Winter Is My Middle Name

Chapter 10

As I sit here watching my wife undecorate the Christmas tree, I think back about those Christmases long ago. I never did go to Canada - Tubby was right after all. Although, I did go there on vacation with my parents. We went to Niagara Falls and the Welland Canal. But it was so flat there, I couldn't see any place where one could go sled riding or skiing. Any way, I didn't like the idea of trapping. I couldn't kill those animals.

I did get a job at the "Tic-Toc" restaurant as a dishwasher and potato peeler. That was not a job I wanted to make into a career. I had to bleach the cups every other Tuesday and clean the deep fryers on the other Tuesday. I would come home smelling like bleach and potatoes.

Tubby went to collage to become a teacher. I couldn't believe it when he told me what he was going to do.

"How could you spend the rest of your life in school??" I asked him.

"What, do you think I am going to be a dishwasher like you?" he told me.

"I'm not going to be a dishwasher forever. I have put in my application at Glosser Brothers. Then I can work my way up and be a manager someday."

"Yeah, just like you are going to go to Canada."

He became a teacher and moved to a town about two hours away and I haven't seen or heard from him in over 40 years.

I did get a job at Glosser Brothers department store as a clerk/stock boy. I made minimum wage - $1.15 an hour. The manager of the men's department told me "If you do a good job, I will make you an assistant manager like Sam over there."

I asked Sam how much he made an hour and he whispered, "I make $1.25 an hour!"

I knew then that I was not going to make this a career, either. That was only ten cents more than I was earning. Two weeks later I got hired at Bethlehem Steel Company, making a whopping $2.25 an hour! I was rich! Living at home, I had more money than I could spend. I saved as much as possible, got married, and we built our own house. Working with my grandfather had paid off.

I even worked in the Coke Plant, and it was just a disgusting as Deadeye had described it! It was the dirtiest place I that I ever worked. The first two weeks I worked there, I could not eat my lunch - the smell there was unbearable. But after that I got used to it. Luckily, I only had to work there a few months. I worked in the Axle Plant and then ended up in steel making.

Joe never joined the carnival. Like me, of course, he went to work in the steel mill. It seems as though I was doomed to have Joe following me everywhere I went! He became a plant grievance man, one of the best that there was, at least that was what he said.

"Hey, Joe, I have a grievance," I told him.

"Oh yeah? What is it?" he asked me.

"Well this past winter I moved up to forklift operator, hauling axles outside for storage, and I almost froze to death. The forklifts don't have a roof and there are no heaters on them. Every fifteen minutes I had to stop and get warm."

"Yeah, but you like the winter, if I remember correctly."

"I do, but my beef is that when summer came this guy that has more time than me bumped me off my job and I had to go inside as the axle checker in forge. Those axles are 1800 degrees when they come out of the hammers and it is 90 degrees out. My point is he can't just move from a nice warm job in the winter then take my cool job now that summer is here. Now I have a hot job in the summer and a cold job in the winter. This is not right and I want you to do something about it!"

"Dandy, this is 'past practice' and there is nothing you can do about it."

"What do you mean 'past practice'?"