Blue collar boys in Detroit got their education making parts supplied to the auto companies. Long before jobs were outsourced to the third world, before the Big 3 lost an undeclared war to Japanese imports and at a time when factory floors never saw adequate ventilation, air conditioning or robots. We learned that men up from the hills of Kentucky and Tennessee had missing teeth by the time they were 23, that they chewed tobacco and spit the juice on factory floors. We saw that some women strutted, cursed and fought just like us, and lusted after the same girls. We came to know that swallowing salt packets kept us from dizzy spells while we sweated off 5 to 10 pounds a shift. And, we discovered the value of steel toed work boots after our first broken toe.
Most of all we learned to move carefully, step quickly and avoid areas beneath moving cranes. We soon realized the necessity or keeping body parts away from clanging steel and scalding molten metal. And we found out that rickety walkways, slippery ramps and oil puddling between machines caused broken bones. We saw fingers lopped off, hands crushed and quick as a flash third degree burns. Is it any wonder that some of us finally decided to go to college?
Maybe our dads had the right idea in wanting us to be white collar workers. Some of us had visited a college campus, ogled the cute coeds and had half filled out applications lying around somewhere. Student loans were easy to get. Book learning had to be better than getting patched up, sewn together and splinted at a weekly trip to the emergency clinic.
College life was much easier than factory work; more fun too. It opened up whole new vistas. Not only as to learning; we found out that education could be more intriguing than memorizing dates. But also for the exposure, particularly to kids who had actually traveled more than 20 miles from home (besides the annual visit to Aunt Dot out in the sticks), stayed in hotels and motels, ate at restaurants at times other than prom night and swam in the ocean. Thus, we developed goals.
The first goal was to visit Europe. Yes, indeed, skip Chicago, Cincinnati and Cleveland. Bypass hotels, motels, and fancy restaurants; fly right over the Atlantic to dance with long legged French girls. Travel books said it could be done on $5 a day, and a week of factory overtime would take care of plane fare. Even better, every campus had brochures and flyers that touted, “Work in Paris, Rome, Athens… college students desperately needed. No experience required; work permits and visas no problem. Earn big dollars. Offices at all the major gateways to the European experience. Placement guaranteed!”
The rumor was that one could easily survive on free beer, bread and cheese in Amsterdam. Amsterdam was on the way to an English speaking country; I got on the road and stuck out my thumb. By the time free Heinekens, canals and sleeping in the railroad station got old I still had just enough money for a one way ticket across the English Channel to London. By this time I had learned that major hotels in big cities, like the factories in the Midwest, were always hiring. And similar to the factories, there weren’t a lot of questions – it was just best to show up shaven and not falling down drunk.
As it turned out, speaking English was also a big plus. The first hotel I walked into was located in Grosvenor Square, which was also home to the U.S. Embassy. The head housekeeper was the first person of authority that I bumped into; she avoided inquiring about a work permit. I could start earning shillings the very next day, and was directed to a rooming house on the other side of the Thames River. Many of the hotel’s dishwashers, porters and other menial workers were sheltered there, 3 or 4 to a room. Most were Spanish or Portuguese. Some could even speak a few halting words in English. But, like workers everywhere, there was no problem communicating the essentials.
How to eat without money was the first matter of a concern. The other employees quickly pointed out (quite literally, by pose and gesture) that if a place served food, one could eat well. It was an unauthorized perk, but those on the lower economic rungs take care of their own. Steak and codfish from dropped plates and trays became a dietary staple. Plus, hotels provided room service. Hence, everything on the menu became available – if you weren’t fussy about someone else having taken the first bite or two.
A fancy English hotel has lots of brass as well as plate glass doors. They all required daily polishing, not the slightest smudge was allowed, but few things are funnier than watching a tourist smack into a door. The other main benefit was a break room with steaming pots of tea and a vat of pudding freely available. The pudding had skin a half inch thick; it was a meal in itself. The secret of making skins like that remains the most closely guarded British secret.
Once I got around to inquiring about the cost of getting to Paris, I learned that shillings weren’t worth much to anybody outside of England. More than pence, but a lot less than pounds; it took a bunch of months to turn it into dollars that would just fly me back to the States. So, nope – I never did get to dance with those long legged French girls. And darned if that wasn’t the first - and only - question that any dude has ever asked me about my European experience.
DJO©9/1/10
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