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Letter: 5

February 11, 1994

      DEAR JEFF, I thought of you when I read the enclosed article about the fast food workers. You might want to try to get on with McDonald's again. It would help your folks to know that you have some spending money of your own. I have read articles like this before and they have all mentioned the fact that a lot of people with very good jobs started at minimum wage and worked up. Even if a person doesn't stay on and work their way up, they have a little money anyway. While minimum wage isn't enough to make a living, it can help you a lot when you are living at home and don't have to pay for housing, etc.

      People get tired of hearing old people say "when I was a kid" and then relate a story about the old days, but here goes anyway. I worked for my brother-in-law on a ranch for 50 cents a day from 7 AM to noon and from 1:00 PM to 6 PM six days a week. For some reason the time from 5 AM until breakfast feeding and harnessing horses was not considered part of the work day. On Sundays off, he still expected me to freeze the ice cream. Instead I jumped on a saddle horse and went over to Sand Creek to go swimming and have a bath. He asked me where I was when he was freezing the ice cream, and I told him I was swimming and if he didn't think I deserved any ice cream I could skip it. I got the ice cream anyway and I got my bath once a week whether I needed it or not.

      One year when I was living at home and not in school I worked for dad in their machine repair shop. I got $5 per week—a great improvement. The fall before there had been an early freeze and a lot of the farmers' tractor radiators got frozen up and needed repairing. The unexpected freeze caught them unaware and they hadn't drained their radiators in time. They didn't put antifreeze in tractor radiators in those days. My cousin, Ralph Howard and I tested the tubes and put repair tubes in all the leaky tubes. My dad soldered them in the radiators.

      Another very good job I had was when I went to Yakima, Washington and picked , pears, prunes and apples. I got 3 cents per 40-pound box. If I worked very hard six long days a week, I could clear $20. 1 also got to eat all the fruit I wanted. I would eat the biggest and reddest Jonathon apples.When I picked prunes and ate too many, you know what happened. I left home with $25 and came home with $100 which was considered a big financial success.

      Another great job I had was in Dunbar, West Virginia across the Kanawha River from South Charleston. On this job I got 35 cents per hour dipping enamelware. If I worked to beat hell, the piece work rate would exceed the 35 cents per hour which didn't happen often but it kept us working hard trying to get more. I can't say these experiences made me a success but at least I did learn to work. It would be quite a comfort to your family to know you have some money coming in.

      I hope you are all enjoying the new home.

      With love,

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