My first regular part time job was at a small feed store. I was about 15 years old so that would have been 1963. I was paid .50 cents per hour.
Imagine if you will an old three room house that was converted into a feed store. The feed store was located on Big Ben Road. Everyone called it Ben Road leaving the word Big off. I lived on Ben Road about a mile from the feed store. Our house was inside the city limits of Cape Girardeau, the feed store was down the road and outside the city limit. Behind the feed store was Juden Creek which we had played in and around for many years. The Mississippi river was about ½ mile away from the feed store. When the river would flood it could easily get into the house. For that matter a hard rain up stream of the creek, although a rear event, could easily flash flood the house.
There was a small grocery store just down the road and the Talley family lived across the road but their house was on a hill and did not flood. Steve Talley was my best friend. There was a park just down the road named “Twin Tree Park”. In later years when I could drive that park became a favorite place to park.
There were two fellows that owned the feed store and both were farmers or at least lived on farms. They thought a feed store might be a good side business. They hired me to work after school and on Saturdays so they could attend to the chores at their farms.
The feed store building did not have running water and I don’t remember it having electricity. There was a front porch and when you came through the front door you were in the center of the front room. The front room went all the way across the small building. There was a coal burning stove in the middle of the front room, more about that later. As you entered through the front door there was a desk to the right side of the room. There were bags of feed stacked around the walls in all three rooms.
On the back of the building there was a small porch with steps down to the ground. Off to the right side of the building was the “out house”. Yes it was an outhouse and it smelled like one especially in the summer months. I only used it when absolutely necessary.
I know most of you have never used an outhouse and I hope you never have to. I wonder whose idea was it to have a two holer. Did the person that designed the outhouse think it would be fun to have a friend sit next to him while crapping?
Now that I think of it I have seen two holers that had one large hole and a smaller hole. That just brought up another thought, “how did they teach a child to potty in an outhouse”? For those of you that have never used an outhouse they did not flush. If Uncle Fred left a deposit on Monday and you were visiting the outhouse on Friday, Uncle Fred’s deposit was still there. If you looked into the seat hole (I did not know how else to say that) there were usually spiders down there. I always worried about a spider biting me while I sit there. I guess the thought of the spider helped get me out of the outhouse quicker.
One of those times when nature had called and I had finishing the paper work as I pulled up my pants I was stung twice on the leg by a wasp. The wasp had evidently gotten on the inside of my pants while I was sitting on the throne. There was no workers comp or time off for an on job injury.
Outhouses were usually built of wood and for some reason the floor always seemed week. If memory serves me, the outhouse was never level.
The little two room country school I went to in the 5th and 6th grade had outhouses but they were built of cement blocks. I guess we were really uptown with the cement block outhouse. (I am not going to tell the story of the volley ball that bounced inside the school’s outhouse and into the hole. I am not going to tell you that it was retrieved using a hay fork (AKA pitch fork) and was washed off so the kids could continue to play. )
I digress; to say there was, “not a lot of business”, would be an understatement. Occasionally someone would stop in for a bag of feed. I liked the sweet mule feed. It was in big burlap bags and made a good place to take a nap. Yes even when I was young the daily nap was important to me. Now that I think of it, I can remember as a little person mom would put me on the bed to take a nap and the cat would get on the bed beside me. The cat would purr like cats do when they are comfortable and Mom would say, “The cat is singing you to sleep”.
Out front of the feed store was a drive of sorts, it was made of gravel and I could be reclining on the mule feed in the back room and hear a car or truck pull onto the gravel.
There were a couple girls I knew that rode horses (Brenda and Linda). It was not unusual for them to drop by while riding their horses and talk for a while. I always wished I was not working when they came by. I am not sure if I kind of liked the girls or if I liked their horses. I had been a horse nut from the time I was a little kid. As I understand it Brenda is now a veterinarian in Cape Girardeau.
In the winter time the old coal burning stove felt good and you did not get far away from it. The store was not insulated and it was drafty. I would close the store in the afternoon at 5:00pm. I would lock the back door, count the money and then carry out the ashes from the stove. The store did not have a safe or anywhere to secure the money box so after I removed the ashes from the stove I would put the money box inside the bottom of the stove where the ashes fell. That was the bosses idea so I guess it did not hurt the money box.
After about a year they decided that they were not making any money from the store and they closed it. I was no longer employed. I guess it was a learning experience for retirement.
From the Part Time Feed Store Employee’s mind of Don Ford
All rights reserved; any reproduction or distribution without written permission is strictly prohibited.
No comments:
Post a Comment