A Flawed Legacy - 30

This gets rather confusing to me - at my age perhaps, but after spending almost three weeks on the road, moving and storing furniture, I caught a ride back to Charlotte where I was always able to find a bed at the YMCA and a number of churches to help me make up my mind on Sunday mornings.

As usual, I headed for the Labor office and got back on at Coca Cola, running that new product test line which apparently, no one else wanted to deal with it.  There was a lot of "down" time which I enjoyed and I could always find something to keep my busy. Obviously, I was doing a good job as they asked me to fill out a job application.

Then, one Friday night as I was in the Labor office looking for my check, a guy comes in looking for someone to work over the weekend.  Sounded good to me and I found myself on the way to Greenville, SC, where we were going to re-finish some floors under some knitting machines.  We would be there for the next three weekends as there was only so much area we could cover on the weekend and the floors needed to be dry on Monday morning.  It was a good job.  We started by serrating the floors to get all the "gunk" off of them, then vacuuming up the debris, washing them with acid and finally applying an epoxy coating.  It was a routine, work hard for several minutes, take a break and rest, vacuuming which was rather easy, washing with acid was a bit treacherous and then, spreading the epoxy evenly across the area.  By Sunday morning early, we were headed home.

We would come back to that location for three weekends in a row and then onto another location.  The manufacturer of the epoxy kept us bust most of the time.  One week, we were in Louisiana, the next week in Central Florida, another weekend in Miami.

I enjoyed doing this work, the guys I worked for were easy going and generous with the time cards, so I was making about the same on a weekend as if I had worked all week in a factory closer to home. There was one bad experience.  Acid is rough on your shoes, so I typically wore rubber boots and then one day I saw an ad for "tough" work shoes and was assured that they would withstand the acid.  So much for their claim.  I could feel my left foot getting warm so I convinced myself it was just a small leak and everything would be OK.  As a matter of fact, it felt like it was getting better as the weekend continued.  Then, I took my shoes off.   It looked like the left side of my foot was akin to a dressed chicken.  It was whiter than white and where the skin was broken, I thought I could see a bone.  My little toe and its "neighbor" looked as bad.   We stopped at a grocery store and I bought two jars of vaseline, filled my sock with it and slid my foot inside.  They dropped me off at the hospital when we got back to Charlotte and the look of my foot made the attending nurse throw up.  The student doctor who first saw my foot thought they might need to amputate it.  No way.  It didn't hurt.  I was going to watch it heal.  They wrapped my foot in a bandage leaving the toes outside and I walked back to the "Y".  It really did not hurt.  It never did.  Within a week, the healing was significant.  I could wear a slipper and by the following weekend, I was back at work.  It was a good thing that we weren't using acid that week.  I wore rubber boots and all I had to do was wash the floors with a soap concentrate.

I worked with those guys - and a few odd trips with my moving "buddies" and then I met a guy who was bored by a meeting we both were attending.  It was in a fancy house and I happened to see someone smoking on the porch.  Turns out it was my soon-to-be new friend who had come to the meeting only because his wife had insisted.  

The speaker was a man from India who was talking about how Christianity had turned him away from his previous life as a Hindu.  My concern was that he was turning what I believed to be Christianity into another version of the Hindi religion.  My new friend was not quite so kind.  When there was a break in the lecture, they offered us drinks and when he ordered a beer, I knew immediately that I liked the guy.  We would become very good friends.

He had amassed a small fortune buying and selling steel mills across Mid-America and now that his wife seemed to becoming quite ill, he decided to retire and they had they moved to the Gulf Coast of Florida.  He was curious as to why I had attended the meeting, alone.  My interest was because I had heard of the speaker in Sunday School at the Presbyterian church.  i decided to see for myself as one of the unanswered questions in my life had to do with death, was there actually a heaven or a Hell?  That really got us into a conversation and by the time the meeting was over, he was asking his wife if she minded if they took me to their home for a month or so.  I almost fell out of my chair.

He was serious and offered me $2,000/month to come live with them so that we might really search for answers to the questions we both seemed to have an interest.  The money seemed to be a really good idea to me and it sure beat, working for a living.

A Flawed Legacy - 27

I spent a week with Blake and Eleanor, the first and last times we would ever be that close.  Of course, I was raised with my grandparents and Blake was like a big brother to me, although we were never too close.  I will never forget the first day I met Eleanor.  They were about to get married (January 10),one of the coldest nights I will ever remember) and they dropped by on Sunday, December 7, 1941 - the day the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.

Blake offered to get me back on the road, but first he wanted to show me what Yale - our previous home) looked like.  It had hardly changed, we did stop and see a friend and then, Mina Armstrong, my grade school teacher).  Of course, we went by the farm which had really changed and down some side roads I could recall.  Finally, we wound up near Capac where the highway headed for Inlay City, and a main highway headed for Detroit.  Blake seemed to think I had a lot of courage, hiking around America as he saw it.

My first ride suggested a highway that I did not know about, one that went around Detroit rather than through it and took me far enough to get on his recommended route.  Only thing, it passed by a prison and when a guy stopped, he made sure I wasn't an escaped convict he had just heard about.  He was headed for a town in Ohio that I forget its name for good reason.  He drove into the heart of the city and as I was trying catch a ride, the police stopped and made me show my identification, before telling me I could not hitch hike in the city.  I said OK, walked a dozen or so blocks and stuck out my thumb.  That was a poor decision as the cop came back and told me - at first, he was going to take me to jail for breaking the law.  Instead, he took me to the outskirts of town - far away from any traffic, and let me out.  I'll bet I was there for an hour before I saw one car and that was a local., who turned off a block from where I was standing.  The sun went down and I began to wonder what I could do.  Fortunately, a big Lincoln pulled up, asking where I was headed and told him Columbus - as that was the only city I could think of in that direction.

Turns out he was a nice guy, an ex-USAF pilot and when I told him I had used to "boy-sit" (not baby sit) for Colonel Paul Tibbets at Eglin AFB, he told me that they were friends.  (Tibbets was the pilot on the Enola Gay that dropped the A-bomb on Hiroshima in Japan.  Now he was in business at the airport in Columbus)  With that info, he suggested I stay at his house that night and he would rake me to see the Colonel the next day.  He had a small mansion and had me sleep in their pool house for the night.  I had just got into bed and I heard someone dive into the pool.  I peeked out and saw a woman - in the nude, in the water.  Good idea, I made sure the door was locked, the curtains pulled and I got into bed and went to sleep.

He called me about 7AM and had me come to the house where he had prepared breakfast and we left a few minutes later.  He dropped me off at Tibbets' office, wished me luck and drove off.  I discovered the Colonel was flying in later, learned the boys I knew were all in school and I found some magazines to read while I waited.  A hour or so later my "benefactor" came back, we learned that Tibbetts was going to be much later and said he would take me to the bus stop where I could get a bus going to Charlotte, NC, which had been my original goal.  With that, he gave me a ticket envelope with a bus ticket for Charlotte and a $50 bill - the second one I had received along the way.  We parted ways as he told me, the next time I was coming through Columbus to call him and gave me his business card.  I discovered he was an official in the local city government.

I was in Charlotte by 4PM and found the YMCA where I got a room and went downstairs to get a cold drink and met a moving van driver looking for a "lumper" to help him the next day.  I was his man and he met me at 6:30 the next morning.  It was an easy job and he asked if I would like to ride with him on future jobs.  Yes, sir.  The next day, I discovered a Labor office and was sent to Coca Cola for the day and wound up lifting cases of 32 ounce filled bottles off the line and onto a pallet and I began to think I could not do that for eight hours.  I started to ask the supervisor when he told me they were shutting down that line and sent me over to a "testing" area where they were testing drinks.  All I had to do was start up a line as directed and stack cases of 12 ounce product on special pallets.  That would be my job for the next six weeks.

My moving van driver came by to pick me up for a couple of weekend jobs where we loaded up on Saturday mornings until we were done and I got two days pay.  I opened a bank account to take care of the money I was earning.

Meanwhile, I was studying my Bible on the evenings and was getting used to talking about what I was learning from my studies, all the while going to church, whichever was the closest one, wherever I happened to be.

I had no work scheduled one week, so I got a bus ticket and went to Charleston, SC, where I had always wanted to visit and found it to be expensive until a Police office told me about a Mission just outside of the city.  I found it and discovered some new friends, a couple who had started it in an old house with a half dozen potential bedrooms, so I stayed with them and spent my days looking for people who could help us fill the bedrooms with cots and places to hang clothes.  By the end of the week, we had discovered a lot of help.  Charleston has many significant families, wealthy people willing to help us get the Mission underway.  I had a call from my van driver and would spend the next two weeks travelling with him.  

"Life on the road"

February 20, 2014

If you believe that I knew where I was going, you are mistaken.  I was headed North and placing myself at the mercy of anyone who would stop and offer a ride.

The first one was a pick-up loaded with tomatoes and operated by three Hispanics.  It was getting dark and I was grateful for the offer.  Of course they filled the cab and I was riding in the bed of the pick-up.
All went well until they broke down about an hour later.  They got out cursing and one was holding a knife in his hand.  ""What now, Lord?"   I have no idea of their intentions and I wasn't about to stick around.  "Adios" I shouted and headed on up the road.  Fortunately, a truck came by and I waved him down and told them him of my previous "ride".  He laughed, told me he was not authorized to pick up hitch hikers, but he would take me to the next truck stop and see if he couldn't find me a ride, heading in towards Missouri which by now I had decided would be a good place to stop and look for others.

One of my new found friend's friend told me he could take me to Springfield the next day, but he was going to sleep at the truck stop first.   I was waiting outside the lunch room when a waitress came out for a smoke "break" and wondered why I was there.  When she found out I was waiting on that other truck, she left and came back with a "pass" which allowed me to sleep in their bunk house.  The next morning I was on my way again.   In Springfield, I found a "mission" where I could eat and sleep and I not only found a paying job for the next day, the owner of the company I was working for offered me a job of cleaning up around his house over the weekend.  He paid me twice as much as I had earned on his payroll and fixed up a place where I could sleep in his barn.

I went to church with his family and told them of what I was doing and they gave me their address so I could stay in touch with them and permission to call them "collect" as I went along my way.

A fellow told me there was lots of work in Kansas City, so after working on Monday, I headed up to  what I thought might be a better location.  So much for my thinking.  When I got there it was raining and cold - in July, so I headed for a larger Mission.  It was dry but I was about to be frightened unlike any-thing I had ever experienced before.  We had to listen to a sermon, standard practice in most Missions and the text the preacher used was John 8:32 - "..you shall know the truth and the truth will set you free."   I will never forget it.   After the sermon we were fed a bowl of watered down gruel and herded into a small room with a window up over a door that had been barricaded.   Twenty one black men and me and that was OK until they locked the door behind us.   My first reaction - "What if there is a fire?"
I slept very little that night.  And when they finally let us out, I literally ran out of that place and in the process, stepped off a curb, fell and twisted my leg on my way to the street.

Fortunately, the freeway was close so my leg was OK until I stood for a few minutes, trying to hitch a ride.  Fortunately, a little roadster stopped and the driver asked me where I was headed.  "St. Louis" popped into my mind and he replied, "Get in, I'll be passing through there is a few hours."  Along the way I would learn that he was an Air Force Chaplain, a Catholic, and we spent the time talking about religion, the Air Force, and life in general.  I was so interested in his opinions that I hardly noticed that my leg had begun to swell up.  He offered to buy me lunch at the intersection where he would be heading South. but I pointed to my leg and told him I was changing my mind.  I would head towards Michigan and stay with my Uncle and Aunt until I was better.

By the time I got there (Port Huron, MI), my leg was much better and they were not at home, so I laid back on a lawn chair and fell asleep.  Imagine their surprise when they came home from the grocery store and found  me laying there - as if I might be dead.  At first, they did not recognize me, it had been twenty years since we had been together.

After a few days with family, I was back on the road, this time headed in the direction of  Charlotte, NC, but because of the available rides, I would up in a river town East of Cincinnati, OH, where I met a man who worked on the river boats between that area and St. Louis and he suggested I might like to get a job on one of the boats.  I made an application and spent time around that area picking up small jobs and began attending church services whenever they were available.  By this time I had a routine in mind that I stayed with for the rest of my time.

The river boat job did not come open, so I headed South again, this time winding up in Beckley, W Va where I met a Pastor who was having family problems and I stayed with him, handling most of the church responsibilities except for preaching.  His wife and he reconciled their differences and now he wanted me to go to Seminary as he was convinced I would make a good Pastor.  To prove his point, we scheduled "revival" services and I did, indeed, preach some of the services.  Unfortunately, as soon as the Seminary heard that I had been divorced and was not living with the Mother of our children, they rejected the application.  When I decided to move on I thought again of Charlotte and the Pastor chose to drive me over and get me settled in - he was not convinced that life "on the road" was good for a man in his 50's.  We would remain good friends for a few years, but the last time I called him, I would learn that he had suffered a heart attack and died.

I found that jobs were easy to find in Charlotte and of course, there were lots of churches to visit.  My favorite job was as a temporary working in a Coca Cola plant.  There a supervisor took a liking to my work regimen and had me "run" a test line where they were evaluating new products and all I had to do was to keep the area clean and when they had a new or revised product to run, I would operate the line. It was an easy job, but others they had hired to do it apparently could not do what needed to be done.

While I was there I lived in the YMCA dormitory which brought me in touch with a number of guys who were there because of family problems or court orders and so I had lots of opportunities to hone my counselling or interviewing skills.

I did also meet a gentleman at a meeting his wife wanted him to attend, but being bored, he went out on a patio to smoke.  I noticed him and decided to join him and wound up with a relationship that made all of my "wandering" worthwhile.  He was a rich man, had either built or bought several companies in his life and now, he wanted to retire and enjoy life with his wife and delinquent daughter.  To make a much longer story shorter, he would invite me to come and live with his wife and he on the coast in Florida. It was a fascinating offer and I was ready to move on.  They stayed another day while I got my clothes packed and we were on our way.  He let his wife drive and he and I sat in the rear sear and talked.  At the restaurants where we stopped to eat, she would take over the talking and by the time we arrived in Florida, we were close friends.  He paid me to live in their guest house and we talked, and talked, and finally I convinced the two of them to travel.  They settled on Europe, leased a chalet in Switzerland and traveled all over Continent.  Meanwhile, I was left with their house but then the daughter appeared one day with the news that she was leaving her Doctor husband and moving in with me.  Not me.  She had been an alcoholic and I wanted no part of that.  So, I left.  I had called her parents, but learned they were away.  I left a message and didn't hear from then until she called to let me know my friend had a heart attack and died.  The last I heard from her, she had renewed their lease and she had no plans to return to the States.

That's part of this story.  More will be revealed as I talk about my experiences with churches along the way and the impressions I got from having heart-to-heart talk with many of the Ministers I met along the way.  But the greatest thing I ever learned was this nation has a diversity of people that even the most educated among us seems to comprehend.  I used to believe that would account for the promise of our future, but to be honest with you, I am no longer certain of that.