The Green Years (ARC)

by Karen Wolff

  If it is a watchdog’s work to announce intruders, Bruno was born for the job. What he would have done with them after that is hard to say, but it wouldn’t have been pretty.

  EVERY SUMMER I worked at River Sioux, and at summer’s end I’d feel rich. I found out, though, I had to be careful with my money. Ty said I was a tightwad, and Russ told me I was just plain cheap. I didn’t care. I knew what I had to do to make my money last.

  I wanted so many things. Clothes. Not just the everyday stuff, but fancy sweaters and caps, a suit with a matching vest, and two-tone shoes to go with my outfits. I wanted to go to movies. I wanted to take Carol Ann to see shows and go dancing. I wanted to buy cigarettes now that Russ had taught me to smoke. I wanted to go to Sioux City. And the thing I wanted most, the thing that seemed most unattainable, was a car of my own, not one belonging to Granddad or somebody else, but my very own.

  I needed money. I wanted money. The question was how to get it. I was prepared to work hard and to sacrifice to build up savings, but I hadn’t figured out how to acquire funds in the first place. Maybe I got the horse before the cart, but I decided to set a goal for myself so I’d be ready when an opportunity came. A thousand dollars. I wanted to be worth a thousand dollars by the time I was twenty-one years old. I told Gram about it, and she just shook her head. “That’s a tall order, Harry.”

  The tone of her voice told me she doubted I’d make it, but that was all right. I’d surprise her.

  THE SUMMER BEFORE my junior year, I became head boy at the skating rink and earned $20 to $25 dollars a week. I saved everything I could, and my bank account stood at $155 by the end of the summer. It was a start toward my goal.

  At the skating rink, Mr. Crill talked a lot about electricity. He was very keen to have it at River Sioux so he could compete with the dance halls in Sioux City.

  “Just think, boys,” he’d say. “Imagine how this place would look with red and green and blue lights all around the eaves. And what if we hung globes high on the ceiling with soft lights for dancing?”

  His plans sounded great, and we liked hearing him talk about them.

  “I remember something I saw a couple of years ago at the Starlight Ballroom in Omaha,” he said. “They had a revolving ball made of mirrors hanging from the ceiling. It caught the light as it turned and made patterns on the floor. It was spectacular, and I mean to have one at River Sioux. Soon as we get electricity.”

  “When will we get it, Mr. Crill?” someone always asked.

  “I don’t know. We have to wait for the politicians to decide. Soon, I think. My brother says it’ll be soon.”

  Mr. Crill’s brother was the state’s auditor, and Mr. Crill made many trips to the capital to talk to the politicians.

  “It’s gonna change our world,” he’d say. “If you boys are smart, you’ll find a way to capitalize on electricity when it comes. There’s gonna be money to be made.”

  The others didn’t seem to have any idea what he was talking about, but I did, and I resolved to take action as soon as those wires came our way.

  Meanwhile, as soon as he could get back to the store, Granddad restocked the beer supply even though the revenuers were an increasing problem in the county. One day Bud Johnson, who drove the beer truck, told Granddad he should take the beer barrels out of the store for a while until the Feds went somewhere else. While Granddad grumbled, Ty and I helped load the barrels in Bud’s truck, and he drove away with them late one night.

  Sure enough, the next morning three men in dark suits showed up while Ty and I were alone in the store. They flashed their badges and demanded to talk to Granddad. Ty took off like a scalded cat to fetch Granddad, leaving me to answer their questions.

  “You related to the Mr. Didier?”

  I nodded. Even though I knew they wouldn’t find anything, I was scared silly, and my heart was going to the races.

  “You know why we’re here, boy?”

  “No,” I said in a voice that made me sound like a little kid.

  “We’re here to make sure you’re in compliance with Prohibition. You understand?”

  I nodded again and was vastly relieved when Granddad walked in. I couldn’t help admiring the show of innocence that old man put on.

  “I have nothing to hide, gentlemen. Follow me.” He unlocked the door to the empty bar and, with a genial wave of his hand, invited them inside. Even though the glasses had been removed from the counter, the peanut shells swept from the floor, and the ashtrays emptied, nothing could kill the telltale smell of beer that had soaked into the floor. Only a fool would fail to see that this was an operating saloon.

  “Where do you keep it, Alphonse?” one of the men growled.

  “What’s that, gentlemen? Oh, beer? There’s no beer here. You can see for yourself.” Granddad’s face looked innocent as a baby’s.

  “We heard you’re open for business day and night. Where do you hide the stuff?” The questioner was a bulky, red-faced fellow who looked tough and serious about his work.

  “Gents, look around. You can see for yourself there’s no beer in this establishment.” Granddad couldn’t control his grin.

  The three looked everywhere, behind the counter, in the ice-house, even in the cellar. They came upstairs, wiping cobwebs from their clothing.

  “Alphonse, we’re going to throw you in jail if we find out you’re lying to us,” the bulky man said.

  “Don’t see how you can do that, given there’s no beer here,” Granddad said.

  “Don’t get smart,” the man said. They dusted off their hats, wiped the perspiration from their faces, and left the store. I prayed they wouldn’t go to the house where I knew there was a pitcher of beer Granddad had poured off for himself before the barrels went away.

  Granddad crowed all evening about how he had stared down the revenuers. It was beyond me to understand why he’d risk going to jail over beer, but that was Granddad. He seemed more interested in having a good time than running a business.

  “They sure wasted their time,” he said. “We hoodwinked them pretty good.”

  “That’s easy to do when there’s no beer around,” Gram said. “It’ll be a different story if they come back and find some.”

  They did come back the next two nights and found nothing, and again they threatened Granddad with serious trouble if they ever caught him with beer. The pitcher Granddad had taken home was empty by now, and I feared he’d insist on another delivery.

  In a few days Bud Johnson stopped in to say that the Feds had left the county and gone to Yankton and Sioux Falls. We were safe for the moment, and Granddad opened the bar again. Things went back to business as usual, but I was pretty sure our worries weren’t over.

  ELECTRICITY CAME TO us the summer I was seventeen. The poles were shipped all the way from the Black Hills by railroad, and then two teams of horses pulled the wagonloads from Beaverton to Richmond. We watched as the drovers stopped at each block and rolled a big pine pole off the wagon to the side of the road. The younger kids climbed all over them as if they could find the electricity in them. We weren’t much better. We stood around imagining the poles erect in the ground, promising something unbelievably glorious. Everybody was excited to think of what was to come, and everybody wanted in on every detail.

  Crazy Betty Sykes, a white kerchief knotted on top of her head, stood with her hands on her hips to watch. We always wondered about that kerchief, whether it covered up a bald head. The only thing we knew was that we never saw her without it. Whether she was sweeping her porch or chasing dogs and kids out of her yard, she always wore the kerchief. Now her doughy face was screwed up in a frown as she yelled at us. “Lectric’ll kill you. Get away from there.” We laughed, but I could tell some of the folks wondered about it.

  Mr. Crill had finally succeeded in persuading the legislature that it would be good for business if he could have electricity at River Sioux. The existing electrical line ran northwest from Beaverton to Plankinton, so several miles had to be r
un eastward to River Sioux. It was just luck that Richmond was in the pathway or we wouldn’t have gotten power for years. As it was, we waited weeks before the crew came to set the poles.

  School was out for the summer, and Ty and I were working in the store one hot, June morning when a horse-drawn wagon with “Castle Electrical Company” painted on the side showed up. Several men jumped down and started unloading picks, spades, shovels, and long pikes.

  A tall fellow, tan, with penetrating blue eyes came into the store for some cigarettes. “Howdy,” he said. “I’m Smitty.” We shook hands. “That’s my crew out there.” He waved his arm in the general direction of the men outside. “I guess you know why we’re here.”

  “We sure do,” I said. “We thought you’d never come.” He grinned. “Yeah, everybody’s always anxious to get their electricity. Can’t wait for all the fun.” He turned as he went out the door and said, “We’re gonna start digging, but it’d be helpful if you spread the word so people keep their kids out of the way. I don’t want nobody to get hurt.”

  THE FIRST POLE lay on the corner across from the store. They hauled their tools to the site, and two men went to work with a pick and a long-handled shovel. After they had opened up the ground, Smitty sited the spot for the hole and the men started to dig.

  “Damn it, Smitty. This ground feels like it’s solid rock,” one of them said.

  Smitty laughed. “Quit complaining, Jake. You just ain’t warmed up yet.” He moved down the road and started two other men on the next hole.

  It was hard, hot work. The men soon threw off their shirts, and their bodies, copper from the sun, gleamed as rivulets of sweat ran down their backs and dripped from their faces. The sinews on their necks and shoulders stood out in ridges as they strained.

  Gram came outside to watch. After a few minutes she said, “Harry, you and Ty should pump a couple buckets of cold well water for those fellows.”

  We ran to do it, and they were grateful for the hospitality. The men were spread down the road now as they continued digging. At mid-morning they came back for the water and took a short rest.

  I was full of questions, wanting to know how all this worked, how they got the poles up, when the line would be strung, how they’d get it into our house.

  A grizzled old fellow said, “You just need to keep quiet and watch, kid. You’ll learn something.”

  They were more talkative at noon when it was time to eat dinner. Smitty told us, “This is how it works. We use knob and tube wiring.” He showed us the porcelain insulating pieces. “You gotta keep the electrical wire away from wood so you don’t start a fire. We attach the knobs to the tops of poles before we raise them.” He took a bite of his sandwich and a big slug of water. Then he picked up a couple of white hollow tubes and went on. “These here things are what we use in your houses. They keep the wire from touching the wood beams and walls. The wire that runs to a lamp or a switch has to be covered with cloth or rubber for insulation.”

  “Could I see one of those?”

  He handed me a tube, and I rolled it around in my hand enjoying its smooth feel, cool, even in this heat. I was awed at how much he had to know to do his job.

  The crew spent two days digging, but the real fun didn’t start until they began to raise the poles. Smitty told us they’d use the piking method because the company was too cheap to send out a gin wagon for a town as small as ours.

  The whole population turned out to see the first pole go up. Granddad even locked up the store so we could watch. Smitty assigned five men to the job. The butt end of the pole was positioned next to the hole where they’d dug a shallow trench so the pole would slide down it as it was raised.

  Four of the men began to lift the top of the pole. As soon as it was up a few feet, another man, called the jinny, put a big brace made of two boards nailed together in an X-shape under the pole to hold it in place. Each time they lifted the pole a little higher, the jinny slid the X-brace closer to the hole. When they had gone as far as they could by hand, the men picked up their long pikes with v-shaped pieces of metal at the ends. They positioned themselves around the pole and used the pikes to continue pushing it to an upright position.

  The men seemed small next to the thirty-five foot pole. I couldn’t see how they could stand it up without it falling on them. Everybody in the crowd got very quiet as they watched. One women put her hand to her mouth. Others clutched their children, nervous about what could happen if something went wrong, but I was thrilled. I didn’t know how they’d do it, but I couldn’t wait to see it happen.

  Smitty stood by the butt end of the pole and shouted orders to make sure the pole stayed lined up with the trench. “Left, go left a little, Jim. A little more. Whoa. Slow down. Take your time.”

  Oh, how that thing wobbled and trembled, but the crew seemed unafraid. They yelled at each other all the time too. “You’re not working hard enough Jake.”

  “Hell, I could raise this thing by myself if you’d get out of the way,” Jake responded.

  It was a tense operation, and when the first pole dropped in with a satisfying thunk, everybody let out a big breath and cheered and clapped. It was a marvel to see that pole go into the hole just like it was supposed to.

  Next thing, a man with a shovel began filling the hole around the pole with little bitty shovelfuls of dirt, and three others packed the loose dirt with tampers. Smitty said to the crowd, “It takes one lazy shoveler and three good tampers to be sure the pole is set right.”

  I thought about that and finally got the meaning. If they shoveled the dirt in too fast, it wouldn’t get tamped hard enough and the pole might wobble, so the dirt got filled in slowly. They sure did know how to do things.

  AFTER THE POLES were up, the crews went to each house to install interior wiring and a meter. Granddad complained. “Do you mean to tell me you’re going to charge me four dollars before I use any electric? I thought the government was back of this.”

  Of course his arguments got nowhere, and in the end, our house got wired like everyone else’s. Gram and Granddad decided they wanted a light in every room, so the crew installed a porcelain fixture with a clear glass bulb and a switch in each room. They ran a wire from the meter box to each switch, either through the basement or down the wall.

  Only two households in town elected not to have electricity. Betty Sykes because she thought it was the devil’s work, and Gus Granquist, an old fellow in his 80’s who figured he wouldn’t live long enough to get any use of it. Everybody else signed up and waited. And then waited some more. We waited so long people stopped asking about “when” and “what have you heard” every time they came in the store.

  Instead they wore out their Sears and Roebuck catalogues, dreaming of what they would buy when the great day came. Women generally wanted irons so they could be rid of the heavy black flatirons that had to be heated on the cook stove. Some of the men thought about getting electric water pumps.

  For me there was just one thing. I wanted a radio. I’d heard weak broadcasts on storage battery radios, but the signals busted up, and it was hard to make sense of what we heard. I wanted an electric radio so we could hear what was going on in the world outside Richmond. I wanted to hear the music and entertainment programs. I wanted a radio that we could listen to whenever we felt like it, day or night. I imagined all the sophisticated and up-to-date things we would hear. Yessir, I meant to get a radio.

  I talked Ty into making a trip to Sioux City with me. He was always nervous going there, but decided the adventure was worth it. Smitty had told me the Castle Electric Company had the best inventory of electrical appliances and radios in Sioux City.

  Ty was in a cold sweat driving in all the traffic in the city, and we had to stop a couple of times to ask where to find the store. Finally we located it in the Trimble block, one of the busiest shopping areas in the city. Ty was able to relax when we got the car parked, and we ventured inside.

  Castle’s was packed to the ceiling with electr
ical equipment for the home. Signs everywhere described how the housewife’s work could be lessened with electricity. I saw things I never dreamed existed—Thor washing and ironing machines, bread toasters, fans, and lots more.

  “Just look at this, Harry. This machine will wash your dishes.” Ty and I looked at each other in wonder. Who could imagine such a thing?

  “I can’t wait to tell Gram about this. She’ll never believe it.”

  Flame-shaped Mazda lights in several styles glowed from fixtures hung on the ceiling. A row of sewing machines attracted my eye, and I thought again of Gram huddled over the old treadle machine at home.

  We worked our way to the back of the store, gawking at everything, but then I saw what I’d come looking for. A tingle of excitement went through me. I said. “Look, Ty! There they are.”

  “Oh, wow,” he said. “Just look at that. There must be fifty of them.”

  Indeed there were. Rows and rows of shiny, handsome radios. I saw Crosleys, Philcos, and a half dozen other brands. Some were made of metal and others of wood. Some were designed to sit on a table or shelf, and others stood in fancy, carved wooden consoles. I couldn’t imagine what all the knobs and dials were for. I itched to try one.

  “Can I help you fellows pick out something? Maybe a new radio?” A salesman came up. “A lot of the young fellows are buying this one.” He pointed to an Ozarka. “Would you like to hear it?”

  I nodded eagerly, and he turned the switch on and twirled the dial.

  “I’ll find WNAX for you. That’s the Gurney station in Yankton. It comes in clear all day long.” He cocked his head as he listened. “Isn’t that great? Shall I turn it up a little?” He twisted a third dial and it came in louder.