Parents Make Their Children (Sid)

One day Jack paid attention to me. If my 8 year old head had ass's ears they would have swiveled 180 degrees and pointed. “Hey Sidney, let's go to Berrien Springs!” Jesus! THAT was exciting! When Alma said, “Hey Sidney” I jumped in a foxhole and waited for the inevitable barrage of shit to come. A “Hey Sidney” from Alma was followed by either some mundane dreary chore or a startling life decision.


The following non-inclusive Alma list will give you the gist:
1.“Take this knife, cut sand burs out of the lawn. Fill this bushel basket. And show it to me when you are done. And bring back the knife.”
2.“Load the cans in the wheel barrow, and bring them to the can-pile. Make sure the cans are on top of the pile. I don't wantt them strewn all around.” (The can-pile was a half mile trek up and down hill and dale. Truly a half mile!)) “I don't want to find any cans dropped along the way. And put the wheel barrow back where it belongs. And put the bushel basket back under the sink when you're done.”
3.“Take this tin can put a little gasoline in the bottom, about 1 inch, and NO matches! Go back to the garden, and pick the potato bugs off the potatoes and fill the can with potato bugs and bring it back and show me. And NO matches!”
4.“Get in the car. You will be going to Sunday school the rest of your life.”
5.“Get in the car. You will be taking accordion lessons the rest of your life.”


“Hey Sidney” from Jack meant that something interesting was about to happen. And not interesting like a can of maggots or some-such other nearly unbearably weird shit.


He let me put my hand on the black knob at the top of the long crooked gear stick. The vibrations traveled from the '48, 3-ton truck's belly right into my belly. Wonderful! I so admired my father's trucking. We stopped for coconut cream pie at the little diner just across the Michigan line and trucked onto Berrien Springs. At the store Jack told me, "Go straighten shoes or something" and I ran off and crawled under the saw-horse tables heaped with women's AAAAA pumps. I explored every dusty nook. Up till then this was a typical fun trip to Jack's store in Michigan. But today I was in for a new treat: a trip to the market in Benton Harbor.


On the way there Jack was talking to me. It was one of those wisdom talks where parents have something significant to pass along to you. With Jack these were usually pretty interesting, for example: How to put English on the cue ball and what to expect with the spins and counter spins. This talk was about buying fruit cheap at the market. He explained how late in the day the farmers that had unsold produce were ready to sell cheap. If they didn't sell it, they would have to throw it away. When we pulled into the big wholesale agricultural market, it was just like Jack said. We tasted cherries and when we found some really good ones Jack would haggle. Soon we had a cheap truck-load and we were on our way back to Indiana.


Jack then explained his plan. “When we get back go talk to one of your little friends. Tomorrow, bright and early, you two pull your wagon filled with cherries down to Boa Shores. Get to people before breakfast and give them some free cherries to taste. Ask for 79 cents for the little basket or 3 for 2 bucks. Everybody will take 3 if you don't have any change. You'll make a lot of money.” I liked the money concept. I liked it a lot.


It worked out swell. My 7 year-old buddy Geoff was cute as pie and pulled the wagon and we sold the shit out of those cherries. In two days they were gone. I made $200 profit and I paid Geoff 10 cents a day. That summer Jack would come back from Michigan with whatever bargain might be found, sour cherries, musk melons, peaches that Geoff and I would hawk around the lake. I was rich. The money went in some rather abstract college fund. A bike would have been preferable.


The way I figure it, 50 years out, both Alma and Jack were trying to make me into something. Parents try to teach their kids to survive. And they really can't teach them much more than they know. Alma was from the hardscrabble, dust bowl, depression, dirt poor farmer school. The way to survive was to, as she put it, “grind away”. Jack was from the urban jungle where you hustled to survive, where you maneuvered. If you slowed down to “grind away” you were dead. The way I figure it, 50 years out, they made me.
----------------------------------------------------
Gold - London Fix Average -1958 - $35 / ounce
Harvard University – Tuition – 1958 - $1,250
Federal Minimum Wage - 1958 -$1.00 / hour
------------------------------------------------------------------