In the 30’s Adam’s Father was Superintendent, Medical Services, San Diego County. Money was tight and while they had an ambulance it could not attempt the back county roads.
Then his father would take the family car to bring to the hospital patients with broken bones or diphtheria or gunshot wounds. When it was a prisoner from the Work Farm, Adam would ride in the back seat with a shotgun.
On one of these he encountered abject poverty and a family who held off that ogre with only courage, patience and good nature.
Here was gist for his story mill. But it seemed unfair to the family to paint it in the black of reality but better to write it as a cheerful comedy
