Child Labor?
I was going to go
back and pull the old stories out of what I have already wrote and decided that
would take too much time, as I have wrote a bunch on here and exactly where the
story is, even I am even not sure. When I
started writing here in this blog I was kinda hodge-podge about this and that
and no real order to things. Just wanted to get the stories out of my head, but
since I have this timeline I can refer to and tweak as I go along. I intend to
try and stay the course and follow it, and if I can’t follow it I intend to
come back to it after I deviate for whatever reason. In the meantime and if you
are really energetic and have been following my stories, it will give you a
chance to go back and see if I can tell the same story twice and call me on it
if you like. It may not be word for word but I am sure the facts will be the
same.
My first real
job I ever had was working for the government as we referred to it then and in
particular the Forestry Service and although it was unofficial since I was a
bit underage, still I received compensation and at the same time performed a
service for them. Which for the most part constitutes work in the simplest form,
you labor and receive wages.
To put it in
context I need to impart with you exactly how I ended up working for them. My grandpa
was a foreman with the Forestry department and they had a research plot of land
of 165 acres they originally did soil experiments on. This land was adjacent
and next door to grandpa’s, and the right of way for it crossed grandpa’s land.
They did experiments on this land to determine how fast water would move
through different types of forest soils. They originally started the
experiments before grandpa was working with them, but had trouble accessing their
property through the right of way they had provided themselves. Needing a new
way to enter their property required a new right of way through grandpa’s
property and this is where I think grandpa ended up working with them. In
exchange for a right of way he was offered a job.
This was great
for him as all he had to do was drive across his property and he was at work,
heck he could have just as easily walked as I did many times in my life from
the time I was just barely able to get around by myself. I remember walking up
there after I seen they were working on the lane that exists still today and is
now a public road used to access the property , and I would watch the equipment
like a dozer, as it was used to cut out the road and would follow their
progress up into the woods as the road progressed. Once when I was following them
and they were not aware of it, and I was only about 5 at the time, I heard the
dozer clanking through the trees. I became scared as a tree fell one way and then
another as they used the dozer to push them over to make way for the new road. They
didn’t know where I was and I hid behind a tree and only came out after the
dozer had passed and then the dozer and the clanking stopped and I could see
men on the dozer looking back at me in the path they had ju8st created, then I saw
grandpa climb down off the side of the dozer and head back to me. He was pissed
that I had hid behind the tree and he let me know it, as no one was able to see
me and they could have pushed a tree right down on me. He scolded me and told
me if it was ever to happen again to just come out and scream and wave my arms
to let them know I was there.
But I felt as a
rabbit must feel when it is about to encounter danger as they hunker down and
hope for the best till; it passes, I think it was just instinct and luck that
day I wasn’t run over by a dozer. This didn’t stop my quest for wanting to see
what was going on up there, soon morning after morning I would get up and head
up to the woods, and watch them as they would clear brush and make paths and dig
big holes in the ground to run experiments in.
Grandpa’s job
allowed him to have me visit reluctantly, as they saw there was no real way of
stopping me, and at times when he had
enough of me he would send me to the house, or put me to work doing little jobs
he would make up to keep me busy. Other times other workers such as scientists
and college students who took an interest in me would take time to keep me
informed as to what was going on. Soon I was a fixture up there and everyone
thought it was great that I showed such an interest in their work and that I was
able to do so much, being so young. They would teach me to count, to read
thermometers, and tensiometers before I even knew what they were for. Also they were teaching me how to read way
before I was even going to school. It was great that they took time to include
me in their work. And I felt they enjoyed having me around. Grandpa was proud
of what I was doing and to have me accepted as one of the gang so readily.
As I said before
my real dad had taken off at this point and these folks were stepping up and
showing me more than he ever could have, and I was eager to learn and fill that
void of not having him around. I was soon cutting steps into hillsides and
placing gravel from coffee tins, I would retrieve from piles up the hillside. The
steps would help the workers negotiate the steep hillsides and I imagine you
could still see their imprints today, although the dams they were building to
hold water have been removed. They would pump water from streams and use it to
create artificial rains on the hillsides and then measure when the water had
saturated the ground, how fast it would move through the hillside soil. This information
was used to create maps that would judge how much water one would have to have
in terms of rainfall before flooding conditions would occur and the effects of
those conditions on the soil.
This information is
still being used by various governmental agencies to design water holding
capacities needed based on runoff predictions, based on work they had done on
water percolation. Important stuff at the time and information badly needed to
design new developments and dams and stream protection. My job was more in the safety
aspect of the workers, as I would build steps in the hillside by digging with a
small shovel and creating a flat spot and then coating it with pea gravel, a
big job for the little guy I was back then. It kept me out of their way and I would
occasionally see one of them as they would stop by and spend a few minutes
talking, or explaining what was going on as they headed to check the pumps or
do whatever. I never expected anything for my work and would at the end of the
day group around my grandpa with the rest of the guys, as he would tell what
was going on tomorrow or discuss work they had done that day. And on Fridays my
grandpa’s boss would show up and pass out paychecks, and someone told Dick, as
that was his name that he forgot my paycheck and they all laughed thinking it
was funny.
Well the next week
the same thing happened and Dick showed up to pass out paychecks and when he had
finished he turned to me and said Kevin here is your pay as he swung open the
back door of an olive green Plymouth station wagon, and in the back seat must
have been a half bushel basket of day old cupcakes he had picked up at a
bakery. They were all wrapped up and I couldn’t believe my eyes. I mean after
all mom was raising us on green beans and creamed tomatoes out of the garden
usually served with a little piece of meat , because she didn’t have much more,
and to see all these sugar coated goodies in one place was more than I could
imagine as it was something we didnt get very often. I scooped them up and me
and grandpa took them home to share with the others while everyone laughed
about how I was just a kid working for the government now, and how they had paid
me with day old cupcakes no less.
Unfortunately and
looking at in perspective, things like this don’t happen now a days and if they
did the press would have had a field day picking at this one. I mean a five
year old boy working for the government being paid day old cupcakes no less,
let alone child labor laws, and my age to boot. I could just see the headlines
now. Obama puts white youth to work straight out of diapers, as he enslaves yet
another white folk in retribution for years past.
To me it was my
entertainment and information center that kids today, my age then, still don’t get
these chances and was better than any computer, or book or TV program that I could
have experienced at that age. Since my birthday was late in the year I was
actually a young five and the next year would prove to be even more informative
as I still had another year to go before I entered school. I had to wait till I
was six years old which meant I had another full summer to work for my grandpa
and it was a summer full of happenings. I actually felt more privileged than my
brothers who were older and already in school, as I felt I was learning far
more than they were, from being around all those adults.
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