Wink, TX, (Pop. 918)
Once upon a time, Mil, age-three, lived in a chicken coop
at Wink, Texas.
Talk about hard times--those were. Decent common people,
like farm boys and Gospel preachers, trying to make an
honest living, often at a dollar or two a day, lived wherever
they could.
$14.95 for a dinner (today) of three cheese enchiladas, rice,
beans,chips and salsa, and sopaipillas would have cost some
men, then, fifteen day's pay. A $3.95 cup of coffee with whip
cream on the top would have bought a week's groceries for a
family---you know---bacon, potatoes, beans, a sack of flour...
Now, I've gotten ahead of myself...
My dad, circa 1930 or '31 was a young fellow about 20 years
old, "just trying to have a place in the sun," and marry my
mother. He'd done a little steam laundry work down in Dawson
County at a dollar a day. Good pay, then.
He heard there was work at Las Vegas, Nevada....they were
building the Hoover Dam, one of the biggest, most ambitious
engineering projects ever attempted by man. Lots of men had
jobs out there!
During the construction of that dam, over 100 men perished.
It is said that some were entombed in the cement itself.
Conflicts arose over "cause" of death, as many were said
to have died from carbon monoxide poisoning, while working
in tight spaces in 140 degree heat, with generators running.
Apparently, if one died from monoxide, the possible claim
would be nullified and different from say, a fall down into the
dam itself.
The Hoover Dam---1244 feet long, 660 feet thick, 726 feet
high---held back so much water that it deformed the Earth's
crust and caused small earthquakes for several years.
My dad hitchhiked out there...and got a job in a steam
laundry which was going full-blast...he and a buddy got
a dollar or two a day, and slept on cots in the back of
the laundry.
Hoover Dam
Accumulating a few bucks, and homesick for my mother,
(yet to be his wife), Dad set out for Dawson county,
hitchhiking. He remembered riding with a trucker and
buying some pork 'n beans at Roswell...you went
whatever direction you could get a ride, and he wound
up down in Van Horn, Texas or somewhere, sleeping
by the train tracks with hoboes, in the mesquites, his
wad of bills folded in his right shoe.
He rode a train to Big Springs, Texas, and arrived
home at Lamesa with a few bucks, and the laundry
guy in Vegas owed him $75.00, which he swore he
would send, "someday."
Now, somehow my dad took his little nest egg and
got a job in an "egg factory" (don't ask me what)---
earning a buck or two a day. He and Mother married
in April 1933.
I, waiting in Heaven, ("trailing clouds of glory do we
come from heaven, which is our home..." Wordsworth),
got here the next year, for better or worse....
(Once a few years later when I was about three, Dad,
came home from his laundry job in Lamesa, and ate
a sandwich. I was playing with my truck behind his
car...unbeknownst to him...he backed clear over me...
knocked me down...he heard something and jumped
out and there I was, back playing with my truck...I
vaguely remember that a little bit...maybe I was spared
to sing of the marvelous love of Jesus Christ...later on...)
Now, Dad somehow knew a man, R.H., in Wink, Texas,
who had a nice little steam laundry...he liked Dad and
offered him a job at Wink. The ironic thing was, RH
said, "Well, I owe old Joe out there at the LV laundry
some money, and if'n you'll come work for me, I'll
give YOU the $75.00."
So it was done...and we moved to Wink.
Now, in those days, one didn't shop around for a nice
three bedroom home with fireplace and marble
cabinet tops...one lived wherever one could afford a
roof.
In our case, it happened to be an empty chicken coop
at the back of the laundry...RH said: "If it'll help out,
you can clean up that hut and live there free, as long
as you need to."
So Dad, being an expert with steam, by now, rigged up
a steam hose, trailed it out from the laundry, and
steamed out that coop, good and proper. If you know
anything about how hot steam can be, you know that it
could have been an operating room, after Dad handled
it.
My farmer Grandad "Pop," up there in sandy Dawson
County, a cotton-farmer, somehow let us know (Uh,
there were no cell phones, and not many any-kind-of-
phones)... "I am bringing you a gift..."
One day, my dear "Pop," drove up in his drab, tan
'37 Dodge, pulling an old cotton trailer behind...
He fooled around the trailer a bit, and came around
the car leading our "gift" into the chicken pen, our
"front yard"---
It was....a cow.
*******30******
BY MIL
11/13/14
No comments:
Post a Comment