I had an Uncle named John Baker who drove an old Chevy pickup truck for work as a bricklayer. That old truck had seen better days; sort of like the man who drove it. His wife, my Aunt Florence, hated the way she looked sitting in that old, battered vehicle. So, she gave her husband an earful each and every time she found herself in the seat next him.
He'd always agree with her and reply simply, "Okay, sugar baby. Whatever you say, sugar baby. . . "
My cousin Debbie and I rode in the back of that truck on top of Uncle John's toolbox. It was probably extremely dangerous for two kids to do that--but--those were different times back in the 50's. Our sense of danger was simply different. We never had a mishap and my Uncle John probably never went over 15 mph anyway.
So one day I was 15 years old and it was my first real job working as a bricklayer's assistant, starting my day at the crack of sunrise, not knowing what manual labor was all about.
Well, my education in the hot Texas sun for 16 hours a day soon clued me in! I got sunburned and my sunburn got sunburned. I also sustained a bilateral, inguinal hernia, but I made it through 6 day-in-a-row job and got paid $10 in cash for my efforts.
My Uncle's hand was like the bark of a dead tree as it held the wrinkled ten dollar bill out for me to accept.
"Is that enough? You didn't really have much to do." His pale blue eyes were sincere and he was genuinely concerned that I not feel slighted.
I remembered what my grandmother told me about him. He had worked through the Great Depression for a dollar a day to keep food on the table and never complained once about it. So, I nodded and thanked him. We had not discussed my rate of pay before hand. He was the most honest person I'd ever known--straight arrow, god-fearing, and loyal to the core.
Lesson learned. We all have different values about things. I recalibrated my sense of personal worth. The sunburn, hernia, long hours and exhaustion did not entitle me to a bag of money from a man who had known nothing in life but strenuous labor.
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So, this is the part I wanted to get around to telling . . .
I heard my Uncle John arguing one day. This is a man who never raised his voice (except to call his dogs). He was mild-tempered and humble, so it was a bit of a shock. His neighbor was standing nose to nose with Uncle John and the two of them were two kettles at a boil.
Well, my Aunt Florence came flying out of her house and about knocked the screen door off its hinges as she made her way over to the two surly characters squaring off in her front yard. She broke it up with a few well-chosen words of scolding and the world grew quiet.
___
"What was that all about?" I asked my Aunt a day or two later.
She gave a grunt which was half-amused and half-indignant.
"Mister Draper (the neighbor) had said something insulting about Chevy trucks. He's a Ford kind of guy. John Baker would not abide such language. That's all. They'd have likely killed each other trying to convince one another of something that doesn't amount to bucket of spit."
That was another moment of education for me.
John Baker loved his wife and daughter and his Chevy truck. Florence could get away with saying bad things about it for that reason. But nobody else had such privileges of complaint!
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People can have very intense feelings about inanimate objects. There is no arguing with them unless you're ready for war.
I'm still a Conscientious Objector at heart, I guess. I came by it honestly.
