They Did Not Hear

It was a very hot summer day in 1977 when I got two of my brother’s close friends to drive a moving truck for me to Blytheville, while I drove my dark blue 1962 Rambler wagon. They stayed about a week with my grandparents, and I sent the two home by bus. My mom and her parents had lived there ever since I can remember; also, my dad’s parents were in Blytheville. They also lived there for the same amount of years. Both of my grandparents were very loving; they were my best friends. Both my dad and mom moved away when I was a very young child. I was born in Blytheville. As a child, I wanted to stay, but we moved away when I was growing up.

I have always dreamed of getting married one day, having a family, and going back to live there. The day came; I grew up and got married. I asked my wife if she wanted to move to Blytheville, so we can raise our children there in the South. She said, “Let’s move,” just two words she spoke so finally, the day came and we did move. When we got there, we had no house to move our things into, so I gave most of our things away. My mom’s parents said that we could stay at their house for as long as we wanted to. My grandparents had a larger house; only two were staying there: my grandfather who we called Big Daddy, and my grandmother who we called Big Momma. That’s what we have always called my mom’s parents.

A few days later, I went out looking for a job. While driving around, I stopped to visit my dad’s parents, Grandmamma and Grandpapa. My cousin was there visiting them around the same time I stopped by. I asked him about work he started telling me about his job, and they were hiring. I asked him what kind of work he did. He said that he drove a garbage truck for a private company and he was in charge of the daily trash pickup. For the residents on the air bases the job was to pick up the trash from residents who lived on the bases. The next day, he introduced me to his supervisor and I was hired on the spot and I started working the next morning. My cousin drove the truck while I rode on the back. When we got to the residents’ houses and apartments, I would get off the truck, take my garbage container, fill it with trash from their cans, and take it to the truck to be dumped. Because the summer heat was between 95-100 degrees and sometimes hotter, we got an early start. We were up and dressed by 4 a.m. and on the job at 5 a.m. About the time the sun start beaming down heat, we were almost done; around 2 p.m. we were finished.

The job only lasted about month. My cousin heard someone in the neighborhood say that a factory was on strike and the company was looking for people to hire. I saw him as I was driving toward my grandparents’ house. We met on the same street where he told me about the strike. We both decided that we were going to check it out the next evening after getting off work. From the other job, we went there to find out if we could apply for a job, only to find that the strike was going on. We saw people everywhere blocking the driveway into the front gate entry.

They were strike for more money and better benefits many of them walked out to start picketing. The strikers dared anyone to cross the picket line my cousin and I was not afraid we needed the job because it was paying more money. Also we needed to get away from the sunny heat in the smelly garbage that we dealt with every day. My cousin and I went through the picketers; we crossed the line along with a few others. It had become very intense; almost everyone was out of control—foul words, pushing, and some even threatened to burn anyone’s house down if they tried to apply for their jobs.

After getting through the picket line, we both rushed inside the building to fill out the application. We were hired immediately and told to report to work the next day. Most of the workers on strike had been employed there for years, and they refused to give their jobs up. To any outsider without making a noise, they soon learned that the company was not giving over to their demands, and started production without their help. I soon started looking for a rental house for my wife and children. We did find a mobile home to rent outside of town near the air bases, about ten miles or more from my job. My wife who was also looking for a job and was hired at a factory, putting auto seat parts together, something she enjoyed doing. My job was to load and unload racks filled with small and large pieces of chrome for auto parts. Now that my wife was working a job, we were able to pay my aunt to baby-sit, and pay rent and buy things needed for the mobile home. The children were enjoying themselves. Things were really looking up in 1977.

1978 was a very tough year, and times were about to get even harder. On January 6, 1978, I had a job-related injury from the kind of work I was told to do. While performing this work daily, my wrist started giving out. The pains continued to worsen. It all started on the anodizing production line. There was only one person working in that department besides myself, and we both were assigned to these racks. One pulled while the other unloaded; I was the person to unload and the other person pulled, before the day was over.