Thought For The Day
In the summer of 1959 I was seriously in need of a job. I was beginning to panic. There seemed to be nothing available and from out of the blue I got an offer I couldn't refuse.
If you remember 1959 you'll recall that was the year our President, Dwight D Eisenhower made the first phone call to Canadian Prime Minister, John Diefenbaker by bouncing a radio signal off the moon. Now, we use satellites as bouncers. The US launched half a dozen satellites that year and sent a couple of monkeys into space which returned unharmed.
Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments filed a patent for the Integrated Circuit.
It was also the summer of the "Kitchen Debates". Richard Nixon, then Vice President and Nikita Krushchev, Russia's top man exchanged barbs. Nixon proclaimed that our technological advancements in kitchen appliances would make kitchen duties for women easier and Krushchev retorted, "Russian women aren't confined to the stove." (I know, you were wondering when that started.)
One of the more notable enterprises of 1959 was the introduction of the Xerox 914. There had been "wet" process copiers for a while but the Xerox was the first dry technology system. Hence, Xeros, Greek for dry and 914 which alluded to the capability of reproducing a 9" by 14" document.
My job? I was in church discussing the serious lack of work opportunities with a friend within ear shot of my mother. A gentleman from the congregation overheard us and approached, he said he had a rather large field of sugar beets that needed to be hoed and would pay us .75 cents an hour to do it. My mother accepted the offer almost before he completed the sentence. I had been thinking of an executive position. Welcome to humility. Mother said something about "living by the sweat of your brow" and I mumbled something inappropriate that was thankfully lost in the exchange.
"Thank you?" It took all my strength to say it. Fortunately my friend accepted the job too and so my summer was spent in the fields hoeing sugar beets for seventy five cents an hour.
Sometime, if your job really seems like the pits. Go out into an agricultural area and find a field of low lying crops. Walk out into the field and stand at the edge of the field. Turn and look the full length of the row and imagine making certain that no weeds are in that row after you have walked the entire length and removed them. Your reward is to turn and walk back on the next row all day long.
Just for the record, seventy five cents wasn't that much in 1959 either. But, after a full day I would accrue $6.00 and $30.00 for the week. I didn't date much that summer.
©Herb Ratliff, July 9, 2012, All Rights Reserved
I think 59 was the year my mother got breast cancer. I took over the responsibility of my brother and baby sister. We earned extra money making and selling Popsicle baskets. Debbie was too young to make them but so cute nobody refused her. She was our spokesman as we went door to door.
ReplyDeleteDad had begun an incentive program because money was not growing on trees. If we truly wanted something we had to work for it and then make application for matching funds. Popsicle baskets got us a pup tent, and bedrolls and a puppy to replace the one that died.
But mostly it kept us sane. And away from craziness that was our house then. I think I would have gladly picked beets if there had not been popsicle baskets to make and sell.
Thanks Jacquie,
ReplyDeleteWe learned to live in minimal luxury together. I'll bet you would have made a fine working companion.