Two years older than I, Bobby Amundson and I became buddies for most of our childhood. He lived with his parents and three sisters on the corner of Avon and 11th Streets, a mere block away from the Smullens. Bobby's dad was as quiet a man as I've ever met, even quieter than Bobby Kell's dad, Alfred, who uttered as few words as was possible.
A laborer assigned to the main floor at the Consolidated paper mill, Bobby's dad was seriously injured in an industrial accident when he fell while greasing some moving parts of a huge paper machine. Leg bones were crushed between fast moving, heavy rollers that also tore away huge sheets of skin. He lay in a hospital bed for months on end, surgeons removing skin from one part of his body and applying it to his legs. Mr. Amundson spent many years recuperating from that terrible accident, and I don't think he could ever walk normally again. Invariably smiling, he never complained about his misfortune while I was present.
Mrs. Amundson, a substantial and strong, likable woman with dark hair, blue eyes, fat arms, and large breasts, preferred baking above everything else and did so in an oven of a cast iron wood and coal stove. She baked breakfast rolls, doughnuts, pies, cookies, and cakes but her homemade bread was, by far, most renown. We kids awarded her bread with verbal blue ribbons.
To this day, I smile as my senses yet can recall the delectable aromas of her just-taken-out-of-the-oven baked bread. She'd let a loaf cool but for a short while. Next, she'd cut a few slices, slather butter on them, cut those slices into smaller pieces, and hand those out to neighborhood kids. We preferred her buttered bread more than store bought candy.
Years after his accident, Bobby's dad was able to haltingly make his way out to their garage where he performed all the needed mechanical work on their 1936 Ford 4-door sedan. He'd show Bobby and me what an internal combustion engine's pistons, rings, and rods looked like, but we had to use a crow bar to extract from the man little more than the miniscule number of words of explanation he offered as to how they functioned.
As a teenager, Bobby started work as a gas station jockey. A few years later, he helped me get a similar job at the place where he worked, Abel's Standard gas station on the corner of 8th and Baker Streets.
Since I already proved myself as a good worker in the newspaper delivery business plus the fact that I loved all sorts of cars, Mister Maurice Abel, after interviewing me, thought I might work out as his employee, that is, if I welcomed each customer with a smile, pumped the exact amount of gas they asked for, checked their engines' oil level, and if low, suggest they add the most expensive Super Permalube brand.
My most important job as far as customers were concerned was cleaning their windshields of dirt, debris, and bugs. Mr. Abel announced he'd pay me a quarter an hour, and if I passed probation, my pay would double. Fifty cents an hour? I was in economic heaven.
A former paper mill employee at Consolidated's Biron, Wisconsin, division, Mr. Abel had purchased the right to manage the station after he paid a certain amount of money to Leonard Habeck, a World War I veteran, who had run the station "forever." Each of Habeck's spoken sentences to men and us boys had at least two curse words. For that reason, alone, boys liked him. However, Habeck treated each woman and neighborhood girl with utmost gentlemanly propriety.
While I pumped gas, checked oil, and took care of each windshield, Mr. Abel chatted with the customers, often exchanging jokes. If not, he was hard at work in the single bay attached garage, changing oil and greasing the many grease zerks found on the cars' underbellies, or he had ventured off to a local tavern.
Four weeks later, Mr. Abel made good his promise, increased my wages, and told me I should now call him Maury, not Mister Abel. Maury said the next things I needed to learn were how to change oil, remove oil filters, install new ones, that is, if the cars had oil filters, grease the zerks, how to unblock plugged zerks, and make the annual change of anti-freeze. Back in those days, anti-freeze was good for one year only. Also, I had to learn how to check batteries and install new ones. Most batteries were six volt as opposed to the twelve volt batteries cars use nowadays.
Both Bobby and Maury showed me how to use "The Bible," an annually published booklet provided by the Standard Oil Company that was filled with both schematics and actual photos with arrows, pointing out each American manufactured car's zerk location. The booklet also showed the location of engine block plugs and/or petcocks that needed to be opened in order for all old anti-freeze to be removed from the engine. It also showed the total amount of anti-freeze plus water each individual engine system needed.
Also, Bobby taught me how to remove inner tubes from tires that had gone flat, find the leak by putting air in the tube and dousing it in a trough filled with water. After that, I had to dry off the tube, place a hot patch over the leak, reinsert the tube into the tire, adding talcum powder. Finally, I had to fill the tube with the necessary pounds per square inch of compressed air found in Standard's Bible. He also showed me how to gap and then clean spark plugs in a machine that sand blasted them, prompting them to look as if they were brand new.
During October, customers rushed to have their radiators and engine blocks cleansed. It was also the time many customers purchased a new pair of "knobbies," winter tires with actual numerous rubber knobs.
Maury and Bobby were good teachers. At the time, Maury and I were about the same height, but he outweighed me by quite a bit. His arms were like Popeye the sailor man's. I was certain he was as strong as a circus elephant because he never met a bolt or nut he couldn't loosen. In my first year of employment, I passed him by in height. Maury had only one obvious fault. He drank too much and too often. I'd hear him ask many of his male customers, "Are you gonna buy one, or be one?" Off they'd go to a tavern. Hours later, Maury would return with bloodshot eyes, his words slurred and extra loud, body movement hesitant and uncertain.
His wife, a squirt of a gal, could out cuss any man I'd ever heard, even more than the station's previous owner. I was certain she could conjure up more profane words than all the sailors in the U. S. Navy. I also believed most men would have a difficult time drinking her under the table, except for her husband.
A couple of years later, Bob, not Bobby any longer, joined the Navy. That's when Maury announced I was his "In-charge" man. My pay, sixty cents an hour.
A laborer assigned to the main floor at the Consolidated paper mill, Bobby's dad was seriously injured in an industrial accident when he fell while greasing some moving parts of a huge paper machine. Leg bones were crushed between fast moving, heavy rollers that also tore away huge sheets of skin. He lay in a hospital bed for months on end, surgeons removing skin from one part of his body and applying it to his legs. Mr. Amundson spent many years recuperating from that terrible accident, and I don't think he could ever walk normally again. Invariably smiling, he never complained about his misfortune while I was present.
Mrs. Amundson, a substantial and strong, likable woman with dark hair, blue eyes, fat arms, and large breasts, preferred baking above everything else and did so in an oven of a cast iron wood and coal stove. She baked breakfast rolls, doughnuts, pies, cookies, and cakes but her homemade bread was, by far, most renown. We kids awarded her bread with verbal blue ribbons.
To this day, I smile as my senses yet can recall the delectable aromas of her just-taken-out-of-the-oven baked bread. She'd let a loaf cool but for a short while. Next, she'd cut a few slices, slather butter on them, cut those slices into smaller pieces, and hand those out to neighborhood kids. We preferred her buttered bread more than store bought candy.
Years after his accident, Bobby's dad was able to haltingly make his way out to their garage where he performed all the needed mechanical work on their 1936 Ford 4-door sedan. He'd show Bobby and me what an internal combustion engine's pistons, rings, and rods looked like, but we had to use a crow bar to extract from the man little more than the miniscule number of words of explanation he offered as to how they functioned.
As a teenager, Bobby started work as a gas station jockey. A few years later, he helped me get a similar job at the place where he worked, Abel's Standard gas station on the corner of 8th and Baker Streets.
Since I already proved myself as a good worker in the newspaper delivery business plus the fact that I loved all sorts of cars, Mister Maurice Abel, after interviewing me, thought I might work out as his employee, that is, if I welcomed each customer with a smile, pumped the exact amount of gas they asked for, checked their engines' oil level, and if low, suggest they add the most expensive Super Permalube brand.
My most important job as far as customers were concerned was cleaning their windshields of dirt, debris, and bugs. Mr. Abel announced he'd pay me a quarter an hour, and if I passed probation, my pay would double. Fifty cents an hour? I was in economic heaven.
A former paper mill employee at Consolidated's Biron, Wisconsin, division, Mr. Abel had purchased the right to manage the station after he paid a certain amount of money to Leonard Habeck, a World War I veteran, who had run the station "forever." Each of Habeck's spoken sentences to men and us boys had at least two curse words. For that reason, alone, boys liked him. However, Habeck treated each woman and neighborhood girl with utmost gentlemanly propriety.
While I pumped gas, checked oil, and took care of each windshield, Mr. Abel chatted with the customers, often exchanging jokes. If not, he was hard at work in the single bay attached garage, changing oil and greasing the many grease zerks found on the cars' underbellies, or he had ventured off to a local tavern.
Four weeks later, Mr. Abel made good his promise, increased my wages, and told me I should now call him Maury, not Mister Abel. Maury said the next things I needed to learn were how to change oil, remove oil filters, install new ones, that is, if the cars had oil filters, grease the zerks, how to unblock plugged zerks, and make the annual change of anti-freeze. Back in those days, anti-freeze was good for one year only. Also, I had to learn how to check batteries and install new ones. Most batteries were six volt as opposed to the twelve volt batteries cars use nowadays.
Both Bobby and Maury showed me how to use "The Bible," an annually published booklet provided by the Standard Oil Company that was filled with both schematics and actual photos with arrows, pointing out each American manufactured car's zerk location. The booklet also showed the location of engine block plugs and/or petcocks that needed to be opened in order for all old anti-freeze to be removed from the engine. It also showed the total amount of anti-freeze plus water each individual engine system needed.
Also, Bobby taught me how to remove inner tubes from tires that had gone flat, find the leak by putting air in the tube and dousing it in a trough filled with water. After that, I had to dry off the tube, place a hot patch over the leak, reinsert the tube into the tire, adding talcum powder. Finally, I had to fill the tube with the necessary pounds per square inch of compressed air found in Standard's Bible. He also showed me how to gap and then clean spark plugs in a machine that sand blasted them, prompting them to look as if they were brand new.
During October, customers rushed to have their radiators and engine blocks cleansed. It was also the time many customers purchased a new pair of "knobbies," winter tires with actual numerous rubber knobs.
Maury and Bobby were good teachers. At the time, Maury and I were about the same height, but he outweighed me by quite a bit. His arms were like Popeye the sailor man's. I was certain he was as strong as a circus elephant because he never met a bolt or nut he couldn't loosen. In my first year of employment, I passed him by in height. Maury had only one obvious fault. He drank too much and too often. I'd hear him ask many of his male customers, "Are you gonna buy one, or be one?" Off they'd go to a tavern. Hours later, Maury would return with bloodshot eyes, his words slurred and extra loud, body movement hesitant and uncertain.
His wife, a squirt of a gal, could out cuss any man I'd ever heard, even more than the station's previous owner. I was certain she could conjure up more profane words than all the sailors in the U. S. Navy. I also believed most men would have a difficult time drinking her under the table, except for her husband.
A couple of years later, Bob, not Bobby any longer, joined the Navy. That's when Maury announced I was his "In-charge" man. My pay, sixty cents an hour.
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