Old Enough

Old Enough, now, to talk about it. (copyright 2015)

============

the interview: LIFE OF THE ESTRANGED

SHE WAS RETURNED NOW TO THE HOME... the one her husband furnished... heated and stocked with food brought in by him. Returned to what is left of a marriage; what remains of their relationship - on his terms. Otherwise homeless, she "cow tows" to fit within his created kingdom, a single story three bedroom ranch house he rents from a friend at his old job. This allows a safer place than the streets. She thought about those other people now, who are not so lucky and who live under a bridge like the girl Sudie. Sudie grew up with her down south and had somehow wandered back into her grown-up life. This grown-up life which had now gone sour and resulted in homelessness for both of them. Sudie, 55 years old with no husband or children lives under the bridge on King Street. Sudie has five years before she can claim her husband's pension. Her children, one five years dead and the other strung out on the cocaine that her grandson sells locally because he wants to be a "HIGH ROLLER." Sudie who would work as the highly paid secretary that she used to be, can't because of her condition. Sudie had a nervous breakdown when husband John died from a bullet wound... made by a gun that her daughter was holding. Her daughter who needed the money to get a fix. Money that John had in his pocket and would not give up. Sudie had no easy way out. Those other people probably don't either.

"I'm surprised to get a call from you, I would have thought you would be on some serious work assignment or busy with one of your classes or something." She cast a glance up from the previously burdened appearance she had presented for the past half hour. "How am I doing?" The guest smiled uncomfortably. This unexpected representation of the person she had labeled friend was causing disease. There was usually a higher atmosphere surrounding their visits. This comment drew uncertainty to a maximum, but a response of, "It's going along fine," then, "I thought I could stack my deck... visit a friend and get paid for it! How's that for planning!" A chuckle followed causing the host to relax a few of the deep furrows in her forehead. She was thinking too much about too many things, obviously. It was going to be one difficult interview.

Women were coming into what seemed to be an evolving state of confusion. The ongoing ERA issues bolstered by age old traditional gender roles in family and dating buffered by the shortage of men due to the evolving ONE WORLD philosophy was beginning to create unrest among the masses. These issues coupled with massing problems of employment and education folding their tables in preference of foreign soil were creating unforeseen havoc in areas that would otherwise have never been a consideration or an established relationship or been a challenge to one's determined independence... male or female. These facts firmly in mind, the guest carefully allayed her approach for this interview of a woman on retreat. She had known Sammy in the better years. The company she had worked for was one of the mainstays of United States industry. It was a major backbone of the agricultural and the industrial forces of the country. This corporation alone had supported the work forces of three states in its factories, provided farmers with equipment of every type from small motor hand held cutting machines (chain saws) to large overhead cranes and turbines. It supplied auto manufacturers with everything from engine parts to massive diesel engines... the entire motor. They did everything from processing raw materials to fabricating and assembly of the finished product. Needless to say, it fed a lot of families regardless of the makeup of that family. Both the professional white collar worker to the usually ignored blue collar worker... heads of household or family member thereof earned their fair share of wages from this one company. Although many would have liked to consider it to be all American, in actuality, it was Japanese American in its venture. A merger of invention and necessity. Sammy had pulled her children, five of them, through completion of grade school and high school in her years with this corporation before it folded upon its loyal workforce. It had folded rapidly, crushing the base of several cities with unemployment and loss of tax revenue. To make matters worse, the three years following saw close of relocation of several more regional foundations of industry. Factories closed like an upset chain of dominoes. Without finances and a stable base of support, without positive hope for direction and regrowth; it was vain to imagine anyone locating a sound mate for a relationship or maintaining one already in existence. Without calm conscience of future and finance and entity... individual or collective, can not establish outside of self in good sound mind. The domino effect toppled more than purse strings. It represented the collapse of a society. All this in mind, the guest rethinks her invasion to this woman's privacy. The image before her was only a pittance of what she knew had existed in what seemed a more than distant past. It would be a difficult assignment. As she felt for words to initiate this now burdensome task before her, she looked her victim over and added to her original notes. She sits, one cushion's space on the sofa, feet tucked tight against the sofa base.. hands clasped with thumbs twiddling. Her head is tucked with eyes cast down careful not to look her guest in the eye. A visible idea comes to mind and she offers coffee in an attempt at showing a personable side of herself. Then, in answer to the offer, "Why yes, I'd love some, thank you!" Her eyes sparked at the thought of improved personality possible from her friend. Sammy stood straight up, careful not to touch either of the cushions adjacent to that on which she has been sitting. Rhonda reminded her of the friend from youth that had given her this nickname, "Sammy" which had managed to follow her into these later years. Later years that had not gone as planned but were not as sour as some of those OTHER PEOPLE. A quick mental flash of her friend Sudie and the bad luck updates on other high school classmates caused her head to drop slightly and shake in disappointment at the outcomes of so many hopeful lives. It could be easy to resent having given permission for this interrogation. Rather than preempt the situation, she smiled again and went for the coffee thinking, "He may not miss two scoops." He had some, though not her brand, in the low cabinet. With so much time before her own finance would begin again, she felt as if it were necessary to be cautious in her liberties. These were all his things. The relationship, what remained of it, had been weathered by invasions by other men and women, lack of monies and the uncertainty of where the future would take either of them. Friends had died or moved away from their social group, work and club buddies had faded to what they considered to be greener pastures. Most familiar couples or individuals who remained were no longer familiar, but strangers in their new personalities. The change in status had created entirely new animals of them all, including this man the courts called her husband. In this state of mind, she was even a stranger to herself. As she re entered the room, she chucked out loud and mumbled to her guest, "Ten years kind of made us all into an ALIEN NATION huh?" She passed a mug to Rhonda, stepped over to the living room window and moved the curtain slightly, just enough to peek outside at the empty street just beyond. Satisfied, she returned to the sofa and sat ridgedly, being mindful of her coffee; careful not to spill it on his couch. "I guess we just didn't know where to stop all this, huh?" She looked back at Rhonda. This friend-guest was somewhat of a libber. She believed in assertiveness in women and pulling her fair share of work, and being paid an equal amount of money for her work accomplished. Rhonda had spoken often and demonstrated her determination toward becoming a source to be reckoned with in the occupation she had chosen. Sammy had known her in her ascent from that boring state job and had been a sounding board in the decision to make the that career change. The change from a non gender based job to one considered to be man's domain was a statement and a slap to many men's egos and masculinity. The had not considered it to be an affront to manhood for the woman to pursue what she considered to be a professional, necessary and satisfying career, one that represented a dream of a lifetime. With her head screwed on right, as far as they were concerned, Rhonda had made the step and was now riding the crest of a tsunami herself. She wasn't lucky enough to have a husband to run back to when or if things fell. This made her think back to Sudie again; who would have thought that could have ever happened in a thousand years.

"Did you burn your bra?" Rhonda looked up at this peculiar question. It was a one hundred eighty degree change in conversation. "Well, not exactly. I kind of supported the other girls burning theirs. I needed mine. But that is a good note to put in here." They laughed at the ludicrous angles people were willing to take with pushing principles and issues. "I guess what we really need to get down to is the question of where we are really going with all of this." After a short pause, she added, "You were one solid foundation in what we local folk consider a gender struggle. Your early determination, like so many other women, who had to for one reason or other, tote your own bale." Sammy stared at her. Continuing, Rhonda reviewed the onset of women in the workplace and the original debates between men and women, media included; of where their place actually was. Sammy stopped her short at the issue of place in a relationship. "Do you think there ever really was a PLACE for women in the world? I mean, with men writing everything way back in history, women being the ones to be seen and not heard; where were we really supposed to start of stop? Were we really just supposed to let family crumble without a man around? Weaker sex? Maybe we just got beside ourselves with actually living, huh?" "I didn't really ever consider just doing nuthin. My children would have been hungry. I should say hungrier, because sometimes it got pretty close to being nothing around to eat short of what I could borrow. And I don't mean the money either. They, family included, will loan food before they turn loose of their money. I wonder what would have happened if I just hadn't done anything. I couldn't not take a man's job... if that's who was supposed to have it, just because it was labeled man's job in somebody's mind. It was easier for me to work that job than to wait or go look for some man to work it for me. After all, when your stomach growls and you can't hear it for three or four other stomachs growling around you, who the heck's got time to go courtin'?" She paused for a breath of air then continued, "The way I see it, they just planned on us failing. It was their jobs that paid money, and their jobs that were available, they weren't working and they weren't willing to stay home or to help somebody else's. Something had to happen. I worked some man's job regardless of how heavy the pieces were or how hard it... the job was even if it made him angry. It just so happened there was a lot of hims out there, and a lot of women working their jobs. But the children ate, and had roof over their heads, clothes to wear and health insurance for their bare bottom times. It wasn't the way it should have been but who can tell the man that had the family in the first place, what's going wrong? You can't win... might as well burn your bra and your girdle and just let it all hang our because eventually you end up in the street or stuck back in a mold or on a string and wondering, like him, where you're headed." By the close of her statement she had slipped back into that blank stare. Sammy was one of the originals, after her mother's wave of women had taken a passive step toward carrying the flag of brevity, wearing pants with or without the cover of a dress... but bold none the less. Making decisions and moves to buying their own homes with or without the presence of a husband and dictating change to policy and procedures once established by the more respected men above her. This movement was not about race or religion, wasn't about gender issues but about basic survival of a family unit after its abandonment by the male in the family. Sammy's generation had been the ones to actually work the man's job respectively harder, in the physical aspect. They were forced into the decision making role by the disappearance of their men for one reason or another. This made them become a force to be reckoned with or avoided. They were avoided on most levels. When Rhonda's group came along with a vengeance born of frustration from trying to make the traditional family unit a revived and operable machine, coupled with the excitement of personal and group challenge, the cause was born and the Equal Rights Amendment became a banner which would reach into the homes of every involved or uninvolved man and woman, but would hit most of them if not all of them in their crotch. It became a sex battle over and aside from gender. This commingled with the age old issues of race and religion flavored with issues of and about various interspersed disabilities would cause the defeat of a sleeping giant and if not careful, his neighbors.

With five or six pages for her story, Rhonda turned her thoughts to her own future, "You know, I haven't met anyone lately but I really would have liked a relationship before I died. You think I.. I.. I...," she stumbled to get the next words out, "Sammy, do you think there are any men left out there?" The older woman looked at her with furrows newly attached to her forehead... "Girl... have you missed this whole issue?" Don't you see what my life is looking like? are you crazy?" She quickly added, "...and don't get married." You'll end up dead, homeless or hopeless ... or something, somewhere by yourself! It ain't even worth it." With a glazed look in her eyes, Rhonda responded with, "I'll keep all of this in mind, you can bank on that. It just gets lonely in restaurants and on all these outings by myself. You'd think there would be at least one male to share some kind of time with. I guess they all went to the third world someplace. Maybe that's the only place to get a man. If I go there shopping, I'll make even more enemies among the men I don't even know or get supported by. Strange, isn't it?" Rhonda was slipping more into her own blank stare now. "I wonder if I join the Peace Corps would I find someone I'll like? If not, there probably be lots of non principled, moral less people to run a wanton havoc filled lifestyle, just like we used to have, huh?" She continued, "Just like it used to be. You think they know about ERA over there?" She stood to let her host show her to the door. It was getting close to time for the husband to return. Promising to give her a copy of the finished story, she stepped out. Then, just before stepping off the porch, she turned back to Sammy, "It's kind of like a tennis game, huh? You're the ball... the star of the game. You want to be in it but you just keep getting hit by the racket." She stepped down and sauntered over to her car. As she pulled out of the driveway, Sammy locked the screen door and closed the heavy wooden front door turning the lock on the handle. She sat back on the sofa with her mug to wait for his arrival and decisions of what they would eat. The blank stare on her face returned. After twenty plus years of playing hard core independent, she wasn't sure of what the proper gender role or behavior was. The husband was coming back home.

"That was a wonderful introduction we put together on my last visit with you." The writer adjusted herself and readied her hand to lift the mug of coffee while sizing up the carrot cake placed on the saucer amid the tray beside it. That was a wonderful pre study that really explained your situation but not your choice for life's career trail. Let's include a little more of "you" in your story. The writer sat back, flipped the recorder on and lifted her cup of coffee as the narrator began to speak.

SO.... =================

I know I was born in Alabama... Jefferson County, rural Moundville. My father was a sharecropper, who after determining he did not want his children to grow up picking cotton, moved his family to what was called Bessemer, Alabama's "BRICKYARD." That was a little community in Bessemer, so named because of the brick manufacturing plant that provided an anchor for the tax base. We stayed there until he decided to buy land and build his own house... on "Paul Hill." Paul Hill was made a move after several relocating efforts to find work... a gainful income to support his family.

He built that home near the top of that hill... a very steep hill at Avenue C... 3215 Avenue C. So steep was that hill that his manual transmission Ford Truck would have to be brake ridden down to actually reach bottom without crashing. We learned to drive on that truck. Non traditional manual transmission - but we were the 1st on the Hill to have many things. A television, a garage that he closed in to create a movie theatre" using a movie projector and glass cased window to prevent intrusions. He installed bench seats and my older sister, Annie, showed the film. Movie reels were rented from the rental house and snacks... popcorn, and candies, were bought to sell to all our guests for nickles to a quarter per show.

Before we were ever considered and before my dad got the job working the yard at the Pullman Plant, he worked as a Red Cap or Porter on Burlington Railways North and South. He was also a traveling minster - preaching as guest speaker at all the neighboring community minister churches. We traveled with him and had to teach Sunday School classes. We were honest to goodness involved Christian minister's children. At Schloss Hill we walked eight or more blocks to school and back. A terrible trek for children, not for the distance, but for the angles of the hill to low mount area. That made it longer of a walk than it should have been. By my recollection of situations at school, the sharpener for pencils was the worst of challenges because it would chew away the #2 pencil before it could be sued for any work to accomplish a day's schoolwork. A classmate borrowed my pencil to use and put it to the sharpener so that it was useless. For that, I stuck her with it at the end of our discussion in disagreement. The "sticking" I did resulted in me being sent to the principal's office. I was made to sit in the offie for one lunch period, and given a correction comment to, " ...never do that again. It could cause lead poisoning to a classmate." That was the end of it. Luci Belle was just that, an instigator and bully for anything from school supplies to snack foods and money. Lucky for me I had a big brother. Tom solved most of my problems where Luci Belle and the like were an issue. After that, time flew quickly - Wenonah High School became our focus for the next four years. From home on Paul Hill, our bus took us through the Lipscomb section of town. It was a daily conflict... 1950's turmoil of thrown bottles, bricks and rocks but we made it through to prom night. Prom saw me with a date... Charles Cross, and my friend, Lillian Davis and her date. Lillian lived near our home and Charles... a younger, lower classed student, by two grades or less; lived on the other side of town. Our prom dresses were handmade, I made my own and my friend, Lillian, made her own; while most prom dresses were bought... paid for by hard working parents. Mine was of green organdy. We were limo service to and from but sometime during ... I became pregnant with my oldest child. After graduation, I began study at a local trade school, pregnant with child in 1954. I took the basic classes for nursing but the family moved to Indiana before I could finish studies. We moved to my older sister's home, an apartment on Leavitt in Chicago; and back to Bessemer still trying to find income from working. My sister sent me to work to earn my own living, traveling on Chicago's buses, pregnant. That job was B Bindery, putting covers on books. It was something to do, just to earn money enough to pay my sister for being at her apartment. When she pushed me off to befriend a neighbor girl, I grew dissatisfied with her controlling efforts and left for home. I moved back to Bessemer, Alabama after giving birth to the first child at Cook County Hospital. Back in Alabama, I met another fella, he had a routine of following me around from bus stop to bus stop and on walks to and from errands... outings to and from the skating rink and other neighborhood activities. He became the father of my second child. He was the son of a local minister who was from a different area than my own father. The two clergymen conferred on his marrying me, and I refused. I preferred to carry the child to term, and wait for someone who could care about me in a real relationship. Soon after the child was born, our family left Paul HIll. We left the friends and neighbors behind and moved back to where the older sister of Chicago had moved with a new husband of her own. A new, dark skinned husband of the same help given given back to her at the Leavitt apartment. She had moved to Robbins, Illinois. The family move to my sister's house on Utica Street in Robbins, was where I got pregnant again. I ended up in the car with a man who, by today's standards, would be labeled a "stalker." My mother suggested I talk to the fell and not be so haughty, and I did. I was raped for that "give in." Raped in a time when abortion was less heard of by respectable people. That third baby born without a married name being added to my existence threw me into depression. Not until I was escorted to a new job making lamp shades at a Chicago lamp shade factory, did I perk up. My older sister, Annie, hosted me to yet another job... a rubber mold making factory where rubber molds for car hoods and glove compartments were made on contract. We were laid off, but soon rehired in the same area at Howard Foundry where I worked for eight years, making plane parts using pink molds poured for any number of vehicle pieces using heavy injection mold machinery to be assembled and or remade from remelt scrap mold and material. Now and then we had to solder parts together that we made but for the biggest part, what we manufactured was the permanent part, packed and shipped out. As foundry workers, we were free to join the union and credit union. Those gave me friends to socialize with and co-workers with the same agenda. The union president, Joe, was son-in-law to my best friend Ceola.

Searchalee, a girlfriend of Willie Ester before I got him as a fancy... "hot trotting and switchy mama" personality as she was, lost him to me. He was the father of my next borns... fraternal twins; and my first husband.

The house on "C" Street had an outhouse near the alley. In that alley, word had it that a woman had been killed back there not far from our home. Also, at that far end was a house my father had built for my second oldest sister and her husband, James. My youngest sister, Rita, and I were going together, out to that outhouse using the toilet at night.

GHOST TALES

Ghost tales with neighbor kids, Sarah, her sister and I went walking to the store for my father, going the route he insisted... thru that back alley. On the way home, as soon as we approached the playground area into the dark, another neighbor girl jumped out from the shadows covered with a sheet.. booing and hooing... sending us running so hard that we ran over each other. two men walking behind us saw them and questioned us of what we were doing running so, 'til we fell into the dark - her scratching at the dirt to get away but getting no place; praying, " Lord don't let it get me here... don't let it." The men interrupted the ghost girls and my friend swore never to walk the dark with me again.

We moved with everyone in the family, this time to Markham, Illinois before the birth of my third child. My brother returned from the U. S. Army dragging duffle bags and a wife. I got married a few years after the birth of my third child to Willie Ester Jackson. My eleder sister, Anne, left the small schck in Robbins to stay with everyone else; soon leaving to buy her own house on Paulina Street in Markham. Older sister, hattie and her husband, James Burton had moved to markham with the rest of us; and stayed at my mother and father's house in one bedroom like the rest of us - all children, my three and second older sister's four - in the basement until they each bought homes of their own.

I got pregnant by Willie Ester after going out after work with he and other co workers... Ester, a part of the crowd of guys at work competing for "notches" in persuit of the newest or youngest women, "women chasing." Chased me into his catch. Other than me, the options with in the group working the wax injection department, Anne... my sister, Michiko... a woman from Japan; and a friend of mine also working the mold making machine. An older black woman, Sadie, who lived out on Drexel in one of the nicer large courtway apartments would have been the only other choice. Of those, I took his attention. Ceola, tall, tan and slender... but older, and married to Henry, one of the other co-workers. Henry worked at CTA. He died in the early 1970's. Our Tate had gone. Union meetings

(===>International Molders and Foundry Workers Union of North America was an affiliated trade union of the AFL-CIO. The union traced its roots back to the formation of the Iron Molders' Union of North America, established in 1859 to represent craftsmen who cast wrought iron metal products. It is now part of the GMP International Union.) Union Meetings became our social cause. A contained group which spoke up for supported demands of the workers in heated debates alongside Joe, President of our union group. After the development of our demands and presentation to the company officers, we gave ourselves ample social hours... meeting nights out at any of the local bars between west Chicago and 166th and Wood Street in Markham, Illinois. Eventually, I ended up pregnant and married to Willie, the most persistent of those goading my attention. My working the same factory, a different shift, gave me earlier departure from work and return time to pick him up from the job. We lived with my mother and father in their newly constructed four bedroom house in Kingston Green's Markham until his children were born... marrying several months before the babies scheduled birth date' and were surprised that there were actually twins. Now instead of the four already bargained for acceptance by my mother and father, there were five to feed, house and clothe and live under their roof. Fraternal twins were born in November on Thanksgiving Day and became the painful joke of "Holiday Turkeys" on the way. The announcement that twins were coming, based on the ultrasound, of the water already to have broken... there was no going back.

Twins were delivered on Thanksgiving day near dinner hour after hours of grueling labor pains and contractions. It was the joke of the decade and the cause for me diving into depression. We moved into my mother's home out of his 13th and Michigan Avenue apartment where he lived with his brother, Woodrow. While off from work for child delivery and pregnancy, I picked him up from the foundry after a wait time at my sister Anne's. Anne lived in Chicago where her manfriend, Gilbert Horton kept time and attention with her. He lived and worked in Chicago where he, his mother and sister and the sister's child lived with him. Gil claimed to have originally been from Cuba, but long in the United States and Chicago. Ceola lived only five blocks from the foundry, so I began to wait for his off hour while waiting at my friend's home. My hanging out with Ceola caused conflict that never died out. With her, I was often at local clubs, card playing amid smokers and drinkers. We didn't play, but the hanging out was more than he appreciated - we began having daily fist fights that eventually split us apart. By 1965, after his having having tried moving me and my five children out to an apartment on Goethe Street in Chicago for a few weeks and soon after to another basement apartment on South Indiana.. down the street from my sister's greystone apartment building... and finally into Drexel's Courtyard Apartments once, twice and three times before getting a conclusive agreement that we were not going to continue our marriage. We separated, that decision sending me home with the first three of my children and all my clothing string tied to the top of his yellow Bonneville... with him driving. Half of them were strewn along the way for his rushed speed on Highway I-57 and the Boulevard. It was as if he could not get me gone fast enough. At Markham, he dropped us out... the original three children, and me; without much said other than to my dad... who had the last word. "You won't be swinging on my child here at my house, not while I'm alive." Willie got back into his yellow Bonne and left. He and his friends on the other side of our apartment wall... there was a family of people who lived in an apartment seemingly built into the side of our large apartment, tenement style. It hadn't mattered, I liked the younger woman, Penny who was closer to my age, and the others were rampant card players and drinking friends that kept him home instead of in the streets. Being back with my own family created a more comfortable atmosphere free from being choke holed and bent to glasses of whisky or milk and rum. The only thing of force within my parents home was God and the King James Bible. It wasn't until later, after inventorying the things thrown from the hood of his car into my parents driveway and at the back porch, did I realize that most of my Rothschilds outfits were either gone or the co ordinating pieces missing. There was nothing to be worn that was not a mix and match selection. The children's clothing... clothes of my older three, were missing from the bunch. Thinking about the way things had developed, escalating into fist fight.. him pummeling me like the latest boxing match determined to be the man who came out of the ring with the heaviest belt toting his name. It was my wonder that my thre came to my side to pull him off each time. With his fighting that began at home.. usually in the kitchen just inside the entryway out of the eyesight of those in the apartment above ours and the neighbors to either side. Those fights left me with many black eyes and contusions worthy of doctor's attention. My three rescued far one to many times.. once, as recalled later and often, finding the youngest wrapped around his leg and the older two swinging a broomstick or having lept upon his back amid flying clenched fists. It found many a day's grocery spilled to the floor in waste for his eagerness at getting a point across and avenging the added insult of these "yalla children of mine" wasting his money and life. He was always going to take his and leave.

.....................

After the break up and after having the children, I don't remember working much until landing a job at Tinley Park Mental Health Hospital as a Mental Health Technician. It was then called a "PSYCHIATRIC AIDE" and the beginning level did not pay much with annual salaries averaging between $12-15,000. Until then, I must have been on welfare and recovering from my marriage. Psychiatric aides commonly work in hospitals, psychiatric facilities, substance abuse centers, and mental health facilities. Sometimes, working with psychiatric patients can be unpleasant or scary because some people suffer from mental illnesses that make them violent, mean, or uncooperative. It can take a lot of practice and training to learn how to keep yourself, co-workers and the patients safe in such situations. Because care facilities are open around the clock, psychiatric aides often have to work on nights, weekends, and holidays. Most people in this occupation work full time, but part time positions are also available.

Working at the State of Illinois job brought an entirely different classification of "working" to my personal history. A block test put on by the state on facility grounds found me in favor. I got an "A" grade and was one of many hired after an on site immediate interview. I received a letter in the mail that I could start on a given date. I was hired to work the third shift in 1965 and worked three years before being hired to the United States Post Office as a postal carrier... a much better paying job.

I worked the round bulding on a women's ward for the mentally ill. Women in or with situations that seemed to be larger than life. There was Mary Black, a recluse who ate paper torn from books or napkins and magazines. She hung herself a year or so after I began working there. She wasn't on my ward and not my responsibility by assignment, but in my area. S was a youngins 20 to 25 year old caucasian who had gone home on a home visit. The family brought her back and she went back to her usual reclusive act of tearing paper and eating it unnoticed by many. Near meal time, when everyone else was being called for dinner, she failed to show up. I don't remember who found her, but she had hung herself from a cord on the window blinds in the sitting/social area. It created quite a disturbance among employees and enough dis arrangement. After seeing that and after having been sent to work the men's worad, one patient was from our community... the son of an apartment owner near where my daughter later moved. The boy had gone loco in the neighborhood and his parents had hom put into the institution. He kept complaining that he "could not sleep." He would not go to be and kept banging his bed and the wall in his room. The ward nurse mediacted him to get him calmed down. Another patient, back on the women's ward, adapted the name "Xmas" from the employees, because she tied colorful ribbons on her hair and clothes. She was one of my favorites. She was part of an entertaining group of the women who liked to sing and even play tunes on the facility piano. My time and paranoia ended with a letter response to an application to work a postal worker's role. I was hired to work the Harvey area as a mail carrier.

The hardest part of that new job was learning to sort mail in the easiest carry/deliver fashion. Once a permanent route was issued it became a whiz of a job, easier and shorter time at the job. I didn't have much delay in the neighborhood to deliver by close of day. I was in by 4 or 4:30 at latest. When I injured my shoulder... a muscle tore under the weight of packages and letters in the mailbag, I was given worker's compensation until it healed from the operation and was right back out there. When a lipoma formed from the tear, I was scheduled for an operation to have it removed. I didn't have an expansive route to carry.. as mail delivery routes go, but the amount of package and magapaper mail makes a difference. Vail to Hoyne and 150th Street to 147th Street was my delivery area; my break point being a Shell Gas Station at the end of my route. I stopped for a breather to check status and reassemble outgoing mail into my bag, then go in to the post office to prep for the next day. While my shoulder was healing, my oldest daughter and her husband were given permission to "assist" as temporary helpers .. off payroll, on a temporary basis. It was to keep the route from failing. They delivered until I was given approval to lateral slide to an in office job. I gave up the route to work inside sorting mail; wouldn't have given me a longer break with helpers doing my job. My arm healed from the operation and to avoid the cold of winter again, I applied for work at a local factory.p

Allis-Chalmers was suggested to me by someone along my route. They took me in to apply and to introduce me to administrators there, I got the job soon after. My references for having worked previous factory positions, though not the same type experience, won me favor for being hired back into manufacturing. Every instance from the Lamp manufacturing company in Chicago to the B Bindery and Howard Foundry bought me a job as a "chip handler'. It was low on their totem pole but it was a "foot in the door." The position required clearing away the debris from manufacturers and moving skids and boxes unpacked of incoming supplies. John, the area supervisor personally showed me what it would take to handle the job. Chip handlers walked the assembly line to remove whatever was tossed aside by worker's as the worked. There were usually totally oversized ... over sized for having contained parts of farming implements, mowers and other large vehicles.

There was help, at times. A fellow working the fork lift, Irwin, would get off his vehicle to move any large oversized item for me. Several others, Sidney, Wesley and Bobby Gunn would help as well, doing what the could to make the job "do able." From the assembly line to the quality assurance section, the chip handler's area had to be kept detail clean. the promotion that paid enough to draw the prior worker was my way into the best paying job I'd ever had. From there, I was moved to to tube bending, making water and oil lines for farm tractors and riding work equipment. The micrometer and protractor and .. I can't forget the depth micrometer, all had to be mastered to get to and keep that position. The equipment was studied at night once I got off from work and with help from a supervisor for a time.

My next spot was a big thanks to Carl Golden, who worked a large lathe on the far end of the plant. After bidding on a job never experienced, they gave it to me. I didn't know a thing about it but they put me on the job. Golden set the machine up and I cleaned and checked the parts being made. After learning that position fairly well, I was given a "brazier" welding department position making and attaching the oil filtering elements o the pipe that connected to the fuel line. Seniority was the evil in our work area. The evil that cost me my brazing job. The "T Level Micrometer" and clamp skills I gained along the way were lost to a more senior co worker. A husband and wife team, Bernie Humaninsky found a spot for his wife to fit her arthritis circumstances. It was one of the only jobs she could do (him pre working her job before she her workday began) with crumpled fingers and rheumatoid arthritis feet. He preworked her job totals so that she needed only last through eight hours of a work shift. After being bumped for that position and a 12 1/2 year employment history at Allis Chalmers, I was laid off. The women were the first to go. Secretary, Linda, and another were relocated to Louisiana where family embraced their move and helped them get new jobs in that are. Sarah, also an office worker, got a job after trying to do seamstress work freelance. Vera got a job as a Streets and Sanitation driver in Chicago. I got a state license to be a child home day care provider and that carried me to retirement age... for eight years. The requirements for today's care providers are more rigorous in regard to accomplish. I applied for a business number and had my home approved by a state agent assigned to verify location and safety of household environment. I got a small amount of equipment and children appeared. Children of my two daughters classmates and of my grand daughter's classmates, neighbors and prior co workers. My day care ran eight years before I quit and formally retired.

A co worker I met and married while working at Allis Chalmers had left in search of new female companionship not long after I was laid off from the factory. He moved out of my house and left to "renew his manly excitement" with his companions and irreconcilable differences we outgrew each other. I became a "built in babysitter" for my younger daughter, Wilhemina, who had returned from her U.S. Army enlistment and short life with an army companion.. Kevin Townsend. Her return from Germany in the mid 1980's and return to hometown in about 1984 with children by that friend... left him in his hometown area, Chester, Pennsylvania. My grand daughter, Juanita Marie, had been sent back to me as a temporary guardian after a household disturbance in Southfield, Michigan; and remained from April 1988... at seventeen years of age. I helped her to get re enrolled in high school where her mother, my eldest daughter... the 1st child... had fled our hometown area to avoid Juanita being expelled as far back as 1985. That first attempt at 1985 had tried Hammond, Indiana as a solution for Juanita completing high school and a new environment, but to no resolve. Their August 1987 move to Michigan was an attempt at rescuing that same granddaughter from having gotten pregnant by her classmate at Hammond Highschool. The boy's Christian clergy father rebelled about the pregnancy and threatened to do harm to my grand daughter. That coupled with threats by neighborhood kids sent my daughter on a move to "rescue her dad" who claimed to need help with his Real Estate business and building company. She was studying for her license at real estate. While saving that daughter. It seemed to be a "win win " situation; I supported the move as did my older sister. We both recommended the move to her father's home as the best option. Never the less, I was babysitting for my own children. Children who were pre teens and teen age. When my eldest daughter joined the National Guard in 1984, I had signed as guardian according to the "by law" provision for dependents on the military documents. I signed because her own husband had left her, as well, "going to find his own family." I was given temporary guardian for signature rights over my grandson, Jules, but he was attending a state school for disabled children in Jacksonville, Illinois. He was declared hearing impaired by medical professionals at Michael Reese and Mercy Hospitals after about with meningitis just before his third birthday. The school district assigned him to a program for deaf and hearing impaired to start elementary school. That program had seen him to pre teen years and he was now attending junior high school full immersion at the state school for the deaf. It was not much to be guardian for him and with money from my daughter in payment for agreeing to be guardian of her two children, it wasn't much to complain about. He was in Michigan with his mother, only her daughter had returned.

It helped me a little when my younger daughter purchased a mobile home from her older cousin with the help of her dad before he died in September of 1987 at a local suburban hospital. The cousin's father had bought her and her two sons the trailer home back in the mid 1970's. And now my daughter bought it from her to house herself and her own two sons in the mid 1980's with money from her father. She later leased it to my oldest daughter's daughter to house her four sons in the 1990's. When my daughter moved into it, I was left with only that teenage grand daughter in our attempt at helping her finish high school. She moved out prior to graduation to live with her aunt Bianca and her father, Francisco... better known as Frank, by locals. They were living in the home left to them by their deceased mother.. Vivian Garcia, who, herself had been separated from her husband and died while completing the rearing of her own children. My grandaughter left their home and went to her ex stepfather's residence in St Charles, Illinois. There she took up living with him and his intended wife, voiding the guardianship papers set by her mother. Meanwhile, my youngest son returned from his U.S. Marine Corps enlistment and was reorganizing his life to a civilian lifestyle. He met locals in our hometown area and had a child whom he named Rosie. The baby's mother, Gwen Charles, was a night club friend, met when my son, his twin sister... my youngest daughter, and my eldest son were out several evenings for entertainment. My eldest son who had completed his two tours in the U.S. Marines several years prior, was reorganizing his life after military as well; suspended between continuing Manpower Temporary employer's work calls or re entering the military on his original quest for special forces. Special Forces would have been his natural calling... his natural personality. Rosie's mother and my son eventually got together and considered a relationship and child rearing. My eldest son, long returned after his enlistment into the U.S. Marines and after having fathered his only child... Michael, by a high school football team rival, met his own companion - Mary, and stayed together with her for twelve years and longer before falling ill and returning to me. My second eldest son moved to Michigan after leaving New Orleans, where he'd gone for his U.S. Navy Reserve enlistment after Hawaii basic or Individual training, and stayed with a new lady friend - Emma; and worked with a construction group at the referral of his sister... my oldest daughter, Carmen. Carmen got remarried in 1989 and sent her son to college after his high school graduation. I was back to just the home day care and did well until I decided to cancel my license. My daughter and I went to downtown Chicago and filed closure for referrals to my licensed business and my affiliation with the food program. With my husband gone and the daycare dissolved... me at still not 65 years of age to file formal retirement, I listed my home for sale. Repairs from a fire that destroyed the kitchen and smoked up the furnishings accumulated over time with my husband; was finally clearing through. During the wait, I stayed a night with my sister, then at my niece... Christine's home with her and the six children from her life long marriage. I listed my house and caught a buyer waiting for closing. My husband had leased his own home and allowed me to stay at his place until the finalization of the sale. I managed to sell my first home and walked out free from being straddled and ridden by mortgage and utilities tied to my name. I escaped but fell back into ownership by partial owner with my younger daughter whose husband, Anthony, could not and would not venture into home ownership after the paperwork was begun and after having talked me out of my home and her into this new address where she now needed his help with money for closing and down payment. We ended up in a house on Circle Drive... our same hometown, my name back on a house as second to my daughter. My money falling back into her needs, instead of my own enjoyment. The money from sales of my home bought her house. Her husband being as estranged as my own in the few years they had been wed to each other since 1991... met while out partying, but not "...reliable enough to stay to pay the bills." Since that marriage, he had drifted in and out of my 1st home to "visit" her; bringing "his children" by a lady friend aged about to be born to about to be four years old.Before the purchase of the house on Circle Drive, my oldest daughter had referred the two of them for a townhouse apartment owned by her old landlord... Richard Sykes. They were given a two bedroom, moved in and left before the year concluded. He had caused an accident wrecking her car and injuring one of her sons calling for medical bills and vehicle repair bills and no transportation to and from work. She had ended up on welfare until landing a job with Illinois EPA where she helped him to a job as soon as she could. At any rate, I was back to living with my children, this time living in as my daughter's help and companion instead of with my own husband. I never heard my older daughter say her husband was killed... like I barely heard her say she'd married him. She moved back from Michigan, still lame from an accident in the Illinois National Guard. The truck she was passenger in had flipped over and killed the army man driving; and nearly killed her, but she had not moved home from Michigan then. She had only just relocated there.. had been there living for only one month. She stayed away, she and her son. Stayed trying to finish a college degree and hold to a career in Real Estate. Stayed and got involved with some old man and other men in construction the same construction where she called her brother to come work. They made her "part owner" of the company and allowed her to run the bids and books. The old man.. a senior partner, drew jobs that required little or no bid from people he knew from his lifetime in the University of Michigan population. The others touted their own bravado with getting jobs through people they knew through friends and children. When she sent her son off to college after his graduation from Highschool in Ann Arbor, he took black parent and black student union scholarships with him. He was given a $10,000 scholarship by the university he was accepted to in New York and he was given disability income for his hearing handicap by the State of Michigan at his 18th birthday. We went to visit his upstate New York campus.. just past Niagara Falls and I met his "sweetheart".. Amanda, a fellow university student he claimed to maybe be marrying... if things went right. Some time later, I heard she was pregnant but had chosen to abort the pregnancy. He returned home in 1993 to his mother in Ann Arbor... with a broken wrist "from playing basketball" after the abortion clinic had been attacked, during their visit, by picketers.

I did not hear that my daughter's husband was dead until I asked her one day, years later, "When are we going to meet him." She walked past me saying over her shoulder," he's dead." He'd been dead all of four or five years. I asked her where in Africa he was from. I'd heard her talking about an African. She passed by saying, "It was Lebanon ...Hamzi was from Lebanon mom." I had never noticed. There was so much going on in so little time... and then my younger daughter died. It was 1999... near about Independence Day.

NOTES:

UNION... AFL-CIO/

HOWARD FOUNDRY Co., Inc affiliations 1961-1963 In December of 1961, at a pre-inaugural party, Bobby Baker and Vice President Johnson had met with Levenson and mobster Benny Sigelbaum and Johnson's neighbor, lobbyist Fred Black and formed the Serve-U-Corporation, which would provide vending machines for companies working on federally granted programs. The machines were manufactured by a Chicago-based corporation secretly owned by Tony Accardo, Paul Ricca, Gus Alex and Sam Giancana and others.

Baker's connection to the Serve-U-Corporation is what caused his life to come tumbling down in October of 1963 when he was forced to resign his senate post after a vending machine contractor named Baker in a civil suit as the person who strong-armed them out of defense contractors' plant when they refused to kick back enough money.(AmericanMafia.com/Rick Porrello) see: employee retirement monies

---------------

Women's Work Equality

Like what you read? Send me a gift by tip to help contribute to my next adventure!