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Swenson
LIVING FOLKLORE
3/27/'39
Marine Radio Operators
Johnifinocur:
(Short, wiry fellow, about 35. Stiff blond hair, keen
blue eyes. Rather swaggering manner.
intohation)
Speaks with English
Listen, I got some corkers for you. Guys come to me for
stories. Writers. There was a chap used a story of mine.
Be wrote it up-- it was my story alright-- but you wouldn't
Aave 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, ATI had to relay. Well, I
get a message, one word was all it was. 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: "Waiting"
signed some galls 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 one. Threw a message, says:
iirriving 7 p. m. Please bring overcoat 73*
Comes the message back, like this:
Meeting ship Why overcoat? You'll have me to
keep you warm 88*
73 "Best Regards"
88 "Love and Kisses"
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
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him. He was an operator on a tanker down around Dutch Geanna.
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 #e. We discovered we had the
same tastes in everything. He even used some of my own 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 maybe-- you get that way-- the sea is lonely
any seaman will tell you the same. I used to think, MierIlve
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 nm some money once-- oloom- We had been
beached for two weeks, and when we pulled out again, I was flat.
BC wired me a large sum. I decided when Next I got on the beach
\1Y
again, I'd look him up-- he was to visit his fa ily that summer--
I figured I'd meet him and return the money. I ooked forward
to it, and yet, in a way, I was prepared to have illusions
shot. You build up a dream-- you picture it your own way-- and
the real thing usually falls short. Well, anyway, the ship made
port-- and no sonner 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
re it 51a
why not delivered. There was a check in the col wombat eoested'.
I continuOcd out to hi. home. I met his family. I met the girl he
was going to marry. I had onlyAMON ten days to make ship, but I
ashore,
laid off, stayed tosOMMS 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 discharged at Portland, Maine.
01Pr
Biggest binge IIMir ever was on, lasted three months. Three
months to the day, I'm not foeling. It was while I was with the
Granada. This time she 11110 hawled in at New Awlins and laid at
anchor 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 cut loose-- but this 101111 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 morning, before
you open your eyes, stretch out your arm 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
never met
doors-- You chin with people youwitrialirsaimmrt.vininr*eurf but you're
so soused you don't know em from your own mother. I don't know,
those three months went by like one long night-- noOlightmare.
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 can tell you plenty about binges.
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 buss 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. But the same thing would
happen over again. We'd be six months out, before he'd finally make
his
the ship, and he'd be tight as a drum-- enough to last him to -bin next
leave. Old pop Murray-- he was a card-- the champeen.Akip-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 that ship the Leviathan,: And it was more the sisSof a walnut
take
shell. Crowded: Jeez, you had to open the cabin door to paig your
pants or off. There wasn't room for the receiving set and the bunk
bogith. 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 chokers
they're all fishing ships out that way-- and those Nova Scotian fisher-
men 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 out of the channel,
I'm on the receiver, and I get a whiff out of their corncob pipes
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 shipped
on the Mary B, running down to Boston-- back to civilization.
Swenson
\\LIVING FOLKLORE
13/27/q9
A C A Workers
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 so's you go through
em
the motions mechanical. Don't stop to real/1W:
just transcribe the letters without seeing the words. Funny
thing, you take a message-- a minute later someone asks you
what time is-- 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, stock-
brokers and so on. Some are in code, but not so much nowadays.
Then there's sdcial messages, congratulations-- somebody had
a baby or got married-- 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. Likes 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 be taken up in two different ways-- one says something
like "I forgot where I laid her--" or something. I don't know,
could be taken up in two different ways....
Yeah, workin here gets on your nerve, the noise, pra.ftwomiwt.
and you gotta keep goin. Well, you get used to it. The leg men
have it even tougher. Mostly 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. He gives em
to his girlfriend. On Valentines I sent one to my girlfriend.
She thought it was alright. Anyday as good .as the patent ones
they have printed up for holiday messages. Better, my opinion.
I make em up after hours, and type em out on the machine.
They just come to me-- the rhymes come to me-- I never have no
trouble. Something to keep your mind off your work-- I do it
for fun-- relaxes me. I got another minute, then my relief's
up-- I gotta go --.I'll be seein yuh
Ruth 3latt:
(Thin, nervous girl, about 30, reddish -blond hair, slightly
squinting, rapidly blinking eyes. Talks hurriedly, running
sentenses together. Worked as operator 9 years)
Gee, it's quiet here compared to the floor. What a relief
to get out of thPt 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
a
music to me. I eat a sandwich or something .at each relief
period. Chewing takes the numbness out of my ears. Some of
the girls have been her. 15, 20 years. They ddvelop 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. Your fingers are never still.
Mamimmiftiblust/You'll see a lot of girls chewing gum-- relieves
the strain.
About a year age, 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 Dinsas both
went out at the same time. That was When our outfit joined
the CIO. It had the thing all worked out. At 11 A. I. there
was a whistle blown on every floor, and each worker stopped
his machine and
The wires were
locked. Then we just went on as usual. No worker left the
building. Is 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. At 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 thinoland another. The strike lasted three hours and
twenty minutes. Ws got our closed shop, and better conditions.