by Jeff Noonan
Then an old friend, Teddy, who was about a year younger than me, walked into the café and we started talking. He was bringing me up to speed on all of the people in town and what had been happening in the area when my old friend, Sue, came in with her little girl in tow. She gave me a big hug and started blurting about the reasons she had sent me that “Dear John” letter when I was in Boot Camp. I stopped her and told her that it was old news now, and she didn’t have to explain. The three of us got a table and talked for a couple of hours.
It turned out that Sue was living in Idaho, about fifty miles west of St. Regis. She had come home to visit, but was supposed to go back on Sunday because she had to work on Monday. She had a steady boyfriend in Idaho, so any thoughts that I had in that direction were quickly quashed. But we were still friends and we talked for a long time.
Then Teddy popped up and told me that he had a girlfriend in a place called Kellogg, Idaho, almost where Sue lived. He said that he could get me a blind date over there if I wanted to drive over with him.
That sounded good to me, so I waited while he made a call and set it up. While we were waiting for him to make the call, Sue decided to ride over with us so we could talk some more.
Teddy came back with a triumphant grin on his face and announced that he had come through: “We have a Drive-In Movie date for tonight. Your date is a real beauty! But I had to promise that, if we go out with them, we would go to church with them tomorrow morning. We can stay tonight at my girlfriend’s parents’ house—on the couches.”
I was a little leery, but any date was better than no date, so we were soon on our way to Idaho.
We had a great ride over Lookout Pass into Idaho. Sue’s daughter was a nice kid, and the four of us had a good time on the trip over. I dropped Sue and her daughter at their home and went on to the blind date with Teddy.
I was really appalled at Northern Idaho when I got there. It was a true environmental disaster in those days. The smoke from the ore smelters had killed all the vegetation, leaving mountainsides that were bare dirt with dead gray sticks where the trees had once been. The rivers and creeks were brown and thick with sludge from the mines. All of Northern Idaho looked like someone’s idea of a barren alien landscape in a horror movie. Teddy, Sue, and I talked about it on the ride over, but Teddy warned me to not mention it when we were on our date. Apparently, the people who lived in this disaster preferred not to see it for what it was.
On the way to the blind date’s house, Teddy asked if I had any condoms. When I said, “No,” he directed us to a local drug store where (very bashfully, on my part) we purchased the required items. Then Ted allowed us to continue to his date’s home.
Teddy was right about at least one thing. My blind date turned out to be gorgeous. She was as tall as I was (5’10”), blond, and busty. Her name was Alice, and she was really excited to be dating a “real sailor.” I don’t think the bronze convertible with leather seats hurt my chances either. After we were introduced all around, which included meeting the parents, we headed out. We went to the Miner’s Hat Drive-In Restaurant, had burgers for dinner, and then drove around looking at the town until it was time for the drive-in theater to open.
We drove into the movie area and found a parking spot with a speaker. I stopped the car, turned off the key, and was immediately attacked in the best possible way. I was astounded at how uninhibited these Idaho girls were. We necked for a while, and I was thoroughly respectful with Alice. I didn’t want to mess up a good deal by being too forward.
Finally, she said, “Jeff, check out Teddy and Doris.” So I peeked over the back of the front seat and saw Teddy lying down on the back seat with Doris astraddle of him. Her shirt and bra were off, and her abundant bosom was bouncing madly as she rode Teddy for all he was worth.
This was all the encouragement that I needed, and soon I was in the saddle myself.
But shortly thereafter, I was interrupted by Doris, in the back seat. She was yelling “Do it, Teddy! Harder, Teddy! Please, harder!”
Alice and I had to muffle our laughter, but we soon got busy again.
After a while, we all composed ourselves, and I went for popcorn and some drinks. We ate and gabbed and then got busy again. Those girls had absolutely no inhibitions. It was definitely a double feature movie, in more ways than one.
I was a little leery about going to Doris’s home to sleep, but the girls told us to relax. “We’re good girls. No one will give you any problems if you’re with us.”
I was still a bit apprehensive, but it turned out, the girls were right.
The next morning, we got up and Doris’s mother cooked us a really nice breakfast, while her Dad regaled me with stories about his time in the service during “The Big War.” All was well.
Teddy, Doris, and I left a few minutes early for church. We picked up Alice at her home, as planned the night before. The girls were both prim and proper in their Sunday best, and we proudly escorted them into the church. It was my first time in a church in several years, so I held back a bit and followed Teddy’s lead. It was a church denomination that I wasn’t familiar with—one of those groups that Dad had always called “Holy Rollers.”
We sat in a pew about halfway to the front of the church, with the girls seated beside Doris’s parents, Teddy beside them and me beside him in the aisle seat. Soon the preacher came in and started his sermon. It was fire and brimstone, the like of which I had never heard before. I listened, fascinated. It went on for what seemed like hours, and I was really fidgeting in my seat when I started to notice people rising to stand and chant, swaying from side to side, bowing low, and then stretching toward the heavens…all the while chanting and mumbling. It got louder and louder. I was astounded. I had heard of this kind of church service, but I had never before witnessed anything like it.
Then Doris and Alice joined the others, standing and chanting. I could only understand part of what they were wailing, but it seemed to be a cry to Jesus to save them because they were sinners and needed salvation. Then Doris stretched to the sky, and her blouse popped partially open. Her bra came into view and all I could think about were her boobs bouncing wildly as she had ridden Teddy the night before.
I couldn’t help myself—it was just too much to bear: last night, she had worshiped at the font of Teddy and had screamed even louder than she was today. Except then the words had been different.
I saw that Teddy was transfixed by the sight also, so I leaned over and whispered in his ear, “Do it, Teddy! Harder, Teddy! Please, harder!” Teddy erupted with laughter. He was laughing so hard that he choked and was coughing, gagging, and laughing all at once.
It was too much for me to handle and I went into peals of laughter. I was literally doubled over on the church pew, roaring!
The worship service came to a screaming halt. The preacher told someone to escort us to the doors, but we beat him to it and stumbled out the doors still doubled over, laughing uncontrollably.
We didn’t wait for anyone else to leave the church. We headed for Montana. I pretty much laughed all the way home, but Teddy was a bit more reserved. He saw a good thing coming to an end for him and, while it really was funny, he schemed about how to get back in good graces.
I never went back to see anyone in Kellogg, but Teddy did. He was finally forgiven when he explained that “that uncouth sailor with had said something too funny to resist.” He went out with Doris for several more months before they drifted apart.
Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, “the uncouth sailor” wasn’t welcome there any longer, so I stayed in Montana.
I went home early that night. I was planning to go to the lumber mill in the morning, and I wanted to be ready for whatever happened.
The next morning I was up early, but I held off on going to the mill because I wanted to let Dad do whatever he decided to that day. I had not talked to him since our blowout on Friday evening, so I had no idea if he would do as he had promised.
I stopped in the Gene
ral Store and bought some heavy work gloves and then I drove to Superior and on to the Diamond Match Sawmill where Dad worked. I got there at ten sharp, went to the front office, and introduced myself to the lady at the front desk.
She said, “Oh yes, we were expecting you,” asked me to take a seat, and went to get the manager.
When the manager came out, he got right to the point. He said, “Your Dad was in here this morning and explained what you need. You must be just like him if you’ve already blown your money and can’t get to your next Duty Station. But he works hard, and he says you do too, so I’ll give you a chance. But I’m only doing this because you’re in the service and need help. I’m going to give you one of the shittiest jobs in this mill. If you can handle it, you can stay until you have to leave, but if we find you goofing off, even for a minute, that will be the end of you. Do you want it?”
“Yes Sir.” I had a job, and that was all that mattered. Dad had obviously lied about the reason that I needed the job, but I could accept that. He had to live with these people and I didn’t.
The manager turned me over to a foreman that I knew by reputation. He was a mill foreman during the week and a preacher on the weekend. So, keeping in mind my faux pas at the Idaho church, I was respectful and didn’t even curse a little bit around him. He had me fill in all of the standard employment paperwork before taking me to the mill site.
Much of the mill worked on a kind of an assembly line. The logs were sent down one conveyor to the big stationary saws. Then the green, wet, slabs of lumber were cut from the logs and dropped onto another conveyor along with big chunks of waste wood and bark. After that, it was routed to another saw that trimmed the sides off the slabs, producing identifiable lumber. The lumber and waste, still together on a conveyor, were then sent directly to the station where I worked. As the lumber and chunks of wood went by me at full speed, it was my job to grab the waste wood from both sides of the new board and hurl it onto another conveyor that transported it off for disposal. This process of separating the waste from the good boards was known in the sawmill world as “picking stickers on the green chain.” That was my new job.
For the remainder of the morning, the foreman had me work under the supervision of a big guy who had been doing the work before me. Then at noon, the big guy was sent to another job, and I became the Diamond Match sticker-picker.
At first, I didn’t think it would be too bad a job. It paid $2.25 per hour, and that was good money from my perspective. Initially, the “stickers” didn’t seem to be a problem. But they sure came fast. I was moving continuously, trying to keep up with the conveyor. A couple of times, I got overwhelmed that first day and the conveyor had to be stopped while I caught up. But by the first evening, I had it under control. The only real problems came when a big knot in the waste wood would require both hands and all of my strength to get it up and over to the other conveyor. But I got it done.
It was a tremendous relief when the evening whistle blew, announcing the end of my first shift. The continuous motion and the lifting of the waste wood had overtaxed every muscle in my arms and back, but I wasn’t about to admit that to anyone. I walked out to where I had left my car and drove home. Hardly anyone had said a word to me all day, but I figured that was normal, because my job was on a station surrounded by conveyors with no one else in the immediate vicinity. I had seen Dad in the distance when we took a ten-minute break halfway through the afternoon, but he had ignored me, so I had said nothing to him.
I went home and let Mom cluck and worry over me for a little while, but I was determined to keep my cool, no matter how much my body ached. I cleaned up a bit and was leaving to go downtown when Dad came home. I thanked him for talking to the manager for me and didn’t bring up what the manager had said about my reasons for working. He then surprised me by telling me that we should carpool to work starting the next day. I said “Okay,” and then went on downtown.
The next morning, Dad was quiet on the ride to work. We had agreed to alternate cars and he was driving that day. He did ask me how I was feeling, and I lied and told him that I was fine. In fact, I was hurting so bad that I wasn’t sure if I could do the job that day, but I was not about to tell him that.
It was actually better that day than I had expected. I was in agony for the first few minutes when the conveyor started, but as the day wore on, my body loosened up and I was able to keep it going. I noticed Dad and a couple of his cronies watching me from a distance, off and on, all day. Again, no one said much to me, but I did notice a bit of a thaw when we broke for lunch. I had bought some lunch meat and bread the night before and Mom had fixed a lunch for me, so I ate with the other workers and listened to the banter between them. I knew a few of them slightly from years past, but they were all a lot older than me. Their talk was mostly about the local bars and the women they were chasing, so, even if they had included me, I didn’t think that I’d have much to contribute to their conversation.
When the day was over, I got in the car with Dad. He was much more talkative now. He told me that the foreman had told him that I was doing a good job. He said, “I didn’t think you could do it, but you fooled me. You must be a lot tougher than you look.”
I didn’t say anything. Then, about a quarter of the way home, he pulled the car over in a wooded area. I thought that he had to pee, which would have been acceptable in that location and time period. But instead he went to a brush pile, reached under it, and pulled out a half-gallon of port wine. He took a couple of huge draws on the bottle, put it back and got back in the car. “You didn’t want any, did you?” he asked.
I said, “No,” and we proceeded on down the road.
A few miles further, he pulled over and did the same thing all over again. He repeated this twice more before he got home.
I got cleaned up and went downtown to hang out with my friends.
The next morning, we started out in my car. When we got to the place where he had stopped last the night before, he insisted that I stop the car, so I did. He then went through the same four stops that we had done on the way home. He had to have been drunk before we got to work, but it never showed.
I did my job that day, and we went through the same ritual on the way home.
This went on for a week or so, with me getting stronger and more able to do the job every day. After a week, I was handling the job as if I had been doing it my whole life, and the other mill workers were much friendlier. One of them told me that, before I had started work, Dad had told them not to expect much from me, so they had all kept their distance on purpose for the first few days. But since it looked like I was “hacking it,” as they phrased it, they had gradually put aside Dad’s words and begun judging me as just another new hire. I was becoming accepted. On the way to work one morning, Dad had lingered a little longer than usual in his wine spots. I was really worried about him when he left me to go to his lumber grading station. I was right to worry.
When we stopped for our mid-morning break, the Foreman was waiting for me. He said, “Your father fell down the stairs this morning. We took him to the hospital, and they gave him some stitches and put him to bed. He asked me to tell you to pick him up at the hospital when you get off work.”
I said, “Okay,” and the foreman left.
The guys then told me that there was a lot more to the story than just a little fall. Dad had apparently been belligerent and obviously “staggering around” after he fell. The sawmill manager had been there, and he’d given Dad a warning before sending him to the hospital. If there was one more problem, of any type, Dad would be fired. The only thing that saved him this time, according to the other workers, was the fact that the mill didn’t have any choice. They didn’t have another certified lumber grader available right then, and the certification was important to their operation.
I picked Dad up at the hospital that evening. He was surly and didn’t even try to explain himself. As usual, he directed me to stop at the first brush pile, just outside the
Superior city limits.
I stopped, but I told him to wait in the car while I got the jug. He waited and I walked over to the brush pile, picked up the bottle, and held it high over my head so he could see it clearly. Then I threw it onto a big boulder and smashed it.
Dad screamed at me, “You Sonofabitch!”
I climbed back into the car and faced him, saying “Are you so far gone that you can’t see what this is going to do to you? Your job is the only thing you still have, because this crap has ruined every other part of your life; and you’re going to lose it if you don’t quit drinking. At a minimum, you should quit in the mornings so that you can at least pretend that you still are doing a job. You need to keep bringing home a paycheck to support your family!” I was pissed, but I knew that I was not doing any good. He was too far gone.
I stopped three more times on that ride and smashed three more wine bottles.
Dad didn’t say a word until I stopped the car at home. Then he said, “From now on, you take your car, and I’ll take mine.”
I said “That’s fine with me,” and we went our separate ways.
When I was a youngster, Mom and I had often had long conversations about life and, usually, what life would hold for me later on. This night we restarted the tradition, but this time we talked about her life and her future. I stayed home, and, when things were quiet after the little ones had gone to bed, we started talking. It went on for hours. I told her that I was very worried about her and the kids and I told her what had transpired with Dad at work.
She wasn’t surprised at all. She had been hearing similar stories for years. She even told me that she could not remember the last time she had seen Dad without smelling wine on him.
I told Mom that I was leaving the allotment in place. She thanked me, but asked me to drop the additional part that I had been sending for savings. She also told me that she would not allow me to continue sending money to her if I ever got married. “At that point, you have to do for your family, and I won’t have this mess be your responsibility. You deserve some happiness in your life.”