$1.25 A Day

This story will develop in a round about way to illustrate one of the peculiarities of small town life. As the story goes, my Father was about 20 years old, traveling on a freight train going from San Antonio to anywhere. He had gone to San Antonio to join the military. Only problem with that there was no work anywhere and thousands of young men had converged on San Antonio for the same reason. It was a preenlistment camp and after a few weeks of sitting around doing nothing, and realizing that he could be there for months, he hopped a freight train going east to anywhere. The story continues that along the way, he got hungry, and jumped off the train as it slowed down at a small town. He stayed there for 25 years, built a business that employed hundreds, and left after he was pressured to do so . After having heard the story all my life, I figured out that there was a lot of fiction mixed in with the facts. The story continues. He was hungry, so he entered a small restaurant that was near the tracks and asked if he could do some work for a meal. The owner agreed and he ate and worked. A stern German customer who owned a small animal feed mixing store, noticed him and asked him if he needed a place to stay for the night. He did and so he spent the night on a cot in the back of the Germans store. The next day, the store was busy, so he pitched in and helped the owner. The owner took a liking to him and offered him a job. The owner had an interesting background. He had emigrated from Germany many years before, but his English sounded like he had just arrived. He walked and rode his bike with perfect posture and did so until he died in his late eighties. . An interesting side note is that his uncle is the astronomer who is credited with having discovered Neptune. For anyone curious about this fact a nd wanting to look it up, his name was Galle . I am not sure about how much time my father worked there, till he bought the business from the Old German. He worked tirelessly and soon hired his first employee. The business grew and the single employee was an excellent worker. At that time, the standard pay for all store clerks in the small town was a dollar a day. My father had started him at a dollar, but felt he was worth more, so one day as the worker was leaving for lunch, told him he was giving him a raise to a dollar and a quarter. The worker was overjoyed and went home to lunch. All the stores stayed open till seven and that evening at about fifteen minutes to seven, one of the most prominent store owners in town came by and informed my father that there was going to be a meeting of all store owners at seven thirty and he was urged to attend. My father told him that he would be there. He closed the store at 7:30 and hurried over to the General Store where the meeting was to be held. As he approached the front door he could hear a big crowd inside. He opened the door and the room went silent. He felt awkward and looked at himself as if to be sure he was dressed. The Storeowner who had invited him wasted no time, “Marvin, today you gave your worker a 25 cent raise. You know that we all pay our workers a dollar a day. Now you have created a problem for all of us, as all our workers are unhappy and complaining that they want a raise. “ My father was shocked, but he kept his cool. He gazed around the room, making eye contact with each storeowner. The room was silent. He then addressed the room. “Your workers are not worth fifty cents a day, mine is worth more than a dollar and a quarter”. He turned around and left the store. He was a city block away and he could still hear the noisy reaction. Less than a week passed before every clerk in town was making $1.25 a day.

Just One More Chance

Its always disturbing when I hear someone has taken their own life. Even if I never met them, I find myself wishing that I had and maybe I could have talked to them in some way to relieve the pain they must have been going through. Years ago I had a friend that I had met in college. We had run around together during the year I was at UT and met up a few times in later years. I lost touch with him while I was in the Navy. I gave up when he didn't respond to notes I sent him. Many years later, when I came across his old home phone number, I called, and was informed by his mother that he had been gay, had gotten AIDs and had killed himself. I was totally shocked at what had happened and equally shocked that I had not figured out he was gay. I blamed that on the fact that I was young and totally naive A few days ago I found out that a man that worked for us last year for several weeks , had taken his own life. He was a true craftsman with cement and plaster. I had worked along side him last year, mostly bringing him supplies and carrying off the old concrete and plaster that he had removed. We had talked a lot while he was working and I had figured out that he was fairly beat down by life. He hadn't had steady work for years and when he did find some, had to work for less than he had many years before. This was a product of the poor economy and the flood of immigrants that had driven down the value of his work. The last time I saw him was the first week we got here this year. I was at a store that sells concrete products and I was looking for a concrete cover. There was a group of men waiting for service and I had not noticed him in the group. He saw me and called out my name and came over to talk to me. He asked if I had any work for him as he only had a few more days of work on his currant project. We really hadn't planned on doing any repairs this year. We did have just a few little things that he could have taken care of in a day or so. I was thinking of calling him the day I heard he was no more. I wish I had had the chance to talk to him again. Maybe I could have made a difference.

Is Big Brother Watching Us?

In 1949, George Orwell wrote the political fiction novel "1984". They say that only a Fool makes predictions about events that will happen in their lifetime. Turns out, Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair) was safe on that issue as he died in 1950 at the age of 47. Re-reading his book is interesting and in view of what's happening on the internet, a bit prophetic. Its obvious that every time I do any kind of search on the internet, "big brother" is watching. I search for air fares and hours later I start getting popups selling travel packages. Last week I was getting an error code and beeping on our cloths dryer. I Googled the error code to see if I could fix it, and an hour later had a Sears ad come up on Facebook for New Dryers. Amazon and Facebook must be in cahoots as lately I have noticed that if I shop for something on Amazon, it immediately shows up on Facebook. I asked my Son, who is an internet marketer, how its done , and he just grins. Where is it going? I don't think I am being paranoid in being concerned that every time I do a search, somebody or data base thing is keeping a record and adding it to a dossier on me. Maybe after I post this i'll start getting solicitations from a shrink.

A Billion Or So

Some years ago a story was going around and I don't if it was true or not. Some politicians were having a heated discussion about the federal budget and how much waste there was. They were throwing around a lot of numbers and finally one says, " A million here, a million there and pretty soon its going to add up to some real money" If you look at some of the worst examples of how governments spend our tax dollars, you can understand the mentality of a politician saying "pretty soon its going to add up" This morning, while watching the financial news, they were talking about who would get the bid for 350 new training jets for the military. Experts agree that Its between Boeing and Lockheed . The announcer then said something that got my attention. '"Analysts estimate the Boeing team already has spent $1 billion to $3 billion on development costs associated with its new trainer." One to three billion? Like the politician said, billion here, billion there, Pretty soon its going to add up to some serious money.

My Last Bike

I had a number of different motorcycles during my life. This story is about my last. It was 1972 and I was attending the University of Houston on the GI Bill and working for my brother on his used car lot. One day, a finance company that carried a lot of the notes on autos we sold, called and asked if we could store a motorcycle they had repossessed. The bike had been purchased in Michigan a few months before. The owner had loaned the bike to his sister and her boyfriend so they could take it for a test ride. They test rode it all the way to Houston where they got busted for drug use. The police had turned the motorcycle over to the lien holder. I fell in love with it the moment I first saw it. It was a 1972 Kawasaki 750 and it only had a few thousand miles on it. I told the finance company manager I was interested in buying it and he said he would give me a shot when it was sure that the owner would not reclaim it. That didn't happen for two years. I would crank it up from time to time and ride it around the car lot. It had power like nothing else I had ever owned. One day we got the call that all legalities had been satisfied and they could sell the bike. They made me an offer i could not refuse, assuming we would wave two years of storage fees. During the time I was waiting , my son had been added to my family. He was about four months old the day I drove the bike home. I had a friend that had a bike that had been hounding me for months to go riding around with him. I gave him a call and we set up a riding date for the next weekend. It was a beautiful spring morning . We decided on the possible route and he took off ahead of me. About a mile from my home, the road ended in a T where you had to turn right or left. My friend was ahead and had already made the turn and I was stopped at line waiting for some traffic to go by . There was one more car coming by and I could see it was traveling way over the speed limit. In the last moment, the drive decided to turn onto the road where I was stopped. Only problem was that he did not see me. He turned into my lane and didn't see me until he was right along the side of me. When he did see me, he over reacted and almost turned the car oven in the ditch. It was a car load of drunk teenagers. As you always hear, my life passed before me in those seconds. I could imagine my windowed wife and infant son without a father. My friend was out of sight and I turned the bike around and drove back home. A while later, he returned looking for me. I told him what had happened and also told him I was not riding it anymore and was going to sell it. I put an ad in the paper the next week and sold it to the first person that came by. Years later when I started using the Internet, I did a search on that 72 Kawasaki. It was then that I found out that that year/model of Kawasaki had been dubbed, "The Wiidowmaker"

Yes, We Have No Stamps

The postal system in Italy is always interesting. you might ask someone what they have planned for the day and they will respond, "Going to the post office". It might be an all day or at least half day event. The reason this is so, is that beside being a normal post office for mail, its also a payment center for utility bills. This morning I went to pay our water bill. They are pretty well organized as when you enter, you tap the smiley face on the screen of a machine and it spits out a ticket with a number. Several Large screens show the next called number and which window to go to. Some people have some kind of card that they stick in the machine and it gives them a special number that will go ahead of everyone else. After about an hour my number came up and I went to window number 2. I handed the agent my water bill and told him that I would like to also get six post card stamps for America. He looked up and tells me that they don't have any stamps. They ran out. I asked him when they would have some and he just shrugs his shoulders. A Post office without stamps?? Where can I go? There's a hardware store down the street, maybe they will have stamps.

Not A tourist

My wife doesn't consider our summer trips to Italy as "travel", since in the past, we mostly just "play house" when we are there. We decided that this year would be different. We were going to go to France, but that didn't happen. I detest the idea of packing luggage and checking in and out of hotels. The compromise ended up with our renting apartments for a week. Right now we are on the Italian riviera , staying in a small town that no one ever heard of. I love the place. We have been walking around and exploring the narrow streets, finding surprises at every turn. In the evenings, most of the residents must cut off their TV's and head to one of the many piazzas. One piazza that is lined with restaurants, is blocked off to vehicle traffic, and the restaurants extend their "table line" into the piazza. At the end of a long narrow street, we found an impressive church that was approachable by about fifty steps. We heard what sounded like music practice and peering over a wall saw a band of at least forty. We walked around to ware they were , and discovered that it was the city band practicing. Members were eight to sixty years old. It was getting cool (sorry Texans) , so we headed back. Passing by the area with all the restaurants and a band was starting to play. The female singer was belting out "Hit The Road Jack", so we stopped to listen. Sat down next to two elderly ladies and started talking to them. Turned out that one had two daughters. One in America and one in Brazil. We talked for over a hour. Now thats my idea of "tourism"