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Retirement Talk for Boomers, Seniors, and Retirees

Frog Spit

Jackie Spinks

                      Chapter Thirteen

           It was a time when nobody knew where their next bite of food was coming from.  I was always hungry. Hoover had sent in General McArthur with his tanks, machine guns and troops to break up the out-of-work vets who’d come to Washington D.C. to lobby for their bonuses.  General McArthur drove the vets from their settlement and burned it to the ground. 

           Mornings and evenings, Daddy waited at the gate to the Pulp Mill, hat in hand, and whenever the boss entered or left Daddy would ask for a job.

           “Any work today, Mr. Jones?” he’d inquire politely.

           “”Not today, Jimmy.”

           “Will you keep me in mind, Mr. Jones?”

           “Sure will,” and the boss would rush off.

           “Thank you, I’d appreciate that.”

           During the day when he wasn’t standing at the gate, he plodded from place to place asking for a job, hoping to keep the supplication out of his voice and at the end of they day returning to the mill at quitting time to wait for the boss to come out.

           It was a time up here in this winter land, before gas and electric heat when we built fires.  Brother and I, from the age of three, could squish up the newspaper, pile the kindling on top, then the pieces of wood, ignite the match by striking it on top of the stove and after lighting the newspaper have a fire blazing, and do it almost as fast as turning on a gas jet.

           Bu with green wood you didn’t get much of a fire.  And all we could afford was green wood. Houses were heated by wood or coal, which cost $5.00 a load and who had $5.00 to burn up the chimney.  We couldn’t afford good wood or coal because Daddy was out of work.

           But bad as the weather was up here, it was better to be cold than on relief—better to go hungry than endure the humiliation of being unable to pay your own way—taking charity. We’d buy our own way, thank you.

           After brilliantly green summers, winter up here is like the world’s given up, like the guy down the street, a World War I vet who’d given up and cried all the time.. That was the way winter looked—brown, defeated, bleak.  Northeasters blew down from Canada, nobody stops on the street corner to talk to anyone, anymore.  They’d dodge into stores where it’s warm if they want to talk.

           Pipes froze, cars standing in the streets, in front of the owner’s homes, were revved up over and over to get started, until you’d worry about what it’s doing to their cars.

           So every morning in Grandma D’s shanty, we’d shiver into our clothes and dash for the kitchen stove.

           “It’s so cold,” I’d rub my hands over the stove where the green wood wasn’t putting out much heat.

           ‘It’ll heat up pretty soon,” Mama said.

           “By the time it heats up, I’ll be at school.  It’s warm at school.’

           “That’s nice.”

           “We learn a lot of stuff, too.”
           “I hope so.  When I was a little girl I had a hard time at school.  My feet were always cold.”

           “It’s always warm at our school.”

           School, in spite of the attraction of being warm, wasn’t all that much fun.  Everything was rote memorizing, history was ancestral worship, and recess was plagued by the fever of playground status, in which everyone got shivved in one way or another.   My status was at the bottom, as I was rotten at games. Couldn’t hit the ball and when they were choosing up sides I was never picked. But school was warm.

           Here we listened to stories about poor kids who grew up to become rich because they worked hard and were thrifty, and Princess’s who found Prince Charming and lived happily ever after.

           Stories, which we all believed from the bottom of our hearts would happen to us when we grew up, if we worked hard, kept our noses clean, obeyed our teachers, parents, and other authoritarian figures-- and stayed out of trouble..  But outside of the stories, school was hour after hour of tedium, but that was okay as it was warm.

           I envied kids that got to take their lunch to school, and begged to take my lunch, as I hated to go home to our cold house.  But Mama didn’t want the teachers to see what skimpy lunches we had, so I had to walk the five blocks home to lunch.

           I’d never have left school, if I’d had a choice, because school was warm.

           And so there was Daddy;, blowing on his hands, crossing and uncrossing his arms, he continued week after week, to stand and wait at the gate to the mill, hoping to get hired.  Gate-waiting wasn’t warm. 

           A young man, with brown worn face

seamed beyond his years, with eyes filled with fears

Wearing patched overalls from Sears

Carrying a medal lunch pail

Bought for a quarter at a church rummage sale

Not holding much, but that was his lunch

Uncomplaining, he worked his life away for three others.

And immigrant, not so tall

Exploited by that longed for cattle call

Tricked by the nobs

Anxiously looking for a job

For ten hours a day at $2.00 pay

No papers yet, no card,

Only a willingness to work hard

All to feed three others. And if he was fired—

And couldn’t find another hire

Ah the guilt –and the hunger of three others.

True his woman worked hard, washing on a scrub board

Careful of the fifty dollar hoard

Kneading bread, chopping wood for the fire

Careful not to express her ire

Never allowing her face to show any frowns

When making over relative’s hand-me-downs

But the wife’s work wasn’t life shortening

Under the all-seeing eye of the cranky foreman

Who pushed harder and ever harder

           Until the strikes came

And the strikers listened to all the blame

And did it was bruised faces and empty bellies

And while today’s economy hasn’t much to cheer

It pales before those Depression years.

           So thank you my immigrant Daddy.  For making the world I have today

And do it for ten hours a day at $2.00 pay.