MAPLE CREEK MEMORIES VIII
THAT'S THE WAY IT GOES IN THE BIG CITY
In the fall and winter of my junior year in high school, my brother and I got jobs at a car wash in downtown Huntington, WV, just beside the old Sixth Street Bridge. No, not the new one, the old one where you had to pay a toll to cross. Right about where the Bob Evans is now. Oh, okay, let's retrace some geography then.
Third Avenue used to go straight through to the west end of Huntington (as did Second.) It was called Virginia Avenue once you passed First Street. Second Avenue was what is, generally, now called Veteran's Memorial Boulevard. Both were relocated, or eliminated, as a result of Urban Renewal (spell that SUPERBLOCK) and the new bridge which is located at Fifth Street. At one time, the City Market, contrary to what newbies may tell you, was located on Second Avenue between Sixth and Ninth Streets, spreading out to the flood wall on the north and Third Avenue on the south. There were also a few bars and restaurants in the area, along with a few supply houses . The City Market was never located at Fourteenth Street West. There were some businesses in that location, old Central City, that sold minor amount of produce, but it was not a great concentration like the market on Second Avenue was. In fact, what remains of the old City Market is now located on Seventh Avenue between First and Fourth Streets. There was no room for the local farmers to relocate there and so the farmers' market that was on Second Avenue died out in favor of stands in the surrounding rural areas until the new Central City Farmers' Market was developed, about fifteen to twenty years after the farmers were run out of their old home on Second Avenue.
The area around the old City Market was not a particularly nice one. In fact, it had few if any redeeming qualities about it at all. Bootlegging liquor was allowed to prosper on Sixth Street by the city fathers and prostitution was commonplace anywhere north of Third Avenue between Sixth and Ninth Streets, as well as other locations around downtown. We older ones probably all remember the old Market Lunch Restaurant. While I worked at the car wash I usually ate lunch at a little restaurant (if you could give it such a title) on the corner of Second Avenue and Seventh Street. Just a hole in the wall, a kind of three penny lunch transported from the ghettoes of New York, nothing fancy, chipped plates, cups and saucers, sometimes rusty spoons and forks. typical eat and walk place. But good, filling food. For a quarter you could get white beans with cornbread and butter and a glass of milk or coffee. If you wanted another glass of milk or cup of coffee, ante up another nickel. More cornbread? Free.
This area is also where I saw my first drunk woman. She was black, fairly good looking, about thirty or thirty-five, and drunk as a skunk. She was pushed out of that little restaurant and reeled her way down to the car wash. I was handling the vacuum at the beginning of the line
and she reeled her way up to me and offered herself for a buck. I politely declined and got back inside the building fast. The fact that I was only fourteen or fifteen apparently never entered her mind, as wasted as she was. My reaction was to get into the bathroom and throw up there, the same thing she was doing in the alley.
We would get up early on Saturday (and any weekday when we weren't in school) and thumb a ride in to town. Coming home, we always rode the bus. It only cost forty-five or fifty-five cents, can't remember which, and the station was only seven blocks from where we worked. We got paid in cash each day, the rate was $4.00 per day from nine o'clock until five.
The foreman told us off one day by paying all the white guys $5.00 and the black ones $4.00 (he paid the black guys first and sent them on their way before paying us.) He told us not to tell the black fellows about the dollar difference. Of course, that lasted about as long as Pat stayed in the Army.The black fellows threatened to quit. He told them to go ahead if that was what they wanted to do. They all came back and we all got the $4.00 on weekdays and $5.00 on Saturdays. If business was good, we would all get a dollar or two more from tips.
Tips were all supposed to be put in the tip jar and shared by all employees except the owner, manager and foreman. In reality, only the black guys put their tips in the jar. The customers were really slick about giving the white fellows tips so the black ones didn't see the exchange. The easiest way to a tip was when the driver wanted to ride through the tunnel. You had him or her in the car while you were doing the inside detail and it was a sure thing you would get a tip as you exited the car to go bring the next one through. Salesmen were especially prone to give large tips and almost always wanted to ride through to make sure nothing was disturbed inside the car. I remember getting a number of two dollar tips that I never put in the jar. And if I couldn't be the inside detail guy, I always tried to be in the pushoff position. That was where you did the final wipe of the windshield, always ending on the driver's side, and opened the door for the driver. A sure shot for the tip. The foreman usually tried for that position but I was a little guy and could ace him out regularly. When I did though the foreman would send me back into the hole, until I aced him out again.
One Saturday, my brother didn't go in to work but I did. I took the bus into town that day, as it was really cold that morning, and I didn't want to wait around thumbing a ride. After getting off the bus at the station, then located at Twelfth Street and Fourth Avenue, I walked over to Third and was walking on downtown. As I approached Bradshaw-Diehl (Stone & Thomas, now vacant) I was approached by a bum who wanted cash for his breakfast, he said. I told him I was on my way to work at the car wash and he could come along and get a job there too. He cursed me and said I didn't care about the veterans (had to be Korean War, he was too young to be WWII) and I told him that I did, that was why I offered him the job, that if he needed to eat he could go to the Mission, but that if he wanted the money for booze, he'd have to get it from the next guy. He followed me all the way to the car wash and actually went to work, for that day anyway. I bought him lunch but never saw him after that day.
We had gotten the job after some of my brothers' friends had worked there during the summer, and he and I began working there just after school had started. I was asked by a friend named Eddie to get him a job there and did so. That same day, my brother and I got ticked off by something ( I don't even recall what, it may have been because of the lack of heat) and walked out after getting paid for the whole day, even though we left at about 1:30 pm. Eddie quit with us and he got paid for the entire day too.
That old car wash changed hands about four or five times after that, always going downhill, and that was hard to do considering the shape it was in when we worked there. Eventually Rollyson took it over and sold out to Urban Renewal in the late sixties or early seventies.
In the fall and winter of my junior year in high school, my brother and I got jobs at a car wash in downtown Huntington, WV, just beside the old Sixth Street Bridge. No, not the new one, the old one where you had to pay a toll to cross. Right about where the Bob Evans is now. Oh, okay, let's retrace some geography then.
Third Avenue used to go straight through to the west end of Huntington (as did Second.) It was called Virginia Avenue once you passed First Street. Second Avenue was what is, generally, now called Veteran's Memorial Boulevard. Both were relocated, or eliminated, as a result of Urban Renewal (spell that SUPERBLOCK) and the new bridge which is located at Fifth Street. At one time, the City Market, contrary to what newbies may tell you, was located on Second Avenue between Sixth and Ninth Streets, spreading out to the flood wall on the north and Third Avenue on the south. There were also a few bars and restaurants in the area, along with a few supply houses . The City Market was never located at Fourteenth Street West. There were some businesses in that location, old Central City, that sold minor amount of produce, but it was not a great concentration like the market on Second Avenue was. In fact, what remains of the old City Market is now located on Seventh Avenue between First and Fourth Streets. There was no room for the local farmers to relocate there and so the farmers' market that was on Second Avenue died out in favor of stands in the surrounding rural areas until the new Central City Farmers' Market was developed, about fifteen to twenty years after the farmers were run out of their old home on Second Avenue.
The area around the old City Market was not a particularly nice one. In fact, it had few if any redeeming qualities about it at all. Bootlegging liquor was allowed to prosper on Sixth Street by the city fathers and prostitution was commonplace anywhere north of Third Avenue between Sixth and Ninth Streets, as well as other locations around downtown. We older ones probably all remember the old Market Lunch Restaurant. While I worked at the car wash I usually ate lunch at a little restaurant (if you could give it such a title) on the corner of Second Avenue and Seventh Street. Just a hole in the wall, a kind of three penny lunch transported from the ghettoes of New York, nothing fancy, chipped plates, cups and saucers, sometimes rusty spoons and forks. typical eat and walk place. But good, filling food. For a quarter you could get white beans with cornbread and butter and a glass of milk or coffee. If you wanted another glass of milk or cup of coffee, ante up another nickel. More cornbread? Free.
This area is also where I saw my first drunk woman. She was black, fairly good looking, about thirty or thirty-five, and drunk as a skunk. She was pushed out of that little restaurant and reeled her way down to the car wash. I was handling the vacuum at the beginning of the line
and she reeled her way up to me and offered herself for a buck. I politely declined and got back inside the building fast. The fact that I was only fourteen or fifteen apparently never entered her mind, as wasted as she was. My reaction was to get into the bathroom and throw up there, the same thing she was doing in the alley.
We would get up early on Saturday (and any weekday when we weren't in school) and thumb a ride in to town. Coming home, we always rode the bus. It only cost forty-five or fifty-five cents, can't remember which, and the station was only seven blocks from where we worked. We got paid in cash each day, the rate was $4.00 per day from nine o'clock until five.
The foreman told us off one day by paying all the white guys $5.00 and the black ones $4.00 (he paid the black guys first and sent them on their way before paying us.) He told us not to tell the black fellows about the dollar difference. Of course, that lasted about as long as Pat stayed in the Army.The black fellows threatened to quit. He told them to go ahead if that was what they wanted to do. They all came back and we all got the $4.00 on weekdays and $5.00 on Saturdays. If business was good, we would all get a dollar or two more from tips.
Tips were all supposed to be put in the tip jar and shared by all employees except the owner, manager and foreman. In reality, only the black guys put their tips in the jar. The customers were really slick about giving the white fellows tips so the black ones didn't see the exchange. The easiest way to a tip was when the driver wanted to ride through the tunnel. You had him or her in the car while you were doing the inside detail and it was a sure thing you would get a tip as you exited the car to go bring the next one through. Salesmen were especially prone to give large tips and almost always wanted to ride through to make sure nothing was disturbed inside the car. I remember getting a number of two dollar tips that I never put in the jar. And if I couldn't be the inside detail guy, I always tried to be in the pushoff position. That was where you did the final wipe of the windshield, always ending on the driver's side, and opened the door for the driver. A sure shot for the tip. The foreman usually tried for that position but I was a little guy and could ace him out regularly. When I did though the foreman would send me back into the hole, until I aced him out again.
One Saturday, my brother didn't go in to work but I did. I took the bus into town that day, as it was really cold that morning, and I didn't want to wait around thumbing a ride. After getting off the bus at the station, then located at Twelfth Street and Fourth Avenue, I walked over to Third and was walking on downtown. As I approached Bradshaw-Diehl (Stone & Thomas, now vacant) I was approached by a bum who wanted cash for his breakfast, he said. I told him I was on my way to work at the car wash and he could come along and get a job there too. He cursed me and said I didn't care about the veterans (had to be Korean War, he was too young to be WWII) and I told him that I did, that was why I offered him the job, that if he needed to eat he could go to the Mission, but that if he wanted the money for booze, he'd have to get it from the next guy. He followed me all the way to the car wash and actually went to work, for that day anyway. I bought him lunch but never saw him after that day.
We had gotten the job after some of my brothers' friends had worked there during the summer, and he and I began working there just after school had started. I was asked by a friend named Eddie to get him a job there and did so. That same day, my brother and I got ticked off by something ( I don't even recall what, it may have been because of the lack of heat) and walked out after getting paid for the whole day, even though we left at about 1:30 pm. Eddie quit with us and he got paid for the entire day too.
That old car wash changed hands about four or five times after that, always going downhill, and that was hard to do considering the shape it was in when we worked there. Eventually Rollyson took it over and sold out to Urban Renewal in the late sixties or early seventies.
posted by tanstaafl | 7:36 AM
3 Comments:
The vignettes do not appear in any particular order. I pull them out based on how much time I have to type right then. Sometimes if I have the time, I pull out a couple and type them up for release when I get around to it. In the meantime, I put the poems in--and they are in no specific order either. But they are easier to insert, so when I need a break, in they go.
I remember the old farmer's market. My father grew produce and sold a lot of it there. We would ride down to Huntington in his blue 64 Dodge Utiline pickup and back it into a stall. There we sold baskets of tomatoes, bushels of beans, apples, corn, cucumbers and anything else we could grow. Often I would go into our hollow and pick gooseberries to sell.
I was pretty young and don't remember a lot of details, but I think there was a woman there by the name of Ima Ward who operated some sort of business with her husband.
I don't remember the car wash, but I remember the old Milner Hotel.
And the old barber college was nearby, wasn't it? I got sheared there more times than I care to remember.
Seems to me I recall the Wards, also. Hadn't thought of them in years. If I recall correctly they had Ward's Produce on Seventh Street, west side, a brown building. Might be wrong.
The car wash was called Anns Car Wash at the time I worked there. There was one more building beside it and then Sixth Street. If you went to Sixth by the bridge, went down beside the bridge and entered the third doorway, went upstairs to the first apartment you could get some mighty fine moonshine. Or any other kind of liquor you wanted. On Fridays and Saturdays you could also get wine. But they didn't keep wine during the week. And no beer. A 24 hour a day operation.
The Milner was on the corner of Seventh and Fourth Avenue. A good place to get a drink was the bar inside on the Seventh Street side. Or get a gal too if that was what you were after. The Biltmore over on Seventh Avenue was another place for the girls of the evening, the Lamppost Loreleis, as Johnny Carson called them.
I thought the old barber college was on Fourth Avenue across from the courthouse, about where the China Gate was, or maybe where the old unemployment office was. I'm not sure, I always went to a guy on Third Avenue about where the aborted Steak & Ale was later.
This is why I am doing this series, Jim. It brings back a lot of memories.
Post a Comment
<< Home