Document text
t4.10
FORM C
Text of Interview (Unedited)
STATE New York
NAME OF WORKER May Swenson
ADDRESS 29 Morton Street, N.Y.C.
DATE March 27, 1939
SUBJECT Marine Radio Operators
JOHN WINOCIJR:
FOLKLOPE
NEW YORK
(Short, wiry fellow, about 35. Stiff blond hair, keen blue eyes.
Rather swaggering manner. Speaks with English intonation.)
Listen, I got some corkers for you. Guys come to me for
stories. Writers. There was a chap used a story of mine. He
wrote it up it was my story alright but you wouldn't have
recognized it. Listen, here's something really happened. Funny.
I was on a freight bound for Rio and Buenos Aires. It's a long
hop, and the radio transmitter covers only part of the distance.
Some of the messages, we had to relay. Well, I get a message,
one word was all it wal:. It took about three hours for the
other operator, who was pretty far South down toward Rio, to pick
it up. This message was one word: "Whiting," signed some gal's
name.
Two, three days, and the answer came through. I threw the
letter back on the same relay chain. It Was just one word
"Coming," signed Charlie. Funny people.
I remember a better or.e. Threw a message, says:
Arriving 7 p.m. Please bring overcoat 73*
Comes the messate back, like this:
Netting ship Why overcoat? You'll have me to
keep you warm 88*
88 -Love And Kisses
*4.75 -Best Regards
-2
Can you picture an intimacy between two men who have never
seen each other? I knew a chap, knew him intimately everything
about him, down to the brand of cigarettes he used. I never met
him. He was an operator on a tanker down around Dutch Guina.
We corresponded regularly for months by radio. Became buddies.
Somehow we never ran together in one port. But I knew him better
than the chaps I see every day. He sent me some beautiful letters.
It just happened he struck oil with me. We discovered we had the
sane tasts in everything. He even used some of my awn expressions.
Where another chap would reply, "Yeah," or "You're telling me"
this fellow would write "Quite" or "Oh,,really", or "You don't
say." He was well read, and interested in Psychology I was
too at that time. The ship would be riding smooth, it would be
night, dark water. I'd stick my head in the port hole and see
a star way out there I'd think, his ship's as far out away
from mine as that star. Sentimental may e you get that way
the sea is lonely any seamen will tell you the same. I used
to think, I've never seen him maybe I'll never see him
yet I know him like I know myself. We corresponded every day.
I still have some of his letters. You know, funny thing, I always
used to picture him as looking like me. Don't know why except
it seemed we even thought alike.
This chap loaned me some money once. We had been beached
for two weeks, and whe we pulled out again, I was flat. He wired
me a large su. I decided when next I got on the beach again, I'd
look him up he was to visit his family that summer I figured
I'd meet him and return the money. I looked forward to it, and
yet, in a may, I was prepared to have my illusions shot. You
build up a dream you picture it your own way and the real
-3
thing usually falls short. Well, anyway, the ship made port
and no sooner I was on land, I sent the chap a letter to
his home. I waited a week, didn't hear from him. Then the
letter came back marked non -delivery. On the stamp they
check the reason why not delivered. There was a check in the
colunm where it says 'Deceased'. I continued out to his home.
I met his family. I met the girl he was going to marry. I
had only ten days to make ship, but I laid off, stayed ashore,
and missed the boat. When I shipped out again, it was on another
vessel, a food ship, the Granada she laid up in Mobile and dis-
charged at Portland, Maine.
Biggest binge I was ever on, lasted three months. Three
months to the day, I'm not fooling. It was while I was with the
Granada. This time she hawled in at New Awlins and laid at anc-
hor three months. We went ashore got full pay naturally
it was one long binge. On an oil tanker, for instance, you get
one night in port not much time to out loose but this ship,
the Granada was a food ship, and she was laid up for repairs.
It was carnival time in New Awlins. Every street was one
long brothel. Gosh, it's a funny feeling, wakin up in the morn-
ing, before you open your eyes, stretch out your arms and wonder
which dame's layin alongside. The place smelt like a distillery.
Strangers kept bringing in more strangers. Just like havin a
pair of swinging doors. You chin with people you never met, but
you're so soused you don't know em from you awn mother. I don't
know, those three months went by like one long night no, night-
mare. Well, it was worth it. When we made ship again, it meant
staying sober for six months and that was one long hangover.
Old Pop Murray is a fella pan tell you plenty about binges.
-4
He's spent a lifetime with going from one binge to another. Little
bit of an old dried up fella all the guys used to rib him because
of his size. The moment we'd weigh anchor, even if it was for two
hours, he'd hop off to a bar. Course, he'd get tight and miss the
ship. Then he'd hop a bus to the next port, have an hour leeway
to get aboard, get drunk over again, and miss the ship again. Then
he'd have to hop a plane to catch her up. A'ut the same thing would
happen over again. We'd be six months out, before he'd finally make
the ship, and he'd be tight as a drum enough to last him to his
next leave. Old Pop Murray he was a card the champeen
ship-
misser of them all.
The most miserable eight days I ever spent was aboard a whaler
off the coast of Nova Scotia. Those Nova Scotians have nerve
they called the ship the Levithanl And it was more the size of a
walnut shell. Crowded! Jeez, you had to open the cabin door to
take your pants off. There wasn't room for the receiving set and
the bunk both. My pillow was right across the receiver, and the
tail of the mattress on the spark yap.
This ship was manned by a bunch of blue -noses herring
chockers they're all fishing ships out that way and those
Nova Scotian fishermen are the only bastards who can stand the cold.
They never take a bath smell like whale blubber. Won't use a
table while eating either but reach right into the pot under
the galley stove and eat with their paws.
First thing I remember that trip, two hours of the ciannel,
Pm on the receiver, and I fet a whiff out of their corncob pipes
On .MIN 411111
Five Brothers Tobacco its rank. Everything smells of whale
blubber, and tobacco and dead fish and its so cold you darsent
stick your nose on deck for air. Eight days was enough of that.
I shipppd on the Mary B, running down to Boston back to civiliza-
-5-
MANNY ARDIS
(Medium height, sturdy, dark hair, fresh complexion, about 23.
Clipped, laconical speech, quick, restless gestures)
Naw, I don't pay much attention to the messages that come
off the wires. Too busy. You get sols you go through the mo-
tions mechanical. Don't stop to read 'am just transcribe the
letters without seeing the words. Funny thing, you take a mes-
sage a minute later someone asks you what is it you just
put down the exact time on the form, but you have to look up at
the clock to get the time.
Most of what comes in is from business houses, stook -brokers
and so on. Some are in dode, but not so much nowadays. Then there's
social messages, congratulations somebody had a baby or got mar-
ried or somebody got sick, or died. After that, all kinds. I
hardly ever read any. Some of them might be a little out of the
way. Like three four months ago, I remember a couple girls used
to send messages back and forth forget what state and they
happened to hit my machine something like this oh, I forget
now let's see well, it could betaken two different ways
one says something like "I forget where I laid her"
.10
ore some-
thing. I don't know, could ue taken up in two different ways...
Yeah, workin here gets on your nerves, the noise, and you
gotta keep goin. Well, you get used to it. The leg men have
it even tougher. Most young kids they pick em between 16 and
21. Those kids all get thin on the job. Some of the operators
been here years get fat from sitting....
Yeah, I make up these verses for a friend. Be gives em
to his girlfriend. On Valentines I sent one to my girlfriend.
She thought it was alright. Any day as good as the patent onesr,
they have printed for holiday messages. Better, my opinion.
-6-
I make em up after hours, and type em out on the machine. They
just came to me the rhymes come to me I never have no tro-
uble. Something to keep your mind off your work I do it for
fun relaxes 4e. I got another minute, then my relief's up
ORO.
I gotta go I'll be seem n you...
RUTH BLATT:
(Thin, nervous girl, about 30, reddish -blond hair, slightly
squinting, rapidly blinking eyes. Talks hurridly, running sen-
tences together. Worked as operator 9 years.)
Gee, it's quite here compared to the floor. What a relief
to get out of that noise. This lunch room probably seems noisy
to you but you should work on the floor for three hours
hundreds of machines rattling in your ears this is like soft
music to me. I eat a sandwich or something at each relief per-
iod. Chewing takes the numbness out of my pars. You'll see a
lot of girls chewing gum relieves the strain. Some of the
girls have been here 15, 20 years. They develop bad ears and
bad eyes. It's quite a strain. Things used to be worse than
they are now, though. Before the union came in. We have a
closed shop now. We have more freedom on the floor than we used
to. The supers aren't breathing down our backs every minute.
They would call a speed-up we weren't even allowed to talk
to each other on the floor. Now we talk, and sometimes write
notes on the backs of the forms. There's not much time for
gossip though.
About a year ago, we called a stand-up. Cleaned up things
a little. Only 41 people in the whole outfit scabbed five
floors. We used the wires, and relayed the stand-up signal to
the ACA at Dallas and Kansas City. Dallas and Kansad both went
out at the same time. That was when our outfit joined the CIO.
-7
We had the thing all worked out. At 11 A.M. there was a whistle
blown on every floor, and each worker stopped his machine and
stood up. The wires were locked. Then we just went on as usual.
No worker left the building. We appointed a squad to keep order.
The T and R men (testing and regulating men) watched that no one
tampered with equipment or touched any company, property. We gave
the workers their shorts and lunches as usual, and we had a grand
time in the lunch room, dancing and singing, playing cards and one
thing and another. The strike lasted three hours and twenty min-
utes. We got our closed shop, and better conditions.
We made up songs we really had a good time on company
timeJ Gee, I wish I could remember some of the songs, well, one
was to the tune of the Merry-go-round Broke Down-- the first verse
went something like this:
Postel Tel said No
They hadn't any dough
When ARTA came
And changed its game
Oh hear those whistles blow
We will miske the old Postel pay
For all the years that they had their way
The CIO has won
We got em on the run
Postal Tel can go tio hell
The CIO has won
ARTA- American Itadio Telegraph Association