Working

by Studs Terkel

  I was in what they call a pool. That’s all extra work. When you leave home, say you go to Clinton, Iowa. Well, you’d stay there and maybe they’d ship you to Belvidere, Illinois, to go back to Nelson, Iowa, or back to Clinton. They had to start you home on your sixth day. You could come home and you take ten hours’ rest and be on your way again, maybe for another six days. I’d say two-thirds of your time was away from home.

  You were very glad to get a little more than eight hours sometimes. Plus the time you clean up and get something to eat and then try to leave the meal settle down a little bit, instead of going to bed with a full stomach, why, you only had about four hours left before they’d be after you again. When you got up, even if it was three ’ in the morning, and you figured this might be twelve, sixteen hours before you could get any more to eat, why, steak and potatoes or ham and eggs, you filled up all the empty spots you had down there. (Laughs.) It was seven days a week till I retired. There was no holidays. You just got your turns.

  MRS. NORWORTH: You had to raise the children mostly by yourself. He’d be gone as long as six days. You didn’t know when he’s coming back. We’re married forty-two years and, up until the time he retired, he was still gone every other night or every couple of days. You’re alone quite a bit.

  It was seven days a week. There was no holidays. At the pool you’d just wait your turn when they’d have an extra train. We had as high as forty-five crews in a pool. For a long time you laid over without even gettin’ paid. It’s about maybe in the last twenty years where they started payin’ you after sixteen hours. If you were, say, in Clinton sixteen hours, you’d go on what they call penalty time. If you were there twenty-four hours, you got eight-hours’ pay. Then they could run you back again, add another sixteen hours, and not have to pay you another cent.

  MRS. NORWORTH: You had to sit around the house walting for the phone to ring, oh yes. If you went somewhere, you’d have to call and give them the number, in case they’d need you. Then you’d have to hurry home to get ready to go to work. It’s about two, three in the morning, get up, eat breakfast, and go to work.

  Actually, the extra board was just as bad. If you were on a regular job or in the pool or laid off—you got sick or something—they’d have a board there with extra men. I couldn’t leave the house for long, figuring something’s gonna show up. If you miss the call, you’re in for subordination and you’ve got to see the master mechanic. Yeah, if you missed your call they’d put you on the bottom again. They got no more pools today, but they’ve still got an extra board.

  Stock trains, cattle. Sunday was your big day for bringing in your Monday market. Oh, there was a lotta days when I seen thirteen hundred cars come out of Clinton. Monday morning, that’s when you’d start with your empties back to Clinton. Sometimes you were there until the next Sunday to bring in another stock train, without any pay.

  You usually tried to find a rooming house, tried to get a room as reasonable as you could. They had rooming houses where widows would have maybe two or three cots in a room. There was about a half a dozen homes in town and an old hotel there used to have an old comedian, a cook called Charlie. We used to kid him about the pancakes, claimed, “You’d hit the dog in the hind end with a broom and then you’d sweep out the griddle.” (Laughs.)

  MRS. NORWORTH: Mostly nights they’d be gone. And you couldn’t make a date with anyone or a party because you’d know you’d never make it. That night he’d be gone. It took two years to get together at this one couple’s house. One would be in and the other would be out or the other in and he’d be out. A lot of our friends that were with the railroad, it was the same way. Someone would invite us to dinner and I would tell them, “If you don’t mind and wait, it might be the last minute or so I could tell you.” Because we didn’t know when he’d get in. You didn’t know what time they’d come home.

  He liked the job, so it was all right. But it was kinda lonely to raise your children. It was kinda hard. Sometimes there’d be a wreck and he’d call up and say, “I won’t be home for two, three days.” Or if there was a big storm.

  We have three daughters. I said, if we had a son, I’d never let him be a railroader, ’cause he’d never be home. Once a railroader gets it in his blood that’s all he’s got, nothing.

  When the diesels came, they cut off the firemen and they gave ‘em a little service pay. After a while they started needin’ ‘em, but very few of ’em come back. They got a few on the suburban trains. You gotta have a fireman now. That’s the state law.

  There’s a lot less engineers now, maybe sixty percent of what used to be. At one time we had seventeen passenger trains to the coast, Northwestern did. Now you don’t have a passenger train, outside of a suburban job. All freight. In the old days, they used to have stock cars. That’s a thing of the past. We used to have milk trains. That’s a thing of the past.

  In the old days, we’re in a little town, Spring Valley, the Rock Island goes through there, down in the bottom of the valley, and the town’s kinda on a hill, and the train would be going through there whistling for the crossing there. It carried, oh, a mile or two, the echo’d come up through there. That was a . . . (he pauses) . . . really a nice feelin’.

  MRS. NORWORTH: We used to live on top of the hill and the roundhouse and the track was right down below this big hill and you could hear the trains goin’ by. I still like to hear the sound of an engine. It’s sort of fascinating to hear a train. You don’t hardly hear ’em any more. They’re all freights. But I think trains are nice.

  The little kids, if they could see the engineer, or if you’d wave at ‘em, why, they really had somethin’. The man waved at ’em. When you’re on a train like that, why, you got certain places where women or somebody would come out in person and give you a highball. And that’s a nice feeling. A lot of it’s gone now.

  MRS. NORWORTH: And when they’d walk the streets of the town, they knew you by your coveralls and your cap and your handkerchief. The minute you’d see ’em, you knew they were railroaders.

  They were the aristocrats at one time, but that time’s gone now. You had to know somebody to get a job, even as a fireman. From the younger ones that I worked with, that were hired after this, I don’t think they coulda stuck in the old days. A lotta days you’d shovel thirty ton of coal. Yeah.

  MRS. NORWORTH: He came out of there black as coal. I went on a train with him once and I had on a black chiffon dress, believe it or not, and as I rode up in the cabin, and when I got off there, I was as black as the dress. Oh, it was oh!!! And then he’d usually get prickly heat from all the fire.

  It wasn’t too bad. You learned to like shoveling thirty ton of coal. There’s ways where the shovel would hit the door and it isn’t carryin’ it all in. There’s tricks in all the trades. You have the shovel do a lot of the work instead of your back.

  Everyone I knew, ninety-nine out of a hundred figured they were getting a good day’s pay for a good day’s work. Now these guys, if they don’t get the world with a fence around there—they’ll work when they want to. In the old days, when it was two, three ’ in the morning and it was twenty below zero, you’ve got to go to work somehow. But not now. Hell, I was there thirty years before we ever got a vacation.

  Our major grievance was trying to get a vacation. At the start, we had a lot of grievances. In the old days, they had oil lamps. With the old oil lamps you had to go two, three hours ahead of time to work, just to go down and fill that lamp and clean it for your headlight. I worked with engineers that had the oil lamp and they’d be telling you about it. And they wanted to go to electric lights. You’d think the company was gonna go broke. And that was their biggest savings. They had a big argument, even go to Congress to get a back curtain. And when the stokers come, they were really gonna go broke. It always turned to the company advantage, but they had to fight it. It seems like they felt, We can’t lose power over that man. We’re gonna make him do what we think is right.

  We have a meeting once a
month with the Brotherhood. Most of them that’s working now is just griping about the help you got now. If these younger ones had to do what we had to do, they wouldn’t be around. The engineer was respected then, and now there’s no respect for him. He’s just a dummy, the same as the rest of us.

  The old days, when you had an engineer, he was the boss. He was respected as a man and his judgment was respected from the top of the ladder to the bottom. That’s gone now. They can get an eighteen-year-old kid out of high school and make him a train master, and you try to tell him right from wrong, he’s liable to have you up for insubordination. In the old days, you had judgment on your trains and what you could do. When you figured you had too much, you’d tell the train dispatcher. Your word was law. Respect’s lost.

  I’ll show you one of their half-a-century cards. (He digs out a gold paper pass: “Mr. William J. Norworth, locomotive engineer, Chicago Northwestern Railroad, in recognition of fifty years of service.”) That’s it.

  You can ride on the trains free with this?

  On the Northwestern only. But there’s no trains.

  Was there a ceremony?

  No sir. He just called me up and told me on the way to work to stop at his office, that he had something for me. When I got there, he handed me my fifty-year card. That’s it.

  Did he shake your hand?

  No. It wasn’t that him and I are just like brothers or that. There was no ceremony. He just called me in to hand it to me. That’s it.

  POSTSCRIPT: “If they had good trains again, people would ride. But they discourage you. The last time the wife went to New Jersey, that was awful.”

  MRS. NORWORTH: I left Newark at five o‘clock in the evening and I got into Chicago at eight o’clock the next morning—and like to froze to death in that car. We were putting sweaters on or whatever we had on our feet. We are all cold and to ride all night like that. And what did they want for a berth? Forty-four dollars. So the next time, he said, “Fly.”

  JOE ZMUDA

  He lives by himself in a tidily kept basement apartment on Chicago’s West Side. There is a large-screen TV set with a vase of daisies on top of it. A small radio is on the table. An electric fan keeps things fairly cool on this hot July day. “Three weeks from now I’ll be seventy-five years old.” Ten years ago he voluntarily retired.

  “I was a shipping clerk for twenty-five long years. The firm went kerflooey. Then I put in fifteen years at a felt works. I was operating a cutting machine. Before that, I was a roving Romeo. I worked as a kid before they asked for your birth certificate. Box factories.”

  Some people told me, “Joe, you got your health and you shouldna done it.” But it was too late. I don’t know why I retired. It’s just a habit, I guess. (Sighs.) Yeah. I have no regrets.

  The first two years, I was downhearted. I had no place to go, nothin’ to do. Then I gave myself a good goin’ over. You can’t sit at home like that and waste your time. So I kept travelin’. I went to see one of my old friends. Two days later, I’d go see another one. Three days later, they’d both come over and see me. That’s the way life went.

  The day goes pretty fast for me now. I don’t regret it at all that I’ve got all this time on hand. I’m enjoying it to the best of my ability. I don’t daydream at all. I just think of something and I forget it. That daydreaming don’t do you any good. What the heck, there’s no reason to have a grouch on or be mad at the world. Smile and the world smiles with you, that’s an old slogan.

  I live on a pension and social security. I don’t get much pension because I only put in fifteen years at that place. I get thirty-six dollars a month from there and I get $217 from Social Security. If I manage my money, I’m fifteen, twenty dollars to the good every end of the month. I do most of my cooking.

  (He reaches for a looseleaf book on the nearby shelf. He reads from it.) Here’s cash on hand and here’s my list of expenses. They’re painting our church, so I contributed seven dollars. That was July first. The next day the grocery was $6.12. Gas and electric for the month was $16.48. Miscellaneous was $2.22. I don’t remember what that was for. Rent is (mumbles) so-and-so. Dr.—that’s not doctor, that’s drink—$6.80. That’s an awful, awful big bill for drink. Last Sunday, lodge meeting, $5.73. I have to keep track. If you don’t, who in the hell will? If you come to the twenty-fifth of the month and you ain’t got any money . . .

  I stay up till one ’ every night. I sleep late. I get up between nine and ten thirty in the morning. The first thing you do is take ahold of the coffee pot handle and you find out it’s empty, so you gotta make coffee. Then I take that goddarn pipe and I fill it up with tobacco, and the day is started. I just had three soft boiled eggs about a half-hour ago. I just about wiped my chin when you come in.

  I linger around till about one and one thirty. Right now I can’t go out much because I just got this cataract operation about three weeks ago. I still can’t look at the sun. They’re fittin’ me for new glasses. I can see that picture. I can see that flower. The vision is comin’ back to me real nice. I have no difficulty watchin’ television.

  In the evening I like to turn on the news for a half-hour or so. That Watergate’s gettin’ on everybody’s nerves lately. I don’t even understand what it’s about, to tell you the truth. They say politics is politics. I’m tired of it. Tonight I suppose I’ll listen to the White Sox game and lay around. At ten o’clock the Cubs will go on television. They play San Francisco. On Sunday I’ll go to church.

  I like baseball. I can listen to baseball on the radio and television and I don’t get tired of it. In the wintertime I love bowling on television. Oh, I love that bowling. I remember one year we went out to Mundelein, Illinois. That’s the only place in my life I saw bowling on the outside. Believe it or not, I bowled on those wooden alleys.

  During the summer I used to go fishin’ an awful lot. I had a brother-in-law, he was a great fisherman. For ten long years we spent two or three weeks in Hayward, Wisconsin. We had the nicest times ever. And then come back home and wait for next year. On the first day of December, 1961, he was drivin’ to work and had a heart attack. He smashed into a car, he hit a post, and he ran right into a tavern, and that was that.

  Just about ten years ago I went to a golden jubilee wedding. My mother’s only living sister’s daughter. What an affair that turned out to be, somewheres in Elmhurst. Believe it or not, there was a dozen scrap books on two tables. It brought back memories of my grandfather, my grandmother, my mother, sisters, and all. And now all of that’s gone. I call some of my relatives now and then. I got quite a number of them. I usually take a little ride to the cemetery to visit my wife’s grave. And I go to the other cemetery a week or so later to see my folks’ grave, and that’s that.

  Sunday evenings my landlord—I’ve known him since childhood—he likes to shoot pool. I do too. We don’t shoot pool for nothin‘—a buck a game. Sunday I beat him three in a row and he was cryin’ about it all the way: “You dirty dog.” (Laughs.)

  I go to the tavern Saturday or Sunday. I meet my old gang there. There’s another fella, may his soul rest in peace, he died about six months ago. He liked pool very much. I’d beat this guy and he’d start hollerin’, “That nasty old man beat me again.” (Laughs.)

  There are times when we make a foursome. Each guy takes a coin, tosses it up, and you pick your partner that way. You lose, you buy the drinks. If you win, you get the drinks for nothin’. There’s conversation in-between. I liked pool when I was a kid and I still like it today. I won’t say I’m a sharpie. I won’t challenge Minnesota Fats, but I’ll play the average guy in the tavern.

  Like Sunday, we had a lodge meeting. There was seven of us. Each guy puts two dollars in the pot and we drink the rest of the afternoon with that. I like about three or four shots a week, and three, four games of pool and that’s my evening.

  The tavern I go to is just three blocks away. I walk there, but I’m driven home by my landlord. So we don’t have to worry about gettin’ held up
. The idea is you gotta be careful so you don’t keep all your money in your wallet. Sometimes you gotta put a ten spot behind the collar. I got held up in this neighborhood on the twenty-second of March about four years ago. I’m glad they didn’t beat me. They took the money but they gave me my wallet back. I was so scared I didn’t even know they put it back in my shirt.

  I have two friends that are living on the South Side, just about a block away from the National Biscuit Company. I get a big thrill of it when I go by there. Boy, you should see the nice aroma from that place.

  I go by my cousin, he stood up at my wedding. I spend two, three hours with him and he says, “I’m gonna call Whitey.” He’s another retired man. He’s got that goddamn habit. He’s at the park every day in the week watchin’ them pinochle players and card sharks. My cousin calls him up, he comes over, and we start shooting the boloney all over again.

  Like I say, when we were young fellas, there used to be one of them amusement parks. I’ll never forget that place as long as I live. I had an occasion to take my girl friend out there. That was about 1920. They had that ride they called the Big Dipper. That thing went up and then down and up again. She had a great big white hat and a great big wide brim and she had what they call a stole, some fur piece. When that goddarn thing went down, she like fainted. I had to hold her. I had to hold her hat. I had to hold her fur piece. I had to hold myself. When we got off, the words she used are not allowed to be printed. Outside of that, she was a sweet kid. About fifty-three years ago. This is what we talk about.