In many cases, the depression’s indelible ID – chaos, the condition of badly-needing but-not-having an income or a home – was what tore families apart.
Men felt helpless when failing to deal with such challenges. Some left wives and kids behind. Many teenage males felt abashed they weren’t helping support themselves, and left home.
Millions of young kids sought menial work, tried to sell used goods of all kinds to help their families survive. Children as young as five sold newspapers, pulled hundreds of rows of weeds, ran rough errands, washed strangers’ floors, emptied out houses for just a few pennies. Many took care of younger brothers and sisters while both parents worked or looked for work.
I grew, slowly got strong doing odd jobs, while looking for ranch work in the plains surrounding the small railhead town of North Platte, Nebraska. My parents approved this “show of initiative.” But they wanted me to be a “town kid,” do town kid work. But I was looking for something I knew. I did piecemeal work, ran endless errands, performed rough jobs, mopped floors, cleaned barely-existing shops and stores.
At the same time I repaired a bicycle found stuck in north river brush. It could give me the ability to seek work at nearby ranches. I didn’t mention this when I set out on that errand. Might cause a ruckus with either or both parents. Neither wanted me to give the slightest impression that we were “poor.” My step-father pressed both my mother and me to maintain a “good impression.” At the same time he was hard about us sharpening our skills at “pinching pennies.”
I knew little or nothing about ”town” jobs. A key problem for a lot of rural residents – of whatever age – at that time.
The result of that era’s demands for basic skills – doing menial labor swiftly, skillfully in an environment aimed at ignoring and overcoming the realities – gave depression life its dominant ID: chaos. That was what identified the demands of families’ “hard times.” People were forced to accept the fact that we abruptly lived in a world of unrelenting plunging change that most had never experienced. It was because of this sudden difference, so baffling and “depressing” that it was called “chaotic,” a new word for most. And for most people I knew that would be the hardest, most dizzying thing to get used to.
I worked on the “lost” bicycle I found covered by brush on the shore of the north river. I painted it a dull black, and took trips out past that river, looking for promising ranches. The second time, out after doing my home chores, I was passing a fenced pasture. Someone was yelling. “Stop him! Stop him! Bastard’s stealing our calf!” Through the pasture came a man in my direction waving a rope at a sturdy calf.
Quite simple. I slung my bike over the barbed-wire fence, and rolled down hill right into him. He never saw me coming. Went right off his feet. I had a sheathed corn-knife, the size of Mexican machete, and knocked the gun in his hand into the air.
“You little prick,” he grunted, scrambling to get to his feet. I knocked him down again, and picked up a hard-used .44 Smith and Wesson pistol. “Sit down, or I’ll shoot you.”
A kid maybe my age on a roan-colored colt came riding fast right past us. “Whoa. Slow down! Slow down!” he was yelling at his mount as he jerked the reins. The man on the ground started to scramble up. I knocked him down again, checking that his .44 was loaded.
“This what you’re looking for?” I said to the kid.
“Yeah,” he breathed heavily, getting his mount turned around. “Thought sure he was going to get away.”
“Naw. Take a half-hour to get through this fence. Mind I keep this?” I hefted the .44.
“No,” he said. “Just need to show it to my uncle. He won’t believe it otherwise.”
We introduced ourselves – he was Avrel Beatty – with me adding that I needed a ranch job.
“You live in town?”
“My folks do. I just got here from working on a ranch,” I exaggerated lightly.
“You ain’t got no horse?”
‘My maw got married to a town man.” Things paused. “Think my dad’s dead. They don’t talk about it.”
“And you’re riding a bicycle in a cow pasture?”
I grinned. “Looking for open space. A taste of ranch.”
We took the would-be horse thief to the uncle. “You’ve had a busy morning, son,” Mr. Beatty told me, handing back the Colt. “The sheriff, l let him right out. Locking up cow thieves is too expensive.” He took off the useful rope; tied on tight wire. “And you want a ranch job?”
“Not used to town, sir.”
“Well, if you been at ranch work, you know in this depression there ain’t no money. Let me think what‘s around that’ll pay some pennies. Take a few days asking around.”
“That’s fine.” For once I wasn’t lying at all. “I sure do miss ranch’n, sir.”
The fist job with a rancher friend of his didn’t work. Man used me like slave. Knee-deep in cow shit most of the time. I got never close to riding anything.
Another friend, Fred Yokes, looked old enough to be broken down, but wasn’t. Gave me a good pony. I took stock to pasture. Repaired ancient fence, took milk cattle out early, five o’clock every morning. Got them back at dark.
My parents went hell over heels about such work. “You’ll never be worth a thing,” my mother said bitterly. My step-father picked that right up. At school it was as bad. I became a “shit-kicker.” Town-kids vs. country kids was a constant. That got thicker when I came to school in a used pair of Avrel Beatty’s Sunday boots I’d bought, though they were tight.
On Sundays, after Mass, we’d get together for game hunting, looking for possible livestock thieves. “If you find anybody, don’t kill them,” Mr. Beatty told us. “Law’s got stiff about that lately.” I wasn’t carrying my horse-thief Colt. I had my step-father’s shotgun. He’d carefully hidden it in our home, he’d said. “Where no one can find it.”
Avrel and I shot pheasants. Rabbits big as dogs. Told crazy stuff we’d seen. Canted stories out of a hard, ridiculous past that made us laugh till I slid off my pony to get my breath.
“Damn,” he said bent over his saddle horn. “I’m getting the cramps.”
We were becoming friends. Surprised us both.
(Fourth of a series)