Way back when and between wars, a father and son were farmers. There wasn’t enough work for both, so the son hired out to other farmers for a day’s wages; 50 cents. Carryin’ water by hand in buckets from a dug well to a water trough a long way from the well bucket was tough work for a youngster. Another time, between another set of wars, a father and son were farmers. There wasn’t enough work for both. “Son” says he, “They’re needin’ help at the sawmill. Go see to it.” And off I went with my hat ‘n gloves to my first job.
Little did I know I was goin’ to get paid, for it was the way we worked. Seldom was there big tasks on the farm that a body did alone. You helped one another. Most of these involved the harvestin’ of hay or corn, where you’d always chip in your labor to help your neighbor. It wasn’t for pay, it was for a livelihood. It was for dinner on the table. It was a way of life. I suppose it was communal long before long hair and hippies were known.
So grabbin’ my gloves an’ donnin’ my straw hat, off I go to Hamby Lumber Company. I tell Mr. Hamby I heard he needed help, and I’m here to oblige. He asks do I play football, for all the boys that had worked there before during the summer were beefin’ up for football season. Honey, you couldn’t beef me up if you’d put me on a diet of pure lard’n beans. If I didn’t know better that howl when the wind blew hard was the whistle as it blew through skinny me. Anyhow, I satisfied him I was all about the work gettin’ done, football or not. He took me down to the work line, where at the end was his son, and there was my work; off bearin’ lumber into stacks. His son taught me how, though it wasn’t too hard to learn. Pine goes with pine and oak with oak and 8’ boards go in one stack an’ 12’ in another stack, an’ so it goes, an’ hurry up, for it’s backin’ up on the conveyor, an’ you don’t back up the sawyer.
I have to say that before long, I understood the ‘did I play football’ question. This was backbreakin’ work that didn’t let up except for three times; nine, noon an’ three. An’ there is no sweeter sound than “no sound!” At nine sharp, the engine driven saw would stop. Oh, but how quiet that was. The silence was near musical. The roar of the saw kept ringin’ in my ears, but it soon petered out to quiet peacefulness. Not that you were aware of the silence however; you were headed to the well for a dipper of some of that delicious cold water. Fifteen minutes was all it took for the sawyer to sharpen that giant circular blade. He’d hit the starter, the engine would fire an’ you’d go another two hours without pause. Kept your mind off your troubles, it did, for you didn’t have time to think about anything but that next piece of lumber comin’ down the conveyor.
I never could understand why the sawyer would send 1 x 4 x 8’ pine boards one at a time, and 2 x 12 x 20’ oak boards three at a time, but he did. I could one hand an 8’ long pine 1 x 4, but let me tell you it was all I could do to manhandle those 20’ oak boards onto the stack. But he was the sawyer, an’ I was the off bearer, an’ ne’er the twain shall meet. After a summer of off bearin’, I could close my eyes an’ tell you they type lumber we were millin’; from the sweetness of pine and the stink of oak to the tart of poplar.
Then there was something called payday. Wow. I get money for this? My wage was $1.25 an hour. Rich beyond words was I. Mr. Hamby asked me the first week, how many hours I worked. Did I, in any stretch of the imagination, know the answer to that? Shucks, I didn’t even remember which day I started. Naïve perhaps, would that be a good description? He did his ciphers, askin’ if I agreed, an’ what did I know different. I got a check, an’ didn’t have a clue as to what to do with it. That’s the God’s honest truth. All I know is I didn’t have to ask for runnin’ around money come “cruisin’ time on Friday an’ Saturday night.
Honestly, I never remember keepin’ tabs on my work hours. I was supposed to be there all day, and I was. There was no getting’ around that. But the sawyer, well he was a different sort. Friday noon was payday. I soon learned the saw was silent Friday afternoon and Mondays. Friday, the sawyer went to the liquor store, an’ Monday he was still recoverin’, though I didn’t know what from at that particular time. I was just told he was laid up drunk, which was a mystery to this li’l Baptist. So durin’ those silent saw times they taught me to hack the lumber for dryin’, or I’d off bear from the plane instead of the saw.
Remember my wage, right? Well, the next fellow down the conveyor from the saw ran a radial saw cuttin’ slabs and bark, which would be hauled off as scrap or stove wood for someone. I was awful envious of this man. Not only was his work much less strenuous, but one, he got to operate machinery, and two, he got paid more. My word, his wages were $1.65 an hour. Can you imagine such wealth? It had to be wealth, for to me, anything you could fold was only in your dreams. I recollect now that on that forty cents more an hour, he had a wife an’ two kids to keep whereas I couldn’t keep the tank filled on that ole Mercury. I carried him home one afternoon after work, an’ his house wasn’t much, an’ he didn’t have a car. Truth be told, I’m not sure he had too much of anything, but food on the table, and a bed to sleep. I remember him sayin’ his son wanted an electric guitar. I thought to myself that was an awful hefty want on a fellow makin’ $1.65 an hour. But I’ll bet to this day, that man did what he could to get that guitar for his son. Once you’re a father, you sometimes forget a wage rate; a lesson I learned hard some years later.
Off in the woods behind the sawmill, there lived a colored family. They had a son about my age, but this young man was not all there. I was raised to be friendly to most folks, but not the rest of the crew at the mill. When “Boy” would come hang around, they’d holler at him to leave or “git on from here.” Sometimes he’d listen, sometimes not, but if he stayed clear of the rest, they’d let him alone. Where did that leave me? I became the magnet to a mess of iron filings, an’ I just couldn’t be cruel an’ holler at him, for he jus’ didn’t know any better, an’ like a ugly dog, he needed attention too. If he could talk, it was a language I didn’t understand. He babbled n’ waved his arms an’ hands, an’ I nodded a lot. “Boy” didn’t smell too so very good either. I know there couldn’t have been a bar of soap in a mile of their cabin: not one! An’ he slobbered. Oh did he slobber! Terrible. Yet I still couldn’t take myself to be mean to him. I had a coke bottle of well water next to me at the planing mill one day. I turned around and “Boy” had that bottle turned to the sky tryin’ to suck the water from it. Oh, but I was so thirsty till I saw that. I could’ve walked all day through Death Valley never needin’ a drop; no sir-eee, not a drop! I know he was suckin’ on that bottle hard enough to draw a vacuum on an onion sack, but wasn’t gettin’ a drop, then all of a sudden, the water disappeared out of that bottle. In one instant the water was gone. To this day, I wonder how that happened, for it defied the laws of physics. I don’t rightly recall which law, but it was a good’un. I couldn’t have swallowed that much that quick, for I’d have choked. It was what I’d refer to today as a “Kodak moment!”
One day when the saw was silent, Mr. Hamby took me to another sawmill to check out some equipment he was considerin’ purchasin’; air dogs. Let me tell you, Mr. Hamby’s setup was about as basic as a sawmill could be. The only thing not manual was the saw. The sawyer turned the logs on the table with a cant hook. What we were lookin’ at today was hydraulic and air powered equipment that grabbed a log and turned it for the saw and run the table back an’ forth down the saw, whereas our sawyer did all this by hand. All the dogs were mechanical, worked by hand levers, not hydraulics. As I watched this operation, all I was thinkin’ was, “How in God’s name, will I be able to off bear that much lumber that quick?” Didn’t give a thought to him hirin’ anyone else. There were three off bearers at this mill. As it turned out, he didn’t buy this equipment that summer while I was there. I was so relieved. Just thinkin’ about how much harder my job would have been with that new equipment, my heart just wasn’t in it.
And you know…I got paid for that side trip too. Oof! I’d grown accustomed to havin’ that little bit of gas money. And near 50 years later, an’ I’m still workin’ for gas money!
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