Working. Part 45

Teaching English as a Second Language.

73.

A "super" supermarket in the community.

74.

A Chicago area in which many of the Southern white emigres live; furnished flats in most instances.

When I was there last year for a commencement talk, the parents, many of them wives of emigre black lung miners, were attentive. The students were excited and voluble, what with soda pop and cake. A casual look from Pat, momentary silence-in fact, profound attention-and the ceremonies began. Later, I found out that the whispers and giggles concerned me. They were antic.i.p.ating my surprise and speechlessness at the presentation of their gift-a railroad man's gold watch, inscribed.

75.

A posh private school-upper-middte-cla.s.s.

76.

A hospital for children with heart conditions.

77.

A department store whose customers are primarily lower-middle-cla.s.s and working-cla.s.s people.

78.

Four years before, I visited "her baby" when she was eighty-nine years old. It was a gracefully appointed apartment; she was most hospitable. Bright-eyed, alert, witty, she recounted her experiences during the Great Depression.

79.

Joe Matthews, a clergyman, recalls his aged father's funeral: "I sat alone with my father the day before his burial. The cosmetics shocked me. It wasn't my father as I had known him. I wanted to see his wrinkles again. I helped put those wrinkles there. My brothers and sisters helped put those wrinkles there. My mother helped put those wrinkles there. Those wrinkles were part of me. They weren't there that day. It was as if they had taken away my life. It was as if I were ashamed of my father as he was. No. The mortician was friendly, though bewildered. He brought me the soap, sponge, and basin of warm water I asked for. I took the make-up off of papa. I never got him to look ninety-two again. But he didn't look fifty any more when I was finished."

80.

"When I went to Columbia I was at the head of my cla.s.s in music history, European history, and French."

81.

His father, Vachel Lindsay, was a doctor as well as a celebrated poet.

82.

House Un-American Activities Committee.

83.

United Electrical Workers of America.

84.

"Arkansas is the leading producer of poultry in the United States. The broiler farmer invests somewhere between twenty and thirty thousand dollars in two chicken houses. They hold up to seven thousand baby chicks. The packing company puts the chicks in and supplies the feed and medicine. At the end of eight weeks they're four and a half pounds. The companies pick 'em up and pay you for 'em. Ralph Nader's been after them. It's almost white slavery. The farmer invests and the company can say, 'This is a lousy lot, we're not gonna pay you the full price.' But you're still putting in twelve hours a day."

85.

Clyde Ellis, a former congressman from Arkansas, recalls, "I wanted to be at my parents' house when electricity came. It was in 1940. We'd all go around flipping the switch, to make sure it hadn't come on yet. We didn't want to miss it. When they finally came on, the lights just barely glowed. I remember my mother smiling. When they came on full, tears started to run down her cheeks. After a while she said: 'Oh, if only we had it when you children were growing up.' We had lots of illness. Anyone who's never been in a family without electricity-with illness-can't imagine the difference. . . . They had all kinds of parties-mountain people getting light for the first time. There are still areas without electricity . . ." (quoted in Hard Times [New York: Pantheon Books, 1970]).

86.

An expressway leading into and out of Chicago.

87.

The conversation took place in Chicago during his visit, the purpose of which was the delivery of some cattle.

88.

A slum area of Chicago, inhabited primarily by poor white immigrants from the deep South and Appalachia.

89.

In the area are halfway houses for people who have been released from mental inst.i.tutions. They are hotels that in earlier times, when the neighborhood was less transient in nature, were patronized by middle-cla.s.s guests. Some are operated responsibly and with a modic.u.m of tender loving care. There are others . . .

90.

It has been officially known as the Industrial Squad. It came into being in the thirties, during the battles to organize the CIO.

91.

An organization of young Southern whites: the "hillbilly" equivalents of the Black Panthers and the Young Lords.

92.