Junkers, a Workshop Sign, and Lasting Gratitude

I realized being poor when I got only a coloring book and a small box of crayons as my tenth birthday present in 1946. This was the first disappointment of my life. Billy Johnson had gotten a brand new post-war Schwinn bike for his. I decided right then, that when I grew up I would not be poor. “Study hard and work hard and you can be anything you want to be.” “You can have a better life than we had.” “You can be the president of the United States if you want to.” How many times had we been told these three things by both Mom and Dad as we grew up? I once asked Mom if we were poor. She responded with a short “no,” and warned I should never ever ask Dad that question. “You are clean and well fed, aren’t you? You should always be proud of who you are,” was her advice. Mom always said she’d have to wait for one of her kids to get rich to travel the world and have her name up in lights. Then, as she waved her hand upward to point out each of the letters: E, T, H, E, L in the air, she’d give us the far away look of a true dreamer. She taught us all to dream of the things we wanted. One time, Jenny Swanson, who lived across 32nd Avenue from the Petersons, and who was the Principal of Roosevelt Elementary School, had all the “poor children” in the neighborhood into her house for a pre- Christmas luncheon. I got the drift of what was happening and was angry our family had been included. We were a proud family. Though she was well intentioned (and I gladly took a small present from her), I considered this a crushing insult. When I started running with the rich kids in high school, I began to see many beautiful homes, and then I knew that we were pretty poor by comparison. I never considered Iris and Bill rich, but I knew from Bill that ambition got you what you wanted. I always made my rich friends pick me up and drop me off at Holder’s corner so they wouldn’t see our little house. I didn’t realize that I was popular enough with the other kids to have held my own regardless of our modest life at home. Sadly, I didn’t think that way then, though. Foolish false pride! I do regret that insult to Mom and Dad. Daddy toyed with buying a two-story house a few doors up from the Ferrys on 41st Street. I know now it was just “Daddy Talk” but back then it was so hopeful. I decorated that house and designed the garden landscaping hundreds of times in my mind. I remember planning to have some geese to weed the strawberry patches. Daddy’s idea (just talk, again) of moving to Walla Walla, Washington was exciting for the same reason. We didn’t have top sheets on our beds. Even the kids at camp came with top sheets for sleeping out in tents. I love sleeping under just a blanket to this day. But I keep top sheets on the beds by convention, I suppose. The bad cars were the bane of all our existences, but there was simply never enough money for a new one (not that Dad would rather have had one knowing his absolute passion for fixing up junkers.) He could take any engine apart and put it back together blindfolded. Both Bob and I got our automotive and tinkering knowledge from him. I was always trying to get Dad to be neater. We kids were forever cleaning up his junk piles and hiding them behind the garage, but we never could keep up with him. I even made a sign that read: “A PLACE FOR EVERYTHING AND EVERYTHING IN ITS PLACE” and put it up in his workshop. He was very amused by it. You know as well as I do, it didn’t work. We were poor, but I knew I wouldn’t always be poor. And I never blamed or connected our meager means to any failing of Mom and Dad. Somehow we all knew not to ask for things. They did all they possibly could do and I could see that they were both working their fingers to the bone for us. I never doubted their devotion and sacrifice for their kids, and that was that. I only wish I had done more for them later on.