My Career Path, Continued

There wasn't much to do in Louisiana and I didn't have a lawn mower so I couldn't go around cutting grass. Back in those days there weren't any aluminum cans. Everything came in bottles, and they were recycled. When you bought a bottle of pop you were charged any where from 2 to 5 cents deposit. Most people were too busy I guess to take them back to the store and like the aluminum cans of today people would just throw them out the car window. That's where I come in. I found another use from my wagon of many colors. I would tie it to the back of my bike. Then I would hit the road picking up bottles as I went, by the time I got to the store I had enough for a couple of dollars.
Then my folks got the idea to move out into the country, twenty miles from town. We lived on a farm with cows, horses, chickens, rabbits, and homing pigeons. The rabbits and pigeons were mine. My buddy who lived in town gave me a few of his birds when we moved. I had two beautiful pure white fantail pigeons. By the time we left, we never stayed any where more than a couple of years, there were over 180 birds in my flock. I started out with two rabbits and before I knew it I had twenty of them. I didn't know how fast they would multiply. My dad worked at the mess hall on base. He was a cook for the Army and he would bring home these big boxes that the eggs came in. I would fill those up with cow dung and sell them on the side of the road going into town along with the rabbits. I would charge $5 per box or rabbit.
In the summer my teacher, Mr. Jetters had a tractor and a hay baler. He would go around to the local farms and cut their hay and bale it. The cutter would cut the hay and pile it in the center of the tractor in a neat row. Then after it dried he would come around with the baler attached and scoop it up and bale it into a three', 12” by 12” bale. The tractor didn't do so hot on corners, that's where I come again. He would pay me to go around to all the corners and rake them into a pile for the baler. When that was all done we would throw these bales weighing about 60 pounds onto a flat-bed trailer and haul them up to the barn and stack them inside. One cutting would fill this huge barn they had.

My Career Path, Continued, background

Let see, where was I? Oh, yeah, making things up. I became quit the little liar, and of course you would believe me. Cause how could a little kid make all this up. And every week people would ask me if we had heard anything yet. Each week I would say, “No not this week.”

Then the unthinkable happened, my mother kept saying that she was through with my father and she would never go back to him. Well, she lied. He showed up on our door step with bags in hand and drunk. My mom took him in, got me and the kids dressed and told me to take them out and not come back for a few hours. This was in the winter. When I did come back everything was fine, we were going to move to Louisiana with my dad. No body asked me what I wanted, just that's it.

I used to do anything to be with my dad. One time my mother made him come out and play catch with me. I had been asking him for a while to play with me, he kept saying sometime but not now. Well, when my mom made him play with me he would throw the ball as hard as he could. Every time it would hit my hand it would burn throw the glove. And when I threw it back to him he would yell that I was throwing like a girl. I mean, who would want to do that again. One time we sat up all night watching a Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon. He had his gallon of whiskey and cigars, and I had Royal Crown pop and tater chips. We made some Jiffy Pop and we made fun of the guests they had on.

After we got there my parents bought a car. My mom had the learn how and get her driver's license when we were going to the base to get the food at the commissary on the Navy base. So they bought this used car. This is the first beating I remember my father giving me. I has wrote a letter to my grandmother telling her how we were doing and that they bought the car. They weren't suppose to know that we got a car because my parents owed money to them. So my father beat the hell out of me, he made me strip down to nothing in front of him. The whole time I was begging him not to beat me. I found out threw time that the longer it took me to strip down the longer he would beat me. Every time until I was sixteen he made me strip down in front of him. When I turned sixteen I said enough was enough. I had done something, or had done something, it didn't matter, I said come on. Went into my bedroom, I didn't say a thing, I stripped down, laid across my bed. When he started hitting me with the razor strap I bit my lip, but I did not cry out, with every hit it would be harder and harder. Finally he threw the belt down, told me to get dressed and come out to the dinning room. When I got out there, he looked at me and said, “I guess you think your a man now?” I knew not to say anything. Then he punched me in the stomach with his fist and said, “That's what a man gets.”

Wait, I know what your thinking, this is suppose to be a story about my career? Well, it is, but I got to put back ground in there so you know where I'm coming from.

Next I'll tell you how collecting soda bottles put spending money in my pocket...

My Career Path, Continued

Well, the last time I wrote I said tomorrow I would do a confession, so you already know that I'm a liar. Now you have to figure out when I'm lying and when I'm telling the truth. We used to say in the trucking industry that if you start out by saying, "You won't believe this." most times it's a lie or an exaggeration. But getting back to the confession, I learned that if I could spin a good enough story, and made people feel sorry for me that I would get a bigger tip, and sometimes they would fix me lunch or take me to lunch. So this is the story that I started to tell people. My dad was with the CIA and he was being held as a prisoner of war. Because he was with the CIA he didn't really exist, therefore we got no money from the government. My mom has to clean houses during the day, and I worked at night doing this delivery service, and all day Saturday. I'm not proud of this, nor am I bragging, but I made a lot of money doing what I did.
Well, next I'll tell you what happens when you take a city boy and move him to the country. Later.

Rescued From Hell

My Career Path, Continued

We would pack their bags and put them into our wagons, and either the customer would walk with you, or they would pay you and give you their address and we would take it to their house and put the bags on the front porch. Back then you didn't have to worry about someone stealing it off your front stoop or porch. Sometimes the order would be just to take it to the car, which wasn't too bad, but usually a smaller tip.
West and south of the store was where the richer people lived, good for tips. All of the east side were fair to good tips, all the north west was poorer people that lived in apartments, not too good for tips.
So my routine was to run home from school, do my homework and eat a snack. Then off to the Acme I went, I was usually there by five. I would work till they closed at 9, I made enough money to be able to bring home milk, bread, margarine, eggs, bacon, or what ever else my mom said she needed that day, oh, and cigarettes. Saturday was the best, I'd be there from 8:30 am to 10 pm. I would get two large pizzas on the way home and we'd sit and watch horror movies.
My mom would shop and cook for the whole Thompson family. We would go to the commissary at the Navel Yard in Pa. That's where all the old ships are kept in mothballs. She would keep me out of school that day and I would either stay at home with my brother and sister, or I could go along and take care of the kids while she was shopping. It depended on her mood that particular day. But she would bye enough food to feed five adults, two teenagers, and two children for a whole month. My grandmother and grandfather were paying the grocery bill, and she would have to go and clean their house twice a month. And I did what I could to help out. After I came home from work I would eat something saved from dinner, kept warm in the oven. Then I would do the dishes from the whole day. Sometimes I had to bath my brother and sister and get them into bed... Tomorrow promises a confession.