mother sat across the table from me.  The judge sat further down the table, on the same side of the table I was sitting on.  There were a couple of other people there I didn't know.
     The judge had asked me if I would like to go and live in Denver.  I had told him I would like to live in Denver and that I had been told I might be able to go there and live with my mother.  My lawyer kicked me under the table.  I guess to tell me to keep my mouth shut.  Maybe I wasn't suppose to know about the considerations being made about sending me to Denver.
     I can only speculate as to why I was sent to Denver alone with my mother.  There must have been a flare-up between my stepfather and my mother is why he didn't go.  My mother must have talked to the lawyer and told him how I had been raised in state institutions.  They must have gotten with the judge and they thought by sending me to a different state my life would straighten out.
     Some way the judge must have decided to give that a try, after all if it didn't work out, the "Federal Correctional Institution for Boys" was only about five miles from Denver.  Which they neglected to tell me.  To bad for me, none of them seen what the real problems were.  For what they had done only made matters worse and almost cost me and possibly some others their lives and only delayed the inevitable.