Eventually, the owner of the small industrial cleaning company where my father worked decided to retire. He didn’t sell the company, he just went out of business. My father then went to work as the service department “manager” of the local Ace Hardware. He wasn’t really a manager in the labor relations sense because he was also the union representative (Retail Clerks, if I remember correctly) of the store’s employees.

My mother, who was schooled only through the eighth grade, didn’t go to work until I was in high-school. Although my parents probably got a break on the tuition for me and my sister, who is two years younger than me, at the Catholic High School (my father was scout leader for one of the three troops sponsored by our church and my mother operated the church kitchen for weddings and other events), my father was making less money at the hardware store and he also had the added expense of owning a car, so, in order to make ends meet, my mother went to work in a small restaurant owned by three brothers. (The mother of the brothers was a long-time friend of my mother. The brothers would often watch me when I was younger. They gave me my nickname “peach fuzz,” in recognition of the way my father cut my hair, a skill he had developed while in the Navy.)

The restaurant had a bar and about 15 tables. (Only one brother worked full-time in the restaurant, tending bar. His brothers, one older and one younger, worked part time, also tending bar. They also worked at the local American Motors plant.) My mother didn’t drive, so one of the brothers picked her up and drove her to the restaurant each morning. (They also paid for a sitter for my younger brother.) The restaurant was located in down-town Kenosha on the main street. It had great food, possibly the best hamburgers ever made - my mother was the cook and she ground the beef herself. In fact, she bought all of the ingredients for the restaurant and prepared all of the food from scratch.

I got to watch my mother work at the restaurant on numerous occasions. I worked at the restaurant during a couple of summers, washing dishes, restocking coolers and shelves from the storage area in the basement, and mopping the floors and cleaning the restrooms after hours. There were usually three waitresses, each serving five tables. They would write down the order for each table and put it on the end of the bar near the door to the kitchen and shout the order through the open door to my mother. The only time my mother looked at the written orders was when she placed the plates of food with the order slip on the end of the bar and yelled to the waitress that her order was ready to serve. My mother would take verbal orders from three waitresses and she never got them mixed up.

All of my friends loved my mother’s cooking. They would beg her to make her famous fried chicken with either cheese cake or pineapple upside-down cake for dessert. She was always happy to do so. (Having a mother who is a fantastic cook is a good way to have a lot of friends when you’re growing up!)

I hope that I haven’t bored you with my remembrances of the economic changes that my family experienced in the ‘50s and early ‘60s. As I said earlier, we were probably poor, but my sister (and younger brother) didn’t know it. I can’t speak for them, but I never felt deprived. We did a lot of things together. For example, we usually piled into the company-provided panel truck after dinner and drove around while we recited the rosary. Then we might drive down to Zion, Ill. to get Pistachio nut ice cream cones, the nearest place that sold that flavor. On weekends (Friday or Saturday), my mother would make a big tub of buttered popcorn and we’d go to a drive in movie in the panel truck.

Who would school the kids? Let their parents worry about it — and pay for it by eliminating the parents’ income and payroll taxes.

Hey, I like that idea. Count me in.

My father was a high-school graduate, and although he didn’t work in a factory, his job depended on the large number of factories in Racine, Wisconsin. We lived in Kenosha and he worked for a small industrial cleaning company that supplied factory workers with clean work clothes and similar items that they used in their jobs.

My father would start his workday at about 4:00AM by driving to the cleaning plant in the company-provided panel truck to load it with the deliveries for the day. Then he would drive to Racine to start his work for that day. But first he would stop at favorite spot at the start of his route for breakfast. After that, he would stop at each factory on that day’s route and deliver the clean work clothes to his customers and pick up the soiled items to be brought back to the plant for cleaning.

The factory men would pay him for whatever he gave them that day. At large factories where he had a lot of customers, he would pack one or more large bags (think of a sailor’s sea bag on steroids – maybe four feet long when it was fully packed) and take an empty one (or more) for the dirty clothing he would collect as he passed out the clean clothes. After his last delivery, he would drive home where he dumped all of the money he collected on our kitchen table. There he would put the coins (virtually all of the money he collected was in coins) in paper wrappers and count it. He knew from what he delivered how much money he should have. Everything over that amount was the tips that he was given by his customers. After counting and wrapping the coins, he would drive to the plant to deliver the dirty clothes for cleaning and put the company’s money in a safe.

The plant was a long brick building with industrial washing and drying machines. They were arranged in a long line running the length of the building driven by a drive shaft that also extended the length of the building close to the ceiling. Drive belts would extend from the drive shaft to each washer or dryer to power them. The plant workers used long levers to engage and disengage the drive clutches to start and stop the machines. The plant always smelled of industrial strength pine-oil cleaner that was stored in 55 gallon drums and used to clean the floors. (To this day, whenever I smell pine-oil cleaner, I think of my father. )

How do I know all of this? Because my father was way ahead of the “take your kids to work” bunch. During summer vacation, I would often go with my father on his route. (I was probably about 8 – 10 years old.) I’d help him deliver the clean clothes and pick up the dirty clothes. I’d collect money (and tips). I was supposed to put the company money in one pocket and my tips in another pocket, but I’d always make mistakes. We’d get it right when we counted everything when we got home, though. I was always impressed that my father never seemed to write anything down or refer to a list when he loaded the truck or made his deliveries. He also knew all of his many customers by name. (I was easily impressed by this. When I was that age, I feared that I would never be able to remember how to get anywhere when I grew up!) With this job, my father was able to buy our modest house on the south-western edge of the city and support our family. We were probably poor, but I and my sister didn't know it. My younger brother (12 years younger than me) and his family live in that house today, having finished the attic and the basement to provide additional living space.

I'll write about my mother and her job in another post. She eventually went to work when I was in high-school.

Clearly nothing has changed in over 2000 years except the coming of Christ.

Subversion with sophistication, that is Goldman.

By any other name.

McCallum

In regard to labor skills, every job requires some skill. However, some skills are easier to acquire than others. About five years ago, I finished half of my basement. The finished space includes a sitting room, bedroom, full bathroom, and walk-in closet. I did much of the work myself, but coming from the "Dirty Harry" school ("A man has got to know his limitations."), I hired or contracted with some other people to help me. One was a "Master Plumber," who installed all of the plumbing, including a sewage ejection system, sink, toilet, and combination tub and shower. I paid him about $3,000, which included all of the materials. He did almost all of the work. (I rented an electric jackhammer to breakup and remove the section of basement floor that he marked out.) It was a pleasure to watch this man work, and to work with him when I helped him install the tub/shower. I was really impressed by the way he installed the vent line for the sewage ejection system. The building code requires the vent line to run from the ejection line at the pump and exit through the attic. I had bids from two other plumbers. One was cheaper, but wanted to simply route the vent line back into the main sewage line in the basement. The other was more expensive and was going to run the vent line in a corner of the family room and second floor bedroom, leaving it exposed. I would have to cover it however I chose to do so. My master plumber, at the appropriate time, took a few measurements and then, in about an hour and a half, installed the vent line by running it up an interior corner of a hall closet, where it cannot be seen, through the closet ceiling and inside the wall of the second floor bedroom, where it is completely hidden, and into the attic, where he joined it to another vent line that exits through the roof. This man was worth every penny I paid him, including a bonus.

I used drywall screwed to 2x4 studs for the walls and ceiling. I hung the drywall for the walls. I first did the bathroom. When I tried to do the taping and mud work on the joints, I quickly discovered that it would take a bit of time to develop sufficient skill to do a satisfactory job. Fast Eddie to the rescue. Recommended by another friend, Eddie is a drywall wizard. He did the taping and mud work and I did the sanding after the compound dried. Eddie then returned to fix any remaining rough areas after I sanded. Then I sanded again and my wife painted the finished drywall. I had spent about three hours in the bathroom, had completed only half of it, and Eddie needed to fix most of it. His first pass in the bathroom took about 30 minutes, including the ceiling. Eddie, his son, and a third man hung the drywall for the ceiling in the rest of the space after I installed the recessed lights. Again, it was amazing to watch them work. Eddie and his son were on ladders taking measurements that they passed to the third man who then cut the holes in the drywall sheet for the recessed lights. Then Eddie and his son screwed the sheet in place. The holes cut in the drywall were always perfectly placed. Eddie did the taping and mud work after they hung all the drywall. I sanded it the next day and Eddie fixed any remaining rough spots. If I recall correctly, I paid Eddie about $240 for doing all the drywall, not including a big bonus. He paid his son and the third man from what I paid him. I subsequently hired Eddie to do the drywall finishing when I remodeled my upstairs bathrooms and finished the basement stairwell. Eddie and I have become good friends since I first met him.

I needed to install 25 square feet of marble tile in the bathroom after the plumbing was installed and the walls and ceiling were finished. I bought thirty one-foot squares, which came ten to a box. I had five extra pieces. I bought the tile compound and decided to do the tiling myself. (How hard can it be to lay 25 tiles?) After not being able to get the tiles level, and breaking two in the process, I picked them all up, cleaned the tile compound from the tiles and the floor, and hired the tile guy recommended by a friend. First, the tile guy told me that the store that sold me the tiles had sold me the wrong tile compound. It was latex based, which doesn't work with marble tiles. Then he installed the tiles, perfectly level, in under an hour - for a fair price and another well-earned bonus. He told me that he worked as an apprentice for two years and didn't feel that he had mastered tiling until he had been doing it for another two years.

After I put in the subfloor in the basement, my wife picked out the carpet and hired a father and son team that was recommended to us to install the carpet. Again, quick, professional work for a fair price that also earned a bonus.

I have always enjoyed watching skilled people doing professional work. I think it stems in part from watching my father and mother work when I was a child. I’ll tell you a little about them in another post. This one is too long, already.

You have been writing a lot lately, so you've earned a week off, maybe two. But don't even think about taking a whole year off - we'll have to send a posse to come get you!