January 10, 2005
Son of Fords, the UAW, and the Watkins Man
Memories of a Simpler and Nobler Way of Life
By Floyd Johnson
Occasionally still, when I step out on a cold winter night,
With few lamps to light my way,
I am reminded of those days
When as a boy
I must deliver papers sometimes at night,
A weekly newspaper,
The Brightmoor Journal,
In neighborhoods rich and deep with snow.
I didn't even know what a moor was then,
And Brightmoor was never bright.
It was a dirty, cluttered place,
A blue collar place,
With billboards, neon signs and overhead wires
Everyplace.
Our streets were then still unpaved,
And the Watkins man
Would park his Model A
Leaning in the ditch in front of our house,
As inside he sold my mother
Ointments, spices, and other household stuff.
Grandma Lee, an aged widow,
Lived across the street.
Every Easter she gave us
Easter eggs that were always brown,
The color of burnt onions.
Her son or grandson,
I can't remember which,
Was in Jackson prison
Doing life
For knifing a guard.
The Quigleys lived just over the road,
Their ragtag Irish brood overflowing the house.
Each weekday morning,
All our fathers in clean denim work clothes,
Trundled down the street,
Lunch pails and Thermos in hand,
Past windows bearing banners with stars of blue,
Or there, a star of gold, sometimes two,
To the bus stop
On Fenkell Road,
Where my brother Tommy
Was killed by a driver
Who did not stop,
To catch the first bus of many
They would take,
To carry them to Henry Ford's River Rouge,
So very far away.
To return
Only late at night,
Grease stained and oil soaked,
To collapse,
Tired, oh so very tired,
In his "that's your father's chair,"
There to rest and listen to the news
From Europe and the Pacific
And places we did not know,
And then to eat with all of us
Still there together,
And then to bed,
Only to get up and do it again
The next day,
The next day,
And the next day.
These men, then too old to fight,
Were still proud.
They gave up their sons to war,
Quietly, but not easily.
They were our air raid wardens,
And collectors of scrap paper, tin, and bits of iron.
They converted our garages into chicken coops,
And planted Victory Gardens.
And saved their precious pennies weekly,
To buy 10 cent Saving Stamps
That later they would convert to War Bonds,
"For the war effort."
They did what they had to do.
They were now Americans.
On Sundays,
They put on their one suit,
For church,
And proudly wore their chrome plated River Rouge Badge
On their lapel,
With their union and VFW buttons as well.
They were all union men, you see,
And Democrats true,
Yes, Sir, to a man
They were all true blue.
For FDR had saved them,
And their families too,
From the Great Depression,
And put them back to work again.
These men were not heroes perhaps
To anyone but me,
They were simply honest, decent, working men
Doing their jobs
At $5 a day,
Supporting their families,
And wishing
It could be more,
At least for their children.
They are mostly gone now,
But we their children
Must not forget them,
And we their children
Must not let our children forget them.
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Floyd Johnson describes himself as a depression-born, unreconstructed FDR-Democrat. He moved to Phoenix from London in 1975 after residing several years in Brussels and London. He received a Masters Degree from Thunderbird - The Garvin School of International Management in Glendale, Arizona in 1981. After 35 years in the computer industry, he was a used and rare book seller in Peoria, Arizona until his retirement in 2002.
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