A Summer Job in a Lonely Upstairs Room (Cont.)
Screen 3 of 3"Sure, I know," the foreman responded. "I'll try to send somebody up once or twice a day, but if I forget it, just yell down through that hole in the floor and we'll try to find someone to relieve you for a few minutes. But you must not leave until someone comes," he emphasized as he walked away.
I then noticed the track was almost empty. So I picked up another box of cans and slid it onto the rack. But when I began to shove it forward, it became obvious that the cans were jammed again, because a few of them had been packed crosswise. I was still without gloves, but there was no time to waste. I did not want that machine operator downstairs hollering at me. So I straightened the acid covered cans with my bare hands and shoved the next row onto the track just before it became empty.
I was on my own. I was now occupying the operator's station all by myself, and even though the skin on my hands continued to burn some, I enjoyed watching the cans roll smoothly down the track, and I began to feel this might turn out to be a pretty good job after all.
I soon learned that even when the cans were properly packed, I had barely enough time to keep up with all the things I had to do at that station. By the time I reached for a full box, slid it onto the rack, pulled the empty box off, collapsed it and stacked it on the floor, it was time to start the whole process again. I could manage to keep ahead, however, when things went right, even though I had no time to spare.
But when some of the cans were not straight in the box (this turned out to be the case in at least one out of every five boxes) I had a real problem, a problem I could solve only by moving much faster. And my haste in rearranging the cans quite often resulted in some of them dropping on the floor--which of course made the situation worse. During such times when I had to move so rapidly, I was reminded of some of the earlier silent-movie comedies ("picture shows" we called them then) I had seen run in fast motion. Particularly did I remember the funny ones with the Keystone Cops and Charlie Chaplin which I had laughed at so often. My hurried actions in keeping the cans rolling on this job would also have appeared ridiculous to others, I am sure; but since I was all alone, there was no one to watch me and laugh. So I just laughed quietly to myself, as I whistled silly tunes.
After what appeared to be a very long time, I heard a clock strike the half hour. I looked up at the side wall and saw for the first time an old hand-wound Seth Thomas clock. It was only 8:30 and I was already tired after only two hours of work. What a beginning! Still, three and a half hours until the thirty-minute lunch break. I wondered if I could make it.
I did get through that first day, however. The foreman brought me some gloves about ten o'clock; and the track was empty only once all day. But a little milk did spill on the floor down below, a fact the machine operator let me know about in no uncertain words.
For several years after that summer, I frequently had night mares about the Pet Milk job. The empty track, the ugly bark of the machine operator, the awful feeling that I was gasping for air, and the real fear that my hands would just rot and fall off because of the acid on the cans--all these things were very real parts of those nightmares.
How did I actually fare for the remainder of that summer of 1926? Not very well. The only favorable comment I can make about that experience is that I did remain at the job until late August, making it possible for me to put about $75 into my savings account--money I used that fall to buy books and clothes for the school year.
But on the negative side, I must tell the reader my hands were always red and at times almost raw, even though I wore out several pairs of heavy work gloves in an effort to protect them. In addition, I lost about fifteen pounds in weight and was told by our family doctor in the latter part of the summer I was on the verge of developing tuberculosis. In fact, a chest x-ray taken in early September when both the doctor and my mother became alarmed at my pallor and thinness showed a definite spot on my left lung-- caused, the doctor said, by the terrible conditions under which I had been working at the Pet Milk plant.
Much later--in 1943 when I was taking a physical examination in order to get into the Navy--it was disclosed by another x-ray that I still had a scar on that same left lung. The Navy doctors determined, however, it had fully healed, and I was allowed to join the Navy.
************** Even now, more than fifty years since I worked in that small Pet Milk plant in Kentucky, every time I see a can of evaporated milk on a grocery shelf--whether it be Pet Milk or Carnation brand-- I remember that lonely spot in the musty upstairs room where I worked. And once again I become thankful that I came through that experience alive.
[TRAVELSTEAD'S VIGNETTES PAGE]
[DAVID'S HOME PAGE]
- 30 -