Rambler post 3, Trip #2
Prelude: I hitched a ride with some Southerner searching for the promised land, i.e. a job that paid “real” money. For southerners of the mountain south that meant Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, etc.
High school was behind me. Now I had to face the world. I had to find out what I was going to do with life. I was certainly glad to be free of high school, but I had no real sense of direction in life. Just make some money, get a good car–the means to freedom– and enjoy the new-found freedom. I did that-rambling.
Well, joy, freedom, and sense of excitement come to different people in different ways. For some people it seems to be a birthright. They don’t have to do anything. Life just pours those gifts upon them. For others these attributes are not a given. They have to work for them, and even with hard work they may not achieve much, if any of these. Probably for most of us life is more of an up and down experience. We probably experience a lot more of the up things than the down. But not all at once, so it sometimes seems like the downs predominate. When you’re in a down trough, things can look very bleak and precarious.
US 23 Through Big Coal Country (a slight detour setting the stage)
I loved the drive from Elizabethton twisting north up Hwy 23 through the hills of West Virginia and Eastern Kentucky. These were beautiful mountains. Also, it was coal country and apparently rather poor. I remember the first time I saw what was called a “company town”. The dark black coal soot covered houses occupied by the miners were perched on steep hillsides. It looked like the fronts of the houses were 20 feet above the ground and the back doors sat right on the ground. I don’t know how many houses were in each community, but as I look back in my memory it looks like there must have been 20 or 30 houses in each little community. The scene always gave me a sad, lonesome feeling. I can still get in touch with tthat feeling whevever I think about this place and the feeling is strongest when I drive through there today. The other thing that I remember about this drive through coal country that was so depressing was the amount of tin cans, plastic, and other junk choking the little mountain streams. This made for a very depressing picture. Another feature of these little mountain communities that struck me as quite incongruous with the obvious poverty of the lifestyle was the fact that nearly every home had a TV antenna and quite often a new car or motorcycle was sitting in the driveway.
The mountain communities are changing, but not necessarily for the better. While miners have made progress in wagw increases, the environment has taken a tremendous beating and appears in some ways to have been altered beyond restoration. So, those mountains still captivate my attention but primarily in terms of a growing sadness. I need to go back. I want to see what they look like today.
Sometime in late summer or early fall of ’55 I made this job search trip again. Not so much just to earn money, but also to explore and enjoy the American landscape. I was not disappointed. The trip paid off big in terms of jobs: Revere Copper and Brass and J.L. Hudson, as well as the opportunity to meet the “Copperhill Gang”. This “gang” certainly opened new doors.
My Aunt Eleanor and her family were still living in Detroit so I made arrangements to stay with them for a while. Making arrangements with Aunt Eleanor and Uncle Lou was not a difficult thing to do. Eleanor, I believe, was the only person that consistently opened the door and broke into smiles and hugs when she saw me. Aunt Stella, “Bun”, was also warm, receptive, and caring. So many others looked like they were in shock–I have heard the expression, “look what the cat dragged in.” An orphan certainly is a different creature.
The job search begins:
I never used an employment service or references to get a job. I used my feet, the street, and my knuckles–to knock on doors.
This approach paid off. The economy in Detroit was still going strong in the fall of ’55 so it didn’t take long to turn up a job. In fact I didn’t even get to the knuckle stage of the process. I went to a manufacturing area of the city and hit the street trying to size up the various companies and refine my approach: my introduction, etc.; however, as I walked down the street toward my first objective this highly energized man popped out of an office building into the street and wanted to know if I was from Tennessee. I answered in the affirmative and his next question was, “Do you want a job?” which I answered again in the affirmative. “Come with me!” he said. In a few minutes of rapid walking we were in the copper molding building of Revere Copper and Brass. Of course there were a few preliminaries to take care of, such as a few minutes of on the job training, but I was soon in position doing my job–getting dies to the extruder and picking up used dies and getting them to the cleaning and rehab crew. Not a difficult job at all, but someone had to do it. I had to be alert and resdy to swing into action at a moment’s notice, but I had some time to sit in the window of my work station and watch the shipping move along the Detroit River. I had a penthouse view of that busy industrial waterway. It was very crowded with long transports and ore haulers and tugs pushing loads of what I didn’t know.
Well, with agood job and money flowing into the bank account I thought I could afford a nice car. Not a new one, but a nice, used one. I wanted a convertible and I searched the local car lots until I found just what I wanted- a 1951 Ford convertible. The car looked great and ran great. I bought it and drove it to work and around the city and thoroughly enjoyed it. One morning a friend borrowed the car to go job hunting. I gave him the keys and went back to sleep. It was a day off for me. In a few minutes he was back at the door out of breath with the sad story that the engine had blown up. When I stepped outside the street was so full of black smoke that I could not breathe without choking. That car was a goner. My loss was total. Of course, my friend had nothing to do with the blow up, the car had been “doctored” so it had to blow sooner or later. My friend felt bad about the blow up, but he didn’t feel responsible and he wasn’t, I continued to lend him my car—the next one.
’48 Ford Coupe
I was not deterred. A few days later an acquaintance at work said that he was going to sell his car and get a new one. He said that he would make me a good deal, so I looked it over. Glade green- a really deep, dark green that was satisfying to look at. This guy was a meticulous mechanic. He had taken a 1948 Ford coupe and thoroughly reworked it. He took out the old engine and replaced it with a 1950 Ford flathead that ran like a charm. The ’50 Ford V-8 was an outstanding engine: reliable and long-lasting. Can’t say enough good things about that engine. The car looked great, ran great, and I knew the guy that owned it. I bought it. That car served me well. This is the car I moved back south with and then drove on my excursion through the west. Good deal!
As winter approached the market demand for the products we were producing began to weaken. Soon Revere was laying off and I was back on the street. However, Christmas was approaching and there were jobs to be found in some markets. News on the street gave me some leads and so I headed to the retail district–beautiful downtown Detroit!!! This area of the city was beaming. It was beautiful! Regardless of what has happened to Detroit in the last five or six decades, at the time I was there it was a magnificent city!
Street, Feet, Knuckles
Back to my job search routine–no influence, no inside contacts, no letters of introduction–just street, feet, and knuckles, and perhaps a little more gall than what I brought up from Tennessee. No, it wasn’t gall, just willpower and determination, and necessity, and desperation. If there was a job out there I intended to find it. Adding to my determination was the cold, cold weather. I had faced cold weather at early morning milking time for many years from grade school through high school.
I walked into one of the most magnificent buildings in downtown Detroit, J.L. Hudson Department Store. Before I left that day I had a job- stocking drugs- a considerable notch above street level. In fact, I was 17 stories above street level, for I worked in the stock room. It was my job to take orders from the floor and get the stock on the shelf as needed. Again, like Revere Copper and Brass, it wasn’t hard work and I had some time to enjoy the view of downtown Detroit. I enjoyed sitting in the window and taking in the view. I saw nothing wrong with that until one day my supervisor took notice and nearly had what I would call a “dying duck fit”. He seemed to see significant danger in this practice and presented me with a couple of options: quit it or give up employment. I didn’t argue. I needed the job. From that point my view of the street scene was limited to standing in front of the window or at street level.
The Street Scene, Woodward Avenue
Map of a Mountain Man 