Home Front Warriors

I was 16 the summer of 1946 when I contributed to the defeat of Hirohito and Hitler by finding employment in a box factory in Grants Pass, Oregon.  The wooden shook we manufactured was used to assemble ammunition cases as well as boxes for fruit and other products. With most of the able-bodied men still coming home from overseas, factories hired younger workers like me. What an upgrade from that lousy paper route.  At 87-1/2 cents an hour that came to $7.00 a day. Yowza!

There were probably six or seven students hired that summer and my friend Larry Aschenbrenner was one of them.  Larry was always alert to finding ways to make boring work environments more interesting and although I never had evidence that it was he who devised the great flush incident,  I'm pretty sure it was.

Going to the john was an acceptable reason for leaving your job, so employees would wait until work hours to take care of business.  Someone lifted the cover off the water tank of the toilet, then reached in and turned the copper tubing that refilled the tank so it pointed out under the lid. Flushing the toilet would send a jet of water shooting straight onto the person sitting there.  Early in the shift a bellowing victim with his back soaked in cold water came staggering out of the john, holding his pants up and cursing.

Since this had never happened in all the years before the American Patrol of children were brought in, we got the blame.

Smoking wasn't allowed anywhere in the plant, so the men would carry little round cans of Copenhagen tobacco.  On Fridays, to celebrate the end of the week, they would add whiskey to the tobacco making it moist. They would pinch a wad of the tobacco and put it under their lip to give them a continuing hit of the nicotine as they carried on their work.  One Friday afternoon the cut-off saw guy I pulled lumber for asked me if I wanted to try a wad of his enhanced Copenhagen?  I told him I didn't think so but he said to try just a small wad but whatever I do, don't swallow, spit.

I put the moist wad under my lip and kept pulling lumber off the moving chain as fluid built up in my mouth and then I instinctively swallowed.  I've made my share of mistakes in this life; some major, some minor, but swallowing that fortified Copenhagen juice will rank up there with the worst.  I immediately felt paralyzed, dizzy, sick and wobbly on my feet.  I knew I had to get out of there.  I headed for the exit and went through the checkin/checkout station and punched out my time card.  I barely made it to my car, where I slumped in the front seat, unable to drive.  Hours went by as the factory closed and it was after 7:00 P.M. before I was able to drive home.  If anyone ever offers you a wad of Copenhagen,  be aware, that person is not your friend.

But think of that: 87 -1/2 cents an hour. Wow.